Hector

In that case I'm sorry. I might have been too harsh on you, it just seemed that none of what I said was listened. If I would suggest one wood combination would be freijo for the body and grumixava for the neck, and some humbuckers. that would sound pretty good. or even an all mahogany guitar, there's no way to get it wrong.

I guess you're like some other people on this forum, that asks questions and opinions and then totally ignores the answers of other forum members. I don't think this is the place for you my friend.

there are many options on the brazilian market for local woods that will make great sounding guitars, if a luthier will build the guitar for you, I think he is the best person to answer your questions, I know a lot of suppliers here in brazil that sell woods for guitars. But I think that if you're building a solid body, you can get much cheaper wood, in some regular woodshops, instead of buying instrument grade wood. go to your local lumbershop, they should have lots of options that would be fine for a solidbody. freijo is great for bodies. mahogany is great for almost everything, but it's hard to find sometimes. cedro can also be used for bodies, and caixeta too. and for the fingerboard you can use ipe, a wood that looks very good, and it is so cheap. the neck can be done in cedro, imbuia, mahogany, jatoba and some people are using pau marfim with good results. as you can see, many options to choose from, and again it's always nice to try alternative tonewoods that are cheaper and may sound as good as the tradicional choices.

answering your questions 1. No. 2. Again, no. 3. I don't think so. 4. Not really. 5. not is the joint is well done.

use titebond. hahaha mix it, spread with a little piece of scrap wood, plastic, etc. it doesn't matter, use whatever's handy.

I use wood glue, never used epoxy, and never had a problem with backbow due to moisture being added to the neck. about the slippage, I always make 4 holes on the fret slots to avoid slippage. 2 on the first frets and 2 on the last frets, then I put pins (broken bits) on the holes. this way I can clamp as hard as I can and the pieces will not slip.

It can be done, I don't think it is too hard to do it, I could do it. but be careful, don't bite more than you can chew. I think you are the only one that can answer your own questions. for my first build I decided to do a carved top, It turned out very well, but I don't think that it was very wise to start with something as complex as a carved top, neck angle, glued neck build. the good thing is that I learned a lot with that build. and that gave me confidence to keep pushing the envelope in my other builds. You have to think about your skills, and your limitations to see If it's a good idea to try such a extensive carve as that? I know I can do it, but could you? (I don't wanna be rude to you, it's just that my english is not that good, and it may sound that I'm being harsh. but I'm not).

flood the crack with titebond and clamp it! that should do the trick. I don't think you need to split it off the part that is still connected.

exactly! I can't build without a mold, and I don't like his neck joint too, but I'm curious about his hardware based neck joint. maybe i'll try it in some of my acoustic builds I got going on.

I would suggest that you build a kit. stew mac and lmii has them. one book that I have and like very much is the cumpiano one. one other option is A Guitar Makers Manual By Jim Williams. both are great and are packed with useful information. be careful about gluing the top and back if the humidity is high, 45% or lower is my choice. and in my town humidity levels go down to 11% in the dry season. if a guitar survives here, i think it'll survive anywhere.

I started thinking about this for a minute and realized that there's soooo many ways to do this. router. safety planer. hand plane. rasp. sandpaper. handheld sander. orbital sander. gouges. saws. etc etc etc. lol. and many many combinations of the ones above.

i would keep it simple, and do it using nothing but some pencil lines, a sharp chisel, a rasp and then sandpaper. it shoudn't be too hard. it's a pretty simple carve.

I can confirm that. trust us. we know what we are talking about.

+1 maybe you should go back there, ask him to joint it again, check to see if there's a gap, pay the poor guy and then go home to glue everything.

I would suggest that you go back to the carpenter who did the joining and ask him to redo his work. and while you're there, make sure that there is no gap between the pieces. it would take no more than 5 minutes to do it right. and one more glue joint only means more possible problems if you do it wrong.

that's one very little guitar! lol

just make sure that you do the first pass (the one that has the edge of the body), going with the rotation of the planer, and the other ones going against the rotation. turn the body around and do the same to the other side, this avoids tear outs.

I'm gonna start 2 acoustic builds soon. one is western red cedar top, indian rosewood back/ sides, the other will be german spruce, brazilian rosewood back/sides.

The frets are sticking out because the wood on the neck is shrinking due to moisture being lost. and the frets are not just file them down and sand with finer grits sandpaper, until you got a smooth edge. there's no need to replace the neck.

Why didn't you cut the excess wood before routing?? that's a recipe for disaster, I've been there.

Might take a couple more passes than using a router but it actually looks like a safe way of trimming some wood off the back! CHeers for the suggestion! I don't think it'll take more passes than using a router. In fact is the exact opposite. once you do the job you'll know what I mean. the safe t planer is one the most used tools on my shop. I love it. you won't regret buying it.

how does a bass turns out to be a guitar? I know you changed your mind, but I would consider changing some things on the body. and I would never design a bass and then make it a guitar after I started. stick to your plans, I would say.

the Safe T planer would be the perfect tool for this job.

ouch! sorry mattia, I just couldn't resist.

hey jon, bois d'arc and pau d'arco (ipê) are different woods, but they have the same name because both of them are used for making bows. what I found in google was Bois D'arc = Maclura pomifera, and Ipê = Tabebuia spp different woods, same popular name, one in french and the other in portuguese.