metalwarrior

If you know a place were we can get cheap parts why not tell us all?

Cool video - you made it look so easy.

I would recommend a custom with an inlay at the 12th fret of two love birds kissing with a heart behind them - or something cheesy like that. If you add some words like "together forever" and / or her name, she will think you will be thinking of her every time you play that guitar. That will make her feel special, even though it's her gift to you.

I've never been to Melbourne before. This sounds like a good excuse to drive down from Adelaide. Do you know what sort of price it would cost for a hotel / motel nearby? If I will be drinking I would prefer somewhere within walking distance.

I love it. Nice job

Man I thought that was the coolest cavity cover ever, then I realised it was the actual guitar, just sitting on a table (I thought the table top was the guitar body, and yes, I've been drinking)

I can't really comment on service. I look for what I want, if they have something suitable I buy it, if they don't I leave empty handed. I don't really know enough about the different woods to bother trying to order something else, when for all I know what they have might be even better than the more common woods. My next purchases will probably be off eBay. I know there is a lot of people from this forum who sell wood there.

I was planning to order a bunch of cheap pickups and some other stuff from them. Their bulk string prices are by far the cheapest anywhere I've found. (20 packs for about US$40) Unfortunately by the time I got around to placing my order they were out of strings, so I will wait til they get more in before I make my order. I am in Australia BTW.

I am in the process of ruining the inlays with the engraving I printed out the skulls in all different sizes for gluing to the pearl and to get the pattern for the engraving. The original picture looks pretty badass IMO but when I did the engraving it just looks like the skull is smiling and having a good time - which doesn't fit the metal look I'm going for. I got the fingerboard blanks from a place in the city called FretCo ($40 each for the ebony and birds eye maple). I since realised StewMac sells slotted, radiused boards for less than half the price. FretCo doesn't sell woods for necks and bodies, but they recommended a place called Otto's which is off Magill Rd, Stepney (I think it's on Ann St.). The poplar bodies are $66, and the necks range from $40 to $70. All their neck woods are much longer than any other place I've seen. As for body woods, last time I was there they had a piece of mahogany that was about $130 as well as some woods I have never heard of. All the blanks were about the same dimensions, which is slightly smaller than you would need for a real Kelly or Flying V. If you head out that way, you might also want to check out a place on Magill Rd. called Mik International. They have high quality tools that you won't find at bunnings. That's where I got the ebony stain from. I also got some coloured dyes from there as well as Rustin's Plastic coating, which I will be using to finish the guitar. I bought this off eBay for AU$25 including postage Here is a pic of the shell I bought: http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/559527DSCF1134-Pearl.jpg The pieces on the left were purchased from FretCo about 4 years ago, you can see the prices still on there. I got the other shell off eBay - 50 Pieces MOP (32 x 16 x 1.5) $30 & 100 Inches Paua Purfling (25 x 3.17 x 1.3) $41 I had some problems with some of the MOP splitting when I was cutting it, but since this is the first time I've used pearl I don't know if it was bad quality or if pearl always does that sort of thing. To do the entire fretboard took less than 10 pieces of the MOP & I still have more than half of the abalone left. The main expense is the tools.

Also, if you did keep the chrome, did you replace the rest of the hardware with chrome?

I didn't use a template. I got a pic off the internet, then held up a ruler to the computer screen and carefully measured all the sides / angles / lengths. Then I realised my body blank was too small. The method I ended up using was to decide where to put all the points / corners and then to join them with similar curves to the real Kelly. I found the best way to draw smooth curves was to get a piece of thick plastic binding, and use some blu-tac to hold it in place. This will give you an aesthetically perfect curve every time. I don't know if you understand what I mean, but anyway - this time I will be making a template out of 12mm MDF and using a follower bit in my router to cut out the final body shape. Once again it will be slightly smaller than a real Kelly, which I don't mind at all.

Thanks, I am from Adelaide. Here are the inlay pics: Skull & cross bones with paua abalone eyeballs and purfling, and white plastic binding. http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/186693D...flingLayout.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/878692D...layScribing.jpg Even though I had read the tutorial on routing inlay cavities, for some reason I totally forgot to start by carefully routing the edges freehand and just started with the router base. As if that wasn't bad enough, I had a total brain fade when I realised the router bit was bigger than the cavity I needed to rout - and I went ahead and routed it anyway! I don't know what I was thinking, so now there are some pretty big gaps. Oh well, live and learn I guess. http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/877414D...GlueCloseUp.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/284498D...flingRout01.jpg Yes - my router table is the super deluxe model http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/976328D...flingRout02.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/44190DS...ed&Dyed.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/756646D...-ShinyBoard.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/210777D...gravingTest.jpg

Unfortunately the necks are not perfectly quartersawn. Here's a pic of the end grain: http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/458220D...84-EndGrain.jpg I have almost completed the inlay, just the engraving to go. If anyone has any tips on engraving I would like some help - it's driving me nuts. I have tried using Laskins filler from stewmac with limited success. I also tried mixing indian ink in with some epoxy but that was a disaster. CA glue over ink seemed to be ok, but I would rather not have to resand the board again. I will post pics as soon as I resize and upload them.

The place I buy my wood from doesn't have the biggest range in the instrument woods section, and most of their woods are not your typical alder/ash/maple guitar woods. I don't know how suitable the woods I have selected are, but I do know unfinished poplar smells incredibly good. I am thinking I will leave the rear cavities unfinished in the hope the smell of the wood will shine through. The nyatoh neck on the first build seems strong and stays in tune well. Unfortuantely the action on that guitar is set to about 4mm to avoid buzz. The new Kelly will have a poplar body with a flamed Cypress drop top, Lime neck, & Ebony fingerboard. The pick ups will be EMG KFK 81/85s. Black hardware - cheapy eBay floyd, tuners, and the dome knobs have abalone tops to match the purfling on the fingerboard. Here 's a pic of the woods in question: And here's a few more pics: http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/296856D...ngerboard01.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/840528D...odyRoughCut.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/748669D...carfJoint01.jpg http://www.hugeuploads.net//images/773577D...arfJoint-02.jpg

A while ago I tried building a guitar. After working on it off and on over a 4 year period I finally got so frustrated I decided to quit, rather than finish a guitar that already had some major mistakes. I figured I might as well put the hardware on and string it up just to see what it would be like. I was blown away with the result. Even though the frets weren't seated properly in some places, and there was no finish on it, it was still so much fun to play a guitar I had made myself that I found a new enthusiasm for guitar building. So now I am building not one, but 3 (or 6 or 7) new guitars. This thread will document the building of the bolt-on Kelly. The other guitars will be a set neck LP copy, and a 7-string neck-thru soloist/gunslinger/rg type. Here's the old Kelly: The hardware was taken off a BC Rich plywood Ironbird. I didn't bother putting the neck pickup in since it wasn't going to get wired up anyway. The inlays are made out of off cuts from the poplar body. They needed to be extra deep since I was going to scallop the fretboard. REGARDING PICS - I have resized my pics to 640x480 to conform with the forum rules, but what I am unclear about is: is it ok to post links to pics larger than that? is it ok to use thumbnails to link to other pics? that second pic in my post is the thumbnail link provided by the image host but it looks a little big to me

I checked out his site, but couldn't afford his prices ($9.00 for a piece of plastic binding? ). He didn't have any 7 string Floyds either.

The links aren't working because there is a space in the address. Like most of the other people here I would recommend building it yourself. It looks kinda similar to a Jackson Kelly. I like it.

I'm in Australia and building a 7 string too. I got some Dimarzio pick ups off eBay. A lot of sellers don't mention international shipping in their auctions, but if you email them some will be happy to sell to you. The biggest problem I have had is finding an original 7 string Floyd Rose. After buying one on ebay, I was told 2 months later the guy never shipped it and he gave me a refund. Then I tried to get one through guitarasylum.com, and they said they're not shipping those out at the moment. I finally found someone selling lisenced Floyds on sevenstring.org so I sent him the money and am now playing the waiting game til it gets here. I got the tuners from stewmac.com - they sell individual tuning machines, but not for every model. Everything else should be the same as on a 6 string. Hope this helps.

I don't think it matters if the tuners are around the wrong way if you are using a locking nut. Levendis - there should be 2 holes in the middle of the nut. Position the nut where you want it, mark where the holes are, and drill 2 pilot holes. Then simply screw it into place from the top.

If you rout the channel so it is a really tight fit for the rod you could probably get away without gluing it, but it is better to glue it. A trick to avoid getting glue on the actual rod inside the U-channel is to get an ordinary drinking straw and cut it length ways, and wrap it around the rod. Also avoid getting glue on the adjusting thread, or the rod will be useless.