oblaty

Did not have much time besides school and other projects, so I just managed to drill some holes on the 7 string body... this is it

besides that, I´m planning on making my own bridge line in the near future. Baseplate should be stainless steel and saddles will be most certainly made of aircraft grade aluminium. I´ve got made one headless bridge all of this aluminium and the sound of that was out of this world

Looks great, I´ve made a 51P-ish bass some time ago and it´s a nice growler. Alder body, maple/rosewood neck, Lollar pickup and simple electronics

A few light coats of nitro work great. I usually thin it 50% so it shrinks up nice.

Just don't try to go heavy without filling the grain as the surface will end up very uneven because of the large pores.

Don´t worry, I´m not a fan of thick lacquer... I´ll just sand it to finer grit and spray a few light thinner coats of clear and that is it. Same on the mahogany back, just top will have slightly thicker coat of lacquer because I´m probably going to use tinted lacquer which has to have sealer under and clear over it

hey guys, finally I´ve managed to work on the 7 string... today I shaped roughly the neck profile

I love that wenge more and more every time I work with it... only I wish I don´t have to wear a mask when sanding it. I love the smell but it burns in my nose

also I was considering on the finish on that neck... oil is probably the best way, but have you finished wenge with nitro? I mean just 2-3 coats of clear on it, leaving the grain open

My understanding has always been that sycamore was the European name for what is called maple in America--same tree two names...?

Our sycamore is a different tree altogether.

SR

The "maple" I use is european Acer Pseudoplatanus.. we call it here the "mountain maple". This one is the mostly used, not ony for instrument making but also furniture making.

The hard maple /you use/ is, or should be, Acer Macrophyllum or Saccharum /big leaf or sugar maple/.. and it´s the same family of Acer. Of course everything depends on weather conditions - ocean winds vs. mountain winds and so much more on

my 2 cents.. 10 years of wood oriented schools left marks on my brain

well, I don´t think it´s softer I use canadian hard maple pretty often and it´s just the same... sometimes I have feeling that our sycamore is even harder.

Of course I haven´t used all the maple in the world or tested it

HUGE discovery I´ve made today

for your better understanding, the top on the 7 string build is actually Sycamore. While browsing through internet I´ve found that you guys call our maple /acer pseudoplatanus/ with this name. I just can´t find reason why actually my figured maple comes from a violin-maker/friend of mine, so I guess it´s the highest grade of maple you can find here sorry... sycamore

thanks I was amazed with how it came out.. it´s black aniline dye alcohol soluble dissolved in maybe 40/60 alcohol/thinner mix, straight into the nitro lacquer

This one should be completed tomorrow

progress:

wetsanding with P1200, then P2000 and 2500 where needed, polishing, assembly and handing over to a hopefully satisfied customer

meanwhile I went yesterday a bit crazy with cutoffs and made this speakerbox for my cheapo plastic computer speakers

It´s made of bookmatched walnut sides and bookmatched flamed maple front/back. Can´t wait to hear it compared to the old plastic box

and take number two:

looks much better than the previous one, I just need to soften the edge burst a bit. This one won´t have any pickguard, so it must be perfect

telly got it´s color coat today, unfortunately tomorrow it goes back down because of my poor choice of spray equipment. I´ve bought recently a new HVLP gun with 0.8mm nozzle and it´s a great gun, but it has small spread for this kind of job...

I´ve used hard ash cutoff to protect frets while hammering them down, but then I had to replace my old fret saw and current one makes more narrow slot. That´s why I need more POWER! Long story short - I simply have to invest in basic tools, but currently I invest in a new heater, insulation, etc....

the frets got hammered in... I really don´t like this method because I don´t have good fretting hammer, just a regular steel hammer which damages frets a lot. My by far the most favorite method is sideways installation, but this can not be used on bound fretboards

cool, let´s say.... "oblaty´s guitar projects" thanks bro

We're going to need some pictures of that.......

SR

Is there way to rename a topic? I don´t want to start a new one again... it´s just too much work to watch more than one

anyways, this is how it looks now, just body is pore-filled, waiting for sanding sealer coat and the neck has got washcoat of nitro on it

and.. testing possible color on superstrat /it goes on that telly too/

I absolutely love that all mahogany workhorse.. how does it play? I´ve always wanted to make a guit just like that, all mahog, neck through, rosewood fb, period. simple as that, I´m sure it sounds awesome!

I´m not updating this thread as often as I would like, but I´m finishing another guit, it´s a telly with all those fancy stuff like birdseye maple, trans black finished feather light one piece swamp ash body and gold gotoh hardware...

yup, there are small washers under the bolt heads. Washers are 10mm in diameter and heads are 8mm. And I incline to keep it exactly the way you can see it in the pic, just finish it in thin nitro without pore filling. I might take more pics, but I have to go and get some batteries for not-a-phone camera

okay, some progress happened on this one.. test fitted the neck, bridge and tuners

aaand tightened the neck in to see how it fits. I´m using embed threaded inserts for the first time and already I love it

very inspiring work of yours, pukko! strong gotm candidate in my opinion

It´s funny how I visit this forum regularly and look up to your work, guys, and you just refer your work as "hack jobs"

This forum brought me to start building guitars and you guys are my inspiration...

Hardly I can come up with an original design, I just alter the existing ones

Of course,there is at least one builder who even goes so far as to embed an engraved plate in the same location as them,and that is pretty blatant...

I do like the guitars Black Machine makes.They seem very well crafted,and they don't try to convince you they are awesome with self written 3rd person biographies and a fake Q&A page like a certain guy in a certain cold climate does.

Nice! I'm doing my first maple-bound fingerboard now too

Looking forward to the "tone-vodoo" studies

It´s no woodoo my friend

just take theory of violin makers and apply it on guitar building

there is always room for inovation