Lets see your Woodworking Skills

[EddieWalker]

Love to see what your uncles work. Does he have a website?

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

My father in law is not the type to have a website. All word of mouth. No storefront or advertising and more work than he can get done even through the last recession. Kinda crazy actually. Rich people talk amongst themselves I guess.

 

[dragoneggs]

Probably oak. The harder and denser the wood, the easier it is to carve. I'm not a fan of the look of oak, so there is a little hesitation and I might go for mahogany instead. Walnut is too dark and maple is too light, but also a good wood for carving. I'm still working on sketching out my design. I get close to what's in my head, but then I get lost and the drawing changes from what I'm wanting it to look like.

I'm not a carver but I do like working with Mahogany. Love the grain structure and how it finishes. Tired of oak. Look forward to seeing your project idea come to life!

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Probably oak. The harder and denser the wood, the easier it is to carve. I'm not a fan of the look of oak, so there is a little hesitation and I might go for mahogany instead. Walnut is too dark and maple is too light, but also a good wood for carving. I'm still working on sketching out my design. I get close to what's in my head, but then I get lost and the drawing changes from what I'm wanting it to look like.

Eddie, I have worked a lot with mahogany and it does carve easy. But take a look at Hickory wood, it is hard and has nice color variations.

Also think about using 2 different species of wood on the door. You could carve the elk kinda like the attached photo and mount it on a different type of wood to give more depth and color. The picture is a screen door carved but you get my meaning, doing it this way would also give a 3D effect when mounted. The white on the picture would actually be a different species of wood.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Put the finishing touches on this table the other night.

 

[PJSprog]

Pics of two bass guitars I made.
I will probably never build another - it took quite a while.

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Nice-looking instruments, widefat.

The guys at Fishbone Bass Guitars are friends and former coworkers of mine. They started out slow, too, and as om21braz mentioned, the addition of jigs made a world of difference for them. My 6-string bass took almost a year to build in '02-'03. Since they've standardized styles and added jigs over the years, they can now crank out a bass in just a couple of months (they only build part-time).

 

[mapper]

A shaker hall table I just built as a wedding gift for my nephew who's getting hitched Sunday to a great girl from North Dakota.


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[Luke'sScreenName]

Put the finishing touches on this table the other night.

That's very nice looking. I've been hickory especially with mixed sap wood had stability issues. (Maybe not if it's dried well?)

 

[widefat]

Nice-looking instruments, widefat.

The guys at Fishbone Bass Guitars are friends and former coworkers of mine. They started out slow, too, and as om21braz mentioned, the addition of jigs made a world of difference for them. My 6-string bass took almost a year to build in '02-'03. Since they've standardized styles and added jigs over the years, they can now crank out a bass in just a couple of months (they only build part-time).

Those are amazing basses! I love the bridge design; very innovative.

One thing I learned during my build-I dont wince at a 4k or 5k price on a handbuilt instrument. The amount of time to create the instrument and the cost of quality materials easily justifies the price.

 

[PJSprog]

One thing I learned during my build-I dont wince at a 4k or 5k price on a handbuilt instrument. The amount of time to create the instrument and the cost of quality materials easily justifies the price.

Absolutely. Custom instruments of similar quality regularly go for around $10K+. Last I heard, Carl Thompson had about a 3 year wait for one of his basses in that upper price range.