Muzz

Lovely earthy colour, very natural

Absolutely beautiful, I only have one quibble, why no logo on the headstock? Nonetheless, a very desirable guitar.

Any feedback or pointing out of anything is very welcome. Cheers!

Hate to tell you but, the template you made won't work with the humbuckers you are using, because they have wide feet and the template bit doesn't cut right into the corners of the template, I am guessing the bit has a 0.8 cm radius? You need to make a template like this

Buter is right, taking the time to trim your template edges is worth it check out this template

Your guitar is looking really great, I am looking forward to seeing how you go.

Will you just finish this d@mn thing already!!!!!

:D

You shouldn't always be in a rush to reach the finish line, didn't those Scandinavian girls teach you anything?

Won't be too much longer now, I'm polishing it up. Back and sides are done, still working on the front. 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.

I'm looking forward to putting it all together.

Looking great, fluid and smooth, now go watch Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D with those glasses

Filling in the grain

Finally got to the shop to get the jack plate, I bought one of each, another choice to make

Looking good, if it's a Fender style bridge you probably don't need a neck angle, are you going to try it out on your practice body?

Hey that black came off OK, yep I think keep it simple, stick with the trem and have some fun with this.

Good thing we all take guitar building so seriously

Have a great Friday night

It looks really large and uncomfortable...

Well Cam, I have heard that comment from many women about my other pointy stick. I'll give you the same answer that I gave them, yes it may look a bit large, but the way it is shaped makes it very comfortable

Art

Fantastic , gold trem is hot, what pickups are going in? DiMarzio XN2?

I like guitars better when they have had a mistake and then been fixed, I have no idea why except that it may reflect a strength of character in the builder.

Dude that is a seriously cool guitar, but what happened to brown wooden guitars yuk? Never mind, when it's that shapely you get a leave pass

I stained with blue and rubbed back first before staining with black and rubbing back, this brought up the grain but kept it looking dark blue.

So now I am just building up the layers of clear.

Hey Duke, I can certainly see the irony here I have been working away at putting a floyd cavity in, while you have been filling yours up

The strings do seem to be sitting low on the neck, is that the problem? Whatever the issue, don't worry, everything can be fixed.

the ash will drink up a lot more stain on the ends.... have you tested for that too? It will end up a lot darker than that blue in some areas which is why i would lean towards trans lacquer on something like this for a more consistent look, or you need to experiment with staining techniques such as prewetting the end grain to prevent rapid absorbtion

Yep you were right about Rustins taking a stain well, and going over the top with a tinted lacquer evens things out nicely.

The other tip I forgot to throw out there is that Rustins goes straight over a decal no worries, no crinkling at all as long as you don't thin it, saves all that mist spraying.

I am going for a very deep blue.

Starting to coat with lacquer.

2nd coat on now, it's hanging on a coat hanger (with a bean bag underneath, I have read too many posts where the body falls off the hook )

Lovely work Erik, that instrument is bonza

I don't know what them other bits of stained wood on your desk look like but you ain't gonna go wrong with a guitar the color of that chunk above...

B

Great, red looked OK as did golden oak, but I think you are right, this guitar is telling me it wants to be blue.

Yea. the blue always looks good on ash. Doin a blue ash geet myself, With some black gone on first to bring the grain way up.

I assume the pickguard is white, like the pups ? this thing is gona look schweeeeeet !!!

But get a move on - your as slow as me

Oh yeah, I went for the white pearl, and yep Axl Rose is going to finish Chinese Democracy before this guitar gets strung up

I am going to try concentrated dark blue for the grain accents first, if it is not intense enough, yep it will get some black.

Lining up the neck plate

Drilling in the neck screw holes

Haven't seen anyone do this with the heal before, so I thought I would

And that is all the routing, drilling shaping finished, next step rub off all the pencil marks, there is a lot of them, and then on to staining.

I love this thread and its digital dreaming about guitar design, I don't care that we are in no danger of seeing any sawdust anytime soon

Me and you gotta start the McGuiver club...............

Nice work , as you've displayed throughout. Don't get in a hurry at this point - the finish is the last half of the journey .

Yep we have qualified for that club a few times over, now if I could just figure out how to scoop out the ferrule holes with my Swiss Army knife ..........

My desk is covered with little bits of ash all stained in different colours, here is my fav so far

Hey ray and Stewey, delivering the good oil on the auger/speedbor bits, I have crossed them off the potential guitar equipment list, they sound nasty. Just got to knock the corner off the heel and drill the holes for the neck screws and I am at the stain and finish stage.

Drilled the earth wire hole today, I drew a diagram to get the angle and used a piece cut out of a wire coat hanger for a long bit.

I saw another type of bit that might be good, like a big chunky bit with a screw on the end, don't know what they are called or if anyone has used one for an input hole.

Speedbor

http://secure.newellrubbermaid.com/irwin/c...IrwinProd160002

I have one. I didn't like it. The screw end pulled the rest of the bit faster than the wood would allow it to go. Made a real mess of the whole thing. Maybe I was doing it wrong - I don't know.

Hmm I better be careful when I try one of those

I used a guide to point a 3mm drill in the right direction

I was holding my breath hoping I had got it right until I saw the end poke out

Reamed it out with a 6 mm

Close enough to on target

Beautiful craftsmanship.

A forstner is cleaner, but a spade is faster. I like to start with one and switch to the other. This also saves the forstners as they dull a LOT faster than a spade.

I saw another type of bit that might be good, like a big chunky bit with a screw on the end, don't know what they are called or if anyone has used one for an input hole.

I used a guide to connect the humbucker route to the control cavity

Testing the fit

I had my first slip of the router, the guide wasn't clamped hard enough, if you want to see mild guitar injury click here

But I took it out with a spade router bit

And that's it for the routing on this project, just some hand shaping around the neck area and drilling to do

Yep red with a white pup, and pickguard? would look cool.