DannoG

Welcome, I see you are not a slave to convention (jack placement and headstock). Looks pretty good

Radio Shack has 2-pole/6 position switches for $3. Don't know if that 2-pole limits things too much. I have seen a friend gang two of them together, coupling the shafts .

A solid body of bubinga would be real heavy and a neck that didn't have a fairly heavy body to go with it might be unbalanced. The bubinga top sounds cool. Over Alder or Poplar?

I think I speak for all of us when I say: Please show us more (inlay and guitars).

I have one of the Microplanes. They are like Surforms, but the name (microplane) really is descriptive. The cutting faces and openings for them are quite small and the set of the cutters is small also. So they shave more than grate, like a Surform. The one I have is flat and wide, so I use it between rasps and sandind to adjust a neck profile slightly, but not take off too much. It is not a tool I would say is indispensible, it mainly seems to offer a level of finese beyound Surforms. The rotary (drum) one might make cleaner cuts on sides, but you're still gonna have to sand. I haven't had it long enough to know how long the edge will last, but it seems to be good steel.

Nice pics of a great guitar. They also do a good job of explaining how you did what you did. I like your can/profile sander.

I guess I'd see if the neck was straight or could be adjusted so before putting much into it.

I think it is ideal to have two soldering guns. One low wattage for wiring (15-25 watt) and a bigger one for heavier objects (60 -100 watts). With the big gun you can get the pot or whatever up to temp quickly, solder and get off. The little ones force you to stay on so long that you end up cooking the pot. I'm told that the models that offer a temperature control are best (and expensive).

Ace, what kind of pickups were you planning on making (Strat, Tele, HBs or P-90)?

I have gotten part way into this. I bought the book by Lollar (good practical info) and have made a few P-90 bobbins and wound them and installed polepiecs but not magnets yet. I scrounged some 43 guage wire locally and made a winder from second hand store parts. If you want to know more you can email me. Here is a place to buy supplies: http://www.ampge.com/ They offer different levels of membership (from free to $250) that also translate into different levels of discount. So a $25 membership gets you 15-25% off list. They also have a forum, but it is much newer than the one posted earlier in this thread. It is all interesting to me and I also do it 'cause I'm cheap. The best part is that you realize that some of the things we take to be semi-magical, electro-techie are really fairly simple. And since some of the ideals for tone were established in guitars made in the 50s the technology back then was well within a home hobbiest's capability now. Fender and Gibson didn't have expensive or precise winders, so we don't need them either. At least for self use as opposed to a commercial operation needing very consistant product. Here is another page that is helpful and interesting: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/skgs/sk/winding.htm

Those photos aren't so bad. Just enough to make us eager for more, that neckwood looks great from what little I can see, please show that.

Here's what I remember; Take a chunk of hardwood and size it to the height (or depth) of the cover plus a little extra for sanding . The other dimensions should be oversize so you can clamp or otherwise hold it down in during routing. Cut the inside cavity to fit the pickup first (I'd do several so you'd have extra in the event of a problem)You will not be able to get into the corners without switching to a very small bit and be sure not to route so deep you come throught the other side. Then you can cut the outside dimensions, I'd use a bandsaw, cutting to leave extra for sanding again. Clean it all up with files and sandpaper. I would think drilling polepiece holes would be pretty tricky to get spot on maybe use an existing cover to mark accurately.

If you go to the Pickup Makers forum: http://www.firebottle.com/fireforum/fireBB...m=pmgd&enter=go and look at the thread pickup covers (not so much in the re: pickup covers thread) It is a cool idea and I would like to try it sometime. I thought there was another thread that dealt more with the process that some folks actually use, but I couldn't find it.

I like the bit about a man finally telling a woman the three words that we all find so hard to say... I don't know

The questions are: Do goats have knees? and, What shape are yours in?

I'd use a forstner bit for the general wood removal and then switch to a router to clean up. As to the router don't use a really big bit or try to cut too much wood too fast. Go slow, cut in the proper direction, and you may need to make a bigger base for your router to span the gap created by your chamber.

I'm a graphic designer, so I'm at the computer all the time, so I can slip onto the forum often. My knees are in good shape, but I do have the lack of chops suckatude problem. My next problem is really a good news/bad news deal. I am about to take a job that should pay really well after being self-employed (and not so well paid) for a few years. The money will allow me to afford more wood, hardware, etc, but the amount of time I'll be able to spend building/on the web will shrink. Oh well, count my blessings, right?

Check out these sites: http://www.rahul.net/gaa/Weiss/ http://www.swer.net/english.guitars.weiss.html

Here's some that show more figure: http://www.woodveneer.com/exotics/c-satinwood.html http://www.certainlywood.com/Typesamples/satinaf.htm http://www.certainlywood.com/Typesamples/satincey.htm

The satinwood I am talking about is not bloodwood. It looks like quilt maple. Definately not red. http://www.woodworkerssource.net/Merchant3..._Code=Satinwood

Mean? I haven't seen much of that here in my short time. Rather the opposite. I do know people start projects and give up or lose interest, even when they are pretty close to having it done.

Not my style, but it's cool. When you are tweaking a more final design you might want to thinken up the areas where the outer sesctions join the main body - they look like they would be fragile. The area with the controls wouldn't have much wood there. And be sure your tuners are arranged so as to not block each other on the string path.Keep us updated on the progress.

Wow. Thanks to all of you, especially Lovecraft for compiling the series of threads/info. My problem with guitars is I have way more ideas and styles I want to explore than time (and to a lesser extent, money). But it is still inspiring to see things like that. Scott, great work.

Zebra wood is hard enough, gonna have much of the stripes that bocote has though. Tulipwood would be lighter in color (and way more expensive). I'd say satinwood would be ideal (and even more expensive)

My thought was he posted , them made some serious mistake finishing up the guitar of which he is too ashamed to admit or show. Perhaps he doesn't realize how supportive peolpe are around here.