# Build: Seven string multiscale Telecaster with some gimmicks



## Eumldeuml (Apr 12, 2017)

_A new user emerged from the depths of the internet..._

Hey guys! 
I'm about to start my second-ish build (the first one was a four string electric ukulele guitar with the shape of a Randy Rhoads Flying-V, so three strings to few for this forum).
And I'm here to make this kind of a diary for the build where I can get roasted for all my stupid mistakes 
The 3D model is 90% done, I've already ordered some of the parts which means I'll start in building in a few days 
This guitar is designed to distract from my sh#tty playing style (lol) so it will get some gimmicks, that no guitar right now has (or at least no guitar on the internet). But I don't want to tell you right now what it is, I still have to test and evaluate some things, but maybe you can guess from the CAD xD

Anyways, I'd really appreciate some people commenting on this thread to give me some tips (I'm still quite a noob) or to humiliate me for using a CNC 

The first pictures are from the CAD program I'm using (Fusion 360).
Hope you'll like it!


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 12, 2017)

Some notes to this build:
The bridge will be compeltely selfmade and designed by me, because I don't want to spend half a car on single bridge saddles.

View attachment 53649


The guitar in itself is quite a rip-off from Fender's Jim Root Telecaster but the headstock is from Ormsby guitars... (I'm not very good at inventing aesthetic and sophisticated shapes, I hope I don't get sued lol).


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## GXPO (Apr 12, 2017)

Don't worry, I don't think Ormsby will be suing you for ripping off that particular head stock.. 

Well, if you build as well as you CAD this should be one to watch. Good luck!


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 12, 2017)

Good luck! 

And FYI, there is a no-name set of single string saddles you can usually find on ebay for a good price (20-50 USD depending on color and number of strings). I've been eyeing them for a while.


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## randomas (Apr 12, 2017)

If you're in the USA you can get single string saddles from rondomusic for like 5 $ each or close.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 12, 2017)

GXPO said:


> Well, if you build as well as you CAD this should be one to watch. Good luck!


Thank you very much! 



randomas said:


> If you're in the USA you can get single string saddles from rondomusic for like 5 $ each or close.



I've seen them and they would be ideal if it wasn't for the ~50 bucks shipping costs to Germany 

And I also thought about making individual saddles for this guitar by myself (in fact, I already did that for the uke) but I don't see an advantage over a fixed bridge especially considering how much more of a pain in the a## individual saddles are to machine.


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## bostjan (Apr 12, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> Thank you very much!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Too bad I don't have any business trips to Germany on my schedule... 

Really, though, nothing beats the satisfaction of engineering and building your own parts.

You got my attention with this mysterious gimmick. What could it be? B-bender? Low B-bender?! B-bender and sustainer? Do you still call it a b-bender in Germany, or is it an H-Beiger? In the southern hemisphere, does the B-Bender need to turn the opposite direction?


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## InCasinoOut (Apr 12, 2017)

Ooh im intrigued. I like the strat output jack on the back, although I can't quite figure out what else is going on there...


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 12, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Too bad I don't have any business trips to Germany on my schedule...
> 
> Really, though, nothing beats the satisfaction of engineering and building your own parts.
> 
> You got my attention with this mysterious gimmick. What could it be? B-bender? Low B-bender?! B-bender and sustainer? Do you still call it a b-bender in Germany, or is it an H-Beiger? In the southern hemisphere, does the B-Bender need to turn the opposite direction?



I didn't even know what a B-bender is until I just googled it... So no, it's not an H-Bieger 



InCasinoOut said:


> Ooh im intrigued. I like the strat output jack on the back, although I can't quite figure out what else is going on there...



Well, the strat output is there because I need the space on the edges of the guitar...


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## bostjan (Apr 12, 2017)

Oh, maybe a laser pickup or microtonal frets?
Guitar synth? A selectable/deselectable sitar buzz bridge?
A bottle opener on the headstock? A foldaway guitar case collapsible that firs in the control cavity?
Oh, maybe there's a secret compartment inside for a pet turtle?
Are my guesses desperate enough yet?


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 12, 2017)

Daaaamn, these are some awesome ideas... 
But unlucky enough, I've already had difficulties to cram everything inside that body so maybe I'll use your inspiration for another build...

And compared to a laser turtle that picks up the sound and transforms into a turtle shell guitar case my ideas don't seem very cool anymore...


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## IGC (Apr 12, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> _A new user emerged from the depths of the internet..._
> 
> Hey guys!
> I'm about to start my second-ish build (the first one was a four string electric ukulele guitar with the shape of a Randy Rhoads Flying-V, so three strings to few for this forum).
> ...



Sweet guitar Man! I would like to see a larger view of the saddles if possible.
I'm building, actually rebuilding my first guitar and was inspired to join this forum at the beginning of 2017...Kind of interesting to get feedback from other enthusiasts. Anyhew have fun keep us posted!


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## odibrom (Apr 12, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> (...) I don't see an advantage over a fixed bridge especially considering how much more of a pain in the a## individual saddles are to machine.



Wait, machining individual saddles is more time consuming than an angled TOM bridge? THAT angled TOM bridge?...


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 13, 2017)

IGC said:


> Sweet guitar Man! I would like to see a larger view of the saddles if possible.
> I'm building, actually rebuilding my first guitar and was inspired to join this forum at the beginning of 2017...Kind of interesting to get feedback from other enthusiasts. Anyhew have fun keep us posted!



You mean those things were the strings actually touch the bridge? I'm always confused when it comes to saddles/bridges/etc. because I think that those terms somheow overlap 

But yeah, I also really appreciate people commenting here, there are other forums where the OP basically holds a monologue...




odibrom said:


> Wait, machining individual saddles is more time consuming than an angled TOM bridge? THAT angled TOM bridge?...



I'm not 100% sure because I haven't started to really make the bridge but seven indiviudal saddles mean at least 14 small pieces that need to be machined on two sides with a lot of material to be removed. Not that easy on a 3-axis CNC so I designed my own TOM bridge with that in mind.
The focus was on the machining which is in my opinion the difference between plain designing (where everything is possible) and engineering (where you have to evaluate how it will be made and how much work goes into it).


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## odibrom (Apr 13, 2017)

I understand your point of view, but still. An offset bridge like a strat hardtail isn't hard to build, one offset base plate plus 7 individual saddles... Cutting this offset baseplate into 7 individual ones should be easy enough. Grinding down saddles from a parallelepiped block of the same size should be that hard either...

Just saying, I do not know anything about CNCing anything, but THAT TOM bridge is surely hard to machine, too many angles...

The major problem I see here is the sourcing of raw materials to work with. Personally, I'd ditch the TOM bridge idea for something else, BUT I must say that the bridge's design looks cool though. Good luck on whatever you decide to go for and keep us posted!


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 13, 2017)

odibrom said:


> I understand your point of view, but still. An offset bridge like a strat hardtail isn't hard to build, one offset base plate plus 7 individual saddles... Cutting this offset baseplate into 7 individual ones should be easy enough. Grinding down saddles from a parallelepiped block of the same size should be that hard either...
> 
> Just saying, I do not know anything about CNCing anything, but THAT TOM bridge is surely hard to machine, too many angles...
> 
> The major problem I see here is the sourcing of raw materials to work with. Personally, I'd ditch the TOM bridge idea for something else, BUT I must say that the bridge's design looks cool though. Good luck on whatever you decide to go for and keep us posted!



The big advantage of a CNC is that you don't have to care about angles and stuff, I see the major challenge in the choice of material (steel: hard to mill on a home CNC; Aluminium: easier to mill but not as abrasion resistand), small inward corners (because a round endmill can only produce round corners) and getting the holes for the intonation screws in there as exactly as possible because the CNC can't mill those from above. The first bridge I "designed" for my electric uke was similar to what you proposed and I found that it's very hard to get everything to size so that it fits and works properly.

But I appreciate every single answer on this thread, I didn't expect that and although I registered just yesterday I already love the community here


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 13, 2017)

Well, here's my first question that just dawned on me upon receiving a package from a music store:
I ordered a truss rod for guitar with a length of 490mm (=19.3") since I use a 27.5" scale on the bass side and it seemed that the shorter one with 440mm (=17.3") might not be sufficient. Pictures here (you might want to change the language):
https://www.thomann.de/de/goeldo_ws49g_trussrod.htm

But I didn't pay attention enough because the longer version is a single action whereas the shorter is a double action rod. This isn't a problem by itself (or is it?) but it also doesn't have an allen nut but an (external) hex nut. I wanted to have the adjustement located on the headstock as on most guitars but I'm afraid that I have to resort to going Fender style and having the nut on the body side.
Would that mean that I have to take the neck off everytime I want to turn the nut (I heard it's the case with Fender guitars)?
What do you recommend? I guess this is my first noob question (many more to come  )


And yes, I really love brackets


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## Hywel (Apr 13, 2017)

The single action rod might not be a problem but it will give you less control over the neck just in case it ends up not perfectly straight. The hex nut can be used at the headstock (PRS SE guitars use this kind of rod I think) but it will require a larger route to fit and may weaken the headstock area.

I'm not sure how the exact layout of your neck is but I generally aim to get the anchor end just into the neck heel so it has a good thick area of neck to push against. If your truss rod reaches the heel it'll be fine. Anything longer won't be better. 460mm might be long enough for you.

I'd probably go for a hex adjusting 460mm double action rod (if it fits nicely) since it's a bit easier to use and can save a neck from being firewood if it bows the wrong way.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 13, 2017)

Double action is waaaaaaay easier to install, too.


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## Mr_Mar10 (Apr 13, 2017)

Yeah. This is going to be sick but I want a guitar with all bostjans ideas on 

As for the body truss adjust. You could route a small circular hole at the point where the body n neck join. If u Google heel adjust truss rods you might be able to borrow an idea to make it look tidy. I did this on my girls jaguar (will upload a pic if I remember)
You can do it easy with a 1/2 sphere router bit (soz don't know technical terms )

Good luck buddy  teles have always been my favourite


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 13, 2017)

Well...
Instead of enjoying my dinner (spicy chicken legs with caramelised onions and steam cooked potatoes) I mangled some wild thoughts in my tired brain and came to the conclusion that I'm gonna try it with the single action and a heel adjustment. If the neck will be trash someday I might already have changed my mind regarding inlays, wood choice, headstock design (because of a lawsuit? lol) or whatever so I'll just make another... 


Regarding inlays: I'm still somewhat uncertain what it's gonna be. I'd love some inlays like on Ehterial guitars (like here http://iprobablyhateyourband.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/etherial.jpg) but I can't find any files that I can feed my CAM program with and I'm just too much of an engineer to have a feeling for creating such beautiful shapes 
So, does anyone have inspiration for what I could use as inlays? Either a file that I can use or an idea of a simple (geometric) shape that I can design by myself.
In any case it will not be handmade so don't let your firm belief in my disqualification for such fine tasks stop you from telling me your wildest ideas


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## IGC (Apr 13, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> You mean those things were the strings actually touch the bridge? I'm always confused when it comes to saddles/bridges/etc. because I think that those terms somheow overlap
> 
> But yeah, I also really appreciate people commenting here, there are other forums where the OP basically holds a monologue...
> 
> ...



Just curious about checking out your actual saddle ideas - the little things on your bridge that the strings themselves actually ride over/ nest into, that can usually be adjusted for intonation string height etc. But if not that's cool too.


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## odibrom (Apr 13, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> Well...
> Instead of enjoying my dinner (spicy chicken legs with caramelised onions and steam cooked potatoes) I mangled some wild thoughts in my tired brain and came to the conclusion that I'm gonna try it with the single action and a heel adjustment. If the neck will be trash someday I might already have changed my mind regarding inlays, wood choice, headstock design (because of a lawsuit? lol) or whatever so I'll just make another...
> (...)



Can't you just swap the Truss Rod's nut for one that suits your needs?


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 14, 2017)

IGC said:


> Just curious about checking out your actual saddle ideas - the little things on your bridge that the strings themselves actually ride over/ nest into, that can usually be adjusted for intonation string height etc. But if not that's cool too.



They look like T-Shirts... 






odibrom said:


> Can't you just swap the Truss Rod's nut for one that suits your needs?



Yes of course, but I'd have to order a new one, pay the shipping costs and then I'd have an 'useless' rod lying around... 
That's all not too bad but the costs add up (I'm a poor student) and someday I want to start building. CAD is all good and fun but it doesn't beat actually being in the workshop and creating things 

Edit: So I've decided to get a new truss rod. Do you guys think that 440mm (=17.3") is enough for a 25" to 27.5" fan?


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## bash_17 (Apr 14, 2017)

Looking great!
How do you do wireframe renders in F360?


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 14, 2017)

bash_17 said:


> Looking great!
> How do you do wireframe renders in F360?



Thank you! 
You mean those lines behind the surface you're looking at? This can be done with the button on the bottom of the program interface where a small monitor is depicted. Click on that and go to the first entry where you can select the visual style (don't know it's called in other languages). There you can choose several ways of displaying your work including wireframe


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## bash_17 (Apr 14, 2017)

Oh, i see, these are not renders, thanks! Was trying to find out how to render that out fusion with no success.


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## IGC (Apr 14, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> They look like T-Shirts...
> View attachment 53670
> 
> 
> ...



Wow, fantastic job on the cad designing! I will have to check that software out. I work in cnc so I have a natural tendency to think about how to process parts like those... if done on a mill your looking at some tiny (break easy) carbide cutter costs wich can be pretty expensive! Unles you have a friend with a machine shop willing to hook you up. Then there is EDM, Additive mfg. (Metal sintering) all pretty costly, especially for a poor student. I ended up buying a length of 1.5x1.5 inch aluminum angle iron from Mcmaster Carr and making some individual string bridges with my band saw, router, and jewelers saw. Uggh I won't do it like that again , they do work but eh. After that I'm seriously considering buying some of the cheap roller bridge tremelo saddles (6 for 15$) from Amazon and making a thin sheet metal hard tail bridge plate for future custom fanned fret builds!


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 14, 2017)

IGC said:


> Wow, fantastic job on the cad designing! I will have to check that software out. I work in cnc so I have a natural tendency to think about how to process parts like those... if done on a mill your looking at some tiny (break easy) carbide cutter costs wich can be pretty expensive! Unles you have a friend with a machine shop willing to hook you up. Then there is EDM, Additive mfg. (Metal sintering) all pretty costly, especially for a poor student. I ended up buying a length of 1.5x1.5 inch aluminum angle iron from Mcmaster Carr and making some individual string bridges with my band saw, router, and jewelers saw. Uggh I won't do it like that again , they do work but eh. After that I'm seriously considering buying some of the cheap roller bridge tremelo saddles (6 for 15$) from Amazon and making a thin sheet metal hard tail bridge plate for future custom fanned fret builds!



My plan for my next build is to buy a 7 string TOM with unslotted saddles, then mount it at an angle and slot them for the correct spacing and angle. Should be able to do a 1 inch fan (my plan) with no problem. Maybe even up to 2. There is some leeway on TOM saddle widths.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 14, 2017)

IGC said:


> Wow, fantastic job on the cad designing! I will have to check that software out. I work in cnc so I have a natural tendency to think about how to process parts like those... if done on a mill your looking at some tiny (break easy) carbide cutter costs wich can be pretty expensive! Unles you have a friend with a machine shop willing to hook you up. Then there is EDM, Additive mfg. (Metal sintering) all pretty costly, especially for a poor student. I ended up buying a length of 1.5x1.5 inch aluminum angle iron from Mcmaster Carr and making some individual string bridges with my band saw, router, and jewelers saw. Uggh I won't do it like that again , they do work but eh. After that I'm seriously considering buying some of the cheap roller bridge tremelo saddles (6 for 15$) from Amazon and making a thin sheet metal hard tail bridge plate for future custom fanned fret builds!




Thank you 
If only I had metal sintering... I'd do my whole guitar with that 
I also thought about making a bridge with spare parts from other hardware but that can be as work intensive as just building from scratch... I might be wrong on that but adapting everything so it fits together could be a big pain in the butt



LiveOVErdrive said:


> My plan for my next build is to buy a 7 string TOM with unslotted saddles, then mount it at an angle and slot them for the correct spacing and angle. Should be able to do a 1 inch fan (my plan) with no problem. Maybe even up to 2. There is some leeway on TOM saddle widths.



Maybe I'll give this a try since I'm not 100% satisfied with my design, especially due to some manufacturing difficulties. But on the other hand, I spent hours and hours on thinking about the bridge only and this design I'm using right now seems a good compromise...


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 14, 2017)

Just a small addition on the little extras I've planned: My guitar will get three different kinds of fans... The one on the fretboard, the ones in the audience (hopefully) and also the third kind of fan that is left... 
I kinda feel bad for not telling you what these gimmicks are but I still haven't tested them extensively enough to present them to the public


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## IGC (Apr 14, 2017)

Sweet thanks for the Tom bridge ideas liveoverdrive. Looking forward to the gimmicks if you decide you like them - keep SSO posted! Metal sintering is neat- so many possibilities.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 14, 2017)

IGC said:


> Sweet thanks for the Tom bridge ideas liveoverdrive. Looking forward to the gimmicks if you decide you like them - keep SSO posted! Metal sintering is neat- so many possibilities.



My pleasure. And I will of course post about it (that's half the reason for building, don'tcha know). It'll be headless with standard guitar tuners too, so that's fun. 

But back to the thread at hand, bring on the weirdness! If ever there was a guitar forum interested in gimmicks and weird ideas, this was the one.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 14, 2017)

I'm so glad you people like stupid and weird gimmicks... Some people I talked to about in real life (as far as it still exists) told me I should just play a guitar and not upgrade it with senseless things... I really look forward to their jealous faces when I bust out my seven string Telecaster with [_censored_] 

Oh yeah, another hint: It will be a hollow body guitar, not because I like the sound of it (I have actually no idea what difference that makes) but because I need aaaaall the space in the back...


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 16, 2017)

Happy Easter to you all! 

Yesterday... _All my trobles seemed so faar awaay_
Wait, wrong text 
Yesterday... I made a test cut fot my angled TOM bridge and it's already looking so good that this might be the final result 




I sanded just a few times over it and that makes for the cool effect of brighter edges and a darker center (I might just leave it like this). Now I'm on to the saddles


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 16, 2017)

Well that's awesome. Are you gonna make the saddles too or use them off the shelf?


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## IGC (Apr 16, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> Happy Easter to you all!
> 
> Yesterday... _All my trobles seemed so faar awaay_
> Wait, wrong text
> ...



Pretty nice new looking design! Nice little job on the machining
Happy easter!


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 16, 2017)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> Well that's awesome. Are you gonna make the saddles too or use them off the shelf?



I think I can't use them off the shelf because I didn't make my bridge to the specs of those saddles you can buy and I don't want to spend more money than I have to. And with the access to an CNC you can save a lot of money 



IGC said:


> Pretty nice new looking design! Nice little job on the machining
> Happy easter!



Thank you!


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## odibrom (Apr 16, 2017)

Nice work!

One question, probably answered before, is the guitar to have a radiused fretboard? If so, how are you going to solve the problem at the bridge? Compensated saddles?


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 17, 2017)

odibrom said:


> Nice work!
> 
> One question, probably answered before, is the guitar to have a radiused fretboard? If so, how are you going to solve the problem at the bridge? Compensated saddles?



It's going to have a 12"-16" compund radius and I indeed haven't thought about compensating it on the bridge. But my Schecter has a Floyd Rose which also doesn't have saddles with different heights. So I guess that's fine.
And if it bothers me I'll just make new saddles. That's a big advantage of making your own hardware. You also make your own spare parts and you can adapt them to whatever you're liking.


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## IGC (Apr 17, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> It's going to have a 12"-16" compund radius and I indeed haven't thought about compensating it on the bridge. But my Schecter has a Floyd Rose which also doesn't have saddles with different heights. So I guess that's fine.
> And if it bothers me I'll just make new saddles. That's a big advantage of making your own hardware. You also make your own spare parts and you can adapt them to whatever you're liking.



What kind of cnc did you use ? Brand, vmc, hmc etc.? Even manual equipment is quite handy.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 17, 2017)

IGC said:


> What kind of cnc did you use ? Brand, vmc, hmc etc.? Even manual equipment is quite handy.



It's a gantry style CNC router from a small company here in Germany called CNC-step. They claim you can cut steel with it but haven't tried that


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## odibrom (Apr 17, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> But my Schecter has a Floyd Rose which also doesn't have saddles with different heights.



Are you sure about that? From my experience in Floyd trems, the OFR series have compensated saddles, while Ibanez ones have compensated base plate. Can it be that your's have shims underneath the saddles to compensate the radius?


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## bostjan (Apr 17, 2017)

The strings should arc at the bridge to match the radius of the fretboard at infinity. If you do a compound radius from 12" at the nut to infinity at the bridge, then flat would be ideal, otherwise, your setup options will be limited.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 17, 2017)

odibrom said:


> Are you sure about that? From my experience in Floyd trems, the OFR series have compensated saddles, while Ibanez ones have compensated base plate. Can it be that your's have shims underneath the saddles to compensate the radius?



I Just looked again and no, it seems that the bridge is completely flat. But I don't experience any issues that may have resulted from this so it can't be that bad if you don't have a compensated bridge.



bostjan said:


> The strings should arc at the bridge to match the radius of the fretboard at infinity. If you do a compound radius from 12" at the nut to infinity at the bridge, then flat would be ideal, otherwise, your setup options will be limited.



If that's the rule (of thumb) then it might be a good guess to assume that the 12"-16" compound radius is close enough to infinity (so to say) and therefore it would not make a noticeable difference between a very slight radius at the bridge or just a flat bridge.
I hope you understood what I meant


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## odibrom (Apr 17, 2017)

bostjan said:


> The strings should arc at the bridge to match the radius of the fretboard at infinity. If you do a compound radius from 12" at the nut to infinity at the bridge, then flat would be ideal, otherwise, your setup options will be limited.



Thank you for the comment, I guess it is a matter of geometry then, though it is far from having an infinite radius at the bridge, just negligible.


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## bostjan (Apr 17, 2017)

odibrom said:


> Thank you for the comment, I guess it is a matter of geometry then, though it is far from having an infinite radius at the bridge, just negligible.



If you drill the holes a tiny bit higher in the center than on the edges, that might take care of it. It should be a simple matter to calculate the offsets in their positions. If you drill them all level though, there ill be an infinite radius at the bridge for sure, and then the string radius profile will follow the change between the radius filed into the nut and the radius at the bridge. Of course, if the difference is less than 0.1 mm, then it shouldn't matter.


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## IGC (Apr 17, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> It's a gantry style CNC router from a small company here in Germany called CNC-step. They claim you can cut steel with it but haven't tried that



Sweet, I checked them out. You can make all sorts of cool stuff on that thing. Are you using Linux, or maybe Mach 3 ? What Cad Cam?


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 17, 2017)

bostjan said:


> If you drill the holes a tiny bit higher in the center than on the edges, that might take care of it. It should be a simple matter to calculate the offsets in their positions. If you drill them all level though, there ill be an infinite radius at the bridge for sure, and then the string radius profile will follow the change between the radius filed into the nut and the radius at the bridge. Of course, if the difference is less than 0.1 mm, then it shouldn't matter.



Could always make the individual saddle pieces have varying heights.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 18, 2017)

Regarding the bridge I kinda have bad news: It doesn't really work out like I want it and maybe I have to ditch the whole concept and come up with a new idea (or an endorsement from hipshot lol).
The detailed explanation is quite long and involves a lot of stuff about milling aluminium, some engineering stuff like machining tolerances and I think that's quite irrelevant for this forum. If you want to know it anyway, maybe hit me up via DM or if enough people are interested, I might post it here 

So right know I'm thinking about a "normal" strat bridge with a selfmade angled backplate. But the problem is I can't find those saddles in packs of seven or individually, only for six strings 
The next option would be to make or buy individual saddles. Making them is quite complicated, buying is expensive. So yeah...
What do you guys think? 




IGC said:


> Sweet, I checked them out. You can make all sorts of cool stuff on that thing. Are you using Linux, or maybe Mach 3 ? What Cad Cam?


I'm using Windows 10, Fusion 360 for CAD/CAM and WINPC-NC for controlling the machine.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 18, 2017)

Unless you are committed to milling your own bridge I'd go this route:

http://m.ebay.com/itm/BESTPARTS-Sol...%3A8103430d15b0aa12c7e77315fffdd4b8%7Ciid%3A6

Understandable if you do want to make your bridge. My old roommate once milled a new case for his graphing calculator out of a block of aluminum just for the experience.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 18, 2017)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> Unless you are committed to milling your own bridge I'd go this route:
> 
> http://m.ebay.com/itm/BESTPARTS-Sol...%3A8103430d15b0aa12c7e77315fffdd4b8%7Ciid%3A6



Why did I never find this? 
Quite a good offer. Do you know anything about the seller? I'm not to keen on paying for something and never receiving it. But it seems that the shop has a quite good rating so I might give it a try...

Anyway, thank you very much for the link, I'm seriously considering to buy them, seems like a good offer


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 18, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> Why did I never find this?
> Quite a good offer. Do you know anything about the seller? I'm not to keen on paying for something and never receiving it. But it seems that the shop has a quite good rating so I might give it a try...
> 
> Anyway, thank you very much for the link, I'm seriously considering to buy them, seems like a good offer



Probably the same reason it took me forever to find them - you have to search "SINGLE string bridges". "INDIVIDUAL string bridges" only gives you bass parts. They have chrome, black, and gold in packs of 6, 7, and 8, FYI. 

As far as their legitimacy goes, I haven't tried them yet (though I plan to), but they're on ebay so if worst comes to worst, PayPal will get you your money back afaik.


----------



## Eumldeuml (Apr 18, 2017)

I just ordered them... let's see if they are worth the 36&#8364; I'm paying including shipping.
I'll give you a review as soon as they arrive


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 18, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> I just ordered them... let's see if they are worth the 36 I'm paying including shipping.
> I'll give you a review as soon as they arrive



Awesome. I hope they're good quality.


----------



## IGC (Apr 19, 2017)

You may consider going the zero fret route. Kind of wish I had on my first build, seems like it might be a little easier than messing around with slotting the nut for string height.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 19, 2017)

Did a zero fret on my last build and I can confirm that it is pretty nice.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 19, 2017)

Today I found out that the piece of maple I wanted to use for the neck (including headstock) is too small, so I'll make neck and headstock in two seperate pieces. I just adapted my CAD to that and if everything goes well, I'll make a test cut in cheap wood tomorrow (it's 2am here and I'm sitting in front of my PC, listening to SOAD and CADing things up lol).

Now for a little disclaimer: As this is my second-ish build and I'm a poor student, I don't want to waste a lot of money on expensive woods that just might end up as ashes in the chimney (I don't believe in tonewoods anyways, now hate me ).
Also I'm not a woodworker but an (aspiring) engineer so you might see some unconventional building methods (like on the headstock joint) but I'm confident that it should work. (And if not, duct tape will fix it )


So, to sum it up: Building starts tomorrow!


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## IGC (Apr 19, 2017)

liveOverdrive - you have confirmed it, Zero fret on at least my next future build!

Eumldeuml - I don't recommend pine for the neck, it's way too flexible! 
Not without lots of strong supports.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 19, 2017)

IGC said:


> Eumldeuml - I don't recommend pine for the neck, it's way too flexible!
> Not without lots of strong supports.



I know, the test cut will be in pine, but the final neck will be maple 
The body will be partly beech and multiplex. That's because I need to make the body in two parts, bottom and top, for all the stuff I want to cram in it  Also those were the woods I could find for very small amount of money in my local hardware store.
It's an unusual combination but I think it will get the job done (and will be painted anyways). If it does sound like sh#t in the end at least I did only pay like 10 bucks for the wood in total


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## IGC (Apr 19, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> I know, the test cut will be in pine, but the final neck will be maple
> The body will be partly beech and multiplex. That's because I need to make the body in two parts, bottom and top, for all the stuff I want to cram in it  Also those were the woods I could find for very small amount of money in my local hardware store.
> It's an unusual combination but I think it will get the job done (and will be painted anyways). If it does sound like sh#t in the end at least I did only pay like 10 bucks for the wood in total



I hear ya on the price for guitar Woods! I was able to find some decent maple and walnut at the local hardware store, oak too all kiln dried. Then I live about 15 mins away from Woodcraft- could spend hours in there checking out all the exotics, very affordable prices too.
By the way, may I ask what version of Fusion 360 have you chosen? Standard,Ultimate?


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 19, 2017)

IGC said:


> I hear ya on the price for guitar Woods! I was able to find some decent maple and walnut at the local hardware store, oak too all kiln dried. Then I live about 15 mins away from Woodcraft- could spend hours in there checking out all the exotics, very affordable prices too.
> By the way, may I ask what version of Fusion 360 have you chosen? Standard,Ultimate?



We have some walnut left at home (which I'm gonna use for the fretboard) and today I visited a local woodworker who might give me some leftover cherry wood.
Sadly, there's no wood shop in my area which has exotic woods only locals like pine, oak and beech.

On Fusion 360 I'm not really sure which version I have because I got it over Autodesk's education program. But since the normal version is free somehow I might have ultimate. I'll check that out tomorrow for you but now it's time to sleep (it's now 4am in the morning here...).


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 20, 2017)

Who said CNCing is cheating because it makes everything easy? 



Because  here's a rendering that I let run for 15 minutes or something:



And my design would also make for a great headless guitar 




Now I'm off to the woodworker's shop and then I'll start the test cut


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 20, 2017)

Well... That went better than expected 
I got a gigantic slab of walnut, over 100 years old so completely dry. I might get like four to six necks out of it and I payed 10&#8364; 


It's like in music: Support your local (woodworker) scene 

So it's gonna be walnut neck with walnut fretboard.... Or I might make the body completely walnut and the neck maple.... So much possibilities  Any recommendations?




IGC said:


> By the way, may I ask what version of Fusion 360 have you chosen? Standard,Ultimate?


It's the Ultimate Edition but it also says 'student'. So maybe there are differences compared to the normal ultimate but I don't think so.


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## KnightBrolaire (Apr 20, 2017)

do a walnut and maple laminate neck.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 20, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> do a walnut and maple laminate neck.



+1. Always a good look. 

Maybe a walnut drop top on an Ash body.


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## IGC (Apr 20, 2017)

sweet!


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 21, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> do a walnut and maple laminate neck.



This is indeed a very good idea. But it would require a saw that I can make long and precise cuts with...


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## IGC (Apr 21, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> This is indeed a very good idea. But it would require a saw that I can make long and precise cuts with...



Do you have any saws? You seem like the techie type...you have got to make your own Pickups for this thing!


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## KnightBrolaire (Apr 22, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> This is indeed a very good idea. But it would require a saw that I can make long and precise cuts with...



there's no community woodshops or anything like that where you could use a table saw?


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 22, 2017)

IGC said:


> Do you have any saws? You seem like the techie type...you have got to make your own Pickups for this thing!



At first this was my plan but since they are slanted I'd need to make an 8 strin pickup and ideally not with poles but with a bar magnet. And I couldn't find a bar magnet that size so I'm just going for EMG 808X's. 



KnightBrolaire said:


> there's no community woodshops or anything like that where you could use a table saw?



I know of one and they have pretty decent machines (not just for woodworking, also textiles, metal, electrics and what not). If only they wouldn't charge you like 120 for a month subscription to work there and on top of that you need a safety course for every type of machine which again costs 160 or something.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 22, 2017)

You could use stratocaster style pole pieces instead of a bar magnet and just build it like a humbucker.


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## IGC (Apr 22, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> At first this was my plan but since they are slanted I'd need to make an 8 strin pickup and ideally not with poles but with a bar magnet. And I couldn't find a bar magnet that size so I'm just going for EMG 808X's.
> 
> 
> 
> I know of one and they have pretty decent machines (not just for woodworking, also textiles, metal, electrics and what not). If only they wouldn't charge you like 120&#8364; for a month subscription to work there and on top of that you need a safety course for every type of machine which again costs 160&#8364; or something.



If you have some Pickups from maybe...a cheap beginner guitar, you can carefully dissect them for the pre-wound coils and mags wich are easily re-positionable to your custom needs. Then its just a custom mounting plate-route it from wood. I was able to easily push the rod magnets out some lesser model strat humbucker Pickups I have like nothing. Then I have some with the ceramic lower bar magnet and steel rods positioned thru the coils contacting the north pole thru one coil and south thru the other coil/ side of pickup. All great for custom pickup Hacking! And free if you all ready own them! I'm a fan of EMG too!

What is the max "X" axis travel on your router? You may be able to spiral cutt "profile route" (contour ramp) around the individual neck lam strips if you can hand saw the lengths close. Fasten them to the router table wiith Peachtree brand double sided carpenters tape...love that stuff! Get your router bit up in the Collett as far as possible for rigity. Maybe cut several out of one larger piece and leave small connecting tabs to cut out by hand so the strips don't shift and break your bit at cut thru


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 23, 2017)

IGC said:


> If you have some Pickups from maybe...a cheap beginner guitar, you can carefully dissect them for the pre-wound coils and mags wich are easily re-positionable to your custom needs. Then its just a custom mounting plate-route it from wood. I was able to easily push the rod magnets out some lesser model strat humbucker Pickups I have like nothing. Then I have some with the ceramic lower bar magnet and steel rods positioned thru the coils contacting the north pole thru one coil and south thru the other coil/ side of pickup. All great for custom pickup Hacking! And free if you all ready own them! I'm a fan of EMG too!
> 
> What is the max "X" axis travel on your router? You may be able to spiral cutt "profile route" (contour ramp) around the individual neck lam strips if you can hand saw the lengths close. Fasten them to the router table wiith Peachtree brand double sided carpenters tape...love that stuff! Get your router bit up in the Collett as far as possible for rigity. Maybe cut several out of one larger piece and leave small connecting tabs to cut out by hand so the strips don't shift and break your bit at cut thru



Regarding the pickup: You mean that I could "convert" a standard six string pickup into an eight string pickup? That would be quite cool 

The X axis is big enough for a neck so that's no problem. With your method I could also do a dovetail style joint.. 
But what exactly are the advantages of a multi laminate neck apart from looking quite cool? Stability?


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## odibrom (Apr 23, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> (...) Stability?



... so they say...


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## LiveOVErdrive (Apr 23, 2017)

odibrom said:


> ... so they say...



Yeah. The idea is that with multiple pieces laminated, if one tries to warp the others will resist it. Works really well of you cut the pieces from the same board and glue them opposite each other so that they have the tendency to warp the same way - but opposite.


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## KnightBrolaire (Apr 23, 2017)

multi laminate necks are quite stable. I built a walnut and maple 5-piece neck and it hasn't moved at all in the year since I've built it, even with me keeping it in my garage for a while (gets pretty humid/super cold/hot here so it's a good test for the neck stability).


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## IGC (Apr 23, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> Regarding the pickup: You mean that I could "convert" a standard six string pickup into an eight string pickup? That would be quite cool
> 
> The X axis is big enough for a neck so that's no problem. With your method I could also do a dovetail style joint..
> But what exactly are the advantages of a multi laminate neck apart from looking quite cool? Stability?



Yes you most certainly can make an 8 string pickup out of a six string double coil humbucker by offsetting the coils etc. Or you can go the Lace Alumitone hack style pickup...some good food for thought in this link;

https://www.google.com/search?q=diy...droid-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

That's what I'v been working on, I'm in the process of finding a good step up wallwart transformer. Or I may end up building a coil winder and winding it...easy and fun! Lots of good stuff on line.


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## Eumldeuml (Apr 25, 2017)

Regarding the multi-piece neck: i might di it if I get the cuts to a high enough precision with a jigsaw. But in this case it's also going to be a walnut-only neck because I'm going for a 'worn-out' look on the backside of the neck (a little lighter color towards the center and darker at the ends of the neck).

I'll also look into that pickup stuff but I'm afraid that I won't have the time since university started again yesterday 


And now for the test cut(s) 

This is the truss rod slot. It fits very nicely in there.



Roughed out the neck shape and now carving the headstock backside



Refining the neck shape



This is what the neck looks like directly from the mill (the shape shouldn't be recessed into the neck that's because I f#cked up a little )



Now this was a lot of work for a cricket bat lol


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## IGC (Apr 25, 2017)

Looks good man!


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## Eumldeuml (May 2, 2017)

Dobby got a fretboard, Dobby is now free 
But it's only pine so Dobby might still be a slave and has to do it again 



And don't mind the mess in the background, someday I'll clean my room... someday... 

But I'm still not satisfied with the inlays.. Anyone got a cool idea what I could do?


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## bostjan (May 2, 2017)

I think the dots look pretty cool.

One thing I had considered for inlays long ago was the symbols for the eight planets with the bridge/pickups as the sun. So the 24th fret is not marked, but the 21st is Mercury, 19th is Venus, 17th is Earth, 15th is Mars, 12th is asteroids, 9th is Jupiter, 7th is Saturn, 5th is Uranus, then 3rd is Neptune. You could play with that a bit to come up with Pluto for the first fret or throw in something on the 24th, or reverse the entire thing, or go with a different idea completely.

I mean, your guitar isn't really space-themed, so it doesn't necessary work, and it's maybe a lot of work for what it'd be worth anyway...


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## LiveOVErdrive (May 2, 2017)

Wow that is looking sharp. The dots are pretty cool. Elegant. 

... FINE... I'll buy a cnc machine.


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## Electrotimber (May 2, 2017)

exellent inlays. I'll stole your idea


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## IGC (May 2, 2017)

Getting closer! I like the dots. Planets are cool too. Are you thinking about 3d printing? If so check out reprap.org, it's all free open source. Smart person like you could run with that.


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## FrznTek (May 3, 2017)

Are you using the same or similar scale lengths as an Ormsby? if so they are going to have spare pickups and bridges available soon.


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## Eumldeuml (May 3, 2017)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> ... FINE... I'll buy a cnc machine.



Go for it! It adds a lot of possibilities to your workshop! For example, you can screw up your parts within a tolerance of 0.05mm! 



Electrotimber said:


> exellent inlays. I'll stole your idea


I'll take that as a compliment 



IGC said:


> Getting closer! I like the dots. Planets are cool too. Are you thinking about 3d printing? If so check out reprap.org, it's all free open source. Smart person like you could run with that.



Yes, I often come across situations where a 3D printer would come in quite handy but so far not while building guitars... You mean, I could print the inlays or something?



FrznTek said:


> Are you using the same or similar scale lengths as an Ormsby? if so they are going to have spare pickups and bridges available soon.



C'mon, really? xD
It's the same as with the multiscale itself... when I decided on building one there where only multiscales around that cost ~1500 or more. Now there is one for 300 available and from the reviews it seems really good for the price.
But since Ormsby is using hipshot parts they might be out of my price range xD


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## IGC (May 3, 2017)

Yes, I often come across situations where a 3D printer would come in quite handy but so far not while building guitars... You mean, I could print the inlays or something?[/QUOTE]

You could 3d print your inlay material if you wanted. Don't think I would go that route. Im going to try this for inlays next;

https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/p/47/5181/Turners-Select-Powdered-Metal-Inlay

I suggested you check out reprap.org because a budgeted college kid, like yourself could probably make a nice 3d printer for less than 100usd. All the software is open source (free) developed by the reprap community.
A friend of mine made the one he gave me for less than I think 70usd!
They are self replicating part makers and the whole idea is to print one and pass it on to a friend for free. Like mine was to me...I still have to learn how to work it, maybe this weekend.
I have a Mendel Max.


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## Eumldeuml (May 4, 2017)

That metal powder inlay seems like a very cool idea especially since walnut has quite an open grain as far as I'm concerned. I might do that by myself, can't be that hard to make some metal dust (I think it could even work with a wood that has a lighter color..)


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## KnightBrolaire (May 4, 2017)

I've been experimenting with a similar idea with turquoise powder and non-lead based solder. the solder is cool because I can just melt it into the inlay cavity and then sand off the excess.


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## bostjan (May 4, 2017)

Doesn't non-lead solder have a higher melting point, though? Doesn't it burn the .... out of the wood?!


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## KnightBrolaire (May 4, 2017)

bostjan said:


> Doesn't non-lead solder have a higher melting point, though? Doesn't it burn the .... out of the wood?!



nah not really, you melt the solder above the cavity and let it drip into the cavity. Not the most effective method but it can turn out cool. you can use silver solder as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuVnqoeZAaA


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## IGC (May 4, 2017)

That superman looks pretty good, gotta try it!


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## Eumldeuml (May 9, 2017)

Just a quick update on what happened since I last posted:


I received the single saddles that were recommended to me by LiveOVErdrive (thank you ver much for that! ). They are decent quality as far as far as I can tell but they are made from sheet metal so nothing fancy (the ABM saddles are milled from solid brass for example). But yeah It think they will do their job 


I might get free access to the prototyping workshop at my university which would give me every f#cking tool I could ever wish for. They have 'normal' stuff like table saws, belt grinders, CNC machines (lathe and mill) and even fancy sh#t like industrial size 3D printers or waterjet cutter.
... I could just stand in the middle of that workshop, never stop turning my head and giggling like an idiot lol... This place is heaven for engineers 


And lastly: Today I made all the toolpaths for the guitar body while listening to the new tunes of Motionless In White and Slaughter To Prevail. 
This is easily the biggest mess of toolpaths I created so far


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## Eumldeuml (May 21, 2017)

University and band stuff kept me quite busy the last days but here's the bottom half of my telecaster body 


Did I tell you how much I love CNC's? 
Also the smell of cut multiplex is very nice lol

And by the way: My band released our debut album last week so if you're into melodic metalcore-ish stuff you'll love our music 
You can check us out here (I'll promise there won't be more band-related offtopic stuff in this thread) :

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/affcband/
Spotify: http://spoti.fi/2pEEly8
Bandcamp: http://bit.ly/2q8otbb
iTunes: http://apple.co/2prGJNs
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2r6VPUU
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2r7c9VP
Shop: http://afeastforcrows.de/shop/


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## IGC (May 21, 2017)

Haha! Looking good, CNC is cool when you get to make neat stuff that you like. That's all I'm going to say. 

Cool band interwebadge, everything looks and sounds of good quality


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 15, 2017)

A quick update: My exams are done for this semester so I'm back to working 'fulltime' on my guitar. Yesterday I finished the bottom part of the guitar body. Bottom part? Yes, you heard right. The body is split into two pieces because of all the stuff I want to cram in there 
Today I'll tackle the top part and when that's done, I'll post some pictures


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## bostjan (Sep 15, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> A quick update: My exams are done for this semester so I'm back to working 'fulltime' on my guitar. Yesterday I finished the bottom part of the guitar body. Bottom part? Yes, you heard right. The body is split into two pieces because of all the stuff I want to cram in there
> Today I'll tackle the top part and when that's done, I'll post _*at least one hundred*_ pictures



FTFY


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## LiveOVErdrive (Sep 15, 2017)

Sooo when are you going to tell us what the "gimmicks" are?


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## Mr_Mar10 (Sep 15, 2017)

Inbuilt beer tap, smugglers cavity & bottle opener ftw


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## bostjan (Sep 15, 2017)

It functions as a guitar, but can combine with other guitars, keyboard, and a bass to make a mechazord key-guitar-bass instrument?


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 15, 2017)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> Sooo when are you going to tell us what the "gimmicks" are?



As soon as I know that they work like I want them to 



Mr_Mar10 said:


> Inbuilt beer tap, smugglers cavity & bottle opener ftw



Well, I'm from bavaria so I have a lot of practice drinking beer, so everything is a bottle opener for me 
And I could definetely smuggle something in my guitar considering that the body is almost completely hollowed out xD


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## LiveOVErdrive (Sep 15, 2017)

Turns out it's just secretly an acoustic and the pickup routes are really sound holes


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 15, 2017)

You guys all have a great sense of humour


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 15, 2017)

Soooo, this the progress I made today 




Sometimes you just have to make a mess



All the parts I've done so far (both of the body parts are second iteration, the neck is the third one ). The body is now final, the neck and the fretboard I will make again when I'm confident to scrap.. ehh use some walnut




It's getting somewhere 



One of the single bridge saddles (thanks again to LiveOVErdrive  ) and one EMG 808X (couldn't afford antoher one )




The backside cavities with the strat style input (that was hard to model up in CAD because I had to 'guess' the outline)


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## bostjan (Sep 15, 2017)

Love it!


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## odibrom (Sep 15, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> (...)
> The backside cavities with the strat style input (that was hard to model up in CAD because I had to 'guess' the outline)
> (...)



You could scan it, import to CAD and trace it with a spline function. Then scale it to proportions with some few measures. If you needed the 3D model, Autodesk has a software called ReCap (previously known as ReMake?) that creates 3D models out of photographs: https://remake.autodesk.com/about. The linked page has a video that focus on terrain modeling, but can also be used with small objects and then export the mesh stuff to whatever software or platform you like best... or so they say.

The project is looking good...


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## IGC (Sep 15, 2017)

Nice work, is that a vacuum table?


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## MikeNeal (Sep 15, 2017)

odibrom said:


> You could scan it, import to CAD and trace it with a spline function. Then scale it to proportions with some few measures. If you needed the 3D model, Autodesk has a software called ReCap (previously known as ReMake?) that creates 3D models out of photographs: https://remake.autodesk.com/about. The linked page has a video that focus on terrain modeling, but can also be used with small objects and then export the mesh stuff to whatever software or platform you like best... or so they say.
> 
> The project is looking good...



I find importing and exporting between Autodesk products to be spotty at best. Using the spline tool and patch menus and such, with fusion may be your best bet


----------



## odibrom (Sep 15, 2017)

I banged my head on a wall so many times when importing AutoCAD models into 3DSmax. The models were Geo-referenced so they had coordinates by 1000s and 10000s and Max doesn't deal well with such values, the meshes were all banged up badly and I lost hours rebuilding them. I them discovered that if I moved my AutoCAD model to near the world coordinates origin, the import to Max was smooth as a baby skin, so I see what you mean. Disclaimer, I'm yet to test the ReCap/ReMake software, was just pointing it out. The technology is out there, let's use it.


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 16, 2017)

odibrom said:


> You could scan it, import to CAD and trace it with a spline function. Then scale it to proportions with some few measures.
> 
> 
> The project is looking good...



That's what I tried but I wanted kind of a seamless fit (yes, I'm a perfectionist) and therefore it is still quite hard since you have to be accurate down to like 0.2 mm (10 thou).
But anyway, thank you very much for your compliment! Yestrerday I was really proud of myself and now you guys make it even better 




IGC said:


> Nice work, is that a vacuum table?



Yes it is! But I'm not completely happy with this workholding since it could move on you if you're not using alignment pins (which I had to do due to double sided machinig). I'd rather have a spoil board where I can just drill the alignment holes in (and not 'search' for them in machine coordinates) and then clamp it down. This is waaaaay less preparing time and also your work won't move at all.


And for all people wanting to work with Autodesk Fusion: WORK WITH COMPONENTS! You can save yourself so much hassle if you don't start modeling in 'general' component. When you do that your timeline and your model tree will be a complete chaos and it'll mess a lot with your parametric chains (if you use CAD modeling of some kind, you might understand what I mean)


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## MikeNeal (Sep 16, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> And for all people wanting to work with Autodesk Fusion: WORK WITH COMPONENTS! You can save yourself so much hassle if you don't start modeling in 'general' component. When you do that your timeline and your model tree will be a complete chaos and it'll mess a lot with your parametric chains (if you use CAD modeling of some kind, you might understand what I mean)



Qft. I have mine split into body, neck, fretboard. Makes it way easier to work with


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## IGC (Sep 16, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> Yes it is! But I'm not completely happy with this workholding since it could move on you if you're not using alignment pins (which I had to do due to double sided machinig). I'd rather have a spoil board where I can just drill the alignment holes in (and not 'search' for them in machine coordinates) and then clamp it down. This is waaaaay less preparing time and also your work won't move at all.



Neato! Spoil board sounds like a good idea. Easy in and easy out. No resetting your orgin


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 29, 2017)

TODAY IS A GREAT DAY!!!

I've managed to make a biiiiig step forward... The last days were much manual work (no CNC  ) but I got something done and I'm very proud of it 
And I'll also 'reveal' one of my two secret gadgets 

But first, let me take a self... ehm post some pictures.

Manual routing (happens to the best of us) 



Is this also called routing? I have no idea



And nooooow for the chamber of secrets:



Can you guess what it does? I'll also upload some videos on my instagram and then I'll link them here


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## KnightBrolaire (Sep 29, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> TODAY IS A GREAT DAY!!!
> 
> I've managed to make a biiiiig step forward... The last days were much manual work (no CNC  ) but I got something done and I'm very proud of it
> And I'll also 'reveal' one of my two secret gadgets
> ...


I hope you put a smoke machine in your guitar, that'd be awesome.


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## LiveOVErdrive (Sep 30, 2017)

That is really tight and pretty work. But I've got no idea what's going on there. Some kind of forced air. Looks like a water cooling setup.


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## Eumldeuml (Oct 1, 2017)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> That is really tight and pretty work. But I've got no idea what's going on there. Some kind of forced air. Looks like a water cooling setup.


Thank you very much! 
But I wonder what there is to cool in a guitar (well, my guitar does indeed have some parts that get quite warm but they don't require active cooling... I hope)



KnightBrolaire said:


> I hope you put a smoke machine in your guitar, that'd be awesome.


YOU WIN! That's it, my guitar will indeed get a smoke machine!  

Here you can watch some videos I took of the contraption (and you can go and stalk the rest of my pictures if you're inclined to do so ):
https://www.instagram.com/hipstaboi_94/
The smoke is intended to come out the sides of the pickguard. For that I left about 8mm (= a little more than 1/4") underneath the pickguard and this cavity extends and bevels up at the sides of the pickguard.

I'm not 100% happy with the smoke output since it's only a puny PC fan and they aren't made to really build up pressure, they are just moving air. But I'm afraid I don't have enough space to put in a bigger fan and also I don't really know which type of fan would be suited best (radial, axial or some other type).
But anyways I really like the progress on this matter


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 1, 2017)

now you just need a flamethrower attachment on the headstock


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## Eumldeuml (Oct 5, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> now you just need a flamethrower attachment on the headstock



... This is indeed something I wanted to do, but not on this guitar (I'm running out of space lol)
But a friend of mine has a DIY kit for bass, might do that there. This will be heavily inspired by Colin Furze if anyone knows this guy from youtube


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## KnightBrolaire (Oct 5, 2017)

Eumldeuml said:


> ... This is indeed something I wanted to do, but not on this guitar (I'm running out of space lol)
> But a friend of mine has a DIY kit for bass, might do that there. This will be heavily inspired by Colin Furze if anyone knows this guy from youtube


I was just thinking it'd be a cool mash up of stuff that WASP/KISS have done with their guitars


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## Eumldeuml (Jan 22, 2018)

It's been a loooooooong time...
Anyway, here are some progress updates:

The final neck made from 150yo walnut (after I made three prototype necks from pine):








And I bent some acrylic around my guitar... 


The bubbles are there because I bonded two pieces of acrylic together with acetone (was waaay cheaper than getting a piece of the right size) but when I put it in the oven to be able to bend it, the acetone threw those bubbles... at least that's my theory. Apart from that acetone works really well to "glue" (in reality it's more like welding) two pieces of acrylic together.
When I route the acrylic to size I might fill those bubbles with a paste of scrap acrylic dissolved in acetone. This makes (depending on the ratio) a quite viscous liquid which can be used to fill those gaps... I hope


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## Lemonbaby (Jan 22, 2018)

LOVE your project - always interested in alternative concepts! That's going to be one hell of a tonewood debate...


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## Eumldeuml (Jan 24, 2018)

There's a Gibson made from coloured plywood... And if the HOLY GRAIL of guitar companies (not really) does this it can't be wrong.


But regarding the tonewood debate: I did a very quick google search about that guitar and there are indeed people commenting stuff like

"I've been wanting a Casino but after I discovered that they're made out of plywood I feel a bit disappointed. It just doesn't seem very classy. Why do they make them out of plywood?"
"does anyone know any good, reputable places that make es-335 type guitars made of actual tonewood and not just plywood? why do companies like gibson use plywood on them anyway? seems pretty outrageous to charge thousands of dollars for guitars made of that stuff."

So yeah... Plywood isn't actual tonewood
But surprise surprise, pickups and strings aren't made of 'actual tonewood' either so how could they possibly sound good??


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 24, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> There's a Gibson made from coloured plywood... And if the HOLY GRAIL of guitar companies (not really) does this it can't be wrong.
> 
> 
> But regarding the tonewood debate: I did a very quick google search about that guitar and there are indeed people commenting stuff like
> ...


I once made an explorer from multiple layers of plywood (kind of like the zoot suit gibsons but without all the obnoxious colored layers). It sounded pretty good, but I put that down to the pickups and my amp doing the brunt of the work. Biggest complaint is that it was super heavy, like 15lbs/7kg.


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## FrznTek (Jan 24, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> There's a Gibson made from coloured plywood... And if the HOLY GRAIL of guitar companies (not really) does this it can't be wrong.
> 
> 
> But regarding the tonewood debate: I did a very quick google search about that guitar and there are indeed people commenting stuff like
> ...



Plywood does not mean pine or other cheap woods.... what do you think guitar cabs and drum shells are made of? They likely use it because it is flexible. (solid core down the middle with nice/good ply top back and sides)


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 24, 2018)

FrznTek said:


> Plywood does not mean pine or other cheap woods.... what do you think guitar cabs and drum shells are made of? They likely use it because it is flexible. (solid core down the middle with nice/good ply top back and sides)


depends on the thickness of the plywood, most drum shells are maybe 2ply or 4ply at best and are bent/formed into that shape via heat/jigs. guitar cabs don't need to be flexible in the same sense as a drum shell, they don't need to be bent/formed like drum shells. Most cabs are basically boxes, and are (best case) held together by tenon joints/finger joints with screws for extra security, with cheaper cabs just screwed together. Most people mean MDF or other types of plywood where it's multiple layers of pine or whatever layered cross-grained with maybe a veneered top. Birch and pine (whether plywood or regular boards) are commonly used for cabs though.


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## FrznTek (Jan 24, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> depends on the thickness of the plywood, most drum shells are maybe 2ply or 4ply at best and are bent/formed into that shape via heat/jigs. guitar cabs don't need to be flexible in the same sense as a drum shell, they don't need to be bent/formed like drum shells. Most cabs are basically boxes, and are (best case) held together by tenon joints/finger joints with screws for extra security, with cheaper cabs just screwed together. Most people mean MDF or other types of plywood where it's multiple layers of pine or whatever layered cross-grained with maybe a veneered top. Birch and pine (whether plywood or regular boards) are commonly used for cabs though.


Ok flexibility wasn't the point, just a guess as to why Gibson uses it. I mentioned guitar cabs and drum shells because he insinuated that plywood is not tonewood, so I gave 2 common cases you will find plywood used as tonewood. 
p.s. drum shells are 5-15 ply usually, and up to 50ply in extreme cases.


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## bostjan (Jan 24, 2018)

Ha ha! Yeah, last I checked, plywood was made of wood. Guitars are made of wood. I think there ought to be some transitivity, such that guitars made of plywood are made of wood, but what do I know? 

Anyway, I've played wood-free guitars before, and they do sound different, to me. Not awful, just something to which one needs to adjust. And my favourite guitars are all made of wood and composites, much like the OP.

I don't think a 2 ply shell would be very easy to manufacture. The plies are necessary to bend the wood into a cylinder shape. You could use thicker plies and actually have less work involved in making the shell material, but then it'd just be extra precarious trying to make said material into a proper shell. I've never done this process myself to make a drum, though, so I'm going out on a little bit of a limb.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 24, 2018)

FrznTek said:


> Ok flexibility wasn't the point, just a guess as to why Gibson uses it. I mentioned guitar cabs and drum shells because he insinuated that plywood is not tonewood, so I gave 2 common cases you will find plywood used as tonewood.
> p.s. drum shells are 5-15 ply usually, and up to 50ply in extreme cases.


jesus 50ply sounds ridiculous. I would assume they're essentially paper thin pieces in order to get that many layers.
As far as composite materials go, the best acoustic I've ever played was a rainsong graphite/CF guitar ( i think it was one of their black ice models). I've tried out 4000$ martins and taylors, that rainsong kicked their ass as far as sustain/clarity goes. I could hit 4th fret harmonics on it and they'd ring out (which is really hard to do on most acoustics unless they're amplified). One of these days I'm going to have to get one. I'm all for hybrid/alternative material usage in guitars. If CF wasn't such a pain to work with, I'd build some CF guitars myself.


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## bostjan (Jan 24, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> jesus 50ply sounds ridiculous. I would assume they're essentially paper thin pieces in order to get that many layers.
> As far as composite materials go, the best acoustic I've ever played was a rainsong graphite/CF guitar ( i think it was one of their black ice models). I've tried out 4000$ martins and taylors, that rainsong kicked their ass as far as sustain/clarity goes. I could hit 4th fret harmonics on it and they'd ring out (which is really hard to do on most acoustics unless they're amplified). One of these days I'm going to have to get one. I'm all for hybrid/alternative material usage in guitars. If CF wasn't such a pain to work with, I'd build some CF guitars myself.


I worked at a shop that had a couple of Rainsongs in stock, and I got in trouble with the boss more than once for spending too much time "setting them up." Emerald also made CF acoustics, even a seven string, but sadly, I never got my hands on one. Still though, those Rainsongs going for ~$1300 nowadays are a steal, IMO. I just wish they made sevens.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 24, 2018)

bostjan said:


> I worked at a shop that had a couple of Rainsongs in stock, and I got in trouble with the boss more than once for spending too much time "setting them up." Emerald also made CF acoustics, even a seven string, but sadly, I never got my hands on one. Still though, those Rainsongs going for ~$1300 nowadays are a steal, IMO. I just wish they made sevens.


They're seriously underrated guitars, especially for the price. They remind me of the first time I played a parker fly, just utter amazement at how well they played and the sounds I could get. I've heard of emerald guitars (he did a kick ass headless steampunk themed build iirc) but his price points for acoustics are a little bit more than I'm willing to spend.


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## Eumldeuml (Jan 26, 2018)

Back to topic.. 

Today I made the fretboard also from walnut (like the neck).
This is how it looks like. Quite a nice grain I'd say. Don't mind the scallops, I didn't clean it up very consistently.






"And why does it look like you made it from veneer?" you might ask. Well, that's an excellent question. That's because I'm an idiot and I goofed when setting the Z-axis height on the CNC which resulted in the fretboard being only like 4mm thick. Which again means I have to do it again.. 
But I took the chance and oiled it with linseed oil to see how it looks and I like it quite a lot (the neck isn't oiled yet). But I'd prefer a little darker stain.. Do you guys know anything that I could use which is ideally something common?


Apart from that I received my second EMG-808X and a three-way switch today
I also ordered a roughing endmill for wood and that thing looks br000tal (like it could also devour your soul )


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## IGC (Jan 26, 2018)

Dude, sweet guitar neck! I see your getting EMG 808 X. I just got a 909x for my first nine string build. Love the sound but have a little ground hum to contend with...wonder if its from the battery inside the controll cavity? Anyhew, let us know how your 808X is


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## MikeNeal (Jan 28, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> Back to topic..
> 
> Today I made the fretboard also from walnut (like the neck).
> This is how it looks like. Quite a nice grain I'd say. Don't mind the scallops, I didn't clean it up very consistently.
> ...



looks good though. shame its too thin. one tip for a walnut fretboard - glue the frets in. I did a walnut fretboard once, and a bunch of the frets came loose.


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## Eumldeuml (Jan 31, 2018)

IGC said:


> Dude, sweet guitar neck! I see your getting EMG 808 X. I just got a 909x for my first nine string build. Love the sound but have a little ground hum to contend with...wonder if its from the battery inside the controll cavity? Anyhew, let us know how your 808X is



I will! 



MikeNeal said:


> looks good though. shame its too thin. one tip for a walnut fretboard - glue the frets in. I did a walnut fretboard once, and a bunch of the frets came loose.



Well yeah, shit happens. Thanks for the tip, I wasn't sure whether to glue them in or not.


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 4, 2018)

Progress update:

Pickguard is done, neck is pre-sanded and now I've got a fretboard that's only 0.09 mm (= 0.0035") off in height. I can live with that.. 



Next up is the installation of the inlay dots (still not sure if they should be ebony or some lighter wood. I think I'm going with ebony for a cleaner look but I'm afraid they might not be distinctable enough ) .
After that I will sand down the fretboard, install the frets, glue it to the neck and then I can testfit all parts together. I'm looking forward to that because I will be able to hold my guitar as one piece in my hands for the first time 
And then there will be only "small" things left like the backplate, finish sanding, installing the RGB lighting around the perimeter of the body (yes, you heard that right ), the smoke machine aaand then the finish... I hope to have my guitar finished and playable by spring this year


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## Ernesto (Feb 6, 2018)

odibrom said:


> You could scan it, import to CAD and trace it with a spline function. Then scale it to proportions with some few measures. If you needed the 3D model, Autodesk has a software called ReCap (previously known as ReMake?) that creates 3D models out of photographs: https://remake.autodesk.com/about. The linked page has a video that focus on terrain modeling, but can also be used with small objects and then export the mesh stuff to whatever software or platform you like best... or so they say.
> 
> The project is looking good...



There's open source free software for Linux called LinuxCNC that can turn images into g-code too. I haven't played with it yet but will soon.
http://linuxcnc.org/docs/2.4/html/gui_image-to-gcode.html


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 14, 2018)

Over the last days I made quite some progress.. 

I made the backplate which attaches to the body with magnets. I didn't want to use screws because I need to access the interior components quite often mainly for changing the battery for the LEDs and getting the vaporizer out.
The backplate was supposed to be aluminium but I couldn't find a plate with 2mm thickness in any hardware store so I just went for acrylic. I can still make a nicer one if I want to.
It doesn't look as good as I hoped for but I guess it's nothing that paint couldn't fix.. 



Secondly I made the inlays for the fretboard. They are just ebony dust mixed with wood glue which is then filled in the holes. I had to repeat this procedure several times because there were still some small gaps and dents after the first passes. But the result looks very nice.



And lastly I reached a point of no return: gluing the fretboard to the neck. 
To prevent the fretboard from walking away on me during clamping I used a trick I found in a video on Youtube: Putting some grains of salt on the glue which 'lock' the fretboard in place. I thought they would eventually dissolve in the glue or be pressed in the wood but sadly they didn't which left me with a small gap around the neck 
Or maybe the parts weren't exactly flat but I don't think so... I'll have to fill the gaps I guess


I decided to apply the finish before fretting which should make it more even since I won't have to put the oil in between the frets.
That also made it easier to use my homemade grain filler which works like this: You put a thin coat of linseed oil on the surface and let it dry. After that you put a quite heavy amount of oil on some 180 grit sandpaper and lightly sand the wood. The dust will mix with the oil and fill out any gaps (this includes the fret slots so you'll have to clean them out afterwards).
When the second coat is dried (this may take a while) you can just sand it down to 400 grit again. The wood will be smooth as [insert a nasty word of your choice here] and it also makes it a little darker. It's kind of a satin finish so it is exactly what I aimed for (might be beginner's luck).
And the result looks like this:



Today I will put in the frets and then I can assemble and test the guitar


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 16, 2018)

Well, I built a guitar... 


I wanted to really test it out (aka play it) but I forgot to make a nut... I will do that in the next days.
I also want to refine the shape of the neck a little to adapt it to my liking. 

Here's a picture of my sophisticated setup to press the frets in 




And now there's a big BUT (not this:)
After installing and flush trimming the acrylic around the guitar I discovered that it looks quite ugly. Gluing acrylic greatly changes the appearance of it even if both sides are sanded to a 'satin' finish. Because of that I need to re-evaluate a different concept of of lighting the guitar. And while I'm at it I also want to come up with a solution which doesn't require bending acrylic since that's nowhere next to a precise process and also it changes the thickness of the strip depending on the bending radius which again creates gaps. Nobody likes gaps so that sucks.

Right now I see two possibilities:
1. Ditch the whole lighting (NEEEVER!! )
2. Throw money at the problem 
This means, instead of bending the acrylic I'm going to cut its shape in two or three pieces out of a 'sheet' (like 20 mm thick lol) of acrylic and attach that to the body.
I still have to decide how exactly I want to do that (which usually gives me sleepless nights ). It most likely involves making a new body (but this time I want it from one piece, not two). Good thing I don't use expensive (tone)wood 




But at this point I'm already quite proud of what I achieved and very thankful for all your suggestions in this thread 
The first few notes I played on this guitar (without a nut so with a 'zero fret' lol) sounded really cool and I can't wait to continue on this build


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## IGC (Feb 16, 2018)

Nice first guitar build I actually like the "raw" look...kind of industrialish. Be interesting to hear it.


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## ECGuitars (Feb 17, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> Well, I built a guitar...
> View attachment 59194
> 
> I wanted to really test it out (aka play it) but I forgot to make a nut... I will do that in the next days.
> ...



If you sand the edges of the acrylic you can use a blowtorch and just get it neat enough and it ever so slightly re melts the acrylic and it becomes clear again. I do it all the time at my job


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 18, 2018)

IGC said:


> Nice first guitar build I actually like the "raw" look...kind of industrialish. Be interesting to hear it.



You gave me the idea to just finish this body with oil or something while I build the improved body... that would give me my first sevenstring (and my first multiscale) to play with 



ECGuitars said:


> If you sand the edges of the acrylic you can use a blowtorch and just get it neat enough and it ever so slightly re melts the acrylic and it becomes clear again. I do it all the time at my job



I know that trick but I don't want them to be clear. Beneath the acrylic is a LED strip and I want that light to scatter a little bit so you don't see the individual LEDs.
Maybe I didn't make that point clear enough.. gotta work on my english vocabulary


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 20, 2018)

I have to admit... I'm impressed  Who said that plywood won't look nice? 
It's also color changing... lol


This is the body which I'll use temporarily until I made the new one. It's just oiled with linseed oil, nothing fancy
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfZFGxUB7HX/?taken-by=hipstaboi_94
(I hope that this link works for you)

Yesterday I also finished the nut from aluminium and made a crude string-down-press-thingy (no idea how that's called in english, it's the same that all stratocasters have on their headstock to prevent the strings from popping out the nut). I need that because my headstock angle is very shallow. In hindsight that was a bad idea (it also doesn't look that nice) but I didn't want the headstock to be a seperate piece that's glued to the neck blank.. Now I know better


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 20, 2018)

Three more remarks:
1. Why aluminium for the nut?
Because I like to work with it, I didn't have bone or whatever, it looks nice and I don't follow any rules that I don't understand ("you have to make the nut out of bone or your guitar will kill you in your sleep and devour your soul since it has none")

2. If you want to make sanded acrylic clear again, just wipe it with a thin coat of linseed oil. Works like a charm and I bet you could polish it to complete translucency again (right now it's a very smooth satin look). It's not what I wanted to happen but I discovered it yesterday.

3. I changed my plans again: Instead of cutting the acrylic from a thick piece, I'm going back to bending it but this time with two thin strips and not a 10 mm thick one. This should eliminate the problem that a small bending radius squeezes material out to the sides. Also I won't glue it to the body (also for maintenance reasons since my new body won't be tow pieces). Instead I'll use screws.


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## IGC (Feb 20, 2018)

I think it's called a string keep. That pick guard cavity you milled looks pretty nice and uniform, what are your plans for that? I can recomend T6 6061 aircraft aluminum (if you don't know allready) it machines the best! It won't gum your cutters up like others. Been using it for decades.


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 21, 2018)

IGC said:


> I think it's called a string keep. That pick guard cavity you milled looks pretty nice and uniform, what are your plans for that? I can recomend T6 6061 aircraft aluminum (if you don't know allready) it machines the best! It won't gum your cutters up like others. Been using it for decades.



That's where the smoke comes out 


And yes, the protective foil isn't removed. Gonna save this for a very special moment 

The nut, the string keep and also the truss rod cover are made from 5083 aluminium. It's the stuff I have on hand and it also machines very nice. I worked with 7075 once and that stuff is even cooler. Leaves a very nice surface finish even on a gantry machine 
It's nice to talk about metal alloys in a guitar building forum, kinda refreshing...


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## IGC (Feb 21, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> That's where the smoke comes out
> View attachment 59266
> 
> And yes, the protective foil isn't removed. Gonna save this for a very special moment
> ...




Clever idea, about the smoke emerging from behind the pick guard. Be interesting to see, keep us posted
Into metallurgy? Guess that chat would have to be another thread... I'll keep a look out if you decide to make one


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 22, 2018)

I did post a preview of the smoke machine some time ago here in the forum (or rather on instagram and linked the vodeo here since I don't know how to post videos here):
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZoaSiFBFkH/?taken-by=hipstaboi_94

But in the final version there will be a button, so no need to carry a screwdriver around to activate the smoke 
Since you seem to have some kind of engineering background: Do you know any type of fan that will put out a little bit more pressure (and air) than a puny PC fan? I tried the smoke system with "mouth-to-mouth-ventilation" (just blew the smoke in the pipe) and it looked so much cooler than with the small fan I got in there. 



IGC said:


> Into metallurgy? Guess that chat would have to be another thread... I'll keep a look out if you decide to make one


Well, not really metallurgy (although it's very fascinating) but more like machining in general. That's where I want to end up working (currently still in university).


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## IGC (Feb 22, 2018)

There has to be a large volume/ small air pump hack somewhere on line? Would like to post more on this subject but gotta run, planning vaca with wifey! Ttyl.
Sweet smoke guitar vid
Get into GF maching solutions


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## IGC (Feb 22, 2018)

Maybe a small air turbine like the ones used in these
http://www.pathon.com/airturb.htm


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## Eumldeuml (Jul 16, 2018)

Well guys, I'm still alive 
The guitar is somewhat finished (meaning that I can play it but the gimmicks are still missing). But since I am not an experienced guitar builder there are some design flaws, for example the neck is too wide, the headstock angle is too shallow, there are gaps between the fretboard and the neck, the backside compartment doesn't look very nice because I had to a lot of manual work to it...
To resolve these and all the other issues I want to rebuild the neck and the body (= the whole guitar )

For the translucent strip of plastic on the perimeter of the guitar and for some of the fixtures and parts in the backside compartment I needed a new way of manufacturing... So I built a 3D printer from scratch 



Right now I'm in the process of redesigning the CAD files so I can start building again


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## LiveOVErdrive (Jul 16, 2018)

Brilliant. I forgot about this one but damn I want to see how it all shakes out.


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## Lemonbaby (Jul 17, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> Well guys, I'm still alive
> The guitar is somewhat finished (meaning that I can play it but the gimmicks are still missing). But since I am not an experienced guitar builder there are some design flaws, for example the neck is too wide, the headstock angle is too shallow, there are gaps between the fretboard and the neck, the backside compartment doesn't look very nice because I had to a lot of manual work to it...


What's your metric to decide that the headstock angle is too shallow? And before you make the neck too narrow, I'm almost 100% sure it just feels that way due to the neck profile. Agreed on gaps between the neck and fretboard not being a good thing. How did you glue the fretboard?


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## Eumldeuml (Jul 17, 2018)

LiveOVErdrive said:


> Brilliant. I forgot about this one but damn I want to see how it all shakes out.


Thanks, I really appreciate your interest and curiosity 
I'm right now thinking about an illuminated inlay in a circuit board style... I want to cast it with clear or satin epoxy resin and light it with fibre optics. Because why the fluff not? 




Lemonbaby said:


> What's your metric to decide that the headstock angle is too shallow? And before you make the neck too narrow, I'm almost 100% sure it just feels that way due to the neck profile. Agreed on gaps between the neck and fretboard not being a good thing. How did you glue the fretboard?



Well... It's almost completely flat which required me to use a string-down-pressy-thing (forgot the name again) which is also found in original stratocasters and telecasters. And also I don't like the look of it (which is my go-to criteria for deciding most things on my guitar )
The neck is too wide because it feels more like an 8string and not a 7string (or like an acoustic guitar, those also have quite wide string spacing).
For the neck gluing I found a tip in a video which told me to use a few grains of salt which would in theory stop the fretboard from floating around on the glue. It kinda worked but it also left me with those small gaps. For the new neck I will use alignment holes. Should have done it this way from the beginning..


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## Eumldeuml (Jul 17, 2018)

Regarding the inlays, this is what I think might look nice:


(Don't mind the white and red stuff)

I plan to wire all the frets to a voltage potential which gets grounded over my body when I press a string on a fret, which gives me the ability to light up the area where I play and which also will very likely delay my guitar by months...


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## Eumldeuml (Jul 17, 2018)

Or something like this?.. 



HELP MEEEE


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## Lemonbaby (Jul 17, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> Thanks, I really appreciate your interest and curiosity
> I'm right now thinking about an illuminated inlay in a circuit board style... I want to cast it with clear or satin epoxy resin and light it with fibre optics. Because why the fluff not?
> 
> 
> ...


Fully agree on string trees being the single most useless invention ever made. Regarding the neck width: what's the distance between the lowest and highest string at the nut? And how wide is your fretboard?


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## Eumldeuml (Jul 17, 2018)

It's like 50 mm string width at the nut and 58 mm neck width. I don't know how it ended up like this because I took reference measurements of my schecter guitar which plays really nicely but somehow I screwed it up


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## Lemonbaby (Jul 17, 2018)

I see, that's indeed a little wider than usual. Looking very much forward to your fretboard-disco-lights though.


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## Eumldeuml (Jul 18, 2018)

I think this is the final inlay design:



The whole guitar will then look like this:



Opinions?


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## bostjan (Jul 18, 2018)

Mockups looks cool as hell.


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## BlackMastodon (Jul 18, 2018)

Upside down cross ist krieg.


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## jwade (Jul 19, 2018)

Nvm


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## LiveOVErdrive (Jul 19, 2018)

Dude. Sweet.


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## IGC (Jul 21, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> Well guys, I'm still alive
> The guitar is somewhat finished (meaning that I can play it but the gimmicks are still missing). But since I am not an experienced guitar builder there are some design flaws, for example the neck is too wide, the headstock angle is too shallow, there are gaps between the fretboard and the neck, the backside compartment doesn't look very nice because I had to a lot of manual work to it...
> To resolve these and all the other issues I want to rebuild the neck and the body (= the whole guitar )
> 
> ...




First build = R & D build


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## Eumldeuml (Aug 5, 2018)

Today I made this...
I mean, which guitar wouldn't need a microprocessor and a bluetooth module?


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## Lemonbaby (Aug 5, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> Today I made this...
> I mean, which guitar wouldn't need a microprocessor and a bluetooth module?
> View attachment 63139


What's that PCB on the right? I'd go with a single chip solution if that the host MCU and the BT module works as a modem only...


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## Eumldeuml (Aug 6, 2018)

Lemonbaby said:


> What's that PCB on the right? I'd go with a single chip solution if that the host MCU and the BT module works as a modem only...



I made that myself with a program called "fritzing" and a CNC router.
The thing is that I want to run it with an Atmega chip which is programmable via Arduino. My brother has written an android app which then will allow me to remotely control the lighting on my guitar 
And I also want to hook up the electric cigarette to it so that I can trigger the smoke


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## bostjan (Aug 6, 2018)

What type of IC is that? It looks like you're only using a small portion of the I/O


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## LiveOVErdrive (Aug 6, 2018)

Atmega 328pa? Maybe a bigger one.
That's one of my favorite chips. Built a digital processor with one back in college. Good times.


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## Eumldeuml (Aug 7, 2018)

It's n Atmega 328P-PU. 
And yes, I don't use all of the pins, at least not yet. I don't even know, if the circuit works as intended in the current state (current... get it? lol)
If I want to implement more functions, I'll have to redesign the PCB, but right now I just want something to play around with


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## LiveOVErdrive (Aug 7, 2018)

This is awesome


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## Eumldeuml (Aug 28, 2018)

I still can't decide which inlay design I prefer.. 
You guys please help me and vote:

Design #1:



Design #2:



The inlay will be illuminated in full RGB color and maybe it will even follow the position of my hand (if I can find an easy to implement solution for this problem)


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## odibrom (Aug 28, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> (...)
> 
> The inlay will be illuminated in full RGB color and maybe it will even follow the position of my hand (if I can find an easy to implement solution for this problem)



For this problem, I'd suggest a continuous sensor at the back of the neck that could follow your thumb position. From there you already have a position reference to work with.

as for the inlays, I cannot help you, I don't like any of those. However, since you're in the mockup, do try to have the whole guitar with strings to see how they look like.


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## bostjan (Aug 28, 2018)

Design #1 seems like it might be more practical if you look at the fretboard whilst playing.



odibrom said:


> For this problem, I'd suggest a continuous sensor at the back of the neck that could follow your thumb position. From there you already have a position reference to work with.
> 
> as for the inlays, I cannot help you, I don't like any of those. However, since you're in the mockup, do try to have the whole guitar with strings to see how they look like.



A discrete position sensor should work, but those might get bulky. If you are any good with arduino, you could have that programmed to light an LED or set of LEDs based on the input of several thin capacitive touch sensors, that could be attached to the back of the neck. I don't know if you can get enough I/O right off of the chip, but there are expanders (TCA6408 or MCP23017).

Another option might be to use a distance meter mounted to the nut and program it to that (mounting to the bridge seems more intuitive, but your picking hand would be in the way.


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## Eumldeuml (Aug 28, 2018)

odibrom said:


> For this problem, I'd suggest a continuous sensor at the back of the neck that could follow your thumb position. From there you already have a position reference to work with.





bostjan said:


> A discrete position sensor should work, but those might get bulky. If you are any good with arduino, you could have that programmed to light an LED or set of LEDs based on the input of several thin capacitive touch sensors, that could be attached to the back of the neck. I don't know if you can get enough I/O right off of the chip, but there are expanders (TCA6408 or MCP23017).
> 
> Another option might be to use a distance meter mounted to the nut and program it to that (mounting to the bridge seems more intuitive, but your picking hand would be in the way.



Wow, you guys have quite good ideas 
My first thought was to somehow wire the frets to a voltage potential which gets grounded when I touch a specific fret.
The problem here will also be the I/O pins on the microprocesser. That's why I thought of wiring them in series with a resistor in between every fret. Now when I touch a fret with a string I close a circuit where I can measure the current or respectively the voltage drop. This will indicate the fret position being played.
But the complicated part with this design is the technical implementation because I need to wire every fret from behind before gluing it in.


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## odibrom (Aug 28, 2018)

The method to be used should be the less invasive possible.

By a continuous touch sensitive sensor I think you could get different signal values depending on the thumb position and then map those values to the LEDs you want to light up...?
An infrared sensor could also work, like those to take house measurements...? This one could also be applied to the back of the neck at the neck/body joint, pointing at the nut, tracking the thumb position, so you don't have obstacles to your right hand nor heavier/bulky objects at the nut.
Conductive paint, either on the back or on the fingerboard surface? Problem is that it might erode due to the finger and playing frictions...? I've seen videos on youtube about conductive paint that allow people to light up lamps and stuff, so... it could also blend well with the guitar's aesthetics?


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## Eumldeuml (Aug 29, 2018)

I'm afraid that any kind of optical sensor might be very easily influenced by the surroundings (reflective surfaces, room lighting, smoke...).
Also I want to avoid anything on the guitar that looks odd. I want every secret feature somewhat hidden 

I like the idea of conductive paint! Seems like a quite easy solution but I'll have to read more about that


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## bostjan (Aug 30, 2018)

Eumldeuml said:


> Wow, you guys have quite good ideas
> My first thought was to somehow wire the frets to a voltage potential which gets grounded when I touch a specific fret.
> The problem here will also be the I/O pins on the microprocesser. That's why I thought of wiring them in series with a resistor in between every fret. Now when I touch a fret with a string I close a circuit where I can measure the current or respectively the voltage drop. This will indicate the fret position being played.
> But the complicated part with this design is the technical implementation because I need to wire every fret from behind before gluing it in.


Hmm, interesting. How would chording work, though? I guess just light up the highest fret?

If you wanted to go all out, you could use both ideas: measure thumb position using conductive paint on the back of the neck, then use a very small constant current power supply with resistors between frets to determine the highest fretted note, and then light up everything in between, so your hands your be backlit with RGB.

Wiring the frets in from underneath before setting them in could be tricky, yes, since there is bound to be some wood dust capable of interfering with your electrical continuity, but maybe you could increase your chances of keeping a good connection by using stranded wire and flattening it out, or maybe painting in the fret slots with conductive paint after removing the dust with compressed air, or both.

Also, be mindful that different metals can react in peculiar ways sometimes. Nickel-steel frets with silver paint and copper wires might corrode one or more of the metals when they come in permanent contact with one another, due to a galvanic reaction.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Aug 31, 2018)

Fascinating thread.
FWIW, I'd vote on the second inlay design. Having them start from the bass end of the board and go down feels more natural.


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 1, 2018)

bostjan said:


> Hmm, interesting. How would chording work, though? I guess just light up the highest fret?
> 
> If you wanted to go all out, you could use both ideas: measure thumb position using conductive paint on the back of the neck, then use a very small constant current power supply with resistors between frets to determine the highest fretted note, and then light up everything in between, so your hands your be backlit with RGB.
> 
> ...



Yes, with chording it will light up the highest fret but I'll program it so that it "blurs" the position a little bit. It will then light up not a single fret but rather the area where my hand is. This is also due to the fact that I intend to use a LED strip with a discrete distance from one LED to another so the frets won't necessarily line up with the LEDs, also considering that it's a multiscale so the fret spacing itself isn't consistent.

Painting the fret slots with conductive paint sounds like a really, good idea 



Ordacleaphobia said:


> Fascinating thread.
> FWIW, I'd vote on the second inlay design. Having them start from the bass end of the board and go down feels more natural.



Yes, this is the design I'm going for... But I thinned out the connecting strip which makes it look more "natural"


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## odibrom (Sep 1, 2018)

Glad I could suggest something useful. Please do keep us updated...


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 11, 2018)

Right now I'm deciding which resin I want to use for casting of the inlays (seems much easier to do than making a negative form of the inlay and trying to fit it in).
I want to use a crystal clear resin and add a clouding or dulling additive so that the light will scatter through the inlay.
But there are several types of resins and I don't have a clue which will be best suited:
Epoxy resins
Polyester resins
Polyurethane resins
.. and many more.

Do you guys have any suggestions?


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## Eumldeuml (Sep 12, 2018)

And there is still a microcontroller missing... also I very likely need a bigger battery pack if I don't want to drain it with 15 minutes of continuous use of LEDs.
But right now the smoke machine is somehow portable (no loose components dangling around and hanging from flimsy cables... just flimsy tape, but let's call that progress  )


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## Eumldeuml (Jan 8, 2019)

I'm still alive! 

Other projects like my 3D printer, an overengineered drill and endmill sharpening jig and many more kept me quite busy so I didn't have time to build the second incarnation of my guitar. And there's also my bachelor's thesis that wants my attention..
But anyway, today I cast the resin into the inlay of the fretboard (from the backside). It's an epoxy resin mixed with a clouding additive so it scatters the light from the LED's. For the folks from germany (if there are any): The guy from https://shop.breddermann-kunstharze.de/ did help me out a lot! He recommended to use their BEL51 additive which is normally used to prevent bubbles from forming but it also scatters the light quite good (this is called Tyndall effect).

Now I'll wait till it's completely cured (takes up to 7 days) then I'll machine it flat, flipü the fretboard and do the radius and fret slots.
By the way, my fretboard is made out of HPL which is essentially the same stuff as Richlite I guess. It's very stiff, has a nice black color, doesn't warp like wood, is insensitive to moisture and machines like a dream. So quite an obvious choice lol. The only bad thing about it is the white layer of protective whatever, that I need to machine off.


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 1, 2019)

If you don't have the right woodworking equipment... Well, you use metalworking equipment of course 
Here I'm flattening the blank for the neck. I will also cut an angle on one end and glue the headstock blank on there.



I ditched the idea of making my own PCB since I changed the way how the position of the hand on the fretboard is sensed. It turned out that fitting an Arduino MEGA into an already crammed guitar body isn't too easy but in the end I found a way.
If everything works out as planned, I'll be able to control the whole lightning over my fretboard (even with some sort of multitouch lol).
Just building a guitar would be waaaay to easy, right?

And lastly a little preview of the fretboard with some LEDs behind it:


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## odibrom (Feb 1, 2019)

awesome!


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## LiveOVErdrive (Feb 1, 2019)

Dude that's dope as hell.


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## Konfyouzd (Feb 1, 2019)

That headstock looks surprisingly good on a tele body. I would have never imagined.


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## IGC (Feb 2, 2019)

@Eumldeuml what bench top mill is that? Let's see the cutter grinder jig


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 7, 2019)

Konfyouzd said:


> That headstock looks surprisingly good on a tele body. I would have never imagined.


Thank you! I had some doubts but in the end I went with it. Also it would be quite a hassle to change it...



IGC said:


> @Eumldeuml what bench top mill is that? Let's see the cutter grinder jig


It's a heavily modified F400G from Paulimot that I got from eBay. The cutter grinder jig is sadly not finished yet since I need to get that ISO40 shank off of a boring head that I also bought on eBay (the mill uses ISO30 tooling). I don't know why but the thread is corroded or something which slowly drives me to the conclusion that an angle grinder is my last resort...


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## IGC (Feb 7, 2019)

It's a heavily modified F400G from Paulimot that I got from eBay. The cutter grinder jig is sadly not finished yet since I need to get that ISO40 shank off of a boring head that I also bought on eBay (the mill uses ISO30 tooling). I don't know why but the thread is corroded or something which slowly drives me to the conclusion that an angle grinder is my last resort...[/QUOTE]


Cool, Just wondering if the grinder was like a single lip style...Deckel SO style maybe. Sometimes you need to break down, chew up the shank, and use a pipe wrench and strong bench vice to get those threaded shanks off your boring heads and other tool holders. Unless you have a ISO30 shank removal fixture, i'm guessing not.


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## Eumldeuml (Feb 8, 2019)

I thought about making a Deckel SO style clone but in the end that was too complicated (especially with the integrated spindle).
My take on it is similar to this one here, although it might not look as nice:
http://www.metallmodellbau.de/pictures/MINI_BONELLE_II/MINI_BONELLE_II_605.JPG

But yeah, first I need to get that boring head working. But the bench vise and the bench itself is just too flimsy for the amount of torque that the shank wants. I tried everything I could think of so as I said I'm getting closer and closer to the angle grinder. But I'm not sure if that will help me either (since I don't want to damage the shaft on the head itself)

In the meantime here's a picture of the backside cavity of my guitar (this is a guitar forum at last)


On the left there is the Arduino MEGA (the brains of the LEDs), to the right is the smoke machine which got a to-be-3D-printed smoke channel so that I don't need to use flexible pipes (those take up a lot of space and I can't model them in a way that represents reality) and on the top there are eight 18650 lithium-ion cells that still need a way to hold them.
It doesn't look as crammed as it will be in the end because there's still a lot of components missing: A battery management system (so that the cells will be charged and discharged evenly), the voltage converter for the Arduino and the LEDs, the wiring (which again is very complicated to model in CAD) and of course all the core components for it to be an electric guitar (mainly potis and the three-way switch). I don't want it to be just hanging off a wall and look nice after all


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## Eumldeuml (May 7, 2019)

+++ BIG UPDATE +++

It's been a long time since you've heard from me but now I'm back to building my baby (yes, the emotional bond gets very strong after more than two years and hundreds of hours of work )
Since my last post I made the new body and neck, designed and printed the battery holders, renewed my concept of the smoke canal and today I joined the fretboard and the neck . This process was especially nerve racking because I have every fret wired to a ribbon cable which needs to go into the wire channel while I lower the fretboard onto the glue surface. And as you can imagine the cables wanted to go everywhere except in the slot...
I hope that I didn't break any of the solder connections during glue up since that would probably mean redoing the fretboard and the neck . But I can't check it right now since I used an aluminium profile to apply even pressure over the fretboard and that of course shorts all the fret together so I can't measure the indivduial connections. I can only pray that it still works 
These are the frets all soldered up before lightly pressing them in (I would have risked bending the or even breaking the fretboard if I had pressed them in all the way). I also applied some wire glue (which is carbon powder mixed with glue I guess) to the solder connections so if one breaks there should still be contact.



Here you can see the indivdual wires before I connected the frets. I also had to make a recess in the neck and the neck pocket to route the cables into the body because I somehow forgot to model that in CAD 




And here is some shenanigans I did because I have more metalworking equipment than woodworking stuff.. 
I used this contraption to thin down my neck blank because it was double the thickness I needed and it felt like a criminal waste of wood if I had milled it all down. Also I don't even want to imagine the mess that will make...



And some other updates which are some kind of off-topic:



IGC said:


> Cool, Just wondering if the grinder was like a single lip style...Deckel SO style maybe. Sometimes you need to break down, chew up the shank, and use a pipe wrench and strong bench vice to get those threaded shanks off your boring heads and other tool holders. Unless you have a ISO30 shank removal fixture, i'm guessing not.


After some thought I decided not to build my own cutter grinder and go the commercial way instead. It will be a Deckel SO clone for which I'm saving at the moment. Also I got the ISO40 shank off of the boring head (with just a little help of an angle grinder ) and made an ER32 adaptor for it.

Also I kinda finished my 3D printer (which was partially the reason why I didn't do very much for my guitar) and upgraded it with a dual tilting extruder and watercooling.

And lastly we released our second album which you might want to check out (some sort of symphonic modern metal(core-ish)):
"Wings of stone": 

Funny vocal 'playthrough' of "No Way Out" (our singer is just very entertaining to watch ): 

We will also be releasing a music video very soon which I'm afraid I will also need to mention here (but I still try to keep the band-related advertisements low)


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## IGC (May 18, 2019)

Wow, that fretboard looks difficult, best wishes getting it together without any problems. Keep us posted.

Yeah, those single lip cutter grinders are pretty handy once you get the hang of how to use them properly. I can grind
radii to within .001 inch true to form (check on optical comparator) and perfect relief angles. Great for engravers too.

Glad you got your ISO40 cutter holder problem solved.


Getting my 3d printer going has been a struggle. I think the Pololu driver sheild for the extruder motor was faulty and somehow ended up frying all the ports on the left side of my good computer thru the USB cable, so be careful with that ARDUINO stuff.

I'v been trying to use Marlin with this older XP computer now but I think I need to get a new Arduino MEGA2560 board... Anyhow long story.

What's the word with your printer?

Darn near ready to just buy a new one, you can get one for several hundred USD. Just don't really have a need for one. They do a lot of 3d printed knick knacks around the shop and the quality is not for everything.

Digging your symphonic metal core band, good production and vid quality. Looks like only the singer in the second video blowing beer out of his nose? What guitar did you track with? Sounds pretty good/cool.

Cool man keep us posted.


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## Eumldeuml (May 18, 2019)

Wow, you have a lot of questions... 


IGC said:


> Getting my 3d printer going has been a struggle. I think the Pololu driver sheild for the extruder motor was faulty and somehow ended up frying all the ports on the left side of my good computer thru the USB cable, so be careful with that ARDUINO stuff.


I've never heard of an Arduino frying a computer but that sounds scary... Maybe I should consider using my brain more instead of just uploading every change in the code and looking what will happen 



IGC said:


> I'v been trying to use Marlin with this older XP computer now but I think I need to get a new Arduino MEGA2560 board... Anyhow long story


When I built my printer I also used Marlin on a RAMPS board but quickly upgraded to a Duet WiFi. This board, although relatively expensive, is worth every penny. Sooo much easier to set up and the documentation as well as the forum is great!



IGC said:


> What's the word with your printer?


At the moment I consider it done (until I find something to upgrade again ) and it works really well. Although I now have dual extrusion without all the usual disadvantages (no prime tower, no oozing of the inactive nozzle all over the print and no lenghty tool changes) I rarely use it. Most of the time I just keep two filaments loaded so that I don't have to switch it 



IGC said:


> Digging your symphonic metal core band, good production and vid quality. Looks like only the singer in the second video blowing beer out of his nose? What guitar did you track with? Sounds pretty good/cool.


Well yeah, I think he blows it out of his mouth but wants it to look like out of his nose lol


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## Eumldeuml (May 18, 2019)

And now some updates regarding my guitar:

This the body after one coat of paint and some sanding. The 'worn' look is kinda cool... 
The first coat I did with a brush which makes it quite hard to get a consistent color thickness so for the second coat which I did today I used a foam roller. That was so much easier and better!



Here's the neck wrapped up and ready to ship to someone who actually knows what he's doing.
Just kidding, I masked it of to level the frets 
The leveling I took very seriously with a lapped granite plate which is flat to about 0.01 mm over the whole area  As I already mentioned a few times I'm way more into metalworking so that's what I had... 



Aaaand here we have some junk and the finished neck (covered with some matte polyurethane resin). I measured all the fret connections and all of them are intact


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## IGC (May 18, 2019)

Eumldeuml said:


> Wow, you have a lot of questions...
> 
> I've never heard of an Arduino frying a computer but that sounds scary... Maybe I should consider using my brain more instead of just uploading every change in the code and looking what will happen
> 
> ...




Yep seems unlikely that the arduino would fry anything via USB Just ironic that the ports stoped working at the same time I added the Extruder motor sheild. No Arduino configuration code changes. Was running an already proven configuration...long story. 

I will check out the Duet WiFi boards. 

Cool man, good that your printer is working. 

Didn't you want to be in the vids?

Granite surface plate for fret leveling? Seems like a good idea if you have a flat fretboard. Do you?


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## Eumldeuml (May 19, 2019)

IGC said:


> Didn't you want to be in the vids?


We also did a regular playthrough but the editing on that isn't done yet...
But in the meantime you can check out our new music video we did yesterday 




IGC said:


> Granite surface plate for fret leveling? Seems like a good idea if you have a flat fretboard. Do you?


I don't but I rocked the fretboard back and forth during sanding the frets. I can imagine that there are strange geometric errors when I level a compund radius like that but that I'll see when I assemble the guitar. I can always go back and sand some frets down a little.


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## IGC (May 19, 2019)

Eumldeuml said:


> We also did a regular playthrough but the editing on that isn't done yet...
> But in the meantime you can check out our new music video we did yesterday
> 
> 
> ...






Ok cool, I was thinking you would be utilising that method with the granite, seems a little difficult to control and see what you'r doing, all par for the course with this project, your an ambitious guy!

Symphony basses have flat fretboards. I think radii are more for the picking hands string to string transitioning ease, but don't quote me - I havn't done the research.

Again, good vid / production quality, diggin, looks like fun. Who owns the wall of Marshalls?


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## Eumldeuml (May 22, 2019)

Thank you very much for your compliments! 
We shot the video at our bassist's workplace, an event management company. The boss there has a lot (!) of guitars and equipment and he was kind enough to let us use all his stuff... We had the equivalent of an above-average car in one room  The rent would have cost us a fortune..

Regarding my guitar: Today I painted the body (again) since I am not really happy with the way it turns out. I want a very smooth satin finish but I'm still seeing the wood grains in the color. Today I tried mixing it with some of that polyurethane resin which levels itself out kinda good. But there's a lot of dust on the paint..


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## Eumldeuml (May 28, 2019)

Progress is slow, mostly due to painting the body... Every coat takes one day to dry 

In the meantime I'm doing the final steps on the electronics (mostly the LED strips). I also wired up the string retainer. It's made from plastic (because it needs to be non-conductive) and custom aluminium inserts. Below them there are the wires held in place by friction.



And this is the smoke machine ready to be put in:


The weird looking thing behind the fan is the smoke canal which follows the contour of the cavity in the back of the guitar.


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## IGC (May 30, 2019)

Eumldeuml said:


> Progress is slow, mostly due to painting the body... Every coat takes one day to dry
> 
> In the meantime I'm doing the final steps on the electronics (mostly the LED strips). I also wired up the string retainer. It's made from plastic (because it needs to be non-conductive) and custom aluminium inserts. Below them there are the wires held in place by friction.
> View attachment 69795
> ...




Good stuff, all 3d printed?


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## Eumldeuml (May 31, 2019)

Yes. The main reason being that it's cheaper than buying plastic stock and milling it out.
Most of the printed parts are PLA while the string retainer is a carbon fibre reinforced PETG which I got for very cheap. This stuff is insanely rigid but more importantly you can sand it very nicely. Also now I can claim that my guitar is partly made from aerospace materials


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## IGC (May 31, 2019)

Sweet! I think I have seen the carbon fiber enriched filaments on matter hackers? Good stuff


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## Eumldeuml (Jun 19, 2019)

Sorry for not posting for so long (again) but I was just too excited seeing my guitar and the LEDs come to life 
After countless hours of learning to code C++ the Arduino is finally controlling both LED strips in the fretboard (the one in the body is still missing). I programmed some neat effects (static light, fading rainbow and fret-to-light, more to come) which are selectable and configurable over the multitouch fretboard 






The "only" things left to do are adding the LED strip to the body, programming it and of course: cleaning up this mess:



I'll maybe do some kind of a presentation video so you can see all the effects in motion but that might still take a while.

Oh yeah, the guitar is also playable


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## odibrom (Jun 19, 2019)

It turned out pretty cool, congrats! Now we need more detailed pics and description on all those specs. The video would be pretty awesome too.


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## DudeManBrother (Jun 19, 2019)

I’ll second a video walkthrough of all the features. It’s a great looking design with or without all the extra tech. Nice work


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## BlackMastodon (Jun 19, 2019)

That second picture showing off the fret-to-light is so damn cool! Great work all around, congrats man! Looking forward to seeing a video.


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## Eumldeuml (Jun 19, 2019)

Thank you all for your kind words!! Very much appreciated 



odibrom said:


> It turned out pretty cool, congrats! Now we need more detailed pics and description on all those specs. The video would be pretty awesome too.




I'll take some more pictures when I can show all the features neatly in action, right now it's more or less only cobbled together. But I can give you a quick rundown of the specs:

- Maple neck with HPL fretboard (which is the hardware store equivalent to Richlite I guess)
- 698-648 mm scale length (27.5"-25.5") 
- Multiplex body (lol) - I don't believe in tonewoods and I milled away half of the body anyway, so why an expensive wood? 
- Nickel silver frets
- Chinesium individual bridges
- EMG 808x active pickups
- Volume knob and pickup selector

and the tech stuff:
- 60 individually adressable RGB LEDs (Adafruit Dotstar) in the neck; something about 100 LEDs soon to be in the body
- 2S2P lithium-ion batteries with 5000 mAh each
- Arduino MEGA 2560 microcontroller
- All strings connected to output pins and all frets on input pins (via ribbon cables). Cycling through the output pins and reading the input pins gives me a definite result of which string on which fret is pressed
- all LED functions are selectable and adjustable over the fretboard "touch interface"
- 5A rated step-down converter (hobbyking crap - gets to hot to touch at 2A ) to supply 5V to the LEDs and the microcontroller 
- Wismec RX2/3 electric cigarette (we get it, you vape) and a 5V radial fan for the smoke machine
- 3D printed parts: li-ion battery holders, nut, string ball end retainer, 9V battery holder, smoke and air canals


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## odibrom (Jun 19, 2019)

super cool, thanks for the detailed description. i specially like the chinesium individual bridges...


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## Eumldeuml (Jun 25, 2019)

A "short" update after some more testing of my guitar (spoiler: not only good stuff)

guitar related:
- I did some final tweaks to the intonation, string height and neck bow (via the truss rod) and now it plays very nicely with little buzz. Even my 1k€ Schecter blackjack buzzes if you hit the strings a little harder so that's not a quality issue but more a trade-off between string action (is that the right term?) and an acceptable amount of buzzzzzzZ.

- The hollowed in backside of the neck (like on some more custom guitars, for example Etherial) feels extremely nice and aids greatly at getting a comfortable grip around the neck. I can only receommend trying this kind of neck shape if you have the opportunity. 

- As far as I can judge (I'm not an audio expert) the guitar sounds very nice. Very punchy lows (probably due to the pickups which are originally made for eight string guitars) and defined highs. But I feel like I need to compliment my build with a better MultiFX (currently using the Zoom G5). I'm thinking about getting the new Hotone Ampero. Any thoughts on that?

- White is not an optimal color for a guitar  First, you can't see the smoke very good since it's also white, but more importantly you see every little spot of discoloration and dirt... But I want to improve the finish anyway so I could also paint it in another color (although I like the appearance very much)

- The 24th and 23rd fret is a little hard to reach. This was to be expected since I 'borrowed' the body from a telecaster which originally is designed for single-scale, six strings and 21 frets. But I'm more of a rhythm guitarist anyway so not a really big problem for me

- The neck didn't break yet . I had a very slight concern of disintegrating the structure of the neck when adding the slots for the two LED strips and the ribbon cable but so far no visible disadvantages. The truss rod could be a little bit longer (for my understanding) because it only bows the neck in the upper two thirds if you try to create a little bit more relief for the higher frets. But maybe that's how it's supposed to be, what do I even know? 

- Ormsby didn't sue me yet for ripping of their headstock design (but they most likely also don't know about my guitar, so yeah xD)


tech stuff:
- My batteries are absolutely overpowered  I calculated them to last at least an hour at maximum load (all LEDs white at full blast) but since I never do that (mostly because I don't want to barbeque my guitar with the crappy voltage converter and also because full brightness is not even remotely necessary). Right now I get more like 10+ hours of play time with a to-be-expected setting of the effects.

- The lighting effects work really great (could still use some improvements in the code regarding decy though) and aren't nearly as distracting as you might think. Now I'm practicing more complicated stuff to play in order to create fireworks of RGB goodness on my fretboard 

- I was afraid of this happening and now I sadly have to confirm that the LEDs create electrical interference with the pickups. The bridge pickup is mostly affected by the noise of the voltage converter which I could solve by changing the location of it but the neck pickup suffers from very strong interference (depending on the LED brightness). In this case the problem are the wires running from the body into the neck which go directly next to the pickup. A strong hum filter in the signal chain is able to suppress the noise at the expense of a significant amount of sustain but I will look into shielding the wires and/or the pickup.

- I did show the guitar to some people already and they all were really impressed and curious about it. This gives me hope for gaining my five minutes of internet fame by making a nice video about it, so stay tuned (once it's done you really won't miss it, I'm gonna be spaming every channel I know of )


And to answer the most important question: Yes, it djents.


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