Off to a great start

So, like I said, I have started 4 more electric guitars. I'll bring you up to date:

The bodies are each laminated, with a total of 5 layers. A core with a hand made veneer top and bottom. The core consists of 3 layers. A central panel of 3/4" thickness and a top and bottom panel of about 3/8"+. These individual layers, or leaves, are assembled from strips of clear cherry and maple. The jointing is done with great precision. Note how the boards stay together prior to glue up with no glue or clamping pressure. It's all in the hand work.

The strips of maple and cherry are carefully recovered from salvaged wood. Cutoff and trim pieces gleaned from the scrap bins behind a furniture factory. Here I have all the leaves for 4 bodies. The thicker centers are sanded and trimmed to size in the front.

The cores are then laminated in this press of my own design. Only the bottom two leaves are being glued in this photo with the rest of the stack used to keep things flat, and for lack of room elsewhere to store the stack. The center is laminated first to just the bottom, recieving it's top leaf after the cavities are routed.

The 4th and fifth layers, top and bottom, consist of 3/32" hand sawn veneer and will go on later.

Some folks would say that the hand sawn veneer is what makes my work so special. To this I would reply, "You ain't seen nothing yet!" Here is a sneak peak at what is in store. The Eat Your Heart Out top on the left is in some spectacular flame maple. Curly cherry and heavily figured walunut make the ground for my first Gates of Hell axe on the right.

These get laminated to the top with a compensatory veneer panel laminated to the bottom or back of the guitar. This all makes for one incredibly strong an stable guitar.

I have also started the necks. I'm making 6 of all colors to keep my design options open.

These are two and 3 piece neck blanks gluing up.

Gluing on the headstock can be tricky.

So I will show you how a country woodworker makes it easy. With angled cauls, faced with 120 grit paper. Waxed paper keeps squeeze out from fouling cauls for many uses. My cauls are of white cedar, I recommend a softwood for no marring of head stock.
All by hand, but as you can see, my process is very precise. All of my necks come within about a half a degree of the 14 degree angle I shoot for. Note heavy squeeze out at joint indicating plenty of titebond 3 water proof wood glue. This is a very strong joint and can take all of my weight when clamped to the bench and tested. Even prior to reinforcement with headstock veneer.
Incidently, I am making these necks with a slightly thicker headstock. The Grover locking tuners I have been using are sublime, and require just one wrap, so I want their string holes slightly lower. Building by hand allows for great flexiblity this way, and I am always looking to make things even better.

All in all, I'm off to a great start. Mick at Manlius Guitar is working on my new pickups as we speak. Two more sets of Goats Growl p-90's, a set of Fat Dianes, and his very own Chicago Blues humbuckers for a taste of something new. Still not sure what is going where, though for that matter I don't even know what the finger boards are going to look like yet. To many cool ideas for just four guitars...