KeithHowell

What value could be put on an original Eddie van Halen finished guitar, signed and authenticated and originally played by him? Keith

Have a look at Mervyn Davis's guitars at www.mervyndavis.com His guitars are almost a kit of interchangeable parts. They sound great and play great as well. Keith

I just modified a standard sheet metal nibbler which cost me around $10 and a bit of filing with a needle file to make the slot the fret fits in. Keith

Where is the one MIMF are selling? I drew the one on GuitarBuild and I will be very annoyed and send MIMF a nasty e-mail if they are selling something I put out for free! By the way it is also available on this site! Just contribute and get access to the download area. Keith This one? Nope not my drawing. I see the central body block only goes to just behind the string anchor? I stand corrected but I've always understood that it goes all the way through. Keith I did some more scratching and contacted a ES335 collector who says that the original models had the block all the way through and the design was changed in the later models with a two block construction.

Where is the one MIMF are selling? I drew the one on GuitarBuild and I will be very annoyed and send MIMF a nasty e-mail if they are selling something I put out for free! By the way it is also available on this site! Just contribute and get access to the download area. Keith

"Adding resistors will also change the frequency response..." No it won't. Resistors are non reactive components! However you should make sure you match your input and output impedances ie input from pickup and output to amp. To do this you would need to make a "T" pad. I can't remember all the calcs to do this it's been many years since I studied line transmission! Keith

Do what everyone said above! A rigid FLAT sanding area is essential. Try this to make sure your gluing surfaces are flat: Scribble on the surface with a soft pencil then sand again. The marks should disappear evenly else any high or low spots are easily visible. Re-apply some more pencil marks (the more the better) and keep sanding until they all disappear siimultaneously. Keith

Does your amp not have a switch internally to swith the transformer primary coil to 220v? If not you will have to change the transformer for a 220v primary version which is probably more trouble than it is worth. Keith

I have the center block and am about to put the sides in place. I was thinking of accessing the neck bolts through the pickup route, but as you say these guitars are pretty thin and there's not much room. Perhaps I'll have to stay with the Gibson style glue joint, but if I can make a Cumpiano style bolt in work I would prefer that. Keith

I've used the cross dowells Cumpiano method. It works very well. I'm now trying to figure out a way I can use it in my ES335 style guitar I am currently working on. Does anyone have any suggestions. Keith

I have communicated with Jason re his book and here is his reply to a request for a new edition and/or a digital version: "We're not sure, Jason is pretty buried and just hasn't had time to work on a new edition." "we dont want it to be released as a digitized format." Keith

So you've been in a taxi in South Africa have you? There were pictures in the newspaper and on TV a few months ago where a guy was bust for doing just that! Keith

I presume you are getting a genuine Dremmel! We burnt up two Ryobi's before getting a Dremmel and I can say one thing. The Ryobi has got absolutely nothing on a Dremmel and its not even that much cheaper. Keith

Well the concept is actually a few hundred years old. The Ramkie was a traditional instrument made from a gourd and was updated with the oil tin about a hundred years ago. The oilcan guitar was slowly dying as a homemade instrument when Graeme came up with the idea, so in a way we are keeping some of our South African culture alive. By the way the first guitar my brother and I attempted to build used an old cake tin for a body, a bit like a banjo, so I guess I've come full circle. Keith

Yes from my university physics days a node is the point in a waveform where it crosses zero. ie the vibration is zero. The anti-node is the point with the most displacement which is the peak of the waveform in a sin-wave. Keith

That stuff is lethal! HF is used extensively on diamond mines for cleaning the diamonds. After the warnings from the chemical guys I stay well away when working on the mines. It is extremely corrosive and a spill is emergency shutdown time and lots of shouting and screaming! I'm surprised the authorities allow anyone, including companies like De Beers and especially untrained artists to even be allowed to have the stuff. Keith

R.E.M. played Cape Town this weekend on their "Around the Sun" tour! At 6:30 Friday evening I got a call from their managment saying they would like to see and try our guitars! A mad rush to get to the show and a meeting with Mike Mills afterwards who played one and then personally invited us back on Saturday to bring some more guitars. Peter Buck picked up the one we had set up for him, played it for five minutes and said "I want it" He will be playing it later in the tour once his tech has it set up with his heavey gauge strings and he (Peter) has played it at sound check. Mike Mills has expressed huge interest and asked us to let him know as soon as our bass version is ready! Also Mark Knopfler who was in South Africa earlier this month asked through the promoter about his guitar! Our new web site is Afri-Can Guitars pictures of Peter, Mike, Graeme our designer and myself will be up on the site shortly. Thanks to Attie van Wyk and Lara Cohen at Big Concerts for making it all happen! Keith

Drilling right through with much smaller diameter bit and the enlarging the hole to the correct size from each side works well. The small diameter is much less prone to splintering and it gives a nice pilot hole for drilling out the rest. Keith

The 335 style of guitar is based on acoustic guitar principles with the sides bent. The sides will be much stronger this way and can therefore be thinner (about 2.5 to 3 mm, roughly around 1/8') and hence also lighter. Apart from the huge waste of wood to route out the inside, the grain will still all run parallel to the centre line and will have to be a good bit thicker at the edges to stop cracking. I have built a side bender along the Fox bender principles to bend my sides. Keith

Glad I could help. I am currently building my own 335. I've got the body block cut and am busy with the sides. I just scrapped a set of sides which I wasn't happy with. I had a go at bending them from maple finished three ply but I was not happy with the final result so I am going to redo them by bending and laminating from maple veneer. I will post some pictures when I have got things a little further down the line. I am also using TurboCad LE by the way. Keith

I moded my neighbours Casio guitar, which was once part synthesiser guitar till someone knocked his coffee over onto the electronics. The synth was then pulled out and conventional pots put in. 250k was used and the humbucker (its a h,s,s strat type setup) sounded like mud. I then tried both a 500k and then a 1Meg with the 1Meg winning. My neighbour then bought a Godin ,when he was in the USA in December and his wife made him give the Casio to me. I was showing him one of our Afri-cans last week and her comment was "Andrew you have enough guitars" Keith

You need to have your CNC take a circular saw type blade with the right curf size: usually 0.6mm If you are cutting more than one board a day it is worth doing. Yesterday between two of us we cut 15 boards by hand and we were both knackered afterwards. I can't wait to get a CNC up and running again! Keith

That is my plan on Guitar Build. The scale is 1:1 measurements are all METRIC in Millmetres. Your 407 Inches are in fact 407.83mm divide by 25.4 to get inches: 16.05 inches What CAD are you using? Make sure you are set to Millimeters! Good Luck Keith

Your dimensions I think are slightly big, my sources gave me 19" by 16" which is the sizes I used to draw the plan available in the download area. Keith

We have tried Rhodesian Teak recently. Rhodesian Teak Very hard and a bit difficult to work, but makes a very nice fret board. Clogs sanding belts and burns quickly if your'e not careful. Keith