Muzz

with apologies for thread hijacking, how essential is it that you be able to lift the entire guitar by the neck before gluing? mine isn't there by the tiniest fraction (barely barely visible to the human eye) and I was hoping some glue expansion would somewhat fill the gap. Hard to tell without seeing, but I would go with PVA if the surfaces touch together OK, if you have enough surface like that to hold the joint, just mix some saw dust with PVA for the bits where there is some space, if you are not sure consider a space filling glue, why not post a pic.

I wonder what ever happened to Josh , anyway I followed his advice he was right, it looks a bit better like that Tom was asking how essential is it that you can lift the guitar up by the neck before gluing, it is absolutely essential, otherwise when you do this shot you will just have a neck sticking up in the air I took the block off the bridge, to check the centre line, it's fine, no need to redraw. Next step drill out the post holes.

1985 I believe. 1985 Catalog What a great site, and the title is so true I can't believe they sent you to Princey Pal for that, and called your rents good that people like GS had an influence on you, playing guitar is such a positive addiction. Gene Simmons' TV series 'Rock School' showed him in a whole new light, I had a ton of respect for the dude after seeing that. At the end when those young kids that he coached absolutely kicked major butt in front of the Motorhead audience my jaw hit the floor. I lined up the middles on the nut and the fretboard It went on OK, proved a point to myself that you can cut out a fretboard end for a locking nut with hand tools, you don't need to route it. I found my double sided tape, it was in the fourth drawer down used it to stick a brace on and lined up the template Routed down to 10 mm then unscrewed the top pieces of the template and kept going to 19.5 mm I'll post some pics with the neck in the body tomorrow.

Fan#%$&*!~tastic I love everything about it, now go shred on that thing

Of course, the reason is that if I showed off copies of 'Big and Bouncy' on the desk (I have been told they have photographically illustrated stories like 'Three nurses and a candle' where one nurse says, "Where's the candle?" and another one misunderstands and says, "I have noticed that it wears the candle" and then the other one answers, "No silly" and shows them the present location of the candle) our conversation would just go completely off topic, you would be telling me stuff, like, you have never bought a copy of Big and Bouncy but you have put a deposit on one. So we will just have to stick with the guitar mags. But stick with this post and I will show you a photo of one of my nuts. You will have a fantastic time, I saw them a couple of years back, totally here's some pics one of my friends took. http://i43.tinypic.com/2elcqy0.jpg' alt='2elcqy0.jpg'> and here is my Iceman with a great brass inclusion on the nut, to make the open chords go kerrang John Avenger's Iceman is looking fab so far, looking forward to seeing yours, Rock and Roll

I put tape around the edges of the top of the template to fractionally reduce the size and make the cavity a tight fit routed out the underside of the template. The router I am using has a dust extraction fitting which is great but it does reduce the plunge depth. So in this template I increased the thickness of the top parts and when I get to the limit of the plunge I can unscrew them and keep going. Advantage, the route starts off at 2 mm so there is no shuddering in the router and it will hopefully get a clean cut. To get an accurate centre line inside the pocket I held a block against an in side, placed a ruler against it and continued the line with a pencil. Dis the same on the other side, and marked the middle, flipped the template over and repeated the process on the bottom, joined the dots, that's the centre line. Drawing the centre line on the body, I kept the paper template and folded it in half, lined it up on the body, easy. Lining it up Ready for routing later.

Making the neck pocket template, lining up the direction of the centre line with a piece of string If the neck falls it has a nice soft bean bag to fall into.

Yep going for a bit of a retro look, so no swoosh, when did the swoosh appear? Anyway, finished the finish Working on the neck pocket.

Rusty wood, looking forward to seeing what is going on there.

Oh yeah the chrome is the finishing touch, because the profile of the guitar is made of thin bars, and because the eye tends not to see black bars (have a look at a black pool fence it kind of disappears) the chrome has brought out the definition in the profile.

Like the body shape, I have just used Stuart Mac super duper jumbo fret wire, great stuff.

So great to see someone using veneer and to such a beautiful effect, I plan to do a veneer project soon, this guitar has certainly geed me, it looks awesome, and the grass is green again.

Decal on

I've certainly done that on more than one occasion. Not only to you but to others. I think it's absolutely HILARIOUS when someone gets offended and on their high-horse when you don't do what they say. It's like they think there's only ONE way to do a thing - theirs - and that's it. You know the other one I like? Hold on. I'll do it to you ..... Block of wood with hole drilled in it was originally my idea, I don't mind you using my techniques but I really do think you should credit your sources I certainly do, and more than most .....

Good call that worked well Don't try this technique of doing one quarter at a time, it gets old fast, From now on I'm taking the time to make the templates, I agree with Custom Built Guitars at this post, make em don't buy em Still, for the first time ever I have routed a hole all the way through a (sort of) guitar body

That certainly was a find, the animals look great. The neck is looking lush, terrific match for the body. If it was me, I would trace out the headstock on a template, clean up the lines with a flexible curve, smooth the curves back with a file and sandpaper then use the template to trim up the headstock with an underbite bit, trust me it will look amazing but if you don't like my suggestion just tell me to but out beaky and blow it out my poofoo valve

Beautiful body work Paulie

What's up Paulie, you certainly have a point, this is my favourite and so true Hey OSi, don't worry about being a bad influence on me, wild horses wouldn't stop me from hacking out a cavity for a pick up and stringing that craptastic MDF body model up, I can't wait to hear what an MDF guitar sounds like The amount of frets stays at 5, I even have a backing track (bass, drums, keys and vocals) sitting on my computer waiting to get the MDF rawk and raunch dubbed onto it, it's White Wedding, I can play all of that on 5 frets except for the last bit of the solo and the strat? The model is great for trying different techniques on, playing White Wedding will be its penultimate service to this world, I think we all know what it's last will be G'Day Mender How about that? I never realized that MDF guitars were actually sold I know Gibson once made a body out of masonite, "I wonder how it would sound with a set of Iron Gear pups... " Oh yeah, so do I ....... Howzit Guitarkid, I would believe it, the side of the neck route is already splitting on mine My routing mark out was all out to pot, wrong model, I could draw it out again or I could just cheat The drill press reached the upper stud hole, just, but the bottom one, &%$# and you @#$%, what an unpheasant plucker, the drill bit is just a few ^%$#%$* bee's todgers off. Hey, manyana

I thought astigmatism was a nice bit of driving by the Top Gear pro

Yep that will be interesting to hear what it sounds like, some people assume that MDF won't tone up but who knows until we try it out. MDF would be horrible stuff to try and make an actual guitar out of though, it weighs a ton and has a tendency to split when bits get too thin. If it holds together long enough I'll make some recordings and post them. Yeah, I remember something about that, didn't he post the sound clips first on a different forum and then after people posted that it sounded fantastic he said ha ha it's MDF. I don't know if that proved anything , if he made an MDF shape with cavities and if it vibrated in sympathy with the strings it might sound good. And I know it's a contentious issue about how much extra tone the body gives, friends have fallen out arguing over it, me I'm a bit meh over that debate but most people agree that most of the tone is coming from the pickups so if he had sweet sounding pickups they could sound good screwed into anything. A lovely piece of timber may have added another 5-10 % goodness into the tone, I can't remember if he did a comparison and would an MP3 recording that cuts out highs and lows capture the extra tone that a nice body might give? If I do get the MDF strung up I wouldn't be bothered pulling any stunts, I'll post the clips and say which is which. I gave the practice neck a bit of a buff after getting Rustined I am giving you all the peace sign in this shot Planning out the trem route, got to go and get some more recycled paper board, all I had is in that 3D model.

now I see it, I let the vision go so I can see three images, the one in the middle is composed of the other two and yep it's in 3D.

Nope, I've tried going cross eyed, relaxing my vision etc, can't get the 3D, neck looks cool in the single shot.

Those are fantastic guitars Wez, beautiful finish. On the brown one is that a road I can see reflected with a house at the horizon? OK Henry I think we have a benchmark to work to, I'm geed, you can check out all the different combinations of Rustins plastic stuff at http://www.rustins.com.au/rustins/rustinsp...iccoatingp2.htm Hey Mike, I am guessing you have changed your mind and are thinking, hmm, I've got to get some of that plastic goop I am trying it out now on my practice neck headstock, mixed the syrup and hardener in a caper jar, I'm always up for a caper It's going on now, looks OK so far, I'll post a pic tomorrow. I ran through the neck route on the MDF model, no wuckers except one little drill mark. Then I thought I'd do this shot (no screws in the joint) I would love to see a pic in that pose where the body falls off the neck, I would have laughed if mine did, it didn't then, but later I dropped it off the bench onto the concrete floor, nothing much happened to it. Better remember not to do that with the ash or I'll be all So here is my full size model to test stuff out on

Impactful, I know it's not a real word, but excusable in this case