Setch

Seems it would be the correct tool to me, what with it being inlay and all... I'd route out all of the inlay, leaving a tiny margin of pearl around the edges. Use a sharp exacto knife or small chisel to clean up to the very edges of the route, and 'pop' the brodering bits of pearl out. Then, cut and file a new piece to the correct size, and glue it in.

This should be the link you're after: http://www.dunwellguitar.com/FingerPlanes/MyDesign.htm I also find full size shaves a bit OTT for most instrument work, my favorite is a stanley model makers shave, about 1.5" across the blade, and maybe 6" from tip to tip of the handles. Lovely little tool, and pretty cheap and cheerfull, though mine was inherited from my grandpa. Sadly, I believe they're discontinued now.

You probably have boltaron or abs binding. This won't melt in acetone, though it may soften a little, and in some cases de-laminate.

You can cut geometric shapes in pearl with a dremel cutoff disk or a razor saw. You can true them up on a disk sander, or with a file. This is very easy with rectangles. I'd route out the entire inlay and reinaly it - it'll look better and be easier than trying to patch the gaps.

I also found the spokeshave can't handle the concave areas of a carved top, but rather than spend money on a tool which I can only really imagine using for that one job, I built myself a little carving plane. Super simple, and it works like a champ. I've since switched to a sander with 40 grit discs for carving tops, but the little plane still gets used a lot.

Congrats, both on the bass and the video. Here's hoping it kick starts some orders, and either way it's gotta be a great feeling. to see your guitars being enjoyed.

Could also be a Kent Armstrong Motherbucker, they have plenty of grunt with all four coils wired together.

I always though angling the body portion of neck throughs made more sense, due to the run out introduced by angling the neck portion - presumably this runout is very minimal, so it makes little or no difference, and this way lets you use thinner stock.... right?

So what does this tell us about the structural value of splines? :o That's a nasty break, and due to the volute, not really a viable candidate for a backstrap repair. Maybe a more experienced repair person can chime in, but I'd probably be looking at scarfing on a new headstock. I'm kind of being a smartarse above, but this is a good example of why splines are not very helpful. You either have enough gluing surface, in which case splines aren't needed, or you don't in which case splines don't help.

Exceptional work - that inlay on the cavity cover is beautiful!

I'd like to see a pic of the context before you go ahead and use a spline in your repair. There are much better ways to reinforced a nasty break, and in many cases a spline or dowel will actually be counter productive. I'd suggest a trawl through the mimf library, and a visit to www.frets.com to read up on best practice for head breaks.

Clifton tools are of excellent quality, but I've also heard very good things about Kunz. I'd go for teh cheaper option, and see if you like the spokeshave for carving. £55 is a good chunk of cash to drop on a tool you might end up not using.

Make the route first, and cut the cover to match - it's much easier to adjust the shape of a cover template than the shape of a cavity template. Once I've made my cavity template I drace it onto a piece of medf with a blunted pencil. The thickness of the blunt pencil lead is about right to allow for finish thickness and not end up with a cover which gets stuck in place.

The previous posts were locked for the same reason this one has been: the information is available by using the search function. If you haven't found it, you haven't looked hard enough, or you're not using the correct search terms. 'Les Paul plans' will produce what you need.

Short answer - you can safely cut the neck angle on a LP syle guitar with a tablesaw. You can then use the resultng surface to route your neck pocket. There are other ways to do it, and I've never tried doing it with a tablsaw, but it can be done.

2 words: neck angle. If that doesn't ring any bells, you don't know enough to undertake this mod' sucessfully.

Fretting the board before attaching it to the neck is fine, several large guitar companies do it, and I've personally done a number of guitars that way. It's also far and away the easiest way to fret if you want to do Gibson style fretboard binding. I attached my fretboard to a thick offcut of worktop with doublesided tape, and fretted it on there to add a little backup and stability. The board may back bow slightly, but it will still be fine once glued to the neck with a straight clamping caul.

If you really hoped to stay out if it, you wouldn't have posted your last comment. Is it really too much to ask that you let it drop now that kahuna is on a 2 week suspension? Whatever, this thread is done.

OK, vacation time for Mr. Sarcasm. Nobody ragged on you till you got snarky, and the experience of Soapbar and Rhoads is evident to anyone who cares to investigate it. Since you don't feel the need to check it yourself, Soapbar is Robert May, a guitar technician with over 20 years experience of fretwork. Rhoads is Perry Ormsby, a successful Australian guitar builder and technician who has appeared in, and is currently writing for Australian Guitar magazine. You really couldn't have chosen a worse pair to accuse of being 'faceless, quite possible anonymous Internet posters', just something to mull over on your 2 week vacation from posting.

What Mattia said... Also, at the risk of being cruel, when using a chisel, hold the lumpy plastic or wooden end, not the pointy bit

Kahuna, drop it. You've made your point, the kit worked for you. Fine. However, your point is rebutted by several. extremely experienced guitar builders/technicians, and rather than continue to argue with them, perhaps you should consider *why* they think the system is flawed, and weigh this against the relative quality and expense of the alternatives. Once you do, you'll find there is *nothing* to commend the Thomas & Ginex system. The fact is worked for you is largely irrelevant when balanced against the potential for it doing damage, and the fact that a better system can be assembled for less than the purchase price of the T&G product. Anyway, if this thread continues in the direction it's been heading, it'll be closed. This forum is for intelligent discussion of guitar building and modification, not for childish circular arguements. Everyone has established their respectiive positions, if you have nothing new to add be big enough to let you arguement stand on it's merits, and walk away.

any chance of resurecting the old bridge? IIRC Dan Erlewine describes re-radiussing a collapsed TOM in his repair book, as well as how to prevent it happening again.

Fanning the string through is not a look I care for, and it will significantly increase the risk of strings jumping out of the bridge saddles, especially if you don't have a good steep break angle, and substantial notches in the saddles. The cosmetics is upto you, but I'd be careful you don't cause problems just to be 'interesting'.

Wooden spoke, 99% of fret levelling systems are based arund using a flat levelling tool, and making several narrow passes which follow the radius of the fretboard. There are a few folks who level with a radiused block, but they are in the minority, and I'm far from convinced it works any better (or even as well as) using a flat leveller.

Tonally indistinguishable from a 1 piece, and as Mattia says, you get to be *much* pickier when dealing with 2 piece bodies.