Bizman62

I had a similar issue with the truss rod, in my case I had carved the channel too deep for the truss rod nut. That was fixed by carving all the paper thin wood off and making a plug. In my case it works as there was plenty of empty space, the plug was about 3 mm thick at the thinnest. I also made a groove to match the cylindrical nut so there was even more glueing surface on the sides. If your nut is right on the surface my fix will not work in which case a new neck or at least a scarf jointed piece is the only option. The split near the G tuner on the headstock doesn't look too severe to cause structural issues.

Fully agreed. But I wasn't speaking about tonal difference, I was talking about haptic feedback. That's what I understood Chappers meant by saying that the Gibson was nicer to play, more alive. Take any guitar and paint the neck to see if anything changes. Or rather, for testing purposes put a layer of tape on the neck. Plastic package tape may be even thinner than the Far-Eastern lacquer so you can experiment with several layers to see if there's any change in responsiveness. Again I fully agree. I can't hear any difference in most of the "tonewood" v.s. magnetic pickup tests given that the picking is consistent and the woods have similar properties regarding flexibility and such. You know what I'm talking about! For learning purposes I did listen to what they said. As @curtisa said, they were different instruments with different pickups and hardware, the pickups most likely having the biggest influence in sound and tone so they sounded different despite all the bells and whistles in the pedal board. And they didn't play the same riffs or anything to actually test how they sounded. From what I understood the entire comparison was to find out which of the two was a better guitar, and by better they (to me) seemed to mean playability, feel and overall quality and craftmanship, not sound.

At least on the fretboards they used to use a "conversion varnish" which ages a bit like nitro but is stronger. Later they changed to an even tougher UV cured poly. Can't tell if they used that only on fretboards or all over the guitar. Taken from the link above.

They said that the neck profiles looked like to be of same type, and later they said that the Epi neck felt just that much thicker because of the thick layer of poly. No actual measuring, just feel. Anyhoo, I know about the cloth buried in gloss in JEMs and some other guitars, but: How about the necks? For what I've heard the neck is that vibrates the most which is also logical as it's the longest and thinnest part between the nut and the bridge. There's not much flex in the body, don't you agree? As Chappers said in the vid, he could feel the neck respond. Paisley Teles and JEMs both seem to have a natural neck, although I don't know what they're covered with. A quick search told both clear lacquer and Tung Oil. For sure plain clearcoat is thinner than primer and paint covered with clearcoat! Also, knowing how thin the JEM necks are, I doubt that they would have sacrificed structural integrity by making it even thinner and then coating it with a thick layer of clearcoat to match the thickness requirements of Steve Vai. I got this idea already during my first post: Would wearing a vinyl glove with a lightly protected neck produce a similar feeling to a bare hand on a heavily coated one? The vinyl isn't any thicker than a glosscoat so the dampening of the vibrations might be close enough.

I'm a bit envious about how clean your work looks!

I'm not against either, and I've never used nitro myself... But the thickness of the finish can make a difference. As they said, the neck of the Epi felt chunkier and as they were of the same shape and we're talking about a Les Paul Tribute I would assume that the bare wood measurements are identical. Your comment about the bridges makes sense. There's metal and there's "metal" that look the same when chromed. Yet there's a huge difference between an almost foamy cast thingy and a piece carved of a solid block. My knowledge of metal working is almost zero so I can't tell why some metal objects bend and stretch while others just break leaving a grainy surface looking like frozen sand. But I can guess that one makes nicely ringing bells and the other doesn't.

As they said the finish is different. I can imagine that a quarter inch layer of plasticky polyurethane will dampen the vibrations much more efficiently than a hair thin layer of nitro. I'd even say that having the thick plastic on the neck makes all the difference. I wonder what would happen if they stripped the neck of the Epi and applied just some TruOil instead. My guess is that the neck would feel much more responsive.

There can be an issue with short posts that I think wasn't mentioned in the blog which I admit I read very hastily. I learned it from a Rosa String Works video where the posts on an old guitar were so short that the string hole was level with the headstock. As it's a common habit to wind the strings downwards for added angle the strings were digging into the wood. Of course the shorter posts work perfectly fine on a thinner headstock so it was only a wrong choice for a replacement on that very instrument. And of course that won't be that big an issue with locking tuners as you only wind them half a turn or so. But it's something that you might like to take into account in your plans. The two middle posts aren't most likely too short so I guess you won't get any issues using them. BTW my current build will have the Gotoh 6 in line staggered set which I got as a gift. Let's see how that goes!

Adding to my original post, take a look at the ends of the sticks: The masking tape and the uppermost sticks are for keeping the boards from warping. Zip ties or rope would work as well. @ADFinlayson, according to what I've read you're right about the sticks. At least they have to be of same thickness within a layer. And they have to be vertically aligned. Small variations in width don't matter that much as long as the vertical centerlines match. In your stack I'd put yet another pair of sticks and a piece of plywood or other cheap board on top to spread the weight of the toolbox evenly to the uppermost boards and also allow free airflow on the top layer. A plastic box may trap moisture underneath and cause cupping.

Ahh crap! Oh well, your idea of putting nails inside is pretty good. Problem is that they should be about the right diameter to get the center right which means you'd have to cut the caps off - which in turns means that the capless ends would stick to the bottom of the holes. Here's an idea: Instead of nails use toothpicks with the sharp end just slightly protruding from the holes. Put masking tape to the bottom of the cavity. Don't burnish it, just lightly press it so it stays in place. The toothpicks should dent the tape enough for you to figure out where to make the dents more visible for drilling the holes. Another option is to apply some dye to the tips of the toothpicks to mark the drilling locations. Or maybe the inner wood is soft enough to be dented? Toothpicks are easier to dig out than nails and in the worst case you can drill them smaller with a 1 mm bit after which they should fall out. Oh, and in this case drill the holes a hair closer to the bridge from the mark. The picture still applies.

That's some truly solid piece of furniture board! The inside board alone would cost quite a lot especially now that the price of timber has skyrocketed as a side effect of Covid... There's many ways but I figure one of the easiest ways is to first drill the holes into the body. If you're going to use a metal plate as a four hole washer you can use that as a template. If you're going to use individual (potentially countersunk) washers it's more about looks than accuracy. Just leave enough wood both around the truss rod and the edges. Anyhow... Simply drill the holes into the neck pocket from outside using a hair larger drill bit than the screws are - the screws should slide through without screwing. Then take some thicker screws and screw them in so that only the tips peak out a couple of millimetres. Carefully seat the neck into the right place and when it's properly positioned press it down so that the screw tips mark where the screws are going to be. You can even drill the screwholes on the headstock side of the marks for added tightness, this time using a drill bit smaller than the screws. The diameter inside the thread is the maximum size of the drill bit.

They all were, more or less...

As I mentioned earlier, getting two sets of 3+3 will give you one "normal" and one reverse set of 4+2 's. Obviously not staggered but as the blog said it may not be as good an option as it first sounds.

Continuing my previous post... As may or may not have made clear, there's two ways to get a low action while still having a tall bridge. Either you raise the entire neck with a flat shim or you install the neck at an angle. For changing the neck break angle you can add washers into the neck pocket for the two screws at the very end of the neck heel. As the screw holes in the body should already be larger than the diameter of the screws no extra drilling is needed. Raising 1 mm below the 21st fret will allow the bridge to be raised about 1.4 mm for the same action.

That would work, but getting the same looks and quality may be difficult. Again, the 4+2 basically solves the main issue of a 6 in line and the rest can be addressed by a little thicker fingerboard which raises the nut a bit. Fender uses ridiculously thin fretboards (5 mm) compared to many (1/4" or 6.35 mm) so adding the 1.5 mm needed won't look strange at all.

Before getting any staggered tuners, read this: https://hazeguitars.com/blog/rant-this-time-its-staggered-height-tuners Also, if you're going for a MM 4+2 configuration, there may not be any staggered tuners available. Installing a tuner backwards is possible and it will work but there's a difference whether the string pulls the capstan pulls the gear off the worm gear or pulls it tighter. That may cause extra wear and lead to poor tuning stability.

The need of a string tree for G and D strings depends on several variables, one of which is the aforementioned headstock dip. A deeper carved headstock obviously increases the string break angle with the cost of weakness in the volute area if the dip is too deep. A millimetre deeper can radically change the angle! Another way to increase the break angle is to use a taller nut which obviously also requires taller frets for a low enough action. A thicker fretboard also increases the break angle. Deeper slots in the nut also prevent the strings from slipping off when bending but there's other caveats in that approach. Yet another option to get rid of string trees is the tuners: At least Gotoh make staggered-height six-in-line sets where the length of the posts decreases towards the end of the headstock. The height varies in pairs with a 1.5 mm step to the next height. That makes a whopping 3 mm difference between the E strings. And for the middle two the difference is only 1.5 mm which shouldn't weaken the headstock in any way. All that said I'd use the staggered tuners to fix an issue with an existing guitar. For a new build I'd just carve the headstock 1.5 mm deeper and use standard tuners without string trees - and do it 4+2 for a bigger break angle.

For some reason this made me think about the girl sitting in front of me at middle school, aged 15...

Hi and welcome! As @mistermikev said going too deep with the headstock will weaken the transition. Actually the 4/2 construction needs less depth than a Fender style 6 in a row. If you look at any guitar of that type you'll notice that the string closest to the nut has the steepest angle. Bringing the two farthermost tuners closer to the nut will steepen their string angles, making the nut contact stronger. Thus you'd only need a string tree for the two middle strings, if any. Now that you made me think and wordify my thoughts I feel an urge to build that sort of a neck myself! Or two! As inexpensive 4+2 tuner sets may be hard to find, using two sets of 3+3 tuners should do the trick for one normal and one reversed headstock!

After having seen the animal video my first thought was that some sort of gopher had stored some food in your box for a rainy day.

That's some seriously beautiful timber you've got there! A natural finish is definitely a good option, although @Drak widened my perspective in one of his builds called Beryl. Natural or supernatural, that's the question...

Congrats for a win well earned! The competition sure was tough.

Hello and welcome! As @mistermikev said a shim is what you need. A simple flat shim might be enough to lower the action and still allow you to raise the bridge so the bridge screws won't rip your wrist. Hardwood is the most often used material but for testing purposes you can choose other solid materials as well. Perspex, aluminium etc. are available as perfectly flat in various thicknesses, pieces of soda cans can be used for fine adjusting. Just make sure that the screw holes are wider than the screw diameter so they don't grab! The common consensus seems to be that a piece filling the bottom of the neck pocket is best for the sound and sustain although even big name guitars have had models with a tilt screw. If a flat piece can't fix your action, tilting the neck will. Finally, when you've got the action as low as possible you can file the bottom side of the bridge screws if still needed.

One option - given that you'll have a bolt-on neck - is to install a piezo pickup into the neck pocket.

Many of us have various pieces of guitar building wood - tops, fretboards, necks and bodies - stored on some shelf. It has happened that when you finally want to build something out of them especially the thin ones may have warped, potentially beyond being usable. Here's a simple solution. A bunch of slats and some masking tape will keep air flowing around the pieces. If needed, a level board with some weight on it will further ensure the stability.