The Luthier Community

Yeah your'e all probbly getting sick of me but here goes anyways. This one's a strat style with 25.5" scale wilkinson trem and I'm thinking about a reverse bridge pickup angle to try and get more of the hendrix vibe, not sure about the headstock though, I'm geting kinda fond of the 3 a side setup even though I do like the fender big head.....hmmmm so this is what i've been up to for the past 2 days. sapele 2 piecs body which has a blister type figure running through it , hopefully it'll show up better under finishand a bookmatched flame maple top, which as it happens has some scary looking faces in !!........ I promise you'll see faces soon... so to make the figure pop, I scraped the top smooth and added the first coat of red stain followed by a thorough sanding...... then I went to a yellow stain followed by another coat of red.... Its all just applied on a piece of old t shirt and rubbed in till its even..., the yellow brightens the red and highlights the darker red that soaked deeper into the curl..... while I think on ... can you see the faces yet? onto the back carve, fitted perfectly to my ample belly so it should fit pretty much any belly , still not sure about the head , bit its another neck from the same board I got the last couple from on the Tele and the first DC, nice flame through the board, which incidentally this top also came from just tring to work out whee everything should go.... I'm sorta winging it a bit, made one template, then rushed into making the body, time to make another template fot the neck pocket an PUP's. I'm sorta torn between a scrathplate or not cos' of the figure in the top....hmmm and this is the source on all the info I needacquired from a man smoking pot in a seedy guitar shop for £150 about 20years ago..... in dire need of a refret now though, but i just can't bring myself to do it ! so thats the trem fromt route and neck pocket done..... total time so far 24hrs in 2 days..... I plan on making the neck tomorrow while I decide what to do about PUP's and controls

I'M not tired of ya!

That is cool, big time - Love the color layers and the bookmatch is stunning - She's gonna be a beaut!

E

Thanks Eben , I managed to get the neck finished off today mostly... its from the same billet as the neck on my first double cut, with the real deep curl, same billet as this guitar top as it happens too, the maple was from curlymaple.com and cost as much to ship as it did to buy, you'll get free shipping however being in I assume one of the lower48 states should you care to try them out, the board wasn't even from their top of the line stuff either. Be sure that whan th money starts to come in instead of going out constantly, Ill be trying out what they class as their best stock! In the mean tme I'm working with what I got. the sapele I used for the back was sourced locally and has a blister and flame figure running through it which was an added bonus as I only bought it cos of the board dimensions from the centre of a pallet..8x2 by 10' £40.00 makes it very affordable to me and they hold boards up to 18" wide. if i had the money I'd have bought that instead!and the tap tone is better than any other mahogany i've come across, which is more important to me than the looks or the species.... lets face it , if Gibson had access to this wood instead of the honduras mahogany they'd have used it instead for all their overpriced guitars in '59.....to date!er.... mini rant over. So whats your opinion on pickup selection?..... I started off thinking texas specials with reverse slant on the bridge for the hendrix tone, but now I'm thinking buckers an coil tap..... buckers are winning financially as I already have them Alnico II slash spec..... which sound amazing in my PRS clone.... or wait a while and get the singles?