exciting

I just found out today that a very good acquaintance of mine makes guitars. i knew he had a big Elvis collection, and plays guitar but didn't know he makes them too. Now i have a brain to pick.!!!!

Fretboard update mountains mostly complete

So, I got to work on the fretboard yesterday :). It still needs to be finished, recutting the slots for the frets to fit in etc.

Everything went well and I am eager to move on to the next step which will be cutting the neck and installing the fretboard on it, etc. Always eager to move on to the next step , makes me feel like progress is taking place.

I am including pics and video of what i worked on yesterday.

HOT Guitar

My friends in Texas probably think I am a wimp because I decided that my un-air conditioned shop (AKA messy garage) is tooooo hot to work in. However, I will wait till saturday morning when I can work on it in the cool of the day.

The Hills Are Alive !

The hills are alive, but not with the sound of music yet. They are alive because i have been cutting and sanding and fitting and routing them into the fretboard. I am liking the way they look, my theory is that if a can't make good music with the guitar, distract people with good looks. (Not mine, the guitar).

The picture shows white lines drawn on the fretboard, that is where the fretboard will actually be cut, it is narrower near the head than the body. While working on it it is much easier if it is the same width, i will cut the angle at a later time.

I used tiny drips of craft glue to temporarily tack the mountains in place after they were fit together. I was very surprised that the glue was strong enough to actually rip off a little of the wood from the mountain backs a little later when I removed them. My wife said she wasn't surprised...it seems I should have asked her opinion. :)



A couple of things.. when you use a router on ebony wood, you make a lot of black dust. I bought a plunge router attachment for my Dremel tool. The router attachment is awesome for $29 and i would gladly spend the money again, it is nice and light, it has a clear base so you can see what you are doing. I can see many uses for it in the future. Not heavy duty enough for all uses but for light duty and detail, much nicer than a full sized router.

Starting the mountain design

I had hoped to start cutting the mountain scene on the fretboard last Saturday. However, that didn't work out so I started today.

I got the mountains cut but need to do a lot of fine sanding to make them fit together perfectly. Once they are fit, they will be inlayed into the fretboard, but they need to be a very nice fit or it will not look very nice.

Oh yeah, I have almost all of my materials now, the only things i am missing are things I will purchase locally.

I am including some pics so you can see the start of my mountain scene and also some of the parts that I will be using.

Yay! Parts are trickling in

Today was exciting, got some components in for my guitar. I got the dual action truss rod, the pots and the 5-way switch and the wiring instructions. Oh Yeah, I also got the nut. I am getting very eager for the rest of the stuff to arrive.