mukluk Posted June 15, 2009 Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 I am planning on making a pre-lawsuit ESP Explorer. I have all the plans done in full scale drawing on large sized paper. Mahogany body Maple neck Ebony fretboard (24 3/4" scale, 12" radius) Earvana Compensated Nut White body and Black hardware Emg 81 and 85 pickups 2 vol, 1 toggle and master tone Sperzel locking tuners Set neck Just have a few questions before i start cutting, this is my first build and i figured i would post questions here and then document my guitar build. 1. What size of a body blank should i get that would fit an explorer? (i am not opposed to using scrap from the same blank to make wings for the body, although i would rather 1 solid piece with no joints) 2. What size of a neck blank should i get? Pretty much asking this because of the hockey stick shape headstock. Also 1 solid piece of wood, or 3 pieces laminated? Stack up scrap to make a heel? 3. I also would like some opinions on the Earvana Compensated Nuts and Sperzel locking tuners, anyone who use these that like them/don't like them? If not, any recommendations? Any help would be much appreciated, hope to be able to get this project started by the weekend! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avengers63 Posted June 15, 2009 Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 1. What size of a body blank should i get that would fit an explorer? (i am not opposed to using scrap from the same blank to make wings for the body, although i would rather 1 solid piece with no joints) Good luck finding a 1-piece mahogany blank for an explorer. Normal stock is 2" thick. If you're painting it anyway, there are actually some advantages to having a multi-piece body. 2. What size of a neck blank should i get? Pretty much asking this because of the hockey stick shape headstock. Also 1 solid piece of wood, or 3 pieces laminated? Stack up scrap to make a heel? Multi-piece blanks have some structural stability that one-piece blanks do not. That being said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a 1-piece blank, so long as the wood is dry, stable, and straight-grained. The normal blank is +/- 30"x3"x1". If you wanted the heel & tiltback without gluing extra thickness, look for a 2-2.5" thick blank. 3. I also would like some opinions on the Earvana Compensated Nuts and Sperzel locking tuners, anyone who use these that like them/don't like them? If not, any recommendations? I got nothing for that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ae3 Posted June 15, 2009 Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 3. I also would like some opinions on the Earvana Compensated Nuts and Sperzel locking tuners, anyone who use these that like them/don't like them? If not, any recommendations? The gotoh locking tuners I have on my ESP stay in tune a lot better than the sperzels. They lock from the top of the tuner; they don't have a locking wheel on the back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mukluk Posted June 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 Multi-piece blanks have some structural stability that one-piece blanks do not. That being said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a 1-piece blank, so long as the wood is dry, stable, and straight-grained. The normal blank is +/- 30"x3"x1". If you wanted the heel & tiltback without gluing extra thickness, look for a 2-2.5" thick blank. I take it this is enough width for the whole headstock? The gotoh locking tuners I have on my ESP stay in tune a lot better than the sperzels. They lock from the top of the tuner; they don't have a locking wheel on the back. The Gotoh tuners are the ones with the 16:1 gear ratio right? I will look into those if they are around the same price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avengers63 Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 I take it this is enough width for the whole headstock? Probably not. It wouldn't be that hard to add some width from some cutoff. Either that or go to your local shop and meacure the width of the headstock and make that the width of the blank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 I'm sorry to disagree,but the sperzels are much better than the gotohs in my opinion...the gotohs are difficult to unlock...the sperzels are a breeze. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrkIncGuitars Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 Plant Waves makes the best locking tuners I believe, but I would go with Sperzels over Gotohs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RestorationAD Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 +1 Sperzels are the best and lightest. Schallers and Planet waves are really heavy so you have to be careful with the balance of the guitar. The Gotohs are ok... but sperzels are still lighter and nicer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VesQ Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 1. What size of a body blank should i get that would fit an explorer? (i am not opposed to using scrap from the same blank to make wings for the body, although i would rather 1 solid piece with no joints) Body blank I use for my explorer is 12" wide 37" long. I´m making the body out of two pieces Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 (edited) Moro, VesQ! That's a big ol' blank you have there....perhaps a little uneconomical in terms of wastage? For my recent EXP clone (well, not that recent in that the body was started in 2006/2007) I used a pair of blanks measuring something like 60cm x 28cm, with waste being added onto the leading wings and tips. I never used One blank set (ho ho ho) as I had purchased a few hundred pounds (£ not lb) of mahogany and had loads of scraps laying around to make up the size of the body, especially as 60cm could have been economised to under 55cm by offsetting each central "half". At that point I also stupidly made the body thickthickthick instead of the more slender 38mm which I ended up with. I believed that a thick instrument sounded better at that point in my naivety. That said, having left this overly thick multiple piece body to move and dry further over around two years has helped in terms of leeway when trueing the faces flat. The resulting blank was great and I can't see any joins surfacing through the white coat despite this weeks swings in temperature and humidity. For the neck, I used a 5cm thick blank and cut the headstock scarf piece out from "underneath" the neck when I was cutting the side profile. Since the wood I used was so thick to start out with, there was no need to "top up" the depth of the heel. Acoustic builders make heels deeper by stacking waste a lot, and there's nothing wrong with that. Opinion goes either was on whether heels are actually necessary in electric set neck builds - certainly, they aren't mechanically essential like an acoustic dovetail mortice/tenon, although I myself do think that a set neck with a smooth transition between the neck/body is sweet. Anyway. The scarf piece was also joined to make it wider and I angled it in the direction of the tuners to avoid short grain. Overall, the neck blank was circa 60cm long and 7cm wide, at least making it a more economical proposition than the body was! Tuners....i've never considered locking tuners on any of my offset instruments (Thunderbirds, Explorers, A-10s, etc) on the basis that the balance is more neck heavy and the extra weight on the headstock was not an option. No wayski. Rotomatics on my A-10s were bad enough! I'm using a lot of Wilkinson tuners these days, as they're affordable and do the job very well. Not as well as a premium set of Gotohs, Schallers, Planet Waves or Sperzels etc. but more than adequate if you set up the instrument well, stretch new strings properly and don't leave too many windings on the post. +1 to RestorationAD on that one. I use Corian for my nuts as I have a habit of using zero frets and simple guiding nuts beyond that, although i've deviated from that somewhat recently by using a roller nut. Anyway. Since I wanted to try and be as "traditional" as possible without changing the nature of the instrument I was aiming for, I am using a piece of white Corian for the nut. I'm not actually sure what the ESPs used, whether plastic or bone etc. but Corian is easy to work and doesn't bind up easily. I have no experience of Earvana nuts, as the only compensated systems I have used are Buzz Feiten'ed up Washburn acoustics. They seem okay. Pickups....i've never been too much of a fan of the EMG-85s as they are higher output than 81s, and are usually found in the neck position! Crazy. I very much like the sound of EMG-60s in the neck position, and have decided on this 81/60 combo for mine. Some people use 81/81 combinations, but again, it would mean the neck pickup would be somewhat louder than the bridge position. No hard and fast rules exist here, just what I feel works better for me. If you have the option of playing around with these combinations (quick connectors are fantastic) then do so by all means. Fingerboard....I used a cheap-ass piece of East Indian Rosewood, which I have "ebonised" with Fiebings Leather Dye. I had access to ebony, although I was perhaps concerned that the resulting sound would be somewhat lifeless from combining a "dark" neck and body wood along with a "cold" fingerboard wood. No basis for this opinion, but I had the option and took it as I had the opportunity to do so - this is not to say your combination won't be a fine one of course! Truss-rod....any idea on what you're using on this? I think that the EXPs used compression rods, which it seems makes for a more lively and resonant neck according to recent discussion on here. As I haven't used that type of rod before, I opted for a "safer" although perhaps less satisfactory dual-action rod from LMII. Apologies for the constant swinging between tenses. The EXP I am building ("Lumi") isn't 100% completed yet, although i'm sure i'll get it sorted soon enough. Best of luck for this one - it sounds like you are approaching this properly by doing your planning well. You should be able to make confident decisions and solid steps in that respect. Edited June 16, 2009 by Prostheta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 Oh yes - hopefully this collection of EXP images may help you in your work? http://www.prostheta.com/guitars/exp.zip Incidentally, "exps_015.jpg" is the original shape MX-220/MX-250, or the "Metallica Explorer, costing 220/250,000 Yen. The JH-2 is the more "modern" streamlined shape IIRC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mukluk Posted June 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 Did i mention how dead sexy you are for that long post? Pickups....i've never been too much of a fan of the EMG-85s as they are higher output than 81s, and are usually found in the neck position! Crazy. I very much like the sound of EMG-60s in the neck position, and have decided on this 81/60 combo for mine. Some people use 81/81 combinations, but again, it would mean the neck pickup would be somewhat louder than the bridge position. No hard and fast rules exist here, just what I feel works better for me. If you have the option of playing around with these combinations (quick connectors are fantastic) then do so by all means. Are the 60s good with solos? i had heard they weren't too great for solos compared to the 85, but better at getting cleans than the 85. Do you have a preference between 60s and 85s for solos and/or cleans or is it just based on volume changes? Truss-rod....any idea on what you're using on this? I think that the EXPs used compression rods, which it seems makes for a more lively and resonant neck according to recent discussion on here. As I haven't used that type of rod before, I opted for a "safer" although perhaps less satisfactory dual-action rod from LMII. I had seen on ESP's website that all their guitars use the dual-action truss rods, so i figured i would just go with that. Doesn't hurt that there's lots of instructions on how to install one of these. The scarf piece was also joined to make it wider and I angled it in the direction of the tuners to avoid short grain. Overall, the neck blank was circa 60cm long and 7cm wide, at least making it a more economical proposition than the body was! I am relatively new to woodworking... i understand the whole scarf joint idea, but could you link me to some information on short grain (pictures of)? Needless to say i am having trouble picturing your scarf joint angled like you put it, I don't suppose you have a picture or diagram of this. As for the set of pictures showing different spots on explorers, they are very helpful. Do you have any plans from when you made your explorer neck/headstock (side view/top view) that you can scan or something? I will take any of you old plans for your exp, might as well make mine better haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 16, 2009 Report Share Posted June 16, 2009 (edited) No worries. Short grain is where the grain direction of the wood creates a weak point through two shortest points. A common issue with Les Pauls is their general lack of utilisation of scarfed headstocks in their angled heads resulting in: ...basically, the grain is more or less parallel to the direction of the neck. The headstocks are angled at ~13° so the grain direction then "runs out" at 13° with respect to the face of the headstock causing a greater potential for splitting of the wood along the grain. Straight-grained wood is a must for guitar building. I preëmpted this in the headstock of my EXP by altering the direction of the grain in the seperate scarfed piece by 13° to allow for the tiltback of the headstock and also rotated the grain by ~35° (not measured this) to run parallel to the tuners. You kind of get this change in grain direction: Probably not as vital as the tiltback issue, but still better practice than as not. Plus it's economical on wood! Otherwise, just go with the usual tutorials on scarfed headstocks of which there should be plenty of examples on here. Oh yes - I prefer 60s as 85s are too full-on for solos. I prefer not to hammer amps even though I love thrash! I made all my templates from traces off my LTD EXP-200 and altered them to suit a set neck instrument as opposed to a bolt-on. Just the neck and body join essentially. Edited June 16, 2009 by Prostheta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mukluk Posted June 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 Where is the neck joint? 18th fret right? Also, how thick is the headstock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 21, 2009 Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 About 13mm thick on mine - my LTD EXP is 14.5mm, although a lot of that will be paint I bet. The bit where the body butts up with the heel block, and where the curve of the body meets the parallel of the fretboard edges is around the 19th fret. These were guesses from the photos I have of ESP EXPs but realistically it's only a good guideline. I'm sure that the template I made from my bolt-on LTD EXP introduced variations by the nature of it's neck joint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mukluk Posted June 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2009 (edited) About 13mm thick on mine - my LTD EXP is 14.5mm, although a lot of that will be paint I bet. The bit where the body butts up with the heel block, and where the curve of the body meets the parallel of the fretboard edges is around the 19th fret. These were guesses from the photos I have of ESP EXPs but realistically it's only a good guideline. I'm sure that the template I made from my bolt-on LTD EXP introduced variations by the nature of it's neck joint. Alrighty, thanks for you speedy reply To be honest i just wanted to make sure the tuners would fit, so i will wait to do any cutting until i actually have the tuners with me. Just out of curiosity at the does it matter if the headstock scarf joint is below instead of above the rest of the neck (strange wording, but i can't find any other way to express it haha)? I had read in Melvyn Hiscock's book that if the scarf joint is above it sometimes makes the first 1-3ish frets buzz from time to time...got any insight to this? I also figure it would make getting the top of the neck nice and flat with the scarf on the bottom. Either way, do you have any techniques to getting the top of the neck nice and flat before gluing on the fretboard? Edit: I just remembered some other things i was not 100% on. First, the neck tenon should go right under the neck pickups right (do you remember how thick/wide/long your tenon was by chance)? Second, where would you say i should start the truss rod channel? Thanks again man. Edited June 21, 2009 by mukluk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 22, 2009 Report Share Posted June 22, 2009 Yeah, that's the best bet. I measure the thinnest that the tuners I use can go to, especially as I have the dirty habit of recessing the bushings every once in a while. That way you can save yourself the hassle of potentially having to rethickness the headstock when it's glued to a huge unwieldy instrument like an Explorer (cough - never made that mistake, honest). I think for the scarf, it really doesn't matter as either way avoids short grain. I scarf my necks so that the join is parallel to the bottom of the headstock piece as opposed to parallel to the neck at the bottom of the neck piece, and even then I only do it that way as it lends itself to easy trueing up of the glueing surfaces with a router/plane/sanding technique. The only difference is cosmetic rather than structural, at least as far as I know anyway. It does mean a little more math to work out the length of the resulting neck piece factoring in the length added by the headstock, although I was wasteful so it didn't matter :-\ The whole frets 1-3 buzzing thing might having something to do with expansion and contraction of the wood along the grain of the headstock piece. Melvyn is on here from time to time, so perhaps he or another experienced builder might enlighten us on this one. I left just over a centimetre of wood at the bottom of the mortice in the body, but I wasn't really measuring it to be honest. I have a bad habit of flying into the wind on these things, and was only concentrating on not making the mortice too deep or too shallow. I have no idea whether it's too deep, but I "feel" like there's enough wood left if you know what I mean. The tenon came to around halfway through the pickup cavity when I routed it so I could have gone deeper, even beyond the cavity I guess. Same too deep/too shallow thing was my thinking on the width of the tenon. If it was too wide then the wood where the body blends into the neck line wouldn't have enough meat left on it to function as well structurally, too narrow and the tenon would perhaps be weak. Again, no idea on best practice for this as i'm never really seen recommended numbers. I went with around a centimetre either side again so it was probably around the (55mm-20mm) 35mm mark? I've got pickups in it at the moment so I can't see :-\ If the body shape was different and didn't rely on mortice structure as much, then I would have made the tenon full width. I usually plane surfaces with my No.5 or No.7 plane before glueing, although i've been taping sheets of 80 grit paper to the kitchen worktop a lot recently and running the faces along them instead :-D I have so many weird bad building habits that I just don't talk about, but they seem to work well enough. I make schoolboy errors when planing, so sanding seems to prevent me from repeating them! For your truss rod, just get your neck blank sorted and draw it onto one side so your adjustment head isn't protruding too far out, and isn't too far in to be reached. Then bring this profile over to the top and rout 'er in! Again, I've never know of specific measurements so I just do it and learn from how it reacts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 26, 2009 Report Share Posted June 26, 2009 Thanks to Wes for the many EXP links in another thread. This looks like the headstock grain is/was parallel to the neck piece. Perhaps not scarfed? I'd love to know what the story was behind this one.... http://www.montyjay.com/jameswhiteespexpmf.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VesQ Posted June 27, 2009 Report Share Posted June 27, 2009 Thanks to Wes for the many EXP links in another thread. What another thread, where ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 19, 2010 Report Share Posted June 19, 2010 Hey, I hope this is working out on the boil Mukluk....I've revisited the EXP threads since I'm about to update the Lumi thread. The finished instrument has a nut width of 42mm or thereabouts. Chances are my LTD (packed at the moment) is closer to the 42.8mm you mentioned, but you can easily lose a mm with thinner paint (LTDs are finished hella thick like Ibanez) or even simple fretboard rounding. The base where the nut sits is 42mm anyway. I'm a great believer in working all other measurements out as derivations of the nut width, nut string spacing and the bridge string spacing. This should ideally "re-create" design parameters from the ground upwards rather than slavishly copying everything from the existing instrument....but hey.... Lumi should be being shot with the final 2k clear tomorrow, so I might actually manage to post photos by Tuesday if I get time to install hardware and electronics. It may be in this month's GOTM or it might not. Would be good to see the EXP crew represent ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcissism Posted June 19, 2010 Report Share Posted June 19, 2010 Hey Prostheta, can you post the individual distance between all 22 frets in nautical degrees? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fowl2338 Posted June 19, 2010 Report Share Posted June 19, 2010 Hey Prostheta, can you post the individual distance between all 22 frets in nautical degrees? Ha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 20, 2010 Report Share Posted June 20, 2010 Yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VesQ Posted June 20, 2010 Report Share Posted June 20, 2010 Despite the nah sayers i´m building my explo with 24 fret neck, just to see does it look bad or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted June 20, 2010 Report Share Posted June 20, 2010 Fair play. I think that a 24 fret EXP isn't out of the question as the design can be rejigged a little to accommodate it. I think the 22 fret thing is just a Gibson hangover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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