Muzz

Beautiful work, the vine F hole is one of my fave features on this guitar, but the plate, bridge, vibby bar and pups all combine to give a great look.

This is my Pointy Stick, my second body, first neck

If you didn't read the thread here's what you missed,

My friend told me about this great timber shop, I went to check it out, came back with a huge slab of ash and some lovely rock maple.

I designed the shape using a pencil and paper, hacked it out, bought some Gotoh hardware and a single coil pup and a Redback humbucker

Swapped a lot of jokes on the forum, had a stack of laughs, got heaps of help, ideas and encouragement. Stained it blue, rubbed back, stained it black, rubbed back stained it blue again. Finished the guitar, I love the feel of it and the sound, posted a video of it at

And that's what you missed :D

I'm doing a guitar project and I don't know what fret wire i want!

http://www.lutherie.net/fret.chart.html

Just say which size you guys prefer and why. At the moment i am leaning towards something Jumbo, but i have been hearing that it is hard to slide up and down the neck. Also, i hear that Jumbo's tend to go out of tune if you press to hard and also go out of tune when you try to do chords...is this true? Whats the biggest Jumbo that is decent with chords, sliding and don't go real sharp if pushed down?

Well that's my speech...so what types of frets you guys like to play with and why? You guys like Jumbo? Medium? Stainless steel or Nickel Silver? Any opinions greatly appreciated! (take note of the link provided for wire sizes)

Super jumbo, you know you want to

Still loving this thread, the shape is looking wicked

I've been playing around with my rig for a while trying to thicken up my sound. At the moment my rig consists of an alder bodied strat with cheap pickups (Going to install some Bare Knuckle Nailbombs in the next few weeks) into a Boss ME30 into in Epi Valve Junior stack. The Nailbombs should thicken up the sound a bit and get me a better tone then the $10 HBs in there now. Although I'm still looking to thicken things up a bit and I'm thinking about some sort of Mid Boost? Which comes to my next problem, how do I go about doing this?

Thanks in advance!

hey Cam, your good quality pups that you are getting will make a big difference. If your amp has an effects loop keep your eye out for a good valve preamp that you can plug into your loop return. These can get varied and phat sounds and are lots of fun, go well in your quest for tone nirvana

Muzz - great job. I like that you had a snarfle or two that you worked around and that you saw it out to the finish. Way to go ! as far as the video , nice stuff! Just write something original and the copyright BS isnt in play.

Check out this guy : http://www.youtube.com/user/ZackKim#p/u/44/P-B4sjUve3E

double ibanez!!

Yep I did dodge a few snarfles along the way, for example I did notice that the stain went into the end grain darker when I was testing on scraps, but didn't think too much about it, Wez' post brought it to the front of my mind and I think I got the depth of colour close enough at the bottom edge as compared to the top and bottom.

I was also all set to put a 3 mm space around the floyd in the route when I saw Wes' post on another thread about getting in as tight as possible, I thought about it and halved the space, so glad I did.

Isn't that video funny, now that is how to get out of piano lessons, play your piece on twin Ibbies.

WOW! That is the greatest guitar I've seen in a while! The heel does actually look comfortable after I seen you play it. So what's next?

-gk

Glad you like it, I saw Our Souls' Sam n' Ella's guitar and the idea of a 50/60s vibe with the 80s floyd appealed to me, I went for sort of Burns horns to give my guitar a 60's vibe. Next? I will take a little break and get my guitar project fix vicariously watching yours and every one's projects. One idea I do have though is a rounded strat like shape in candy apple red and 26" scale.

Awe I missed the finish! I thought this thread would still be building by he time I got back

Hey better late than never and not by that much, welcome back

Great job, good as new but with extra character

Fantastic paint job, that is gonna have impact plus when the metal plate goes on.

Just saw that my vid has been labelled "may have content that is owned or licensed by Sony Music Entertainment"

and has been blocked in Germany but has been allowed in the rest of the world phew

come on Germany, is a vid of a dude playing his guitar in his room along with a tape that will get about 50 hits gonna do that much damage?

Cheers guys, I was just so relieved that it all fitted together when it came time to assemble. I am still in a bit of shock that it did. I am so pleased that I hung out for the super jumbo frets, I do not know why they make the fretboard feel good, because your fingers don't touch the frets Really enjoying being able to do both, up vibrato like a tune o matic and down vibrato like a strat, on the one guitar.

Akula in that vid the guitar was just running through a POD, a sound card and then into my crappy little lap top. Here are the settings except the Output Level was at 12 o' clock.

Behringer make an equivalent to POD but I have never heard what they are like.

Here's where I set the action, as a first go, but I am liking it there so I am just going to leave it.

Here's a question. I had some of the clear chip out on the upper horn right near the strap pin, can you drop fill 2k poly? I understand it won't blend into previous coats but it should fill the chip, then i can level and buff it back. Thoughts?

Oh that guitar is looking stunning, you know that finish is just fantastic, awesome job. If you do the chip fill and buff back carefully the margin should be hardly noticed.

Video of the guitar at

backing track from freshbt.com

Agggghhhh that one looks fantastic too, the binding is really doing it for me, you and John are dragging me over to the spalt side

Lets keep this train on the rails!

It's a little bit late for that isn't it

Mr potato head? Should i take that as a compliment

Yes, I love to treat my guitars like Mr. Potato head and just swap a pup, knobs, pickguard etc. Can't wait for Toy Story 3.

Threads of Life cd!!!!! That CD is on heavy repeat for me! Aussie and a shadows fall fan!!

Oh yeah, that CD went around a few times while I was planning and making this guitar, tell everyone to go and listen to "Redemption' that song just sends me to a happy place.

Good times. Hey that's great about the colour scheme, I think I did mine a little different I'll go and hijack your thread to show you some inbetween steps

Gravy baby. Im doin 2 JS models just now. one of them is Ash finished in blue, Along with a strat in blue with a pearloid pickguard.

Feel free to hijack the crap outa the blue JS when it starts going up. Ash body with an Ash neck & rosewood board. just to see how it sounds you know.

But the black grained blue thing rocks so ill be doin that for its body.

Great, your Satchmo looked fantastic in the black stain, my guitar body looked like one of those sculptures that you used to make at school, where you burnt it with a blow torch and then wire brushed it.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the blue went on

Well, if'n I was hand-sanding it off I rekon it wudda taken me quite a gol-darned spell.

Who the gol blazes would hand sand off a thick, black viscous layer of epoxy?

I used 320 grit sandpaper on my orbital sander to give me time and control (slow and careful removal) until I could see wood pretty much throughout, then switched to a cabinet scraper and was done in about 10 additional minutes.

The scraper made extremely quick work of the epoxy, leaving me a very nice flat and filled Paduak topster.

I don't think I even broke a sweat.

Looks like a good and time efficient technique to me, it should bring the body in really flat ready for the clear coats, very similar to what I did with two pack recently. Lotsa different ways of doing stuff

Hey Paulie, I thought you were doing the blue over the black? Maybe on another guitar.

What are you thinking of replacing with cherry red, just the back or front and back?

I don't usually like spalted anything, but I like this spalted top a lot, something about the colours and balck lines around the grains has a lovely effect, so now it's my turn to say, hurry up and finish the %^&#*^! thing

Looks really good Definatly liking the blue finihs btw. I guess when they say good things come with time they weren't joking

Thanks, the other colour I was thinking about was a golden oak, but looking at it now I am glad I went with the blue.

Okay thats pretty cool.

I love the finish, I love the way the Floyd Rose grabs your attention, the scratchplate actually works really well...

You know I was going off the idea of the plate at this point my first design wasn't suiting it, but when I did a design with a pointy bit for the knobs and switch, it became a must have for me. The plate was the third part of the build on this guitar, it took a while and they are unforgiving if you make a slip. I made a black felt mat for the trem cavity, I never thought I would shop in Spotlight craft store for guitar parts

Only thing I dont like is the fact that this thread is gona end now

But realy cool guitar muzz, im in the process of ripping off your colour scheme even as I type this

Good times. Hey that's great about the colour scheme, I think I did mine a little different I'll go and hijack your thread to show you some inbetween steps

Good job Muzz. Thats one really clean guitar built by a fellow Aussie!

Hey another Aussie on board, I made nearly all my mistakes on my MDF model, you should see that poor abused piece of material, I shudder when I look at it to think how this wouldn't have turned out without the practice on the prototype first.

Nice Muzz! It looks really good mate, Lovin it! For a bit of contrast, black knobs and pickups would look very cool with the pearl pickguard aswell, it would pick up the grain in that ash.

Why does the thread have to stop just keep posting and make it bigger than the sustainer thread.

I did put a couple a black SC pickup cover in the pickguard at one point to see what it looks like, yep you are right it does look good, I see you are into the Mr Potato Head style of guitar blinging too.

Or I could just start building another guitar in this thread I have quite a few parts left over .

Just joking, but I do have to still post some sounds.

Barring any complications this instrument is gonna be finished by Saterday arvo, touch wood.

It's about time!

Ken oath Speedy

Just finished it, it's 11 pm in so no day light, I'll take some more pics on the weekend and post them, thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread for all the laughs, help and encouragement. It was great chatting with you guys along the way.

Welcome to the Elevator From He11....

OH THE HORROR!!!

Richard Cheese I just got it,

Dimarrzioooo................

Freekin sweet.

Just had a weird 30 minutes, I have got the wired pickguard in, the geet is lying on my desk and I tested it by connecting to the amp, buzz buzz buzz, like a hoard of vuvuzelas, I tested all my connections, couldn't work out what was going on. Then I was holding the guitar cord in one hand and moved my other hand towards the desk, the buzz increased. My desk has a metal frame and was causing the noise, as soon as I took the geetar off the desk, the noise vanished. Crisis over.

Put in the trem craw (it's not the craw, it's the craw!) it's late, time to stop.

Barring any complications this instrument is gonna be finished by Saterday arvo, touch wood.

The Kelly is a fantastic adaptation of the Explorer shape and you have done a great job on the body cut/route out, this is gonna be sweet.

It looks fantastic, love the metal art.

NOT TICKLESACK !!!! NOOOOOoooooooooo.......

I've got one, Dave Grohl has gone vegetarian, he is going to rename his band Tofu Fighters

Here's where I am up to now

Wow, that is a different way to make a blank

Body finish is done

and if killemall gives me any more cheek about the pickguard, his punisment will be to listen to a whole Metallica song ........ wait for it ....

...... sung by Nickelback

I like that you're taking your time with this build. A few weeks ago, I decided to figure out what this stupid pointy stick thread is about, and I really did enjoy reading it! Though it took me 3 days lol.

I like how you build, shoot the ****, build some more etc. It's like watching an episode of "this old house" or "Yankee woodshop".

That's great, a lot of the fun for me on this guitar has been the influence of the chat on this thread on the way this guitar has developed.

Imagine if you spent this much time on a guitar and put it in a shop to sell and some guy grabs it and dings it into something, that would be hard to keep a lid on.

That's why you need to finish it up quick, then you will care less when you drop it.

I can't drop this guitar Stewey, I decided not to round off any of the edges, the 2 pack lacquer I used is rock hard and as Akula points out it would lop my toe off

Wez was saying a while back about neck joins on factory guitars not being as tight as some of the joins we do, here is proof, I saw this in a shop window on Thursday, it is a Gibson Sonex

Look at the space between the body and the neck, you could drive a small toy truck around in that channel. You know what is even more disturbing? Have a look at where the black finish has worn off, that looks like MDF or masonite I have never liked Gibson guitars, this one reinforces that feeling for me.

Here is the gear I should have used for drilling the jack hole