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I have a small sauce pan and filled it with sand and cooked the edges of the wings - it took about 30 minutes for the sand to get hot enough for the leopardwood - and took a while to burn the edges - you need some tongs while doing it and keep a good eye on it - thanks!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Today, I cut out the tongues and whiskers and inlaid them into the dragons:


The dragon on the left has Sterling silver tongue/whiskers and the dragon on the right has 14K Gold tongue/whiskers - these pics are showing them after I glued them in with medium cyanoacrylate (CA /Super glue):



Tomorrow, I will need to go around to all of the gaps around the inlays where there are holes or pockets that have collected sawdust/powder, pick it all out with my x-acto blade and then fill everything up with more CA glue, then go in for the final sanding - hopefully I will be done with the dragons by tomorrow or Friday!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Very nice work. You def have a lot of patience to do all of that.

Thanks Jim!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Lookin' great, as always! Love the puppy teeth

I had a funny thought a while ago, while cutting some inlays for my next acoustic... how many jeweler's saw blades have you gone through on this? I usually just keep using them until they break, but sometimes that takes until it's so dull I'm barely making any progress at all. That fresh blade speed is so nice, I'm tempted to just buy a gross and change out every 10 pieces or so when it starts to get slow. Not like it's any great waste of metal and landfill space, with them being so tiny

Hi Dennis... with this build, I feel like I should have stock in a few companies like the jeweler's saw blades, X-Acto #11 blades, sandpaper, acetone and CA glue!

I can't tell you exactly how many blades I went through, but I do the same, when they get dull, I toss them and they break frequently, my guess is that I went through at least 6 to 8 dozen blades - Med, Fine & extra fine (Combination of all 3) The Med were my favorites because they lasted much longer but sucked for the intricate work. The last time I ordered from StewMac, I ended up ordering a few dozen to make sure I had enough for the rest of the build at least. I noticed that some blades did last longer than others - not sure if it was because the metal was better or the shell was softer. I had plenty of time to contemplate deep thoughts like that. LOL

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

I bought jewelers saw blades from Stew-Mac as well, but returned them after I had found better Swiss made blades at a better price!
http://cgi.ebay.com/Jewelers-saw-blades ... 19c2b89d4c

This is for 12 dozen.

SWEET price - thanks!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Indeed, thanks a bunch! I think I'll go for the 4/0's...

Its almost a no brainer once you see the cost. 12 dozen for the cost of 3 dozen that StewMac sells, That is why I shipped the stewmac blades back ASAP!

Wow, I had no idea building a guitar would be actually a faster process if you are NOT DOING INSANE INLAYS into it LMAO!!! Now that most of the inlay work is finished, I got a chance to start moving along the day before yesterday with the actual build (FINALLY!). My first step was to do a practice run to rout out the pup cavity for the Dragon II pups - I did this from a paper template in Illustrator on a scrap piece of wood:


I also made a practice run on the pup ring (bezel) with a piece of bocote and dropped her in:


Next, I triple, checked, the quad checked, then slept on it, then meditated on a mountain, the pondered it, then measured and quad checked my centerline to make sure everything was dead on for my MDF template. I am really anal about stuff and am really trying not to screw anything up on my first guitar build...



There are 2 templates to be made here, which you can see the 2 pieces of MDF - one is for the deeper cut for the 4 pieces you see cut out below and the other one is for the more shallow pup cut...



I then had to destroy part of my inlays - I went over to compensate for the pups being cut out - it was a tiny bit heartbreaking to destroy it, but I was more excited to cut into this body finally!



Here is the first template cut:

And the second:


Viola!



Next I cut out the electronics cavity(this was done yesterday):


It ain't beautiful, but it will serve it's purpose!

I also would like to thanks DennisK for his suggestion to press the frets in - I ordered some goods from StewMac that has helped out so much - including the press caul:

The frets needed to be resawn, where I previously hacked them up with trying to hammer them in and I had to file the openings quite a bit to get the fretwire to get past the inlay - it seemed like nobody on the forum had done anything quite like that before, but DennisK had the suggestion to file them more and press them in...



Bending the fretwire sucked! I kept on twisting it the wrong way, I am sure I would have gotten better with it after time, but I had 6 feet of fretwire bent perfectly matching the 16" radii (after tweaking a few inches) and I had just a tiny bit more of a radii over the 16" and did it with this tool in under 5 minutes:


All the frets were installed pretty quickly, except for the fact that I had to file every one of them to compensate for the inlay material - it took this 1st timer about an hour & 1/2 to do all 24 frets:


Ahhhhh, nothing like drilling ugly-azz-holes into your dragon eh?


I also triple-checked the fretboard angle to the bridge and filed away where the tenon meets the body to make sure the fretboard is flush to the body:



Tomorrow, I go on to epoxying the neck to the body, then making the backplate, control knobs and trussrod cover - getting close and getting excited!
Thanks for ALL of your tips/suggestions & awesome comments!
Virgil

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Looking Good! Can't wait to see this one when it is complete!

Looking great, Virgil! One question, though. Why are you using epoxy to attach the neck? Why not just regular Titebond or the like?

Hi Gabby,
Thanks so much! Using the epoxy was a suggestion from a luthier friend of mine who has been building guitars for 28 years - since this is my first build, I am trusting him. I also did my own research on this subject, almost to the point where I could emphatically say that nobody will actually know the difference (Unless if there is a poor soul down the road who wants to remove the neck!)- there are arguments out there however which state that alphatic glues will "creep" over time as opposed to a slow-setting epoxy, which is not likely to do so. The joint is also not as flush as I had hoped for on the inside of the heel and the epoxy will act less like a sponge when filling up any "pockets" that are present. The bottom and sides of the tenon are tighter than all get-out, but there are small divots on the inside of the heel. The epoxy will cure harder for any of these slight spots. TiteBond has been used for the Flamed Maple to the Sapele and Ebony pieces (4) put together and glued to the top of the guitar. I also used Titebond for the ebony inlay in the headstock and will be using it to glue the fretboard to the neck. Stay tuned for another "radical" reinforcement I am doing to have this neck stay in place - thanks for dropping by and I would like to hear any suggestions you may have!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

There's little doubt that epoxy would make for a stronger neck join, especially if there are some little gaps, like you said. I ask mainly for the reason you already mentioned, which is the possibility for neck removal in the future. If this guitar ever needs a neck reset, epoxy will make it dang near impossible. Bit of a double-edged sword.

I've been following this build thread from the start, but I can't remember: will this guitar be yours or are you building it for someone else?

Ha! Thanks man, and I agree - this neck will be about as easy as my PRS Custom 22 would be coming out - I have a feeling this guitar will be more for show than playing - I want to build a cabinet for it with a glass cover. At first, I was planning on keeping it, but if the number is right, I will sell it, especially since it could possibly finance some tools and a conversion of my back porch to a shop and some materials for some more guitars (I can dream right?)

Not certain what I should ask for it though, seeing that it's my first build, and it has been months in the making..... It was be a pretty hefty price tag with just the materials, let alone the labor ..... thanks again for dropping by and I am hacking away at the pup rings and elec. cavity plate today ... 90 degrees outside here in Tampa right now (Uggggghhhh)

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Thanks man! Me too! I'm getting close!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Yesterday, I started working on the guitar hardware - I had saved some wood that I wanted to use for the pup rings a month or so ago, it's African Tamboti wood - here I have spray-glued the paper templates on them:





Cut out on jigsaw:

Done!:



Here is the electronics cavity back plate - it's Wengewood and this pic shows the wood being epoxied to some sheet metal:



Next - I started working on the control knobs again - a couple weeks back I sandwiched some ebony with some padauk and cut them to size - yesterday and today I ended up coming up with my final decision, which was to simply inlay some turquoise into the knobs...

A: The Turquoise piece is glued onto the knob... I then traced it with a razor.
B: A hole I dropped the knobs into so I could rout on an even surface - I used carpet tape underneath to keep it in place. I also scrape chalk dust with a razor and rub it into the traced outline so I could see it better for routing.
C: An "almost" fitted piece into the top of knob.



To keep the knobs connected to the pots, I simply took an old set of strat knobs I had and cut out the sleeves from them and simply glued them to the underside of the knobs (No pic - sorry)


Ready for CA glue:



I "Plunge" routed the holes first - took just a minute or so, just so I didn't have to keep on adjusting the depth for the rout:


The piece below wasn't fitting because I still had some edges that needed more routing:



Next, I needed to rout a "cup" on the underside so the knob cleared the pot nuts:


CA glue time:



Knobs after sanding down to 12,000 grit:








Next, I just HAD to see what everything would look like - I got my bridge in last week from Jason Schroeder ( http://schroederguitars.com/ ) and here is what everything is looking like so far.......





This is ALMOST looking like a guitar!



These are my PRS Dragon II pups (Which actually had NOTHING to do with the dragons) ... and all the goods so far...




Until next step...... seeya all soon!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Your willingness to tackle something like this is really inspiring. Can't say that the project is my cup of tea, but you're doing an incredible job with carrying out your vision

Thanks so much Roger; the closer I'm getting, the more the motivation!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Hi Chris!
At first, I didn't quite understand what he was doing, then all of a sudden it hit me and BAM! I got it, so I would basically be making 2 templates:
1 for the routing out of the middle and then make the jig like he shows to cut the sides, right? It was pretty cool - I had fun making my first few templates last week, in case if I want to make another body of the same style - and it was pretty cool .....I am such a rookie with wood, it isn't even funny, but I am definitely learning things along the way. One of my probs was the MDF is too thin, but I see that maybe putting wood blocks in between the MDF and surface can solve that problem OR just buy thicker MDF... Thanks for the link! Virgil

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Dang! That was YOU! Now I feel like i'm with the "In Crowd" I am in the "Inner Circle" now - lol Awesome advice and looking forward to making more jigs/templates for future builds - thanks again!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

Yer phunneee - yeah, that's why I'm here to find out more about this stuff - I have had a friend coaching me along the way - I have been somewhat of a rebel in different aspects of the build, but I have been trying my best to stay open-minded as possible - I realize I'm a TOTAL beginner, but I do like to hear the different arguments - at the end of the day, if this guitar plays well, I will be happy - I feel so much at risk right now with months and months of labor at risk, but I am getting confident with (most) steps as well. Right now, I'm RE-cutting the elec. cavity's backplate - the last one I made an error on cutting the the wrong lines on my template - at least it was on the cover and not the guitar.

I am getting ready to attach the neck to the body and have been putting it off, trying to think of everything that could possibly go wrong; I am SO anal about this stuff and am somewhat of a perfectionist and am just wanting to make sure the angle of the neck/fretboard are going to be in alignment (Height-wise) to the bridge. The mortise was cut at a 1.5 degree angle for a tune-o-matic bridge, but later down the road I decided to go with this PRS-style bridge (Schroeder bridge)and I stuck the neck tenon into the mortise, laid the fretboard (Before installing fretwire) on the fretboard, took into account the height of the studs that are going into the bridge holes and laid the nut on the neck - I then laid down a straight edge to rest on the nut and bridge and the clearance over the fretboard looked pretty good - the fretboard, however, does go into the body (Slightly, where it meets the body) but then at fret 24.5 it is flush to the body. hope all of this goes well - wish me luck!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

HoooWEEeee -getting close to the end!
On Monday, I finally attached the neck to the body.......






After I set the neck in, I moved on to putting together the trussrod cover. This is actually funny, because the first thing I did when I was learning inlay last year, I made a trussrod cover for my Carvin DC127 and it's actually the LAST thing I made for this guitar. I actually have not thought a whole lot about the design, but ended up coming up with an idear that I liked....


The wood on the left is Hawaiian Koa then the separate leaves are white figured MOP, the emblem behind the "!" is black MOP, the 2 leaves together are red MOP, the number "1" is 14k gold - I inlaid everything into a wood which I am unable to identify - it's the lomng piece on the right - if anyone knows what kind of wood this is please let me know - thanks!

Routing out the Koa:


Tracing the Koa:




Routing the bass material:


Done!

- I ended up putting in 14k gold border in between the Koa and unidentifiable wood!

Tonight I glued the fretboard with Tightbond:




Tomorrow I will sand the neck & fretboard then work on beveling the frets - getting so close to the end I can taste it!
Thanks for all of your encouragement with this build everybody!
V

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar

OK, so I been doing allot of final things here, including gluing the fretboard on, dressing the frets (Which I am thinking to do this AFTER the guitar gets the clearcoat finish). I did my final sanding today and had to tweak the pup rings a bit and did some engraving as well.

Here is the braided grounding wire coming out of the edge of the bridge stud:



Hammering things in....



I had to engrave the lines on the hands of the dragons this morning before the final sanding:



Pretty scary stuff here - one slip of the hand and time to take a few steps backward!




Here are some pics of the guitar with the hardware on before I send this bad boy off to the painter.....













Need to save up a couple of bucks before sending to the painter guy - will post again as soon as it comes back from him - he said it will be 2 to 5 weeks. Thanks for all who have posted comments!

_________________
"Talking about music is like dancing over architecture".
See the most insane first guitar build: http://www.virgilguitar.com
http://www.youtube.com/VirgilGuitar