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 Post subject: Curlybear SpruceCaster
PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:48 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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........ [:Y:]
Attachment:
1 bookmatched and glued web.JPG

Anybody know how to attach more than 1 photo?


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 12:49 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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Here's the finished rough blank...


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 1:05 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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Cool!
Are you going to ruin it with a cap? :)
I like building slab gits wit softwoods.


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 1:34 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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alan stassforth wrote:
Cool!
Are you going to ruin it with a cap? :)


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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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 8:51 am 
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Sounds interesting, to say the least!

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 9:02 am 
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Nice! - I'm watching!

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 4:49 pm 
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Koa
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I built a guit out of Bald Cypress. It's a unique look and people seem to like it. Doesn't sound bad.....


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:59 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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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PostPosted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 9:56 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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?


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 11, 2011 11:19 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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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PostPosted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:49 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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More pitchers with captions....... :D
These steps took a total of about 20 minutes.
The Padma-ism in the first caption was unintentional.


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PostPosted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 2:10 am 
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Shaping up brother! looking forward to hooking up again soon also!

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 9:00 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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That sequoia is so sick!!!!!!
I love it!
Put the same pickups in each one,
and do some soundclips, okay?


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PostPosted: Sat Aug 13, 2011 11:57 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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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PostPosted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:12 pm 
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Koa
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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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PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 3:39 pm 
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hows the build going....


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PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:09 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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Moe just sealed it. Hopefully it'll be done with finish end of next week.

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PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:19 pm 
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theguitarwhisperer wrote:
Moe just sealed it. Hopefully it'll be done with finish end of next week.


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

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PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 3:53 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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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PostPosted: Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:50 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 2:36 pm 
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Koa
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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.

Image

Image

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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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:01 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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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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PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:17 pm 
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Koa
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theguitarwhisperer wrote:
If you saw my belly, you would understand the need for deep contours.

HAHAHA! Sadly, i know from whence you speak!

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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:14 am 
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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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PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 11:09 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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Zlurgh wrote:
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?


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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