another doug

Eastwood Guitars makes an Airline, but according to the website they are chambered mahogany.

My first thought was that it would be great for making bodies complete with routes, carves, and angled mortises, depending on how easy/difficult it is to program. But then I read the fine print: - maximum cutting depth of 1 inch, so it can't cut the full depth of the outline, cavities or mortises unless they are under 1", although I guess you could run a template following router bit along after you're done. - according to the faq: "The accuracy of any single raster carving line is on the order of .005"-.010" in the y and Z and the step width is between .005" and .010" depending on the quality setting you choose." I'm not sure what they mean by the step width, but .010 doesn't seem very accurate. If you figure a mortise would be made of two lines, that means it could be up to .02" off. Plus your workpiece needs to be 6" longer that the final product to reduce the risk of sniping. I still think it's a pretty neat toy, though.

Pretty cool videos of the Martin factory here

I didn't realize that (obviously). Actually, they all look pretty good to me, although the pic I got first was the mahogany back, which did tie in nicely with the logo. The more I think about it (not a lot going on at work today!), the more I think those pics would be better on the splash page, perhaps as a slide show type of thing. My thinking is this: these are great teasers to show the quality of your work and make someone want to know what the entire guitar looks like, whereas the payoff (i.e. a full body pic) should be on the main page. As it is right now, you have to click at least twice to see an entire guitar, and folks surfing the web are notoriously impatient, as davee5 pointed out. I think an artsy full-on shot of the body of the red guitar would be sweet on the main page. Obviously it's your site and only you can know what you want to achieve with it; them's just my thoughts. It's getting better all the time!

It's been a while since I took a web design class, so my first couple of comments may be outdated, but: -You don't need to indent paragraphs on the web. Removing them will make your paragraphs more visually appealing. As it is, it's a little awkward, particularly the one-line paragraph on the main page. -Generally, sans-serif fonts are easier to read on the web, while serif fonts are easier to read in print. It didn't bother me too much before, but now it makes the print look a bit busy. Also, the entire site tends to refer to you as "they," which is fine, but it should be consistent. In the gallery page for the wenge guitar, you say "One very accomplished player I know..." I think removing the "I know" would bring it in line with the rest of the site. Nit-picky, I know! The welcome heading is off-center, and is now closer to the navigation bar than the text. I would put it either in the center or the left, and place it closer to the text. I like the pic you chose to leave, since the color ties in with the color of your logo (although a shot of the front of one of the bodies may be more appropriate, since I think you want a whole guitar on the title page). However, I would put it to the left of the text. That's just me, though. And a big +1 to getting rid of the splash page, or at the very least change the link on the logo so that it directs you to the main page rather than back to the splash page. On the whole, I think you're 90% of the way to having a clean, professional looking site. Good luck!

check this out.

Sounds like the bridge ground is correct; that is what it's supposed to do. Is the cavity shielded?

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I am not even close to being an expert on this (I've certainly never done it), but I do have a couple thoughts on the subject: 1- In my opinion, there's nothing inherently wrong with vacuum formed laminated tops; plenty of highly respected makers use the technique. However, if you're looking to make a true (acoustic) archtop, you'll want to carve. Plus, carving would be easier and cheaper in terms of the tools required. 2- It's important to note that you're not taking plywood and forming it into the shape; you're taking a number of veneers, and pressing and gluing them together to make the laminate (or "plywood"). Pretty sure you need a solid mold and vacuum press to do it, although goodwood's suggestion may also work. 3- tim, unless you can see that the wood is solid (i.e. looking at an unbound f-hole or pickup rout) it's completely possible that your archtop is a laminate with a very nice veneer on top. I'm not saying that it IS a laminate, just that it could be. 4- richie- if you're sure you want to try this, you'll probably want to check out the MIMF. If the answer is out there, that's where you'll find it (not saying that no one here knows, but they're more geared toward acoustics and archtops). Just my (2x4=) 8 cents Doug

Welcome to the club! Melvin Hiscock's "Make Your Own Electric Guitar" is pretty much the bible around here. It contains all of the information you need to plan and build a guitar using minimal tools, and is geared toward beginners. I made several based only on that book and they all play great. The only real problems with them are cosmetic and are the results of impatience and my lack of woodworking experience. The only thing that I wish had been covered that wasn't is using templates and template following router bits to cut the body outline. There's plenty info on that here, though, along with tons of info on more advanced tooling, jigs, different kinds of wood and finishes, electronics, and great tips to make life easier. The knowledge from this book covers all the basics of guitar building, and will give you the ability to use proper terms in searching this forum and asking questions. People tend to be quicker to help when you show that you have done a bit of research and have at least a basic grasp of what you're talking about. Hopefully number seven will be a winner!

My post on the first page of this thread contains a link to the best resource I have been able to find about Jerry's guitars. It has an almost straight-on pic at the top of the page, and tons of info. EDIT: Actually, this link may be better, since you can get to the details page, the Doug Irwin page, and a page with a really nice detailed picture (not straight on, though) of both the front and back (the bottom link). (On a side note to anyone interested, I swapped a couple emails with the original poster, and he's not as bad as he came off in this thread)

It doesn't seem that he's trying to sell anything, just get people to chat on his forum (I clicked, and it seems legit). I think "off-topic chats" would be more appropriate. That said, his post did look like spam to me at first too. "Free giveaway" raises some red flags.

I used a rattle-can. Now that I think about a bit, I had to buy a whole package of the transparency stuff, which was a bit costly considering what I needed it for. You're probably better off taking your design to Kinko's or your local equivalent on a disc and having them print it on a laser printer. It would save you having to shell out for a whole package of stuff that may or may not work for you.

You can get transparency film that works with inkjet printers. It's pretty thick, though, and takes a lot of clear to build up over it. If you use it you have to be careful to keep the ink from running (a few mist coats of shellac did it for me, plus I was careful not to move it around once it was on), and (as always) try it on scrap first.

The last one looks best to me, but I'm not entirely crazy about it. I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with it, but I think the lower horn looks a bit too fender-like for this type of design. Regarding your headstock design, it looks to me like the d and g strings would have to have to pivot on the a and b posts. You may want to re-think that.

There ya have it! I stand corrected.

Just to clarify, is what you are trying to achieve the same as the pic halfway down this page? Haven't done it, but I have heard on numerous occasions that fretting a board beforehand can cause the board to bow, which is why it's hard to find someone who will sell you a pre-fretted fretboard. I think you would be safer fretting and binding after gluing it to your neck blank. Just my 2 cents.

Here ya go: Jerry's guitars. Tiger, Wolf, Rosebud, and Stealy are all multiple laminations; vertical in the neck, horizontal in the body. Tiger actually has layers of brass in there too! Jon - Alembics do have vertical laminations in the neck, but many (most?) also have horizontal laminations in the body, like this one. I can't really help to predict what the tone of any particular "hippie sandwich" would be, but I can say that glue joints, when done properly, are not necessarily detrimental to the tone. Just my 2 cents. (edit: I'm not trying to say glue joints make no difference, just that the difference MAY not be a bad one)

Terrible fret access though.

Good to know! Maybe I'll give it another try one of these days!

I tried it once with thinner brass (about 1/32" thick), and I couldn't get it to stick with superglue or regular binding adhesive. I tried to glue the binding smooth, and when that didn't work, I roughed it up with sandpaper. Still no luck. It just popped right off. Perhaps epoxy? I expect the results would be similar, but I never tried it. If you already have the brass, you may want to do some tests on scrap wood with different methods of attaching it. Southpa's idea sounds like it would be worth checking out. I've seen guitars with brass binding, so I know that it's possible, but I'm not sure how those results were achieved. I hope my mis-adventures help narrow it down! Good luck

This has two tone pots, so they must come before the loop. If you wanted to go with one, I'll bet there's a way to work it out, but I'm no expert. I was just pointing out the discrepancy; not saying I prefer one way or the other. I just don't want someone to wire it up expecting one result, only to find out that that's not what the results are.

There's a diagram of this wiring at dozin.com, if you want to do the whole pre-amp/effects loop thing. I did it and I love it. The only mistake is that the website claims the tone controls come AFTER the effects loop, but this is not the case (only the volume comes after the effects loop). Hope that helps.

I did a fair amount of googling yesterday, and it seems to me that the diagram is correct. All diagrams of the quarter-sawing method either looked like that or like this (which, if I recall correctly, is like the one in MYOEG). The confusing thing is that the method in your diagram labeled "riftsawn" seems to yield more of what we would consider quartersawn lumber, and quartersawing appears to yield more rift-sawn (or at least that's what I've seen them called) boards than rift-sawing.

Is it possible that the captions refer to the method of sawing, rather than the grain orientation of the finished piece? My knowledge is limited, but from what I've read it seems that, in the picture labeled "plainsawn," the middle boards actually end up quartersawn, the outside boards end up flatsawn, and the ones in between end up rift-sawn. (EDIT: Just realized that the method IS what you're talking about. Boy am I slow today!)