i am going to embark on making my own neckthrough Mockingbird, with mahogany sides, wwalnut stringers, ebony fretboard, 24 fret neck, with OFR and dimarzios, iw ill not have pics but will keep you informed on the process.
wish me luck, and hopefully theis is made into a sticky so everyone post their own projects here too!


good site for this stuff

My guitar tutor makes some sick as fuck guitars, i doubt i can get pics tho

pointless post by me

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ooooooooh *boner*

maybe by the time you finish, i'll have enough money to just buy a mockspecial hahahah

sounds uber sexy though, i REALLy wanna see all the progress.

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MAYBE there's a way for me to post pics, but seeing as i don't own a camera....

ill probly borrow my friends

Yeah man, try to get progress pics, i would be realy fucking interested to see how it goes, also if its your first time wouldnt it be easier just to make a soloist shape? i mean a mock would surely recuire random routing tools for the contours and shit.

anyway may you have the best of luck !!!!!11one

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doesnt amtter, each guitar will need routing etc, so youll have to rout anyway

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please make a sticky out of thois mods?

il try to make some pics of my telecaster, and my strat in progress when i have the chance.

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can you the guitar with the fanned frets?

i didnt finish it, cuz the body was to thin to fit a pickup init (i think havent realy tryd lol), also the measures of the body were a little fucked so the total thing looks kinda odd, maybe ill finish it off with some cheapo parts just to see how fanned frets play, i might just be able to fit a emg 81 init or so.. i dno yet though, i have a strat that needs pickups, and i have 2 more projects i wanna start with once the strat is done.

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make a high quality guitar with a sick shape, like ironbird or somethin

Yeah man, i NEED an ironbird, i was looking on edroman.com (i know he has realy bad internet reputation) but it said on the site that he has numerous old bc rich neck thru body cores, if i could get hold of a neckthrough body ironbird unfinished and unrouted it would be a complete godsend, the more time goes by, the more i need a fucking ironbird

anyone know about these body cores?

cheers

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haha man if i had the money id build so mayny guitars, i have to pay rent and shit too, and i dont make that much money so im alerady happy to be able to live and eat haha.

i have a bunch of plans for the future, but yeh, first things come first...

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uhm, im not sure what you exactly mean, do you want to build or buy a neckthrough ironbird??


and whats a neckthrough body core?? lol

EDIT... oh wait, you mean you want to buy, a neckthrough ironbird, without any routing done, but the body and neck glued together already? so you just have to rout everything and put it together??

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i found 2 pics of the fanned fret thing on some other forum..

i fucked yup the ody by shaping the lower part of the body. and you can see the body is to small compared to the neck, it doesnt look right at all. im thinking of putting some cheapo pickup init and some cheapo machineheads just to try and play it, i might find some 2nd crap stuff in the workshop so i can findout what faned frets play like...

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heres some pics of the telecaster i finished 2 months ago..


EDIT: oohyeh the specs are..

maple neck
ebony fretboard
zebrawood body
22 frets mop inlay
3x lace sensor pickups

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So I have a Randy V shaped guitar with a set-neck that's completly stripped naked. The only things on it is the tuners and the bridge. No nut at all. There original nut wasn't a locking nut.

So my question is...Is it possible to put a locking nut on it? Would there be room? Or should I just trash the project and try to find another guitar?

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Fuck yeah! That zebrawood is tight. I like the lack of inlays as well.

That is really sharp. You did a very nice job on it. I hope it sounds as good as it looks. Congrats!

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just finished the fanned frert guitar today, i found some old tuners, saddles and a old ultra sonic singlecoil sized humbucker i could use. i used some ebony for a nut, and some rosewood for a bridge, basicaly this guitar costed me 10 bux for the fretwire, and about 110 for all the woods...

i got used to playing fanned frets pretty fast realy, its kinda weird for bending cuz the high frets bend realy fast and pretty high, bending 2half notes isnt to hard to do, where on the lower frets its kinda hard to do a half note bend due to the angle.

otherwise its not to bad to play on.

if i had a camera id make some pics, but its butt ugly anyway so your not missing anything haha...

ps its the guitar from a few post above, xept i staned the maple fretboard purple

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hey, i'm really getting bored of the stuff i have(i know, i know, i just got a new guitar) but i wanna expand my collection to atleat 10 or more guitars. will take some work.

anywho, so, i'm just wondering if you guys know any companies that sell different parts of their bodies, or better yet, sell body blanks, or Kits. dont exactly know what i'm talking about? here:

KnE Guitars sells different kinds of bodies that you can modify yourself. and they are pretty cheap at about 120 USD per body!:
http://kneguitars.com/bod_list.php

and what i REALLY wanna get my hands on are these guys. they go by the name of Abstract Guitars. and for somereason are only sold out of Ed Roman's out of i think California, USA. but these body blanks are fairly cheap at 300. i say that that is cheap considering how unique some of their bodies are, take a look:
http://www.edromanguitars.com/newsi.../bodyblanks.htm


EDIT: i just got a price quote from Mitch over at KnE guitars for a neckthrough RR-VEE body guitar with 2 hums, floyd rose, locking nut, and ebony fret board(no inlay). so just a blank body for 450-500. i think that that is decent. but would like it if some other company was cheaper and did the same work....

any other there that you know of?

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the edromans look disgusting
but yeah the KNE looks decnet

ontop of that, ed roman is a piece of shit. He will lie, upcharge you, claim he undercharged you for something, and then deny you posession until you slide him the extra 200$. This even goes for fucking repairs! He is in all essence, a piece of shit. I would be elated if i woke up one day and found out his shop burned down with him in it.
His luthiers are all shitty, so all the guitars that are "hand made in my shop" are also peices of shit.
Dont support a piece of shit contructing other pieces of shit.

If you want to know what i mean, just read reviews about Ed Roman on harmony central.

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hmm, those KnE look alright, what was the thing you got a price for? just a body with a neck glued in unfinished and with no hardware?

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yeah, a neck thru guitar, with alder wings, and perhaps a mahagony middle, or hard maple(still thinking it over) with an ebony fret borad with no inlays(just those lil dots on the side of the fret board), and the gutiar be equipped for a floyd rose bridge, 2 humbuckers.

but yeah, its just a blank, no hardware, no paint, no nothing. the guitar wouldnt have a finish either


and ed romans sucks? really? pitty, coz i think some of their guitars look pretty cool. their head stocks are cool as well.

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Duuude im so gonna do that, im gonna get a neck-thru ironbird body/neck blank thingy then set it up real nice

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i know how to paint a bolt on body. like, put some sort of hanger into the screw hole, and start painting....

but i'm trying to figure out how i'd do that with a neckthru. i mean, the fret board is attached to it, so do i put some sort of tape on the fret board? wouldnt that mess up the fret board? plus, how are we to paint a headstock on a neckthru? same concept? just have the fret board taped?

but yeah, i'll get the blank either this summer, or next, depending on how bored i am, and whats my financial statas...

would be fun

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i just got another price quote from these guys:
www.divebombinc.com/

i think the guy's name is Dan. but he said taht for an alder wings, hard maple neck, ebony fret board, rhoads body,neckthrough construction etc etc...it will come to being 350!!!!!!!!!!! YES! 3 FUCKING 50 dollars!

he is also selling original floyd rose for 160 for chrome, 170 for black, and 180 for gold. now i dont know if thats the price for their floyd rose original, or floyd rose PRO. i think i rather go for the FR-PRO coz of its spacing being slightly narrorer.

i just might ask him to do my guitar. but i gotta see his work first. and there is absolutly no reviews about him, so i dont know if i can trust him. but 350 dollars is nothing too big, so its not too bad.

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just tape off everything you dont want painted. tape wont hurt your woods, i use it all the time on fretboard when polishing frets.

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the mahogany that i go.
it's beautful thoug y can't really tellteh woodz

Link didnt work for me mate.

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didnt work for me either

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ok here you go

Attached Images

TEHWOD.jpeg (9.2 KB, 112 views)

doods i got it back up

to bad its an unclea rpicture it lokos kidna greyish to me lol, probaly is the picture..

mahogany is always a trouble to get imo, theirs 50 different mahogany species and the specie you would want for guitars is endangered and hasnt been harvested for the last (atleast) 15 years.


not saying any other mahogany specie would make a bad guitar though.

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it's honduran.
doest that mean anything to y0ou?
oh and in person it is a nice reddish color

LOl here comes the fun,

and how do you know for sure its honduras?? like i sayd theres (atleast) 50 species of mahogany, you try and get the right one, and if they sell you sumtin as honduras doesnt mean its honduras.. same for swamp ash, most forums about guitarbuilding i see people that think they have a nice piece of swamp ash, but they all have regular ash..

not saying you dont have honduras mahony at all, i realy cant tell by the picture, real honduras mahogany is licht orange, and licht weight compared to other species, though sipo mahogany is sortof orangy aswell. so alot of people get sortof erippedof cuz thers other specie sof mahogany that looks like it, specialy if youv never seen real honduras right nezxt to other mahoganies.

my master has some real honduras wich i compared to the mahogany body that was sold to me year ago as honduras mahogany, and my body is most definatly NOT honduras.

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Anyway you can get some better pics up Joamdude? we could tell what species it really was if you did this.

i dont know enough about the wood, but im sure other people would be able to tell.

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Body and fretboard woods aquired- Idigbo and Ebony, respectively.

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that idigbo looks neat, never seen or heard of it before (that i can remember anyway)

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It's from the same family as Limba (also known as Korina), apparently it's "like Mahogany but with added mids", so should sound good

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I'm looking into building my own guitars actually. I like that Kne guitar company. But I was looking at getting a custom body. Very similar to what Doyle from The Misfits made for himself. His custom 27 fret Rand guitar. Like a really radical body shape. Do you think Kne would make it for me or is there any other companies that could probably make it?

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sorry guys the only camera i have is on my phone

ill try to get better lithginhg

yeh limba is sweet man, nice tight tone. im guessing your going for a maple neck??

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I would think so, something fairly simple for a kickoff- a 3piece laminated maple neck... perhaps with 2 little pieces of something else in there; for a little colour It's going to be a fanned 7 string- any tips from when you did your fan? I've got it all planned out pretty much, just interested if you came across any things that made life easier/to watch out for

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well, nothing to special or extra hard about it, xept youll have to mark the fretpositions for 2 scale lenghts instead of 1.

what you might wanna consider is... since the nut is angled it will be in the way (for me atleast) i find the nut in a uncomfortable position when playing on the 1st fret, i kepe hitting the highstring side of the nut with my hand/pinky, wich is pretty annoying.. you could use a zero fret, and leave the end of the fretboard straight and put a nut there.....

im not sure how to explain this so i drew a picture haha, not sure if it makes sence.

also, you can mess around with the angle as much as you like... you could make the nut straight, buit then the bridge wil eb at a sick angle, or vice versa... on my fanned fret theirs 4 cm difference between the 2 scale lengths.. 680mm and 640 mm, so i just ballanced it by putting 2 cm diference at the nut and 2 cm difference at the bridge, wich makes the 12th fret prettymuch straight as a normal fretboard... and thats pretty comfortable imo... never played any other fanned frets, but ive seen soem pics of fanned frets where they made the difference bigger at the bright, making higher position frets at a radical angle, wich SEEMED realy uncomfortable for soloing etc...


also i found some bending issues.

when you bend on the lower frets, bending goes slowly, youll have to bend realy far to get to a whole note bend.. while on the higher frets youll bend up to 2,5 half notes without to much trouble.. due to the fretangles. nothing to bad realy, just sumtin youll have to egt used to a little..


i also found it prety comfortable to play on a fanned fretboard.. not sure if its better than a regular, but its not worse either didnt take me too long to get used to it etc.

what scale lengths are you planning to use??

and what do u wanna do for a bridge?? any ideas on that, since yuo cant buy regular fanned bridges.. and those abm 1 piece bridges are like 30bux for each piece, and youll need 7 in your case.

i used a scrap piece of rosewood as a bridge plate, and used some old stratish saddles wich i just screwed onto it.. the screw for intonation hits the screw wich holds the saddle in place on the bridge plate, so i guess thats the easiest solution.. xept dont use rosewood if its a serious build, try to find a metal plate or sumtin, or some ebony should work to...

have you ever seen www.blackmachine.net ??? if not check it out, theres a pertty good pickure of how they made their bridges for the fanned they amde, thats the idea i used to make my bridge.


sry for the long story lol hope that cleared some stuff up for ya or give u some ideas.. if you need some help let me know.

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Cheers for the reply

I'm going to have the bridge pretty much straight (the perpendicular point being just over the bridge pickup), so i can stick with a regular tune-o-matic (string-through) It's going to be 25.5" on the treble, and 27" on the bass, so it's pretty much like yours actually- give or take a few mm. It'll mean that the lower frets will be angled a lot, but the upper ones being straighter. Interesting about the 1st fret thing, i see your idea, but i'm not too confident about a zero fret, it's something i've never used or seen in the the flesh before.

Hehe, funny you should bring up BlackMachine, as i got my timber from the same place they get theirs I actually used a blackmachine template to make sure i could get a superstrat shape out of the piece i selected I could spend hours and hours down there looking at all the different pieces they've got... will get myself a spalted (probably maple) top for a future guitar at some point too... mmmmm!

I've got a nice printout from a fret-calculator that i can use as a life-size template to mark out the scale lengths on the fretboard. I've got more Ebony than i need, so i might make the nut out of it... not sure yet, but i'll probably do an ebony cavity cover, as there'll only be 1 volume control and a switch (if i decide on two pickups, not sure yet).

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sounds good, i dno if youll be playing comfortably on the lowerfrets at such an extreme angle, then again it might work for you, as ive got no experience with any other fanned axe other than my own.

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k13m, a question:

With a bolt-on, did you angle the neck pocket itself, or did you angle the heel on the neck?

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heel of the neck is easier imo.

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Neck materials hath been sourced:
Woods separated
Lookin' good (not glued yet, will happen later this week)

That timber will provide me with two necks (bolt-on), the woods are maple/purpleheart and padauk... both the purpleheart and padauk will look stunning when they've been properly prepared

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did ya plane those sides yourself?

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Nah, got the guys at the timber yard to do it... the maple came from a new plank too, cut specially for me

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aah the easy way huh , lol my master is forcing me to plane everything by hand, EVERYTHING lol, its a nightmare to get it perfect.. since perfect realy means perfect with my master

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Hehe, i've not much planing experience really, but i've just inherited a lot of woodworking tools since my grandad died, so i've got a lot of it there to use One thing i do need, is a new bandsaw blade as this current one is proper rubbish, can't cut straight at all.

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do you have a wide or a narrow blade?? mostly its pretty hard to cut straight with a band saw anyway, unless you get the widest blade available, and then its still kinda tricky sumtimes cuz it will bend off when it hits a hard piece of grain etc.

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It's a pretty narrow blade, but i'm currently doing some maintenance on it so it performs better, i think i can get it to cut straighter, as it's pretty much unusable in the current state... it is over 40 years old, so it'll need a little tlc.

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yeh it will help, but a narrow blade will bend REALY easy, impossible to make nice straight cuts with it.. i know from experience we use the narrow blade for bodies and headstocks only in the workshop.

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Yea, i've got it set up pretty good now, a bit more fine tweaking, and it'll be good enough to do bodies etc. (with a new blade, the current one is a little blunt). I've got a circular saw that i can use for straight edges, then plane/sand them flat.

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hey sgol do you ahve a website for the woodcompany thingy where u got your wood?? cuz im looking for a place that has some woods in europe.

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www.luthiersupplies.co.uk - The website looks rubbish, but they are very good, and they have loads of stuff there... it might be worth sending them an email to ask if they've got what you're looking for, they're helpful guys

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cool tnx mate, im not looking for anything rightnow, but i want some rosewood for a 1piece neck somewhere in the future so.


also isnt it www.luthiersupplies.com?? cuz co.uk doesnt work for me

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Whoops, my bad, it's http://www.luthierssupplies.co.uk There isn't any pictures, and they may not have that listed there, but i'm pretty sure they'd be able to get some/have some already.

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aah cool thnx, their prices arent to bad for some stuff.

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so any progress on your guitar yet sgol??

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Well, neck laminates have been glued- weighing in at 86mm wide, it means i can cut out the headstock without having to stick any timber to the side Also means that i could get an 8 string neck out of it too, as well as the 7 Who knows what i'll do, i'll finish the fanned 7 first though... i need to re-do my body template as my first one turned out to be too small.

When i've done some work on the neck (planed it down and cut it into the two separate necks, i'll post some pictures

Edit: I'm probably going to make my own truss rod(s) too- i can't find any that meet the specification i require, and it isn't too hard/expensive to build one (apart from the initial overheads; taps and dies + a supply of steel).

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bought my maple today
no pics but it is american hard maple
each 48 inches long, about an inch wide, and 3 or four deep


also titebond, and sandpaper


im gettin ready to glue this bitch

haha sweet guys.

i almost finished my limba stratish guitar a while ago, no pics yet though
i got it stringed up, and i borrowed a seymour duncan humbucker (no idea wich model), no neck pu yet, and no scratchplate yet. no money to get those either.

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What's the Limba like to work with (as my Idigbo is similar)? Easy/hard? Finishes up well?

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limba is realy sorft. dents and scratches REALY easy, but also sands, plans, cuts realy easy, since its so soft and open grained it will probaly take a shitload of laquer to get it smooth, since it will suckup alot ofit, youll definatly need some grain filler if your planning to laquer or paint it.

i didnt realy care for the looks alot so i just slapped some oil onit and started playing lol. oil finish doesnt look to bad, turns into a light butteryellowish colour. since my neck is wengé (aka dark chocolate colour) with an ebony fretboard it contrasts nicely to the light body.

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Yea, i'm going for an oil finish- how did you finish the neck, just oil too?

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yup, sofar ive oilfinished all my necks, and im not planning to laquer any necks anyway cuz i hate laquered necks

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Neck laminates glued and planed.

Not planed completely flat yet, but it's pretty level. Hopefully by tomorrow i'll have it nice and level and square too Might cut the body wood and glue that together too, now that i've finally got my body template sorted.

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pic of my unfinished stratish thingy

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whats the finish gona be lke?

i hate finishes mostly, exept oil finishes, im thinking of making a pickguard from wenge (just like the neck) but i dno how that will look yet. im also busy with another telecaster wich has more priority than the strat, the strat was sortof an in-between build lol.

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A brief update:

I've now got an electric planer, so i can plane all edges to proper 90 degree angles and flat too With that addition, the body plank was cut and planed, so i now have two body blank sides (nearly ready for gluing- needs a couple more runs to get it perfect first though). Bodyblank with template overlayed. The template isn't the final one still- the outline is correct, but the neck pocket needs adjusting as it's a 6string template.

Templates laid out together The headstock needs a little reshaping, but that's pretty much it

Should have the bodyblank halves glued tomorrow after work.

Still need to buy:

Tuners
Straplocks
Pickups +electronics

and i need to sort out the truss rod too, i've got the carbon fibre rods for the neck though.

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whatup with the carbon fiber?? its lame and not necesarry if you use proper wood.

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It's only 5mm diameter, just to strengthen the neck, as it's longer than an average guitar neck... perhaps i'm being over-cautious, but i just don't want my neck to snap when i've strung it up Anyway, just about to go glue the body together

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your neck wont snap

me and my collegue (sp?) were bored a while ago, so we took an old bass neck wich wasnt gonna be used, and we tightened the hell outof the trussrod (until it broke lol) we walked and jumped onit, we tryd to actually snap it, didnt work.. so if we cant break a neck than no way some stringtension will

if you use fresh woods for the neck the carbonrods might prevent warping.

body looks nice, realy looks like limba alot, but slightly difefrent, looks like white mahogany (if that would exist, maybe it does lol i dno).

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Well, body has been glued together... success! Join line is pretty much non-existent after some brief initial sanding Will post pics soon.

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any more progress yet?? im curious about your axe

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Not really, i've been spending loads of time making sure the neck pocket will be perfect- it's the one thing that i'm nervous about. I'm happy with the template i've created for it now though, so we might get some more progress.

The body has been sanded, and i've just ordered the pickup (bareknuckle warpig), only having one in the bridge for this guitar

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cool, did you finish the neck already?

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Nah, i still need the truss rod, i've got to order the taps and dies that i need first, but they're expensive!

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whats are the ''taps and dies'' lol, im unfamiliar with those words.

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They're used to create threads on rods and through material. The die creates a thread on a rod, the tap creates a thread through a piece of material, but you have to drill a hole to allow the tap move through

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ooh yeh now i get it so your building ur own rod ey?

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Yea, i can't find a rod that will fit as i'd like (500mm), the longest i've found, is 460mm for guitar, and the shortest one for bass is about 520, which is too long Its not difficult to build, just a little metalwork

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i just put a 460mm in my fanned fret, works fine.

but yeah, custom made rods are way more cool

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made a little kisekae mockup for the idea i had for my telecaster.

just an idea

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Headstock angle cut, truss rod cavity routed. The CF rods require a 5mm router bit, so i've got to go and get one today, so they'll be routed later on.

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i got my laminates all glued up

and i put the neck angle on,
and i cut the headstock angle.
queston: on the subject of the headstock angle. is it ok that i just did it on a whim with no research?
what does it affect and all that stuff

hmm, dont think it will matter alot, hard to say without seeing it though :P

both guitars with and without headangle work so...

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it is soooooo nervewracking cutting a neck angle for 1.5 degrees!!!
the band saw will not cut into the wood. I felt like a was shaving something

A very busy day today Tasks achieved:
-Routed both CF rod channels
-Split the neck splices into two separate necks
-Routed neck pocket
-Started shaping the fretboard
-Started making the pickup cavity template

Some pictures:
Neck pocket1
Neck pocket2
Headstock rough layout
Truss rod and cf rods in situ
Rod channels
Neck cut(imagine two of those shapes 'yin & yang' together, thats how it was before.

There's one small error with the neck pocket, if you look on the left of the closeup, you can see a little wobble, but it'll disappear when the edges are rounded slightly. I had to redesign the headstock due to an oversight on my part- i designed it with only a 2d plane in mind, so when i transferred it over to the angled headstock it didn't fit correctly.

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Fortunately my guitar doesn't need a neck angle, so i've only got to make the heel perfectly parallel to the fretboard

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carbon rods? do those hurt your tone.
how'd you get away with not having a neck angle :P, like what bridge/raisedfretboard/etc.

Well, if you can notice the difference from there being two 5x5mm channels with carbon instead of wood in, then perhaps, but for anyone normal, no

I'm using a fender-style bridge, so the strings are 13mm from the body, so i don't need a neck angle- i'd rather get the neck pocketing down to a T before i venture into those waters

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