Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David L. on April 12, 2017 at 6:14am

JL I have learnt to respect the "ramblings" of others because it usually includes a lot of good information :0)
I emailed the person who sold me the item and he told me his timber was air dried to between 14 and 16% moisture content.The wood circle arrived with the whole circumference coated with a wax type product. Reading around a few wood working sites the general view seems to be to aim for moisture contents between 9 to 13% for a mildly heated room and between 6 to 10% for a well heated room.
I have a moisture meter on order and think I will wait until I get readings below 10 until I try to start cutting and routing. Like Ron noticed there is an electric guitar body shape outlined by the edges of the coloured markings begging to be cut.
Best wishes,
David L.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on April 12, 2017 at 7:56am

That's a great piece of wood.

It's so nice, I don't think I would have the confidence to attack it without the fear of destroying it.

Finishing it would also give me the 'heebie jeebies'.

It's going to make a great axe though.. You can see it begging to be carved out of those whorls and swirls..

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David L. on August 17, 2017 at 1:29pm

It has been a long few months, but I finally found a little time to move the project forward. I am making a six string out of it with a Warman pickup that is full humbucker size (but made of a blade minihumbucker, plus a single coil pickup). To try and give a wide tonal range the mini humbucker will be wired for series/single coil/parallel.
Also I am adding two four pole bass pickups - one at the neck covering the EADG strings and the other at the bridge end covering the DGBe strings. My hope is that by wiring all the magnetic pickups in series using dpdt switches the neck bass pup will add more bass to the mix and the bridge bass pup will add more treble.
I will also add piezo discs below the bridge for an acoustic sound and use two volumes with diodes to mix magnetic and piezo. It will have two switching jacks so separate amps can be used or just one (the unplugged signal goes to the other Jack).

Sorry Ning is unable to cope with iPad photos so apologies for attachments.
Attachment 1 is the pickup slots routed out freehand with a dremel trio (also used for the neck pocket). This is not the humbucker I will use
Attachment 2 is the first stage sanding to round off the edges and angle where my strumming had will rest.

Didn't manage to finish the final sanding due to rain, but hope to finish ready for truoil the next clear day I get.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David L. on August 17, 2017 at 1:34pm

Problem uploading -attachment 1

Attachments:

• image.jpeg, 1.5 MB

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David L. on August 17, 2017 at 1:35pm

Attachment 2

Attachments:

• image.jpeg, 703 KB

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 19, 2017 at 1:29pm

David,

Dat's purty! Pleezpleezpleeeeeeez do a gunstock or Tru-Oil finish!!!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David L. on August 19, 2017 at 10:09pm

Tru Oil is ready to go after a little more shaping :0)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 20, 2017 at 8:41am

Woo Hoo! Can't wait to see it...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David L. on August 24, 2017 at 12:31pm

Thankfully the rain stopped long enough for a final shaping and sanding session. I noticed on one of the cut outs that there were a few small pores that were too deep to sand out. Also the knot in the wood blank was slightly soft to touch and I wanted to keep it as a feature so I tried some Birchwood Casey gun stock sealer and filler for the first time.
I am really pleased with how easy it was to apply. Two coats so far (see attached), though I may add one more coat before I fine sand and then start with the Tru oil.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page