Geo

Certainly the kerfing does all the work of holding the top on? I wouldn't worry about it... but I've only built one acoustic.

Definitely the Gibson neck. I think your body shape needs to have "only one protrusion"--so no protrusion on the headstock. Looks nice BTW.

I've done 1/2" minus fretboard at the first fret, plus a 1/4" fretboard = 3/4" of neck.

I would definitely only do a cross at the 12th fret. The question is, how do you want to orient it? Upright relative to the guitar, or upright relative to the audience? Beautiful work by the way.

One thought came to mind about the magnetic pickup. You may want to wind six individual coils and arch their height to match the radius of the fingerboard/string placement. Maybe one solid coil with adjustable polepieces would be enough, but I don't know, the middle strings might be awfully far away from the coil. Just something to consider. Also, if you're trying to save money, I suggest making your own fingerboard. If you read up on it I'm sure you could produce one. You can do it with a handplane by planing parallel to the FB's taper rather than parallel to the centerline.

A simpler setup might help... plug guitar into a device that has an input and a headphone jack.

I have trouble following a verbal version of a schematic, but this jumped out at me... Sounds like the grounds are not making it to the jack, while the hot IS making it to the jack. But also... Check your pickups with a multimeter. You'll get an infinite resistance reading if there is a broken connection. I would expect ~6k if the coils themselves are good. (Test them with the leads disconnected). The multimeter is also your friend in sorting out the no-sound problem within the circuit. You get no string sound, but you get tapping on the coils... without disconnecting anything, and with no cable plugged into the guitar, measure DC resistance between the tabs of the jack. You'll get 0 or infinite I bet... the answer may point us in the right direction. Basically it sounds like your circuit isn't grounded. This could mean a missing ground connection, or broken leads within your pickups. I've destroyed a few of my handmade coils by not treating them gently. The place where you connect the 42awg to the leads is where my pickups broke. Test the coils out of circuit to see if they're damaged.

Rotate the pots 90deg against their axes and use little "wheels" rather than knobs... (think this is how they did it on the Jaguar, or are those just switches?) Put them in the upper bout like you might on an acoustic guitar. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...l%3Den%26sa%3DG

It's angled. It's essentially a typical 3x3 headstock swept off-center as it tapers away. You can see the angle somewhat in this picture. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/IMG_1578.jpg Thanks for the comments.

3x3, so it definitely won't look like a Strat with the tuners installed. Hey, I told ya it wasn't traditional! I don't think a symmetrical headstock would compliment the "swept" body very well. Never seen it, I swear! Glad you like it though.

I got the headstock cut out and the neck profile routed. Finally, a clear picture of the headstock shape! I'm beginning to think that the headstock should be bound as well. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/IMG_1575.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/IMG_1578.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/IMG_1576.jpg And the mockup.... (I have to do this again and again with each little bit of progress. )

I would only ever use a surform to rough out a neck or body carve. It sounds like a nightmare to me to use it on a fingerboard, but perhaps I have a crappy surform. You'd still have to do a lot of cleanup with sandpaper, starting with a coarse grit to remove all the unevenness left by the surform teeth. At least, that's how I envision it.

BEAUTIFUL! The bridge is perfect for your design. In fact, I think your guitar is what the bridge was designed for!

Bass clef inlay = AWESOME!!!! PS I hope you're going to cut the end of the fingerboard off.

Oh, cool! Ha, I don't think we've met... I'm 21, never picked up a guitar until I was 17, have built 4 or 5 now... I'm actually in Kent now, at good old KSU (of May 4th fame). What if it bends right at the body? (or is this not likely?) A rod that doesn't reach into the neck pocket can't fix that, can it?

It seems to me that the body-end of the rod should reach into the neck pocket. If it doesn't, the neck can still bend right at the body joint, can't it?

I've read in several places that bloodwood doesn't turn brown, but it just isn't true. I have a guitar and a bass, each with a bloodwood fingerboard. Now, maybe because these fingerboards aren't finished, that's why they turned brown. I don't know... but the color of the wood certainly changed.

I would think not, because then any "special resonance" you get would only work for that note and other notes related closely in the overtone series. So if you "tuned" the guitar to the low E of standard tuning, you probably wouldn't get any extra resonance on, say, a 1st pos Dmaj chord starting on the D string. Yeah, of course pitches close to D and F# occur in E's overtone series. But the upper harmonics are so weak, I don't think this would affect them the way it might affect, say, the first two octaves of E's and B's. Now, if you tuned the guitar to low E and played a first pos. E chord (or better yet, the open E chord on the 7th fret A string), you'd probably get the extra resonance you seek. The bigger trouble with this kind of thing is that people don't realize what a compromise you have on equal-tempered instruments. Technically only the octaves are in tune, which means that when you play that basic D chord, the F# on the thin E string is quite sharp of the F# that is ringing several octaves higher in your open D string. So if this is going to be a comprehensive endeavor, you may need to build a guitar specifically for one key, then fret the guitar in such a way that it will play all notes in that key perfectly in tune. Make sure you never try to play it in another key, because that will sound bad. Better yet, remove the possibility by leaving blank fingerboard in place of inappropriate fret/string combinations. Build twelve such guitars, one for each half-step up the chromatic scale, and you'll be in business!

I thought he was talking about the resonant frequency of the body.

Well, it's a pretty important feature... the way the shape sweeps out on the bass-side lower bout. But it will get some pretty serious carving on the back until I like how it feels, so it doesn't worry me too much. It's hard to judge the sitting-down "feel" of a body when there's no neck attached. I know, sorry... I adjusted the contrast of that pic until you could actually see the pencil lines, but then the headstock area went all dark. It'll be awhile before I can take any more pictures... I shall attempt to describe... basically, the headstock is 3x3, SLIGHTLY scimitar-like, sweeping up towards the bass side of the centerline. It's a fairly long headstock (~7 3/4" if memory serves). Here wait, try this...

To me, that sounds like the complete opposite of what you should do... why build in a "wolf tone"? I would prefer a guitar with an even response. "Tuning" the whole guitar to one pitch would probably give you a very loud response on certain notes and maybe on other notes related by overtones. On the acoustic I built, the truss rod hummed on lower A's and E's, and I imagine you would get a similar effect.

I would keep the white pickguard. To my mind, tortoisshell would become the main "color" of the guitar, whereas that color is so beautiful, I would rather keep it as the "main color". Have you set the intonation on that bridge? It looks a little choppy.

Well, I'm flattered! I really like the concept of "single-cut" because it's so open-ended. You can go towards a Tele, or a Les Paul, or a LP Jr. (like I did), or... My design is I think a pretty basic LP Jr. except for the bulge, which may make it uncomfortable to play sitting down. Oops. Well, the headstock is NOT traditional.

It's a hardwood. I got some feedback that it was acceptable as a neck wood. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=38553 @Mex: thanks, I like the retro look too. I'll round the back of the body with a spokeshave, but the front will be bound, mostly so I can use the $50 binding-cutting bit I bought for my first acoustic project...

Here's a wee bit of progress... nothing to write home about, but thought I'd post anyway. I decided to go with a poplar neck because I had it on hand. I took a ~3" flatsawn piece, ripped it into 3 pieces, and rotated them 90 deg. I flipped one piece end-to-end as well as rotating it 180 deg along its axis, and then glued them all together. Here's the scarf joint gluing. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Georder/IMG_1558.jpg I also cut out the pickguard. Here's a little mockup of the body. Any comments welcome.