Muzz

More and more I am appreciating hand tools, for all sorts of reasons, for one they are just so relaxing to use. I will never forget seeing a dude in hospital who dropped his power plane on his leg, he took off a huge chunk of his outer calf muscle. Good score on the hand plane. I have a nice Stanley plane that my dad gave to me.

You ought to look into making yourself a shooting board. I'm sure it's the same principle as what you're already doing, but a LOT more precise. That looks cool, I have seen a few variations on that theme, but nothing could be more precise than the joint I got today, pics tomorrow. Just got back from a fun gig with my band, quite a few drunk girls on the dance floor kissing each other. Why does that go great with rock music, I don't know, it just does

I'm going to strongly dissagree and looking at the glue line in the last pic it seems I'm not wrong. If clamped with lots of clamps and a firm even pressure the glue line should not even be visable and if so then very very barely. What looks like a glue line is actually just the corner fibres knocked off the dressed edge of the wood from being in the racks, It left a furrow about half a mm deep in the join. Under that the join was perfect and would have been revealed as such if I had sanded off a mm from both the flat surfaces. I will have to do that at some point because the blank is 46 mm thick now. But I have chopped down that join and it's in two pieces now. What I will do is dress the other edges sharply and rejoin, and show that if someone has a router, a piece of MDF and a hand plane they have a jointer. So, fingers crossed, I will soon show you a razor sharp join, talk later.

i went to the shops today and nearly fell A over T three times, really to see bystanders get ready to catch me, but nice that they did. The tread has totally worn off my thongs /flip flops and when they hit rain soaked pavers they go any way they feel like at the time. Here is the blank out of the clamps and I am now sure I am not happy with that centre swoosh stripe. I don't think I am a full on perfectionist but I believe in spending a bit of extra time to get things the way I want them. Reaching for my saw, to rip down through that glue line

I used to want a DiMarzio X2N in the bridge and something else really hot in the neck to match output. Then I grew up. I have a DiMarzio X2N in the neck posi on my Iceman, I haven't grown up yet

Yes, a few years back I wondered if threaded rods and mending plates could work as a sash clamp and I tried it out. It worked really well but the threaded rod did put some marks in the wood where it worked its way close. So I added sleeves for the rod made out of irrigation pipe. They can add massive amounts of pressure if you need it.

Yep... What he said. Yeah, it's a bit of a bloke cave, you can pick up some real great pieces in the offcuts section, a while back they charged me $7 for a rock maple piece to make a neck blank I wish we had something like that in the UK I imagined that there would be some nice UK species of timber around, it is good to see the pieces before you buy them. That said I found a cool online store, they have some great veneers including one of my favourites, Huon. http://www.rivergumtimbers.com.au/ Oh DiMarzio Evolution, where have you been all my life, even though it's not going in this guitar. Glued up my body pieces, I thought I would book match the sapwood streak down the middle, but now I am going off it. I'll think on it for a couple of days but if I feel the same way, it's going to get sawed down the middle and glued with the sapwood on the outside of the blank and outside the body template reach. My thoughts on clamping, if you don't have perfect edges you need a lot of clamps and pressure, if your edges are perfect you don't. If my body falls in half two weeks after I finish it, I will know I am wrong

I find it hard to find the door out when I am there, they have really good rock maple for necks. Lots of Aussie species.

At the timberyard today, I stayed there for a couple of hours, I like to have a chat, another dude was in there getting ash to make a tele. This is my new friend Dave thicknessing some Queensland maple for the body. And every timberyard has to have a lumberdog

Checking out the 'for try out' guitars at a rehearsal studio I am far enough into my plans to know my guitar is going to look nothing like that Rescued my nearly finished template from its storage box under the stairs, this was the one of two templates that didn't get used last time so it gets a go this time.

I thought you had glued blocks between the wings to leave the cavities Now I feel like the dude on the Specsavers add Those Gotoh 510s look sleek, I have always liked Gotoh tuners.

Huon is one of the most beautiful timbers, I'd love to use it in a guitar one day. I think I am going to make the body out of Queensland Maple too. I better make the run soon to get some. After pondering on those headstock shapes, I think I like the shape I used before best, It is a bit bigger than it needs to be and won't quite fit on the neck blank, I'll have to shorten it up about 8 mm.

Fantastic, what type of bridge is it getting?

Great swirls in the grain, innovative way of not routing the pick up and bridge cavities.

So it's still brand new then! Absolutely and on this one I made sure that the little grub screw that holds the black collar on over the pattern following wheel was on tight, hate what happens when that goes wandering.

That's a flip-flop--thongs are smaller. Either way, a koozy with a handle is a fine idea. SR Doncha just love the free stuff, I got the stubby holders / koozies at the local bottlo, they always have promotions on, also love my free barbeque spatula from Supercheap Auto, it totally rocks.

Beer in a thong I popped out today and picked up the nut Another Christmas present, a piece of rosewood for the fretboard

Gorgeous colour in the body and neck timber too.

That came out great

Yes it has worked very hard, it has made two bodies and one neck. The bottom of the wood, needed flattening, I put the router on rails. Shaving that block down And that brings me to beer time

It is going to be Strat like, this guitar is all about using parts and materials I already have. The blank needs to be straightened up on two sides, I used this pattern following bit The long side will act as a guide for routing the truss rod channel, the short side is the bottom end of the neck. I lined up the sheet of MDF along these sides. I have the vacuum cleaner plugged into the router, no dust. Sides getting trued up.

I bought some 6 mm MDF to make templates today, running cost on this guitar $9.00 Playing around with headstock shapes? And why is it a headstock the guitar won't have a neckstock or a bodystock

Looking like a lovely vintage guitar from the 40's

I haven't tried stainless steel, but it sounds logical to me, if the fretboard is on flat in the first place then there should be no or little fret leveling needed.

Hey OSi great to hear from you, yep I have two locking trem guitars that I just cannot put out of tune no matter how hard I try. The traditional trems can not take the same level of abuse that is for sure. Now to search the internet for those special pots that go up to 11