I wanted to create an ultra-thin, single cut electric inspired by old arch tops but with the visual twist of Aluminum on Mahogany!

ESP Viper clone kit that I put together and finished, drilled and routed all holes and cavities, leveled and dressed the frets.

Mahogany body, maple neck, ebony fretboard, 25.5" scale. The finish was done by applying different shades of green Angelus leather dye with a wadded up piece of paper in multiple layers.

Pickup is a humbucker made from two AlNiCo 8-loaded P90s that I wound myself and created the custom 3d printed cover. It measures 24.5k ohms. The toggle switch goes from single P90 (down) or both humbucking (up), essentially like a traditional humbucker coil split.

Pickguard, control plate, and truss rod cover are all cut from an old junk vinyl record.

Playing through a clean amp, dual fuzz/distortion pedal, and 1x12 cab, all built by me.

This thing sustains for weeks.

I’m just a DIY/amateur partscaster builder. This isn’t my first rodeo with roasted maple, I know it can be brittle. I thought I drilled sufficient pilot holes for these tuners, and I also used beeswax on the screws, but I guess I should have gone a size larger. The crack is not visible on the front of the headstock, only the back, and only from between the high E to past the low E holes.

What’s the best way to fix this? I can clamp it, but I don’t know the best way to get glue in the crack.

I dont want to pay a luthier i dont trust for an easy repair i can do myself i feel. What kind of clamp or trick can i use to make the crack line up before gluing it?

Also i just use a titebond3 or titebond red?

Shoping locally for some tru-oil and beeswax to help seal an unfinished maple neck. On their website they say it can be used on guitars, would this be alright for that purpose?

I chose cherry for the body, I bought a maple neck with a paddle headstock.

Pic for attention

For those of you building from scratch, What are you guys doing for wood storage? I haven’t been building for too long, couple years, but I’m starting to get a decent stockpile of neck and body blanks, as well as some acoustic back/side sets.

I’d like to make sure that I am storing them appropriately. For example, can I store neck blanks vertically, or should I lay them flat w/ stickers.

My gut feeling is that it doesn’t matter much for the neck blanks, they’re thick enough that they’re unlikely to cup, and any twist they develop would be likely to develop on the finished neck.

The back/side sets and acoustic tops I don’t have a clue about, though.

Humidity is fairly stable in New Mexico, 10-25% generally. Most wood stabilizes around 6-7% here

I’m also curious what kind of seasoning/aging best practices are. Most of the kilned lumber I can get locally is still not quite stable enough to build with, so I just try to buy wood at least a couple months ahead and rough cut blanks.

I would love to add some form of kiln or maybe an oven for roasting, thermally modified wood seems to be pretty popular right now.

In case anyone was wondering, instrument in the pic is a white oak neck thru iceman-inspired short scale bass. I have a big pile of foeder staves that are roughly 8/4 and 6’ long, 4-7” widths. Oak isn’t used much for guitars, no clue why apart from weight, so just trying something out. The fingerboard is the inside of the barrel that’s been stained with wine.

I am waiting for my 28/30” fret template from sendcutsend so I can cut the fret slots before I rout the neck out. Stew Mac is out of stock on all the fret slotting template and it’s about $20 cheaper to have SCS cut it out of the same 14ga stainless.

Tia

Can’t wrap my head around building a neck that’s both pitched at 3 degree or so and flush with the flat top body. Or is there actually and small angled gap with the fretboard and body.

I just bought a JP15 and it has a very slight click in the neck when I first pick it up. I tightened the 5 bolts and it didn't seem to help, and it has the tiniest bit of play in the pocket when you pull it sideways (unsure if enough to be a problem, you have to do it with considerable pressure). It seems the only solution I found so far is pulling it off and putting wood wax on the pocket or neck? Do you agree? Any other solutions?

Hi! A family member has this guitar to offer and im trying to find reasons not to buy it as i have 1 electric and 1 acoustic already and i dont like to spend money. However im studying classical nylon guitar at school and i dont own one and ive always practised at home with acoustic. Also i practise very rarely 😅 Is this something to worry about? Other than that the guitar seems to be in great shape. 350€ euros seems such a bargain for this guitar (you can correct me on that too). I thought maybe its just a finish. Any help/advice is appreciated.

Been calling around and trying to find help in southern California to help cnc guitar parts I don't need anybody to post process just need them cut if anybody could help me or point me in the right direction that would be greatly appreciated!

Is this ok for polishing stainless steel frets?

I just installed some new Custom Shop 54 pickups into my MX Standard Strat and the bridge pickup is really quiet compared to the neck and middle. When I turn my amp way up the pickup sounds fine but even with it set much closer to the strings it’s less than half the volume of the other two pickups and much quieter than any guitar I own.

I’ve resoldered the grounds and even swapped the hot wires on my switch to rule out an issue with that component. The low volume follows the bridge no matter which joint it’s wired to and the other pickups are still fine.

It’s not my first time installing pickups and a pretty straight forward install so I’m landing on there being something wrong with the pickup itself but wanted to see what the gurus thought before I reached out to Fender.

Thanks!