avengers63

Were I to use blue and yellow shades, they'd match the Rams. NFL baby!

No sand through - it's reflection of the lights. The top is turquoise. It's a hair to be split, but I'd call it in the blue family. Anyway, I figured black is nice & neutral, and it'd match up well with the black Dano neck.

I straightened out the edge of the cavity with the template and the palm router. Thanks for pointing it out. Believe it or not, I didn't notice. I guess I was looking more for "does it fit" than "is it straight". I went back and leveled out that part of the template so it won't happen again. I did test the low E tuner. There's plenty of room for the tuners I'm using. Paint, paint, paint... tomorrow morning it's sand, paint, paint, paint... lather, rinse, repeat. The pics look a little gray, but it's just being photographed in the shade. Black neck, black cavity cover, and some bullet-proofing with matte finish. It's great - there is a good thickness of finish, but you can't see or feel a thing.

There's really nothing to report on, but I feel that I should be reporting in anyway. I can't explain it. Anyway, I spray 3-4 coats of poly per day, giving a few hours between coats. The next morning I level the back a bit with some 400-grit wetsanding. Tomorrow morning, I'll be completely leveling the back & sides, then hitting it with a number of coats of matte poly. I want a dull finish on the back to match the neck. From there I'll be giving it a final leveling, then a final coat or two of matte. From everything I've read, this is the path to a nice matte finish. Also, I'll be able to NOT buff it out, saving me a full day's work. Then it's just wait for it to harden up enough to handle. Considering it's poly, it should only take a day or two, most of that is just insurance. While it's curing a bit, I can pre-wire the pickguard.

Of course it will be. It came from good stock - the Corvus. Be careful with the bevels around the forearm. I did mine rounded, and I still had to smooth over the "point". It hit me dead in the middle of my wrist. Check out where it's going to hit you before you start taking away the wood.

Even better. Thanks buddy!

I can't find the right switches, and I'm not going to pay $5-$8 per for simple slider switches. I'm going to wire up a pair of pups with individual on/off sliders, but all I can find are the double-pole variety. Just so we're on the same page, the piles are like so: I I I I I I instead of: I I I Can I use them exactly as the single pole variety if I bridge the sets like so: I-I I-I I-I As I understand things, wouldn't this effectively turn them into single pole switches?

From what I understand, Monkey Pod grows cross-eyed too.

That is just something that uncreative people say. Not true. Dang near everything you see or do that is supposedly new or inventive takes it's inspiration or can have it's roots traced to something that already exists. The completely original ideas are so few and far between they are virtually non-existent. Everything draws from something else.

There is nothing new under the Sun.

All I have to add is that it turns darker as it ages, it's hard, and it's heavier than maple.

I'm not the least bit upset about differing opinions. If I didn't want them, I wouldn't solicit them. Time to inlay my J into the headstock. 1) I love my scroll saw. A makeshift zero-clearance insert made from a 1/8" piece of leftover longhi is serving me EXTREMELY well. This is the first inlay I've done that didn't break along the brittle vertical grain. 2) A few minutes with some 100 grit, very gentle shaping and smoothing the edges, and we're all ready to go. 3) This HAS to be the most rigged up thing I've ever done. I immediately had an issue with dust and it's resistance to my trying to blow it away. I reversed the hose on my shop-vac so it blew, them clamped it down to blow away the dust. It was s little overkill, but there wasn't a hint of dust to be seen! 4) Thanks to a tip I read yesterday about scoring the outline as deeply as possible AND some dental bits from a generous PGer, the inlay hole cut without a hitch. It fit nearly perfect right out of the gate.

Safety Orange would be obnoxiously fantastic. But I want this to be a little less intense. You have until June 30th to have it done!

Try a big 45-degree chamfer bit. It's be a dang-sight faster and more accurate than doing it by hand. If you go that route, take off little bites, raising the bit maybe 1/8" per pass until you get the bevel you're looking for. The last thing you want is a big blowout or some major tearout on the end grain.

I agree - hard bevels. It suits this variation a LOT better than smooth roundovers. This one is pointy. Pointy=sharp, therefore sharp bevels.

All the holes drilled & hardware lined up, grain filled, wood sealed, and the first coat of finish laid.

A little work with the sander on a couple of edges, some tape/paper on the fretboard, and we're ready for primer. I'm going to empty a can and a half on the body & neck, sanding LIGHTLY with 220 between coats and after the final coat. This will take most of the day. Concurrently, I'm putting some finish on the Retrotron, I Am Curious Blue, and some chechen frames. Since I can't make any more dust today, I should do all the finishing I can.

http://www.nymphusa.com/kisekae/kisekaeE1.asp

Thanks for the confirmation that a black neck is the way to go. So what about the cavity cover? It's poplar, but does it get painted black or orange? FWIW: It's really closer to a dark mustard than orange. Not that it matters....

Goof quality plywood is almost a necessity in modern furniture making and cabinetry. Making a solid wood piece just isn't cost effective anymore. It CAN be done, but ply is a LOT more stable and significantly less expensive, even for the good stuff. Veneering isn't a new thing. It's been around since at least the beginnings of the Egyptian empire. It was only recently that it became a bad thing - when cheap-a$$ companies decided to put it on MDF & chipboard "furniture". The humidor looks nice - all except for the uneven bit on the door.

The last bit of real work was to smooth out the transitions on the neck, both on the heel and into the headstock. I did a test fit of all the parts, and everything went together like clockwork. The balance still isn't perfect, but it's not very noticeable. The neck doesn't dive when released, but will if you move around a bit. Were I to have used a heavier wood than poplar, it might have been better. Then again, with the strap placement where it is, there's only so much that can be done. I'm going to to a little finessing of the bass wing's bevel. The point of it hits me in the middle of my wrist - bad juju there. I'm also going to put a slight belly cut into it - just enough to round it out a bit. Other than that, it's ready for some primer. I have it in my head to paint the neck black. Does anyone have a legitimate reason not to?

Next up was the control cavity and some body contouring. You probably can't see it very well, but there's a contour on the inside of the leg arch. I sloped the area around the neck pocket to make the angle less noticeable. The cavity ended up just a wee bit too thick for the pot, so I hollowed out a small recess with a big forstner. Everything's groovy now.

On to routing the tuner shelf. First, we take a big forstner bit, set up the height of the press table, and aim the center spike at the tuner hole. Then, we line up some guide blocks and route away everything that's left until we have a 1/2" shelf. The back edges are given a 1/2" roundover to match the rest of the back.

Today I got a lot of work done. First up was to drill the holes for the tuners. After looking closer at the pilot holes I made the other day, I saw that I clearly CANNOT do them in a perfectly straight line freehand. This should come as no surprise. So it's time to make a jig. Out comes a straight piece of pine I got from somewhere, the combination square, and the fence for the drill press. I made three different lines with different spacings, just to see what might work a little better. The drill press didn't quite make it all the way through, so i had to finish the holes semi-freehand with the hand drill using the existing holes as guides. I wasn't overly worried about the holes staying perfectly vertical because the back was getting routed away anyway.

That happens when you're out of work and home all day long.