Official Luthiers Forum!

This thread will document the building of my SpruceCaster, made from a billet of Mario's World Famous Curlybear Lutz, that started of 4X7X25, bookmatched into a solid body blank, and rough cut, in these photos. Nothing ground breaking here, but I just thouht I'd like to share. More to come........
Anybody know how to attach more than 1 photo?

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Here's the finished rough blank...

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Cool!
Are you going to ruin it with a cap?
I like building slab gits wit softwoods.

Ha! Of course not! It's going to get a PRS style Triburst finish both sides, black edges, red, then either yellow or natural for the center, I haven't decided. I'll probably go with natural, making it a two tone burst, but we'll see.

This is a premium piece of spruce that would have produced master grade tops, with zero runout, which may or may not give the strictly acoustic guys fits, but I figure spruce is still plentiful.
I almost decided to save it for brace stock, since I consider brace wood selection to be as or more important than top selection, but I have a few more billets on the way to splt braces off of.

Off we go!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Sounds interesting, to say the least!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Nice! - I'm watching!

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"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 built a guit out of Bald Cypress. It's a unique look and people seem to like it. Doesn't sound bad.....

Here's some more pictures with comments attached to the photos.
For some reason they are the opposite order than I would have liked, but that's okay. You get the idea.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I've built 2 redwood, and one doug fir lap steels,
and I like the way they sound.
Bet yours will sound great,
especially unplugged.
Nice and light, too!
Nice work so far.
What about the neck?

Probably going to be birdseye maple with some kind of rosewood, if I can find a light enough piece of birdseye, otherwise simple flatsawn maple will do. I'm using Callaham hardware and Lollar Blondes for pickups. In it's current form it weighs 3 pound 3 ounces, I expect to lose some more weight when I contour it, and then gain a slight amount back when it is finished. I'm hoping to achieve a weight under 3 pounds without hardware and before finishing, but we'll see.
I'm concurrently working on a SequoiaCaster as well, with a slight flame figure. This one weighs 5 pounds six ounces as is.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

More pitchers with captions.......
These steps took a total of about 20 minutes.
The Padma-ism in the first caption was unintentional.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Shaping up brother! looking forward to hooking up again soon also!

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

That sequoia is so sick!!!!!!
I love it!
Put the same pickups in each one,
and do some soundclips, okay?

Thanx guys!
I will most likely use the same Callaham hardware and Lollar Blondes for each guitar, as I was going to do a sound comparison anyway. I just have to find some sister necks out of my stash.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

That is going to be one beautiful strat!
There was a spruce build on TDPRI(Ron Kirn), but I think he did a thin, bent maple veneer for the top.
Been contemplating a strat build myself. Already got a couple, but this time I'm thinkin' hardtail.
Keep the pics comin'! Gonna enjoy this.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

hows the build going....

Moe just sealed it. Hopefully it'll be done with finish end of next week.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

((((((((((insert drum roll here!))))))))))

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

Picked up the Sprucecaster from Moe today,came out AWESOME!!!
I love Moe.
The finished weight is 3 pounds, 1.4 ounces, a very lightweight instrument.
I'm making the neck now, will post pics later. It will be birdseye maple with a birdseye maple fretboard.
Here's some pics

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Looks like Moe knows what he's doing!
So cool, a solid body spruce git!
Uh-oh, looks like my next slab build might be spruce.
Yikes!
I'm getting way too many ideas,
and not enough time.
Wish I didn'e have to work a regular job.

Lovely strat body. I especially like the deep belly and forearm contours. More like the older strats than the newer, shallow, modern contours. Much more comfy.
I assembled this one from a used body and cheap aftermarket parts. Before I laid on a finish, I deepened the belly and forearm contours significantly. For what it is, I love this little strat.





You can bet when I finally get around to building a scratch strat, it'll have the deeper contours.
Again, gonna be a sweet looking strat, there.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Thanx! I like your paint job.
If you saw my belly, you would understand the need for deep contours. If you look t my other thread with the Chameleon strat body, it has even deeper countours. After I did that one, I decided it was possible to go TOO far, and went back to what you see in this one.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

HAHAHA! Sadly, i know from whence you speak!

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

That's sweet. If I could find a steady supply of that I'd load up.

Turning out VERY nice!

How hard is that stuff?

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

This particular piece of sequoia is actually a little harder than some of the mahogany pieces I've worked, and the weight is more than some alder pieces I've worked, but most of the flamed Sequoias I have are pretty light and pretty soft, like the cedars. I have some really cool redwood lace burls as well.

I got them all from this guy on ebay several years ago when times were better. He only has 3 pen blanks up now.

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Old growth, shmold growth!