What’s on *YOUR* workbench?

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Big ups to @MichaelW for his fretwork thread. Gave me some pointers for finally getting around to giving it a shot...

I've ruined countless necks. Cause I wasn't prepared, or cause I didn't know what I was doing, or fill in the blank here. So now, I'm giving it another shot, and I'm working with stainless steel fretwire because I'm a glutton for punishment.

So...after I got a little too zealous with the 1/8" truss rod nut on my fender American strat neck, and in the process of removing the walnut plug accidentally cracked the goddamned fretboard....well. I figured that one was gonna need some TLC, and I don't want to go to a luthier, so I might as well learn.

I bought a couple of cheapie Chinese necks. One is made from wenge: this one arrived with a ton of high and low spots scattered around. SS frets, but despite a very well cut neck...that fretwire was just very inconsistent in size. So, did a bit of leveling. Crowning, polishing...and whaddya ya know, I actually got the thing playable.

Sorta. The wenge is stiff as fuck. When I initially tuned up I had *zero* relief with the truss rod completely loose and buzzing all over the place. It's settling into a nice forward now that I can work with though.

Still not entirely happy with the polish on the frets. This is something I'm gonna need to find some workarounds for, cause I don't have the patience to individually polish each fret with ever increasing grits.

This neck is likely gonna go on a different guitar eventually. Just a practice run. I'm in the process of re-fretting the MIM strat neck behind it...that was the neck I initially learned on. Dad's guitar, he eventually gave it to me. Mid-90s or so.

That thing was wavy as fuck. Took a bit of sanding to flatten the fretboard. Had a couple of speed bumps along the way, but its coming along.

Also a neck from a lite ash strat that I had been told was warped. Already got all the frets replaced with SS. Didn't do too badly with that one either.

The nice roasted flame maple one in back is another one I kinda ruined, but should be able to salvage. Again, it's got the issue with the inconsistently sized fretwire, so I tried tapping in the frets with a soft hammer and just...went to hard. Something in wrong with me. I can't pull my punches.

Ohh...and also got a little something for the un-branded necks. Cause imma mark my territory like a jealous tom cat.

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(I mirrored the image, it's actually backwards. But this way your brain doesn't have to flip it).
 
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Kewpie built over the weekend. GodDAMN those switches are so dialed. One of many builds I'm hesitant/stubborn to post reports for when the weather is prohibitive of my graphical stuff, but I love how this sounds. And I got to use my engraving pen my folks gave me for Hanukkah.

Oh, and despite "Mayonaise" being my actual favorite song period, I've apparently been hearing these lyrics wrong for well over two decades. It's "Always old, I'll always feel this" 😂 Oh well.
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EisengesisFX said:
Kewpie built over the weekend. GodDAMN those switches are so dialed. One of many builds I'm hesitant/stubborn to post reports for when the weather is prohibitive of my graphical stuff, but I love how this sounds. And I got to use my engraving pen my folks gave me for Hanukkah.

Oh, and despite "Mayonaise" being my actual favorite song period, I've apparently been hearing these lyrics wrong for well over two decades. It's "Always old, I'll always feel this" 😂 Oh well.
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I have an old craftsman engraver pen but the few times I tried it I found it super hard to control. I’m impressed!
 
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