@swepri I bought a fairly cheap set of diamond stones off amazon, now I can plane highly figured wood and all sorts with no tear out. I seem to be able to get them really sharp which makes a big diffe...

@koendb I always make the radius before I cut the fret slots as I find using a plane can chip at the slots.

Yup No 5 for a fretboard for me. Thickness it, Make it straight, cut the fretslots. Then, setup the hand plane for smoothing, and take a pass on both outer edges of the fretboard, repeat, and take a p...

Erm, not sure I'd even both trying that. You'd have to be so careful and consistent with the pressure against the up-and-downer, and the speed at which you pass the board past it. I'd expect the out...

Erm not exactly but I seen it the toobs and thought I'd try, not totally convinced though. They make it look easy to get a perfect finish on the toobs but I've still got slight ripples. Not bad though...

Got the pieces all planed so they line up nice Attachment : 20230129_154303.jpg And got a lot of the excess chopped off the neck section, glued a couple of extra bits on to fit the headstoack s...

Hi Everyone, Finally got around to posting my finished build. (couldn't have done it without Mark's excellent courses) The finish believe it or not is black milk paint which is totally non-toxic and F...

And here it is - finished. Attachment : 20230129_124152sml.jpg Attachment : 20230129_124220sml.jpg Attachment : 20230129_124233sml.jpg Attachment : 20230129_124245sml.jpg ...

@koendb The headstock was originally made separately and wedged in with the neck. Since this requires quite some skill to do properly, I suspect that you already have the skills to do it "properly"...

Excellent @koendb. That's a great job rounding over the neck without the use of any sandpaper. Looking forward to seeing the rosette completed. You already look like you've got very good hand tool ski...

@koendb very cool koen. 🙂

Then we finetune the shape of the heel, by pressing the neck against the body, with a strip of sanding paper between, pulling the sandpaper back and forth over the body shape. Then the neck is glued ...

I've been pretty quiet on the forum the last couple of months because I had so much things going on , that I barely had the time keeping up reading through all the new replies and topics.Last summer, ...

@swepri @robinMaybe I worry too much, but is the middle part wide enough to fit the studs for the bridge/tailpiece? If a tune 'o matic bridge is used, that is. I've taken more out of the middle sin...

I think, the thickness of the sides is probably more important during routing, due to the risk of tear out. Once you managed to route it , the thickness does not matter too much anymore, I think. Glue...

@tv101 When you make an electric, but hollow out some/all of the body, how thick do you need to leave the side walls to retain sufficient strength in the wood? I've left about 10mm on this one, I'l...

When you make an acoustic, or hollowbody, the sides are really thin - maybe 2mm-3mm. I guess because you're bending veneers, the strength of the wood is still there because the fibres of the wood are...

I add it towards the end, sometimes thin the headstock and sometimes don't, depends on the tuners and how long the posts are. Often I'll add it and leave a slot for the nut between it and the end of t...

@swepri I usually decide for a headstock veneer at the very last moment in the construction phase, just before putting the hardware on, or, sometimes even after that, hell , you could even add it afte...