soapbarstrat

My main SE is a 24" Bridge City Tool works from the early 90's. I have one notched Stew-mac that is dead flat against the BCTW, and then aother notched stewmac that does not read dead flat against the BCTW. We could speculate all day about whether my BCTW is dead accurate and which one of the notched ones is dead accurate (assuming at least one is). But, when I checked both 16" stewmac levelers, I would get a big gap in the middle of one side (no gaps on ends), and gaps on the ends of the other side (no gap in middle) , using the very same SE edge (easy to know, going by the logo on the side of the SE). So, just that shows that at least one side of the leveler has to be off. I did have mine checked by stew mac. They wouldn't tell me how flat it actually read against a surface plate. All they said about it's accuracy is : " good enough". This was a few years ago. Glad to see you back. I had almost thought you were a stewmac employee doing a hit and run on a sick day.

Routed channel, my ass. I made a bridge plate just like the stewmac with the keyholes for the string ball ends, and I just drilled holes in the body underneath where each keyhole is. I think my holes are something like 3/8" dia and 3/16" deep.

Hardly. I think we've been over this more than once.

According to this web page you've got one of those old "multi can caps" (aluminum cylinder on the same side of the chassis where the tubes are). I think it's pretty standard to forget about replacing with an identical type of can cap, so then you have to "jerry rig" some seperate new caps inside the chassis. You can see how that guy did that. He even had to use glue to help secure the caps. What I would highly consider (if possible), is to remove the rivets holding the can cap, which would leave me two holes for screws, which terminal strips could be bolted to. But, pretty tight space, so I don't know if that would be better than what that guy had to do. The import caps you can buy from various places (Mouser, etc) are smaller than the trusty Sprague blue atoms, so at least the import caps have that advantage. (Illinois brand was a popular import cap 10 years ago when I was experimenting with amp modding. have not kept up with what's out there and what is good/bad). I think you need to take this to the next level by going to a more specialized amp forum. This forum just barely scratches the surface on amps. There's some hard-core dudes on those amp forums who should steer you in the right direction. They can sometimes be harsh to beginners (I know from experience), but I guess that's what breathing a lot of solder fumes can do (lol)

Hmm, worked 4 years ago, then after sitting 4 years, doesn't work. I know little about amps, but I have to say if that thing still has original filter capacitors, I bet that's the problem.

To me, the radius beams are even more of a specialized tool than the straight beams, and sky's the limit as to what kind of quality you'd end up, with an alternative source, so I would at least give Stewmac's radius beams a shot. All you have to lose is some time packing it up and shipping it back, plus probably have to be subjected to them suggesting that your testing methods are probably flawed (only going from my own experience). And that's only if they turn out to be flawed. If they are good, then StewMac has a few more bucks to help stay in business and come out with new cool tools.

My routine is pretty much always the same: Neck arrives unstrung. I remove t-rod adjusting nut (if it's the kind that comes off), use a pipe-cleaner to clean the threads, apply some graphite grease into the adjuster nut's threads and on the bearing face of the nut, put nut back on and tighten it all the way (oh crap, sometimes it needs spacers added). String the sucker up and check relief. If it's dead straight or just slightly back-bowed, then in the "set-up" jig it stays for at least a day. If I see right away there's extreme back-bow or extreme relief, I don't want to leave it that way and will adjust to something more reasonable (but at *this point* favor slight back-bow over any relief). If the relief is extreme (which I see all too often these days) then I have to get all medieval chiropractor on it's ass, and then into the set-up jig to settle. For pre-fretwork I want it as dead straight as possible. For a "ready to gig" set-up, I would rather have .002" to .005" relief than even a hint of back-bow. The main thing is, often you have a neck adjusted straight, and within 24 hours it'll creep into more relief than you wanted. I don't think there's any reason why the guitar would need to be "face down" when helping the neck adjust.

I would keep a dab of dry lube on the zero fret, 'cause when you bend those wound strings, it's going to start putting little cross-way ridges on the zero fret, which creates a surface that will want to grab wound strings. No sharp edges on your "spacer" nut. You know how on a regular nut, you taper off the back side, well on a spacer nut, you can also do that to the front side. That's a plus about the 'zero fret' set-up. Every string contact point can be moderately rounded. Some "graphite" nut banks don't do such a good job at slippin n slidin. Nylatron would be high on my list for a replacement.

I have always assumed that the 'offset adjuster' was the clever part of the Randy Stockwell design, as opposed to the 'slot adjuster' which anyone would come up with right away. (obviously, the one this thread is about is the slot adjuster). I have benders with both types of adjusters, and prefer the offset (stewmac/stockwell), over the one with the slot adjuster if I'm trying to dial in a radius close to a pefect match. Pain in the ass with the slot adjuster, 'cause once you loosen that bearing, it's hard to keep it in place, and just move it a smidge. http://usera.imagecave.com/soapbarstrat/SMbender2072.jpg http://usera.imagecave.com/soapbarstrat/SMbender2073.jpg

Can't answer for the others, but I run deep into the woods and find an old rusted barbed-wire fence and lay my fretting tools on that to see how flat they are.

By the way, best way I've found so far, to square up a drill press table : http://usera.imagecave.com/soapbarstrat/dr...-indicator3.jpg http://usera.imagecave.com/soapbarstrat/dr...-indicator2.jpg

When I first got my $200.00 Duracraft drill press, the middle pulley was tilted and was causing some serious belt wear. Had the "discount tool center", where I had bought the dp, put a new middle pulley on. After a few months the ball-bearing on that middle pully was throwing out grease. They handed me another new pulley. It's been fine for the 15 years since, and I'm even still using the original belts ! All I'm trying to say is if you payed big bucks, keep being a damn squeaky wheel until you got what you paid for in the first place. And it also just goes to show how with a brand new tool , you can go through just as much hassle as buying a used tool and refurbishing it. I also have the "60 watt max" bulb thing on mine, but I have a compact 25 watt fluorescent in there which supposedly throws out as much light as a 100 watt regular bulb. I just assume I'm not breaking any rules by doing this. But lots of light *behind* the bit is just secondardy lighting for me. I have a floor lamp fixture to throw light on the front of the bit.

I'd be surprised if it's anything other than 10-32.

Keep in mind that he's in Europe, so not exactly titebond O'plenty going on.

Maybe not exactly what you want, but if you scroll down on the linked page, there's some "forms" : http://www.danerlewine.com/guitar_repair_forms.html

Sounds like a wipe-on poly is what you really want.

Everytime I've seen the woodcraft sales on the whiteside bits, it's always for 1/2" shank bits. I assume the Bosch colt only takes 1/4" shank bits.

I thought about doing something like that with long lengths of fret-wire.

Yeah, 1-7 is pretty much how it goes. Get a little careless and you can end up stripping neck screws. Look at enough guitars and you'll notice some have improvements made for easier heel T-rod nut access. I don't think they made 'em like that to give techs business. For one thing, they assumed these guitars would always be set-up with fairly stiff action, so nobody would get all that fussy about precise t-rod adjustments. I think a good compromise is to have threaded inserts in your neck so you have machine thread screws instead of wood screws. The machine screws can take the abuse of being loosened/tightened over and over when loosening the neck to get at the t-rod adjustment screw. Sometimes if your neck pickup is far enough away from the neck pocket, you can cut/rout out a little pocket in the body right in front of where the t-rod adjustment screw is and then adjust it without moving the neck. I think a allen wrench usually works best for this. I do have a phillips head that has a 90 degree bend, but that usually doesn't work on something with a real small access pocket.

I know a guy who hates rosewood fret-boards so bad, that he bought a maple board Warmoth neck meant for a strat pocket, but he put it on his Washburn Nuno body and had some "Luthier/tech" put a filler piece in the neck pocket so the Warmoth neck would sit in the proper location in the pocket. I think that was a stupid thing to do. I have the rosewood neck from his Washburn, but it's a 22 fretter and wouldn't work on your body from what you've described.

Did UPS pay for the repair ? Couldn't help notice the old Donnel glass surface fret-board sander on your bench. When I see one of those, I assume the owner has been working on guitars since at least the mid 90's.

That Squire neck probably has an over-hang at the end, and the Schecter body might have a neck pocket routed for a neck that doesn't have an over-hang.

I sure hope you make it clear up front when it's something you've never done before. I hope the "mouths to feed" doesn't inspire you to do otherwise. It's a little odd to me that you have that much confidence about repairs, even though you don't have a lot of experience with all types of repairs, but at the same time you are in a line of work that deals with making or distributing actual "work order forms", but you're full of doubt how to use such forms for your own business.

Probably best if you could email them a photo. If it's bent bad enough, they might just sent you more, without you having to pack it up and ship back. I once had a couple 2 foot lengths of StewMac wire bent sideways pretty bad, from what I considered a poor packing job. They replaced it and didn't make me send the damaged wire back. This was long ago, before the days of being able to email a photo. Next time you want Allparts wire, check out what 'project guitar' owner Brian Calvert can do for you. Think he sells Allparts fret-wire on his universal jems website.

I guess this is a perfect example of a case where over-radiusing the frets helps keep the ends down. Also a perfect example of why when I get a request along the lines of " Can you re-fret a neck I made from scratch ?" I reply that I'm stranded on Antartica. Hope you don't take that as a diss, cause we've all done stuff along those lines.