dpm99

You might look into a kit. Get a new body and a new neck. Then take the electronics out and put them in your new guitar. Painting/finishing would be a lot of work, but maybe your dad could help you. Search ebay for "les paul kit" and similar.

If you were talking about putting a Fender neck on a Squier guitar, it would be much easier. Epiphone/Gibson necks are glued in place. It would be a very difficult project.

Sporky, could you clarify that a little? According to my understanding, it's supposed to function like an antenna. That's how it shields. It gathers the ambient 60 cycle hoobledeegooblee in the air and sends it to the ground. I'm not an electrician, but that's always worked for me. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything to connect it at both ends, of course.

Here's the basic principle. Everything wants to go to ground. If you touch a ground wire to any line, the signal will immediately go to ground. (That's how most kill switches work, by the way.) A shielded wire is really two wires. The wire on the inside carries a signal. The shielding acts as a second wire, and it connects to the ground. That's how shielding works. If any stray interference is in the vicinity of the wire, it will connect with the shielding and get sent immediately to ground, before it ever has a chance to interfere with the signal line. A pickup selector switch deals only with the signal line. It's not typically shielded or grounded, though some might argue that shielding would be helpful. All grounds must connect to the ground on the output jack. Otherwise, they're not grounded. The ground is carried through the output jack, through the cable, through the amp/pedals/whatever, then sent to the electrical ground in the plug. I'm not sure I entirely understand the question, but I hope that helps.

Wait... I'm sorry. You hollowed out a spot underneath the bridge on a solid body electric bass and affixed a piezo to the bottom of the bridge? I've heard of people doing stuff like that before. You say it sounded like an electric bass. Did it sound good?

Ok, I didn't vote for pan kara, but I did want to say that's a freakin' amazing first build! Well done, sir. This was an excellent month.

It is gonna be an Explorer-type? It sounds like you're trying to build something to stand in the place of an acoustic guitar. Am I right? There are many, many cheaper options. I'm sure that bridge you linked to is fine. I'm of the opinion that with these piezo bridges, it's more about how the sound is processed than how the sound is originated, but that may just be me. If you need a lo-pro solution, here's one: http://www.guitarfuel.com/Acoustic_Preamp.php I have one of these in a drawer waiting to be installed, so I can't give a real review, but other products I've ordered from that company have been great.

Just a thought here. It sounds like you plan to replace everything on the guitar except the body, and even that you want to sand down and refinish. And it might just be poplar anyway. Building that kind of body isn't that difficult. The neck is much more difficult that the body, in most cases. So why not just buy some wood and build a whole new guitar? Then you'll have two. Otherwise, go forth and conquer.

It's hard to get information on this topic, but it boils down to this. You're going to at least need a piezo buffer if you want to blend in magnetic pickups. A preamp is better, and you're unlikely to get the sound you want without a preamp. For the piezo pickup itself, you can get those piezo saddles, and I think they're pretty good. But I think it was Pete that several years ago took the element out of a Radio Shack piezo buzzer and stuck it on the tremolo block of a Strat. Supposedly, the results were pretty good.

I have bench envy.

Also, welcome to the forum!

Point taken. That's a pretty great piece of wood. I was just pointing out that you're never going to see perfectly straight lines either on the end grain or along the length of the board. It's turned into a pretty nice neck too. Almost done.

This is about as close as I typically find in the local hardwood store. I used this without laminating. That piece of Bocote cost me about twenty dollars.

That's an excellent question. I used to wonder a lot about species. A good place to start is here: http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Necks/NeckWoodsPop.aspx Anything Warmoth uses is probably gonna be ok. But then you have to pick the right piece. The trick is to get something with straight grain and no defects. Even a small knot can ruin a neck. You have to look carefully. Ideally you want something quartersawn or flatsawn. If you don't know what those terms are, Google them. In short, you want the end grain to be as close to perfectly vertical (quartersawn) or horizontal (flatsawn) as possible. If you find a piece of wood that really, really great, but it's slightly riftsawn, you can always rip it down the middle, flip it over, and glue it back together, so you have the endgrain in a \\\V/// pattern. If you can find something the right size and shape, you might be able to get something as exotic as an East Indian Rosewood neck blank for around $20. Domestics will, of course, be cheaper.

Buying local is best if you know what to look for.