Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all! I am new to posting to the forum, but have been trolling it for quite some time. You guys have some great builds and advice and I figured I'd share my first build with you all! It's still a work in progress and it's a trial by fire type thing. I started this build while apprenticing under Jeff Kubinec, this is his own design as well.

I didn't think to document till after I had glued, shaped and route the body. But it's two pieces of Mahogany with your standard Maple middle.

I decided that White Nitro-Lacquer was the way to go on this... I am not regretting it! After filling the pores of the mahogany (forgot to document) with vinyl sealer I went ahead at my first ever finish attempt!

Jeff had an old warmoth neck laying around that has great shape and feel. The only problem was that the fretboard was pretty bad off and the nut slot had been carved too wide. I decided to strip the old board, reshape the head, and use this neck for this build since it's a learning build! Also, don't want a great neck sitting on a shelf it's whole life!

Next up was reshaping the headstock from Fender to something that fit the body shape a bit more... I used a template from a 5 string prototype Jeff did as inspiration.

First I had to plug the massive holes from the old tuning machines. I used a hard maple stock for this and since I knew I was going to finish the neck and veneer over the top I didn't match them perfectly. They just needed to function.. After that I cut the basic outline out and finished the rest of the shaping by hand with sand paper and a bit of dowell left over from the plugs. I was anxious to get this portion done and our spindle sander is located at another shop... So I went old school Oh! I snuck in a 16" radius for the fretboard in the meantime as well

While gearing up to fret the beast I decided I might as well try a custom inlay. I've always wanted a guitar with a Mjolnir on it, so figured it was time to give it a shot! I laid a paper idea out on the board and i had to happen. I broke out the dental bit popped it in the dremel and practiced about 4 times on the old fretboard. I was surprised how easy it was! The only worry I had was cracking the inlay when I pounded in the frets... So I decided, for this try to keep the inaly a few 32nds away form the fret itself... It looks good form a distance but up close you can see it..

Up next is finish the neck white and put it all together!

The finish looks great, and I like your work on the neck.
Keep us informed!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Thanks! I am excited to get this one done for sure, I haven't had much time as of late to work on it... but she'll be finished soon!

I have a guitar body based on this shape roughed out already for my second build.... Can't wait to get started on that! Keep having to remind myself, one thing at a time, one thing at a time!

Ok! I finished this in late September, just haven't had a chance to post pics! Also I haven't taken a better show of the finished product, I'll do that when I have access to a better camera. But here it is! I played her live for the first time filling in for a friends band and man she played great! Her trial by fire was at a death-metal show of all things haha! I am glad I relic'd it cause, I put some pretty good belt buckle scars on the lower horn. Turns out, where I carry the guitar live sits just below it and every time I moved it up or down it would clank my belt buckle.

I also am happy with my choice of leaving a bit more fretboard on this than normal. The neck has a really chuncky feel which I love but it plays soo smooth with the 16" radius!

Oh also, NEVER use the Hipshot Featherweight tuners: http://www.allparts.com/Hipshot-UltraLi ... 50-010.htm This is a very poor design and they tend to rattle :/ Gotta figure out a suitable replacement that will fit in this close spacing...

There is still a lot of things I need to do better on my next build, but this was a great learning experience. It was cool to mix custom building from a already finished design in the case of the headstock and from scratch in the case of the body. But next time I need to make my own neck. Which I am excited and nervous about at the same time! If I had to nitpick this I could, but the main thing I walked away from on this was: Slow down. Sometimes I'd catch myself rushing to the finished product and there are a few blems that could have been avoided. But I also was learning a lot of this on the fly, since some of it I've only seen done before. All and all it's a playable finished product for myself, and I couldn't be happier! The old Dimarzio 123s I've had since the 80's are sooo sweet sounding in this beast too!

Up next is a set neck - carved top guitar in this body shape!! Wish me luck!

what's a Mjolnir?

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

The hammer of Thor!

That is very cool! Love the design and especially the details (Hammer of Thor).

Nice to see something different!