Donut Man

I've seen a few bridges which have the wider mounting holes (which would fit the predrilled allparts body I'm using) but has a thinner 54mm spacing - would one of those work?

I've tried sticking a shim in, which helped but it's still not perfect - doesn't seem like the pocket is wide enough to get it to the correct alignment?

I just strung up the strat I'm putting together to check alignment/action and I'm having some string alignment issues - the E string is practically hanging off the fretboard above the 12th fret. Here are some pictures to illustrate the problem: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/867382/Ebay/strat%20%281%29.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/867382/Ebay/strat%20%282%29.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/867382/Ebay/strat%20%283%29.JPG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/867382/Ebay/strat%20%284%29.JPG I've got very little experience with setup, but presumably it has to be either: 1. Nut alignment (which, as you can see, I've messed with to no avail) 2. Neck alignment - maybe a shim between the neck and the side of the pocket on the treble side? 3. Bridge alignment - is there anything I can actually change about this? Any ideas would be much appreciated!

On a different note - what pickguard do you think would look the best? I was considering a white pearl one?

Yeah that's what I thought as well. I'm not sure what the correct positioning is as it doesn't really look like the pickguard follows the shape of the body exactly.

Actually, I was wrong - I have a pickguard that used to be fitted to my old MIM strat (which I don't have anymore) It doesn't quite look right though...

I've got this flame top allparts body I'm trying to fit a pickguard to. I've not got a pickguard to hand to mess about with to check alignment etc - can anybody with a good eye tell me what sort I might need? The problem is that the body isn't exactly strat shaped, I think, but I can't be sure, because again, I don't have an actual strat to compare it to. Thanks!

The paint is flaking off all over the place and in some areas it comes off very easily just under the fingernails. Do you reckon it's possible to just peel/scrape a lot of it off and then sand the rest? The paint certainly seems a lot more brittle than the stuff I've seen in the past.

I've noticed that on my Warwick there is a noticeable gap between the nut and the end of the fretboard. I hope this is due to the nut being removed and reattached incorrectly and not due to the fretboard shrinking or something? What course of action do you guys advise to fix this? Thanks!

I think it's probably the factory finish. I plan on just stripping it down and oil/waxing it. The bass in question is a Warwick Thumb, as you can see the back of the neck has already been stripped by the previous owner:

I've just bought a bass which has a gloss black (polyurethane, I think) finish. What's the best way to remove the finish? I've read that stuff like Nitromors will also affect the glue joins and the wood itself (It's multi laminate wenge/bubinga neck through). Does this mean I'll just have to apply good old fashioned elbow grease with sandpaper/scrapers? It's got a carved top and back too, which means it'll be difficult to use power sanders, I imagine. Any advice would be appreciated! Cheers!

That sounds good. How would I go about doing that?

I picked up an ESP 7 string today and the previous owner had filled in what was presumably a ding with some non-matching paint: It only seems to be noticeable under certain lighting conditions. Is there anything short of sanding the whole guitar down and refinishing that I can do?

I used to have a 24.75" scale 7 string Les Paul. The B was alright, I just had to use a .68 on it.

That guy makes it look way to easy. I guess having decent templates makes all the routing easy, that and the soothing music.

Hey guys, I'm planning on doing a few more projects this summer and I reckon I need a few more pieces of kit. I currently have: 10" bandsaw (Just got a new blade and it cuts bodies fine and should do necks too - not very good for tight curves though) Benchtop drill press Cheap 1200w router - Routing neck pockets and cavities. Small Bosch 1/2hp router - I'll probably use this for binding and stuff Small hand held belt sander - I've mainly used this for body side sanding and rough neck shaping Rasps/Scrapers/Chisels Spokeshave, Stanley block plane and no.4 Plane with honing guide I'm thinking of doing the following: Get some of those carpenters pliers and grinding them down into fret cutters Making a hand held fret press (ala Setch/Woodenspoke) True up my cheap no.4 Plane and sharpen the blades Build a shooting board Buy a larger plane for straightening up roughsawn wood Buy a new rasp that actually cuts at a reasonable speed (Buy a Japanese pullsaw for cutting scarf joints) Any comments/suggestions? I want to be able to build stuff mostly from roughsawn wood straight from the timberyard , ie. do jointing by hand. Is a shooting board necessary for this kind of stuff? It looks kind of useful for tops. Also, anybody got any tips for buying planes? I've read everywhere that the old Stanley planed are good. What should I look for when buying a used plane? I mean, as long as it's not pitted and all the bits are there can it usually be restored?

Hey guys, I'm planning on making a footswitch for my ENGL Screamer, but It seems a little complicated. There is a standard jack for the channel switching footswitch, and the standard ENGL basically just has two switches with LEDs on. For footswitch no. 1, the left one controls hi/lo gain and the right one controls Clean/Lead. And that gets you the Clean, Crunch, Soft Lead and Heavy Lead sounds with the respective combinations. What I want to hopefully do is having 4 buttons in one pedal that will let me access all of those sounds with only one movement per sound. So basically, instead of having to press both switches to get the "Heavy Lead" sound, I'd like to be able to just use one. ENGL already make a footswitch that does exactly what I want, but it costs about £150, looks like this: And the problem I have with the ENGL one is that it connects using a proprietary connection, which makes it useless for all other amps Anyone happen to have a circuit diagram for something like that? (Ignore the two buttons on the right, those connect to the other jack, and control the A/B volume and the reverb)? EDIT: I've found a schematic for the Z5, but it's full of logic stuff, is it possible to replicate the function of the first 4 buttons in a more simple way?

I'm not confident enough with my fretting skills to do a refret. Is there any way to un-warp the neck with clamping or anything like that?

This is a problem that's been bothering me for a while: I had a look at the relief on my Jazz, and I found that the treble side had slightly less than the bass side. This means that when I set the action very low there is more buzz on the D/G strings. Not really a huge problem, but I think the simple fact that the neck isn't uniformly curved is bothering me. I am pretty sure it's stable, since I even started using a set of strings with a heavier E and lighter G (Billy Sheehan Rotosounds), and the neck hasn't moved at all. Is there any way I can fix it without removing the fretboard or doing anything too drastic? I'm probably going to level the frets the next time I restring it, which should fix the action problem, but I'd like to get the neck straight.

Whereabouts are you then? I'm in Sheffield so Craft Supplies is only about 20 mins drive away. They looked like they were running low on body and neck blanks last time I went though.

The guy on the PG tutorials steamed off an Ibanez board without any problems. http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/removal.htm Floral Pattern JEMs are Japanese made, as is your RG7421. I doubt they would use different types of glue for fretboards in the same factory.

Can you take a picture of it next to a full sized Les Paul for comparison? I think this is the first and only time I will ever use "cute" to describe a guitar.

My school just bought one of the really big ones. And I had to use it for a gig at school. There were about 10 bands playing and they insisted we all used the same gear. I don't have a half stack or anything, but my little Ashdown valve combo could totally kill it in terms of volume and tone. I'm sure there are loads of decent amps you could get for around £600, like a used ENGL Fireball or a 5150/6505 or something? I'm gonna do some more experiments tomorrow with tension adjustments and stuff, I think I can get this thing cutting close enough to perfect, at least for bodies. I'm not sure how it does tight corners, ie horns, but I guess I could just always to multiple passes from different angles.

But you have a MG! It's OK Neil, I'm sure PG is alot more forgiving than UG I did some test cuts on some Maple and some Sapele with both curved and straight cuts to simulate bodies and necks, It cuts reasonably perpendicular, not perfect but I havn't tried adjusting it yet. Certainly beats the old Jigsaw.

I've been getting that too, but then I realise how much work is involved, and it cures it for a little bit. So it's easier than GAS, which is only dependant on how much cash you have . You mean to tell you can spend £400 towards a bandsaw but you can't afford wood to put through it