avengers63

Something else to consider: wood can move after it's cut. I picked up a 8/4 canarywood board from Woodcraft probably 4 months ago. 2/3 of it has been sitting in my house since then, so it's well adjusted to my humidity. The other pieces I cut from it and planed into 1 3/4" squares did nothing. This morning, I cut off a 30" piece so I could make a neck blank from it. One face jot jointes, then the edges so I had a flat & square surface to re-saw on. These are the boards laying "flat" on the bandsaw table with a straight piece of poplar pressed on one end. BING! One half of the board bowed, the other didn't. So I had good wood, acclimatized, and NO signs of movement with prior machining of the same piece, but there it is anyway. You just never know what it's going to to until you cut it. FWIW: I'll be doing the rough carve on this one BEFORE the f/b is attached, just in case.

The necks are almost done. I let them sit around for a while just because there was no hurry - the lacquer on the bodies is still curing. I had the opportunity, so I polished the backs up to 4000, then soaked them in linseed oil. They look & feel GREAT. I need to re-fret about 6 frets on the guitar. The beveling file jumped off track and gouged a couple of them pretty badly. Good thing I did that re-fret on the Dragon so I could learn how to do it.

Mender has it dead-on. A bass is neck heavy in the first place. If you want it to balance, you'll want the strap button somewhere around the 12th-14th fret. That means a long body horn. Alternatively, you can do headless. This guy hass headless hardware that's not bad at all, and fairly reasonably priced. Going headless reduces the length of the neck, helping balance and allowing for a smaller body. That being said, even Steingerger (who popularized the headless concept in the '80s) couldn't get around the balance issue. They had to have a mounting rig for the bass with the strap button more forward so it'd balance.

Thanks Mike. RAD: If you need a guinea-pig, I'm always at your service.

A black burst will look the most "on purpose" when it's all said & done.

You should add these to your repertoire.

Which is absolutely correct. What that means is that the ones trying to brush on the tinted finish don't know how to brush on a good finish in the first place. This was done with a tinted finish that was brushed on. The ONLY little bits of slightly lighter pigment came from a near sand-through in the beginnings of the buffing stage. That was an issue with my wet-sanding technique, not in the brushing. Yes, it's a LOT harder to get a smooth brushed finish on a curved 3-D item like a guitar. I'm just saying that it CAN be done. The big trick is to thin the finish to about 50%. You'll need more coats, but they go on thinner and are thus less prone to brush marks, thick ridges, and other brush-induced badness.

beaver.... wood.... There's just way too many wrong places that can go, none of which are suitable for an open forum like this.

These are the two sites I use to find a mean market price. Woodworker's Source WestPenn Hardwoods This is the eBay store I get a lot of my unfigured exotic woods from. eBay store His stuff looks like it's been rough cut with a beaver, so if you don't have a planer & jointer, you don't want to buy from him. If you do, you can get some decent woods for under market value, including shipping.

Mmm. Sounds yummy That's fine if you like big bottoms I like big butts and I can not lie. You other brothers can't deny that when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get sprung. Wanna pull out your tough 'cause you notice that butt was stuffed deep in the jeans she's wearing. I'm hooked and I can't stop staring. Oh baby, I wanna get wit 'cha and take your picture. My homeboys tried to warn me, but that butt you got makes me so horny. Ooh, Rump-o'-smooth-skin, you say you wanna get in my Benz? Well, use me, use me, 'cause you ain't that average groupie. I've seen them dancin'. To hell with romancin'. She's sweat, wet, got it goin' like a turbo 'Vette. I'm tired of magazines sayin' flat butts are the thing. Take the average black man and ask him that she gotta pack much back. So, fellas! (Yeah!) Fellas! (Yeah!) Has your girlfriend got the butt? (Hell yeah!) Tell 'em to shake it! (Shake it!) Shake it! (Shake it!) Shake that healthy butt! Baby got back! (LA face with Oakland booty)

PM me and tell me EXACTLY what you're wanting.

This seems to be the month for the oddities, so here goes nothing.... MIRRORED ICEMAN build thread BODY Ibanez Iceman shape - 1 7/8" total thickness 1" basswood base, 3/4" maple cap 1/8" acrylic mirror top r/w/r/w/r binding back painted white matte water-based polyurethane finish NECK ebonized walnut back-bolt bloodwood fretboard mirrored sharkfin inlays 22-fret, 25" scale bound mirrored cap on headstock oil rubbed into the neck & fretboard to bring out the color HARDWARE/ELECTRONICS all chrome hardware Planet Waves tuners GOTOH hardtail bridge, string through the body RAD blade Strat set 5-position switch 1v, 1t 2 mini toggles: phase for middle pup & jumper for bridge pup aluminum nut MODIFICATIONS I never liked the pointy dingus on the butt end of it, so it's gone. DISCLAIMER When I originally thought of putting a mirrored top on an Iceman, it was a 100% original idea. It wasn't until I talked with Resto about it that he poited out about Paul Stanley playing one. I face-palmed, but it is what it is. These are easily the best singles I've ever had. These things are fierce; they absolutely growl at you. They were wound to be as hot as a P-90, but still retain all the character of a regular s/c. In some ways, they're better than P-90s. They have so much twang that they almost quack. The tone actually shifts slightly from string to string. It progresses from warm on the low E to middy to a lot of bite on the high E. Then factor in the jumper switch on the bridge pup and the phase reversal on the middle and this guitar has a LOT of character. I believe I have also perfected the back-bolt construction on this one. It's only the second attempt, so I feel I'm ahead of the curve on that one. The main limitation for it is that the body HAS to be a minimum of 1.75" or you're going to blow through the pickup routes. While this might not necessarily be a bad thing, I'm positive that it should be avoided whenever possible. There are many positives to a back-bolt, the most important of which are neck-through-like upper fret access with bolt-on ease of construction.

I can confirm that sapele has a LOT of bottom end. I made one with a sapele body & maple neck, and it was very dark. I have another with sapele wings/maple core and a maple neck, and it's fairly balanced, leaning towards the bright side.

Good enough for me. All I have for it then is for you to be EXTRA CAREFUL when you rout out the cavity. You already know that there's not any room for error. Also, the p/g will be right on top of the edge of the cutaway, so there are some aesthetics to consider.

This statement is the only one in your post stating anything resembling your reason for wanting to do the conversion. If that's the only thing you have, I have to ask you what's so important about having a 22 fret neck instead of a 24? It'd be a lot less intrusive to the body to simply trade out the neck pup and get a new p/g. For my $0.02, the less you do to implement the conversion, the better.

If you can find a nice piece of African mahogany, it's pretty light. Limba or sapele aren't particularly heavy either. Some folks have had luck with poplar, so long as you use c/f rods for extra strength. If you use c/f rods, soft maple becomes an option.

Used as a neck, it will sound much like rock maple. I swapped the original (badly cracked) rock maple neck on a Strat for one I made from canary wood, and there was no distinguishable difference in the tone. That what I suspected. Thanks!

Not at all, I dig seeing your builds on the interweb, I think you and I both put playability, solidity and tone as a first priority, and you take some ballsy experimental risks that often turn out great, or lead to reflection on how to do it better next time, either way your skills are evolving. I can be thrown into that category sometimes. I tend to look at them as compositions and art pieces a lot of times. I'll pick out the theme and overall plan, then let it take me where it wants to go. Sometimes it works out OK, sometimes not. If it doesn't work out, I dismantle it and re-use the parts. Most of the time, the wood is the least expensive component, and the most fun!.

Anyone have more than an educated guess about it's tone? Because of the tight grain and weight, my gut says it'd be more bright than warm. I'm wanting to use it for a neck, paired up with a chambered walnut body.

Go back to the beginning of the thread. It's not my design.

I went with direct-mounts so that less of the paint job would be covered up. It may not be a great amount, but there's not much face to the body either. Yea, the Westone neck had the locks on it already. I seriously doubt I'll ever lock it down. The Strat-style bridge is there to stay.

It still needs the speed knobs and the switch tip. I can't find my black screws, so the back plates are on hold for a bit. Other than that, she's all done. I gave up on the other Ibanez pups and just got a new set. I'll still be aboe to use the other two HBs in something else, but the middle s/c was totally dead. Instead of trying to make something match, I thought it better to just get another matched set. RG550 pups for under $50 shipped - not bad at all. As expected, the maple body/maple neck has a LOT of snap and brightness. I'm finding that this is the first ax that I've actually wanted to peel the tone knob back a touch. The s/c in the middle is hot enough to match the HBs, but I seriously doubt I'll ever play with just it. What I LOVE is the way it accents the sounds of the HBs. with one of each, you have the full HB power, but added color of the s/c twang. Had I to do it over again, I'd have just used a 3-way toggle for the HBs and a p/p pot to toggle the s/c. I'm likely to go that route in the future because I just LOVE the sound combo. I looked at the pics I have of the original Dynasty - and there aren't many available on the web - for the strap button placement. I was hoping Westone had done their experimenting with where it balances best. Apparently they had because it stays at whatever angle I put it at. Overall, this oddball is EXTREMELY comfortable to play. The pointy bit pokes me in the belly just a bit, but then again my belly is poking out a bit to meet it, so I guess it evens out. The long tail of the V is more comfortable than I realized it would be. I see more Vs in my future. The crackle was a royal PIA, and I ain't NEVER doing THAT again. It looks great, but it just didn't want to work. At best, the only way I'd ever use it again is for accents on some hard-edged bevels, just to outline the main body.

Oh good. At least we have THAT all sorted out.

That sounds EXACTLY like me right now. The wife keeps asking me "What are you going to do for this" and whatnot. I keep telling her "It hasn't told me what it wants yet." Or when something DOES get figured out, it's "It told me it wanted a cocobolo face on the headstock today." She thinks I'm nuts from being out of work and here alone for so long.