DannoG

Since you have no pickguard, are you going to drill a hole through from the neck pocket, through the neck pickup route and on into the control cavity? You'll need a long drill bit to do so or some other way to connect your PUs. Post some pictures as you go

Funny how in the photo Stew-Mac uses has almost no clearance with the pickup, stringing the high e must have been a pain. Wes, let us know how you like it.

Very nice work and cool that it sounds good too. The pickup might last a long time, but I'd worry about the pots and jack needing to be replaced.

I recessed the knobs by making a small pilot where I wanted the center to be, then ran a forstner bit down on a drill press (pilar drill to some of our friends across the water), setting the depth stop for consistancy. Then some hand sanding to smooth things.

I use a table saw with a sliding jig to make the basic cut. With blade deflection it will be slightly off, so then I clean that up with a router in a jig like GFrenzy linked to. I have also helped people make guitars with the miter saw method. The router cleanup (or if you are better than I am with planes) hand planing can get you really good match of surfaces.

Regarding criss' glue-up question, if you cut it on a miter saw and have enough wood to spare, make a second cut with the same angle setup. This cut would be on an excess portion of the wood or a piece of scrape, just long enough to get a wedge to use for clamping. By using this wedge reversed from the angle of the scarf, you end up with a parallel clamping surface. And Dave's drill bit technique can also use small finishing nails in predrilled holes, if you don't want to leave the bits in.

How about if you make a custom pickguard that uses the Carrie theme such as putting a shark swimming image on the backside of a clear pickguard. Make the mistake into a newly opened avenue for creative direction.

A variable speed is handy if you want to cut something other than wood - metal or plastic for instance. I used to have a little on with variable speed, got rid of it because I valued power over the variable and it was small also. Bigger/more powerful/better.

Well this was my first carvetop (and first setneck too), so I learned afew things... I bought the tall binding from Stew-Mac before I'd finalized how I was going to do the cutaways. The guitar is also fairly thin, which means it is pretty light. If I were doing it again, I'd go with a shallower binding, but I like this well enough.

The top wasn't routed. I used a Wagner Power Plane to rough in the outer level and step the actual carve. After knocking off the step edges with some good production sandpaper, I made a maple contoured sanding block which allowed me to have a fairly consistant curve. The horns around the cutaways were shaped with rasps and sandpaper. Way too much work.

The finish is nitro over dyes. After I'd made a nice amber dye I was going for a subtle burst, but it came out a little stronger brown at the edges than I'd wanted. Don't like to cover up nice figure. The actual burst is a toned nitro rattle can from Behlen called Jet Spray. More opaque than I expected (I did tests). I made some masks to use while hand spraying, but switched to just doing it w/o the masks.

As to the sound it is much brighter than I expected, even with the chambers. Very articulated and louder than any of my other guitars. It has a bit more twang than a normal LP and isn't muddy at all. So the adventure continues, not always just the way I had figured it, but I'm happy.

Duh, wasn't to alert on that forum, was I? Thanks Kevan for putting it where it belongs.

Pic1

Pic2

Pic3

Later, Dan

Dave, much as I 'm diggin' the top, let's see some more pics of the back of the neck. Sweet.

Well, the two years was worth the wait! First rate work. Do you have any in progress photos?

Here it is

Flame maple top over mahogany- modest chambering of both

24.75 scale, set neck, scarf joint

10" fretboard radius -rosewood

Gibson HBs out of an old guitar of mine

Vol/Tone/Blend pots, knobs resessed

Gotoh tuners

Bone nut

This pic clips of the top of the headstock, it's a symetrical arrowhead shape. I'll post a few more pics later.

How would you reproduce these designs on guitars? They seem to be computer generated (and look pretty good), I just don't understand how they will go from where they are now to the real world.

My guess would be that you had (or could of had) other ugly guitars through the years and if they didn't sound good, you let them go or never snagged them in the first place. The toneful ones you kept are not really representative of ugly or plain guitars so much as keepers. I think most of us here are looking to find/build that illusive looks great/sounds great.

Ouch. I imagine all of us make mistakes, I know I do (too many). You'll make the repairs and they'll be good work, I'm sure. Sounds like your construction was pretty solid to limit damage to cosmetics.

Looks great Setch. Plus your usual fine photos and explanations. And, as could be predicted, it is quite close to the scheme on my DC. I'll have to post something on it.

The vacuum method is to place the assembled, glued parts in a large pouch and suck the air out. This presses the parts together and is a great way to get it to conform to curves. However the gear required is specialized and expensive and the setup can be a little tricky. If you have to ask, that means you probably can't do it. Maybe you could find a woodshop that would let you use theirs (rental?), but if it is your first guitar, try to keep it simple.

7mm is not too thick. Be sure your burl is completely dried and stable before you begin, it's not the most stable to begin with.

I don't think any plastic bindings will bend as much as you want. Steamed woods get pretty flexible, but again, if this is a first project...

The key word from that last post is overhang. I think he just is worried about the way it looks on an extended fretboard (that goes beyond the end of the neck), since that is more noticable w/o a pickguard. Is that it?

I wouldn't be too concerned, the neck pickup will be right close to that overhang, masking the gap somewhat. And as Drak said, you're doing a great job so far. You are going to have a neck pickup, aren't you?

I'm still in. I finally got started on some color testing, but the guitar is still raw boards (Yikes! it's mid-August). I plan to do a tutorial, but I can't remeber if the tut is for the carrieburst only or for the whole guitar...

I would try going to some different places in person rather than phoning. Show up at a reasonable time, be polite and offer to return at their convenience. Basically make it hard for them to say no or charge a lot. And you'll have the wood right there so they can see how much work it will need. Phone calls are too easy to blow off or quote high, since you can't see the item in question. I'd also try wood supply shops first, and maybe buy something to show good faith. Good luck.

Acoustically cedar is great, but it is so soft that you either be damaging the guitar in normal handling or need to put some heavy-duty finish on which would harm the tone and/or make it look not so good or require a serious pro setup for finishing

Cedar is very soft. I would consider using something like Alder, at least for the back.

It is extremely heavy. It doesn't float in water, that's how heavy.

I don't post too often anymore, seems like I'm too short on time, but that doesn't mean I don't get blown away by the great stuff. This is one of those. And in Drak's case one of many...

I think it will be virtually impossible to get the template aligned well enough on the other side. Do it all with the one side.