govtmule

Turned out fantastic !! LOVE the color !! I'm a big Paul Gilbert and Racer X fan. I've got to add something like this now to my list of guitars that I'd like to build. Considering my blistering rate of 1 per year I should get to it by 2025.

AMEN brotha !

You sir.....are a fargin icehole I only hope that you had to hit google or wiki to pull all of those song/album titles out. Being a card carrying member of the CCSucksandshouldnotbeallowedtotouchanythingwithstrings Club, it scares me a whole lot that I recognized all of your references.....poop.

I've got so much help from the great people on this forum. It's not much, but hopefully some people can use them.

I just got another care package inlay (dental) bits. Anybody want some ? Shoot me a PM. Steve

Looks great !!

Looks good !! Any pics of your setup to shape the headstock face ? Are you using your Rigid osc. spindle sander ? Steve

Sold. Thanks, Steve

Thanks for the heads-up ! Andy was a great guy to deal with. I think I'm getting exactly what I need from him. Thanks, Steve

I'm a complete inlay noob but need a piece about 1.5" X 1.5" for my first inlay effort. I've looked around the internet and see most places sell it by the ounce. My problem is, never having bought pearl blanks, I really don't know how much to expect to get when buying an ounce and even worse, I don't know how big those pieces will be. So instead of blowing $50 on an ounce of pearl that may or may not give me what I need, I wonder if anyone would be willing to part with 1 or 2 pieces of nice abalone for my first effort. PM me if interested. Thanks, Steve

The ToM is actually offset a bit, weird how the picture sure makes it seem like it's straight. Yes, the E ferrules are close to the ToM but they do not cause the string to rest on the body of the ToM. The hole in the last fret wasn't a fix, I placed the truss rod in that position to split the fret with the spokewheel on purpose. It was an effort to get creative. Using the spokewheel in the place you do makes the most sense and that's what I'll probably do in the future. Thanks for the comments !

Thanks !

It's been done for a little while now and I'm finally getting around to posting the final pictures. I learned a lot while making this one, mainly by trying to recover from my mistakes. Hopefully my guitars will continue to get better but all in all I'm pretty pleased with how it looks and very pleased with how it plays. Final specs: figured walnut top maple back volume/tone with toggle on/off for each pickup Searcy V-90 pickups tom bridge w/string through body birdseye maple neck birdseye maple fretboard from larry at gallery hardwoods bone nut The back: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg229/g...le/IMG_6579.jpg Closeup of the birdseye maple fingerboard: http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg229/g...le/IMG_6587.jpg

Cool, thanks for the tips !

Good idea ! That was my first thought too. To stick with the tuners that I have (gotoh's) and recess just the washer. But I wanted to only recess the washer, no extra around the washer. I couldn't come up with a way to be sure that my forstner bit was centered on a hole that I already drilled. Now after thinking about it a bit more I think I can get it worked out with a fence and my drill press. If not.....I'll just add another layer of veneer ....or maybe not.

I'm by no means a finishing or Tru-Oil expert but this comment confuses me a bit. I'm not arguing, just trying to get more info because I have used Tru-Oil in the past and plan to continue using it and would like to get the best finish that I can with it. You say that 2-4 coats is plenty and to not use too much because it will get gummy if you build too much ? I've seen multiple threads describe applying 20+ coats before buff out to get a good finish. Do you think that's overkill ? I've finished two bodies and two necks in Tru-Oil and have stopped after 5-6 coats because I'm impatient and the guitars were for me. I thought that I would go the extra mile and shoot for the 20 coat range if I ever finished a commission in Tru-Oil.

I really like the way that looks, I may just do that. Thanks Kenny !

Yep, I've spent some time going through this site. I see where it says that the max headstock thickness for 6-in-line is .590" (19/32") for the staggered set. But it makes it sound like the only reason this wouldn't work is because the 2 short posts would fall below the mounting nut. So can I use a 6-in-line staggered set and swap out the two short posts for two mediums ? Exactly. Hopefully I can get a 6-in-line set that is non-staggered. I'm going to call Sperzel. I made a curved clamping caul and since it wasn't dead on, I clamped some thick foam between the veneer and the caul. That worked great to push the veneer down to make good contact everywhere. The crack started in the excess veneer sticking out above the nut when the veneer started to dry out. The piece warped and the crack snuck down into the glued part. Maybe the foam kept me from getting enough clamping pressure to keep it from moving. I got the wood from a guy on eBay. The front piece is from the same piece of veneer as the back piece. The back turned out okay after glue up with no green spots. The only difference between the two sides was that I misted the front veneers with water to bend them into the radius near the nut. I glued it up when it was still damp, maybe I should have waited until it dried. BTW I just got off the phone with Roger from Sperzel and he said that Sperzel tuners in general (or at least the 6-in-line) sets have enough threads to mount on headstocks up to 3/4" thick. BUT the post lengths won't allow for headstocks that thick. He said that there is an "extra long" post that I can request that will clear the face of the headstock but he's afraid that it will be too long and I'll need to use string trees on all 6 strings to keep them seated in the nut. It would be nice (for me) if there was a post size in between this "extra long" one and the longest in the staggered set. Or maybe I should just make my damn headstock right the first time !!

Well, the front didn't turn out as well as the back but it turned out okay I think. There's some weird green spots in the maple and a smallish crack near the nut on the bass side. Now my tuners are too small !! The headstock is 11/16" thick now with the veneers. Can I make Sperzels work on this ? I saw that Sperzels should handle headstocks 11/16" thick but I'm not sure if I need to get all long shafts or some mediums from the staggered set. Any advice out there ? Thanks, Steve

Sure, no problem. Here's a few of the ones that I have. They range from 1" to 1.5" long and from 1/16" to 3/32" shafts. Some are fluted cutters, like the two on the left, and some are diamond tip grinders, like the two on the right. I'm getting them from my orthodontist AND my dentist now.

Well the fix is coming along okay. I've got the two layers of veneer glued onto the back of the headstock, sanded them to shape, and redrilled the tuner holes. The birdseye veneer is obviously a different shade than the birdseye the neck is made from but I think it looks pretty decent with the contrasting shades, especially with the walnut slab in between them. Any opinions ? I think I'm going to have time to glue the walnut veneer on the face of the headstock tonight. I'm nervous to glue on the curved part of the headstock. Hopefully I can get good clamping pressure on that awkward position.

Yep, that's what I did. My guy said that he just sterilizes them and throws them away so if I could get use out of them that he'd save them for me. Sometimes he remembers, sometimes not.

Sorry, I gave away a ton of them and only kept a few for myself. I have my first inlay project coming up soon so I need to keep the ones I have. I'll hit my dentist up again and if he can give me another batch of them then I'll post another message.

I figured this part out last night. The shieding was actually coming into contact with the PUP braided shielding cable when I tucked the wires back into the cavity. I cut away some of the shielding tape from around the hole that the PUP wire comes through and this corrected the problem. I'm guessing that this contact was creating a ground loop, correct ? Sorry for the confusion.....I screwed up my little diagram. I actually already do have the PUP going to the middle and the hot off of one side to the pot. I am however, missing the ground coming off of the other side but it seems to be working fine without it. I was worried about that too so I tried to cover all of the exposed shielding cable with heat shrink tubing. The only parts left exposed were right where the wires came into the cavity....which is where the short, or ground loop, or whatever was occuring. Thanks a lot for your help Pete. I'll add the ground wire from the switches and I think it should be good to go then.

Any help would be much appreciated Pete. I did try and swap the jack wiring and got no sound at all after that so I must have at least the jack wired correct.