Muzz

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?

The sun came out today so I can finish off the pictures in this thread with some in brighter light.

Happy building everyone

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.

More to come! I recently came to the realization that I now have only 5 weeks left to complete the two of these!!!! Gotta work overtime for now on!

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?

This guitar really turned out nice Muzz! You should put the image of the block of wood up next to the new image of the guitar by the pool. Link works too I guess, but it would be cool to see them together!

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"

By the way, does anyone have any advice in leveling the inlays after gluing them in on a compound radiused fretboard? I bought these pre-radiused and I dont wanna sand it down when I go to level the dot inlays. Thanks in advance!

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.

I find the *entire* process enthrallingly exciting, but early on there's a definite sense that you only have a potentially awesome guitar. The closer you get to the end without major foo-bars, and the more this lump of wood starts to look like the thing you saw in your mind's eye all those weeks/months ago.... that's a pretty special moment, it has to be said.

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

That is a waterproof exterior glue, so it would be like Titebond 2. I think you would have problems trying to get dye to take on the glue lines. For guitar building, you would be much better off getting the Selleys Aquadhere Interior which will take dye.

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.

Thank HEAVEN you cut straighter than you draw!

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

I'm still a little confused about "Church Bass". Now I know what a regular Bass is, but how is a "Church Bass" Different? Does it only play amazing grace or something? Limited to 70 BPM? Not allow slapback?

Sorry, I crack myself up.

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

anyone want to lend some help?

Two of my fave solos are from

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

I'm lovin' you're recent builds.

Why can't I edit my previous post!?! Specifically, the embarrassing typo!!

clearly as compulsive obsessive as I am!!

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.

That is looking good, nice correction of a split infinitive in the post title , looking forward to more pics of your progress.