Cherryburst

Here's a related question on this... suppose you have a non locking trem system (PRS, Wilkinson, etc) with a graphite/teflon nut in which the strings are supposed to be able to slightly "slide" and then return to original position... Would it be better to have *less* of an angle, for less pressure on the nut? Maybe just enough to keep the strings from buzzing, but not much more?

Thanks - but chambering is more than I want to do, and after a bit more digging, CA isnt something I want to deal with in larger quantities either (expense and toxic fumes)... so epoxy and KTM-9 seems like a good idea. Any suggestions for a low viscosity epoxy to try to penetrate into basswood? Is thinning the epoxy with acetone good or bad for this? Some websites suggest heating a piece of wood slightly over time so that the epoxy becomes thinner on contact and soaks in better - anyone tried that with an unfinished guitar body? (just the body, no neck)

I probably should have looked at the warmoth site first, but according to this page, http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/options_bodywoods.cfm An alder body is about 4lbs... basswood is under 4lbs... and poplar is about a half pound more than alder. (so, basswood is still the lightest... alder is lighter but harder than poplar) But where would I get CA in such quantities to be able to brush it onto a basswood body?

OK I guess the difference between basswood and poplar regarding weight and hardness is fairly close. I guess that turns my attention to what coating could be used to help prevent dings in poplar/basswood... Would a CA or Epoxy finish (before final paint) make a noticeabe difference in preventing dings? Using search I found the red CA suggested because its the thinnest. What brand and suppliers does any like? Or what about epoxy? Is the kind used on those "Jaco" fretboards a special marine brand? Or are they all pretty much the same, just varying consistancies?

Just some quick questions... forget about tone for a second... and forget about natural finish, since this would be painted. Ok, which is generally lighter... Basswood or Poplar? (by most accounts it seems to be basswood, but I'll ask) Which is usually more easily dinged and dented... Basswood or Poplar? (again, it seems to be basswood) And finally, to prevent dents & dings, would there be any merit to giving Poplar or Basswood (before final painting) a coat of epoxy as typically used on some fretless basses? (like this http://www.woodwiz.com/epoxy/)

Thanks Temjinstrife, I've sorta seen that in the past of brass not being quite as bright as steel. ...and theres no shortage of people complaining of zinc or mystery-alloy bridges that dont sound quite as good as cold steel. I'm wondering if aluminum is kinda like the "maple vs mahogany" thing. Maple may technically may have more "sustain" but mahogany may tend to sustain the things that sound more pleasing. Maybe aluminum is like that... not as "sustaining" as 1018 steel, but it resonates/cancels the right things.

Thanks guys.. defintely a LOT to chew on! I made a follow up post about "sustain" and metals used in bridges ( as opposed to wood topics)

This is sort of a follow up to the thread I made about Maple vs Mahogany wood "sustain" issues. Lets talk about metal parts... We all know that brass was a big deal back in the 80's for bridges, for "sustain" Everybody was selling something with brass in it. Callaham makes a good case that cold-rolled 1018 steel is best for trem-blocks http://www.callahamguitars.com/blocks.htm Both brass and steel make sense because of their density, but the use of Aluminum is interesting... Hipshot makes its baby grand bridge out of aluminum, and Stewmac sells a wraparound that uses a 1950 aluminum alloy http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp...ls.html#details http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp..._Tailpiece.html Super Vee makes a trem in which they found aluminum to have the "warmest tone" after trying everything else. http://www.super-vee.com/technology.html So.... does anyone want to express their thoughts on Brass vs Steel vs Aluminum as a bridge material for "sustain"?

Yea, its all Gary Moores fault! Considering the example of ebony vs rosewood marimba keys, while the rosewood may be better for that application, bringing it back to having a guitar string thats strung over a piece of ebony vs another over a piece of rosewood.... I guess the ebony will impart less internal dampening and the plucked string will have more upper harmonics sounding out, while the rosewood with more dampening will cancel some of those upper harmonics?

Look at all the guitars that use mahogany necks and bodies(and think about the pickups, hardware,size and shape and such). Then look at guitars that use Hard Maple necks and bodies(well maybe Alder to get a bigger sampling) and again consider all the components. Yep, LP = mahogany = complex glued construction vs Strat = maple/alder = simple bolt on contruction. But I'm still curious as to why ebony, which has such a high mass, is not considered to have good "sustain" in guitar construction?

Thanks mattia and black labb. If I understand correctly... Ebony, which has a lot of mass (density), has little sustain because of high dampening or too much stiffness? (is ebony considered "oily"? I dont think so) An consider Oak which has a very similar mass/density as hard-Maple... yet Oak is regarded as a terrible "tone wood". Is that a case of too much or too little dampening? (again, is Oak considered "oily"?)

Let me frame an age-old question in a slightly different way: suppose you have two (electric solidbody) guitars that are built exactly the same except for woods: one is all hard-maple, the other all mahogany (even the fretboard for this example). Now we know the maple one will have more "brightness" and the mahogany will have more "midrange". But which one will have more sustain? The hard-maple is a slam dunk, right? Not so fast... what are the reasons that the mahogany might be better? Anything to do with sympathetic resonance?

Thanks. Yep one problem is that a lot of these Pacific-rim made accessories are "mystery metal" Its hard to know what it is, and it probably changes a lot too.

Yea, I know it sounds crazy, but hey, Floyd Rose started out glueing the strings into the nut An ongoing thing I keep reading about the cheap Pacific rim knockoffs is that while they may look great superfically, they tend to overlook certain details (IE: the "vermont guitar" ebay store that sold cheap floyds whose edges went soft, or the beautiful LP clones that had no trussrods) I guess one could say "you get what you pay for" and just avoid the cheap stuff, but it seems like passing up a great opportunity- buy a cheap trem and make it complete by simply heating/quenching/hardening the edges with a small propane torch (which would cost next to nothing)

As best I can tell, tremolos that have 2-point edges are supposed to have those edges heat hardened much like what's done with a sword, right? (To keep them from going dull, thus out of tune) Heat until red-hot, then plunge into water. I made an earlier post in which we determined that the pivots in the Fender Amer Standard 2-point are NOT done like this. They may call it "hard steel" or whatever but it's not truly heat hardened like an OFR or Ibanez Edge trem is. Now consider a lot of those cheap licensed Floyd or Wilkinson trems you see on Ebay. They make general claims of "hardened steel" but are they truly heat hardened 2-point edges like they should be? Same for the posts- are they heat treated to be as hard as possible? What if one were to take one of these cheap trems, apply the flame from a small Propane torch to each edge until red hot, then plunge into water (like a sword). Same for the posts. Would that be a reasonable inexpensive way to gaurantee that those edges are properly hardened? It sounds crazy, but would that work?

I was looking around the Guitarfetish site, and the page for thier Wilkinson trem says that it'll fit into the outter 2 holes on a Vintage strat no problem, just enlarge the holes. But they say their USA Strat trem has "hardened steel" but is it the same thing as what FR and Wilkinson use?

Well that warmoth page says they're all 2.2". This is very, very close to the 2 7/32" e-to-e string spacing on the Vintage fender trem (2 7/32" = 2.19") - considering the saddles line up with the screw holes. I was hoping 2.2" was a defacto "standard" for 2 post trems, and they could be put on the outter holes of any 6 hole body. Also... if the Fender is NOT hardened steel, might a trem plate made of un-hardened steel with 6 floating style indentations be made to float on 6 of those posts? Hmmmm.

Looking at this page on Warmoth... http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/opti...dge_routing.cfm Is it possible that the 2 posts for Fender American Std and Wilkinson trems can be installed in a 6 hole Strat body by simply drilling out the outter 2 (of 6) holes to .375" ??? Also, are the pivot areas on the Fender Amer Std made of hardend steel? (all the other trems like Floyd and Wilkinson seem to claim this, but I've never seen it for the Fenders)

I guess this is the grizzly thing? A bit of overkill for me http://www.amazon.com/Grizzly-G0577-Fretbo...t/dp/B0002U8EY2 I was approaching this from the angle of having a Stewmac compound-rad fb: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_necks,...ingerboard.html and then installing & levelling the frets myself. I could use the 10-12-14-16 blocks, but if I could get a CNC shop to make a mirror image of that fb, and then cut it into 4" blocks, maybe that might make for a smoother transition of the fret radii ?? (and yes I agree that proper levelling is also VERY important, but I'm just focusing on getting the compound rad of the frets right, for this thread)

Anyone have a link for that Warmoth page? I'm not finding it (so far) Here's another idea... what if one created a long compound-rad sanding block (CNC), and then chopped it into about 4" blocks, to use on the frets I listed above... that way you'd get about the same sanding distance as the Stewmac 4" blocks, but instead there might be a more gradual change of radius... you wouldn't go right from a 10" to a 12" on adjacent frets... might that work?

Well, does anyone here have any experience with using the 4" 10-12-14-16 blocks? http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_suppl...ing_Blocks.html

Is that how warmoth or USACG does it, where they have to mass-produce a LOT of fretted FB's with a 10-16" compound radius? How can you know you're getting 10-16" by using a stright block by sight?

If I understand correctly, the most common way to sand frets for a compound radius would be to use the 4" Stewmac sanding block set of 10-12-14-16, doing... frets 1-5: 10" 6-10: 12" 11-16: 14" (tight fit for 4" block on this one) 17-22: 16" Is that correct? If so, it would mean the strokes for each block can't be much more than 1/2" or so? And if so, doesn't that mean that say, fret #5 will have a 10" rad and the adjacent fret #6 will have 12" radius?

I realize that frets on compound-radius fb are usually levelled with a series of multiple increasing-radius sanding blocks. Now consider that StewMac sells this 18" aluminum sanding beam for fb's with continous radius: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_suppl...ing_Blocks.html Now consider a compound radius fb that's a 10" radius at the 1st fret and 16" at the 22nd (last) fret. (just for this example) Now suppose someone were to make a similar long sanding block/beam that was a mirror image of that compound-rad fb dimensions (10" rad at one end, 16" rad at the other end) If you were to attach the stickit sandpaper to that block and run it on the fb in short 1/4" - 1/2" strokes.... might it work for leveling the frets in the compound radius of the fb?

Here's a page on the FR website: http://www.floydrose.com/nutsizes.html It shows all of thier locking nuts as having 10" fretboard radius (except the R9 which is 15") Are the saddles on their trem bridge also a 10" radius by default? (without any shims) Do any of the FR licensees make parts (nuts or saddles) with radii other than 10"? (I notice that the Schaller FR on StewMac says a 14" radius for the saddles)