Being built right now.

Neck Work Part 1:

Starting by sawing a roughly 3.33" thick slice off of a 3" X 4" X 30" khaya billet, which I will get three necks out of, I have the neck blank ready for planing.  Heres it in the cutting stage:

No I didn't saw into my workbench, I just get close to it and then flip it around and finish the cut.

Here's the billet folded open after cutting it.  Now that's some nice grain there.

I cut the end of the neck blank off on an angle, to form the major part of the headstock.  I took the cutoff, flipped it around, and glued it back on the back of the neck blank, otherwise the headstock wold have a tapered end.  I also added two 1.5" wings to make the headstock wider, and finally an overlay of book matched mango on it's face.

Looking at it from the back you can see the glued on wedge that came off of the front, as well as the two wings flanking the sides.

Looking at the front of the headstock you get a view of the beautiful spalted mango.

With the face of the neck blank and fingerboard indexed, and the fingerboard temporarily attached, you get to see the contrast between the ebony and mango woods, although once finished, the mango will be a few shades darker.

Here is the headstock as designed with ebony accenting the mango.  In case you haven't noticed yet, it's a seven string guitar.

A View Of The Body:

Below is a view of the body, showing off the gorgeously figured mango top.  If you noticed its identical to the drawing, it's because I photographed it, and superimposed it into the drawing.  Besides the basic body shape, it's a blank slate I may or may not come up with a binding scheme for.  I can use any bridge, pickups, circuit and control layout I wish, that's one of the perks of free form design.  As I progress with it's design and construction I can play with it, and let it evolve.

The next image of the side of the body shows the one inch of mahogany topped with a 3/4 inch thick mango slab, it can handle a deeply carved and sexy arch.  What that will look like when done, I cannot tell yet.

That's all for now for this instrument.  I have so much other work to do, I will have to get back to it some other time.  Thanks for checking it out, and come back some time to check on it's progress.