Quick features:

25 inch PRS type scale length
Hard maple and poplar body.
Aluminum centre section and neck.
Pau Ferro fingerboard
Aluminum / Maple sandwich headstock +/- 17 degree tiltback
Gotoh stoptail and tailpiece.
2 pickups - neck and bridge
24 frets (6100s)
TUSQ black nut.
Roughly same body shape that everyone hates :) lol
light weight body, neck, and light overall weight
smaller body, neck, thickness than previous build.
Aluminum plate screwed on top of body, instead of T-beam body slot.

Finished pictures:

Here we go. Please excuse the pictures posted before Dec 25th, because i'm using my camcorder to do snapshots.

Planning out the body style with 3 maple boards:

Gluing 3 maple boards together. Dimensions have been measured to accomodate body shape.

Next day: body shape mockup and rough pickup position.

Rough cutting with the rec saw. You can tell by this picture how bad I am with the saw, and that I just started. I get better later :)

Filing down the roughly cut body to shape.

Cutting the horns with coping saw. I love working with maple - what a great, solid wood.

More filing of the horns. I file a lot, because i suck at cutting.

Poplar board glued to the back of the maple body. So body will be thicker in the centre to house pickup cavities and screws, and thinner at edges. Similar to the ibanez S idea.

Marking up the aluminum piece. 25" scale length. Leaving some distance behind the nut - for the headstock centre section.

Cutting off the unnecessary "wings" behind the nut. That cut happened faster than you can say "Jiminy Jillikers", well almost...

Cutting the headstock. 2 mirror pieces will be glued on to aluminum centre beam.

Headstock construction will look like this:

Cut down the poplar back piece to match front body shape.

RAAAAAWWWRRR!!! LOL I love my new rec saw.

Cutting off the "leg" of the T-Beam in the part after fingerboard ends. In this design - there will be no "leg" resting in the guitar body. It will just be an aluminum plate lying flat on the body. This allows for a lighter overall weight, but I have concerns about my neck going bananas on me. Screws have to be placed in exactly the right spots, and I may have to move the neck pickup further back.

This is the back of the guitar neck. Thicker next to the guitar body, and next to the headstock - to help with overall strength. Much thinner profile than Build 1. I modeled it after my ibanez Wizard 3 profile. Just ever so slightly thicker than the Ibanez. Soon the 6mm Pau Ferro fingerboard arrives.

This was pretty much my ability to turn with this Mastercraft Maximum wide blade for metal.

Rough cuts. Had trouble cutting in a straight line. Was bobbing left and right constantly. Excessive filing will have to occur to remove a lot of material and make the back contour a straight line.

Very rough, as you can see. But I left extra space for filing.

Filing with the length of the file, to get rid of high spots, and not touch low spots. I wish I had a file that is longer and on the bottom of a long wood block.

OK - it's coming along. By the end of day 3 - I've got a body, a headstock, and the neck-through. I need to do a lot of filing on the neck still to get the "plate" section that rests on the body flat (there is still some of the "Leg" left there, because it's hard to cut off exactly.

Next step:
cut the pickup cavities.
cut the +/- 17 degree tilt back headstock.
file the remainder of the leg off of the plate.
route the body for the entrance piece under frets 21-24
super glue 2 l-brackets together
drill holes, assemble, etc...
lots of work to do. this is only the beginning.
Might have to do lots of tweaking on this one.
It's possible that I may have to do reinforcement of the aluminum plate along the body section, if screw placement doesn't prevent the neck of going banana.
I may have gone too thin with the aluminum brackets this time - really concerned. I can bend the whole thing with my knee, and probably break it if I tried hard enough. We'll see what happens.

Tags: Gear Talk