Official Luthiers Forum!

First: thanks to all of you for the knowledge I've gained from lurking over the last few months. Began my first build (age: 41) about four months ago. Neck-thru design based on Jerry Garcia's Wolf guitar made by Doug Irwin in 1972/3. 5 piece maple/purpleheart neck. Just glued the bottom body wing on tonight; top wing to be glued in the coming days. If anyone is interested, I'm updating my progress on a blog I created for the project: http://luthieridiocy.blogspot.com/

Advice welcome! As far as I can tell, no fatal errors so far. If anyone has the guts of an Alembic Stratoblaster lying around, please let me know!

Looking good so far.
Hang in there!

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

I will be gluing the fretboard on this week, and then gluing two binding strips along each side. The strips are maple and bloodwood. Any suggestions for best way to hold the glued strips in place? I have heard an old bicycle tube or linen tape works great. Linen tape doesn't stick to the glue, I hear. Anyone have experience with this? Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Glued the fingerboard (bloodwood from LMII) on tonight. Doing an unusual binding over the weekend: bloodwood on its side and curly maple against the board. Decided against tapering the fingerboard down to have a double binding on each side. Feel free to check out progress at http://luthieridiocy.blogspot.com/ . Again, thanks for all the help I've found lurking on this board. I did remember to put the truss rod in before gluing the fingerboard which for some reason I was convinced I'd forget (~) ; }

Awesome! Totally Awesome!

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The bridge looks pretty cool.
What kind is it? Can you list a source?
Thanks,
Dan

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I like it! Been meaning to do a Jerry myself, but I haven't had time.

For what it's worth, I like to glue the fretboard on and shape the neck before gluing the wings, as carving the neck can be a little tricky once it's all together.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Me too. It's hard to get close to the body with tools.
Your first build is awesome! I wish I had some of your skills!

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Bridge is from allparts.com . I got the chrome, but think I want the gold. Here's the link to the chrome: http://www.allparts.com/Chrome-SG-Bridg ... 10-010.htm

The tailpiece will be custom cut from brass. I'm using a drill press to do the cuts. Totally new to this, so it'll probably be a disaster.

Thought long and hard about how much to shape the inner wings before gluing. It's gonna be a nightmare to shape those contours now that it's glued, but I'm racing against humidity now.

Thanks for all the positive comments! I literally have no idea what I'm doing, but so far it seems to be working!