MIMF

Tragedy! My electronics arrived Saturday but was too busy to get to them. I've been in Huntsville the past 3 days looking for a job and took the guitar with me. It just sounded so great acoustic and I was glad to take it; I played it a lot! However, something must have happened during the ride home....

That's true and I hadn't thought of that. I've been playing it acoustically the past couple of days. It plays and sounds great but the intonation and action on the 6th string bug me. Getting a resonator sound with the playability of an electric guitar is still blowing my mind. The electronics contin...

I like it! Can't wait to see how it comes out. I would caution when using hand tools (planers, chisel, etc) to be careful as plywood layers have a tendency to come apart. For example, if you are using a chisel, the wood will want to split along the glue line rather than the actual depth you want it ...

Got the tail piece yesterday afternoon but was too busy to do anything. Today I put the tailpiece on and started to work on the bridge. I shaved about 1/8" off with an exacto knife, sanded it down to about 3/32 above the radius template outline, and strung it so I could mark the string spacing ...

Used the straight edge from the fret board to the bridge and it meets about halfway up the bridge (around 5/16"). That seems satisfactory for now. Tomorrow I will carve the radius meeting the current, uncut top of the bridge at the midpoint between the D and G strings (i.e. do the least amount ...

I shaped a piece of plywood that would fit the cavity and will glue that in place before stringing. It only took a few minutes, no big deal although it was nothing but curves hah. Chisled the neck joint of the body down a bit to increase the angle by about 2 degrees (which is about 1 degree more tha...

Used a straight edge from the neck and it just hit the base of the biscuit. The bridge is 5/8" tall and its center is 24 13/16" from the nut (putting it 1/16" past the scale length). It's about 1/32" shorter than where I wanted it but after sanding the cone well it should be able...

Thanks, Mark! I had considered that although I wasn't sure I could get my neck perfectly flat as it's supposed to be. The reason is that it's 30 years old and the frets are pretty worn down. Can't hurt to look, right? I'll use your tip and give it a check! I will still wait until it's strung before ...

The bridge currently sticks out about 1", as predicted. I will get the bridge carved to match the fret board radius and dips for the strings to go in. After that, and after my tailpiece arrives, I can check neck angle and then intonation. I don't know how much the cone will settle while under t...

Well, I've routed the cone well and it seems to have come out well. It's a perfect fit! Measure's ok, too, but I'll have to wait for my tailpiece to arrive and have the nut carved before knowing how the intonation is. I also want to route out the inside some more and find a way to allow the air to e...

Yah, I'm gong to have to decide. I've read up on a plethora of different methods, numbers, equations, blah blah blah. They all seem to work. What I think I need to do now is just pick one and get it done. I was going to make the well 1.5" deep; this would leave 1/2" of the cone sticking up...

Thank you so much for the tips, I will try my best! As it's my first foray into guitar modification of any kind, I don't expect it to be perfect. Or great. Hell, if it's just "playable" then I will consider this a success. On the other hand, I want to do as good a job as I can! Hopefully, ...

Thank you for the great tips! I'd address them in a bit. I just read, in it's entirety, your thread on building a Les Paul and I was just floored. It was such a beautiful piece and, more importantly, you're candid humor kept me clicking to see what you did next. Wonderful stuff. Having such a talent...

I've just learned about the real name rule and have already sent a message to a moderator. Please forgive me!

Originally, the neck was square where it was within the body and at the body's edge is where they began the neck shaping. Since I've moved the neck down quite a bit, the shaping now enters the body cavity. I'm considering either filing/sanding the body down to meet the neck smoothly or simply routin...

I didn't get any pictures but I was able to make the plywood template based upon the paper rubbing I made. I drilled out the holes for the bridge poles and used them, along with the hole for a switch/knob in the top left of the guitar body, to align the template correctly. The routing came out ok. T...

There's the neck right after I took it off of the guitar. I needed to make a template for routing so I needed to find some way of getting what was on the guitar body onto a piece of plywood. Due to my laziness, I didn't really desire to painstakingly measure every component in relation to some arbit...

Here's the body all marked up. I used a hobby knife to finely etch the lacquer on the body to find the center line, bridge placement, etc. I also marked the neck where it met the body.

Hi, all! This will be my first build, ever. I am also documenting this build on the ResoHangout forums but I think there are many more active users here so I thought to post my work here as well. I have good math skills and rudimentary (at best) wood working skills. I have never dared to do anything...