Muzz

Those are wise words SwedishLuhier, you are right, we do not have any conclusive evidence as yet, and evidence would need to be experiments done on joints done both ways, not just people's subjective opinions. The concept that I think you and most PGers have got their head around is that if one technique is good and works well it does not necessarily follow that all alternate techniques are bad and wrong. In the following pic you can see an oak table that I built, the top was rescued from a 1940's pedestal table that was falling to bits, the top was split in two and stained dark brown. Each of the legs are made of two pieces of wood PVA glued longitudinally and for them and the top, I broke the manufacturer's rule and used Aquadhere spread on both sides of the join. It is two years old and didn't explode when I read the directions that I should have only spread on one side. What I think is a much more important issue is some bad advice out there about fitting box truss rods, Paulie and I have chatted about this before Click Here

I used Rustins Plastic Coating and brushed it on over the decal, you can see the result here The good thing about Rustins is it will not crinkle your decal. I have also used clear automotive enamel, if you use this do about three very fine mist sprays on your decal first, good luck with it.

I love to see precision like this.

Beautiful work from you and from mother nature, acrylic blank might be nice for the inserts if you can find some with matching colours

Organic and comfy, I like the way you got so nice and close to the neck with the cutaways, is the neck going to be made from some antique wood as well?

You = Success. Very nice guitar Muzz. With a twist on the headstock that makes me grin everytime I read it......... IbeMuzz..... on a side note, is your pool water clear when you open up or is it green? Thanks Mike, you know I saw someone post recently that they thought decals were expensive, I should point out how I did mine, I just typed out the text in PowerPoint, and set a photo of goldleaf as fill for the text, if any one wants it, the image is at http://jktate.com/goldleaf.jpg then printed it out on waterslide paper and stuck it on. All up it cost me about $20 and I have enough decals for about 100 guitars With the pool you just switch the filter and everything off, and when the cover goes on the chlorine doesn't evaporate so when you take the cover off it is fairly clear, and you get a lovely warm layer on the top, just as if 10 six year olds had been swimming in there

Looking great, that finish is smoooth.

Looking good, might be a little bit tricky to get the finish on the body dead level with the insert, but shouldn't be too hard, what colour is this going to be?

Cheers MuffinPunch, OK so here is the Jenny Craig version of this thread in the next two photos, I'm off to check how yours are going now. Before After The bottom photo is saying to the one at the top, "I am you in the future" and the one at the top says "Noooo I really do want to be a Bo Diddly"

The build is looking nice. Sucks about the router bit incident. I wouldn't give up on that body...it can be patched. I had a similar incident when building my ash thinline. If you didn't know that it happened, you would never pick it out. On the inlays, I would use a small flat file that fits between the fret slots and work parallel to them...across the fretboard. That way if you do alter things a hair, it won't affect the fret slots and should maintain the compound radius. Peace, Mark Good call, that's how I did it, works a treat.

Absolutely, it is a great feeling, your guitar is going great, enjoy the finishing process. When you string it up it will be a real buzz. The sun came out today so I can finish off the pictures in this thread with some in brighter light. I like the way this guitar looks different shades in different light When the light hits it, it really lights up the grain, in low light it goes dark navy blue. Looking down My little ceremony that signifies the end of the build and everything tweaked is taking the little tabs off the machine heads Neck And to finish off like I started here is the guitar where I put a lump of wood 7 months ago Which for me confirms Johnny Foreigner's observation above. But now it is a different season, the pool cover is on. My latest problem is I sit down to play the thing and a moment later I look up at the clock and a couple of hours have past by. Some lessons I have taken - Floyd Rose bridges are so much more comfortable than Fender style, no little grub screws that stick into you, and the trem sounds and feel are so much better. A neck 44 mm wide at the nut feels heaps better than 42 mm, easier to play fast without your fingers tripping over each other, who would have thought your fingers can feel a 1.5 to 2 mm difference The feel of a neck finish affects the experience of playing, when it is lovely and smooth you just want to keep playing. Happy building everyone

Hey Mender, yep that's right, this is my cupboard But I have been following the saying, "when all else fails read the instructions" have a look at the third bullet point As soon as Wez reads that, his exploded guitars will all magically coalesce, their joints breathing a sigh of relief as they reseal. If you read the instructions on the big bottle of interior it even says that it is suitable for end grain joins, because Selleys knows that the myth about end grain joints is an over extrapolation from soft timber and badly cut joints. In some timbers with a well cut join, the end grain join is stronger than the side grain.

My cutting is pretty much exactly like that drawing thank god for routers, and he is telling me that he totally wants a 7 string Mockingbird on someone's to do list

Yeah baby, those photos have a guitar envy inducing factor of 10, I saw your neck shaping technique in a previous post and used that on my guitar, great way to do it, cheers for that. Yep joined veneer on the headstock might not look so good because the join doesn't have things to break up the line like pick ups on the body, I would go for one piece.

And Aussies, you do not have to buy Titebond there is nothing magical about it, good old Selleys is the poo too

I prefer PVA to any other glue for wood because of its mechanism of action, it cross links the wood fibers together, rather than totally rely on a sandwich layer of glue between the fibers. I do spread the PVA on both sides of the join to get the glue to make good contact, but it does not need to wick in more than a few hundred micrometres if that, so spreading on both sides is probably unecessary 99 times out of a 100 but if you want to avoid Murphy's law I would still use it as insurance, to avoid stuffing up on the 100th time when it was needed. For the tape on box truss rods, yep it is supposed to be left on as insurance against epoxy glue getting onto the threaded rod at the bottom of the neck route.

Everything's looking great, I like the Barber's shope spokeshave rather than the safety version most of us use

No, it only plays I-V-vi-IV progressions in root position. Don't worry, as a church musician who likes playing church music, I'm allowed to knock it! I didn't think getting into the root position was acceptable behaviour in church, I guess things must have changed since I was there This sounds interesting how are you going for pics Mike?

Hey Obsidianhorse and Reinhold, cheers for the messages left on the video page, yes Obsidi the LP in the background is an Ibby 70's Les Paul copy, it has the lawsuit headstock It is one of my fave 3 a side shapes, I also like the Guild and Hagstrom headstock shapes. I had the brass nut put on it because I like metal nuts. I went in to a guitarshop and a dude was in there riffing on it, I could see it was a 70's model, as soon as he put it down, said he would think about and walked out, I turned to the shop guy and said wrap it up, I'll take it. If there is anyone reading this who is thinking about making a guitar, and wondering how much tools are needed, here is what I used Power - router, drill press, hand drill, jigsaw Hand - plane, round bastard, rasp, sureform, coping saw, spokeshave, minifiles Workbench - I wish, just a crappy little fold out trestle table Which probably cost me all up around $475 I liked Johnny Foreigner's post where he said that the last stages of the build were so exciting, I agree making a guitar is exciting, so if you haven't already go for it

Fantastic guitar, so beautiful and unique, the fact that you used the antique body makes it even cooler

Two of my fave solos are from and you can hear me playing them on those links if you are interested. What I like in a solo is melody, I like to pick out the melody from old songs like, Scarborough Fair and folk songs, this gets me out of the habit of just playing widdly diddly scales. Have a listen to Kill Hannah's "Lips Like Morphine" that song leaves you singing the solo melody. Sweeping, tapping and speed in the right places in a solo can really make it. Have you checked out freshbt.com to download backing tracks to practice on? have fun

Why can't I edit my previous post!?! Specifically, the embarrassing typo!! If you only knew the half of it... So glad I am not the only one there is still one typo left, but it's not embarrassing, so let's leave it.

The deep green ripples look great against the gold Floyd. Digging the matching clamps on the fretboard gluedown and the paint scuffs on the handles, been tightening those with multi grips?

This would look cool stained deep red with some, retro looking pups, chrome and black plastic pickguard.

Good to see this back on track again.