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Moving along nicely, Zeke. Good looking neck.

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Thanks Todd and Casey. Yeah the old mill gets the job done on the joints. Maybe one day ill get a nice jointing plane and figure out how to do it by hand. Then again I may not

So I got the faceplate all done on the headstock. Just wanted to keep the rosette theme tied in with everything so I went out on a limb and tried to do some more creative stuff

Here is a pic of gluing the inlays on


Its an ebony plate with spalted maple, bloodwood, and wenge inlayed.
Here is the final product. Its roughed to the approximate headstock shape and ill finish it out when i carve the neck.


thanks for checking it out

Finally got back on this thing!! Ive been working on my second trying to get it to lacquer stage so I could work on the challenge guitar as the lacquer cures for a month. Finally got to that stage this weekend. Meant to get a lot done but Ive come down with a cold and it slowed me down a lot. I still managed to get the sides all done though. Tailblock installed, headblock installed, and cutaway done. I also sketched out the inlay for the back and started on it but by that time the cold was really bringing me down so not much progress on that. Anyhow here is the sides all done.

I like your guitar mold Zeke. It looks like something a 90 year old luthier has been using for 70 years.

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

Looking good, thats one hell of a mold:)

Haha thanks. I just made it out of some old boards I found out in the machine shop. They are left over from about 10 years ago when the building belonged to a roofing company. I should probably trim it down because I weighs a ton but hey it gets the job done. And it matches its environment well.

Your guitar is coming along nicely! I like the rosette and head stock treatments. Very nice.


Posted using something.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Thanks Tony!

OK got the back inlay done today and dont quite know what to think about it. It didnt turn out how I thought due to the fact that the black lines i inlayed do not really stand out from the dark color of the wenge. here is a pic of my initial drawing for the inlay design



And here is what the actual back looks like



As you can see from these close ups the black does not stand out much





So what do you guys think?? Does it look ok like that? Should I border the black with something to make it stand out? Should I rout the black lines back out and put in a different wood? Should I punch it, Tony? Any advice or criticism is welcome. Thanks ahead of time for the thoughts.

What does it look like wet?

Looks about the same but everything is just a little darker. I can take another picture of it wetted down tomorrow if that will help. But it is pretty similar just darker.

I don't mind it the way it is, mate. And, it's consistent with your other decoration, so my vote would be to leave it...

The point was to have it consistent with everything else and tie it all together. After getting it together I just didn't know about how it looked. Thanks for your input

Stick with it, it will look different under finish, probably what you were looking for.

I think I may. I just needed some people with a fresh eye to give an opinion. Sometimes when I look at something too long it starts to look weird. I think that's what may be going on here.

Dennis that really helps!!!!!! Its so subtle i was trying to figure out what you had done to the picture. I knew it looked better but couldnt figure out why. Ill definitely add that detail! Thank you sir

Light colored border. And a stern warning.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

I think you need a lighter border as well to jazz it up a bit - just an opinion though.

Cheers

Col

You should also up charge yourself for the added work since the "customer" clearly didn't think this through when switching to the darker wood!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

I was thinking the same thing. Those customers never think things through! Shoulda just stuck with the maple

Anyhow I have some .02 b/w purfling that may be just the thing around the edges. The only issue is cutting a slot that narrow. I may have to take out the black and put it back at the same time as the purfling lines. Hmmmmm

Been busy truck shopping all week and looks like Ill be doing the same all weekend

But i did manage to get a little time to perform some luthierie this afternoon. I went ahead and added Dennis' suggestion to the back inlay and I decided to let it be as is. I think adding the light borders would make it all too busy so I hope it has a little more contrast under finish



I also cut out the soundhole and drew up my bracing pattern.

OK so it has been a very very hectic few weeks and nothing has got done because of it. Started out with me taking a short amount of time off the guitar for a side project:

Then the orders at work just exploded so it was work non stop and when I wasnt working I was so worn down I just rested. Then we had a death in the family so I had that to deal with, but today I finally got back on the guitar!
So I tried to make up for lost time and get a lot done. I got all of my braces roughed out, got the back braces glued and carved, got the X glued on the soundboard and the tone bars glued on. I also put the bias tape side reinforcements on as well as one side of kerfing. Hopefully this weekend I can get the bracing finished and maybe even close the box! Here are a couple pics:

What's with the gun? You threatening the build with it?

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

IMO the black lines on the back binding look great now, will look better if you do what Dennis suggested, and will stand out more after she is lacquered and polished. That design is a true original!