GregP

Yes, but not all people are in it for the same reasons. Some people just want a sweet-looking guitar with a paint/finish job done by someone else who did a great job at it. One of your main kicks seems to be the finishing side of things. For other people, that may be a necessary evil best avoided. I may end up choosing to never fret and level my own fretboards because that holds no creative satisfaction for me. For other people, the attention to detail and the importance of that job (a good fret job can make or break a guitar!) may give them the creative rush. I'll let them do my fretboards for me. And I'll even pay them for the privilege. Regardless, you've made a conscious choice, and I personally have no beef with it. Destroy, I say. I get a kick out of your WOD stories. But I also see where D is coming from. Even absolute honesty will still get you some sales if you put it up on ebay: "I didn't like the way the wood sounded, and I loathed the way the purple mixed with the blue. I hate this top, and you should, too. But if you don't, feel free to bid on it." I bet some people would still buy that blue one, and that's their problem if you were honest with them. <grin> Since you don't have a 'rep' that you're trying to protect, the only thing you would have lost out on is the joy of destruction. Mind you, you seem to particularly relish that joy, so it might be worth more than the $80 worth of wood. Greg

None, if you talk to Steinberg or Ibanez (Reb Beach model).

Looks great!

I only WISH I was making pennies. THey pay me in apples. I'm not having any luck reselling them for pennies. My dreams of a barony are on hold, it seems.

Of course you'll have to deal with latency, but that's the price you pay for being able to use the effects on the computer. If he just wanted to plug it in directly with no effects at all, I would have simply recommended plugging into the receiver. If you have an onboard soundcard, you can probably use ASIO4ALL, a free driver that will give you low-latency performance. No guarantees, but it works for most people and most soundcards. FWIW, 4ms latency (pretty standard, though you can get less) is no greater delay than simply standing a few metres away from your amp. Greg

I just wish I had money for wood in order to feed it to a WOD. Greg

I love the 006 shape. Might make it to a future project.

I don't resent anyone. I might experience frustration here and there, but not resentment!

I still think it's nasty. I'll come around some day, though, I'm sure. Just like I warmed up to the Fly over time. Greg

Hey, it may be a BIT distressing that files aren't going through properly. But there's no need for resentment!

Digi's IceFly is awesome.

I'd be curious, too. Might end up with some of their parts some day. My guess-- and it's only a guess-- is that they're probably as good or better than most of us could do without a lot of practice. Still, I've got my eyes on the necks at soulmate. Greg

I agree. If it's just for dicking around and practicing, though, there are free solutions to be had that will give you bass satisfaction. Instead of going directly into the receiver, plug into the 'mic' port of the soundcard. You could always try the line input if you want, but it's hard to say if you have a line-level signal. Never know until you try! On your computer, you'll need to run a "host" program. I have several recommendations, but I dunno what kind of guy you are and how easily you latch on to software and technology. Tobybear's MiniHost is fabulous and butt-simple for virtual instruments-- to be honest, though, I can't recall how easy it is to host amp simulators for a realtime audio signal. energyXT is easily the best recommendation I can come up with, but its interface is obscure for computer-recording newbies. Still, if you decide to go with XT, I can give you a quick visual tutorial for getting set up. It's a commercial product, but the demo limitation is simply that you can't load any presets. Since you're just going to run a bass sim, that shouldn't be too much of an obstacle for you. Did you grab the free version of Tracktion I posted about a while ago? If so, that's gotta be the way to go. If not, sucks to be you. Once you have your host, you will want (though not necessarily "need" since you can hear your bass without it anyhow) some sort of amp sim. There are free ones that are designed primarily for guitar, but work well for bass, too: - MDA makes a plug-in called "combo" (you have to download them all in one pack, but you don't have to USE them all!) which does a fabulous job. Better for bass than for guitar, IMO. - Simulanalog makes Guitar Suite, a collection of guitar plug-ins. Both amps (the Rednef Twin and the JCM900) can be used for bass duty - Fretted Synth makes FreeAmp which is quite good. The link is at the bottom of the page. Guitarists should take note, too. Let me know if I can help more. Greg

Of all the 'pointy' guitars, that's the one I like the best. Great colour!

Ah, the classic foot-in-photo. A very common mistake.

I made myself some spool clamps, and I can say without reservation that you can generate more than enough pressure, as long as you use enough of them and in the right way. Just so that I'd know I wasn't just talking out of my arse, I grabbed a few hunks of scrap wood, threw some glue on them, and busted out 2 spool clamps. I was able to easily squeeze far too much glue out. As Primal mentioned, the boards would have to be straight, but shouldn't you be using straight boards anyhow? I think in the grand scheme of things, more people would see warped wood as a cause for concern than whatever you choose to use for clamping. Since you already have 'some' c-clamps, they'll do the bulk of the work anyhow, in conjunction with (as mentioned) boards to even out the pressure. Then the spool clamps will be strategically inserted at appropriate intervals on either side of the lamination, adding further support and even pressure. I guess I should add once more that I can't really speak too much from experience, but it's boggling me that it should even be an issue. Enough voodoo around here with pickup mounting and so forth, do we really need to confuse Jason with CLAMP voodoo of all things? I wouldn't want to use ONLY spool clamps. I'm not saying they're "as" good as a c-clamp because they clearly aren't. All I'm saying is that they could be used as a part of the clamping equation if you had some or wanted to spent 2 hours of your afternoon making a selection of them. C-clamps aren't THAT expensive if you find them on sale at Canadian Tire or Wal-Mart or whatnot, so at the end of the day if you have a spare $30, I suppose it really would be better to add some more of those to your collection instead. I'm just rambling now, but my point was simply that they're clamps. They squeeze. They squeeze hard enough. They're cheap. If cheap is what you need, then go for it. Greg

nice!

Must be nice.

Awesome!

That $50 will be the best $50 you ever spent. That's for the actual cut-out templates, not just a paper print out. Ready to be used with your flush-trim router bit. You'd probably spend around $50 just for MDF to make your own templates (you're not going to just work directly on your final wood most of the time, and if you WERE planning to, then may the powers that be grant you serenity and luck). Mind you, since those templates are fairly thin, many people have said that they've transferred them to MDF, acrylic, or plywood anyhow, so you're still out some extra material cost if you choose to do that. When I do my pop's LP, I'll be ordering a set of those. Greg

schweet-tastic!

Mahogany is a very common wood for making necks. Get a nice quartersawn blank and you should be fine without laminating. However, I'm thinking that it's not a bad idea to get 3 flatsawn blanks and laminate them into one quartersawn hunk'o'wood-- the structural benefits you're already aware of would be there, plus I'd venture that it'd be the same price or cheaper. Or, while you're at it, you could throw in some wood of contrasting colour instead of all mahogany, to produce an attractive (depending on your perspective!) stripe. Of course, that's all depending on your take on the aesthetic factor. Maybe you don't like the look of laminated necks because of the 'lines'. If it's going to be painted solid, it doesn't matter either way. So many factors. Just to repeat my original answer, though-- one-piece mahogany is a commonly made neck. Greg

I couldn't even begin to price it, so I'm hesitant to venture much of a guess, but I'm thinking that just the cost of the materials and labour (ie. the profit margin being enough to cover the hours spent working on it) you're looking at a base price of anywhere between $1,500 and $2,500. Keep in mind that's totally a guess and I'm not a luthier. But I thought I'd throw it out there just so you'd know the ballpark. The more specialized the parts the more it's going to be, of course. I don't know if any of the well-known luthiers are taking contracts for basic guitars with budget parts. In other words, even if you're willing to just get generic pickups, bridge, and so forth, I'm not sure that all the luthiers would do such a thing in order to save costs, since part of what they're doing is marketing a premium brand name. I have to re-emphasize that I can't speak for anyone, though. Greg

I hadn't noticed this because I have little to no interest in Iceman guitars and hadn't read the thread. But in a fit of boredom.... Whose bad spelling am I supposed to be punishing? I didn't notice any horrible errors. Greg

"Reasonable price" is a pretty loaded phrase. For custom work like that of Myka, Ormsby, or LGM (just the first 3 to come to mind-- apologies to those I didn't mention!) multi-thousands of dollars is reasonable. Greg