Rick500

It's been my experience with Robosanders that you shouldn't use them to get right up to the final shape; the surfaces of the sanding drums aren't perfect and there is the possibility of sanding into the body very slightly beyond the template-following bearing (especially with larger grit drums). No danger of tearout though, so there are definite positives and negatives as opposed to routing.

Cool! What'd you use for a blade? The one from Stew-Mac?

Y'know, two or three years ago I think, I bought an SG body and neck and hardware from him too. The body was decent; finish wasn't perfect but it was decent for the price. Neck was pretty good. But the TOM bridge did not have the correct post spacing for the holes in the body, and he didn't offer any other bridge that would fit. The post holes had an odd spacing and I never did find a bridge that would fit. I meant to strip the body, fill the bridge post holes, redrill, and refinish, but never got around to it, in favor of other projects. To be fair, he offered a refund on the bridge but I didn't follow up. I still have that body and neck in the shop... I should dig it out and do something with it.

Mount the bridge so that the point on the middle of the bridge (between the two middle strings) that represents the middle of the saddles' range of movement is at the scale length.

From the point where the strings contact the bridge on the fretboard side (which should be the edge of the bridge, toward the fretboard), to the point where the strings contact the bridge. However, as I mentioned, this length is slightly different for each string due to the need for intonation adjustments. Ideally the bridge should be installed so that the middle of possible travel of the saddles is at the scale length.

[Quick disclaimer: I'm relatively new at this, but I think I understand what you're asking, so here's my understanding of it.] Each string contacts the saddle at a slightly different distance from the bridge (due to intonation differences between strings). The scale length is the distance from the fretboard side of the nut to the string contact point on the bridge. If you set the saddles to the middle of their range of travel within the bridge, the bridge should be installed so that that midpoint is the scale length distance away from the fretboard side of the nut (24.75" in your case). That will give you the maximum amount of possible intonation adjustment for each string. (If it's a tuneomatic bridge, you can also mount the bridge at an angle to accomplish the maximum intonation adjustment range.)

I have several guitars with those (Carvin CT3M, Carvin DC145M, and a Parker PM-20). The Carvins have the flanges sitting on the surface; the Parker has the flanges recessed.

My plan, still just shaping up and that will probably change several times, is to use the maple to make a neckthrough neck in maple/? veneer/purpleheart/? veneer/maple/? veneer/purpleheart/? veneer/maple neck ("? veneer" being something very dark, depending on what I can find). I see the carbon fiber rods are relatively cheap, so I'll throw a couple in. Thanks for the ideas, guys.

Here's the piece in question, btw: Also picked up a really nice piece of spalted maple for some future project: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/rick...paltedmaple.jpg

Thanks guys. I'm going to give it a shot. I still have one in the works to finish before I take on another, but I'll post pics.

Yeah, I ran across some of that info. "Moderately hard" doesn't sound promising, but I figured that laminated with something suitably hard, and maybe with graphite rods, it might work out. Maybe I'll just give it a shot and see what happens. Gotta love maple. You can make a guitar out of it and use its blood on waffles.

I have my eye on a really nice piece of bigleaf maple, which, if I understand correctly, is not hard maple. Just wondering if it would be suitable for a laminated neck with maybe some mahogany or some purpleheart stripes. What do you think?

I'm not an expert at this, but from what I know, it depends on how high the bridge is.

I don't think it'd be a waste at all to build a "practice" guitar. I've learned tons getting my hands dirty with the first one (which is in progress).

I like that Hipshot bridge. How heavy is it?

It's usually done to better align the pickup's pole pieces so that the strings lie directly over them.

Carvin also has a lot of options that aren't necessarily listed on their website or in their catalog. You can get the body made of swamp ash, alder, mahogany, koa (when they can get it, which is rarely these days), or walnut. Necks are maple, mahogany, or koa. They'll also do 5-piece laminates of any of those. You can choose from any of their headstocks (as well as an 80's pointy headstock if you call and ask), standard or reversed (or uncut so you can design your own). They'll also do headstock laminates in any of the woods I mentioned plus birdseye maple, flamed maple, quilted maple, and flamed koa. Fretboards are maple, birdseye maple, ebony, or rosewood. Dot, block, or diamond inlays, in mother of pearl, abalone (or black plastic, for maple), or no inlays. Any option you can get on a finished guitar, you can get on the kit. It's almost as fun to order it as it is to build it. Here's mine, a close sibling of SCGoatMan's, but in swamp ash and with a Wilky.

+1 on the Carvin kit recommendation. I put one together a few years ago and it's still one of my favorite and best-playing guitars. Top quality, all the way.

Thanks, Pete. That's a nice looking Squier there. Mine's starting to look a little like a guitar now (which is a big deal to me, seeing as how it's the first one).

Nope, mine's been rock solid all the way around. I've had it for maybe two years. Only started using it heavily the last six months or so.

Cool! Now you have me wanting to build one. (You have the same router I do... I love that thing.)

First, read a whole bunch! The first thing to spend money on is a book or two. I've bought and read all of the books I could find on the subject of building electric guitars. I personally got the most out of Melvyn Hiscock's book, Make Your Own Electric Guitar, and Martin Oakham's Build Your Own Electric Guitar: Complete Instructions And Full-size Plans (I didn't use the plans, but the book is quite good). The first project I would (did) attempt would be a bolt-on neck Strat sort of guitar. Even better if you already have one you can try to make a pretty close copy of (then get more fancy on the next one if you want).

I already told you "great job" but I'll do it again over here.

Thanks... I was looking at one of those. I love my full-size Bosch router so much, I figured the little one was probably good. Anything you particularly like about it, specifically?

I sorta jumped in and started posting without introducing myself, so here goes. Hello all! I just got into building, over the last year or so. I started building small parts (truss rod covers, etc.) and got the bug. I started on an SG-inspired project last year (I've been working on it now and then; it's coming along very slowly). Then I decided maybe I should stick closer to an existing guitar design for my first build, for practice, and come back to the SG after. In there somewhere I got sidetracked and built a router-based fretboard radiusing jig and turned out a few fretboards. So at least I know what I'm doing when it comes to fretboards and truss rod covers now. Here's a shot of my "SG+" project, which hasn't really gotten past a rough cut of the body. Mahogany body, mahogany neck (bolt-on), cocobolo fretboard (although I have a nice piece of bloodwood too...). It's pictured with a maple neck, but I ended up going with mahogany. Links are to what I'm actively working on, which will basically be a rear-routed double humbucker Strat. Mahogany body, maple neck, cocobolo fretboard, fixed bridge, Carvin C22J and M22SD humbuckers, Sperzel tuners, all black hardware. Most likely going with an oil finish over the whole thing. Rough cut body, back Body, after I had to cut out some very nasty endgrain tear-out Cocobolo fretboard, radiused