ElysianGuitars

man, i'm gonna come off as a dick, but that thing is ugly... the general idea is good, but you really need to work on your lines, on making things flow well, it looks rushed a bit... if you could smooth up the lines and work on the way it flows, the general idea would go over really well... its alright for a first project, one thing that you could still change is that big overhang on the side of your neck pocket, though itd take reshaping your neck heel a bit... it doesn't look comfortable there...

not making your own neck on the explorer? or whats the deal with that?

what happened to the other 8 you were building?

ugh top mounted jack...

That looks pretty slick Adam nice work! When are you getting tools? I really dig this! finally making enough money to save up for the tools i still need, so hopefully not too long... gonna start school again in the summer i think, work on an associates in business, so i can eventually start my own shop and will at least have a small clue... gotta use the gi bill benefits for something...

I would not try. I would do so. I think the Maxxas is the best Ibanez guitar ever produced. It was created in an era where innovative ideas were floating around in the company and as a result some awesome guitars were created. The clamb type hollow body of the Maxxas is a very interesting concept and a building challenge. I don't know if I'm up for that challenge, but one day I'm definitely gonna try. From all the guitars I have at home.....the Maxxas is my most favorite. The odd shape.......the weird headstock. At first I didn't like the model at all. Appreciated it more for it's innovative construction. the thing about the maxxas though, its all CNC made, so the way ibanez hollowed them isn't much challenge for them... for someone else it would be, and i can't honestly think of a way to do it besides a cnc, itd be so time consuming and tedious to do by hand...

would you try to hollow it out at all if you did the maxxas? or keep it solid?

its really a better idea to draw this on paper, to scale...

another vote for walnut...

yeah, way too much for first build, 3rd maybe... its interesting, seems they've changed the order of things, and now do repair first, we did repair as the last month of class when i went...

you should be starting RV soon no? or you already have...

haha... not even close! The bad weather down here really screwed me up, but I'm happy to announce that I'm finally done with the clearcoats. I've put 13 new coats on over the last month or so. I'm going to let it cure for a month, so I'll be looking to buff and assemble around the middle of March. why let it cure for a month? 2 weeks should be plenty enough time...

that is stunning

thanks for posting this, made my own fret bender today...

i've not had a problem refretting guitars with glued in frets, and all the guitars i've built have glued in frets... an 80w soldering iron with a groove in the tip and some fret pullers do the trick... though i'd imagine the real problem was the 40 year old rosewood...

dimarzio x2n.

this is a really cool build... i like the headstock idea too, though i hope you don't put the ibanez logo on it lol, thatd be cheesy since you built it

theres nothing wrong with going out on a limb and doing something different, but you should really think about comfort and balance when designing a guitar... this thing may look cool with a neck on it, but i bet it'll be quite awkward to play, standing or sitting...

it looks uncomfortable

thats how my acoustic was, love figured bubinga.

that bubinga looks awesome... i built my acoustic out of it, love it, great wood, hard to work with, but it looks awesome and sounds great... and kudos for the kahler trem, i love those things! and now they have a 7 and 8 string one, yay

when i was at roberto-venn, frank ford came and did a 2 day course with us before we started the repair course... great guy, and he used that planer shown there, and basically what you see on his site is exactly what he did...

the small holes for the string through don't line up where? on the back? or do you mean they don't line up with your bridge on the top? if its on the back, thats to be expected, as the drill bit is going to wander on you when you drill from front to back on the guitar... the key to fixing this is making a template with the holes for the large back ferules exactly where you want them so you can clamp it on the back of the guitar as a guide, and the position of the small hole won't matter...

oh come on, the thing looks really cool, it can't be that bad, at least not bad enough that you couldn't bondo it up and give it a solid finish

and then you have to worry about what to do with the neck pickup, and what your fret access is going to be like, lots of things to worry about, whereas, if it were planned out better, that would never be an issue...