Setch

Lovely burst - reminds me a lot of my Les Paul. I had to go with a dark burst to hide a booboo in the routing, and ended up likeing the dark burst way more than the original lighter cherry burst. To get rid of the wetsanding gunk, try reaching in through the soundhole and using a scraper to clear away the gunk. Unless it's pentrated into the mape, if should clean right up with a sharp scraper.

Not to remove a wavy fretbard surface you can't. Trussrods adjust relief, and nothing else.

I don't think it looks like a generic super strat. I think it's a great looking design, and I'd like to see it finished. If you're really up for learning, taking a guitar over the finish line is the way to do it. Otherwise you've got no real basis for assessing how well you've done with each stage. You can't rate your neck carving until you've played it, or your fretowrk, or your finish work. It's your guitar, and your business, but I'd like to see a few more finished instruments before you start another new project.

The Les Paul cutaway bend is possible, but not easy. I certainly wouldn't want to do one as my first bit of bending.

Ok - this is shut, as was inevitable. Drak, given that you're the aggressor in this case, I think it's pretty rich for you to be attacking Wez for responding. I also think you need to seriously consider how the forum is benefitted by you calling out new members, and insulting those regulars who are frequent and valuable contributors. It isn't 'your' thread. It's posted on a public forum, and that is an invatiation for public participation. Users who get propriatorial about 'their' threads would be best not to post them in the first place unless they're willing to accept responces which they may disagree with.

Yep, scrapers are the way ahead. If you're not comfortable doing all the shaping/smoothing with one, a couple of strokes after sanding will clean things up. Wiping with a solvent is not a good idea, it's more likely to drive the discolouraion deeper, or make the pigment bleed from the sanding dust into the maple.

I totally agree with Wez. I've been considering closing this thread since the first post, since I was pretty sure it was in dubious taste from the get go. Drak, consider this a polite warning - no newbie baiting, and enough with the cracks at Wez's writing. They're as tedious as they are inaccurate.

Like Wez said, the lack of comments is an indicator than nobody thinks you're messing it up I rarely post anymore unless I see something which really makes me go 'oooh!' or I have an answer to a specific question. Doesn't mean I'm not enjoying the thread or that there's anything wrong with it. Killemall and Wez - I like your projects

+1 - I'm also a big fan of the half pencil.

I make my templates out of 12mm or 19mm MDF or plywood. That allows you to run the bearing of the stew mac 3/8" cutter against the top edge of the template, and create a recess about 2mm deep.

Very nice indeed! Your wife's inlay looks great too.

Not if you keep your pencil sharp - it's like any other tool you use, worthless if it's blunt!

+1 That's exactly what I do. Approximate the bridge location, and stick down a strip of maksing tape. Use a straight edge against the side of the neck to mark the neck taper at the bridge location on the tape. Measure the distance as provided by the Stew Mac calculator - job done.

Splining, dowelling etc gives very little strength to a joint. Not worth the time, and is more likely to interfere with a good fit than it is to improve the repair.

To clarify, there will be a lot of surface area (tons infact, with the splitnered mess!) but there are not many long, side grain glueing surfaces. It's also going to be very difficult to get the joint clamped well in the direction which matters - you want the sidegrain areas to be snugged tight against each other. It's definately worth trying a glue up as ashown in Brian's tutorial, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it goes off like a mousetrap the first time you tune it up.

I did my last few exactly as JMRentis described. Make sure you leave the areas you will remove oversize, so that you can shift them around to get perfect grain alignment. A perfectly quartered body will not need much adjustment, but a flatsawn body will need quite a bit - if you remove a 1/4" section, you may need to move it as far as 1/2" to get the grain to match up.

Ouch. That is a really nasty break. I think you have very little chance of getting a repair to work unless you do some pretty elaborate reinforcement. I'd probably opt for a new headstock, scarfed onto the neck so you have a decent amount of gluing area. Not a repair for a beginner, sorry

Well said.

Well, they're different from the feeler gauges I've seen, because the edges are round, not square. If you can find feeler gauges or metal stock in the sizes required, more power to you. I imagine they will dull rather faster than a regular file, but I don't see any reason to work them hard - assuming you size your nuts properly first, you only need to remove 2/3rds the diameter of an e-string as your deepest cut, and that can be reduced by roughing out with a gauged saw blade. I think a lot of the folks who have reviewed these and were dissatisfied with their performance were using them to slot an unprofiled blank, which is a recipe for blunt tools.

Dude; -Chambered neck-through not -Chambered-neck through. Ya?

Photo would help. I level my fretboards with a carpenters level covered in 80 grit abrasive. You want it *very* flat. Adjust the trussrod to get it as close to flat as possible, and then level it with the carpenters level. Once it's level, I re-radius, check for level, and keep working at it with the leveller and progressivesly finer grits of paper until itls levelled and smooth.

To clarify what I said: a one piece neck with sawn headstock is as strong as a your current plan. The glue lines will not add or remove strength to any measureable degree. A 1 piece neck with ears that have no runout is stiffer, and possibly stronger. A scarf jointed headstock is stronger and stiffer than either of the other options.

Brad, I suspect you're not used to working with wood, and are not understanding what I meant by 'runout'. Wood is composed of long stringy fibres, which run approximately parallel to the direction of growth. Wood is very tough along these fibres, but weaker across them. Think of a log - it's hardwork to chop it into two lengths, but pretty easy to split it lengthwise with an axe. Ideally, a piece of wood will have fibres running parallel with it's long axis - this is a board with no runout. As the grain departs further from parallel to the long axis, the more runout you get, and the weaker the wood becomes. If you cut a 1 piece blank to create a headstock angle, you get *a lot* of runout, and a very weak headstock. Running the grain of the ears parallel to the headstock makes it stronger. Your current situation will be as strong as a 1 piece headstock, but not as strong as it could be. However, this is a sidepoint to the real issue - which is that cutting the headstock angle with the ears attached will be much more time consuming and confer no advantages, whereas cutting them off and regluing them will save time *and* produce a stronger final product. It's analagous to missing a turning quarter of a mile from your destination, and deciding to drive 5 miles to avoid turning around. Sure, you don't have to go back the way you came, but you have to drive further, and for longer.

I think Mattia means straight as in, grain oriented parallel to the head stock angle, rather than parallel to the neck shaft. This is what I do, and I feel tht having two strips on the headstock which have zero runout helps stiffness and strenght. Rich absolutely nailed what I was thinking when I replied; removing the ears is the works of a few minutes. Working around them will add a lot of time and difficulty to your work, so in the long term a step backwards now, will save you half a mile of hard slog down the road.

Personally, I'd saw off the ears, cut and rough thickness the headstock, then glue back on ears which aren't so ludicrously hefty! Like so: