soapbarstrat

I don't like the idea of putting oil in there, but I have wondered about the same thing, and have though about putting some of that rust neutralizing chemical in there, but I still worry some of that might flake off and cause trouble in the air line. Of course rust could flake off too. I would imagine this very thing has been discussed on autobody forums or something like that (actually, never even looked to see if there are any autobody forums. I just assume there's a forum for everything, because when I first got on the net in '99 I accidentally came across a forum dedicated to shoes made in the 1960's, so if there's even a forum for that....)

Probably uneven frets, rises, dips, etc in the board. E flat should be no problem, even 9's are ok at E flat, if nothing screwy is going on with the frets. Am I remembering wrong, or did that Dimebag dude tune down to D using 9's ? "tension on an acoustic is less" . I think that would only be so if the scale length is different.

I've had Fender specs on the cover of my main repair notebook for years and it's .020" at the first fret (which is still on the high side for me. WAY high for the high E ) Actually, we must not be talking about the exact same thing. I find it hard to believe anyone is comfortably fingering chords on a neck where the strings are sitting .060" above the first fret. If you're playing chords ok on that set-up, I would not want to get in a fight with you. You could crush my skull with your fretting hand quite easily.

Pete wrote : "the wear is over a wider area" in regard to the "saw tooth" peaks. Maybe what he says is partly true, but he's thinking of one side of the peak. On the other side of that peak, you have just the opposite. Say goodbye to the "retaining wall effect". Imagine the increase in wear, if you ground off half a side of a metal fret's crown.

I'm surprised there isn't noticable dents in those suckers. Just one notch above that Asian wire that seems like aluminum.

Probably so many reasons why that thing flopped that I don't have the patience to list them all. But I once saw Rick Turner say he was going to experiment with ceramic fret-boards that had frets (just bumps) already part of the board and the same material (ceramic frets that are not seperate pieces).

I must be misunderstanding what you're saying. You certainly can't mean there's a .062" gap between the bottom of a string and the top of the first fret. You must mean .062" is the gap between the bottom of the string and the top of the fret-board wood surface in front of the nut. Because if you mean over the first fret, that's is one badly set-up guitar.

You mean all the damn stickers on the neck heel ? I usually try to get the owner to let me get rid of them. Sometimes one of them will have some serious poly over the top of it, in which case I might just level the finish if it's creating a big bump. Sometime they just have a light poly coat and I cut the poly and get the sticker off. I'll keep the stickers with finish on 'em cause they help me *try* to dial in a matching amber tint on test boards. (even with such help, my tint matching skills leave a little to be desired)

I'm sure the technical differences can be found on the net, but I'll simplify it Naptha : fairly harmess around a guitar Acetone : Will destroy guitar finish real easy.

Oh, I don't mean Dunlop wire is horrible. In fact, the two sizes of Dunlop I still have (I think there's a .050" tall (6110 ?) and some .055" (6100) tall) seem to be from a pretty good run. It was the 6105 that was especially bad. I got rid of all I had of that at a loss. But, from what I've seen, you can get the better stuff that's made in Germany (I know the actual company, but won't reveal it) for a price that's better than what I've seen Dunlop wire selling for. If the Dunlop stuff was way cheaper, then I'd say if your fretting abilities have a way to go, the more sloppy dimensions of the Dunlop wire are hardly an issue (actually, again, it was mainly Dunlop 6105 that showed a lot of sloppyness- *some* other sizes of Dunlop seem pretty crisp. I never bought a real wide range of Dunlop sizes. In the past, had always just used their larger sizes and then StewMac for vintage sizes) Last I heard, StewMac wire is made in Japan. I'd rate it as being a little better than Dunlop, but not as good as "Jescar". Jescar didn't have a website when I first got in contact with them. And I assume they still only sell in bulk amounts, although their bulk amounts got a heck of a lot smaller. Haven't checked their site in a while. Jeff will probably tell you for smaller amounts, go to LMI, Allied, and probably some other places I'm not aware of. Oh yeah, PG member woodenspoke. Is he still selling fret-wire on Ebay ? Who do you think hooked him up ?

It's quite unpredictable. I mean have you ever put new strings on and it changes the tone ? Sometimes it's kind of like that. I think if you make a great change in the height, you're doing something to change tone in a little more than a subtle way. Finger tip not mashing against the fret-board wood anymore and now you have less "deadening" of the notes. Maybe the current frets are on the soft side and you go to a harder fret. That'll be a factor too.

Jescar is the US distributor for the best fret-wire made today (it's made in Germany). I refuse to buy any other wire after getting this stuff. I hooked up a couple forum memebers here with Jescar long ago, when I was probably the only member here that knew about them. And I do like to keep my secrets. Much better than Dunlop. (I still have some Dunlop. Wanna trade me something for it ? Just kidding. Shipping to OZ would make it unfavorable to say the least)

No wonder your such a bitter lunatic, you're going blind. That bender has a one piece machined brass roller with two different sized notches machined into it (original StewMac made). As for all this "rust" you apparently see on all my tools, get to the eye doctor and see what's wrong with you. Yeah, I make some dust in the shop and don't spend much time cleaning every bit of it up, but I'm quite picky about rust. I once had a little spot of rust starting on the column of my drill press and I took care of it right away. I once had a straight-edge sent to me with a small spot of rust. I sent it back. I've got a couple of really old vises that have a medium amount of surface rust, but on those, it doesn't matter to me. A little rust on my 1940's table-saw too. Oh what's the use, many of us have already seen in your profile that your out to cause trouble . Too easy to make fun of you. I like more of a challenge. I'm glad to hear you wouldn't trust me. Whatever it takes to keep crazies away, is priceless to me.

I don't even own a self-made bending machine. I have the expensive ones sold by 2 popular Luthier supply companies, and both those units have "flat" bearings. Now, you're trying to say you go the extra mile to have tools with the "right parts", yet your bender has a rigged up budget notched roller made out of washers . LOL !

Just thought I'd add for any of you guys thinking of building a bender and want to keep the costs down as much as possible : The ball-bearings don't need to be the grooved kind. Both my StewMac and Woodenspoke benders have "flat" ball-bearings and there's no way grooved bearings would make the units work any better. I have a feeling I've said this before.

Wow, the "tables" on mine are such hard steel, I don't see how they could ever wear. Maybe they did a sloppy grind when they made yours. I suppose laying some JB weld into the "groove" and then pressing a waxed fret into it would result in a nice fitting groove for half the fret crown. Anyway, if you're interested in just the blade, google : Klein 76012B (I remembered a place called Jayso Electronics, and found it there ( $10.65) )

But just the little cutter bit is the only thing wearing out , right ? Well, I have seen places selling just the little cutting piece for those. Well, at least one place so far (I wasn't searching for every place that might have them, just happened to see them offered at some place I think I did buy some other tools from years ago), but right now I can't remember what that place is. Pretty sure I dealt with them over the net, though.

I've always bought stock end-nippers and then ground them flush myself, but on the first 2 pairs, I over-ground and they didn't last long (well they did last for years, but had some places where the blades were trashed). One of those was channelock (however it's spelled). I guess those would have held up better if I wouldn't have used them for cutting other stuff that I shouldn't have been using them on. Latest pair is Klein 8" long. Did a better job of grinding them flush, but the suckers were around $30.00, plus I had to do all that work grinding them. Never bought any from StewMac, but seems their current cutters are a good deal at $29.00 and already ground and they finally bumped 'em up to 8" long (used to be around 6" long I think). I imagine SS wire will still trash 'em though. You could also do like Frank Ford and get the cheaper diagonal cutters and grind those flush. Then there's always the Dremel cut-off wheel. Just saw I have an old photo of the whole gang.

If re-selling is the only goal, you probably should forget it. If you might want to keep it and play it, then try to get it dirt cheap. Probably the best source for repair on acoustics on the net, is frets.com I've read at least one article by Frank where he wanted to reglue the top, but the side of the body was out of alignment, so he even band-sawed a bunch of aluminum L pieces, drilled and tapped holes in them for thumb-srews. Screwed all those down onto his pine topped workbench, so they'd surround about 1/4 of the guitar body, then manipulate the alignment of the side of the guitar body by adjusting the thumb-screws on his bolted down bracket "clamp things" (the band-sawed aluminum things). Then he had everything lined up perfect to glue the top down where it had come apart. Of course not every top seperation requires a set-up like that. Just had to mention how far he goes, to emphasize what a great source of info he provides. You might have a case that just requires some spool clamps. Or maybe you have a case where the wood has shrunk enough that it can't be glued back how it was, without looking funny or having a badly noticable gap, in which case you might experiment with putting the guitar inside a large plastic trash bag with a pot of water, and keeping the bag tied shut for a day or so to see if that kind of humidity helps get the parts to go back to how they were when the guitar was new

Now THAT'S when it's totally obvious there's some hard-core steroid use going on, when you go to the ball-park and they're batting bowling balls !

The Modulus graphite necks actually didn't always have adjustable truss-rods in them (they *might* have had non-adjustable T-rods in them, though, I don't know). I guess they added an adjustable t-rod to help dial in a perfect amount of relief. I know with some of my own guitars that have non-adjustable T-rods, I have to compromise and have the string action set a little higher to deal with non-optimal neck relief that has settled into the necks over time. Some people think the words 'truss rod' mean an *adjustable* rod in the neck, but I don't think thats true. I think it means a reinforcement rod/bar inside the neck to add stiffness. (by the way, when I shorten it by calling it "T-rod", I don't mean a T shaped rod. But there have actually been T shaped metal bars used as guitar neck truss rods) A trick they do on classical guitar necks, is they rout a T-rod channel and then get a filler piece of ebony at least a few thou longer and force that into the slot (I've heard they backbow the neck while doing this to help get it in there easier). This will make the neck go into a back-bow without string tension and hopefully be about straight with *classical* guitar strings under tension. Of course that's the *traditional* way. My classical guitar has an adjustable T-rod with the adjustment neck accessible inside the soundhole. One-way adjustable T-rod is my personal favorite. Set it right during the building process and it should be able to adjust the neck for more or less relief when all is said and done.

I think maybe someone is getting ILS and LMI mixed up ?

If that's the same ' International Luthiers Supply, INC' that used to be in Tulsa OK, I have made only one order from them, and that was in early 1991, and they pissed me off because I ordered 2 #111 Dremel bits and they sent me 2 #110 bits instead. (Don't feel so bad now, after reading what they've done to you - guess this proves I AM DAMN HARD TO PLEASE) So all this time I have kept their 1990 catalog inside the original brown envelope, with " DON'T BUY ANYTHING FROM THIS PLACE- SENT WRONG ITEMS" written in magic marker on the envelope, so I wouldn't forget.

I have a feeling that is likely too. I remember years ago, I read a warning somewhere that tiny graphite splinters had a fair chance of getting into your bloodstream. Just did a quick Google and didn't really find anything obvious to support that exact warning. Have an old article where Don MacRostie is adding some embedded graphite pieces into an old spongy acoustic guitar neck, and he's cutting the graphite to shape on an upside down jig saw with a metal cutting blade , and he's not even wearing any kind of dust mask, which seems a bit crazy to me.

The popsicle stick wood was just a good small size for the job. 2 cut pieces clamped along the edge of the soundboard held together with screws (but the screws only going through/into the popsicle wood). Sound board between the two pieces with an edge hanging off into the sound-hole far enough that another hole could be drilled through that for the pickup mounting/height adjusting screw/spring. And the same thing going on for the other end of the pickup. Height adjustment for that kind of pickup was essential for me to get it sounding good. Only reason I took it out was because I wanted the pickup to go in a Strat. Hard telling what happened to the pickup mounting pieces that I had made. 15 years ago, or so. Just looked up the sunrise pickup, and that's not the one I had in mind. I remember back in the 80's someone was making a humbucker that could mount in a sound-hole without drilling or gluing. Maybe it was even made by Sunrise, but their current soundhole pickup is more basic (but not a bad idea, including how it slips over the sound-hole edges)