NJD

That is one sweet guitar! that is really your first neck?!?!!? very well done! the whole thing is looking retro-tastic

Lol sorry - Tune-o-Matic bridge standard les paul bridge basically I can see why you'd opt for a non invasive mod i can't blame you. love those Bigsbys though, i have a trapize tail on my epi Les paul

Roller saddles are like wheels with grooves in the middle of em.

I asked David Myka about his, and looked into MIMF plans a few years ago - before i knew about PG and seriously conidered making one just so i could carve a top from pine and then transpose it onto a figured top. then i felt i may end up robbing myself of the satisfaction of making THAT guitar how THAT guitar almost 'wants' to be. we shall see if that phylosophy pays off soon enough

You're going to get a verbal pasting for posting such big photos - there are size and quantity rules regarding photos in posts here. anyhoo, if i'm making this out right, it looks as though the scarf joint has popped. there are a few ways to fix this, how badly do you want to preserve the broken off bit of the headstock? some people would create a new head stock and clean the scarf joint up, there are ways to preserve the remainder of the headstock but i don't know enough about them to offer any really good advise.

Just for reference sake - Bosch Consumer oriented products are dark green - the 'industrial' tools are a funny blue colour, and rock . but the best hand tools comercially availible in the UK are DeWalt, although you will need to remortgage to kit your workshop out with them. the palm sanders are wonderful - a friend of mine has a few, but again they're so damn pricey.

Probably because it appears to be the ultimate quick fix. I'd like one for duplicating carved tops IF i had call to make and remake the same shape guitar over and over again, but after looking in to it - for one offs here and there i'd rather use the space it takes up with other things.

I LOVE this sketch - it's one of the funniest ones from Big Train enjoy!! http://youtube.com/watch?v=L9xbvajZFrs

same goes for me, even though what I said was taken with humour I am actually interested in which way you cut your scarf as to shed some light on how it ended up like that - I’ve made worse mistakes with wood in my time. Apologies for my poor choice of words

I think I see what you're saying - the neck angle is measured from the pickup plane and not the line of the body? Is that my point of confusion? Yes, the overall angle of the neck in conjunction to the body (if it were a flat top) is 5 degrees, but the pickup plane on the carve is 3 degrees, meaning the string break over the pickup plane is 2 degrees. Thanks for the help Rich i'm a lot more content with the idea of breaking out the router on my top cap now

OK, I’ve done the best I can to photo my neck angle workings out, but it’s an awful pic – I’ve left it high definition in case someone can sharpen it or something. basically it's disected along the centreline, the middle two vertical lines are the top end of the guitar and also where the fingerboard will come. the one on the far left is bridge and far right is 12th fret. i hope you can see it half decently NECK ANGLE Here you can see where I have routed out my rebate and have the remaining wood to carve above it – it’s quite a lot – in this may very well be where my problem lies (I’d actually forgotten how thick it was) FROM THE SIDE FROM A LITTLE MORE TO THE SIDE In the next pics you can see where the fingerboard will come on my progress so far and also my original template THE GUITAR AS IT IS MY ORIGINAL TEMPLATE And this pic is for added w*** factor lol I'M A PROUD DADDY NEXT TO UTTERLY GOD AWFUL PROTOTYPE SISTER FROM SCHOOL DAYS

send it to me for free sorry, that's an amazing piece of maple you have there, good luck whatever you do with it!

I’m a pencil and paper kinda guy - being the son of a draftsman I have an arsenal of paper, squares, protractors and compasses etc at my disposal lol. I’ll give you a quick run through: First off, I should have mentioned that my guitar is going to be a carved top. Also I have a wrap around bridge so height wise it’s almost as tall as a TOM. The horn transition is curved (see progress pic) so actually following the body top is a little tricky so I’m planning on raising the neck from the body top somewhat ala David Myka’s double cut guitars as appose to cutting the neck angle into the whole upper section of the body where the fretboard terminates (that would slice most of my upper horn away) as to only have the fingerboards width proud above the body ala Les Paul. I’ve cut a rebate (that’s English for rabbet BTW ) all along the edge of my body top leaving the foux binding at the desired height right around. Everything above just determines both the height of my carve and angle of my neck, there fore if I reduce the thickness of the body, the bridge height would reduce, diminishing the neck angle. decreasing the depth of the neck pocket would achieve the same thing. a little of both should shave the angle away nicely. As this is my own shape and not an attempted copy of any one thing in particular, I’m willing to have a shallower carved top to reduce my neck angle if we feel this would be a benefit. Old progress pic showing transition between bass and treble horns

I have drawn out a full size neck angle diagram for my current project, with the thickness of the body at the bridge to be the thickness it is now (un-carved). It’s worked out (after taking things in to account) to be 5 degrees, with a pickup plane of 3 degrees. If the general consensus is that this is too steep an angle I could raise the neck’s depth out of the body slightly and/or remove a little thickness from the top cap, giving a shallower carve but also a a shallower neck angle. what do we think ? thanks in advance for any advise Nathan.

be wary of the overseas tax man for he is sneaky and greedy

How exactly did you manage to do that?

I think the B7 fits a Les paul thickness and carve profile best. i know you've gotta pay for those bigsby's but they're classy looking tailpieces - i'd be tempted to go for a genuine article, seeing as it'sgoing on a black beauty. why adorn something as nice as that with anything else?

it may be worth your while to search the archives here and also search the internet for a website called reranch. happy spraying

IMO the greatest difficulty you will face above doing a normal carved top is getting your tools into the corner between the inner face of the raised swirl and carved top to get a clean transition with a sharp angle. I think what I’d do is a LOT of careful planning followed by routing that swirl completely to the depth it meets the highest point of the curve then routing depths in stages where the carve changes height along the plane of the inner face of the swirl, and then working on the transition between those stages by hand so you’re working between 2 levels and can sight the transition between them. (If the above doesn’t make sense ask me to rephrase it ) On my carved top guitar, I’m not expecting to have to take my chisels out of my tool drawers, but it looks to be a probability for you what with inner angles. My hat comes off to you for attempting this one but it will have some major wow factor if you pull it off

How do Bare Knuckle Pickups sound? i've been tempted for a while now. i can't get enough of those pin stripes and scarf lines on that neck!

i believe that post was aimed at the link in the Second post where a link was posted to an ELEPHANT ivory dealer. but of estates and meuseums (if that can be wholely policed) if animals have already been slaughtered and de-tusked then hey. but tusk's not my thing. it's just white to me - might as well be wall filler. but i can see where the whole "this will create a demand" argument comes from.

To be honest hooglebug I like the original but I prefer your sketch. Turning that lower plateau into a carved area is going to be a nightmare but hey! That’s why we do this right ? I notice that on the original, the swoosh thing is an elaborate tailpiece type section for the strings to go through. Are you going with this concept on your design too? I also feel that a 3-a-side headstock would look nicer but I’m bias toward them anyway. I’m looking forward to seeing your progress in this; coinage permitting!! P.S. looking at the bottom bit of your 'swoosh' i feel it should follow the shape of the body more - seems to point back in to the bridge area too sharply in my eyes

My sentiments follow Perry’s roughly – air on the side of caution with who you pick - I do know though that Luthiers of a professional capacity that would build you a neck to specs are like rocking horse excrement in the UK (either that or they need a crash course in advertising). Could I suggest that who ever you have to finally do this for you shows you the work before you pay? If he’s a luthier and is satisfied with what he’s done but you are not it’s no loss to him – guitars need necks. Alternatively, if it works for you, bingo. The plus side of looking for people here is you can see their work – ask them for detailed neck shots of their recent work.

Oh wow Rich that is absolutely stunning! Looks like it’s been dipped in honey ! all of these pics are restoring my interest in mahogany/sapele