Muzz

That's lovely. I see more creatures in the bookmatch. Including a bird of some sort looking directly at me.

SR

I almost saw the bird, then this bear's face in the bookmatch started staring back at me

Lovely grain, but I think the neck might be just a little bit short on this one.

Nah, its an explorer maniduke. 8" scale!

every guy says that is the scale of their "explorer"

Ash is the bomb isn't it. Looking awesome

Gotta agree, it's all looking good

Definitely the round heel that kicks it over.

I've got a design trying to ferment in my head, but no actual guitar work is going on just now, it'll probably start just after the first of the year. I've been carving up some scrap wood to tide me over while the design fully forms.

I completely subscribe to the concept of rewarding oneself with a choice brew after a productive day's work!

Cheers!

SR

It's great letting ideas for future projects evolve naturally at there own pace, I love thinking about what to do in the future.

I routed as far as could from the top all the way round

I grabbed the bit second on the back

and trimmed the last bit off

Here's John T's arm

http://www.savagechickens.com/images/chickenbigfoot67_77.jpg

Lovely grain, but I think the neck might be just a little bit short on this one.

This is coming along nicely. Your template shape makes me think of John Travolta doing his Saturday Night Fever dance.

That Pils looks tasty too.

SR

Oh that is too funny, I see it now, it's the round heel that helps the illusion. Hey I read somewhere not to reward yourself with food, it didn't say anything about rewarding yourself with beer, that pils tasted so good. Are you working on any projects at the moment Scott?

I went to see this band, Lil' Hazel on Saturday night, they rocked the joint.

Got a bit more shaping done tonight

Time to take the template off its work is done, I'll cut some of that excess off and get the last 6 mm routing from the top down, then flip it over and use a bottom roller bit.

Got set up for starting shaping the body, set the mood by listening to this,

Set up my routing track to stop the router from wobbling

and started off with the tiny bit to get a clean cut at the top

Got to here before the tiredness set in, one little clack on the right side, should sand out, everything else OK

I used the BOWWAHDII to drill thin perpendicular holes through the blank and then drilled in from either side with a 10 mm bit

Good to see my tried and true, high-tech jig theory being used.

your high-tech jig is a marvel, what would we do without it? The piece of wood I used for the jig is a garden stake made of Aussie hard wood jarrah which is beautiful timber and up to about 10 years ago was used here to make fences. Some smart people caught on to this and bought old grey jarrah fence palings and sanded them back to reveal the lovely deep oxblood colour and grain and made cafe tables out of them. Now all fences here are made out of treated pine.

I used my jigsaw this morning to rough cut the body

the dust extractor on the jigsaw doesn't work as well as that on on the router, it does keep a lot of the air borne dust down though, one more cut to go

and the rough cut is done

I did my ritual victory dance of playing air neck guitar with the rough cut body, anybody else have these weird little rituals that you do at certain stages of the build?

and then screwed the template onto it

I used the BOWWAHDII to drill thin perpendicular holes through the blank and then drilled in from either side with a 10 mm bit all went well except the last hole, the bit was too sharp and threw out a chip that just might make it into body territory.

I squirted pva glue under the chip and clamped some mdf over it, also clamped the blank to the trestle table, if I don't do that the wood will jump off the trestle and fall on the floor.

I'll leave that chip to heal up

I can see some overlap between the Iceman and Destroyer shapes

More work on the blue print

Template getting drawn onto the blank

Making a BOWWAHDII to drill some pilot holes close to the curves in the body, these holes will be enlarged and give the jigsaw room to turn. I have learnt that you should not expect your jigsaw to turn in solid 48 mm timber without the cut angle straying off 90 degrees and slicing inside the line on the underside of your body blank. So I will be making straight cuts.

Just punch that @#$%^$ down a few mm with a small bullet head nail and carry on as normal

Looks like a fantastic trip, is that Rome in the top pic?

When I put the template onto the plan I realized my plan needs the neck shifted one fret to the right, time to rub out and redraw, the heel needs a little refining too, everything else looks OK.

I ordered this harmonica bridge for it today

That's right, now I remember the mirrored one is a rock chick magnet.

I routed along the straight lines on the template until I got the curves. I clamped scraps of mdf 6 cm (the distance from the bit to the router edge) away from where I wanted to stop to stop routing into the curves.

and took it outside to use the cheese grater on the curves

Finished off with these

Disaster has struck yesterday. This guitar and a couple other received their FINAL COATS yesterday. They were hanging like they have for months, the way I have for years, the way even PRS hangs for finishing... But yesterday was not this guitars lucky day. Fell a good ways right onto the headstock tip; CF rods wouldn't allow it to split like an LP does, but there was so much force it just took what it could:

That looks like a clean break with no splintering, my friend had a similar break in his Les Paul neck and it was expertly fixed, are you going to have a go at rescuing it?

The more you stain then rub back and start again, the better it will look in the end

So... why dontcha ever go for something besides an Ibanez design?

Here's one I made earlier

the Ibanez thing ...... my friends and family have tried interventions, they put Gibsons and Fenders into my hands and say see, aren't they nice too? Nothings works ...

You made a Destoyer a few years back didn't you John?

Rough cutting the template

Plugged my router into the vacuum and put a mdf straight edge along the first router cut

Here's the pattern following bit I am using

then just rolled the router along the straight edge

I cleaned up the last little bits of the edges

smeared Selleys Aquadhere PVA glue over both edges and clamped down

wiped off the overspill and left it until tomorrow

close up of the join

time for beer

wonders what we're getting this time....

Hey supplebanana, this and my obsession with Ibanez guitars should give you a clue

A few weeks back I picked up my mate Mick's Cry Baby Wah pedal by mistake and chucked it in my gig bag, Mick thought he left the wah behind at the studio and someone must have nabbed it so he went on to Ebay to find another one. While on Ebay he came across this cool Destroyer body and bought it.

Mick suggested I trace the body on to a template before he assembled it, once I did that though I wanted to get building

I found this online

and I have started drawing my own

I went to the mall this morning to buy my blank canvas, I like drawing up the plans

You have always got to have good rubbers, I picked these ones up with little slogans on them

Rock maple for the neck

I didn't get any Wenge, although I felt like loading up the car with timber from that place. I did pick up some rock maple and some kauri pine.

That is a truly unique and beautiful instrument, I love the looks on the couple's faces, they are so stoked.with it.

That looks to be very nearly the same place ol' Pointy Stick started his life......

SR

It is very close to where ol" Pointy started life, it's even the same table you can see him on in this old post

talking of lives, Don in our band asked me how old the wood was, I have no idea, it's Queensland maple and I am unaware of how fast that species grows.

Here's a pic from Anagote timber yesterday,

I found my piece of wood

and here is Dave thicknessing it up for me

while I was there I went into the exotic room and saw this, I don't know what it is but it looks cool, but was very heavy

after that I went to The Town & Country Hotel (Slim Dusty sang about it in the song "Duncan", they even filmed the video there) and had some Thai chilli basil prawns and a lovely cold Reschs beer.

I dropped by Anagote Timber today and found this