MIMF

I have said it before and I'll say it again, I would not be in this hobby at all had I not come across this place back in about 2004! Thanks everybody for all the hard work and great advice.

Great job! I love seeing stuff like this!

Alan, it is hard to tell for sure from the picture but I assume the tone bars X joint is a half lap just like the main X. It looks like both joints may be capped with a thin spruce cap. Is that right or do you add some cloth later in the process? Since the double X tone bars are basically tapered br...

Looking good! I like how you chose quartered maple for the bindings and let the rays do the talking. I did that recently too and really liked it. I feel like curly maple is the standard for maple bindings but regular grained quartered maple has a real appeal.

I know what you mean about learning neck carving by doing. Back in 2004 when I was getting ready to carve my first neck, I looked and looked for a good tutorial, discussion or description of how to carve a neck. All I was ever really able to come up with was some form of the answer "you just ca...

I think that in the end, you are going to end up carving to the feel you want rather than any hard numbers. The specs will give you a good guide to work to until the final stages when your had will tell you when you are done. I think a lot of people tend to error on the thick side the first time aro...

I'm always willing to give a fellow Bear a sane opinion; I'm just not sure what the question is.

I'm guessing that by resistance, you mean resonance. I wouldn't think it would have much effect on resonance but I don't know for sure. Years ago I did some tests on scrap as I was looking to make an all black guitar. turns our that spruce really doesn't have much in the way of tannins and that is w...

This is sad. Frets.com was a wonderful resource when I started getting interested in this stuff. So much information. RIP!

I can't help much other than to say I have a back and side set of figured Anigre in my stash but haven't used it yet. I have seen several figured anigre guitars over the years so it is certainly a thing, I just have no first hand experience to share.

Welcome!

I agree with above. You won't do a perfect fret job on your first. But. . . you will never do great fretjobs until you start doing them. Sounds like you have a safety net, so you should probably go for it. This is probably not what you want to hear but I'll say it anyway. Setting out to make your dr...

I glue my fretboards to the neck blank on the surface of my workbench top (fretboard face down) so it clamps nice and flat. Barry's advice to let it stay clamped longer is good advice. You want it clamped flat long enough for the water from the glue to fully move out. I usually plan the fretboard gl...

Nice! You got the color just right!

I'm with Barry in that I would not want to make a neck with the fretboard anything but flush. Peter's suggestion isn't a bad one IF you can make the "Flare" of the fretboard width match the neck profile enough that it wouldn't feel strange to everyone who picks it up. If you were going tha...

Great post Lincoln!!!!!

Congratulations! And, cut yourself some slack. Absolutely no one understands the extent of how your life and soul change until they experience it. I'm very happy for the three of you!

This has been on my to do list for a long time and I have thought of how I might approach this problem. The plan in my head was to wrap aluminum foil as tightly around the cartridge as I could and jamb it in there aiming for as tight a fit as I could achieve. I figured aluminum conducts heat pretty ...

I managed to turn some red oak veneer black all the way through by soaking it in iron acetate for a few days. Then it had to be dried and flattened. . . probably would have been easier to buy dyed veneer though.

I just use a junker 1/4" chisel but I would love to see the other options people are using. My biggest problem is that I am bad about remembering to clean it off when I'm done and end up having to spend time getting dried glue off of it.