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I've always wanted to own an X-style guitar as it exhales pure rock n' roll! Matthias Jabs, James Hetfield and Allen Collins are just few players to name who have played this kind of guitars. Usually factory made guitars are painted monochromatic or the available colour options are limited in Finland, not to mention the flame topped models are unavailable. So that's why I decided to build one flame top by myself. I wanted to use local woods mainly in this project as it's getting hopefully more popular in the future. So the body, the top and the neck are made of Finnish black alder, fretboard and the headstock veneer are made of ebony to achieve contrast between surfaces. The guitar has 24,75" scale, medium jumbo frets and Schaller hardware, the pickups are self wound.

X-style electric guitar

Click the pictures below for the details.

Finnish black alder planks
Body layout before gluing
It's easy to glue 2 planks together
And 2 solid planks again
Layout of the body outlines
Not a bad weight in this point
Raw version of the body
Black alder planks for the neck too
Laminated neck structure
Neck pieces glued together
Neck plank after laminating
Neck plank and the body
Removing the excessive material from the neck
Cutting off the headstock...
...so it can be glued again
Scarf joint with 15 degree angle
Creating the puzzle!
The structure of the headstock area
Routing slots for the maple strips
Maple strips glued in place
Alignment of the trussrod
Slot for trussrod
Preparation of the headstock veneer
Gluing the veneer in
The seam
Extremely rare wood
Top blank
More clamps!
Flames are popping up
Locations for controls
Cream binding
Binding is now installed to the body
Bound fingerboard
Scraped body binding
Test pieces for the neck pocket and tenon
Removing excessive material from the neck pocket
Routed neck pocket
Tight fit for now
Cutting the matching surfaces between neck tenon and the neck pocket
Adjusting the angle of the neck heel area
The neck tenon had to be thinned few times to get precise fit
Final check of the neck angle with the bridge
Side dots and dot inlays
Alignment of the fretboard
Routing the shape of the peghead
Drill jig
Fretboard glued in
Sanding the fretboard radius
Traditional 12" fretboard radius
The carving starts
Saw rasp is a great tool for shaping!
Still needs some fine sanding...
Lightweight but strong structure
Carved neck heel
Carved neck
Gluing the neck to the body
Routing of the pickup cavities
Pickup cavities are ready and holes are drilled
It's time for fretwork
22 frets installed in their slots
The final check before spray booth
Woodwork is done for now, it's time to spray the lacquer
Base coats of clear lacquer shot
Burst colour
Some staining coming up!
Coloured back, sides and the neck
Clear coats shot over the whole guitar
Fret leveling job
Final assembly begins
Placing the bridge
Ready for rock n' roll
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