HuntinDoug

Nice! Have you ever thought about binding your bodies & necks?

The 4th body down in the rack looks wild... what kind of wood is that?

Zebrawood

It seems I never take the time any more to post pics of builds. It's too much work to post each build separately. So, I figured I'd do the "this years" thread... Call it pier pressure

20 necks ready to shape:

Nice... LSR tuners?

The imports I get are from Korea. My orders actually go through another guitar company to save on shipping. Chinese stuff is usually junk. Korean stuff is much, much nicer. They are also less likely to blatantly rip off companies like Gibson.

Good luck with it...

Nice!

Coil guitars offers a 2 blade system. The Jacob's Ladder® model gives musicians 22 unique sounds, but combines a three-way switch with a five-way switch to make 15 of the 22 tones available at play time. I have one of the switching systems, but Ive never installed it. It looks interesting. Their website is pretty sparse though:

http://www.coil-guitars.com/html_version/

http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/print.cfm?articleID=1925

I use Jescar EVO gold.

Nice one there Mr Sully... Love the top.

Artistically cool for sure. But, functionally probably not so much. Moving parts = vibration & noise. I bet it sounds like cool looking poo. Likely prone to feedback...

There will always be people who are 100% convinced that this timber makes the guitar sound like this and so forth, but does it really? It's one of those arguments like is God real, however in the Tonewood debate it's scientifically been proven to be fact and its also scientifically proven to be myth.

So which one is it?

From my perspective this one is easy to answer:

Yes

Yes

I've been seeking out endorsees the last few months that I feel would be a good "fit" to my company. I've had a few seek me out, but they are mostly unknowns looking for freebies...

I've built a relationship over the past year with a comedian that is also a good guitar player. He matched my philosophy & belief system closely... which is important. I gave him an import last year, and just made him a USA custom to use on the road. In turn he promised to promote my company on his website & FB page. He current has 350,000 likes.

Less that 12 hours after he posted I had dozens of inquiries, over 2000 website hits, and I doubled my Facebook likes. I spent most of the day today on the phone (which I hate). But I got multiple commission builds out of it. Including a music store that wants to carry multiple pieces.

Tomorrow I'm sending 2 guitars to a well established Christian band that will be using them in a video promoting a new album. I have the same "gentlemen's agreement" with them. They have 125,000 likes, and a loyal following. If I have the same result with them, I'll soon be backed up til summer.

Ok... As it can sometimes happen, this build changed a bit. The good news is I got it done, and delivered on time. Last night my wife, daughter, her friend & I met Tim at one of his shows in Indy to deliver his guitar. He wanted a heavily relic'd piece, similar to the SRV1. So, we ditched the gold top idea, and went with a tobacco burst.

I couldnt bring myself to glueing in the neck I originally made for this one... It was just too nice. So, I pulled a neck from stock, and ended up lasering his "TH" logo into the body. I was worried how it would be received. Gladly, he absolutely loved it.

email returned

I dont know anything about solid edge, But I do plenty of work in Rhino4. If you can email, or PM me a DXF file with an explanation, I may be able to fix it for you...

Nice clean volute

I recently bought one of these. Kind of pricy, but it works great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm7kTtZ9inU&feature=player_embedded

If you want to use the center line, thats fine. But, you need to stay on the center line. Make your measurement from the leading edge of the nut, to the center of the bridge. Place your bridge vector perpendicular to the center line. Using the center point of the high E stud as a fulcrum point. Rotate the the low E bridge stud counter clockwise until you add .125" to the length on the low E side...

Although, It looks like the bridge vector is already adjusted in the pic. If that is the case, you can use a centerline that is your scale length + half of the offset:

25.5" + (.125/2) = 25.5625

Commonly, The measurement is from the leading edge of the nut, to the center of the "throw" on the high E saddle. Most TOM bridges have the studs centered in the bridge, so you can use that as well. Keep in mind, many guitar manufacturers add 1/8" to the scale length on the low E side. This makes the bridge look crooked. It is done this way for intonation purposes so there is sufficient throw:

CAD it out so the bridge is parallel with the leading edge of the nut, and then offset the low E side by adding .125" to the scale length measurement.

Once you go Vac.. you'll never go back.

Sorry... couldnt resist

This has been one of the most rewarding builds for me thus far. I built this guitar for my Brother-in-law for Christmas... Here is why:

Nick is my wife's youngest brother. He's a guitar player. He has been away from home for the past 16+ years. He served multiple tours of duty in Iraq & Afghanistan. Not once have I heard him complain about it. The last time he was up for re-enlistment, he decided to go back to school to be a Doctor specializing in ER medicine. While he was in pre-med at Texas tech he met, and married his wife Christen. The have a young son, and twin boys on the way. Earlier this year he landed a 3 year residency at a local hospital. So, this is his first year back in town with his family.

Anyone who knows a doc, knows that by the time they are done with school, they are in a mountain of debt. I wanted to do something special for him for Christmas. So, I got with the rest of the family who chipped in for the materials, and we built him this guitar. We started planning it back in Jan. My mother-in-law got his son Devin a matching toy acoustic. We gave it to him on Christmas eve... It was cool.

Specs are:

Parable "Paradox" model

Alder body with "Carmel Burst" finish by My finishing guy Alexander Williamson

Rock Maple neck with beeswax finish

Bound Ziricote FB with MOP block inlays

12th fret "Brautigam" (Nicks last name) inlay

Paua/Gold MOP/White MOP "Parable" logo on an ebony TR cover

Low jumbo frets

Oktober Blockhead humbuckers

1 piece TOM bridge

Chrome Hardware

Bone nut

Schaller tuners

It's a mix:

8 oz bees wax

.5 oz carnuba wax

4 oz boiled linseed oil

4 oz turpentine

Melt the waxes in a double boiler, remove from heat, stir in the linseed oil, then turpentine. Let cool to a paste. Apply with a cotton rag, then buff. It gives a very nice satin smooth finish.

Well...It's been forever since I posted about a build. So, here goes:

This one is for an endorsee named Tim Hawkins. I'm currently working on a motif build for him that is not going to be done anytime soon. So, I'm going to knock this one out so he has something to play. My delivery date is slated for Jan 19th

Specs are:

Parable "Paradox" model

Alder relic'd gold top body

Maple neck with beeswax finish

Bound Ziricote FB with 12th fret "TH" logo inlay

Ziricote headplate with paua "Parable" logo

EVO gold jumbo semi-hemi frets

2 Seymour Duncan hums (coil tapped)

1 piece TOM bridge

Gold Hardware

I got a pretty good jump on it before Christmas. Here's some cell phone pics I took today:

wow...

Wasn't sure where to put this...

I thought it would be cool for PG members to post some "tricks" that luthiers use to make builds & everyday stuff easier. Mostly simple stuff that anyone can do. I'll start:

I'd say 99% of my builds have bound fingerboards with semi-hemispherical fret ends. It's a lot of up front work, but it's worth it in the end. Fretting a bound board means nipping the fret ends which produces small shards. I sometimes work on frets in the evenings as I watch TV. The last thing I need is the sharp off cut pieces flying around in my family room.

The solution is a couple of rare earth magnets placed near the exit shoot of the tang nippers, or under the clipper. It catches almost all of the off cut pieces. After about a dozen frets, I just scrape them off into the trash... Works well.