mattharris75

Nobody said every deal is a good deal, but saving money where you can only makes sense. Simple economics. If I was doing a high volume of fretwork i'd spend the money in a heartbeat. But i'm not, so it doesn't justify a tool that last me for the next 20 years. This may be the first and last guitar I ever build. For all I know this Harbor Freight tool might last me until the day I die. I've had great luck with HF tools. And all that 'time is money' baloney is just that, baloney. I'm not operating in an business capacity. I'm performing a leisure activity for my enjoyment. Modifying this tool is just an extension of that. I have zero intent to make money off of this, and if I wasn't spending my time on it I certainly wouldn't be spending that time at work. It's a simple choice. The logic of the decision is perfectly valid. I'm not a 'tool nazi', so this works for me.

Yeah, i thought about doing that. I didn't realize I could use ebony without using ferrules, that might look cool. I had thought of just inlaying the ferrules into a small piece of maple, which would at least give it contrast and make it look intentional. And I don't have a mill, so brass would be out of the question I suppose. But i'm still considering this route of inlaying a block of wood. The idea of the cover seemed kind of cool because I could use of of my logo disks on it and turn it into a feature.

The Inlays look awesome Jon! I just got my inlays from Doug as well. Posted a pic on my build thread. Such a cool custom touch. Can't wait to see this build done!

Holy cow...Very nice work, but I couldn't even imagine how to go about playing that!

I just hope the steel in the HF is worth your time and investment. If the steel is soft you might as well have gone to HD and ground down a pair of channel locks. Good luck Woodenspoke For $5 the only way it's not worth my time/money is if it's a total failure. And regardless, I have more time than money, so I don't mind spending a little time working them over on a belt sander before I use them. I just loaded up on birthday cash, so i'll be ordering the rest of my fretting tools within the next day or two, so I expect to know within the next month whether or not I made the right choice. If it's an utter failure i'll be sure to let you know.

OK, I just had to post a picture of this. These were in the mail when I got home last night. I'm really excited about them. These are really going to be the finishing touch on the guitar. This one is bloodwood, and i'll probably save it to go on my wifes red-themed guitar that's the next project (padauk top/fingerboard and bloodwood and black dyed poplar veneer lams along with a yet to be determined light wood). The ones that will be going on this guitar are made of faux pearl but look otherwise the same, just couldn't get a good photograph of them. The recessed area will be filled with black epoxy. One of these will be going on the headstock and another on the string-through cover on the back of the guitar. These were done by HuntinDoug, I sent him an illustrator .eps file and he turned them around really quickly and for a very reasonable price for custom work! I highly recommend working with him if anybody is looking for custom inlay type stuff, absolutely awesome! Thanks Doug!

Hah! Well, that explains it! Awesome looking guitar. I'm building a guitar of your dad's design at the moment myself.

Thanks Jon. Well, since I am not entirely happy with the alignment of my neck through holes i've spent the past few days trying to decide what I want to do about that. Right now i'm thinking that i'm going to make a cover to go over the holes (just recess the ferrules all the way into the back). I resawed and cut out a small blank to do it with. I'm thinking that I will inlay it with the small logo disk that i've come up with. Should give the back of the guitar a little flash. What would you guys do? Also, since I haven't really posted any pictures that showed off the wood that i'm using very well (partly my photography skills and also a lack of naphtha) I decided to post one of the back of the guitar. You can see the not-quite-perfect alignment of the neck through holes on this, as well as the now flush cavity cover. Not a ton of progress, but i've been working on a lot of little things, and just felt like posting a picture that showed off my grain a little.

yeah, it does look light colored, particularly on the front, but honestly I think it's partly my camera. Also, when it's been wet down with naptha it looks like textbook black walnut with plenty of nice sapwood. I agree that walnut is beautiful, but i'm glad everyone doesn't use it, otherwise our walnut projects wouldn't be as unique and cool as they are!

I believe one of the big visual differences in peruvian and american walnut is the fact that the sapwood of peruvian walnut is not cream colored, which mine definitely is. I don't know for certain that it is black walnut, but if you look at the back of the guitar blank you see it looking much more like typical black walnut I think. It certainly looks like the black walnut in the pictures i've seen. (Like on www.hobbithouseinc.com, which has a ton of pics of it)

Sweet looking tele! What did you use for grainfiller with the walnut? That finish is what i'm looking to achieve on my first build. And if you like the lighter streaks in walnut, check out my build thread: Matt's First Build

If I was half that good a player i'd be happy.

Well, got my bridge positioned and mounted tonight. It was one of those '2 hours to drill 3 holes' situations. Ended up with the bridge about 1/2mm out of square, which was disappointing, but it's pretty much impossible to see. The center point on the bridge is perfect though, and I ran a couple of pieces of dental floss down the neck from the outside slots on the nut to the outside saddles on the bridge and it lines up perfectly. So, other than my perfectionist side nagging at me, for all practical purposes this is close enough. Also drilled the through body holes for the strings and the recesses for the ferrules. Again, they're close but not perfect. Being a perfectionist with only moderate skill is a frustrating position to be in. I'm almost done finishing my pickup cover as well. I'm still going to add a few more coats of tru oil and possibly wet sand one more time. I'm playing it by ear at this point. But as you can see, it looks really good. So for those that wanted to see my tru oil example finish, here it is:

Doug, sent you some email last week.

Got the top and fingerboard, they are beautiful! Thanks Jon! My wife is going to dig the short scale guitar when it's done.

it doesnt have taper, i could put a taper on it though, i just got a REALLY rough shape with the router. does it need taper? my tele seems to not have taper....or very little 'seems to not have taper' is not a good response here. You need to know these things and have measurements. If you're patterning your neck after your tele neck do you have exact measurements of that? And does the string spread on your chosen bridge match that of your tele? There is a thread on here in the tutorials that tell you exactly how to determine neck taper. I don't have the link offhand, but do a search and you should be able to find it...A guitar is about planning and research as much as it is about 'woodwork'. If you don't know exactly what your process is then woodworking knowledge in and of itself is not that valuable.

Wow, I think this build is going to turn out looking really sharp. I like the concept of the short scale semi-hollow bass with a neck angle. And personally I don't think there's anything wrong with poplar. I've got a MIM poplar tele that I like just fine. Heck, Melvyn Hiscock used poplar for a guitar in his book.

Is it just me or does it look like that neck has very little or no taper?

Thanks for the info Manquesa.

That's the plan Setch, bought the $5 deals at Harbor freight and will go to town with the belt sander before I use them.

You know, the thing I don't get is this. If your intent is to only build a guitar for yourself, and your inspiration for the guitar is that of a professional who maintains an obvious online presence and is easy to contact, (Not a large Fender/Gibson style corp, but a small shop) Then why not just ask?... I mean, what are the odds someone would say no if you make it clear what your plan and purposes are? That's what I did before starting my build patterned after Alan from AC Guitars 'Skelf' design, and he was more than happy to let me use his body shape. It's just so easy and takes so little time. If nothing else, it should be common courtesy.

You know, i'm sure that for a good quality tool $30 is a perfectly reasonable price. I've paid top dollar for tools that I'm going to use frequently. However, with my likely rate of production somewhere around 1.5 guitar per year I think the harbor freight cheapies will do the trick. Thanks Inisheer, I ran by HF at lunch and picked up a pair. I'll run them across the belt sander to get a good flat surface before I use them.

Yeah, those look a little puny. Obviously designed for a different application. I'm not sure if it's worth the effort to buy a $15 pair of end cutters and grind them down or just bite the bullet and order the stew mac pair when I purchase the fret cauls. (Also too expensive IMO)

Yeah, i'm mostly concerned with trimming the ends flush. I have a dremel, so the rough cutting will be no problem. I asked about side cutters because I already have a pair of those. It couldn't hurt to have a pair of end cutters regardless, but it seems like they're nearly double the price they should be from Stew Mac. And how critical is the flat face to getting a flush cut?

Not too far away from fretting my first neck, and looking at the price of tools to do the job. $30 for a fret cutter seems a little high. I expect to use this tool no more than twice a year and would rather pay less up front and have to replace it somewhere down the line if neccessary. Is there a less expensive alternative that works well? Has anybody used side cutters for cutting their fret ends?