soapbarstrat

Many years ago I made my own radius blocks ( 4" and 8") by planing pieces of oak flat, then roughing in the radius on a router table(rout the deepest channel down the middle and each channel next to it gets more shallow). Then I would sand the radius into the roughed-in blocks by moving back and forth over the radius block sanding jig I made , which was a piece of lexan held down over two rods with wing nuts. The more you tighten down the wing nuts, the sharper the radius. I would adjust for the proper radius by laying a radius guage that I made (1/8" plexi glass that has the radius cut by using a dremel with router base and the edge guide, with the edge guide's metal rods replaced with much longer rods to make the dremel like a big compass). I would adjust the wing nuts until I could no longer get a .002 feeler gauge to fit between the radius gauge and lexan curved top of the jig. Sometimes I had a .001-.002 gap here and there. Then I would put coarse sandpaper on the lexan and move the radius block back and forth to sand the radius into it. I'd switch to finer grits. I would have guides to make sure the block stayed straight while I moved it back and forth. Then I would lay the finished block on a piece of glass that has a .005 flatness tolerance to make sure the radius block didn't rock on that. And also would check the lengthwise flatness of the block with a precision 24" straight edge to make sure the flatness wasn't off by anymore than .003 or about that. I made a whole set. from 7.25" all the way to 20" . Glued handles on all of them and put a couple "coats" of danish oil on them. I don't know if they were any better than the Stew-mac ones, but I used very old, stable wood. I would imagine the Stew-Mac ones would probably warp a little with age, which would really suck, although they'd love for you to buy a new one then, I guess. I don't use my blocks much anymore. I found out that a long, narrow and flat block is much better, because it's better to sand in the path of the strings, which creates the best compound radius. Changing radius blocks as you go up the neck is also an inferior way of doing it. Using radius blocks is like they often do it in the factory (even machines that do it). Using a long flat block with the right technique allows you to surpass a factory fret-job. Why duplicate a factory fret-job when you can surpass it ? I've said all this before on other boards and a lot of guys don't like to hear it. I even made a 13" block that is 10" at one end and goes to 16" at the other end. I used it and will probably never use it again. It makes the fret-board weird somehow. It's just not the proper way to do it, in my opinion. I think you end up sanding more off the board than you want to. I think the reason why my fret-jobs were still turning out very good when using the 12" and 16" radius blocks is because I would then level the frets with a flat block, and I would go in the path of the strings. If you don't understand what i mean about "in the path of the strings", think about how the outer E strings do NOT run parallel with the 2 center strings. Hard to explain, so I'll shut up now.

Bolt-on neck with metal inserts and machine bolts so you can crank it tighter, which means better tone. With a tight neck-to-pocket fit, plus metal inserts and machine screws, you get about the same tonal results as if it had a set-neck design, if not better, because the contacting wood pieces don't have any glue. Glue is often at least somewhat of a tone sink. It's also better than neck-through because of less glue and less hard maple which makes the tone more brittle. I have a full-sized, hard maple, tapered neck shim, so there's no gap between the neck and neck cavity bottom. Not all strats need the neck to be shimmed, but almost everyone that I had did. The other great thing is that you can take your neck on and off and you're not wearing out any wood threads, like in the traditional wood screws into wood design. I can put my strat in a normal size suit case by having the neck removed from the body. I have done it and it was so much better than if I would have had a guitar in a long flight case. Your clothes are used as padding around the body and neck. No damage to mine going through 6 airports and 3 countries. My suit case is one of those old Samsonite aluminum ones. Only problem is that sometimes airport security wants to know what the hell you got in there.

the only part of the wood that should end up being visible is the 2 outer edges , which could easily be made black with a black marker. Your high E should be no more than .010" higher than the first fret. It has to be at least .008" higher than the first fret. Low E should be no more than .020" higher than the first fret. It should be at least .015" higher than the first fret. The .008 and .015 heights will sometimes end up buzzing too much, but on a guitar that's just had a fret-level and been set-up, they can be the best heights. The truss-rod has to be properly adjusted before adjusting the string heights at the nut. If you make the strings as low as possible at the nut, then adjust the truss-rod to make the neck more straight, you will probably have strings buzzing on the first fret. Lossening the truss-rod to get rid of buzzing at the first fret is not the right way to fix the buzzing if the neck relief was already correct. It will get rid of the buzzing at the cost of making the neck play less comfortably farther up the neck. Naptha or lighter fluid on a rag should remove any spray adhesive that you want to remove. Using excess wood glue could come back to haunt you later if you want to remove the nut. just a couple small drops is plenty. The nut should fit fairly tight without glue, but you might need the glue to keep the nut from sliding sideways when you bend strings on the lower frets.

A thin scrap of ebony or rosewood or even maple would do, *IF* you have a way to make a nice, thin, flat piece. Even if you have the tools to do that, the set-up time might not be worth it. I have shimmed strat nuts with aluminum cut from a beer can. I don't do it on customers guitars unless that's the route that they want to go. On a Les Paul nut, you can't really get away with not gluing the nut down, so the beer can aluminum might need whatever kind of coating it might have on it taken off. Maybe acetone would do that (keep the acetone away from your guitar or you could have some ugly paint damage !). Or if you can evenly sand the aluminum, which would also be good because it would give it some "grip". Or maybe raise hell about the nut being too thin to whoever you bought it from until they give you a refund or a higher nut. The way I make really thin wood shims is taping the wood on a flat surface using double-sided carpet tape, then I have a router with "feet" that raises it high enough that I can "ride" the router over the wood, planing it flat. It's almost the same way I make full-sized hard maple , tapered neck shims for strats. But you can imagine that it takes some time to set-up a rig like that. A piece of credit card plastic would already be nice and flat, but probably too thick and it's flexible plastic (tone sink). If the nut needs to be raised about .005", then I'm almost sold on the aluminum idea. Good Luck, Rob

* 'Don't fret' Guitar repair video by Dan Erlewine, 1984, Shows first version of "neck-jig" and how to use it, how to bend cut frets by hand, How to change a fret-board radius from 7.5" to 12". How to take out pearl inlays and replace them or replace with new ones. How to level a fret-board. How to recrown and dress and polish frets. Common problems that cause guitar necks to perform poorly. Was viewed about 6 times and is in the same condition as new, although the production quality of the filming of the video is less than professional. * 'Shop Talk 3' by Stewart-Macdonald. Has a more modern version of the 'neck-jig', plus some more fretting techniques. How to fill and re-cut a worn nut-slot. How to put L.E.D.'s in a guitar fret-board. Info on guitar finishes. How to buff a finish with a buffing wheel. "Jaws" fret clamp, Installing waverly tuners, Radius sanding blocks. Custom saddle/nut/bridge-pin puller. Only viewed a few times and is in like new condition except the stickers on the outside of the cassette are crappy looking now. $25.00 for both videos, plus shipping ('media mail' rate- I can figure out the exact amount if I know the zip code ). I prefer a money-order. Thanks, Rob