My Daughter HATES a guitar I made for her! Boring Dot inlays replaced WITHOUT removing the frets!

[@MLoerAudio]

“Let’s just make our life horrifically difficult, why don’t we?” Is that your personal motto, Ben? Love the hexagon inlays!

[@DominusFeles]

Next official T-shirt design?

[@deadprivacy]

"lets just make our life horrifically difficult usually with hexagons" i think s the complete mantra. always with the hexagons, never adds so much as a bee.

[@matt_phistopheles]

I think the most valuable tip I have when cutting inlays (or anything small for that matter): Clean the floor and the desk before you start to cut.

[@zororosario]

Superb upgrade! I admire the skill and love you have shown in your work, your daughter is blessed to have a dad like you. 👍 Cheers.

[@chrishuber3814]

Ben, I TOTALLY love the 12th fret decision you made! That's gorgeous and fitting all in one. Kudos!

[@padreigh]

Waited a long time for this to continue - cudos to your improvesments on the neck - it looks beautiful, thanks for sharing the process and great explanations.

[@barrychristian4050]

Option 4 - own a CNC death laser and use that to cut out all the little fiddly bits lol

[@loopinnerthe]

Ben! Have you watched Uncle Doug repairing and renovating vintage tube amps (watch one video of his, it wont be time wasted I promise) ? He pays the closest attention to everything from the speaker grill cloth to the electrical safety of the whole unit. Perhaps he is your dad, the attention to detail, the generosity in sharing knowledge and the stunning finished result is your hallmark too. That neck is now brimming with your love and care and delight for your daughter. This process began as a bit of gung-ho with a big drill bit on the body and is now honing down to a carefully considered and expertly executed masterpiece. This is a guitar and an approach to life that you are handing down to the next generation and I wish there were more like you and Uncle Doug in this world.

[@chrisj2268]

That fretboard came out Great!!, I work a lot with silver and surprised more guitar makers do not use it in fretboard inlays, top job my friend :)

[@A1BASE]

I feel like a way to get a series of precise shapes like this is to use bar, rather than flat stock. Shape the entire thing with files and then cut off identical pieces.

[@CBGuitars]

Nice work. 5:25 did Bob Holness and blockbusters inspire you, cant think why else there is a frame with his smiling face.

[@joeii3ol]

Exactly the news and lesson I needed. I have a uncut kit neck that’s boring and doesn’t match the body. This gives me hope.

[@ernieb3626]

Man ! What a video. First timer and very happy. Thanks for the video and I have already subscribed and hit notifications. Only one video in and already thinking of joining. Thanks Ben

[@DominusFeles]

I thoroughly enjoyed the pacing of this video! Not too much music or speed up parts and even though I do enjoy the live videos, it’s nice not having to dedicate nine hours to watch it through 😇

[@DominusFeles]

Oh, and the inlay was great too 🤓

[@paulneeds]

Agree about the music, and everything else you say really!

[@fepatton]

Ah, never thought about using fret rubbers on the fretboard itself. Great tip! The 12th fret looks fantastic!

[@richardkelleher1711]

Glad to see you working on this instrument again!

[@CrimsonCustomGuitars]

I'm hoping to finish today..

[@Grummash]

You very nearly inlaid the James Webb Space Telescope at the 12th fret!

[@Craftlngo]

awesome idea Ben with the hex-shaped inlays! Beautiful result. BTW. your fellow colleague Neil Paskin from _Pask makes_ has (re)created a tool to drill out non-circular shapes in wood.

[@Fliegenpilzkonsument]

I can't get over how gorgeous that file handle is

[@SweetTGuitars]

Very cool inlay on a very cool guitar. I really dig the whole hex vibe. I think my favorite thing about this guitar is the silver leaf inside the hex holes on the body! These inlays should drive that theme home. Excellent good sir!

[@Heartwing37]

This guitar is truly a labor of love!

[@IronClan2024]

Hi Ben unfortunatly i am a litle to late but maybe it will help you in the future. Those shapes can be cut out without the anger of sawing and sanding but you need to make a tool first and it is quite easy to do. i needed some days ago a tool for punching holes in a selfmade guitar strap but i had nothing in the size needed to i made my own tool out of a piece of pipe i had laying around here. some remains of an old micstand or something else i cannot recall. however making these hexagonal shapes is possible without cuting and here is the idea you need : go grab some harded steel flat rods from your local hardware store or at least some made out of a metal that can be hardened ( this cant be done with all ) but make sure you got them in the right so that when they et combined they give that very shape in the needed size. now sharpen their outta edges but only that much that you have the exact angle. now pointweld them in such a way that you get a exact accurate hexagonal shape and if you see the shape is there you can weld those from top to buttom. weld in the middle of the now tubed structure a piece of round hard metal and ontop of that some hard plastic ( such as used in producetion of some hammers ). Now sharpen the edges of the allready hardened steel with a strip sanding machine no rolling because you do not want any rounded edges. after you have sharpened the edges so much that they can punch softer metal , you will never again need to saw hexagonal shapes ...... you can make this tool in every shape you can think of and costvise its still bareable add : the same tool can be used to punch the shape into wood and then you can remove the shape out with a shisle and sink the shape into place where the dots are. Sometimes one needs one thing to make another thing easier. who knows maybe - and you have way more people who can do that aswell as the needed tools to make that tool - you could produce those to be sold for everyone who wants to mod his or here guitar. i wish i could send you some drawings of it but here is no option to do so. so if you need a more detailed construction explanation let me know please. you may ask why i give such an idea away ? well i have the ideas but not the needed tools to make that tool but i would love to have such a tool for own guitar mods so actualy i may not make money with it but i may make my and others life easier so to speak and having a idea that benefits others is way better then money. As for the producer of the tool he has no choice but to ask money for because if you make it you use your workforce, your tools, your people things i quite frankly do not have so use it and make it if you can a massproduction that it ends up being sold in every guitar shop.

[@fukkami6204]

10 hour live streams with 1 hour of luthiery, 2 hours of questions and 7 hour of Ben procrastinating and squirls.

[@Fernos005]

Yeah not really digging the live streams either seems like the new money grab for streamers 2022

[@THRobinson]

@@Fernos005 I don't mind the live streams, but I think instead of constantly stopping for Q&A and thanking people for donations, it should be 55min of guitar work, and a 5min break for Q&A then back to 55min work, etc...

[@timhallas4275]

It came to me as I was watching you struggle with the shape of each individual piece: If you start with a hex shaped rod, you could easily slice off these pieces and they'd all be identical.

[@glanderguitars6475]

Except he wanted to use that piece of silver he had hiding in the drawer...

[@pablokagioglu2546]

Cutting multiple hex shapes. Draw them all in a pattern next to each other (thickness of the blade between) and cut along the contigous long borders with a fine rigid saw perhaps. Then separate individual pieces by grouping the strips and cutting along the common border lines. Then only at the end use the jewelrs saw for the final cuts.

[@Ryan_F.]

So midway through this video, I had it paused for a bit, but didn’t realize. I was like, “man, Ben’s being really careful” 😂

[@1000nthInLine]

That really looks good. Your skills always impress me. You're an artist.

[@bhartissimo]

Love the 12th fret inlay! BTW, when Ben started out saying that it would be a short video, I thought maybe six minutes. :)

[@sandraandgraham57]

Or three days 😂😂

[@redknight1322]

The fret rubbers work very well on antique sword restorations as well!!

[@ln6835]

1. when you sand the fretboard, the radius may have changed? 2. How far will u sand the fretboard? About 1000 ? Rarely people shows their fretjob but u shows all of them for us. Thanks so much ur sharing

[@BLBlackDragon]

Love the hex inlays. This is coming along nicely.

[@willdelisle6969]

Not sure if Ben will see this, but sometimes a better way of making a bunch of small, identical shapes is to first make a rod that has the shape you wish to make as its section, then cut them all off to the correct thickness. So you could achieve this by cutting off ~1mm lengths of either a 6mm hex bar or a slightly oversized round bar with 6 flats filed on the end. That way you would only have to get the shape perfect one time, but could still achieve it with hand tooling only.

[@aldrickfondracul9297]

Speaking of making our lives horribly complicated, I've decided that my main player needs glow-in-the-dark kitties for inlay. I don't know how (or even why) I'm going to do it, but it's apparently what needs to be done. So it's quite serendipitous to see some actually useful tips for custom inlay appear in my sub feed.

[@CrimsonCustomGuitars]

Sounds awesome! I would use resin and glow in the dark powder if I were you.

[@shane462]

short 40 min video 😂thank you sir for not making it too short. i am working on a kit that had painted dots and want to do actual inlays.

[@CrimsonCustomGuitars]

Glad it was helpful!

[@royyazzie6028]

Awesome of you doing inlays which is the mostly work done beside custom 👌👍😎

[@biggcustomz8583]

Looks amazing! Much respect for your advanced hand skills 👍

[@THRobinson]

Another way to get the inlays out is to drill a hole half the size of the dot, take the drill bit out and flip it around, stick the shaft in the hole and just rock it around and around and often the inlay just pops out. I have a few guitars I've done this to because I love abalone. :)

[@mutantryeff]

3am in California. Thanks for the update on this guitar.

[@rzerobzero]

I was beginning to doubt you when you started inceasing the number of inlays on the 12th fret. Then I was seriously doubting you when I saw you gluing and cutting them. I thought, there is NO WAY this is gonna look good. Fuck me for doubting you at all. That was amazing.

[@guitlee]

Brilliantly simple, Benjamin. Giving me a lot of ideas. Thank you.

[@lorenzofaglia9796]

I was initially skeptical: I though that the hex will be so subtle, barely invisible. Instead they are beautiful 🤩 🥰🥰🥰

[@nipunlokuwithanage3433]

some gunstock and jewellery engravers use a pad with solvents to transfer the toner from the paper to the metal. it's not robust but works great on small designs like this

[@michaelfrancis1]

Cheers from Texas! 🤘😎🤘 It's amazing how much material you can save, using a jewelers saw vs anything else 😆 So clever! Way to dad ✌️😎✌️

[@angelus2k70]

All that cutting out by hand! You have more patience than me, I would of got some m4 bolts (6mm spanner fitting) chucked them in the lathe and took slices off the the heads to get my hexagons

[@larrywhitley3359]

It’s fantastic, I am excited too see it finished.

[@cheapskate8656]

Really an excellent inlay job. I dont know if it was your idea or your daughters but the abolone was great idea. When it was just silver at the 12th I thought it looked overdone but the abolone broke it up. By the way. I'm pretty sure that was Paua, not abolone. Either way looks great.

[@nipunlokuwithanage3433]

also add a drop of water when u glue the inlays down to mark out. use it like accelerator/activator. it makes the glue joint much more brittle than usual and acts as accelerator. a light tap with a hammer through a dowel is enough to break it off.

[@davidcox6457]

On completion of this weight reduction and upgrade Bens daughter announces she really wanted a trombone…

[@NeverTalkToCops1]

Replacing the neck, WITHOUT removing the strings!

[@LassetUnsSpielen]

* looks at neck-through guitar * hold my pick

[@ifax1245]

Ben, when cut multiple hex shapes when you could cut an entire inlay and etch lines painted black for the single hex look?

[@willacewallace5905]

With all your skill and your jeweler-like approach to being a luthier, surprised you didn't make a die punch to bang out those hexagonal shapes.

[@CrimsonCustomGuitars]

That sounds like an awesome little project, didn't even occur to me! I think I'm stuck in the hand cut vs laser cut mode and should open my mind a bit more 😆

[@willacewallace5905]

@@CrimsonCustomGuitars You are very creative and really do apply a jewelers touch; a level of finesse. These probably could have been made using a allen key and Allen head bolt. If you have a lathe, bore a pilot hole through the bolt so a rod can extract the pressed part. Face the Allen key to give it a sharp relief for when it presses down it swage cuts the piece. Of course, you have to make a jig in the press to keep the key and bolt clocked/oriented to align. Should work. I would suggest annealing the silver plate prior to work, as the process will go much easier. The process should work harden the silver back.

[@jipes]

Was clearly worth the efforts it looks much more sexier now !

[@markbuckallew4689]

Am I the only person that "blows on my phone screen" - every time Ben makes some sawdust?

[@nuldorvamoysenor2091]

The one thing i learned by watching this channel is: there's no such thing as too much masking tape, so, when in doubt: masking tape, when you need to align things: masking tape. You lost your wedding ring in suspicious circumstances?: masking tape.

[@joshuamacias4939]

I like that he said it was going to be a short video.

[@chriswoodside5385]

Would it have been easier shaping a silver rod then slicing/cutting off the pieces you need, then all of the hexagonal will be the same. I did this with copper for my sons guitar inlays

[@jaykincer7869]

This video saved me a super chat on the next live stream! One additional question...I want to change the dot inlays on my bass to trapezoids, would you dare attempt to use a dremel/router or just slowly chisel the shapes out? Thanks!

[@trevorward85043]

Love the fine touch mallet you were using. About how much does that weigh?

[@scguitars]

Just the video I need for my GGBO build

[@thomasrogers4534]

Buy hexagon bar and cut slices off?

[@HandToolWoodGuy]

Lovely. Really love the 12th fret marker.

[@CrimsonCustomGuitars]

Thank you man, appreciate this

[@PhoenixRising2040]

Lol when you said she printed off a hex page for you, I was expecting necronomicon 😅

[@U014B]

Have you considered changing the round bit at the top of the headstock into a hex shape? I know that would mean repainting that part, and that would probably be a pain in the bun, but go big or go home, right? ...except you already are at home, so I guess you're off the hook.

[@JansenX12]

I need to ask this: Ben, why are you such a great person?

[@Jkopala1954]

Please please finish the hand tool only travel guitar build

[@Kakascrot]

My guitar never had fret markers to begin with, i like the simplicity of it

[@stephencoster9532]

Hiya, a great video, thank you. Where might I get the brush? Stay safe, Steve...

[@gsterneman]

21:59 - As I've said many times: 70% of life is sanding. The rest is still sanding.

[@michaelmenkesOZSKIB]

I did this kind of inlay replacement with my Crimson kit neck, and its really really annoying to do inlay work on a radiused and fretted board. no more kit necks

[@dfxrocko]

Love the way that turned out!

[@AcidBathFreakshow]

Query: where might one find/purchase one of those fine ball handled awl/centrepunches that you have there?

[@abnunga]

Remember episode "2 of 3"? XD Oh, you forgot to add the hex dome nuts video to this playlist

[@nwimpney]

for the hexagon inlays, I would have tried to get some hexagonal stock, and sliced it up.

[@rebelcat420]

Another option. Take a 6mm (I believe that was the size) hex stock material (brass, stainless etc), and cut the pieces off with the lathe. Want silver? Silver plate or silver solder.

[@mal2ksc]

When you said "it has to be absolutely perfect", I thought you were going to use the CNC machine back at the main office, and I would have been OK with that.

[@michaelguenther3141]

Next step to eliminate boring roundness from the neck: hexagonal washers for the tuners?

[@thenoisesimake]

Would it be in the best interest of everyone to enquire as to the possibility of adding some embellishments to the otherwise plain Headstock, or for the sake of brevity, should we not point out that option to Ben?

[@casperjakobsen423]

or you could just file a rod down to shape, and cut slices to your prefered thickness. and that would make them all identical

[@Kwaker76]

Hex bar is a thing and would have been a lot simpler!

[@AfterAugustine]

Ben, just another reminder, please heed my warning about the trem cavity you routed through, if you don’t separate the back of the bridge pickup from the open trem cavity, they’re will be ungodly hellish squeal like feedback when the guitar is used with heavy even mild distortion….

[@RaptorV1USA]

.... i'm a freekin hack and while I'm handy I never worked on Guitars till last year....1st thing I did was drill out the plastic dots and swap Im turquoise..i didn't touch frets, wasn't that hard,.. wasn't plugging in block sized patches of hexagons I'll admit. but I was surprised at how easy it was to swap dots and do it cleanly..

[@CannibalCommunist]

9:32 why didn't you use one you previous cut out and shaped as you wanted as a guide to cut the rest?

[@garethedwards4739]

Looks beautiful!! I love your videos and I love your work 😊 keep it up!!

[@greganderson8374]

How are you going to keep the Silver Inlays from tarnishing and turning dull?

[@mrjefflive]

Nice bandsaw and a stainless Allen key mightve worked out too

[@CrimsonCustomGuitars]

Good point.. that would have been way easier!

[@timstones786]

i would have gone with an allen wrench and just cut it on the bandsaw

[@mctheta]

Those inlays are SIIIIICK! Sick I tell ya!

[@grahamehadden4320]

I've wrecked the neck of my guitar. Where would I be best advised to purchase a new neck. It is a Casio Midi guitar, made on license by Ibanez.

[@JeffGillis1]

Unusually fun and enjoyable.

[@doctormoyer]

Ben, it makes me crazy when you throw your scalpel into your workbench. 1) Don't accidentally hurt yourself. 2) Doesn't that destroy/dull the tip of your blade?!?

[@ConstrutorMusical]

Seems like he haves a rubber mat over the bench

[@desertdog4727]

I was always taught sand with the grain, just wondering why you sanded the whole neck cross grain?

[@gsterneman]

Mainly b/c the frets are in the way. The super right grain of the wood helps minimize the impact.

[@desertdog4727]

@@gsterneman As a furniture designer/maker for 40 plus years I think I know a bit about sanding with the grain in tight places as well as timber with a tight grain

[@Thebrainymonkey]

Re: chainsaw, take a look at Waves’s clarity vx audio plugin

[@robking6975]

Good shout tbh

[@Loooosszeeerrrr123]

Can you make a video how turn a stratocaster into fretless with some white marks to point the frets , PLS!!!

[@Barrygee]

My neighbours chainsaw time is every time I want to go to bed…I’m a night worker and every single day he’s chainsawing, using a wood chipper or playing with his mini digger…it’s been going on for 9 months now, it’s pretty much torture at this point.

[@CrimsonCustomGuitars]

Ouch! Much ouch!!

[@Barrygee]

@@CrimsonCustomGuitars and the worst part is that after 9 months of constant noise and disruption he doesn’t appear to have made any progress whatsoever with whatever he’s doing in his garden…from what I can see he’s just chopping down every tree in sight, digging holes and moving rocks around just because he can

[@DaveDickens]

Great video Ben, thank you. Cheers Dave

[@peterfleming1517]

Scalloped upper frets where the ‘fingers’ have half hex shaped tips would be pretty cool, Ben….

[@pauldowie1399]

Live in Sydney 2012... but Ben never mentioned the band so I had to google it. Well, I'd never have guessed at Taylor Swift... who knew?

[@jefferywarburton2116]

There should be a way that you could lay out the shapes in a line on the material and make repetitive cuts and file work, as your shapes are all the same size and shape. Thus delaying the messing with small bits until later in the work. i.e. shape one on the end then cut it off. Or more like shape them and then cut them apart.♣♣♣♣🎸

[@GregHu77]

You are an artist!!!

[@WoolfordCraftEndeavours]

Good job Bob

[@ianthomson9363]

Excellent work, as always. It looks great.

[@terryloveuk]

Question : Can, or will, your daughter eventually play this guitar, or will she raffle it off to buy a new gaming PC?

[@GroovingDrums]

iirc Bun said he already got a very decent gaming rig (not sure if he mentioned it this year or last year) and I don't think she would even think for one second to raffle/sell the guitar her dad made for her and then started to customize it even further. ;)

[@zeffneeson7599]

People do say stupid things here’s the proof 🙄

[@U014B]

My money's on Ben becoming so enamored/obsessed with it that he keeps it for himself.

[@alexcorona]

At least his a daughter loves him, would hate to be your daughter....

[@sirspongadoodle]

@@alexcorona well thats alot of assuming of someones character based of a youtube comment that was probaly a joke... i would kill my self if i was your daughter.