curtisa

Headplate roughly cut and attached: Trimmed to size: Test fit for trussrod access. Decided to try a different method for accessing the trussrod nut. Rather than just routing a channel to the full length into the headstock, I've made the window in the headplate only big enough to insert the wrench instead. Much neater methinks: Headstock profile cut: Ready for position markers:

I'll second that. May I ask where you're sourcing some of these imported timbers? The one and only store down here that did any sort of imported timber sales went belly-up a couple of months back.

Had to use the phone camera for these shots. Please excuse the shoddier than usual quality. While that's clamping it's time to get stuck into the final routing and shaping jobs on the body. Pickup cavities landed exactly where the wiring channels were run earlier: Trem cavity: Almost done: Time to carve: Rough carve nearly there:

Bit of a gap in some of these shots, didn't have the camera with me for a lot of it unfortunately. Scarf clampage: Neck trimmed to shape: Trying out a new neck pocket jig. It's based off one I found in the september issue of Sustain Magazine. Will do any taper and width. Only thing it won't do easily is an angled neck pocket, but since I don't (yet) do builds that need angled pockets I can live without it. The one thing I really like about it is that I don't have to worry about using bits of string to line up the neck with the centreline of the body. Just clamp it up, measure the gap either side of the centreline at the back of the body between the two ends of the jig and twist it around until both gaps are equal. Clamp the jig around the neck: Tighten the thumbweels under the crossplate, fit the end stop and remove the neck: 20mm forstener bit to remove the excess: Route to the template: Done:

Top trimmed to size: Neck under pressure. I've purposely made it short as I wanted the red myrtle stripe to only go as far as the scarf. There'll be a matching red myrtle accent in the scarf and the Tas blackwood will continue through on the headstock:

You can never have too many clamps.

Control cavity cleaned up and pickup wiring channels routed: Glue-up. There's a body in there somewhere:

Demonx - beautiful work as always. Really like the sculpting around the neck/body join, has a Stephens extended cutaway look about it without infringing on the look of the tele body shape, and the sheer number of pieces used in the neck scarf has to be a record! Fantastic. Crow - a real stunner. Really liking the combination of the angular look of the fanned frets and the smooth contours of the PRS-inspired body shape. Looking at this only reinforces my wish to one day try my hand at a multiscale instrument. Incredible work. Thanks for the kind words, Demonx and Muzz. I agree that the Vic ash was more difficult to work with than some of the other timbers I've used, but by and large it didn't give me too much trouble. Maybe I got lucky with the piece I had? And yes, you definitely have to try Tas myrtle one day. Really easy to work with and so much variety in colour and figure.

Yeah, you can probably see why I was initailly reluctant to use those pieces. I'm not entirely convinced the wormholed look really fits with the rest of the figuring. You can see in one of those earlier pics where I've overlaid the body template that the wormholed section is all through the cutaway and upper bout. Because the holes go all the way through to the back they'd all be visible on the edges like swiss cheese once you cut the body outline. I'll keep the pieces anyway. There's heaps of decent timber in them for using on headplates, scarf accents and the like. It's just a shame I can't really use them for another set of tops.

Hogging out the waste for the control cavity: Closeup of those pesky imperfections:

Could be dry rot, but doesn't look like it's advancing through the piece like I'd expect some form of progressive decay to do. I'll try to take a close-up shot of it later on. Might also try CA-ing a small section of it to see how it behaves. Not fantastic. It's quite rare down here. I probably paid too much for them, but I liked the look of them a lot. For the pair (about 900mm x 250mm x35mm each) I paid $500. That was after talking the guy down $100, but I believe he will sell to overseas customers. http://www.distinctivetimbers.com.au

Top out of the clamps and rough-cut to shape: The offcuts: The area with bark inclusions is quite soft and splintery, and goes all the way through to the back. The inclusions themselves are more like pits in the timber where the grain becomes very coarse and pale, almost like balsa wood. Although I'd hate to waste this much timber, and I'm quite fond of the grain pattern up to the middle of the slab, the stability of the wood does seem a bit iffy. Any thoughts? Maybe CA to stabilise and clear epoxy to fill the voids?

Haha. I have two offcuts from that pair that could do the same sized top again, but they're full of bark inclusions and honeycombing, and sadly probably not worth using.

I don't have any plans as such. It's just a collection of ideas I pulled together from various other designs on the web. The frame design is based around this one and is all 2x4 hardwood framing. The mortises were a bitch to make, and I certainly won't win any awards for my carpentry skills, but the result is rock solid and weighs a ton. The top is approx 1800mm x 600mm. Plane in that photo is a 5 1/2 Stanley which I picked up cheap at a second hand store and spent some time cleaning up. Still thinking about how best to do the carve on the bass side myself. I think I've got it nutted out but things may change.

...Only a bit more modern and pointy-looking. Target specs: Body - Tasmanian blackwood with tiger myrtle carved top Neck - Tas blackwood with figured gidgee fretboard Scale length - 25.5" Radius - 16" Trussrod - Allparts Tuners - Hipshot Griplock Nut - Graphtech black Tusq Frets - Jumbo stainless steel Pickups - Seymour Duncan JB bridge, STK-4 neck Bridge - Wilkinson VS100 trem Electronics - 1x vol, 1 x 3-way toggle Tiger myrtle has a kind of spalting that gives it its distinctive dark stripey patterns. Gidgee is an Australian desert hardwood, very dense. I still have a bit of left over red myrtle from SY8 that I might use as accenting in the neck. Been hankering for an instrument with a single coil neck pickup for a while, and also wanted to try a singlecut body shape. Had a SD stacked singlecoil pickup kicking around and figured it was a perfect excuse to marry the two together. Blackwood body blank: Tiger myrtle: Jointing the edges of the top: Spent a couple of weekends late last year building a new split top workbench which is in these photos. Finally retired the crappy old fold-up thing. It's so nice being able to do things like planing some boards or spreading out my tools and clamps without having to fight a flimsy, wonky, under-sized workbench. Still need to add the removable section between the two tops, but for now I'm enjoying the massive improvement over what I was using up till now.

At a guess I would say that the grounded lug on the pot isn't making proper contact with the ground network in the guitar. Check to see if the lug is soldered properly to the pot case, or if it's been snapped off close to the pot body. Plug the guitar in and wind the volume all the way down to 0. Grab a small piece of wire and attach one end to the sleeve of the output jack (don't need to solder it, just twist it or hold it in place). Dab the other end on to the ground lug of the volume pot. Does the guitar output drop to nothing when you're poking around the ground lug of the pot? Do you have a multimeter handy? Even a cheap one from your local hardware store is invaluable for this kind of fault-finding.

Your tip and ring connections are swapped. Battery negative goes to ring (red in your diagram), signal output goes to tip (white). I assume there is a connection between the braid and the sleeve of the output jack - where you've placed the text on the diagram hides it.

Sound with the plug only halfway in suggests that you have the jack socket wired up wrong. Doublecheck your wiring around the socket. It's not uncommon to accidentally miswire the tip and ring connections, or shorted together with a blob of solder or strand of wire. If you're still not having any luck with it, and still suspect the volume pot, take the volume pot out of the circuit by wiring the braided pickup wire straight to the sleeve of the jack and the white pickup wire straight to the tip. The battery connections are still required for this test.

Thanks very muchly, everyone

Thanks guys, was a lot of fun to build too. Ha! I wish it would cool ME down. Hottest day on record for us down here - 41.8 celcius

Glad you weren't too...uh, scarred by the experience I should probably point out that wasn't the sound of the on-board speaker but some software amp sims. I reckon it's probably best that you purchase a kit of your own to experience the, um...."tonal magic" in person.

Afterimage Guitars - SY8 "Solstice" Body - Victorian ash with figured Tasmanian myrtle carved top Neck - 5-piepce celery top pine/myrtle/ash with jarrah fingerboard, celery top pine/myrtle position markers Scale length - 26.5" Radius - 16" Trussrod - Allparts Tuners - Hipshot Grip Lock Nut - Graphtech black Tusq Frets - Jumbo stainless steel Pickups - EMG 808X neck, 808 bridge Bridge - Hipshot 8 string fixed Electronics - 1x vol, 1 x 3-way toggle Build thread and more photos After trying out an 8-string Schecter at a local store I decided that I'd like to try my hand at an 8 of my own, but wasn't entirely sold on the low F#. As a result I've built this one with the addition of an extra string on top, extending the range of the guitar in equal directions either side of the standard 6 configuration. Tuning from low to high is A-D-G-C-F-A-D-G, essentially a down-tuned 6 string with the addition of two strings a 4th above and a 5th below normal range. While I'm still trying to get my head around the added high-G I'm finding it adds a lot of interesting possibilities for chords and open-string runs.

As requested, here's a brief sample. I give no warrantees against damage or pain inflicted by listening to the below MP3. You have been warned! Linky

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

A bit of silly fun, really. It's kinda amusing how simultaneously bad and effective the kit is. Intonation is remarkably good up to about the 10th fret, and anything higher is unplayable anyway as the frets are so close together. Haven't tried it plugged in, but the on-board preamp/speaker does moderate overdrive OK, even got some sympathetic feedback from the tiny little speaker. It came with an accompanying "magazine" completely in (I assume) Japanese, and I can't understand anything in it whatsoever! To its credit the assembly instructions are just like a model airplane kit, so even though I can't read a word of the various assembly notes it's dead easy to put together. ThinkGeek have the kits. Don't have access to a video camera, but I reckon I could throw together a quick ear-bending recording later.