The body blank for Prototype 2 Aviator glued and clamped.

The body outline for the Aviator are drawn on the body blank after it’s been un-clamped and surfaced.

The Aviator starts to take shape. Rough-cut on the bandsaw.

The neck blank for Prototype 2 Aviator glued up and clamped.

It’s a 3-piece laminate of white limba (Korina) from the same board as the body. A matching headstock will be joined via a scarf joint. The plan is for an ebony fretboard.

This should be interesting. I found these heavy-duty momentary switches at a local electronics supply shop. This guitar will be getting a kill switch.

2010.01.06 Update: Aviator body template, trimmed sanded and smooth + 7-string neck and headstock templates. (27″ scale, 24 frets)

2010.01.21 Update: The controls have been positioned and recesses for the knobs drilled out. This guitar will use a blend pot in lieu of a toggle for the pickups, master volume, master tone and a kill switch.

The kill switch is beautiful, industrial-strength and very low profile. It’s been mounted between the pickups, just below the strings, so it will be easy to press while playing, but will be out of the way enough to avoid accidental presses.

It’s VERY low to the body. Sleek and shiny!

The headstocks attached to the neck blanks of Prototype 1 (rosewood) and Prototype 2 (limba). Prototype 2′s neck now has a fillet of zebrawood in the scarf joint between the neck and the headstock. The original glue-up wasn’t as clean as it could have been, so i cut the headstock off and started again. As a result, i lost a fraction of an inch in overall length, so the options were to either have the fretboard overhang slightly, or add a fillet to push the headstock back. So it was to fix a mistake, but it’ll add a cool crescent-shaped accent to an otherwise plain neck. (… and this is why they’re prototypes!)

Proto 2 with the hardware roughly in place. Controls: Kill switch, master volume, blend pot, master tone. Pickpus: Lace Alumitone 4″ Tone Bars. Bridge: ABM.

I mistakenly thought the 4″ wide Lace Alumitone Tone Bars would be required, but it looks like the 3.5″ ones would do for a 7-string guitar. I believe this may be the first time these have been used in a 7-string guitar application.

2010.02.05 Update: The first test-fit of the Aviator neck and body. VERY pleased with how it’s turning out.

The neck joint, dry fit. Air tight.

Tight all around!

2010.02.06 Update: The holes and recesses for the T-nuts and connector bolts have been done, and the neck and body have been test-bolted for the first time!

2010.02.11 Update: Black binding added to the body using high-tack tape and lots of cyanoacrylate glue (aka “super glue” or “Krazy Glue”).

The headstock also bound.

After scraping and sanding it flush. Next time, i’m using a smaller template bearing so the binding will be set almost flush, requiring much less scraping.

More scraping… A spindle sander was used on the drill press to take off most of the excess plastic binding, particularly around the curved tips of the body wings.

The excess glue and tape residue was also scraped and sanded off. More sanding will be done in the paint prep stage. The plan is for this guitar to be painted white, with black binding.

Looking sharp!

Next up… the fretboard…

2010.02.12 Update: Bolted together, body and headstock bound, neck heel and body contours done.

The heel has been shaved down and contoured. The bolts sit on 1/2″ of wood on the heel, so the contours are just a bit thicker than that.

The heel of the neck is carved asymmetrically with one purpose in mind: Comfort and playability.

Some details in the bevels and contours will be refined as the body is sanded and prepped for paint.

Smooth.

The contours of the heel will be blended into the neck carve.

… and this is how it fits in the hand.

The back of the upper extension is carved away slightly for access, but left thick enough for mounting the strap buttons.

No problem with upper-fret access here!

The fretboards for Proto 1 (rosewood) and Proto 2 (ebony) were slotted and glued to the necks after the truss rods were inserted.

2010.03.11 Update: The neck has been carved and the fretboard bound and radiused!

The ebony board has black binding on it, which ties it into the black binding around the rest of the guitar’s top. The finished look will be super-clean.

I still have to nip off the ends of the binding at the heel. The fret tangs will be nipped short of the binding, so the edges will be clean and seamless.

The neck has been shaped and the heel re-contoured. It’s now a little more “SR-71″ and less “F-117″.

I also did a bit of shaping of the neck/body join area with the neck bolted to the body, so there’s a really smooth and seamless flow from the neck into the body.

Another view of the neck heel. Quite a bit more material was removed from the bass side and inside the strap extension to make more room for the thumb when in the upper register. The whole thing feels awesome.