GoatHerd

Now due to how much I went out on a limb on this build I didn't document major parts of it. The whole thing was a bit of a crazy journey, with massive mood swings, and me feeling I'd bitten off more than I could chew in the early stages. But it all worked great in the and, so that I can now share the finish product:

The woods I assembled for the build are as follows:
For the neck & through portion of the body:
Strips of Roxinho (Purple Heart) and Pau Marfim (Agonandra brasiliensis) between 2 blocks of Pau Marfim.

The body is Marupá (Simaruba) for the lightness and ressonance, and a Louro-Faia (Euplassa cantareirae) drop top.

Inlays would be Turquoise and red Howlite, with copper inlays.

The plan was to have a radical scoop at the neck to body For unparalleled access.

Finish would be stained, sealed and oiled.

Body is bound on both sides, to make it more ding-proof.

Covers would be all acrylic, to showcase the hopefully neat electronics.

Scratch plate wound up being made out of Wenge.

Inspired on Rodman's super cool build (check it out if you haven't), I've decide to share with you a mad journey I embarked on this previous may/2021.

A good friend left his 1973 Les Paul de luxe with me so I could try and reverse all the horrible things that had been done to it. Looking at it got me thinking. What if I made THE ULTIMATE LES PAUL ? The specs for this ultimate Les Paul would have to be as follows:
-Through construction to give it ultimate sustain,
-Slimmed body for lightness and playability,
-Headstock design that compromised between a classic Gibson look, and straight pull/close to straight pull strings,
-PRS style 10º head angle,
-4.5º neck angle to not raise the bridge too much,
-12º radius on the fretboard,
-25" scale length,
-Big, tasty volute,
-All Brazilian woods,
-Light fretboard (to be a contrarian),
-Jumbo frets with Gibson style biding,
-Treble bleed/coil splitting,
-Inverted truss rod,
-Fancy inlay work.

5 hours ago, Rodman said:

Ugh.......... true inspiration. Insane how he creates that results with that tools - i love how the wood is cut with that machete, so impressive and eyeballing everything. Though the video is created very suggestive in that direction also. I´d love to see the parts of precision work - eg. frets and potential fretwork, finalising the fretboard and fretboard angle, the nut, or applying the finish. You say a friend owns one - did you have the chance to get it in your hands once - i think those are quite precise instruments from what one can glimpse? True mastery there - i love that clamping he does especially. What a great guy.

I didn't get to play it, but he's sent me photos, which I will share. The Viola Caipira 10 stringer is integral to traditional Northeastern music, and very cool. It has quite a groovy shape, where it slimmer around the middle. I do know that the one he has had the traditional peg tuners switched out for modern tuners. He's also commented that you can see the varnish brush strokes on the wood. But he says it plays very well. He used to be a very serious Chorinho player, which is I suppose a sort of Brazilian Jazz, that sounds kind of like Django Reinhardt's and Stéphane Grapelli's Hot Jazz. You have instruments like mandolins, guitars, flute, sax, clarinet, and the drum/percussion is usually done on a tamborine.

8 hours ago, Rodman said:

Upgrades for the guitar research  laboratory

i hate mess - it does consume so much time

magnetism... what would we be without....

yay... my oscillating spindlesander arrived

let´s test it to improve that headstock

it´s noisy and it´s great

approaching the target

i couldn´t decide between 15 and 14mm... so i left it with 15 for now, and it doesn´t look bad

you can barely see the glueing line on the side of the head, with finish on even less then

what i didn´t have on my bill is the rather hard glueing-line transition on the back of the head... it does look worse than in reality on the pic... i´m positive that it will look cool when properly sanded and finished

a lil more rounding there i think...

... lil more

.. and more

better...

on to handtools... make sure you use one really rusty file!

yes!

way better than expected

now that the other side is sanded the Batend looks so unfinished

some lines to help create symmetry

filing - thats rather symmetrical now already

and better now - the sharpened wingends make quite a difference

decided to quickly sand it up (or down) to 240 to have a look

the same up there - that penciltechnique i came up with works great

cannot believe i designed that - i am usuassly very sucky at designing things

Ah... that wood structure. i really like that already.

what will be next.... we will see

I think headstock shape there is perfect. It's simple, but hints perfectly to original idea. Really well done. And that flamed wood... 

Zero woodworking background. And not many tools. But let me show you a video that inspires me so much, if you have time to look at it. It's a Brazilian luthier from the poor Northeastern region. He makes famed 10 string guitars called "Viola Caipira". A friend of mine has one made by him. He does them all with a large saw, a machete, a pen knife and a plane. That's it.

Thank you for your kind words. I'm not a master yet, far from it. For every project I make various mistakes. About the finish, I've learned to stay away from sprayed varnishes, varnishes and paint in general. It's very hard to get a really smooth shiny finish. If you've got nice looking wood, the best is open pore, a nice stain and an oiled finish. Plus you're not destroying the acoustic properties of the lovely wood.

A sprayed finish should be left alone 2 months, at least, to completely dry and cure. I've learned that the hard way. 

I use Tung oil, which is very stable once it cures and crystalizes.

 Maybe I should have posted this on a new thread, instead of hijacking yours.

The next one I did was an electro-acoustic.
Again, mostly Brazilian woods.
For the neck I used Louro-preto (30% more dense than Maple)
Fretboard is Pau-Ferro (or Bolivian Rosewood)
Body sides and back is Wenge
Front is Timburí
It has a zero fret, 13º head angle, jumbo frets, abalone inlays, induction pickup and a discreet cutaway, very slim profile and an electric style bridge. AND NO HEEL. So playability is insane. The neck profile is also electric, with a 12º radius on the fretboard.
Finish is open pore, sealed & oiled.

On 8/25/2021 at 4:21 AM, Rodman said:

just a lil experimenting with very important visual-only stuff

speaking of design choices

back to the scary parts again

Designing the body - was relatively easy and straight forward... choosing a headstockshape - omg .... the thing i knew was ... i like 3+3, so rather symmetrical is the choice.... i think i was browsing them all ... and they all are either rather ugly  ... or so unique that it would have been obvious that it´s been copied... and no, my (first) guitar shall be designed by me nose to tail..... so what to do.... as everybody will agree "you can´t go wrong with Batman".. so naturally somewhen that thought came into mind followed by the certanity that that would be quite common and will be a copy also, but NO no Batman Headstockends at all...

On to designing... i am so bad at designing things - having that in mind i was very very very cautious and took my time well, and after quite some hours i ended with a slim LP-style, almost  non widening head with a bit 1998/2003 style Batend

Original size printing.... a science that should not be one

Goddamit, that will work!

Marking the outlines turned out to be unprecise - so i went with glue and the original

bandsaw.... so precise.... without that the guitar to be would be so much uglier

just don´t blink...

how am i going to do that Batend.... brrrr.... the edges must be sharp and filing will take forever...

let´s try something

now i love my bandsaw just a bit more

damn cool, 2 minutes of work (with pictures)

... even the focused ones ...

happy happy

rough finessing with a round coarse file for a minute

yes! really slim - the machineheads will spread as wings  a bit ...

for that multiple "centerlines" - i know how that looks like .... But! that was soooo hard... what is easy to get is the middleline on the fretboard - here you can measure at the two ends and connect the 2 middlepoints... the headstock was not really symmetrical - so there measuring - not an option... when you apply a ruler to the fretboard and bend it or let it sink onto the angled headstock the  radius of the fretboard will angle it to one side (thats my grey line, very wrong) next i tried to set the ruler on the edge onto the middleline of the fretboard... letting it sink onto the headstock - unprecise... using a 2nd ruler to point down to the head - unprecise.... i ended up getting the result using that piece of thin rope set on the bodyend of the fretboard and then pulling it down on the head, and when it meets the centerline of the fb... thats exactly the middle...

(shakes head seing that wrong line) always tripplecheck!!! (i don´t usually)

What a good session!

Very, very nice! I'm digging all your visual choices.

12 string "sleeper" strat. Looks like a 6 stringer, until you take a closer look 
All Brazilian woods: Neck - Pau Marfim / Scale - Pau Ferro / Body - Marupá.
It has a zero fret, and the neck joint uses threaded inserts and no neck plate for a low profile. As Pau Marfim is VERY dense - 50% more dense than Maple, the neck holds up very well to the 12 strings.

It has jumbo frets and HSS pick ups.

Finish is stained, sealed and oiled with Tung oil. Neck is just oiled, for superior playability.

Video:

Building guitars is simpler than it looks. I've done 6. 3 of them from scratch. From scratch I've done a 12 string strat. A 6 string steel electro-acoustic. A through neck Les Paul. I try to be ambitious, and do crazy new stuff, and also I always build something I wouldn't be able to buy, something unique. There are plenty of reasons for that, one of them being your work can't really be compared to anything else. I'll post some pics.

That's a great suggestion. Thanks. I'll give it a try!

There are 2 aspects, really:

1-getting the game to recognize the correctly played note,

2-representing the fretted position + tapped fret.

In the track I produced I achieved #1, with a representation that is correct, even if incomplete (it shows the tapped note, but not where you fret it). #2, though is impossible.

Great suggestion. I'll test it out. Thanks.

I've been trying to track 2 Van Halen songs that use tap harmonics. They bassically require you to fret with the left hand and then produce a 12th fret harmonic by tapping the note 12 frets up from where you fretted it.

Ex.: You fret on the 9th fret with you keft hand, and then tap the string on the 21st.

It would bassically require Rocksmith to show 2 notes simultaneously on the same string. Kind of impossible, but I'm just putting it out there, in case someone has a creative way of tracking this. I'm thinking of putting a note in the vocals track.

This is a real pain. When it happens I go to import a Guitar Pro file. When the import popup window appears I close it immediately and the problem dissapears for 10 mins or so...

There are some other good ones, that are well tracked:
Muse - Can't Take My Eyes Off You
Save Ferris - Come On Eileen (Ska version)
Big Mountain - Baby I Love Your Way

Hindu Love Gods - Raspberry Beret

I would love a CDLC of Green Day's version of Rolling Stone, or Everclear's Brown Eyed Girl. Might have to do them myself, but I've got such a long Rocksmith To Do List...