demonx

Pickups arrived today, Bareknuckle Aftermath Calibrated set with burnt Chrome covers: Filing fret edges: Starting the bevel: Frets finished for now (until I finish them after paint stage)

I'd have thought you'd just cnc them since you've got the machine now? Or is that too time consuming?

Preparing to radius: Checking the radius after about a hundred or so strokes with 80 grit: Bit of a scrub up with 120 grit and then air hose out the slots: Final clean up with a razor blade to remove the glue from the binding: Half way: Time to get out of the shed, it's too damn hot:

Clancy (the customer) dropped by the workshop today to check in on the star guitar progress. Tells me he's very excited and very happy with the way it's all coming together.

Welcome to Project Guitar!

Its summer here - not winter!

It's been approx 30 deg cel here every day. I've recently installed a wood heater to get me through winter

A bit more detailed neck carving today and getting the heel to feel more comfortabnle: Also decided the knot in the wenge was annoying me, so I filed a bit of scrap wenge for the shavings and mixed it into some epoxy:

Dont you love how random wood can be. I ws rasping away and this little pocked decided to bare its ugly face. I'm not going to try repair it until the paint prep stage. For now I'll forget it's there. Neck and heel "rough carved" - I'll get stuck into the detailing tomorrow.

http://www.cws.au.com/shop/item/microclene-mc3000-air-filter This is the best I've found so far, but still doing research

Garage sale! Have you thought about an "air room filter" to work along side you dust extractor? It's something that's on my wish list.

Yes, both my 6 & 7 string clamping cauls are failed necks. I figured the board surface is the right length and shape and it's planed flat, so they make perfect cauls. Have been using them for years now. Re the blue: I tried talking him out of it, his response was the whole guitar is built around the idea of the blue and not the other way around, so the blue was not negotiable. Oh well. At the start the blue really annoyed me, now not so much. It's grown on me. Not enough I'd do it on my own guitar, but for this build it has it's place in the theme.

All binding and hardware on this one is supplied by the customer. I usually don't build that way but he had already bought it all before approaching me.

On the weekend the customer informed me he now wants the strat style jack recessed, so I had to make a template for that. Also saiud he wants the other cavities over recessed and rounded off somewhat, so I got onto that also. Will round them off in a later sanding stage. Fingerboard went on today also:

Unfortunately (stupididly) - I've done that more than once. I had a really nice unreplacable timbered neck a few years ago, I was running it through the bandsaw to get rid of the meat - I followed the line nice and straight - underneath though the blade decided to pull across considerably. When I noticed something ws wrong it was too late. Truss rod visable. In the past when I was beginning/learning to carve necks I was using different rods to what I use now which required considerably deeper slots than a good rod, I carved through at least a dozen necks into the truss slot. Live and learn. Live to feel stupid - learn to use a bloody caliper to measure!

Last year I was building an 8 string. All woodwork was finished. Fretting finished etc etc, i was just about to do the fret level and then get it ready to paint, so I had a lot of time invested i it. When I went to just tweak the truss rod to make the neck level before filing the truss rod broke. I couldnt get it out. I didnt want to remove the board so I took it to my brothers so we coud try weld a piece of metal on the end, heat up the metal to free any glue that was holding it in place and pull the truss rod out. Long story short it didn't work. When it didnt work over and over we tried different ways and each time becoming more lazy protecting the surrounding timber from burn marks. On the last attempt, the timber actually caught on fire and burned out around the inside of the truss slot and burned the end of the fingerboard as well. I got a nice burn on my finger at the same time! This guitar now lives in what I call the "wall of shame" (probably more appropriately called the wall of stupidity) and was rebuilt from scratch. The truss rod supplier apologised upon my complaint and said they had a faulty batch. Posted out a new truss rod.

When someone comes to me and wants a guitar like one that I built for such n such I say no, I explain I don't build doubles and that it's much better if I build a guitar designed specifically for them and then it is "thier guitar", not just "a" guitar. So yeah, I'd like to think that every build I do is going to be different and always trying something new, yet I still like to keep to my styling which is ever changing.

Did you do the airbrushing? The grill on the comfort curve looks excellent

Drilled a few holes: Test fit of the carbon fibre jack plate: Test fit of the 3 way switch: Driling the hole to the output jack: Cavity routing:

I'd give completely different advice to above. I'd grain fill, then sanding seal, then spray your first session of final clear on the guitar. I'd then rub that back flat, apply the gfx in paint then spray the last layers of clear coat to finish before a cut and polish.

I'm sure he'll photobomb on many occasions. The others always have. I lost my big guy (GSD) to cancer just before Xmas, so this boy pup is to fill his boots. He's getting along with my 2yo female GSD quite nicely

This would have to be one of the coolest looking piles of saw dust ive ever seen! This is from where I pre drilled the pickup cavities with a saw tooth bit.

Looks great!

Being that I use Auto 2k as my clear coat, its a non issue. This will be my first guitar using West Systems Epoxy as a grain filler. I expect big things after everyones "talking it up" on this forum! Today was a bevel day - marked out with greylead and then rasped by hand:

Believe me, there's days I feel like I shouldnt be allowed to touch power tools. **** happens. It's how we learn from this **** that separates us from the idiots.