Logical Frank

Those G&L Bridges are awesome. They have them on the Tribute ASATs too (what I have). It is a nice big sturdy piece of metal and that guitar sustains and sounds better unplugged than any solid body I own. I have a dirt cheap top-loader on my first project body and it sounds good too but comparing it to the ASAT bridge really makes you appreciate the ASAT. Now that I know that the body I built actually functions (first build, remember), I am probably going to drop the cash for that nice Shaller bridge up there. If nothing else, it will let me experiment and figure out what string spacing I prefer.

Ahhh... Great. As far as why I want to change it to this particular model, the reason is over the years sweat from my hands have actually begun to to weaken the wood around the current posts and it has started taking a serious toll on its tone. (I know oftentimes one of the posts will have a little wiggle to it to fit the bridge but this is definitely well beyond that--and both posts.) I figured I would either have to dowel it and redrill or just go w/ these w/ the wider posts, which seemed simpler. I also didn't realize that there weren't more manufacturers making them than Gotoh and some no-names. I might just have to order some mahogany dowels in light of that...

Well--I was definitely hoping the tailpiece was grounded since that makes life that much easier since I don't intent to replace that. This is the kind of TOM I'm talking about: The only reason I mentioned the wood filler was it's mentioned in the link above for installing this type of bridge. It seems to me like wood glue or something would be better.

It is surprisingly easy to get a guitar w/ that kind of a range. Honestly, if you have a good clean sound, the amps (and whatever pedals) you might can do the heavy lifting as far as distorted sounds. You really can't go wrong w/ a pair of humbuckers. Get something a little bit hotter for the bridge and then something lower output and vintage sounding in the neck. Go w/ a Les Paul style 2 vol/2 tone setup and there you go: a world of sounds in one instrument. If you really want to go nuts, add some coil taps or some series/parallel switches and then you will have more than you know what to do w/.

OK. So this is the best guide I've found and it's not really clear to me. What I want to do is replace a Nashville style TOM w/ one of the ones w/ the large posts that that you can adjust w/ a screwdriver. Do I just need to remove the old threaded posts, drill out the holes, glop a bit of wood filler in there and then shove the bushings in? Also, where is the bridge ground on a Gibson SG (faded special if that matters), to one of the bridge posts or two one of the bushings for the stop bar? Thanks!

I made the routs in mine about equal to the depth of the pickup itself. This means that once you have the little pads in there, you can't quite get them at the same level as the guitar top w/ the screws tightened all the way. For what it's worth, I am happy w/ the range of motion I got and was able to find a nice sweet spot for both of the pickups.

Couldn't you just use a smaller router bit?

I guess you could. It would be tough though. I just bought a blank off eBay and noticed that very frequently routed bodies actually cost less than blanks.

If you have an eBay account, go through the initial steps of putting it up for auction and at the point where you set the starting bid, it will alloy you to search past auctions for free and then cancel out before you actually put it up for sale. (I think you can also pay to be able to do this w/o the hassle.) You might be able to find something in a similar condition and see what it sold for. Right now that G-word on the headstock is getting pretty expensive even for the less desirable years so I have a feeling you'll do pretty well. Good luck!

It's the simplest thing in the world. Just connect the one lead on the switch to the middle lead on the volume pot and the other to the ground. That will bypass all the electronics in the guitar when it's depressed.

250K will actually give you a darker sound, that is why they tend to be used w/ single coils which are generally brighter than humbuckers (which use 500K). When in doubt, I say you can't go wrong w/ 500K though honestly I've used the "wrong" value a couple times and never really found it problematical tone-wise.

On my last build I put the p90 in the neck so the top of the pickup is about a centimeter from the neck (approximately where a tele neck pickup is). It sounds fantastic there but I suppose I don't have much of a basis of comparison. Be wary of putting the bridge pickup too close to the bridge. When in doubt, move it further away. If it's too close to the bridge, the low strings will sound tinny and awful.

And if it's too shallow, you can cut off part of the foam pads. I can't remember how deep exactly I made mine but I put them so that if the foam pad was completely squished down, the top of the pickup was just a little above the top of the pickguard. From there, I can get it to about the same height as the fingerboard or a little less, which is plenty of adjustment on my tele-style.

Guitar Fetish just picks up overrun and discontinued stuff it seems. They are kind of the Big Lots of guitar parts. I bet that those necks were made for OLP guitars, which means they are pretty good. I like the Fender-style head myself but it changes the whole feel of the guitar to something more tele-like, which maybe is what you guys don't like.

Actually, reading through the copyright office's website I get this under examples of copyrightable material: "Weaving designs, lace designs, tapestries" I don't really see how that is much different than a distinctive paint job so maybe you can copyright it after all. Still--I kind of think it's by nature a trademark like Eddie's stripes or Zachckkkchk's bullseye. But that might be not legal. Quick, fetch me a lawyer! We'll straighten this out.... (And you're from Australia. Man, my head really wasn't in this discussion.)