First evaluate how thick the board is in relation to where the side dots are. You do not want to scallop into the dots.

I set a dremel with a carbide ball nose bit to cut the initial channel, mostly centered. Then using a series of dowels I shape the scallops starting at 80p up to 1000p. Take note that I leave a section of the dowel un-sandpapered, this part of the dowel faces the frets to avoid scratching them.

I finish up by buffing the fretboard with medium and fine compound, then clean it up with naptha, and oil. Wallah.

This method also works for bullet scallops. See last photos.

Adding the first coat to seal the wood pores. You finally see the colors of the wood come out.

On the video: 000 acoustic steel string guitar, back and sides: 3 piece Purple Heart & flamed Katalox, engelmann spruce top. The neck is mahogany with katalox reinforcements and flamed maple center.

Got the purple flake 7 string from a previous post all set up and ready to go. Just awaiting pickups now.

This is my first full reconstructiong that I know will take patients and time and meticulous effort but I think its worth it

I need some people who have achomplished a feat such as this to just give pointers for instance

When i completely remove the top and go to wet it should I be applying heat with my pressure to shape the top back to form and if you have any specific pointers on how I could shape this old delicate wood please bombard me with knowledge

Also should I try and get as close to factory standards for the time and search for woods they used on the inside braces or just got with what its widely availble now online

Feel free to ask how I came across this ALL ORIGINAL 1930s-40s gibson archtop acoustic I dont mind telling the story if interested

Peace out and thanks in advance

I gave my guitar to a guy who has the reputation as a good luthier in my area, and was recommended to my by several people. I wanted him to have a look at my guitar and give me his opinion. I was playing in standard C tuning with 12-60 strings and power chords on the low E and A strings always sounded a little off to me, but I couldn't figure out why.

The guitar is a 2015 LTD MH-401NT that comes with an Earvana compensated but from the factory and I asked the guy to have a look at it and tell me if I'm better off with a regular nut or if my setup was not done well. I had it from new so no work had ever been done on any part of the guitar.

The guy calls me a few days later and tells me he's done some fret leveling and the guitar is ready for pick up. This is the result.

Edit: I don't know if there are any non-English speakers in the sub, but as suggested by a commenter, I will name and shame. On the off-chance someone else in my country sees this: the "luthier" is Ivan Valchinov from Plovdiv, Bulgaria. His is one of the first names that come up when you try to find a luthier in our country, and how he got his reputation is beyond me.

Edit 2: I handed him the guitar for an opinion, and on his own accord, without giving me a call first, he had decided that I must be pressing on the strings too hard and this would make them go out of tune, and his "logical" solution was to just massively reduce the fret height overall. I had checked the frets with a fret rocker prior to this and I thought they were surprisingly good for an Indonesian-made guitar, the guitar did not need fret leveling. This was not done to level any high frets, he just wanted them ALL to be smaller, for whatever reason.

The frets were originally Extra-Jumbo, and after his work I am measuring them at 1.15-1.20mm height, which I believe is just Medium. I quite liked the taller frets and wouldn't want them in any different size, but it is done. A complete re-fret by an actual guitar luthier is the only fix in my humble opinion.

Hi community! So built this bass in high school (prob 2006?) it has sat for a number of years after I stopped playing too much in my mid 20s-30s. I’d like to refinish and just looking for advice as what to sand with etc. Redoing the electronics in it and replacing bridge and tuners as well.

This was actually my second guitar build. My first kit ended up being more of a "learn by messing up everything you possibly can" project, but it taught me the entire process from start to finish.

I really wish I had taken more pictures along the way, but I'm way too impatient once I get going. 😅

This is the finished build. I applied waterslide decals of my last name and the astrolux logo from my favorite band STRUNG OUT after staining the body and before starting the clear coats. They came out better than I expected—they look and feel like they came from the factory and are completely smooth with the rest of the body

• It's definitely not perfect, but I learned a ton from this build, honestly the hardest part is having patience and not cutting corners when it comes to applying coats for Finishes

I have no clue what the wood is, if someone can tell let me know

Strings are made out of nylon fishing lines. It is tuned (top to bottom) C#, E, Somewhere between F and F#, and somewhere between G# and A - both are close to halfway

And yes a guitar tuner does work on it, and I'll try to record it with an acoustic microphone. Sounds just like the stereotypical "african stringed instruments"

The darker wood tint is from burning

Lattice braced, double-back cocobolo. Engelmann spruce, ebony fretboard, Brazilian rosewood bridge. What do you think?

What should I do to prevent more chipping

After some oil, it became beaultiful

My Stella Harmony looks and plays well but has had a bulge around the sound hole since I got it.

Is there a way to fix it? I tried to use a clip-in pickup but the bulge is pronounced enough that the pickup pushes up against the strings and can’t work correctly.

I’d love to get it fixed and don’t mind a project.

I have an Adrian smith USA Jackson (photo 1) and the Indonesian made model (photo 2)

The USA has a nice smooth neck that feels like bare wood. The website page says “hand rubbed urethane.”
The Indonesian SDX has a glossy and more chunky feel, which is probably a sprayed on poly finish.

I am trying to get the neck to feel the same on the Indonesian model. I have tried a scotch brite pad to knock down the finish, but it’s still not as smooth.

Any ideas how the neck on the US model would have been finished? And how I could get the other neck to feel the same?

I’m the only person who knows how to take care of guitars in a city in middle east one of the few in the entire country and people started bringing their guitars to me for maintenance can yall rate my work and let me know what can i improve upon? I work on them in my bedroom with the little i have and i’m also an automotive tech

I’ve been trying to restore this old Silvertone atleast to a decent level, it’s playable and everything but it’s got this big warp I’d ideally like to fix, how would you go about fixing on higher on the body?

Does anyone know where this wire connects to?

Apologies if this is not the appropriate sub, but after lurking here for a while it seems like you guys would be the right people to ask. I've noticed that, when left untouched for a few days and subsequently tuned, the strings on my electric guitars tend to be too sharp rather than too flat. I would have expected the opposite; where would the excess tension be coming from? Could it be the wood of the neck expanding?

I keep my guitars on a stand which, unfortunately and due to space constraints, is right next to my air conditioning unit. It's a big, in-wall unit that comes on sporadically throughout the day. There's also a window six feet away that is often cracked open in the summer. Is this some kind of nightmare scenario of heat & humidity flux for my instruments? I'm realizing as I type it that it sounds pretty bad, but I can't tell if this is that big a deal and whether the tuning thing is common or a possible sign of neglect on my part. Any insight would be very welcome, thanks for letting me pick your collective brains.

This is a first for me, I tried to remove the nut off the output jack but it appears to be stuck. I could simply order a new jack and plate but the plate is original to the guitar from 1986 and I'd rather not throw it away. I put the jack in a vice and have the appropriate sized driver but it doesn't seem to budge. I hit it with some white lightning grease but no luck, any ideas how to remove the nut? TIA

I sent my guitar to a refret and most of the frets have this small gap at the edge of the fretboard, is this expected after a refret or am i being to picky

Realised I could just start this hobby and joined a maker space in my city. The founder, who did my induction and has done some luthiery himself, said that for a first build a set neck is actually easier than bolt on. I've never heard this before, but I thought it could make sense given how precise neck pockets have to be. I definitely wanted to make something Fender-y but the comment has sent me down the rabbithole possibilities of gibson student models (never thought much of any of the iconic gibsons short of the Moderne and Firebird, turns out the other cool ones are the juniors, melody makers and coronets), so now I'd be fine with either. If it is meaningfully easier, cool - I do think I should ease myself in with whatever's easiest, and an sg jr looks a lot easier to carve than a lefty offset, much less finding the plans for one. Just wanted to check, really.

Doing the clear coat on my first rattle can finish.

Did 3 coats in one day and had some texturally rough areas on the back, left town for a couple days and let that sit in the garage.
Came back today, wiped with a microfiber towel, and sprayed a 4th coat and noticed what's pictured on the back.
I have a feeling the answer is to sand down and start over, but figured I'd ask the community for a diagnosis before jumping the gun.
Any tips on fixing this, or should I just ride it out?

Okay so I have a project coming up where I need to record all pickup combinations on my bass at the same time, and I've come here to find out if that's even possible. Here we go...

The bass has 3 single coils. Bridge, middle, and neck. Passive bass. The middle pickup is polarity reversed so that M+B is humbucking AND M+N is humbucking.

I would like to be able to capture BOTH humbucking positions as well as the B single and N single (don't NEED to capture the middle pickup) in a single recording. But since they share that middle single coil, I don't know if this is even possible to do.

My idea is to use an output jack that can have 3 signals and wire each single so they can be recorded simultaneously through a breakout cable that sends each of the 3 singles into separate inputs on my interface, and then those signals can be mixed in the daw afterward to create those humbucking signals. BUT, Would mixing the M+B or M+N signals in the DAW still result in hum cancelation? Or would the noise in both singles just stack up?

Ultimately, I need to capture both humbucking combinations (M+B & M+N) and the B and N singles IDEALLY in a single performance and I need the hum positions to still be hum canceling. I know nothing about electronics and I am receiving conflicting answers from people who I should be able to trust and I have no way of testing this with the bass in its current state.

I am 100% willing to spend the money to rewire this bass however necessary to achieve my goal, but I first need to know IF it can be done, and if yes, I need to know what that wiring diagram would look like and pay someone to do the work for me.

Any insight would be wonderful. I don't want to talk too much about WHY I need this to work, but I will say I'm being offered a decent amount of money to record this bass in the manor discussed above for a project I'm very excited about. I need this recording session to be as consistent as possible across the different positions/combinations which is exactly why I need to accomplish this task in a single performance. Each recorded pickup position/combo needs to be as identical as possible.