Southpa

My experience with poly resulted in realizing that poly is VERY unforgiving. Its near impossible to fix mistakes and hope that the area(s) will blend in properly after patching. I'm sticking with automotive laquer from here on in for my clearcoats. And as far as "sticking" goes, I've learned its a good practice to lightly roughen the surface before applying the first, next or whatever coat of paint, clear etc. That may be the reason why you did not get a successful bond between paint and sealer.

I think the fret tang nippers were mostly designed to deal with guitars with bound necks.

GEEEZUS Craig, thats phenomenal work. If you ever start up a "School of Inlaying" let me know , man! I'll be first in line!

There are a few small details to consider in properly seating frets. I found I get the best results by prebending them a tad more than the fretboard radius. This seats the ends in and then a little tapping around the middle does the rest. I've never had to resort to glue of any kind. Also, you can't go wrong if you use a permanent marker on the tops of the frets before levelling and again before crowning. I also make sure the board is fairly straight by adjusting truss rod and checking with a long straightedge beforehand. If I wind up with a backbow because fret tangs too big or slots too small then the bi-flex truss rod will fix that. But it hasn't happened yet, .

I recently picked up some round abalone blanks ranging between 3/8" to 3/4" from a place called The Bead Shop here in Victoria, BC. They are a very deep blue but the color comes from staining so they can't be sanded.

I used to own a couple banjos over a total of about 4 yrs. That was basically where my introduction to fingerpicking began as well as getting familiar with steel fingerpicks. This 6-string banjo you have, is it open backed or have a wood back? The open banjos sound much more tinny. I'm assuming its a regular 6-string guitar setup, 'cept its a banjo.

LOL, I was wondering how many of you save your dust. I've still got some rosewood and mahogany dust left over from the last guitar...nothing is wasted.

Yer gonna see the wood for sure, thats what bookmatching is all about. I'd NEVER cover up a nice wood grain, thats a crime IMO. I'll do some experimenting with the scraps from when I cut the body. How does this sound? Sand it smoooooth, then stain with Arabian Night blue, then sand it back down so the blue is only in the grain. Then apply clear grain filler and sand smooth. Then stain all over with Golden Glow yellow. Then laquer clearcoat. I had so much success with the Kingfisher blue clothing dye on that old EKO archtop that I'm going to continue using those Dylon clothing dyes. The hardware is all chrome and still have the Grover full size tuners. Pickups are black Golden Age overwound HB's, and got another Schaller TOM roller bridge. I still have some 16ga. stainless for a pickguard, unless I can buy a proper SG pickguard, but nobody seems to sell them. Lots of folks think the SG body style is symmetrical but its not. Gotta make a template for this one, thats why I need the printout. Still wondering why Mr. Les Paul wasn't impressed with the SG (solid guitar) body style and refused to have his name put on that guitar in particular. I love those curves, so much like a woman .

Here ya go. http://www.dbeweb.com/guitar/

I already bought the hardware so I may as well. I always liked the look of the Gibson SG. I just emailed the GibsonSG.dwg file to a buddy who can plot it out for me, actual size, at his workplace. Its gonna be a neckthru, with bookmatched wings.

I'd say part luck and part preventative measures. My name was stamped in the tone control cavity and I posted notices on the internet. The lucky side was that the person who has it right now (I will pick it up sometime next week), was curious enough to look into the guitar's history/origin thru an internet search. And he was honest enough to contact me, so I'll reimburse him the $200 he paid for it. But I will definitely ask him for the name and number of the person he bought it from. Then I will call the cops and hopefully, they can find the guy who originally stole it.

I was hoping it would polish out clear and smooth. I inlayed some blue stained abalone. Countersunk them into the fretboard and then filled with epoxy. Couldn't sand the abalone because that beautiful blue would get sanded off. I glued the inlay in using epoxy mixed with rosewood dust and then covered with clear epoxy. Some spots turned out ok, others not so ok. But I never had any shrinkage problems. However, the epoxy isn't as crystal clear as I hoped.

Sure, sounds like a do-able idea. The other option is to install blade style pickup, the ends should juuuuust make it.

Thats a very important area on a neckthru guitar. If you begin your neck too far into the body you might wind up with hardly any structural wood left, that also depends on where you rout the hole for the neck pickup. You can see that the heel ends (and actual neck starts) about 2" from the body.

TOM = tune-o-matic style bridge, the kind used in Gibson LP's (Les Paul) and SG's (Solid Guitar) Setting the bridge properly is to give you the best saddle adjustment range for intonation. The high end of the bridge will be exactly twice the distance from nut to 12th fret. The low end of the bridge should be set further back from that point by 1/8" to 3/16". This will place the saddle pretty much in the middle of the adjustment range when properly intonated. Fret placement should be as accurate as possible. This website has a fret calculator you can use. http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/

I couldn't tell you what the heel of a neckthru SHOULD look like but here is what I did with mine.

I use a long socket from my tool kit.

You don't necessarily need a plunge attachment for your router. You can still use the one you got. Just drill a starting hole for your cavity, insert your router bit and have at 'er.

Yes, pretty much all of those items come from the states anyway. My take on it is, even if you can find a retailer who sells the items you need, he is likely buying bulk from Stewmac anyway. May as well pay your own shipping and handling than someone else's, not to mention their ridiculous profit hike.

I have two workbenches, one inside and one outside. The inside one doubles as my dining room table. It has a wing that swings up and locks into place for more room. I also have tools pretty much everywhere around the room, in drawers, in boxes etc. I think I know where everything is... I use the inside table for all my fine work, wetsanding, soldering etc. The outside bench is about 10 ft. long and about 3 ft wide. I built a canopy over top with 2x2's and that corrugated plastic roofing material. I covered the surface of the bench with galvanized sheeting and I placed a big ol' bench vice right in the middle. Under the bench is lots of storage space for paint, sanding etc. materials and I made sliding doors to cover. All the expensive tools worth stealing are stored in the house.

If you figure the screws are helping hold things together then tighten them so they countersink a little then cover them over with filler.

never mind

...either way I'm in the process of starting another one. My intention was to build another guitar like the one that got stolen a few months back. I already ordered identical hardware etc. but now the guitar has been recovered so I guess I should do something different. I prefer the overall conventional look of a guiter, ie. some symmetry and curves, of course balance is a big issue. But I was considering some radical structural and functional ideas. The body wood I plan on using will be solid, bookmatched mahogany but I want to make the guitar a neckthru with the bookmatching on the back and front matching up. So my neck block will actually be a square core sitting inside 2 routed channels of the body wings. I'm also toying with the idea of building a Novax style fretboard but I think its best to wait until I play one first. Anyone here tried one out yet?

Neck angle is mostly determined by the height and placement of the bridge you plan to use. The Gibson style tune-o-matic usually requires a neck angle because it sits so high. You could also sink the bridge or use a thicker fretboard or a combination of all three. Any strat style bridge which lays low doesn't need a neck angle. There should be enough play in bridge saddles to attain good action. I copied the neck angle on an LP copy for my last guitar. But didn't use that body style. I made a double cutaway instead with all Gibson style hardware, including 2 HB's. The neck angle was 4 degrees and started about 3" inside the body. You learn from mistakes and I realized that much angle wasn't necessary. I resorted to sinking the bridge into the body to put it in better adjustment range. But if I had used maybe 2 degrees or moved the bridge further back, the bridge lowering wouldn't have been necessary. Another concern is where you start the angle and where you plan to place the fretboard/bridge. If the angle begins inside the body of the guitar, that area ends up being thinner than the rest of the body and routing a pickup hole too close to the edge can be risky, don't want to remove too much wood. A good plan is to have at least 3 frets inside the edge of the body. I started with a 2 1/4" X 2 1/4" X 39" mahogany block. Its easy enough to measure from another guitar and copy the dimensions onto the block. The important part is making sure your block is square in the beginning. I initially shaped my neck in a crude fashion, I used a Skilsaw to cut my angles from top and sides, while leaving the back of the neck alone. Then I borrowed a large belt sander and sanded one side smooth using the back as a guide. Then flip it and sand the other side. This is important because you need one square side to go by to ensure you get proper 90 degree angles on all corners. Otherwise your fretboard is not in the same plane as the body. I found its so much easier to do all this roughing in before assembly to the wings. You can then rout the truss rod slot and use the neck as a template to cut your fretboard. The rest depends on what you consider easiest. You could go as far as installing truss rod, fretboard and fretting before gluing on the body wings. Its easier, for me, to do all this because the back of the neck is still flat and stable. After assembly I found out where to place my bridge from the scale length of the fretboard and shaped the back of the neck to conform with the body. BTW, welcome to the board!

Its 1:06 PST, anyone wanna shoot the breeze? I see about a dozen of you online...pile on in! I'll hang around for a little while.