Phil Mailloux

It's a site where opinions are welcome, as long as they're the same as the Admin's. Also, posting of facts is NOT allowed. That got me banned several times. You sure you want to go there? I at least want to see WHAT i'm missing.

Thanks Stahler, that's nice, but i'm interested in making it myself if I can find out how the stuff is done and what for material it is. It's for homemade Musicman bass humbuckers with my own customized string spacing so it really couldn't be found anywhere.

Oops! Wrong section, I thought I was in the electronics section... Can someone move it?

Does anybody know what kind of material they use to make those pickup covers that cover the magnet pole pieces? (a la EMG) Plastic, epoxy, other? and is it possible to machine or melt myself some of those covers for my homemade pickups?

It's also hard to find out where the regulars are from since the locations got deleted under the name tags Ultraman, back in december (when I was back home on X-mas holiday) I went to Stephenson guitars (Luthier) on Crescent street to buy keys for the bass i'm building, he also sold me some carbon fiber rods and let me see his work room. Who knows, if you ask nicely enough he might give you some tips on things you're looking for.

Langevin & Boivert on Papineau street is the best place in Montreal for wood. I bought a piece of mahogany big enough to get a body and two necks out of it for 70$CAD + taxes. They've got a huge samples rooms with pieces ready to take away and specialize in selling hand and power tools. If you don't find it in the showroom they've got plenty of all kinds of other woods. They'll give you a quote right away on whatever you want and will also joint and thickness it. If youre looking for maple, you might also want to check out home depot type of shops. I found a piece of 3/4" x 4" x 6' of flamed maple for 13$ at Reno-Depot on galerie d'anjou blvd. (They don't make a difference wether its curly, plain or flamed) if you have a look through the stocks you might see something interesting. I don't know any place where you can rent out time on machines but I would definitely look in the "Pages jaunes"

Can anyone tell me what the*other* site is thats mentionned all over the first couple of pages of this thread?? Is that a build or mod site that could be interesting to visit for anyone here??

"make your own electric guitar" is defintiely a great place to start, it was my first book on the subject. I got the first edition waaaayyyyy back in '87. You'll learn everything you'll ever need with it. The project guitar site and forum will answer whatever else you may have for questions. The bass in hiscock's book is a neck-through-body which might be a bit more complicated to build, but you can always build a bolt-on one anyway. And to answer you original question: No, personnally I don't think there's much difference in building a bass or a guitar, you might want to look into reinforcing a bass neck with carbon rods, but besides that the difference is pretty much scale lenght, hardware ect...

Hi PSW, Thanks for answering my questions (in LOTS of details) I'm experimenting with pickups right now, so your info definitely gives me food for thought. I'm canadian, we also use metric and imperial, so anyone is fine with me. Just a tip: you might want to click on the "add reply" button next time to post your message instead of the "start new thread" button. It's less confusing for anyone else to follow the conversation.

Hi PSW, I've got some questions for you since you rewind pickups and have experimented with rare earth magnets. I found some rare earth magnets that are the same size than the alnico 5 rods used in strat pickups. Did you ever try to build a pickup out of those? I'm curious to see if that would work but haven't been around to try it yet.

I've seen a whole bunch of polyurethane types out there, water-based, solvent-based, one-component, two-component, ect... What's the difference? I've read on another thread that poly is a type of finish better not done by an amateur in an attic with basic equipment. (i.e. me) Is water based-poly easier or better to use this way? Are all types of poly evenly dangerous? Or is there a lesser dangerous one I can use?

Started payig acoustic when I was 13, at 14 I got my first electric, a 1974 Gibson SG I paid 450$ canadian for. I sold it back the year after that for the same price to finance myself a 30watt marshall amp to play with a cheap ass LP copy I got free. Stopped playing guitar at 18. Restarted playing for about a year when I was 26 and picked-up my first bass then. Started playing bass actively last year and taking lessons, i'm now 33 years old and I wish I still had That SG!!

I was thinking of buying one of those gauged saws to use to cut fret slots on fingerboards, 8$ instead of 20$ appeals to me much better. Should I get the 0.020" one or the 0.025"one? Stewmac says their fretwire is 0.024", I currently use LMII fretwire which they say is 0.023"

I got myself some purpleheart cut 3 weeks ago for a neck. It was pretty brown but after after a few days near the windows it started getting bright purple, absolutely beautiful!! The guy at the lumber yard told tell me that as it gets sun it becomes bright purple, but eventually the color will become less bright and more brownish after some time. I guess i'll see in due time...

what's very strong? Could you tell me how much dye to alcohol ratio?

The LMII website doesn't offer much information about their alcohol based dyes besides the fact that 1/2 an ounce will make 1 to 2 quarts of solution. That's fine but I have no idea whatsoever what those measurements are. I thought I worked it out and tried mixing 5 grams of dye into 100ml of denatured alcohol but after shaking it up like hell and letting it sit for 45 minutes, I still get a hell of a lot of deposit at the bottom of the jars (5 different colors mixed in 5 jars). Ok, so I tried dyeing a piece of scrap maple with a rag, I tried the red, amber and yellow colors on different spots. I can barely see what I dyed, it just looks like dirty/lightly shaded colors. At this rate I would assume I would have to do 10-20 layers of dye before I get a proper dyed color. Is this normal? Anybody got experience with LMII alcohol based dyes and want to share some tips? Anybody knows what the proper mixing ratio is in metric ?

Cooking a vanilla bean and reducing it???!!!! Damn! by then you won't have much liquid left to stain and I doubt that it will become dark enough to colour the guitar properly. If I were you i'd use squid ink (remember those black colored pastas?) You can now call this thread: "Chef's-who-wanna-be-luthiers"

I'd say you got yourself a prety damn good deal. 150$ for a vintage explorer and 30 minutes of work to reglue it!!!!!

It's "old Les Paul" heavy. As in, back when they didn't rout air pockets inside the Les Pauls to reduce the weight. The sound is quite good though, I didn't play many different guitars in my life, just the three i've ever owned but I really like the sound. The grain is also very beautiful, but compared to my light weight basses made out of alder and basswood this thing feels like a ton. If you can live with a heavy guitar, you'll definitely get a beautiful, nice sounding, cheap guitar by getting the wood at a local lumber yard. That stuff is a hell of a lot cheaper than if you buy it though StewMac or others and have it shipped. My next guitar will be made of alder. Maybe you can also check if your lumber yard as it.

Nope, it ain't the same, Swamp ash is a very light wood, regular ash (at least the one you'll find in canada) Is REAL heavy. I built a strat body with ash I bought at a local lumber yard in Montreal about 8 years ago and it weights A TON! I don't play that guitar very often because of the weight, it's not very comfortable.

Well, here goes, I removed the fretboard. It took only an hour and i'm pretty happy to see that the fretboard and the neck are both in great condition. Man, was I affraid of ripping/breaking one of those in pieces. Funny thing is that the fretboard had now got an upwards bow and the neck's backwards bow is MUCH smaller than before. Anyway, I'll sand this thing flat and glue the fretboard (and carbon rods!) back on tomorrow.

TSL, do you know any good epoxies I could use to glue the rods in that I could find at the Gamma or Praxis? Or do you recommend the LMII or StewMac stuff instead?

I was reading that link a minute ago! I just wanted to tell you that my rods were, and were installed "à la" example #3. Looks like I originally missed the gluing part of it Tsl, 32$ for 4 strat neckblanks!! We're talking about 25€ here???!!!

Oh f*** man!! Does that mean I should remove the fingerboard, glue them in (with epoxy?), and reinstall the fingerboard? I did notice that the carbon rods were a bit flexible, if I tried to bend them in my hands they would maybe twist 1/4" - 1/2" or something, is that normal?

Uumm... No, I didn't glue them in Wes.