Muzz

Cool, looking forward to seeing it, check back on Sunday, I might have something to show you then I can see some behind the counter, and that girl leaving the shop has just bought three singles, that's why she looks so excited, she's rushing home to pimp her strat My model/prototype is made up of 2 pieces of 16 mm MDF and two pieces of 6 mm MDF glued together. It is amazing how quick you can cut out and route a body shape when you are prepared to treat it mean, the one on the left took under 40 minutes from blank to this. I go by the principle that the first pancake never works out, so I am building this guitar with the prototype one to a few steps in front. Scorpions raawwwk

Great carve and paint, thumbs up on this one although I can't see any leso ( slang for Les Paul) or tele in it, it must have highly evolved, what's on the headstock?

That surely qualifies me for the mad scientist club, even though I only fitted 5 frets, hope the gods of nitrocellulose spraying smile on you any idea where i can buy some of these pickups in quantities of less than 20? i can't find anywhere that stocks 'em (especially in the UK) I've tried these pickups (PAF's @8K) & they're the best sounding PU's I've heard. grunt with articulation, sensitivity with balls, only way i can describe them. cheap as f*ck too.... if you can find 'em Yep, they are at the head of the pack on tone, and while they are new they have to keep their price a bargain, I got put onto them by the dude at an Aussie shop called Stairway to Kevin, they had a big range but sadly I think that shop has gone out of business. You can try MelMusic http://www.melmusic.com.au/shop/index.php?categoryID=716 they have some in stock and may be able to ship to you and get other models. If anyone has tried Rustins Plastic Coating, let me know how it went, this dude put it on his guitar made out of a fireplace Brian May, if you are a member of PG I'd love to get some tips on using Rustins And Melvyn Hiscock recs it in his book, but I have never used it before. I'll try it out on some scrap on the weekend, all the coats are supposed to be put on in one day, it's two pack but you can store the mix for days without it hardening, cool.

I saw something on the Misc thread about talking about things in your life is what pubs are for, well you know what, I was at the pub on Friday and you guys were not there, guess I'll have to chat to you here . My Rustins finish arrived today, I am looking forward to trying this stuff out. Hey look at this, you can fret an MDF fingerboard And a scraptastic neck needs a scraptastic body to go with it, lots of divets in this one You know I used to be a huge fan of DiMarzio pickups, well I still am, but if you haven't tried Woo Sung Chorus (WSC) pick ups, do yourself a favour and give them a go, they sound just as good as DMs. I put this link to vid of me tapping on a Woo Sung Chorus fitted guitar on the Misc thread, I'll put here too Hang loose

Thanks, yeah it turned out all right, It's nice to get geed from across the globe over the interweb, I still have a little bit to take off from the bit that houses the nut, but there is no rush on this build. I am looking forward to screwing this one into the ash, but I am going to practice on the prototype first to get the levels right. A Jem has a 0.9 mm rise for the neck angle over the length of the neck pocket, I put a 0.9 mm rise on the neck and will route the pocket flat. I had a thought for a real easy way of making a neck pocket template, I haven't seen anyone do it quite like this so I thought I'd share. I positioned the practice neck on a piece of 16 mm thick MDF so it points straight. You can see centre lines have been drawn so everything lines up I then glued and screwed bits of 6 mm MDF with the factory cut edges against the the neck. Then I cut out the 16 mm MDF and routed along the edges of the screwed on bits. This gave a very neat template And a tight fit on the practice neck Once the neck is sitting in the template pocket, a piece of string or a long ruler can be run down the centre line of the neck to reposition the centre line on the template, in this trial it was all OK and didn't have to be redrawn.

Absolutely, I'd rather have that than a stock Gibson Explorer

Nice save on the neck, such a hot looking guitar, how did you grind through the frets and wood in a straight line?

I think a one piece mahogany neck with dark fingerboard would look like the bee's knees on this guitar

Hi Johns, This is the first neck I have made so I have never done a bound fingerboard, but I don't see why not, I am guessing a bit of the tang would be snipped off so it wouldn't penetrate the binding and then yes, I think the file on a 75 degree angle would work. Are you making a bound fingerboard? Here is a pic from Nov 2009, it looks so weird to look at this rough sawn timber now G'Day Mike, I think there is the slightest teeniest bit of overlap in our senses of humour Trying out the size on a paper print out, I will order some water slide decal paper tomorrow I ordered some Rustins Plastic Coating two pack yesterday, it looks nice on something that is special and red, I figure it might look good on something blue and pointy. Hey Luis, beginner's luck, I can't wait to play Turn The Page on it

Cool, will do Yeah the neck is the crucial thing in a guitar build isn't it, for me the neck has to be strong but not too thick, straight and it has to feel good, I am now a big fan of rock maple, it feels like warm marble when it is sanded up. I now have to clean/sand all the metal filing dust off that neck, you were right about stuff getting into maple My first go at doodling around with a logo

Just use the rolling pin holder to support the neck and a nice polyurethane head hammer from the Auto shop and you can hammer your frets in after shaping without a worry in the world. Your neck looks fantastic (your neck for the guitar that is, although I am sure your neck does look very nice) beaut colour on the fretboard and the inlays look wicked. Great stuff.

I think a template route on this one will look schmicko, go for it

Looking forward to seeing more of the chisel carve.

It looks great, love one piece bodies, the animals might feel good, and I wouldn't remove the original finish on the back, that and the carving gives the guitar history, clear over the whole shebang. Mang this issue has polarized the respondents, preserve the wildlife

Hey glad you like it, I got all the frets in, and snipped off the excess. Then to square off the frets I used a similar but simpler technique as the one in the tutorial section on this site Click Here I used a right angled block of wood, held a file against one side and ran it along the frets until they were squared off. Then rasped and planed a 75 degree angle into some wood held the file against the angle and ran it along the fret ends The tutorial was right, this gets a factory style bevel on all the frets Love the jumbo fret wire Making sure the neck and fretboard were dead flat at each stage paid off, the frets are perfectly in line and level right along and across the board, there is absolutely no need to level and redress them. All they need are the bevels to be lightly sanded. Next stage the decal and finish and that's it for the neck.

Great neck, is that a trad nut and a locking nut on there? never seen those two cuddling up before

Cool headstock.

Went to Bunnings today to get a round file, I had forgotten the real name for them, Oh I want my baby back, baby back, baby back, I want my baby back, baby back ribs. Wondering what this thing would look like with a pearly plate.

100% Putting the glue in the holes Being careful not to drop this one, I'd never find it again Bit more work to do on the headstock, then glue on the fretboard

Nothing on ADA or Engl I'm outy.

Hey the forum is getting SWAMPed with ASH guitars, BOOM BOOM. This one looks fantastic

I marked out the fingerboard with a centre line, measured the middle of the fret, then to be absolutely sure drew a diagonal from each corner of the fret space, all lines should converge on the centre of the dot. It really helped that I had a floppy at the time other wise it could have been a bit awkward, I am talking about my floppy ruler of course which is good for measuring on a radiused fretboard. All pricked like a sanga on a barbie, ready for the centre point bit. Tried the first fit, it looks OK. All done, its time to stop for a Tiger beer, dots in tomorra.

OK you made me feel a lot better, I thought I was being compulsive. You know I can't remember where I read to use polyurethane glue, maybe in Melvyn Hiscock's book? I can't check, I had to give it back to the library. I have never used polyurethane before but I went to the hardware store and bought some, it was $20 for this tiny tube, wow I thought this must be good, I could have nearly bought an entire pointy neck from Guitar Fetish (the batch that the factory forgot to rout the nut position) for that. On the pack it had a broken cricket bat being fixed and it said all the right things like it being flexible, etc. Then I broke my golden rule that is always try new stuff out on scrap, and glued it in. The truss rod I am using is a Gotoh brand with a steel box, and the box slightly tapers towards the side that sits in the bottom of the channel, so at the top there is about 0.5 mm space between the box and the wood on either side. The polyurethane glue did not fill that space, the glue was runny like model aircraft glue. After 2 hours after it was supposed to be set but the glue on the spreader was like old crumbly but sticky silicone. I was feeling decidedly uneasy at this point, so I decided to take the rod out, and do some more research. It came out pretty easily so, I think you are right, even though the glue takes 24 hours to reach maximum strength. So I went with something I am familiar with, Araldite epoxy, and tried again. This time the glue was viscous and the leftovers went very hard but flexible and did inspire confidence. This time I felt good about it, the glue filled the gaps nicely. Close up. In blokey speak, that ain't goin anywhere. Trying the hardware out on my scrap wood practice neck, this was made from a piece of wood 1 mm thinner than the real neck. Happy trails

Sanded out the concave regions in the template with sandpaper taped around a rod. Ran my fingers around the curves feeling for any dents or convexes, put the flexy curve over these and filed and sanded them out. Started to butcher the block, I don't have a band saw so preparation is needed for a jigsaw cutout, as it gets smaller the faces get more flat, I might not have to buzz it to face up after all, sanding might be all it needs. Started sketching ideas for the headstock. Looking forward to getting my fretboard and truss rod in the mail soon.

Guitar envy I'm gonna have it worse when the pups go in.