avengers63

Here's what I have: PRS body shape 2 piece ash body 3-piece 1/4" bloodwood cap Here's what's going to happen: carved top black binding f-hole Here's the question: Do you cut the f-hole before gluing the cap on? It seems that it'd be a LOT easier if the f-hole was cut first. The shavings would basically be stuck in the cavity unless you turned it upside-down and managed to shake them all out. If the hole is bound, I can't see a great way to get it even with the cap on. The major issue I see is carving it with the hole already there.

Of course, you were asking about the NECK...... So going with my body recommendations, I'd use a walnut (not clairo) neck with a rosewood fretboard. You could go maverick on us... do a walnut neck with white limba fretboard and reverse the color scheme from the body. The FB would have to be finished, but that's nothing uncommon.

I would say DON'T do a body of mahogany/flamed maple. Why? Because it's been done to death. Seriously - how often do you see one? You can't turn around here or in a shop without seeing ten of them. Looking at the woods you have listed, I'd suggest a limba/korina (same thing) back with a carved clairo walnut top. Use the white limba, not the black/streaky variety. You don't want the black limba to compete with the walnut, either in color or figure. The white limba has a pretty plain grain, and is a light color. The dark figured walnut would really pop against the white limba. Also, we know that walnut and limba are both excellent tone woods, so the guitar is likely to sound great.

I can't find the picture, but Paul Gilbert had a guitar for a while with colored numbers instead of dots.

No...but it sure is more plentiful... For the prices and species I mentioned, it'd save about $8 per guitar. Wes nailed it though - it's a LOT easier to find 4/4 boards than it is 8/4. Yea, Pierce... I have a planer and a jointer, so it wouldn't be a big deal for me. For you I can see the additional cost being well worth not having to do the labor. Really, for only $8 difference, you'd have to be really trying to cut your costs to build the thickness instead of getting thicker boards. This whole thing was just one of those "lightbulb in the head realizations" I have periodically. Thinking about it, the big companies are all about cutting cost. For us, cutting $8 on a body isn't a big issue. If you're making 2000 identical bodies that'll get painted, you just saved the company $16,000 in material goods. Keeping that in mind and seeing that they still use 2" stock, you gotta know there's a good reason. Maybe for them the extra cost of labor in building the thickness offsets the reduced material cost.

Re-shaped Strat to get away from their headstocks but retain a bit of familiarity for traditionalists... Thoughts? Yes, and by your words your intention is to remind the viewer of the Strat headstock. I hope you understand that I'm not trying to be mean or spiteful here.

This is just my taste, but I personally don't like headstocks that imitate or too closely resemble the well known Strat & Tele shapes.

Well, that's what we'd do. Note that a LP is mahogany and is often painted. I've seen walnut guitars from major manufacturers that were painted. Even some folks here don't care about non-figured woods. I'm only suggesting that if it's going to be painted... that the wood choice is for tone rather than looks... what's the issue with using thinner, less expensive pieces? I have the feeling that we immediately run to 8/4 pieces out of habit rather than necessity.

Buddy, if I could do half of what he does, I wouldn't be discussing the possibilities... I'd be doing it.

We make multi-piece bodies all the time. We also make them with laminate tops of varying thickness. This tells me that gluing for thickness is perfectly acceptable. With this in mind, why do we insist on using 2" thick wood if we know we'll be painting it? The structure will be more stable due to the extra layers, and the glue lines will be hidden by the paint. Granted, this wouldn't be much of a consideration with cheaper woods like poplar. The difference from 4/4 poplar to 8/4 is about $0.50/BF. Where it would be worth doing is with more expensive woods. Walnut, maple, and ash have about $2/BF difference. Any thoughts?

I wouldn't be able to bend the top for an arch, so it'd have to be a carve. Also, as discussed earlier, archtops still require some kind of bracing, which I'm trying to avoid. It's faitly likely that the bracing would be altered by the frame.

So..... how much for you to make one of these little wonders?

I've been thinking about this discussion and the information that came from it. I've been thinking as well about the possibilities of incorporating both acoustic and electric elements into the same instrument while not making a true semi-. I got to thinking about this from a $3.00 wood bender someone posted the link to a couple weeks ago. So here's what I'm thinking about now.... Construct a frame from solid wood. Make it in the range of 1/2" wide & thick, but only a frame. This is done for both top & bottom. Then create vertical braces of the same thickness spaced periodically around the perimeter. I'd guess the placement would have to be determined by the greatest structural need - it's more engineering than I'm getting into right now. Anyway, you'd end up with a thick hollow frame on which you can make a hybrid. Make the top & bottom 1/8"-3/16" stock. Just thick enough to get some vibrations, but not so thin they'd need extra bracing. It'd also need to be thick enough to bear the pull of the bridge, which would of course be strengthened by an additional block glued inside. Considering the acoustic generates it's volume from the vibrations of the top, the back could even be 1/4" stock for extra strength. Around the sides would be thin acoustic stock bent to shape and glued onto the frame. Of course, you'd want to bind the top & bottom, but that's neither here nor there at this point. With this, one might be able to get a 2.5"-3" thick guitar with a lot of acoustic qualities, but still get a lot of the qualities of an electric. You'd still have the neck pup either floating or mounted above the soundhole, and have a side-mounted acoustic system as well. Thoughts & feedback?

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...amp;hl=acoustic Give this one a read-through. I still haven't given up on the idea.

Anything to update? It's been three months...

First, I'd talk to the dude and see what he thinks. Even if you're able to hide it, he might not want it. A sunburst, solid color, or veneer all sound like liable options to me. Big washers would look dumb, and inlay around the posts wouldn't look right. Firewood is never the right thing to do. There are too many folks like me who would be more than happy to have a neck with some flaws like that.

Some shorter pieces of bocote waiting for a small project. Some even shorter pieces of cocobolo with some thins waiting for an even smaller project. And can anyone ID these for me? I got them in a box of cutoffs. They're really dense and heavy. They're a little darker brown than pictured. The grain is really tight, so it sands/polishes up to a pretty nice sheen.

How about a bog slab of granadillo with a nice contrasting spot of sapwood? It's coming in at 60" x 10" x 15/16".

Really... Spoke is the only one with a body style suggestion? I'm really giving heavy thought to one of two things: 1) A Gibson Corvus and paint it orange. 2) A Jackson V, but do some serious rounding to the points and edges. And paint it orange.

Please?!?!?!?

If someone would do me the service of moving this over to the WIP section, I'd really appreciate it. I tried a few things to dig myself out of the hole I put myself into. For me, taking off the binding or trimming in the edge wasn't an option. After reading all the great suggestions posted here (many thanks), I got to work. The first thing I tried was to make the reveal even all the way around. That didn't work out so well. No, you can't see the results. So I thought to imitate a tiger-eye burst with a sand-back. I chose to experiment with some inexpensive, thin pieces of quilt. If it worked, I'd use it in a box lid. I started with ebony stain around the edges, which would have been necessary to hide the reveal. From there, I sanded back and tried to progress to walnut, pecan, and a light amber-like maple stain. The results totally obscured the quilting. Option #2 - done. No, you can't see the results. So I'm on to option #3 - dye & a spray black burst. I still have some thin quilt pieces to work on, and I have a can of black spray lacquer, so I think I should be good to go on this one. At this point, I'd REALLY appreciate an ounce of guidance. I'll be rubbing in the dye by hand, and I've never done this before. The first step is to seal & fill the sapele base. This requires taping the heck out of the edges. We can't have any sealer gumming up the top, can we. Plus, this hides the edges I f'ed up.

Why would you suggest that? After sleeping on it, I thought that I could also do a basic stripped down guitar, like a melody maker or LPjr. Just a slab body, one pup, and no frills.

I'm going to take apart the Tulip, pictured above. It doesn't balance well and I just don't like it as much as I thought I would. I'll be keeping the neck for some undecided use later, but the pup, bridge, pit, and jack are all going somewhere else. I have an Epiphone neck, maple/maple with an explorer headstock that I'll be using on this project. I'm thinking to angle the pup in the gunslinger position. Here's the list of templates I have: PRS, Les Paul, SG, Tele, Carvin Strat, Firebird, Flying V, Jackson V, 335 I could also make a close resemblance of something else by hand. Remembering that it's an explorer headstock, a single motherbucker, and a wrap-around tailpiece, I'm leaning a little towards the flying V or something completely fabricated and off the wall, like the Gibson Corvus. Also, should I go for wood porn, paint it, or some combo? I currently have mahogany, ash, goncalo alves, sapele, and walnut that could be used for the body. I have others that could be a top. Tell me what to do. Consider this to be design by committee.

How much have you used them? How is there customer service? I've only used them once. The packaging was superb and the customer service was outstanding.

Personally, I love the Corvus.