CarlosN's 2012 Challenge Build Thread -- COMPLETED

Throwing my hat in the ring here. Best Beginners category for me, going to need lots of luck. Have zero experience building guitars. I have done other wood working projects before, but have only been playing guitar for just over a year. Thankfully I have the blessing of my Significant Other, and access to my bro-in-law's workshop.

Today I just bought some MDF to start making tempts, still trying to figure out my selection of wood, hardware, design, you know, everything else. Lots of inspiration from past builds, TDPRI is truly an amazing resource fueled by amazing people.

Glad to have you along for the ride, Carlos! Just remember to have fun with it. I'm pretty excited to watch the beginner category.

Lots of inspiration from past builds, TDPRI is truly an amazing resource fueled by amazing people

The best part of this forum :smile:. You'll be fine :wink:

Welcome and good luck! :grin:

Dave

Thanks Dave,

It was actually reading your thread from last years build that inspired me to enter. So glad I stayed up late Monday reading a bunch of the build threads, great ideas and suggestions, techniques etc- seeing that they have all been temp removed during the 2012 builds. I should have been taking notes, just have to rely on my memory now.

Think I leaning towards a semi-chambered body, majority out of spruce with a 1/4 lid glued on it to bring it up to1 3/4" thick. I just found a really really beautiful 2x8 at my local lumber yard, straight grained spruce. Supposed to be kiln dried, I'll see how it looks after i joint the edges and glue the two boards together. Aside from my 2x8 and some mdf that is all the materials I have so far for my build, I guess I should post my pic. I'm waiting to see how this routers out before I order any of the specific guitar hardware. I have some interesting ideas about a finish too, shooting for a combo of dead easy and unique - I'm hoping that the 2 features are not mutually exclusive.

Good luck to everyone so far that has entered!

Thankfully I have the blessing of my Significant Other, and access to my bro-in-law's workshop.

Those are two of the most important things!

Looking forward to seeing your work.

Shots of the lumber aquired so far with the build entry page. Anyone suggest a source for a 1/4" thick rosewood plank for the fretboard? Would love a local source, but Windsor plywood only has 3/4" thick and up (lots of rosewood if you wanted the body made of it!). Anyone know of a source in Western Canada, or Canada in general? I can of course source from Stewmac, but I usually have silly issues with cross border purchases.

For rosewood fingerboard check out seller Bezdez in eBay (located in Ontario) - there's some but I'm not sure they're long enough for standard tele. I bought some there, and they're fine at least for certain guitars, like Gibson-style or shorter scale. Depends on your design!

Bezdez is awesome, you will do well with them.

Sweet Socks!!

Hidey Ho!

Progress today on my templates and the wood core of the guitar, I am amazed at the folks who are flying through on their builds, but I gotta keep reminding myself, its my first build, and measure twice, cut once. That has always helped me in the past.

Being my first build, i need templates. Figuring that it would be hard to magically route the 5/8" MDF that i am wanting to use for the templates with not much more than a pencil line, i decided to make templates for my templates. The dollar store close to where I live had foam core poster board for yep, a dollar a board, and this stuff I am finding out is a great deal. Its huge (2.5' by 3') and cheap and pretty sturdy too. For the templates i hot glued 2 sheets of the foam board together to get me a thickness of 1/2" and this was actually study enough for the router bit to follow and cut the MDF satisfactorily. I would consider these foam core templates a one off deal, but good for me because they are easy to cut, create, glue, fix, and play with before committing to the router. The foam core can compress a bit when following the router bearing (not much though), but with that in mind they worked well on the MDF.

I also worked to get a glue-able surface on my spruce 2x8" lumber that I am using for the core of the guitar. I don't have access to a jointer, so made the best with the router and sandpaper, and came back with good enough results to glue together with no horribly obvious gap.

This post and pics don't really represent all the mental work i've put into selecting what kindof machine heads, bridge, pickups, etc to order (not ordered yet). Also, still debating to hollow out the spruce core to lighten the body up, or to make a belly cut in the body for my nice belly. I have seen a build where the builder accomplished both (actually there was even a f-hole, so the inside of the guitar had to look nice too, and it did!) - thinking that it is doable, but also weighing this out because this is my first build, and I don't want to set unrealistic goals that will never be met, or met quite crappily with the obvious crappy results. I'd rather have a nice (maybe sightly heavy, maybe not so ergonomic-thus classic) guitar than to try too much too fast.

Spruce should also be pretty light too, so maybe weight relief gutting of the guitar wont actually save me much weight. The body will be 1 1/4" spruce, with a 1/2" maple cap (more or less). Materials selected based on budget - trying to see how cheap I can be in building my own.

foam core poster board, eh? Most people use 1/4" mdf for their master template. I used 3/16" tempered masonite for mine. The trick is to spend most of your time getting a really nice master, and then use that to cut your 3/4" mdf working templates. But if you don't plan on building any more (which I doubt :razz:), then a disposable master template should be fine.

Don't rush it....there is no need to.

Good idea RogerC. Right now I have some really nice 5/8" mdf templates made up (working templates). I could cut some 1/4" templates from those and keep them in a safe place so they don't get all dinged up. This probably will not be my last tele, I am enjoying the work I've done so far.

Did more work on the body this week, pretty standard stuff compared to everyone else's builds. Pics below to show the progress, nothing too exciting however - although that is a goal for my first build~! Pics show my 2x8 spruce body shaping up like a tele, and my 1/2 maple top being cut and shaped.

Pics showing the work done in removing some of the weight from the spruce body and making room for the electronics. I'm leaving some room at the "top" of the guitar for a belly cut. Overall this spruce body will be 1.25" thick, with a 1/2" maple top on it for the 1.75" total thickness. I have also routed 1/4" in select areas from the back of the maple top to remove some of the weight, but mostly so that the pots and switches don't have to go through 1/2" of maple. Still undecided as to what kind of electronic layout I will be putting in, the rational part of me says to keep it simple (stupid) and stick with the conventional switch + 2 pots of the regular teles - the other half wants push-pull pots, mini switches and a 5 way switch... probably not a wise thing on a first build.

Nice going CarlosN!! are you going to do an f hole?

Showing some pics here on me playing around trying to make an adjustable truss rod out of 3/16" stainless steel rod, a 1/2" scrap bolt, and a 10-32 nut. This thing actually works, but I am really not sure if I want to install it, or to make a more simple and conventional one-way adjustable truss rod.

This truss rod I made would be adjustable by removing the neck: the positive is that I would only have to route a straight channel in the neck right underneath the fretboard. Part of me is really trying to avoid a) a curved truss rod channel in the neck (hard to route without adequate templates) and b) lining up holes in the neck to have a neck adjustable truss rod.

(More pics to follow, how do you upload more than 5 at a time?)

More Pics

No f-hole for me on this build, debated, but decided to go with a belly-cut, and no f-hole. I know both can be done, but I didn't want to risk potential disasters with this build. Having a really nice inside surface is a prime consideration with an f-hole (I think), and that would be hard to achieve with routing for a belly cut.

Snapped a few more pics last night. One shows the routing for the pickup wires in the spruce body, and some others of the rough maple cap that is now glued together.

The maple cap is in no way bookmatched or anything, but I did try to find the "neatest" grain on the maple and worked that into the natural shape of the tele. Still not sure what kind of finish I will use. A stain of some sort to allow the grain of the wood to show through, but still deciding on an oil finish, or a blue sunburst, or more of a see-through vintage white. The benefit of a sunburst would allow me to have the sides and back of the guitar black, and that would hide most of the plain grain of the spruce body. I will probably go with a combo of whatever is a) easy and b) cheap.

The last pic shows the stainless steel 10-24 bolts and blind nuts that i will be using to secure the neck - the trick here is to remember to imbed the blind nuts into the neck before the fretboard goes over top. Part of me just does not trust screws going into wood, even though it has been proven for 60+ years to work very well.

Tomorrow off to go find a nice cheap belt sander - this is one of the tools that I am missing that would help sooo much.

Carl

Looking good!

I like the truss rod and neck mounting ideas here! Good looking spruce.

I think you made an awesome truss rod there. You could always bring it "out" at the
headstock end couldn't you?

That's a clever truss rod!

Looking good so far.

Re the photos. I found life much easier after setting up a photobucket account. From there you can copy and paste the image. I'm using an iPad with the photobucket app which is great. Only prob with iPad is autocorrect makes me look like I write like a 7 year old.

Cheers

Short update here. Had some time this week to sand and glue the maple cap to the hollowed spruce body, applied as many clamps as possible and probably way too much glue. Next week I'll have more time to route the body, neck etc.

Been tied up lately with some health issues, but I'll be ok - just takes way too much time from guitar building.

I think I have finally decided on on what kind of finish to use on the build. EM6000 wiped or sprayed and tinted with dye, available from a disti in Canada (shipping from the states is harder than you'd think for finishes and dyes etc). The vendor is Woodessence, and the pricing and shipping seems reasonable. http://www.woodessence.com/EM6000-Production-Lacquer-P55.aspx

EM6000 is all water based, low VOX etc, these things are now really important to me (trying to avoid toxins and be kind to my liver). You'd be surprised how much acetone, naphtha, etc you can suck up through your skin or inhale if you are not careful. I'd rather try out this stuff and see if it holds to the hype, it all sounds good on the bottle!

Still have not decided on colours but that will be figured out.
More to come this week for sure!

I've heard and seen great results with that EM6000. There was a whole thread devoted
to it on another forum with plenty of detail and the finish the guy got was stunning.
Good luck with your health issues and glad to see you're playing it smart by avoiding as
many toxins as you can.

Wooo, finally got some more work done on the project! The body is now glued together, time to sand the top flush, route and sand the body to final thickness, and route the final dimensions of the body.

The maple cap i glued on is very hard, even with 80 grit belts on the belt sander it is still slow going levelling the top. By contrast, the same 80 grit belt on the spruce bottom chews through like butter. A very light touch is required there. Not having a thickness planer, what I did to thin down the body was set a flush bottom router bit at 1/8" depth (what was needed to bring the body to 1 3/4") and make multiple passes along the bottom of the body leaving enough little "fences" up to keep the depth accurate. Maybe not the best way, but no jig was required, and it actually worked really well, in that the bottom is level, and the body is the correct thickness.

And, set up the router table, and was able to set it to the heights needed to follow the body template, and when i ran out of height, i removed the template, and used the route on the body as the guide for the pattern router bit. I was able to complete this in 3 stages, each with multiple passes because I left about 1/2" of wood beyond the final measurements. I can see why people get as close to the line with their band saws, but I only have a jig saw that I don't quite trust to hold true around corners.

I was quite happy with the routing job today. No big messes or gouges or tear-outs to have to repair, yeah! The maple cap actually machined much nicer than the softer spruce body, that I found interesting. I though I was going to have problems around the horn areas, but i was either lucky enough, careful enough, or skilled enough (probably not that one) to have very few problems. Some sanding will be required, but that's why i've bought sandpaper.

Another thing i've wanted in this tele is a belly cut. My tele that I have (and love) is a CV 50 BSB, and while very retro styled, it could be a bit more comfortable to hold onto. On this build I've rounded the edges with a 1/4" round-over bit, and added the belly cut.

I've been working in my brother-in-laws basement shop, and while he does not have all the big power tools that I would love to have (jointer, thickness planer, tablesaw) he seems to have every other little hand tool, file, saw, chisel, etc that I could ever want. When I described to him how I was going to make the belly-cut he went in and dug around and pulled out coping saws, japanese razor saws, chisels, etc.

What I used in this case, and what was fast and easy, was to mark the approx outer dimensions of the belly cut with pencil, then just went to work with a very sharp coping saw. I at first was just going to experiment and see what tool would work the best to make the cut, but the spruce just cut so nicely with the saw that it took about 15 minutes total to make the rough belly cut. And now, its nothing that a few minutes with my belt sander cannot shape to something perfect.

Looking good, great job on the truss rod, and great idea on the bolts

Hi Everybody,

Eh, nothing really new and exciting to report here, just figured I'd update the thread to comply with the rules.

Since the last update... Sanding, and... More sanding, and then more sanding. No pics, but you can use your imagination here. The body is nicely snapped and sanded out, just waiting now for me to mangle it with the router when I cut the neck pocket and pickup routes. Overall I am vey happy with the way the body has come out. I'll weigh it next time, but I am thinking it's very light...

All the rest of the parts are in the post, and I am hoping that the rest of the build should come together quickly. Meanwhile, I am having fun reading almost all of the rest of the builds, and I am constantly impressed with the talent and creativity of you guys on this site! Forgive me when I start stealing ideas for jigs and builds, I promise I won't claim divine inspiration.

And still trying to figure out the "best" water based finish for me. I'm really hoping that I can brush something on and get a good result with lots of sanding and TLC. We'll see about that I guess.

Cheers all,
Carl

Hi Everybody,

Eh, nothing really new and exciting to report here, just figured I'd update the thread to comply with the rules.

Since the last update... Sanding, and... More sanding, and then more sanding. No pics, but you can use your imagination here. The body is nicely snapped and sanded out, just waiting now for me to mangle it with the router when I cut the neck pocket and pickup routes. Overall I am vey happy with the way the body has come out. I'll weigh it next time, but I am thinking it's very light...

All the rest of the parts are in the post, and I am hoping that the rest of the build should come together quickly. Meanwhile, I am having fun reading almost all of the rest of the builds, and I am constantly impressed with the talent and creativity of you guys on this site! Forgive me when I start stealing ideas for jigs and builds, I promise I won't claim divine inspiration.

And still trying to figure out the "best" water based finish for me. I'm really hoping that I can brush something on and get a good result with lots of sanding and TLC. We'll see about that I guess.

Cheers all,
Carl

Looking good so far, and looking forward to seeing it come together - BTW, I don't know about water based finishes, but if you have Minwax Antique Oil Finish up there - I just started using it and it is perfect if you just want a minimal low luster finish. I may hit it with a coat of shellac to give it a little luster.

Thanks Dave,

It was actually reading your thread from last years build that inspired me to enter. So glad I stayed up late Monday reading a bunch of the build threads, great ideas and suggestions, techniques etc- seeing that they have all been temp removed during the 2012 builds. I should have been taking notes, just have to rely on my memory now.



Flattered and humbled :oops:. Your building a sweet guitar yourself :wink:

Dave

Nice job on the body. There are several options for sound holes other than a traditional F Hole shapes. I had an older Hamer Duotone with Round Holes.

Belly cut is nicely done, I have been thinking about using the same technique instead of the spindle sander.

You're doing great work. A suggestion on the finishing; Deft is now making a water-based
Lacquer in rattle can. Just like the original, it comes in Glossy, Semi-Gloss and Satin.

Thank you all for your replies! For finishing I do plan on using shellac flakes mixed with DNA for the sealer coat, and then as well for the color coats (mixed with dye). From everything I have read this is compatible with WB finishes, and should make the grain "pop" enough to be interesting. For the neck, I will either use Tung oil or tue-oil on the maple part, and some sort of finishing oil for the fretboard (lemon or orange oil). I've ordered both rosewood and bubinga blanks, and when they show up I will choose which one would work best on this build.

My main hangup here is figuring out the top coat on the body. Of course I am looking for a perfectly smooth and glossy surface in the end. I can grab a prevail sprayer if needed, or use rattle cans, but i would prefer to try to brush on a WB finish (maybe lots of coats to get good thickness) and then just sand it down and polish from there. Everyone seems to spray, and love nitro, but I am going to be stubborn and not use nitro for health concerns (I'm recovering from some major surgery in the fall from cancer, and want to avoid carcinogens and take it easy on my internal organs - rather not have cancer pop up again) and i would prefer to brush on simply because of work space, and also so that participants are not airborne around me.

Good things seems to be said about the new generation water based finishes, and all claim that they can be applied with a brush. I think I'm just going to have to grab some and experiment and see if this is going to work at all. I am happy to experiment, and I think that's what I need to do, I've pretty well exhausted most of the info that I can find on the ole Internet superhighway.

Progress update:

I've been avoiding working on the neck, i don't have any fancy templates to radius the fretboard or carve the back of the neck, but i can't let that stop me, I think I've figured out how to do that without jigs.

I'm using an unusual home-built truss rod in this neck, it seems to work on the bench and I cannot see why it would not work to adjust a neck (we'll see won't we?). I routed the channel for the truss rod, a little thicker than needed at 1/4", but thats all I could do, the truss rod itself is 3/16", but I see lots of people with the same issues, and the truss rods do seem to work even if there is a little lateral slop in the channel. After routing the channel I bolted on the neck template and routed the outside dimensions - only a little tear-out and burnout in places, but actually nothing disastrous that cannot be sanded out. I better keep praying to the router gods and making my sacrifices to them, they seem to like me.

The last pic here shows the truss rod installed in the shaped neck. A little more sloppy than I was shooting for, but I can brace any gaps with scrap wood inside while still allowing the rod to flex. Overall I am happy for a first build!

A jig that I really needed to make was one to route out the neck pocket, so thats what I build yesterday. Very similar to the 100s that I've seen here on TDPRI (again, an amazing resource!!). Used the neck templates to accurately set the walls for the neck pocket template, and routed that out. I do plan on building more bodies, so templates like this do have a definite future with me.

Last pic shows the template mounted on the tele body.

Took the plunge (yes very punny!) and routed the neck pocket. Being very precise and anal in creating the templates really do allow for the completed parts to fit together really well. Again, very happy with this first build.

The only thing I am not thrilled about was the kindof mangled hole I made in the neck for the truss rod anchor. I have filled that with scrap maple and glue so its a nice tight fit now, and will be invisible under the fretboard - I'll still know its there though. Something to fix in build #2 - going to use a more conventional truss rod in my next build - I already have that sitting on my desk. This was more of a proof of concept, and since I spent a few hours making the darn truss rod I figured I might as well use it, it does work.

Holes in the neck are for the neck bolts, any holes you can see in the body were for mounting the router templates - and will themselves be routed out - they are where the pickups will eventually go.

And now, off to go make some more sawdust for the day!

That's looking great.

That's looking great.

+1

Really nice work Carlos, the chambering, contours and wiring channels are very clean. I think this is the first time I've seen someone make a two way truss rod, that came out great. The top has awesome grain. Are you going to round off the corners of the body at the end of the neck pocket? They seem a little sharp.

Wow, everything is looking very clean, indeed. Nice going.

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement - this is such a nice group of people on this forum, it is kinda incredible. I love this site more and more.
So many encouraging builds to steal ideas and techniques from too!

Yes, probably about 1/2 way through this build, and already thinking about #2 - this surely has never happened to anyone else! Must be because I am such a weirdo.

Anyways...

waiting on the ole Mr. Postman to bring me the rest of my goodies so I can cut the pickup routes and drill for the electronics (i'll have to practice that tune of the same name covered by the Beatles for encouragement). I am going to wait until I have the parts in my hands so I can measure them to get accurate routes - tempted to use a generic template, but that would probably create some sort of weird problem that would take me longer to fix than to wait in the first place.

Today I sanded down the rosewood fretboard, made sure it was nice and true and glued it onto the neck. I debated sanding it and radiusing it, and installing the frets etc before glueing onto the neck, but I'm thinking all those things will be easier when I'm working with a chunk of wood 1" thick, not 1/4" thick. Thats what I did today - at least i moved the bench outside to work in the sunshine! (no pics of sunshine, only of the dusty basement - oh how dreary). Come monday the neck will be all ready for final shaping. I did remember to glue in the T nuts ("blind nuts") underneath the fretboard so the neck bolts will be nice and secure. I'm actually thinking that this is gonna work.

Next week all my goodies should be in stock, and the build should progress faster. I also grabbed a gallon of water-based EM7000 High Build Lacquer to experiment with, i will post my results (sadly i cannot find much info on this product because it is quite new). Hopefully this product work out well, I have high expectations and hopes, and patience to match.

Below are the mentioned dusty basement shop pics. Not much to see, didn't snap any pics until the neck was glued and clamped up. I should try for an action router pic to capture all the shavings 'a flyin', but i'd probably also capture me routing my finger or something like that. :) Man, it is getting very cluttered down there!

oh, and "Go Canucks Go"

Carl

Yeah! All the little bits that I was waiting on have arrived, so I can now measure and mark the bridge holes accurately, and make the humbucker templates. First off, I made a small jig out of some scrap maple to help set the holes for the bridge, the bridge I am using has 5 holes for the screws where it attaches to the body, and 6 for the string-through, so lots of ways to get nice crooked holes drilled in the body. I measured and marked the maple jig, and drilled all the holes for it with the drill press, and this helped immensely. Like so many other builds, what I did for the string-through ferrule holes was drill the 2 outer holes right through the body (free-hand, the drill press does not have a large enough throat) and then used the jig to position and drill the 4 holes in-between these. Oh, and a strip of green painters tape does help prevent any surface splintering that you can get from drilling the initial holes through the body.

The only place where I am not completely happy is where I tried to enlarge the holes with a 3/8" Forster bit so the shoulder of the ferrule would sit just flush with the body, and not stick out at all. The body is spruce, and being such a soft wood the bits were tearing at the wood pretty savagely. I think I will be able to sand and finish these satisfactorily and will never be able to see any of the tearing (the ferrule should hide most, the sanding and finish will mask the rest) but it was still an annoying process to go through. Looking at the pic you can see some of the tear-out, but I'm thinking it should finish ok. Oh well, at least they are 99% straight.

Having the bridge marked, I can then route the humbucker cavities. I added a humbucker router template to one of my existing MDF templates on the center-line, and used this for both cavities. Annoyingly I forgot to snap any shots of this.

Below are the completed routed pockets. The close-up detail shot will show the channels I routed in the spruce side of the body for the cabling. This at the time I thought was pretty smart, and looking at it now, this has saved time, effort and trouble in trying to do this now with a really long drill bit. I even routed a short channel that goes 1/2 under the bridge to allow the bridge ground wire to pop up there.

After squaring the router pockets with a nice sharp hand chisel the humbuckers drop in perfectly. Everything (according to my measurements) is nice and straight down the neck and body centreline.

Pick of the humbucker in there, and the humbucker with cover-plate. Should work nicely.

In the bottom humbucker pocket you can see the deeper "wings" routed for the screws on each side of the pickup. This I was able to to freehand this, just dropping the overall depth of the cut to 1" (plus the 5/8" MDF thickness) and followed the side of the template and carefully freehanded the remaining cavity. This worked fine and saved time in building more templates for this finickity task. If I was going into production I would make the appropriate template, but for now it is just fine. The humbucker bottoms out when flush with the top of the body, I cannot imagine needing to go deeper than that.

Left to do... that I am kind of dreading....

1. Carve the back of the neck
2. Radius the fretboard
3. Cut fret slots
4. Install frets

Everything else is just cake for this build. Hopefully I can do these 4 tasks before the weekend. I think i have all the info needed for completing these satisfactorily, but i'm looking for perfection. Well, time to make some more sawdust... and anyways, I can probably build another neck in time if I totally destroy this one (or maim it).

This is still a really clean looking build.
I love dual humbuckers.

Left to do... that I am kind of dreading....

1. Carve the back of the neck
2. Radius the fretboard
3. Cut fret slots
4. Install frets


Don't sweat it. It's not as hard as it seems and once you finish the first one I think you'll say that carving the neck... and the other 3 things on your list... are your favourite parts about building a guitar.

I just taught my 16 year old son to build a guitar and he did 95% of the work himself. I just watched and gave advice. He did a great job... built a beautiful neck... and he says that was his favourite part of the project.

You can do it.

^^^ agreed, I really enjoy shaping necks now, looking back I wish I hadn't been hesitant to try for so long. Just pick a carving process that works for you and take your time, you'll dig it. Personally I think tklaavo documented a pretty good process but there are several other excellent ones. I can't recall who did the roasted maple neck but that was well documented as well.

Edit: It was axedaddy, his process is good for shaping.
Guitar looks great Carlos.

You are doing great. This contest was my first neck, and I dreaded the neck more than anything else. Nerve racking for sure, but it is for sure the most fun and rewarding part of a build. Your woodworking skills are very good.

You're in good shape, Carlos. Just take your time and go in with a clear head.

Wow, thank you all for the kind words and encouragement - and you know what, everyone who said that shaping the neck is the most fun of the build, I now agree! I looked upon this with a fair bit of trepidation, but all that time thinking of the process must have helped.

Last I left the neck I had just glued on the rosewood fretboard. Today I clamped the neck in the 'ole workmate and planed the fretboard flush with the sides of the neck. I then tried roughing out the back with a course rasp... ugh, thats gonna take a while. So... I reached for the trusty belt sander with 36 git paper (yes, 36 grit, its like pebbles!)

I clamped the neck more securly, and went to town rough shaping the neck with the belt sander. With 36 grit paper it processed very fast, and did not make a bunch of fine sawdust that flew everywhere. Instead the sawdust came off in a pretty big chunks and just fell on the floor. Much better on the floor than in my nostrils.

The back of the neck rough shaped - its a wide c shape now, still just over an inch thick - more fine tuning to do with finer rasps and sandpaper, but overall its nice and even, and it took less than 20 minutes to do. Give me another neck, I'm ready!. Maybe I need to build a strat neck to go with this guitar, they do just bolt on yah know.

With that done, I drilled out the holes of the machine heads. Honestly, it took me longer to find the right size drill bit for the tuners than it did working with the belt sander. Everything lines up +/- .01 = happy.

The green painters tape is on the back of the headstock to control chipping when the drill exits - worked very well (Still drilled against a backing plate, but the tape does help for sure.)

Last pic shows the nice shiney tuners - I love the button style knobs!

Not many pics of this process - it was very messy until I sanded everything nice and straight and flat. This is the head brought down to 1/2" thick. I did this upside-down on the router table, and I would rethink the process next time. I should look into building one of the fancy router sleds that I see some of you guys have constructed - thats what I need. This worked out OK in the end, but I had to sand way too much to make it satisfactory. It may be a little thin just at the last tuner as well, debating between veneer on the head, or just a second small washer to make the tuner screw down snug. It looks fine in this pic, but its there.

Last pics for today.

This is going to be the rear cover plate for the electronics. Made out of flat aluminum stock that I cut and shaped. Just finished making a router template for the plate before I called it for the day. I run outta energy so there is only so much I can do each day. Tomorrow I hope to route the rear cover plate to expose the innards of the guitar. It is a semi-hollow body, so there will be lots of room for the electronics in there.

And again, thank you all for reading, and especially the words of encouragement - this is a great gathering of minds!

Carlos, your build is really looking great. You've given me great confidence to attack, uh, I mean address the shaping of my neck back. Once I fix the front, anyway! Keep up the great work!

Wow, thank you very much. It was actually more fun and easier to consistently shape than I was thinking. I found the trick for me was to use the course rasp to even out all the high spots after the initial rough shaping is done. Give it a go, I an sure you will do great!

Nice neck; they always go faster than people think they will. This is shaping up to be a very cool build.

Awesome results Carlos now there's no stopping this hopeless guitar building addiction. Enjoy the ride.

With the template completed it was time to route the rear cavity for the electronics. I made an alum cover plate yesterday, and the template to match. I clamped the template on the body, but had to raise it another 5/8" with more MDF because I only have a 1" deep pattern router bit, the raised up template allowed me to route to the correct depth. It would up being just a hair high of flush, but i figure I can sand a little off the shoulder if its really bugging me. Cover plate fits nicely. (and the spruce body routes like butter).

Close up shot here showing the ample room for the electronics. Can also see one of the channels I previously cut for the wiring to the PUs.

Today I also made up a nice neck plate from some aluminum. This is some really nice material, it cuts, files and drills so nicely. Just a spot shy of 1/8" thick, I think I'll make my nut out of the same stock. (too cheap to buy a bone nut right now, especially if I can make one out of metal.)

Still a lot of work to do yet, but all the woodwork is now done. I bolted the body to the neck, and had a look. Its even pretty straight, or at least nothing a little push before the final torque on the neck bolts is applied. Happy with the progress. Its nice when things start looking like something real (and not just in my minds eye).

Looking at these pics, I am very happy. The damn thing is looking like a guitar! Thank you all so much for your help, really! Without you all and TDPRI I would have never ever have attempted this. Thank you,
Carl

Time to go pickup my finishing supplies from the post office and start experimenting to see whats going to look good.

Been working on the finish process - never finished a guitar before, or worked with the dyes and shellac, so slow progress here, but I have been busy.

I do not have spray equipment, and would rather not have to worry about breathing in any airborne chemicals from the result of spraying. That said, I did track down a Preval spray system, and tried that out, but I just could not get it to spray the perfect even coat without splotching or spraying too much and causing drips. I know this would eventually work with enough practice, but because the Preval uses consumable cartridges, and enough practice with that system means that I could probably buy a air compressor for the same price. Not really what I wanted to spend money on right now.

So the system I found to work best for me that gave the easiest and most repeatable results is to mix the aniline dye (using blue dye) with water, and wipe that onto the bare wood with a rag. I am going for a slight "burst" effect, so I wanted it lighter in the centre. I then coated it with shellac (real shellac orange flakes, cut with alcohol in a 2lb cut) again, using a rag to wipe on the shellac (found a piece of folded old blue-jean material stored in a jar when not in use worked the easiest for me). The pics show the first effort - not too bad, and you probably cannot see in the pics, but what the dye exposed on the bare wood was deep scratches left from heavy grade sandpaper. The dye soaked deeper into the scrathces, and too me, stuck out like a sore thumb. Again, you could not notice at 5 feet, but I would always notice this. Also, these pics are of the bare dye, without the shellac coats.

BTW, shellac and the dye will sand off, just keep changing the sandpaper sheets on the random orbit sander...

Wow Carlos!

I really like the blue. Herb is going to love this too.

Barncaster

After debating last night, I decided to sand off the shellac coats on the front and re-do the finish. I just had to get rid of the deep scratches. Lesson learned here, but a good lesson nonetheless.

After about an hour, I was down to the bare wood and deep scratch free - yeah!
I then wiped on more of the aniline/water dye, and then this pic is what I have right now with 2 heavy coats of shellac. I took a bunch of pics and they all look the same. In person (and I'll try to take more pics to show this) the shellac really does expose the grain and the interesting figuring of the wood. I am happy with this now, and can now add a few more coats of shellac, and then work on the back.

I bought a metallic gray/blue solid paint for the back (aresol car paint) and will spray that on. Another lesson learned is that the wood filler I used does not at all take up the water based dye, and so the back looks all pockmarked where I dabbed on filler here and there. That is why it will have a solid colour on the back. Good thing I did not need any of that filler on the front, or my system with the dye would not have worked.

Thank you Barncaster! I am really liking the effect I was able to achieve with my method. In person the top has a beautiful metallic shimmer to it and some interesting grain. This is not a highly figured maple that I grabbed from the lumberyard, the next build will use something more exotic. For a first build I am a happy camper.

(still trying to figure out how to radius the fretboard... I think I may just break down and make up a jig... sanding it down just does not seem right).

Oh, and the top coat will be Target Systems EM7000 high build lacquer. After much internal debate, and some helpful advice from forum members, and some experimentation on test scraps I think I can get a nice coat of the WB lacquer on the whole body to finish it off. My test pieces are all brush-on, and I am able to sand out the ridges satisfactorily and buff. This lacquer does seem to build a thick coat fast, and hardens quickly for me. I have been warned about it having a blue haze when applied too thickly... I'm not worried about this on this project if it happens, but did not get a haze on my test pieces either. Fingers crossed!

It seems water based finishes are still in an infancy stage and the formulas seems to change pretty quickly. Im just happy that they seem to be "good enough" for me at this point, and can't wait till they get better. The EM7000 is very low tox, and applies easily, and thats what I was looking for... again, keeping my fingers crossed here.

For some reason, I was really hungup on this next part... radiusing the fretboard. I debated making jigs etc, but this is my first, and I really don't have a workshop to store all this stuff... so I went old school on it and just sanded the radius down checking my progress with straightedges and templates to make sure I did not get all wacky. And, it worked out fine (just took 100 times longer to do than with a jig - probably should have spent that time and made a router jig). I tend to over-think things... and keep forgetting that there are always 10 ways to do something.

With that done and straight, I cut the fret slots and drilled for the fret markers. I am using abalone dots here (decided to splurge). After hunting through all my drill bits I finally found the perfect one that was the perfect outside diameter of the dots. CA glued them in, man does that look ugly with the glue on!

Glad the CA glue sanded off the rosewood just fine. This was my first time sanding abalone too, and it seems to sand very easily.

A note on cutting the fret slots. I just copied the fret spacing that my tele has, marked that out on a ruler and transferred that onto the fretboard. I noticed that one of the templates floating around TDPRI for the fret markings is slightly different than what my tele is, the frets are just a tich more spaced between the 11 and 20 frets, about 1/4" off at the end of the fretboard. I went and copied my instrument that I know plays just fine (copied the exact scale length too just in case, which is 25.5" to the little 'e'). I don't know if my tele is off, or if the template is off, this is my first build. Wonder if anyone else has noticed this, or if I have somehow missed something.

My logic is that if I copy exactly the dimensions for fret spacing and scale length of my instrument that I know plays very well, I can't be far off.

And maybe a helpful hint for anyone installing fret marker dots with CA glue...

I am using the medium thickness CA glue, not the super watery stuff, and not the super heavy gel stuff.

With the first fret markers, I popped them into the holes first, and then applied the glue around the abalone, knowing that CA glue has good wicking abilities and sets very fast. I know from previous experience that some of the CA glue would have wicked into around the marker dot and will bond it into the hole. This method is probably satisfactory, the markers are not coming loose (yet).

With some of the later markers, seeing that I could position and hammer the dots into the holes faster than I was thinking I could, I put a dab of glue into the bottom of the hole, then pressed the dot in. I found I had to put some shop paper towel over the dot when I hammered them in because the CA glue was squirting out (dangerous if it got you in the eye!). This I would say would be the best method, much more glue holding the marker in place, and the medium thickness CA glue does allow enough working time to position and press the dot in place.

oh, and "Go Canucks Go"

Carl

Hmmm, change that to:

"Golf, Canucks Golf..."

A note on cutting the fret slots. I just copied the fret spacing that my tele has, marked that out on a ruler and transferred that onto the fretboard. I noticed that one of the templates floating around TDPRI for the fret markings is slightly different than what my tele is, the frets are just a tich more spaced between the 11 and 20 frets, about 1/4" off at the end of the fretboard. I went and copied my instrument that I know plays just fine (copied the exact scale length too just in case, which is 25.5" to the little 'e'). I don't know if my tele is off, or if the template is off, this is my first build. Wonder if anyone else has noticed this, or if I have somehow missed something.

My logic is that if I copy exactly the dimensions for fret spacing and scale length of my instrument that I know plays very well, I can't be far off.

That is exactly how I do mine. I still need a better miter box setup, to keep actual cuts square and on the mark, but the spacings have worked out great.

Your build is coming along great!

Installing the frets turns out to look harder than it actually is. Primary thing to be careful is with the hammer, and not to dent the fretboard with the blows. I did that a couple of times, but it looks like some water soaked into the dent pops them out satisfactorily.

Pics of the frets going in...

Also, from stained glass work I have this really neat cutting sniper. Its like a sidecutter for standard electrical work, but it creates a cut that is 90 degrees on one side. Using in stained glass work for cutting lead came at right angles. Turns out it cuts the fretwire just fine (not stainless steel FW mind you) and I was able to snip all the little ends off the frets in about a minute. This will require very little sanding to get nice and smooth. These pilers can be found in stained glass stores if interested (might be available elsewhere, but I haven't seen them anywhere else).

Fret ends are now sanded. That did not take much time at all. I will leave the fret levelling until the neck is finished. I understand it is easier to manage the grime of the fret polishing easier with the finish on the neck.

Got a coat of paint on the back of the guitar. This is over a couple coats of shellac, and some dent filler. The spruce body does dent pretty easy, and I had a few there that would not come out. The shellac does help to firm up the wood a bit, and I'm hoping that some paint, and then a couple coats of lacquer will give it a more solid finish.

The paint is a dark metallic blue/grey if the pic does not show it well.

Oh, but the upside of the spruce body and maple cap combo (some weight reduction routing as well, is that the body and neck together (before paint) weighs 5lb. Nice, my other tele weights 8lbs.

Seems to be de rigueur with build threads to include food. I like it! Who was the first, Preeb and his sandwiches?

Anyways, Borsht today, it's a cold day in May in Vancouver. Beef and beets seems fitting. Now it just needs to sit and simmer for an hour or so and on goes the mound of sour cream.

Oh, I have a couple of pierogis to warm up too for dinner, they come from a great little Polish bakery on Fraser street in east Van. Very nice, think I have some bacon around to fry up with them...

Borsht! Never tired it , i do love beets though. Sweet looking build so far , keep up the good work!

Mmm....Borsht! Love good Borsht! Though I am Russian, so...go figure....

Applying lemon oil to the rosewood fretboard, and polymerized tung oil to the rest of the neck. The tung oil looks great, really makes the maple shine. Next build I just have to get some really nice figured/quilted/flamed maple...

Abalone fret markers installed in fretboard, and on the sides as well (mostly straight too! Straight enough).

3 coats of the tung oil so far, i'll do some research to see how many coats one needs for a neck for a good finish. After 2 coats it was looking and feeling pretty good, so I must be close.

That neck is going to look great with the color of the body. Nice build Carlos.

Thank you thank you!
Waiting for the finish to dry is the hardest part!

Waiting for the coats of lacquer to dry... fun times applying that stuff by brush. You do get brush strokes for sure, but in my test samples they all sanded out just fine. Doesn't look like much now though, looks like a child was slopping on the lacquer. A spray system would be nice... but its just not in the cards atm.

Meanwhile, while waiting I figured I would wire up the electronics, or as much as I could outside of the body. (No pickups or output jack, but could do everything else.)

In some foam-board I punched some holes approximately where the pots and switch will go. I decided on a toggle switch for PU selection, and 2 pots for volume and one master tone. And, one cheap little .022mf capacitor on the tone pot, I decided not to give all my money to the Big Capacitor game. I followed a wiring diagram from Seymour Duncan, I figured that they would know what they are doing. FYI, SD has almost every conventional combo wired up on their site, free downloads. I'm also using some pretty heavy gauge copper wire, but it was a from a salvage, and too big is not a problem here, lots of room inside the guitar.

Pics show before and after, and my messy desk. My soldering setup is massive overkill for electronics: a 40W iron and solid core solder, and liquid flux. Used for stained glass work, but it will easily do electronics too - just have to be super careful not to apply too much heat, which happens in about 2 seconds. It works though! Also have to be careful with the flux, it is acid, and in the wrong places will mess with the electronics.

Hidey Ho!

Fun update here - a major setback so close to finishing, but I've worked around the problem, and am still on track to finish for the deadline.

Problem: lack of familiarity and propper equiptment for water based lacquers. Lacquer coat did not take.

I had the guitar painted, dyed, ready for some lacquer. In previous test batches I had successfully brushed on EM7000 and sanded it down, and buffed. It worked just fine on my test piece. I know there is a lot of debate surrounding EM7000 and EM6000 as being suitable for guitar finishing, and I know it can be done, people have posted beautiful photos of guitars finished with these lacquers. I'm just not familiar enough with them, and don't have the time (right now) to fart around with it to get it perfect.

Brushing on the EM7000, I had a small bubble on an edge. After a couple of coats, and letting it dry 2 days I attempted to sand out the little bubble and drop fill more lacquer etc. and keep building coats. Well, turns out that when I went to sand the bubble, it got a little messy, and the lacquer was still quite flexible. Long story short, I was able to peel the entire lacquer coat off the guitar body like a second skin. Literally like skin. Came off in huge chunks, and of course took some of the painted back with it. Interestingly enough it left the shellac coat on the front intact. Pics here, I didn't snap a lot here, I was in the throws trying to think of how to save the project.

I'll play around more with the EM7000, but not for this project. The last pic shows the body after I've attacked it with some sandpaper.

More sanding, and more spray paint on the back. (This gets me thinking about build number two, and how I will be using tung oil, or tru oil, or danish oil on the body of the guitar and leave the paints and lacquers until I source some spray equipment. ) The finish I achieved with tung oil on my maple neck is very good. Simple to apply, and great results, who would want more? Pics of the neck:

Shots of the body with more paint on it. I can do it!

Its going to be shellac on the front of the guitar, and a couple coats on the back as well to act as a clear coat on the paint. It seems to be sticking well, and I know I can polish the shellac. It seems to stick to everything!

And, while I was waiting for my paint to dry, again, I finished all the work on the neck. Tusq nut fitted - will fine tune with strings on. Tuners installed and screwed on, straight too, or close enough anyways!

Knock on wood, but my neck looks straight, and the finish looks decent. I'm happy with the neck.

Tomorrow I'll check to see if its not too early to wet-sand the shellac (it does dry really fast) and then its onto assembly. I could have this together for the weekend!

And, while I was waiting for my paint to dry, again, I finished all the work on the neck. Tusq nut fitted - will fine tune with strings on. Tuners installed and screwed on, straight too, or close enough anyways!

Knock on wood, but my neck looks straight, and the finish looks decent. I'm happy with the neck.

Tomorrow I'll check to see if its not too early to wet-sand the shellac (it does dry really fast) and then its onto assembly. I could have this together for the weekend!

Nice work, sorry about the paint not sticking. Your recovery has been excellent and I think this guitar will turn out awesome.

Nice work, sorry about the paint not sticking. Your recovery has been excellent and I think this guitar will turn out awesome.

+1 :razz:

And, while I was waiting for my paint to dry, again, I finished all the work on the neck. Tusq nut fitted - will fine tune with strings on. Tuners installed and screwed on, straight too, or close enough anyways!

Knock on wood, but my neck looks straight, and the finish looks decent. I'm happy with the neck.

Tomorrow I'll check to see if its not too early to wet-sand the shellac (it does dry really fast) and then its onto assembly. I could have this together for the weekend!

Wow Carlos!

That's the cleanest nut job I've ever seen.......... Oh man that didn't come out right......

Barncaster

Great recovery, Carlos! And Rob is right, that's a great looking nut.

Lookin great, Carlos! Keep it up...see you at the finish line.

Well, it's partly an illusion. The nut is a pre-cut tusq by graphtech, and all I've really done with it so far was to shape the bottom of it to fit the channel I've carved in the neck. I agree that the pic looks great. It also shows that the neck is quite wide, the nut doesn't need any sanding to make it fit across the width of the neck.

Thank you all for you kind words of e encouragement!!

Great recovery, Carlos.
Some of us seem to have become adept at "recoveries" this Challenge, eh? :oops::oops:

You're really looking good now. I'll be checking in to see how it goes with the shellac. I'm at the point where I may have to go with shellac to speed things up, cuz I sure don't have time to even level sand any nitro.

Keep on plugging away on it. You're almost there.

Hidey Ho!

Pulled it out of the fire, seeing that I had a disaster with the finish on monday and tuesday, it looks pretty decent now.

Pics of the body here, after paint, about 6 heavy coats of shellac (applied liberally with a wad of denim for high build) and then wet sanded, and now waxed. Luckily for me, while the water based lacquer did not work out, I had the shellac to fall back on. And surprise surprise, it wet sanded like a dream for me. Dried fast, and I was wet sanding within 24 hours after application.

400 grit, 800, 1000, 1500 and then 2000, all wetted with water. Followed by the polishing compound, and then the carnuba wax (in pics). All this was done by hand, the 400 grit paper on a sanding block, and everything else freehand. I didn't take pics of the wet sanding, but it was a nice slurry mess. The polishing compound worked out really well and brought out a beautiful gloss on the shellac. The wax amplifies that. I had no idea it could get so nice and glossy, call me lucky here.

Don't know if I had an allergic reaction to to shellac dust or what not, but my sinuses were crazy weepy last night. Not much dust present, with the shellac being wet sanded, so maybe its just springtime with me.

Pics of the front, back, and of the polishing compound. Not the best lighting in my man-cave, but you get the idea. The back pic shows the access for the electronics, the lip looks like hell here, but I'm trying to keep the paint buildup low here so the cover plate fits. The plate will hide that mess anyways.

Time for assembly!

Neck fits well, was getting worried that a paint/finish buildup was going to make it too tight of a fit, but its fine...

Going to pull the neck off to fit the electronics, just easier to work with like that. Just waned to check this fit before anything else though.

Bridge mounted, in the pickup cavity you can see the copper ground wire, its snaked underneath the bridge and fanned out to make a connection there. Should work.

Copper foil placed in the bottom (or top?) of the electronics bay. The mostly pre-wired pots and switch should hopefully drop right in. And with a little help from the dremel to clean up the holes, they do. All mounted, ready for some more soldering. The ground wire from the bridge, i untwisted and created 2 ends, and wrapped each around the base of each volume pot before bolting the pots down - that should ensure it gets grounded with something.

I have to clean the house a bit now though, and get ready for my music lesson (still learning!). Looking to have it wired this afternoon, and with some luck stringed up to start the tuning tonight. Need to solder the pickups to the pots, all the ground wires together, and adjust the truss rod. Hopefully I can get enough height from the bridge as well, the neck seems a little high on the body even though the neck pocket is correct. Maybe the neck is a little thick at the heel...

The spruce body on the back is very soft... already have some "hanger rash" on the back. All hardwoods next time.

Wow Carlos,

When I look at that top it's like I'm looking at the sky.... Just amazing! Really well done.

Barncaster

Thank you Barncaster!

The finish on the top turned out pretty decent, and for some reason I wanted a blue guitar. Kinda cool to see something in your mind and make it a reality.

Thank you all for your encouragement, with some luck (to avoid pitfalls) I'll be making the deadline!

Coming along very nicely, Carlos. I am sure you will make the deadline, good luck.

Pics of the guitar all assembled.

And more pics...

And more...

Opps, forgot the strap buttons! Here they are.

The shellac really did polish up nicely.

Really nice Carlos.

That looks good!

He sticks the landing!

Yeah, nice.

Hi Everybody,

YouTube video is here:

V81vNq4ecH8

Specs:
-Beginner build category
-Maple top, spruce body semi-chambered to reduce weight. 6.9lbs finished.
-Maple neck with rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, handmade custom truss rod, heel adjustment.
-Finish: body - Blue aniline dye on maple, metallic paint on spruce - multicoats of shellac then polished. Neck - Polymerized Tung oil, lemon oil on fretboard.
-Abalone fret markers, matching abalone dots on volume/tone knobs.
-Two Humbucker pickups with chrome covers, each with individual volume control, master tone.
-Chrome hardware.
-Toggle style control switch, bridge, bridge/neck and neck selections.
-"football" style output socket.
-String through body design.
-"vintage" (aka small/medium) frets
-Graphtech Tusq nut
-"button bean" style tuning machines, 6 in line.

I really like this pic, best represents the vision I had of the guitar when I started building it.

That looks great, the top is awesome. I like the layout of the knobs. Which one is the volume?

the top 2 are volume, bridge and neck, the knob on the bottom closer to the output switch is mater tone. Actually works too! Nice.

That is a very fine first build. Just super. Nice video too.

Well done Carlos! It sounds great! Congratulations.

Rob

Are you sure this is your first build? :lol:

That finish is stunning, I think I'd just end up staring at it all day!

Congratulations on a fine achievement. I can only imagine how good subsequent guitars are gonna be.

Thank you Kwerk!

Yes, honestly, first build.

I of course tend to be handy and can build things, but this was my first ever guitar, and now I have the bug! I tend to have a good "visual" mind, and do well with problem solving, good for building things. Any musical ability I have at all is beat into my brain by force and repetition, that's the trade off, no real "innate" musical talent. Music is a big challenge for me - such a different set of skills and knowledge, but it's gotta be good for the brain! I am slowly learning though.

And, I am actually super happy with how the guitar plays. I took the time on Monday to level the fretboard and do a complete fret job (before the deadline FYI, but after the video was shot) and it plays so nice with no string buzz. The Tusq nut fits perfectly now, I raised it slightly with some strips of copper foil (should carry any resonance) my slot was a little deep under the big E string- practically an invisible fix btw. New strings on it too helps a lot, now sporting D'adario 10-46s, the video was filmed with old crappy strings I had on it to check to make sure everything was straight etc. I left them on because the guitar was playing "good enough", but wow, sooo much better now. Thinking about it now, that set wasn't even a matched set, lol. Again, sounded passable at the time, I was stoked that it tuned up well and did not need truss a rod adjustment, and intonation was easy to set in about 5 minutes - really! The neck is dead straight, and nice and thick, fits my hand really nicely. And very happy with the maple top, have not really seen another guitar that looks exactly like that, coloring, figuring, etc, so it's cool. Been playing with it every day,just enjoying the sounds and notes that it makes. Happy new guitar week for me.

Thank you all (everyone) for reading my build thread and your kind words of encouragement. I joined the TDPRI in February of this year after a few months of lurking. I had never ever considered building a guitar before then. All I have learned and know about guitar building I have learned from this awesome site in the last few months (did have a couple library books, but this site trumped them). There is really just a plethora of information here if you search for it, I am truly impressed and encouraged and amazed with this site and all it's denizens (you guys). More than enough information just floating here for anyone to build a guitar and neck from scratch, (probably pickups too, have not yet searched!) I read the history of the site a few weeks ago, so personal thanks to Paul for running the site and spending I'm sure huge amounts of time (and maybe money) in doing so. And thank you all to the moderators, probably one of the main reasons why there are no trolls here ruining this site for everyone.

This was a great challenge this year, I really enjoyed participating, and am so glad to see all the great guitars that were built and are still being built. Amazing guitars were created. All you guys are extremely talented (whether you hit the deadline or not) and congratulations and thanks to everyone on this site for their contributions. I will definitely post any future builds I do to give back and share with this community.

Cheers,
Carl

Are you sure this is your first build? :lol:

That finish is stunning, I think I'd just end up staring at it all day!

Congratulations on a fine achievement. I can only imagine how good subsequent guitars are gonna be.

Experimentation, and I think just luck in the coloring of the top. never used aniline dyes before on wood, or shellac. I too just love the color and figure of the maple. Glad the shellac polished as well as it did, the WB lacquer was a disaster for me this round.

CarlosN, Congratulations on a fine build. You have a very nice guitar there. I like blue ones and plan to make one for myself at some point. I like the humbuckers and the control layout on this one.