mattharris75

That'd be acceptable. Bell's Expedition Stout would do nicely. Ahh, we have another beer advocate. Good choice, good choice. Although my preferred method of payment would be Terrapin Big Hoppy Monster.

How about this instead: Hitachi Router That will give you variable speed, and it's a little less money. Reconditioned, they are even cheaper.

This is the wrong section for your last several threads. This section is for pictures and updates of in-progress and finished work, as the name implies.

Yes, use a standard 18" rod and have the truss rod adjustment aligned properly on the body end, and the headstock end will just end up wherever it ends up.

I think the screws looks good, they match the rest of the hardware, and help tie everything together.

Very unique, I like it. What's the finish on it?

Just drill recessed holes in the top of the headstock to accommodate the tuners with a forstner bit. It can actually be a cool look.

Jehle, I had no idea that Decatur was so green. Interesting. I know that back in June there was a show here in Huntsville related to Cigar Box Guitars. I imagine you were there. I came close to going to it, but instead decided to spend my little free time working on my guitar in the shop. I ended up having a nice accident with a belt sander and spending the afternoon in the emergency room. Guess it was a sign from God that I should have been at the Cigar Box Guitar show!....So I guess that means that now I need to buy one of your DVD's and build myself a CBG.

I think that, to a certain degree, it's a matter of deciding whether your goal is to be in business to make money or to pursue your creative muse. The two are not neccessarily mutually exclusive, but it seems to be fairly rare for both to co-exist. Particularly for those who are less established in the marketplace. And really, if your goal is to build a guitar that you find interesting, and the design and building process is a creative release for you, then what difference does it make if anyone else wants to pay big money for it? Pick yourself up and be happy with the unique works of art that you are creating. Or...Go out and do what it takes to make money, without regards to your creative whims. Maybe one day you'll get to the point where you can indulge yourself and people will be falling over themselves to outbid each other for it. So, which is it going to be?

American Chopper is cool, but I like 'Build or Bust' better. that would make for a great show on guitar building. Bring an amateur into your shop and give them a bit of guidance, and like 5 days to build a guitar, and see if they could pull it off. If they finish it and it's playable they keep it, otherwise Perry keeps it. At the end of build or bust they have to do a burn out with the bike to keep it, you could have them plug into a huge stack and do a face melting solo to keep it.

Looking great! Can't wait to see it all assembled!

No way, that only happens in the movies!

So Paul, have you finished this thing yet? I've been looking forward to seeing how it turned out, and what you decided to do on the finish.

I've been really really busy lately and haven't had much time or energy to work on the guitar, but I have managed to get a few small things done. And, finally, I got a little time to work on carving the neck. I ended up just using a surform and rasp. I found that using the rasp at an angle and sliding it lengthwise up and down the neck was a good way to have a fair amount of control when shaping the profile. Obviously there is still more work to be done, but it certainly looks like a neck now, and I'm pretty happy with it thus far. It is funny that during this process certain parts of building the guitar that seemed quite daunting ultimately have been some of the easiest parts, while some of the things that I took for granted as being easy have turned out to be the most difficult. Quite the learning experience!

The neck looks great, very clean. I love the headstock shape. What tools did you use to shape the neck?

Yeah, I ordered a flat Stanley from Woodcraft. I also ordered the sharpening service, so hopefully that will minimize the amount of setup that is neccessary.

Here's the problem: My local woodcraft is in Atlanta...4 hours away... In a metro area of 300,000+ people you would think we would have some kind of chain woodworking store, but we don't.

Yeah, the rasp has worked well so far to get the ends of the neck shaped, and the surform did a good job on the arm cutaway. But I think I need better consistency down the length of the neck, so I went ahead and ordered a spokeshave. The surform has been a handy tool, but even using it like Tone Monkey described didn't really give me the results I wanted. I think I could make it work, but I decided not to worry with it and apply one of the biggest lessons I have learned during this whole guitar building process: Use the best tool for the job.

I had considered using a spokeshave, but from what I had read it seemed that a surform would be the most idiot proof way of carving the neck, if not the fastest. I am not completely confident of my ability to set up a spokeshave properly to make it work well. However, I may pick one up and give it a try regardless, since this isn't working out as well as I had hoped.

I started working on carving the back of my neck last night. I am using primarily a half round rasp and surform. The surform is about 12" long, and I tried running it down the neck lengthwise. While it removes a reasonable amount of material this way, it doesn't seem to bite into the wood consistently all the way down the length of the neck. Is this the proper technique for using the tool in this situation? Should I work it at an angle or straight down toward the fretboard? Everything looks fine so far, but i'm concerned that when I get it closer to the final shape i'll have a difficult time making the surface consistently smooth down the length of the neck using the current tools/techniques. Any advice here? Thanks!

I haven't looked there, but try www.routerbits.com, they have quite a large selection.

Looks very sharp. What are the other specs on it?

For the record, my $5 harbor freight end nippers that I sanded down on the belt sander worked great for cutting the fret ends. That was 5 bucks well spent.

That finish sounds like too much trouble. Next time just buy some tru oil and use that. You can apply it every two hours, and you can make it about as shiny as you want.

Maybe I missed it, but what exactly is the finish? I used about 35 coats (or somewhere thereabouts) of tru oil and used finishing papers to buff it to a pretty high gloss. (Check out my build thread and look at the pickup cover) You could do something like that pretty easily. It would take some time, but no special equipment or skills are necessary. BTW, I really like the raw sound of the bass. Very nice.