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I figured I might as well jump, provided solidbody electrics aren't disqualified. I've completed building one guitar so far in my life, just recently. THis will be my build number 2.5, since I started a les paul copy some years ago, and have never had the know how to carve the top, so I put it on the back burner until I get some more experience.
My plan is to build a carved top, neck through super-strat style guitar, mahogany neck and body, ebony board. smaller baritone scale, 27", with a tune-o-matic/string-through-body bridge. This will be my first attempt at carving a top, binding a guitar, radiusing and slotting my own fret board, having a neck angle, and finishing in something other than tung oil. I have all the mahagony ready to go, just waiting on some fingerboard blanks to show up in the mail from A&M wood specialty.

I should also add, that this is my last build in which I plan to use premade pickups, as I have a nice set bill Lawrence l-500's to throw in her. After this I plan to start winding my own.

You are added to the list and I look forward to seeing your work

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Thank you! Wondering if someone could give me some advice about calculating my neck angle with the 27" scale and a tune-o-matic bridge, with it being neck through. would you stay with the standard les paul angle, or does the longer scale length make you're neck angle different (I'm picturing a smaller angle?)?

Scale shouldn't effect the angle at all. You won't see enough difference to matter IMO. If you are running a 2 degree angle and you extend the scale by 2" you will only see 1/32" of difference of height. With a tune-o-matin you have a lot more adjustment than that.

If you would like the formula to calculate a specific neck angle according to a desired bridge height it is

SIN A=(h-f)/d

With A being your angle, h being height of bridge, f being the thickness of the fretboard (or the height of the neck above the body at the neck/body joint), and d being the distance from the neck/body joint to the bridge.

I hope that made sense

So would you recommend going with a 2 degree angle? My first build I went with a recessed Floyd, so I didn't need an angle at all, thus the hesitation with this. with a neck through, do you start your angle where the fretboard ends, or where the body join starts?

I'd start by measuring your tune o matic and deciding what the height you need from the body to the top of the saddles. Leaving room for adjustment both up and down. That will give u a reference of what you need to achieve. That is what ultimately determines your angle. Well that and thickness of the fretboard. Ive never done a neck through before but I would presume that starting the angle at the end of the fb would be the correct way to go about it.

Shouldn't f be the height of the strings above the body at the neck/body joint? Because it's the string height that changes as the angle changes - all the other things stay the same.

Edit: that would actually give you the angle of the strings. You would then have to do SIN a=H/d where H is action height above the 12th fret. Then do 'little a minus big A' to give the neck angle.

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Yeah that would give you the strings. the formula i gave should calculate the angle for the actual neck. But a tune o matic has plenty of adjustment up and down anyway so it doesnt have to be extremely precise anyhow.

Peter you are such a math geek

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this is the bridge I plan to use on my build, but looking at the rollers where the strings will break over, the slots seem quite narrow, especially where this is a baritone build, and will likely be using a string gauge of 0.014-0.063" or so. I've never used a roller bridge before, so I'm not sure what to expect. the slots seem too narrow for even a standard string gauge set. Should I rethink my bridge options, or go ahead with this? Would it be likely to give me issues? I certainly wouldn't mind dropping a floyd in there instead, but I always seem to prefer floyds with more standard scale lengths, and tune-o-matic with longer baritone scale. I liked this bridge in particular because the bridge piece itself locks onto the posts, which in theory should increase sustain and tone over all. I can get a traditional style tone-pros, but there`s a huge difference in price between those and what I`ve got here. Most likely a tonepros would be better quality materials, this one is zinc I believe. and the finish quality on this leaves a lot to be desired. it`s chipping away in a couple spots and it has never even been installed on anything...

You really don't need any neck angle, depending on how you want to do it. The really important thing is the height of the strings above the top at the bridge. With that bridge, I'm guessing the string height will need to be about 5/8". Take that number and subtract the thickness of the fretboard (1/4") and a little for the action (1/16"), which leaves you with another 5/16".
If you make the strings parallel to the top (no neck angle), then you need to cut the neck so that the bottom of the fretboard will be 5/16" above the top.
If you angle the neck, the angle will be arctan(5/16" / distance from end of fretboard to bridge), and the bottom of the fretboard will be flush with the top of the body.
You can also do a combination of the two, with some neck angle and some height between the top of the body and the bottom of the fretboard. The best way to work this out is to draw a side view.
I've done it both ways, other factors come into play. If you have a truss rod and want the adjustment at the heel, leaving some space between the fretboard and the top works nicely, you don't have to remove a pickup to adjust the rod.

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thanks everyone. Finally got some work done on this, here's a few pics.
first, I got a real nice shipment of ebony from Allied Lutherie.


the mahogany I bought for this build and another


cut the rough neck thickness, and marked of my reference lines


scarf joint done, levelled and sanded


truss rod channel routed and fitted


fretboards slotted, one is 25.5"scale, the other is 26.125". that is the one for this project


fretboard cut down, and bound. ebony board/white fibre binding/ebony binding


laying out the inlays, only a 12 and 24 on her



I really like this inlay idea, I can't recall seeing it before.

I decided to add a few more inlays to this one.


One thing I never really though of doing before hand was dying the wood a bit blacker, before I glued on the white fiberboard. any tips on getting the board blacker without ruining the white strip?
The frets showed up in the mail this week, so I'm debating whether I want to fret it before or after I attach it to the neck. I hear pros and cons for both ways... I fretted after gluing on my first build, so I might try it the other way this time. seems it would be easier to hammer the frets in that way, since I dont have a press. I really wish I had more spare time to work on this. I should be a lot farther along by now, but I'm so busy with work and the new baby

getting a bit more done. the fretboard is not actually glued on yet, just held on with two-way tape to mark the fretboard edges. Got the headstock shape in, the pickup holes routed and the shape roughed out.

I haven't updated this thread in awhile, and I see the deadline is fast approaching, so I thought I'd give an update. I'm hoping to make the deadline, fingers crossed. I had a bunch more pictures of the progress I've meant to upload, but i got a new phone, and the pictures were lost in the switch. I may have them on facebook, I'll take a look to upload later. My plan has changed a little bit as the guitar has come along, I was originally going to use a tune-o-matic, but I've opted to go hardtail instead, and I also planned to do an carved top originally, but I stayed with a flat top, as I wanted binding, and I can't afford a smaller router right now to cut the channel on an carved top. anyhow, on to the pictures!


Pre-bending my binding




The V will be my third build and is actually for a customer! i was really excited to have someone approach me to build a guitar for them. The neck through V is HUGE though, and I don't think i would take on another one while I am in this shop, it's only a 10'x10' baby barn, and it's pretty crowded with tools. it's hard to maneuver the v around the shop without bumping anything, and my bench is not wide enough to support the body enough for me to comfortable carve the neck. Live and learn, right?








the S is for Sweeney


I made a template for the Bill Lawrence pickups, as the size is a bit off from the usual sized humbucker, and I've made them direct mounted instead of having to try and find rings that actually fit these. I think the direct mount looks nice on this kind of guitar anyway.


Nice close up of the heel, it feels soo nice! I left the neck a little thick and wide, as it's a baritone scale, I figure the extra room for thicker strings, and the extra strength in the one piece neck will be needed. In retrospect, I wish I had made a laminate neck, but it looks nice and clean this way, and the wood seems incredibly strong on it's own anyway.



Hope you all like it, I'm extremely excited about it.

Looking good, Mark! How are you planning to finish the guitar? Stain, plain or maybe a 'burst?

Alex

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Thanks Alex! My original plan was black stain with blue grain filler, but my scrap tests are coming out pretty crappy. My biggest struggle with my builds so far has been the finish, I think it would look sweet with the burst, but my confidence in successfully spraying or hand-rubbing a burst is not very high, lol. I'm going to take a couple more rounds of testing my black stain with colored filler, but if I can't get it right on scrap, I may just "ebonize" it.
I think my issue is trying to tint the filler thoroughly, I make it too runny, and I end up with small pieces of filler that haven't gotten stained. On my first attempt, the black was gorgeous, then I applied my filler, which actually came out Olive Drab. when I sanded it back to reveal what I hoped was a nice greenish version of a Gibson VooDoo, the whole surface had stained this ugly green over the black, and I'd sanded through to the mahogany with a very light sanding with 500grit paper.
I may also not be letting my dye sit long enough before I rub off the excess. hard to say. Times running out though!