ProjectGuitar.com

Hi, and welcome onboard! This is a relatively new section so less members frequent it than others in case you wondered why it was so quiet.

An ambitious project. I think that for woods that are resistant to movement, you might want to investigate "baked Maple", sometimes called "toasted Maple" or in non-guitar marketing parlance, "thermotreated wood". Essentially I think that the wood is baked above its combustion point in a non-oxygenated kiln. This alters the wood cells themselves so that they no longer retain moisture from the local environment. If you need a reference on whether it is good or not, Guthrie Govan uses it exclusively in his guitar necks because he travels around the world so much. Alternatively you can laminate the neck(s) from stiffer woods and orient the grain strategically to minimise potential for movement.

Summer is officially here for ProjectGuitar.com's Guitar Of The Month contest! Plenty of opportunity to see your instruments basking out in the glorious sunshine with some excellent al fresco photo ops!

ProjectGuitar.com's Guitar Of The Month contest is a showcase for all members to exhibit their creations and to vote on whose is this month's favourite. The contest is open entry for any and all members. The winner(s) receive a featured article placement at the top of the ProjectGuitar.com homepage, default site background wallpaper and privileged member perks across the site (plus a shiny member badge in the forums!). The main ProjectGuitar.com site sees thousands of unique visitors from around the Internet so show off your work for the world to see!

Submissions are open throughout the month until about the last week when public voting open. Polls automatically close at the tick of midnight on the 1st of each month.

Tips and Guidelines

• Post a maximum of four eight of your best photos for each guitar entered.
• Ensure that your guitar has a name otherwise one will be given to it.
• List additional descriptive information specific to the build; for example....
  • The woods and materials used, especially if there is something unusual in there!
  • Scale length(s) and other specific configuration details
  • Electronics, pickups, etc.
  • Is this your first build, fifth or five-hundredth?
  • A bit of information on your background as a builder helps give context to your build. Knowing whose build is a "first-timer" and those of highly experienced builders can change a voter's mind in the contest. Was it built in the garage, at school, work or in your own shop?
  • A summary of the build's history. Was it built for yourself, friend/family or a client? Did you design the instrument and its specifications or was it built to spec? What were the inspirations behind the instrument and why were various build aspects chosen? Any background on what makes it special, etc. Tell us more about the instrument!
• Posting a link to your guitar-building website, Photobucket, Facebook, etc. is fine, even if it is your business. In the spirit of fairness we encourage instruments made by seasoned builders to have that disclosure made so there is a more even balance between weekend warriors and grizzled veterans.
• If you documented your build in the forums, post a link to the thread! Instruments with a build thread tend to attract more votes from the general community.

Unsure what to write? Have a look around the entry archives for suggestions.

If you are unable to link/post photographs or have any other questions about the GOTM contest, either PM me or ask forum members; we're a helpful bunch! In general it is recommended to upload your photos into ProjectGuitar.com Gallery and inserting them using the "My Media" button in the post editor.

This thread is exclusively for entry posts only - any post that is not an entry will be deleted. We love to hear your discussions and opinions on the month's entries whilst the polls are open. Alternatively, head over to that instrument's build thread if one has been made in the entry post.

Good luck to all entrants!

:croudwaits

For this amazing pickup winding contraption you get a special award.

Need another peek at this month's entries? Click !
This thread and poll automagically close on the 1st June 2014.

The winner of each month's Guitar Of The Month gets front page placement on the main ProjectGuitar.com website, privileged member status, a photo feature on our Facebook page and as the default site background photo, plus a shiny member badge!

Good luck to all of this month's entrants. So what does everybody think of these three beauties this month?

Would you like this frontpaged?

ProjectGuitar.com's Guitar Of The Month contest is a showcase for all members to exhibit their creations and to vote on whose is this month's favourite.

This contest is open entry for any and all members. The winner(s) receive a featured article placement at the top of the ProjectGuitar.com homepage, default site background wallpaper and privileged member perks across the site (plus a shiny member badge in the forums!). The main ProjectGuitar.com site sees thousands of unique visitors from around the Internet so show off your work for the world to see!

Submissions are open throughout the month until about the last week when public voting open. Polls automatically close at the tick of midnight on the 1st of each month.

Tips and Guidelines

• Post a maximum of four eight of your best photos for each guitar entered.
• Ensure that your guitar has a name otherwise one will be given to it.
• List additional descriptive information specific to the build; for example....
  • The woods and materials used, especially if there is something unusual in there!
  • Scale length(s) and other specific configuration details
  • Electronics, pickups, etc.
  • Is this your first build, fifth or five-hundredth?
  • A bit of information on your background as a builder helps give context to your build. Knowing whose build is a "first-timer" and those of highly experienced builders can change a voter's mind in the contest. Was it built in the garage, at school, work or in your own shop?
  • A summary of the build's history. Was it built for yourself, friend/family or a client? Did you design the instrument and its specifications or was it built to spec? What were the inspirations behind the instrument and why were various build aspects chosen? Any background on what makes it special, etc. Tell us more about the instrument!
• Posting a link to your guitar-building website, Photobucket, Facebook, etc. is fine, even if it is your business. In the spirit of fairness we encourage instruments made by seasoned builders to have that disclosure made so there is a more even balance between weekend warriors and grizzled veterans.
• If you documented your build in the forums, post a link to the thread! Instruments with a build thread tend to attract more votes from the general community.

Unsure what to write? Have a look around the entry archives for suggestions.

If you are unable to link/post photographs or have any other questions about the GOTM contest, either PM me or ask forum members; we're a helpful bunch! In general it is recommended to upload your photos into ProjectGuitar.com Gallery and inserting them using the "My Media" button in the post editor.

This thread is exclusively for entry posts only - any post that is not an entry will be deleted. We love to hear your discussions and opinions on the month's entries whilst the polls are open. Alternatively, head over to that instrument's build thread if one has been made in the entry post.

Good luck to all entrants!

:croudwaits

Definitely!

Sounds good. We can do all of that if you want.

re: Photobucket rotating (or not) photos.

Images taken with most modern cameras and phones will embed EXIF information detailing the settings and methods used to acquire that image. One particularly annoying one is the rotation value which can contain one of eight settings for rotation and mirrored rotation. Photobucket will likely maintain that information with limited interpretation. Browsers can acknowledge and deal with that flag inconsistently, rotating/mirroring it to represent the image how it was taken with respect to where the centre of the earth (or nearest high-mass body) was. If you take an image with both your camera and head at 90 degrees, you'll need to compensate for the required rotation in an image-editing package or within the photo storage site if they deal with EXIF orientation settings. Some don't, like Picasa.

ProjectGuitar.com has seen a few minor changes and introductions since the previous update....

Our new publication system is proving to be an excellent choice. A few minor bugs exist here and there, however it is to be expected. Do report any specific issues with either myself or a member of the moderating team and we'll be right onto it.

• Publishing

Several of the old site's tutorials have been re-published along with new articles. Progress is based on the limited number of hours that can be split between various backstage activities - anything that is a huge priority can be pushed to the front of the queue, just make requests in the comments below.

• Suppliers

By far the largest and most important task has been updates necessary to our recognised supplier and manufacturer listings. Many invalid links existed which have more or less been rooted out and updated/deleted. The organisation of the listings themselves will gradually be sectioned slightly differently to make hunting for what you need easier.

• Downloads

ProjectGuitar.com's Downloads section is being populated with many resources for guitar design. Indispensable tools such as our and the first of our monthly complete instrument CAD plans are now live and available for free download. Your feedback in the support threads and comments are invaluable in assessing the usefulness of these files and providing a clearer understanding of what is most useful to yourselves. All of our downloads are made available under Creative Commons licencing, giving you the freedom to adapt and republish works on a non-commercial basis as long as appropriate source acknowledgement is given. We think that's pretty cool.

• Member Groups

This month we will be re-organising our member groupings to simplify our system and provide a clearer indication of who is what, where and why. Twelve years of operating the forums has created a fair amount of member group setting proliferation which becomes difficult to administrate reliably.

Other than the default system organisation groups (guest, validating, etc.) the following groups will exist:

Administrator

Moderator

PG Sponsor/PG Supporter

VIP/GOTM/GOTY (Guitar Of The Month contest winners, ex-moderators, site contributors)

New Member/Member/Established Member/Veteran Member

The various levels of membership (in sort of an order as above) affect signature length, the ability to post images/URLs in your signature, increased Gallery disk space allocation, more flexible forum capabilities and other elevated site privileges. The general Member groups automatically increment at 10, 100 and 1000 posts respectively with New Members having light restrictions to prevent spambots and "hit and run" spam farm registrants.

• Awards

Although new, we will be awarding members to recognise various achievements (such as a Guitar Of The Month win) as part of their public profiles. Whilst most awards will recognise practical achievements, we can't guarantee that will always be the case....

• Supporting ProjectGuitar.com

​ProjectGuitar.com is a non-profit project whose month-to-month upkeep relies purely on donation. Your donations help cover necessary server costs, help to funding new exciting tutorial projects and generally helps ProjectGuitar.com grow as the Internet's primary open education source for guitar builders. Donating to ProjectGuitar.com is simple and as quick; we currently accept PayPal out of speed and simplicity, however feel free to PM us for alternative donation methods.

As way of thanks, all donating members are promoted to prestige PG Supporter/PG Sponsor status on the site. If you would like to donate anonymously, that's cool too.

Thank you for your continued support!

- ProjectGuitar.com Admin/Mod Team

Full article on proportional vs. equal spacing posted:

Also useful; SwedishLuthier's Gotoh Vintage-style tuners plan.

File Name: Kluson Traditional tuner (single ring)

File Submitter: ProjectGuitar.com

File Submitted: 27 Apr 2014

File Category: Component Drawings

Kluson® is a registered trademark of WD Music Products, Inc®

Your help is needed!

The main Suppliers area of ProjectGuitar.com is in the process of re-organisation to weed out any dead links and redundant information, whilst updating it with entries that should exist in there but don't.

Using the section titles as a guideline (Electronics, Wood, etc.) post links to your favourite suppliers and we'll be sure to build these into our listings as soon as is possible in order to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date links for the community.

Our thoughts are with you and your family. Take care of everyone.

Need another peek at this month's entries? Click !
This thread and poll automagically close on the 1st May 2014.

The winner of each month's Guitar Of The Month gets front page placement on the main ProjectGuitar.com website, privileged member status, a photo feature on our Facebook page and as the default site background photo, plus a shiny member badge! Good luck to all of this month's entrants.

What does everybody think of the entries this month? Three very different builds which should make for some interesting reasonings on your votes....!

File Name: Equal String Spacing Nut Calculator

File Submitter: ProjectGuitar.com

File Submitted: 19 Apr 2014

File Category: Documents

Calculating the exact positioning and spacing for strings across the nut can be a pain....by inputting your nut width, fretboard edge spacing and string gauges, this spreadsheet automagically outputs all the information you need to create a proportionally-spaced nut! Awesomes.

All of our CAD plans are available for download are in the DXF format. This is an industry-standard vector format very similar to Autodesk's DWG but provides almost universal compatibility and is able to be opened in almost all CAD packages.

The simplest way to open a DXF file is using Autodesk's own free online AutoCAD 360 cloud application at https://www.autocad360.com/

After a quick signup you can upload DXFs (plus a variety of other formats) to your account in order to view and manipulate them online, share them with other people or work from drawings across different devices. AutoCAD 360 is also available as an app for iOS and Android devices, which is immensely useful in the workshop when you need to extract a specific measurement from a drawing! AutoCAD 360 currently possesses limited output capabilities, meaning it is not easy to print out drawings at 1:1 scale.

Free CAD software is available from many developers, eg. QCad, LibreCAD, FreeCAD. Inexpensive commercial software such as TurboCAD Designer (this is what I work in and a bargain for $40) offer wider feature sets and are often more friendly to use. TurboCAD is also available as a trial download, so by all means give it a test drive....useful even if you are only wanting to print out a drawing for a project!

ProjectGuitar.com's Guitar Of The Month contest is a showcase for all members to exhibit their creations and to vote on whose is this month's favourite.

This contest is open entry for any and all members. The winner(s) receive a featured article placement at the top of the ProjectGuitar.com homepage, default site background wallpaper and privileged member perks across the site (plus a shiny member badge in the forums!). The main ProjectGuitar.com site sees thousands of unique visitors from around the Internet so show off your work for the world to see!

Submissions are open throughout the month until about the last week when public voting open. Polls automatically close at the tick of midnight on the 1st of each month.

Tips and Guidelines

• Post a maximum of four eight of your best photos for each guitar entered.
• Ensure that your guitar has a name otherwise one will be given to it.
• List additional descriptive information specific to the build; for example....
  • The woods and materials used, especially if there is something unusual in there!
  • Scale length(s) and other specific configuration details
  • Electronics, pickups, etc.
  • Is this your first build, fifth or five-hundredth?
  • A bit of information on your background as a builder helps give context to your build. Knowing whose build is a "first-timer" and those of highly experienced builders can change a voter's mind in the contest. Was it built in the garage, at school, work or in your own shop?
  • A summary of the build's history. Was it built for yourself, friend/family or a client? Did you design the instrument and its specifications or was it built to spec? What were the inspirations behind the instrument and why were various build aspects chosen? Any background on what makes it special, etc. Tell us more about the instrument!
• Posting a link to your guitar-building website, Photobucket, Facebook, etc. is fine, even if it is your business. In the spirit of fairness we encourage instruments made by seasoned builders to have that disclosure made so there is a more even balance between weekend warriors and grizzled veterans.
• If you documented your build in the forums, post a link to the thread! Instruments with a build thread tend to attract more votes from the general community.

Unsure what to write? Have a look around the entry archives for suggestions.

If you are unable to link/post photographs or have any other questions about the GOTM contest, either PM me or ask forum members; we're a helpful bunch! In general it is recommended to upload your photos into ProjectGuitar.com Gallery and inserting them using the "My Media" button in the post editor.

This thread is exclusively for entry posts only - any post that is not an entry will be deleted. We love to hear your discussions and opinions on the month's entries whilst the polls are open. Alternatively, head over to that instrument's build thread if one has been made in the entry post.

Good luck to all entrants!

:croudwaits

Need another peek at this month's entries? Click
This thread and poll automagically close on the 1st April 2014.

The winner of each month's Guitar Of The Month gets front page placement on the main ProjectGuitar.com website, a photo feature on our Facebook page and as the default site background photo! Good luck to all of this month's entrants.

What does everybody think of the entries this month?

To help manage the forums and take ProjectGuitar.com forward we have three additional moderators who should be familiar faces to forum regulars....

Please welcome:

• RestorationAD
• ScottR
• VanKirk

** applause **

Please join us in giving specific thanks for the generous support from our recent donators Lunchie, ScottR, piercefield and the donators that chose to remain anonymous!

ProjectGuitar.com has been through some very important changes over the last few months and we are working hard to make 2014 the biggest and best year yet! Let's have a look at what is new and what to expect over the coming months....

Most regular visitors to the site will have noticed that we have fully transitioned the site across to a new publication system under the ProjectGuitar.com domain name. This has been an essential move to simplify publishing and create a strong organised framework. Even better news is that our forums remain unchanged including all of the content covering almost twelve years of ProjectGuitar.com being online!

The first thing many regular will have noticed is the change to the site's overall design. We've re-organised our tutorials, supplier/manufacturer listings and site articles into the menu at the left hand side of the site. In addition to the gradual re-formatting and re-publication of old site articles we will be publishing many exciting new articles on everything from basic workshop skills to product reviews, overhauling the suppliers/distributors list, compiling a resource library of file downloads and user gallery system.

The ultimate aim - as it has been for the last twelve years - is to provide a constantly-growing open education source for guitar building, repair and modification where members can freely exchange knowledge for the benefit of all. ProjectGuitar.com has always thrived with input from both the experienced and learners alike.

Make your voice heard in the forums if you have ideas for articles on specific subjects you would like to see and we'll make sure they end up on the to-do list. Do you have something you would like to contribute to the site or are you a writer? PM or email us and we'll be happy to discuss this.

• Member Gallery

Last month we re-introduced the Gallery application to ProjectGuitar.com; this can be found HERE or by clicking "Gallery" in the main site navigation. This is an open-access resource for all active forum members and can be used for embedding photos within the forums or generally maintaining a gallery of your own projects and work. All basic member groups receive a small but generous amount of storage space with simple Gallery functionality. Guitar Of The Month winners, site donators and ProjectGuitar.com sponsors are allocated much larger amounts of disk space and more flexible functionality.

• Downloads

Currently in the early stages of implementation is the new Downloads section whose purpose is to provide a repository of useful member resources such as fret calculators, specs/cheat sheets through to full instrument and component CAD drawings. Many downloads will tie in with proposed instrument design and build articles, some of which will be a one-stop shop from design to build. Keep checking back as this continues to develop!

• Product Reviews

We are very excited to be introducing a library of product reviews covering everything of value to our readership; guitar bridges to chisels, jack sockets to router bits, pencils to masking tape! The broad range of informational articles is to arm our readers with the hands-on knowledge that you might not get from marketing copy, catalogues, etc. and the things that are of most use to the instrument maker.

• Market News

We would be remiss if we were not to keep up with the latest products of interest to our readers. Perhaps you want something just a little bit different, experimental or simply be the first to get a new item on your instrument...?

• Supporting ProjectGuitar.com

​ProjectGuitar.com is a non-profit project whose month-to-month running relies purely on public donation. Donating to ProjectGuitar.com is simple and quick. Donations help cover necessary server costs, help to funding new exciting tutorial projects and generally helps ProjectGuitar.com grow as the Internet's primary open education source for guitar builders. We currently accept PayPal only, however feel free to PM us for alternative donation methods.

All donating members will receive greater site and forum functionality (such as increased Gallery disk space) for a year along with donating member status. If you would like to donate anonymously, that is cool too. Your account will still receive all donator privileges, albeit anonymously!

Thank you for your continued support from both ProjectGuitar.com admin/mods and members alike! Your voices are paramount to ProjectGuitar.com being for its readership, so tell us what you need and here's to 2014!