I Dub Thee, Power Jem - Page 7

courtney2018 · #91 08-22-2007, 04:48 PM

Could be (?) I'm going up to Home Depot tonight to get something else. I'll walk over there and see what they're calling it. It does look like mahogany though....in person, even.

Hi Jimmy, I've actually settled on a color. I think you all are going to flip if it turns out right. The body is going to be orange. Not just your regular everyday orange though. A special looking kind of orange.

And the carved out portions are going to be a smokey black. If it turns out how I'm wanting it then it's going to look killer!

courtney2018 · #92 08-22-2007, 04:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJEMMER777

- That monkey's got ~CLAWS~

Maybe you could dub it the "Lycan-Grip"

I like that actually.

But I went after a different theme - different than werewolves (Lycans).

courtney2018 · #93 08-22-2007, 11:22 PM

Can I get a "DUUUUUUUH"???

It wasn't cedar that I bought. It's red oak. Sorry...I just mixed it all up in my head. It's definitely red oak though...which is really hard.

jemplayer55 · #94 08-23-2007, 01:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by courtney2018

Can I get a "DUUUUUUUH"???

It wasn't cedar that I bought. It's red oak. Sorry...I just mixed it all up in my head. It's definitely red oak though...which is really hard.

And here all along I had gained some respect for you as a wood sniffing, sawdust snorting luthier.....

Just what kind of a woodworker doesn't know Oak from Cedar...... Jeezhus!

courtney2018 · #95 08-23-2007, 10:15 AM

I know, I know....I just automatically associated the red wood with cedar for some reason. Back when I bought it I didn't really care what kind of wood it was, because this was supposed to be just an exercise on building a guitar. At the time I didn't care if it ended in a guitar that actually played. I just wanted to go thru a build and see how difficult it was and the problems you run into. Now it's building the guitar so that it looks and sounds good.

I do plenty of wood sniffing and sawdust snorting though.

My sinuses can account for that.

courtney2018 · #96 08-26-2007, 08:54 PM

Well, no work on the guitar project this weekend...at least not directly. I did work on a router duplicator and nearly finished with it. Next weekend I should be able to finish it up, finish the guitar body up and even start on copying a neck on the duplicator.

If anyone is interested in how I built the duplicator I can provide some measurements and pics for you to follow so you can build your own. Mine will be big enough to copy bass necks, which are longer, and wide enough to copy bodies if wanted.

courtney2018 · #97 09-04-2007, 01:04 PM

Got alittle farther this weekend. Routed out the neck joint pocket. I tried to measure a few bodies that I had because I thought that there was one or two degree slope in the route, but I couldn't get consistant measurements from body to body. Can anyone confirm, or not, if there's supposed to be a slope in the neck pocket route?

I also routed the rear of the grips just like a regular JEM. It makes holding the guitar by the grips alittle easier on the fingers as far as getting your fingers around the grip.

The last route I did was for the pickup selector switch. I could've been alittle bit better at it, but once it's all together you won't be able to see much of it anyways. I need to find a better way of doing this route.

I didn't get to do any work on the router duplicator, so I'll be tackling that this weekend. I think the body for the most part is done, except for sanding, putting sealer on and painting it. There isn't any cutting left to be done on it unless I need to put the neck pocket route in an angle. Only thing left to do is the neck and before I can do that I need to finish the duplicator.

I figure I can finish the duplicator on Friday and glue up the woods for the neck. That'll give me 2 days to work on the neck. Should get pretty far on that minus the truss rod since I don't have one right now. I'll have to order one.

Here's a question for you all. I don't know much about truss rods so I'm asking for some guidance on this one - what kind of truss rod should I get if I'm going to be doing the same style neck as an Ibanez? I've got projectguitar.com's neck tut which I'll be reviewing as well, but if you all have any additional information that's not on the tut would be appreciated.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do for a fretboard. I may use cedar because it's readily available to me at Home Depot.

Anyways, I'll get some pics up later today possibly, and any information you all can give me on the neck would be great!

courtney2018 · #98 09-09-2007, 10:14 PM

Ahhhhh....the body is done...except for sanding. All the cutting and routing are finished. I even put the countersinks in for the neck screws. Here are some pics.

I also finished the router duplicator. I'll put those in a seperate thread.

LonePhantom · #99 09-09-2007, 10:56 PM

Good stuff Courtney!

RG462 · #**100** 09-09-2007, 11:15 PM

nice progress!

looks mean!

courtney2018 · #**101** 09-10-2007, 12:15 AM

Thanks!

Before I said I had decided on what color to paint it. Check this out and let me know what you think.

The body is going to be the color of orange anodized aluminum. The trem cavity and claw marks are going to be an anodized smoke black color.

Whatcha think?

Brando Clean · #**102** 09-10-2007, 02:24 AM

Courtney. I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction. I plan to paint a guitar in the near future. Can you offer advice, tips or a guide? Is there one on the internet you could direct me to? I have painted stuff in the past and it was terrible.

However, one time I painted on top of chrome (for a lowrider bike I made) and it turned out fine. If I do end up painting it will be on a already finished guitar so I do not have to fill, sand, prime, finish, sand again, top coat and ... well you know.

I just want to spray a color coat (prime if necessary) and perhaps top coat it or buff it. I have done several natural finishes, but this time I want a hot pink guitar or something. They are hard to find around here these days.

Thanks. I can't wait to see more pics!

David McCarroll · #**103** 09-10-2007, 03:32 AM

Here's a really nice tutorial Brando:

http://www.stewmac.com/hparticle/a-blueguitar.html

Otherwise, Google Guitar Reranch - hugely respected guitar finishing/refinishing dudes.

Distantshore · #**104** 09-10-2007, 03:34 AM

Guitar is looking good Courtney!! Look forward to seeing the continued progress!!

courtney2018 · #**105** 09-17-2007, 12:42 PM

I did some more tweaking on the router duplicator and tested it out on a piece of 2x4 scrap to see how a neck would come out. I didn't trim up the wood before I started. As you know a 2x4 is much wider and taller than a neck.

It definitely takes proper setup to get things to come out correctly. The probe and the router bit needs to be properly indicated in to duplicate accurately. I didn't on this first test. I just eye balled it and started cutting.

It does work, however, despite not coming out that well. You really need to take the piece of wood you plan on cutting and trimming it to the correct dimensions and using the router to cut in the profile of the neck. At least that's the way I see using this. I have a table saw so getting the correct slope of the neck won't be a problem and will actually cut down on the amount of time using the router.

I was able to use a regular sized router with no problems whatsoever. I didn't even try my smaller detail router. Since it's a variable speed router I set it on 1 and never changed it. I used a 1/2" round-nose bit and the same for the probe end. It worked perfectly.

The only thing I want to do is use something different for the probe. I put a piece of tape around the bit, but it still cut into the neck alittle bit leaving scratches. Not a big deal for the neck since it's a junk neck. I'm bound to be able to find something that's 1/2" in diameter somewhere. If not I'll just make one out of a wooden dowel.

Both sleds move fluidly, although it does take a bit of strength to move it. Not much, but you have to purposely move it in order to get it to move. This is a good thing. This cuts down on the whole thing moving when you don't want it to. You can concentrate on moving the cutter up and down and to the left and right just a little bit without it moving alot.

There's a few more things that I really need to do to it so that it's ready for some real work. For one I need to develop a jig to hold both the neck being copied and the wood being cut. I think I've got something worked out in my head that will work. I'll be trying that this coming weekend.

Other than that I think the router duplicator will be pumping out some necks pretty soon. I'll use a few more 2x4 scraps to practice on before going full blast on a laminated piece of wood. This will definitely take some practice to get a good duplication I think. It's coming along well though.