@steveh I usually go to p320 before applying finish. Before staining, I lightly moisture the surfaces and let it dry, to raise the grain. Then a light pass with p320 again before staining.

Hi everyone! I put together the Explorer-like in mock up …. Attachment : IMG_0033.jpeg Attachment : IMG_0034.jpeg Nothing is bolted down in the mock up, but I’ve subsequently checked an...

@steveh well I can blame it on age at least lol

Sounds familiar, somehow... 😀

@nsj yeah, I’m not sure what happened. I was planning to do exactly that, but then didn’t 🙄 🤔

@steveh I place the claw against the back of the spring cavity and move it about until I'm happy it's centred then go round in the holes with a pencil or that. Remove the claw and centre punch the cen...

So, finally mocked up the Floyd Rose rout (note tactical use of screwdriver as there is no string tension to keep the bridge level. I’ll try to get the spring claw a bit better centered, but on the wh...

Keep it up mate, good going....

yep, I picked up a router template set, so that should help, but never underestimate the level of my ineptitude 😉 Thank you for the pointer as far as the Gotoh - I’ll definitely keep that in mind for ...

@swepri thank you for your suggestion. I really don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself! My old garden bench is in the workshop waiting to be up cycled into something, so I’ve got loads of cheap,...

@steveh musiclily do a decent routing template, only thing missing is the recess for the floyd but that's not to hard to knock up. I'd recommend grabbing a gotoh floyd, 150 ish but fantastic units....

@steveh Planning and drawing is a useful start. Maybe you could try out the necessary routing for the trem on a cheap piece of wood, to confirm. How is samba wood to work with? I have only used Bosse ...

Explorer bodies take a lot of wood! Given that I’ve never made a body with rout for a trem system, FR or otherwise, I guessed that the chances of me making a horlicks of it are quite high, so I though...

ok, so again I’ve proved myself rubbish at showing what I’m up to - it’s a personality trait that I’m working on, please bear with me. I’ve already started this project, so there will be some quick up...

Nice work @boo. 🙂🎸🎶🙏

Made my kerf linings now, I think the the flat sawn strips are more flexible than the quarter sawn I used when making my jig. Dry clamped the trickier side of the front, looking okay. Attachment : ...

@markbailey Thanks for your input Mark, I've read the book and I think, with me being an engineer, I got caught up in theory and numbers. I'll stick with your brace carving directions, I've also deci...

If you are going to 'tune' any of the braces, plates, chambers make sure to offset your tuner by 1/4 note (A=431) The last thing you want is parts tuned to concert pitch. Until you have a few builds u...

@robin Thanks I haven’t seen this before and only have his mandolin book. For a first build I would stick with Marks course and it will be a good guitar. Tap tuning is fairly advanced.

It certainly was not my intention to send you 'doon a wabbit 'ole'. I am sure that you will make a good sounding guitar whatever route you choose. After all, best results are based on guidance as well...