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Be aware, that removing that much wood can affect the stability of the neck. Or more accurately, the bending strength. The neck is heavily reinforced, so that might not be a real problem. For someone who hasn't done a lot of neck shaping, I'd recommend files and sandpaper, as others have...

I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but I can't see a crack in that photo. Is it a crack in the finish you want to get rid of? Or on wood? Or both? I don't usually bother with those as long as they're only visual. And getting rid of them in a visually pleasing manner can be tricky. If...

For some reason I really like how the grain runs and alters through the body. Deliberately fabricated or not, that is a seriously pretty body you have there.

Tone metal!

D'oh. So sorry to see that. Also a little sorry that a nice t-shirt had to end that way...

I believe it would be very tricky to get a constant nicely formed radiused corner where the side bends meet. For that the metal would need to compress evenly at the corners or stretch at the sides. The industrial process used to batch these out is called deep drawing. In theory it's possible...

Plastic see through containers. I get mine from Ikea, but there are a million alternatives. The Ikea ones are great for that different sizes can be piled together. And the lids are also transparent. Honestly I don't have that many templates and jigs to store yet, since I've only been back at...

Right. First I'll say if possible, only ever buy good quality router bits. Especially the ones with bearings. But. I sometimes use the router for lesser tasks. You know, outside the luthiery realm. And sometimes I don't want to use the nice bits for whatever reason. So in come the cheap chinese...

I built the doubledecker bindings for the bridge pickup ring. Again with the 6 mm abs, this time I used the abs-acetone cement for all of them.

Today I had a little time to work on the second iteration of the pickup rings. First I sanded the wenge top flat. The glue line disappeared nicely. Then I built a routing template from some plywood and treated the edges with superglue. I used the template to scribe the outlines on the pickup...

Yesterday evening I installed the covers on the pickups. I made little pieces of some thin brass offcut I had. I cut it with some tin snips and straightened with a couple of hammers using the bigger as an anvil. Then I scraped the chrome from the spots that would get soldered. I used one of...

No need, I definitely was not offended. Besides, it's kinda nice to remember that this internet thing can actually bring us a little closer, like it did a long ago. Instead of us just tossing virtual bricks in imaginary windows halfway across the world.

Yeah. I have high output active humbuckers on two guitars. But I had a different setup in mind for this one. Anyways I'll put these on and see how it works. They can always be replaced.

Yesterday I removed the cover from the other pickup with the new old soldering powerhouse. There was quite a bit of solder between the center polepieces and the pickup cover. Thankfully it had done no damage and wasn't hard to dig out. And the backplate screws were still in full operating...

I am in Finland. Here we have 230 V and 50 Hz in common single phase sockets. Which theoretically means I get a little more than 160 watts from the iron. This type of bent flathead screwdriver tip is quite common here even on small soldering irons. At least the cheaper ones. My thirty watt...

Yeah... So hi, my name is Ville, I live in Finland and I'm a lutherieaholic. It all started...

I have sensed there's some interest here for vintage tools. So I thought I'd share. This is my grandfathers old soldering iron. One of them. He was notorious for buying cheap tools on discount. This one thankfully predates the cheap asian stuff that filled all market tool shelves in later...

It very much does not look like the original. At all. Good job. Did you play the original and if so, how do you think the new bridge compares to the old one?

Those boot pics take me back some 20 years. I used to participate in guitar building courses for maybe 4 years. It was always like that: once a week I loaded the woods, instrument parts and personal tools in the trunk. Awesome times. Oh, and every time I view this thread my mind always tries to...

There's also always the possibility of using a collar with your router base and a bigger template. That way you can use any bit available and run the collar against a template. This however requires a template that is bigger than the actual cavity you are making. I did several pickup cavities a...

We don't get larger routers with fixed bases around here. It seems to be more or less the same all across Europe. Bigger ones are mostly plunge and the base is structurally integrated.

I have that Makita and can recommend it. And I don't believe the power limits you much on most guitar building tasks, such as neck pockets or pickup cavities. Router planing, some milling operations and maybe solid body edge trimming might require a bigger machine. But even those are doable on...

Perfect execution. That's a goal. But rarely reality. My first ever build was a neck through guitar that was designed around a double cut lp. As a confident engineering student I designed and made a double acting truss rod myself. I was surprised how well the instrument turned out. Not perfect...

Thanks. And don't worry, I'm not in a hurry with this one. Never was and won't definitely start now.

This picture instantly reminded me of Prince's symbol guitar. I bet he wasn't going for the toilet seat look though.

Interesting stuff. There's a Finnish company called Flaxwood that have been making composite electric guitars for 20+ years now. They use spruce (fir?) fiber and some kind of thermoplastic resin to make a material that can be injection molded. I don't know if they have ever actually used flax...

This is as far as the prototype batch one goes. There's just too many little things that went south and are too much of a hassle to fix. Which means I'll be making more pickup rings. Yay. This time a little narrower and with less operations. I decided to make a single face veneer for both...

Right. There was something a bit off with the fit of the neck pickup ring. I didn't think much of it. Until I started planning the work on the other one. You know, to see how high it should be and so on. And there it is. The slope is towards the bridge. Which is not quite how it should be. And...

Late to the game. As usual. But in this case I'd favour the pickguard, although I wouldn't propably have thought about it myself. I usually don't like them. However to me that guard adds a lot of character. And the point about it been seen across the hall is a good one. But the bass is still...

What Bruce said, but with small japanese saws. If neccessary, you can adjust the width of the kerf down a bit by sanding the blade. In my experience they still cut fine.

This is interesting. I've been planning a similar construction for a headless. Do you plan to use a pultruded bar or make your own? An off the shelf bar might be problematic to get around the headstock transition. Thankfully headless doesn't have this problem. There are thermoplastic resins...

The most obvious solution to me would be a strat style jack plate between the bridge and the lowest (tone?) pot.

Nice. Too bad you had to cover most of that old interior. But I appreciate the choice of green foam over the common dark grey.

To me creep is deformation under stress during a long period of time. Epoxies are viscoelastic in nature, which means they kind of behave both ways: elastic on short term, viscous on a longer time span. To my understanding modern, good quality epoxies hide their viscous nature pretty well. To...

Oh and about mixing the ABS-acetone cement with the CAB plastic binding: Not so smart. It just doesn't hold that well. I've had to reglue some bits and refill the corners too many times. I still propably need to remove the other short end and reglue it or replace it alltogether. But this is how...

Ok then. The ladder thing is done and waiting for installation. So I stole a little time for the guitar. I used the old neck routing template to adjust the router fixture. The inclinometer is there just to document the angles for future reference. I was honestly a bit surprised how close...

I have one of those table top drafting thingies which you can set at an angle. It used to be my uncle's when he was studying engineering. I have yet to identify the veneer on that. But it works nice with paper and feels almost untreated. I studied a little hand drafting at the turn of the...

Nice! We have one at the office that is designed for standing height. It's been gathering dust for maybe fifteen years. About once a year I go look at it, think about all I could do with it and eventually leave it be for another year

I agree with what Bruce said. However in dry indoor conditions and especially with finger applied force only galvanized steel on steel works just fine. Or stainless and galvanized. And there's really no point in using untreated steel fasteners in any normal situation. Problems may occur if left...

I think you could do a hinged neck joint. But I don't think that's going to be easy to do good. With hinges I've often found that the first idea I get doesn't work. Something runs into something else somewhere in the travel. Maybe if I did that more often it would be easier to take everyting...