Nice work man! I like the "GT-inspired" one.

Here's one of my own
http://forums.d2jsp.org/img.php?x=291812

Inlay used to be by hand, but I butchered to many necks with impatience. I'm a fan of mastering one craft at a time, as I honestly come up with more firewood than I do guitars with the amount of trial and error. I free hand stems of vine inlay, then cnc the leaves. Mother of pearl I cnc.

Exotic woods I'm kinda iffy with. I've spent a small fortune on them, and find you hit and miss with tones. By far the most tedious and expensive body was that Bich body I built. I literally went through three band-saw blades cutting it because of how damn dense it was. It made it mute, and not carry a tone to well, but its depth allowed for some slick blues.
Some guide for tone qualities ;http://www.soundunlimited.co.uk/articles/guitar_tone_woods

Your best bet, is to look around on kijiji for people selling slabs of wood, and test with those. I tend to simply buy a block, set up a pickup, route the neck, install the pots and giver. looks funny, but if I like it, I'll source it.

For jigs though, the best way is to find a big assed printer for blueprints, and you can find a lot online for complete specs and sheets that you can print out. The problem, is having them to scale, so you have to attach them by sorta winging it. I then simply adhere the paper to the plexi, and cut/route accordingly.

It's a hell of alot easier to piece together a good shop though. I just look on craigslist, kijiji, and pawn shops for used equipment. My guitar racks are an old floral rack for greenhouses bahaha!

This post was edited by MoinkAlThor on May 23 2013 04:33pm

yea def a 17" wide printer for template would own, probley a nice photo paper for nice stiffness to transfore.
the pain is the scale due to auto page fill.

fun day of sanding and lvling out to glue, everything was all good but 1 peice was a pain trying to get strieght. factory cut was off. probley just going to take a chop saw and strieghten by cutting out a strieght center peice.

any opinions on a planner? u use much?

yea same, im starting to get into it now mostly, iv made 1 firewood body. router slipped and ate 2/8'' out of floyd pin so i scraped it. could have used a standard but said screw it. stopped using hand router after then. drill press works perfect and can see much better, only issue is making new stand to hold up press if u wanted a larger area to move body around

used junk body for testing swirling, what a pain that was.. 4x fails. using a urithan base witch sucked to start with. some colours were thinker then other so thinner mixture was all over the place. by last try i had 2 of the 3 spreading and ply so nicly,then my blue vomited all over and ran.

def req buying the borax powder paint mix instead of hardware store oil based or off the shelf.

have you tryed messen around with led's?

how much u asken for the tipical vai 5 peice maple wulnut rosewood vine neck?
or any other vines in stock.



This post was edited by hellshred on May 23 2013 09:18pm

damn these are sexy.
wish it wasnt so difficult to do this with drums lol.

Honestly, I use a basic planner to bring down alot of the grit from the wood. I then use a hand planner (alot of antique shops have them) for the curves, but have a belt sander I use to cut corners. Really it's shave the shit out of it to get close, then start using the hand tools, and finish with sanding by hand. I find it quicker, as for basic bodies I'll use a hand saw and relief cut the crap out of it, and then cut the relief cuts off. Follow with a belt sander to take all the edges off, use the hand planner, and lastly sand by hand.

On a typical run of 24 guitars, 5-6 will wind up as scrap, or test guitars. I'll keep them for a while to learn the mistake from it.

I fucking hate swirling guitars! I wasted so much time trying to get the borax to water solution just right, and every time I got it close, the paint would clump. It's a long stupid process I never got right essentially lmao.

Led's I've not dealt with, as I don't want any frequency interference with my electronics. I hand wire and solder my cables, but would likely try tubing an acrylic akin to yours. I'm currently trying to learn to make decent pickups by hand.

The vine necks, I don't sell seperatly, and out of a typical run I'll sell four of twenty with them, at about $100 more. I'm honestly lucky to get 400-500 per guitar, and wouldn't ask for more, when there's a lot better out there than me. They look nice, play well, but longevity will be the real pointer. Three years in, and not one return, but I've only keep three of mine for about five years and they're doing alright.



Fuck that noise. I tried making an acoustic guitar (same banding process) and to do it by hand tools without crazy gear it's just not going to happen lmao

This post was edited by MoinkAlThor on May 24 2013 06:24pm

yea was debating a planner but I want a oscillating spindle sander more for horns and corners more. get more use out of it atm. haven't worked with ruff slabs yet

what type of paint were you using for swirling? I rushed and bought stuff that was a pain,dry Pigments is how its done without the mass pain of thinners or mixes per paint. did your paint skin over or was clumpy batches?

how some many scraps? measurement issues or tool chews to much?

yea decent,making pick ups would own. stew mac machine or a dill and a counter haha

I got to set a malmsteen neck on a body tomorrow, I got to shim the sides witch sucks. probley going to glue cut offs and sand it down to fit instead

I find it was was skinning on me, I got an oil based paint but not the good stuff lol. I went to home depot, and took a day to try on some old bodies.

I scrap a lot, as I'm picky about the wood quality, and find if there's any splitting, or knots where I don't want them to be I'll trash it. That, and I try to make them in uniform dimensions. I'm using all hand tools, and the biggest issue is routing for neck pockets. If I'm over just the slightest, the damn thing just don't sit right.

had same issues before, u need alil thinner in the paint mix to spread. also if u have no shade and in the baking sun doesn't help. by try 4, I got 2x paints spreading find but my blue was clumpy and just droped or skinned.

like drops to a 1 tea spoon full, depends on your paint thinkness and amount. my first 2x skinned lol, 4x fails but last 1 I got 2 of 3 paints down. not even going to bother with it without pigment style.

if anything try practicing on a smaller container and get paint mix right and figure out formula for it. the borax mix is already figured out per gallon. I hate having to dump out the water and stapping holes in 2x garbage bags so you don't dump any paint out b/c you wanted to test full scale.

yea the neck is where im worried about any mistakes, that or routing but iv thought of a few dif way to measure and drill with press. measure and tap or marker drill bit at set depth. but im sure theirs going to be a few mistakes to be make. I need to order a neck 25.5 for a tester for bodys

quilted red oak being prepped

ruff cut red oak body, its coming along. a lot of sanding and contouring


This post was edited by hellshred on Jun 5 2013 11:31am