Bizman62

I've never even thought about that, the process feels so natural. Also, especially if I've hammered the frets in, the inconsistency of wood may allow the fret wire to sink deeper into some spot, causing a dip in the fret and obviously all frets will have to be leveled to that lowest point. As you seem to fear, that may cause the frets actually having a different radius than the fretboard, and if the radius of the bridge matches with the fingerboard but not with the frets that might be something you could feel. Was it you or someone else who started a discussion about matching radiuses with fretboards and bridges a while ago? Anyhow, the conclusion was that if they don't quite match some may feel playing on such a guitar a bit uncomfortable and others may not notice any difference. If you think about the amount you're actually taking off the crowns of frets when levelling you could calculate the change in radius. Knowing that the amount is very little, the difference is not like comparing a 9.5" radius to 12", it's about thous. If you've radiused your fingerboard to 12" the radius of unleveled frets would actually be about 12.05" if the frets sit level to the board. But what happens if you use a 12" caul on a press? Will the centers be a bit proud off the board or will the edges compress the wood? There's a ton of variables so changing just one may not make any difference.

That's what I meant, Ebay from China aren't among the most relied part makers regarding accuracy, be it the actual woodworking or their product information. Other than that, what @curtisa says.

That sounds as good a plan as any. That said, often plain black can make the shadowing look dirty. Shades found in the wood itself may look more natural. Or something matching the final colour. A mix of purple and black sanded back might give a good start - a couple of years ago I ran out of my "Cherry Red" but mixing "Crimson Red" with black resulted a similar looking table top. The tables are standing side by side but it's hard to tell that they aren't from the same batch. Deep black cherry, that is. Back to the guitar, after sanding back the "dark purple" I might be tempted to apply some plain purple and sand that back as well. And then maybe pink. Or the other way around. Finally you can add some dye into the clearcoat for depth, that purple might work. And maybe another layer with some black potentially mixed with purple for a slight burst. And finally-finally a clearcoat to seal all that. All this is based on what I've read and seen on videos so take the advice with caution!

I've actually de-rusted some files in vinegar, it left them dark similarly to phosporic acid. Actually I may have used 30% vinegar acid but it's only about the amount of acid in water, a weaker solution may lengthen the time required.

Yes, the tray idea was just in case there's not plenty of EvapoRust or any other rust remover. For such a situation flooding a shop towel with the stuff and wrapping it around the object might also work. Maybe using a spray bottle with water to keep the solvent moist for long enough? Just speculating.

So obvious now that you told it! So for the next time, instead of dipping a plane nose first following with the rear, how about using a shallow tray and do the bottom first followed by the sides? Would that order leave marks to the bottom only, sanded away when leveling?

For clarity, you're talking about kit guitars or spare parts, right? A good kit guitar maker should mark the scale length but a sticker or label can easily get lost. Also, mixing parts from various makers can be a hit or miss game. The safest bet assembling a guitar from random parts is to use 'official' spare parts for a certain guitar model. With unbranded parts the only way to find out is to measure. Obviously that's not possible when buying online, not to mention that many Far East vendors seem to copy their marketing material from each other without actually understanding what the terms mean. In your case they might tell that the body is for 21, 22 and 24 fretted neck, not knowing that they should have three different versions for that. If it looks like a Strat, it suits all Strat necks, right? Most likely so. Oh, and welcome to the forum!

I just noticed that question. The answer is no, it was seated on a piece of corrugated cardboard by the threads. That works as insulation rather than heat conductor.

It already is strung up but it still requires some adjusting and rechecking. And I already know what went wrong with the on-the-fly design and I also know how that could be fixed if need be. A neck reset isn't in my near future plans, though... And there'll be a next build...

Yes, I've learned to apply solder to the eyelets first and then melt the solder while pushing the wire through. There may be better methods, I must admit that my soldering sucks. To avoid cold joints I often seem to overheat the object like the abovementioned switches clearly show.

That was taught to me by an electrician, works well especially if you have to desolder some components. The capacitors on PC motherboards can be quite stubborn and tightly fitted, some extra fresh solder on the tip sort of wraps the heat around the old joint.

Would the last one be similar to your situation except the kill switch? One pickup etc. http://artecsound.com/pickups/electronics/wiring/wiring-B04a.jpg. It's for a bass but then only difference is the amount of strings... And would the jack act as an on-off switch to prevent battery draining when not plugged in?

Yes, I know that. That's how the bottom of the switches melted! But a drop on the tip helps spreading the heat to the object.

Most likely not. Here's my take of a set neck guitar, full width neck tenon. Full story here: https://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/50745-started-a-t-type/?do=findComment&comment=584956. The body is only 38 mm thick and there's 17 mm below the neck pocket. As you can see there's no actual heel either. No issues whatsoever. Unlike an LP this one doesn't have a neck break angle. They say that even 10 mm thickness in the neck pocket would suffice but it also depends a bit on the wood. Think of the durability this way: There's similar string pull all along the guitar. Yet scarf joints are commonly used in the narrowest and thinnest part, right before the headstock. Yet there's no complaints about that joint, Gibson headstocks crack on the solid wood section instead and even that requires a shock.

You know how it is when you're that close, you just can't keep your fingers off the almost finished build. Yesterday evening I thought I'd do the the electrickery but the solder wire didn't want to co-operate. I guess the 1 mm solder wire is a bit too thin for this purpose, you just can't get a drop big enough on the tip. Another funny thing with the new wire is that the fumes smell fishy! I mean, like baked sprats in a can - not actually unpleasant but strange in that context. Anyhow, I made a makeshift jig out of cardboard and started soldering the eyelets. The thin wire didn't want to fill them too quickly and when trying to push the wires through them the solder didn't want to re-melt. After melting the bottom of the switch I decided to go to the sauna and continue later. Today I started over and managed to ruin another switch. Fortunately I tend to buy the inexpensive things in dozens so the third attempt succeeded. And it made a sound! But after having screwed the jack and backplate in place, there was no sound. Unscrewed the jack and noticed that the prong for the tip was bent, reshaping that didn't require any rocket scientist skills. But the sound still went on and off so unscrewing the back plate was next on the list. Oh yes, both the bridge pickup and the lead wire on the switch were loose as was one of the ground wires on the pot. This time I used my old solder wire which is a tad thicker. That melted to a nice shiny ball on the tip of the soldering iron which made it easy enough to quickly fix the issues. One thing to ask: How on Earth do you manage to solder all the ground wires on a tiny spot on the pot? I also found a pair of knobs left from my first build a decade ago, pieces of a branch of our plum tree. The holes aren't perfectly centered, at that time I didn't know how to find the center of a cylindrical object. But they fit the theme. She's now alive! There's still things to do, the nut is way too high and the knobs require a finish on them. Next Saturday is Winter Holiday for schools so our course also has a day off. I may or may not do some kitchen table tinkering, let's see...

Almost there! As the only hardware in place was the pickups I decided to apply some of my beeswax-carnauba mix. Wax on, wax off... Then it occurred to me that I should check the state of the frets and noticed that I hadn't levelled them yet. No matter how I turned the adjusting nut I couldn't keep the notched straightedge from rocking. So I put it against a ruler and noticed that the edge wasn't straight! Fortunately a fellow builder had a better one. There's some sticky sandpaper on my shopping list for the next time, the big jointer plane has a trued level table for straightening. After having got the fingerboard straight it was time to apply marker on the frets and start sanding. A few frets were lower than the rest but not too many strokes were needed. The metal filings brushed off easily enough but for crowning I found the slotted steel strip too clumsy so I taped the fretboard and reapplied the marker. After having narrowed the coloured lines with a smooth-edged triangular file - two pairs of +1.5 reading glasses made seeing the almost vanishing line easier! - I did the lazy man's rounding by rolling a piece of wet'n'dry to a flexible loop between my fingers and running it back and forth a few times. And finally it was time to polish the frets with the nail buffer. For this the slotted steel worked but again I noticed that two pieces of tape worked even better. But there was no need to wrap the entire fretboard, two pieces jumped from fret to fret didn't loose their stickability nor did they wear through.

New to me as well, thanks! In Finnish we have an idiom close to that, "perstuntumalla" - literally "by feel of the arse".

Plainly so. A plain plane could easily land on a plane plain, such a roadable aircraft even more so.

Heh, I didn't read the full story, just looked at the pictures. Very little can be found about the company, though.

This might be of interest: https://www.lumberjocks.com/threads/hand-plane-with-no-name-any-idea-what-it-is.62377/ And further: https://timetestedtools.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/quickly-identify-your-hand-plane/ which has further links to brand specific identification. The links for other TimeTestedTools articles don't seem to work as such but using the title in their search engine may reveal interesting results. Plus there's lots more on their site. For the obscurities to potentially help identifying, the frog being held by just one screw seems to be rare. Also the depth adjuster screws being just knurled without grooves is something to look at. This Samson looks surprisingly similar for the details that are visible: https://www.etsy.com/fi-en/listing/1478851183/vintage-samson-8-inch-hand-plane-tool-do. Unfortunately I couldn't find any information about the Samson brand but the light grey paint, the Made In Usa behind the tote and an unbranded blade and no cast brand on the lever cap... What do you think? That said, if it really is a 'Samson', who is the actual maker?

Tell that to the Fretless Wonder players. Crown height .015 to .020 according to https://www.mylespaul.com/threads/fret-wire-for-freless-wonders.78997/post-3165557 That's 0,38 to 0,5 millimetres. That's an obscurity, though. For someone who has played on 'normal' height frets under 0,65 mm may well be unplayable. So if you're re-leveling the n'th time you may consider refretting instead if you're going that low. Oh, and I noticed an error in my previous post: 'Tall' means the height of any fret. 'High* usually means a fret that sits higher than the other ones. Back to your original question, dents on the frets usually look much deeper than what they really are. Same goes for frets sitting too high. I did a fret job for a friend who strongly believed that he'd need a total refretting done, the pictures tell the story: So if you start at some 1,2 mm, then level the high ones and finally level all frets down to the bottom of the scratches you may actually take only some 0,1mm away.

That burst really is nice, it's so subtle that on the photos it's easily mistaken to be a shadow or other lighting related thing over the slanted back or the roundover on the top. A very nice 3D effect indeed.

@JimtheDude by no means being rude but do you really think he still has them after 19 years?

I started by smoothing the top and bottom with the random orbital sander equipped with 400 grit Abranet. The reglued chip from a couple of weeks ago now is level with the rest but as some parts were now almost to bare wood I applied yet another coat of my oil mix. Having the guitar clamped to the workbench by the neck I then started to concentrate to fitting the electrickery while the oil was curing. As I struggled with getting the pickup wires through the hole that quite didn't hit the bridge pickup cavity I took a long 8 mm bit to widen it through the jack hole. And of course the threading of the bit knocked off a few pieces - have I already said that the wood is brittle? Of course most of the pieces were missing so I turned to my trusty old friend, the almighty TonePutty. Surprisingly it still is workable after a decade! Agreed, it was a bit grainy but still good enough for this purpose. The result is at least as strong as the original. As mentioned last weekend the wires of the neck pickup were a tad too short so I soldered some extensions. Not the prettiest but it's hidden and not under stress so there's no risk of the tape peeling off or the joint breaking. And I also remembered the ground wire for the trapeze! The pickups are now in place, spring loaded for height adjustability. And following the theme of reusing things both the black screws and the cables were salvaged from old computers. Even the lilac rag protecting the clamped neck has a history: I bought the sweatshirt from a last item bargain basket back in 1984 using my summer job earnings. The shoulder seams started to finally give up so wearing it made no longer sense. But even this won't be its final job, after it's too ragged to serve as protection or spreading oil it will help keeping me warm one last time in the fireplace. Talk about longevity!

Nice job, looks like you concentrated more into getting a workhorse than a shiny decorative item on the shelf. The almost vertical two streaks on the sides look strange, I had to take another look to assure myself that it's not about a photo being reversed. Do you have any idea what has caused them?