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My First Guitar - 8 String


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Well, I sadly don't have an amp right now, so I can't tell you how it sounds yet.... :D Thanks again everyone for the compliments....It was a year and a half in the making and just slapping the strings on her gave me a smile ear to ear.

Goth - I used the .175 bridge. The slab of birdeye as the fretboard is pretty thick so i wanted to make sure i was going to have string clearance.

I've also taken the nut out and replaced it with another one. The low F# just would not intonate. I should have figured that with the 25.5 scale length, but that's the way it goes. I'm slotting the new nut to accept the high A instead of the low F#. The cut on the original one just didn't look good with the low B in the F# slot.

I'm going to post more pics, a sound clip and a video clip as soon as I an amp. I just bought my new head today, so I'm shopping for a cabinet now.

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travis this was covered earlier in the thread. "standard" 8 string tuning is F# to E (F#, B, E, A , D, G, B, e) but brian switched it to accept a High A, just a tip for the future read through before posting, other then that welcome to the forum.

also brian, what is your string spacing at the nut and 24? I figured with my measurements its going to be about 2" @ the nut on mine.

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I'm heading back to the shop on Wedneday so I can grab the spacing for ya then Goth! :D I'll get the exact measurements for the nut width and base width too as i've received a couple of PM's about it.

I had a hand injury a long time ago that makes my hand cramp really fast if i use really heavy strings (like 10's and up) so I actually use ultralights (8's). The high E on the 8 string is an 8 and so is the high 8, just with more tension.

I received my nut and fretting files last night so i can try to get the high spots out of the frets. I'm hoping to have everything done inside of 2 weeks. I'm also considering re-fretting the whole neck as well with the jumbo fretwire i received from Stew Mac. The fretwire I received from my local store which was supposed to be "jumbo" sure isn't and now I'm sure i'd rather have that size one. Besides, 5 of my frets lifted pretty hard.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Unfortunately I STILL haven't had a chance to do work on this guitar. I've been in the process of moving between apartments, working and commuting 2 hours each way until the end of May. It's killing me because i'm right on the finish line, and I just can't cross the stupid thing......grr.....

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  • 4 months later...

I finally finished everything on the guitar that I wanted to do. Here's the headstock inlay. I picked up a .60 string recently and restrung it back to F#. It's a little on the floppy side, but not too bad, and it actually intonates. When i get the courage to show my playing, I'll make a vid on the webcam.

DSCN0573.jpg

Edited by Canuck Brian
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  • 1 month later...

Really? Wow. That's scary because I'm building my own 8-string over a 30" scale and I thought a 0.060 would be more than adequate!!

The guy from Blackmachine uses a .080 on his 30" 8 stringer. I'm looking into building an 8 in the near future, so if you use the .060 let us know how it works out. .080 might be overkill, but I hate floppy wound strings because I play with a heavy attack on the pick hand.

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the 60 could stand to be a little tighter, but I use really light strings on my 6's, 7's and the 8 that the 60 is just about right. I use a 54 as my low B on my two Ibanez 7's (for the past 10 years) and i've got no issues with it....

I tried playing some of the newer Meshuggah stuff with the low F# and it's decent. I mainly use it to extend scales...

I finally got my webcam working properly, but i can't find the bloody software to do a video recording! Logitech doens't allow for the software that I used to be downloaded so i'm in a spot of trouble with that.

As for being bald, i hadn't shaved my head in a while. I used to have about 2 feet worth of hair, but after burning the tips off while smoking (since quit) or getting it stuck in the car windows, i said the hell with it and shaved it off. :D

Here's me playing the geetur at a live show on Halloween!

DCOctober29-BOZ1.jpg

Edited by Canuck Brian
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Excellent :-D

I quit smoking the day prior to the US starting up (Sept 10th) and haven't looked back. Burning your hair smoking makes you kick yourself even harder than ruining your health does! Also, smoking a cigarette filter-first because you're drunk does that. Anyway.

You should find that there are other pieces of recording software that can use your webcam as a USB video recording device.

How's the tonal balance across the range? I've got a bit of play left on the width of the pickup and I was wondering whether angling might still be a possibility....

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