avengers63

Fair enough. FWIW: After I get the blank all glued up and the body cut out (but not routed with the template), I run it through the planer again. My edge joints almost always end up just a shade off kilter. They got a LOT better since I got a jointer, though. Again, whatever works for the one doing it.

I'm going to make some pup rings from some maple I have lying around. All of the wood rings I remember seeing has the grain going sideways, along the width od the body. Is there any reason it doesn't run along the length?

Bloodwood & Longhi LPjr GOL DANGIT!!!!!! I'm so ticked off!!! cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss cuss I routed through the dang curve. sonofamotherlovincassinfrackindammitalltohell I have to get a plug cutter and patch it up. I have NO idea why, but the dude isn't mad about it. He suggested putting a couple of mini-switches there for coil taps and to help disguise ot a bit. He has a lot more class than I do, that's for sure. Word for word, he said "It's not like you can drive a truck through it." I'm so mad at myself for this. It's just pure carelessness. Avenger Prototype I'm gonna finish this one up. I'll be using a hceap maple/rosewood neck I bought for $25 shipped. It's a little rough on the ends of the frets, but is otherwise playable. It's no prize, but it'll do for now. I made a cavity cover from some maple. I'll be making some pup rings from maple as well. It'll tie the maple of the neck together with the body. Here's how it's going to pan out: chrome hardware hardtail bridge (don't know which one yet) 3-position toggle top-mount jack 1 vol, 1 tone bridge pup: DiMarzio mega-drive neck pup: DiMarzio - either a PAF neck or a Hum. from Hell Sale Bodies I finished up two over the weekend. I'll post some pics tomorrow. One is the limba/african mahogany LPjr, the other is the mahogany/maple PRS. I almost have the next blank glued up. It's 7 pieces - and it's taking forever to glue together. Sapele/purpleheart wings with a yellowheart pinstripe, and a yellowheart core. I have some sapele in stock, and some bubinga on the way, as well as some other pieces to be used as caps. I'm working on getting 40BF of 8/4 ash.

There are a couple of things you can do, msot od which have been covered already: bandsaw the shape a hair from the template climb cut with the router on the tearout-prone areas rout in little bits etc. But there are a couple more options: drum sander and microplane. Both are attachments for the drill press. The drum sander will take a bit longer and will eat up the sanding sleeves, but it'll work. IMHO, this is NOT the best option available, but kind of a last resort. The other option is microplane. Do a google search for the company. They make planing drums that work in the drill press. They have a template bearing as well. It really chews through the wood and doesn't tear out around the corners. Someone here turned me on to them, and I'm SOOOO glad I bought them. They're great.

Well, I ain't gonna do THAT again. Two hours to type, 15 minutes to take the pics, 20 to transfer and format them, and an hour inspecting the necks, and there was exactly ONE response. Anyway, I got a lot done this weekend. The neck pocket was routed, bridge holes drilled, the depth of the cavities were corrected, and the tuners fitted & drilled. A couple more holes for the pots and the neck ferrules and it'll be ready to finish. I'll do a test fit and take pics before I start slathering on the lacquer.

AAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! Yer goin' to hell fer that'n, boy!

That's incorrect. If you want a flat surface via planer, you will need to join a face first. And most times bodies are edge joined by at least two pieces.....heck a lot of big name geets are three or more. Just as strong. Sorry dude, but I'm with K on this one. I've done it many times, and it works great. From a rough piece of lumber: 1) Plane face A until all of the rough surface is gone. I usually do it in 1/64" incriments. It will NOT be perfectly level because B is not level yet. 2) Plane face B the same way. B will now be ALMOST paralell with A. 3) Re-do A with a pass or two to make it level. 4) Re-do B. Now you're totally level. But that only takes care of the wide surfaces. We're dealing with 4" - 14" wide pieces that are usually 2"+ thick. That's why you need a jointer. Before I had one, I was trying desperately to true up the "thin" sides with a table saw, but it just didn't work. Bottom line, if you're gluing pieces together to make the final width, you need a jointer.

National Music eBay store? I think I bought a cheap-o neck from them earlier this year for about $25 shipped. The edges of the frets were a little sharp. I'm figuring to do one of two things with it: either slap it on something I really don't care about just to make it OR try out doing an inlay job on an already-fretted neck. If the inlay job goes south, oh well. At least I'll not have screwed up a "real" neck. Right now, I'm heavily considering putting it on the Avenger prototype. I'm suspicious about the National Music stuff in general. I know he's getting factory seconds and similar things, then parting them out. My concern is about the quality. If he can sell it so cheap, was it any good to begin with?

That the CKO neck has the headstock shaped makes me doubt they're the same one. I can't see the seller shaping * sanding the headstock of every neck he gets in. Now, that doesn't mean the manufacturer doesn't offer them both ways. They both could very well be from the same manufacturer. There's no question that it's an import, probably Chinese. I was capping my bids at $60 for about a week before I would go higher. FWIW: My total shipped is still less that what you'd get it from that store from before the $6 shipping. AND I don't have to shape the headstock.

Overall, the Carvin is the best neck of the four. I don’t think that’s going to surprise anyone. The Dano is bringing up the rear. That may surprise some, but maybe not. What is a surprise to me is that I feel the CKO is about on par with the Westone. The CKO cost me $74 shipped. Without having installed it on a guitar and played it yet, I’d say this was a great find. With a few noted exceptions, I think the quality of this neck is high enough that you could gig with it and not have any more issues that you would with a neck on any other mid-grade guitar. The nut and heel need some attention, but other than that, I don’t have any issues with it. Here’s a couple of pics with the neck and one pup lying in place on the body.

Alright… let’s start to get specific with the CKO. First, let’s inspect the binding. I ran my thumbnail across the binding seams feeling for a gap or ridge between the plastic and the wood. I did this both on the F/B and on the sides. Nowhere along the entire thing could I find anything other than a baby-butt smooth transition. Then I looked closely at the heel, and I think I found out why. Look closely at the binding as it passes over the end of the heel. Can you see the little bit of white that’s “rounding the corner” of the heel? What I suspect happened is that the F/B & binding were put on, then the heel was shaped. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be that little bit visible underneath the end of the F/B. Does it matter? Heck no! Not to me anyway. Whatever was done, the binding is very smooth. It covers the ends of the frets completely. Now let’s look at the end of the heel. You actually have a better look at the binding thing on this pic, but that’s not what I want to bring your attention to. Look at the circled bit. The whole butt end of the heel is rough. The circled bit is a little ridge that didn’t get routed smooth. You can actually see it clearly in the pics looking up the F/B from the heel that’s in the first review post. The whole end needs a vigorous sanding to smooth it down. It has the texture of 40-grit sandpaper right now. Also notice in all three pics of the underside of the heel that bit of the F/B that gooped over the binding. It LOOKS like it was some kind of liquid that dried there and wasn’t cleaned up. Not pictured are a pair of SMALL pieces of black grit (1/2mm at most) that are stuck onto the bottom of the heel. These are easily scraped off, but still shouldn’t be there. Realistically, the roughness of the butt-end of the heel, the mung on the underside of the F/B overhang, and the grit on the bottom of the heel are all in places where they won’t matter. That being said, there is no reason for them to be there, either. This is just careless lack of clean-up that REALLY separates the men from the boys. These things don’t affect the overall playability of the neck, but they would drive down the price were it sitting next to other necks in a shop somewhere.

Next, let’s go to the nut. The auction listing gave no information on what kind of material the nut is made from. Let’s assume that it’s from the cheapest possible material possible – plastic. I have no evidence to back this up, just a hunch. For all I know, it could be bone. I don’t have the expertise to tell by looks & feel. The Westone has the bottom of a locking nut, but not the locks. An ounce of investigation told me that Westones without locking nuts had a graphite nut. That being the case, so we can compare apples to apples, let’s pretend this one would have had a graphite nut as well. The Carvin has a graphite nut, per the specs of their bolt-on necks from their website. The Dano has an aluminum nut. Cuz, you know… Danos are weird like that. With all of this information in hand, the CKO is the clear loser for nut quality. That being said, replacing the nut is what, a couple of dollars? Yes, it’s a loss in the comparison, but it’s not THAT big of a deal considering how easy an issue it is to fix.

Next up is the headstock angle. The Carvin’s neck is not scarfed. The Dano is painted black, so I can’t tell anything about it. Those two are not under consideration here. The CKO is scarfed. It looks like the Westone is as well, but I’m not 100% on this. If it is, then they did a great job lining up the grain. There is a visible line on the back of the headstock, but it comes at a place that it might just be a crack in the finish and stained from wear. It’s suspicious to me, but I can’t confirm either way. For discussion purposes, let’s go with the Westone being scarfed. I have the scarfs circled in the following pictures. If the Westone IS scarfed, I wouldn’t think that would me a good place to do it. It would seem to me that right there would be the weakest place to do it – right on the angle. Also, that’s where the T/R access hole is, further weakening the joint. As you can see, the CKO’s scarf is down between the 1st & 3rd frets. The T/R access wouldn’t weaken it at all, though it may even out with the T/R channel. I really don’t know. There is the full depth of the neck to glue, so the joint has the maximum possible gluing surface. Lastly, the F/B might add some stability to the joint. From a pure construction standpoint, it seems to me that the CKO’s scarf is better than the Westone. I welcome any and all input from those of you who have the experience in these things.

This took me two hours to type up, so I really hope y’all appreciate it. I really love my job. Take those two statements, combine them, extrapolate the inference, and hate me for it. The neck finally came in. As promised, I’m comparing it side-by-side with others I have: a Carvin, Danelectro, and Westone. I don’t know who the actual manufacturer of this one is, but the seller is CKO, so that’s what I’ll call it. The CKO is brand new. The Dano came off of a damaged guitar, but was never sold or really played. I consider it new as well. The Westone and Carvin have been used for over 10 years each. The first pic here is a lineup of all 4 necks. From the top down, we have the Dano, Westone, CKO, and Carvin. The second one here is down the neck from the heel. Left to right is the Dano, Westone, and CKO. The Carvin is attached to the body, and I wasn’t going to unscrew it for these pics. The third one here is down the neck of the CKO with a great view of the truss rod. The fourth here is all three lined up on their sides, as close as I could manage. Again, top to bottom is the Dano, Westone, and CKO. All four necks are straight, even, and flat. Disclaimer: As you all know, I don’t do fretwork, so I don’t know what to look for from experience. All I can go on is what I feel and what affects me as a player. The crown of the frets on the CKO are nicely rounded. They’re a vague pyramid, but with a smoothly rounded top. The Danos are a touch more flat, but not from wear. For obvious reasons, the Westone & Carvin were not examined in this way. The bevel of the frets of all four are as smooth as you’d expect. None have any sharp edges. Of the four, the Dano had the roughest and the Carvin the smoothest. You could try to attribute this to years of playing wearing away the edges, but even the bass-side of the upper frets on the Carvin were smooth. I “pinched” the edge of the fretboard with my thumb and middle finger and slid them up and down all four necks to feel the ends of the frets along the F/B. I was surprised at the results. I anticipated the two older used necks to be worn smooth up to about the 15th fret or so. In order of roughness, most to least, is the Westone, Dano, CKO, then Carvin. In light of the findings about the bevels, I’m just not shocked about the Carvin being the smoothest. I did NOT expect the Westone to be the roughest. I figured the years of play would have smoothed them over. HOWEVER – the CKO has a bound F/B, so perhaps the ends being hidden behind the binding helped it’s performance. In any event, the Carvin clearly has the best fretwork. This shouldn’t come as any surprise. In my untrained opinion, the Dano had the worst, but it still wasn‘t bad. The Dano is completely playable as far as fretwork inspection goes. The edges aren’t abrasive enough to distract you or knick up your hand, they’re simply the roughest of these four. I’d call the CKO & Westone about even. The Westone’s frets feel a little bette on the edges, but considering about 20 years of wear has smoothed them down, I’d estimate that when new, it’d be about the same as the CKO.

ATTENTION ANY & ALL MODS!!!!! I'm currently typing up the side-by-side review of the necks. I have 14 pictures to share in this comparison. We have a 1 pic per post rule, except for the WIP section, but 14 may be too much. LMK if it needs to be broken down into multiple posts or have some links instead of having so many pics. Thanks EDIT Two hours have gone by with no instructions. The board itself won't let me post all 14 pics at once, so I'll be breaking it down.

The rest of the hardware came in yesterday. It's just sitting there - no drilling yet. The neck should come in this week. THEN we'll see some serious work being done. Between this, the bloodwood LPjr, and the two other bodies I need to finish up, I have a lot to do this weekend.

+1 to that! I still haven't figured out how to make a traditional Gibson-style carve, but I'm getting there. The only real issue is the insane ammount of dust it throws out. I learned REAL fast to take it out into the driveway. FWIW: I bought my 4" Ryobi angle grinder at Home Depot for $20 or $25, then the sanding disk for another $5.

Yea... the headstock looks pretty bad. Good thing he wants me to take the point off. Bloodwood & Longhi LPjr http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...0LPjr/wip08.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...0LPjr/wip09.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...0LPjr/wip10.jpg http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff15/av...0LPjr/wip11.jpg The only reasons I documented this step is because I promised him I'd keep him updated on every step. As for posting it here, I figured "Why not". The neck looks a little off-kilter, but it's just an odd camera angle. Not that y'all don't already know this, but those center point holes left by a forstner are REALLY nice targets.

Like adding Paz Vega into the mix as well?

I only have one acoustic, a Gretsch jumbo cutaway, and I'll not be making acoustics, so I'm automatically out. That being said, I own 4 electrics right now: a Steinberger that I never play, a Carvin kit, the Tulip (almost done!), and the tele. Right now, the only electric I play is the tele, so I think I come pretty clost to qualifying in that sense. If the Carvin kit counts, then I definately qualify. By the end of the year, I HOPE to have at least one more done. I'm not sure if it'll be the Avenger prototype or the formica topped thing I'm planning, but I have a goal.

Dude... That control cavity is HUGE! Sorry if I missed it, but are you using active pups? That would explain the massive cavity - battery space. Otherwise, what's the deal?

So... why didn't you hog out the main part of the cavity with a big forstner bit, then just rout around the edges?

I finally won a neck over the weekend. I ordered in the last of the parts as well. When they come in, I'll post some pics. I wouldn't drill anything or do the neck pocket without having the neck in-hand, so after the grain-fill, I was at a standstill. This upcoming week and weekend will be very busy for me, but is a good way. On tap: visitation w/ kids Tuesday night church stuff wednesday night (maybe) both step-kids in the half-time show of a minor league baseball double-header Saturday Monday, maybe Wednesday, Thrusday, and Friday nights will be spent in the basement working on the bloodwood LPjr, mahogany/limba LPjr body, sapele/maple PRS body, gluing a 7-piece body blank, the zebrawood LP, about 6 picture frames, and a set of coasters. Sunday I finally get to rest and park my butt in front of a TV and watch the NFL all day long. Honestly, I only expect to finish the PRS & LPjr bodies and get the blank all glued up. All the rest will just be "making progress".

My first amp was a Crate 10-watt P.O.S. that picked up CB chatter from truckers on the highway.

I'd give a nut for a mint 1956 Buick Roadmaster convertable. It'd match the Danelectro "bowtie" I'd be playing.