Jivin

I'm looking at a mahogany guitar neck with a rosewood/ebony fretboard and an undrilled, paddle headstock, and it seems to me that warmoth is a good $20 or $30 cheaper than USACG... any particular reason i should spend allthat cash to go with USACG? Particulariliy since paying $450AU just for a neck shites me enough as it is edit - toned down some foul language

go to a small-business computer engraving shop. my mum runs a computer engraving business and provided its a flat peice (and im assuming your sheet of material would be ) if you can hand over a hand-drawn version of what you would or even better, a CAD file of some sort, then they should be able to knock something up for you for a few bucks, depending on the complexity. weve had customers before wanting custom guitar pickguards and stuff like that, and im using the engraver to cut out my explorer template, so i know its possible, but i guess if there is -really- fine elements to your design (like that are only 1-3mm thick), some places might have a bit of trouble and either turn down the job or charge you more for the trouble.

yeah, im a bit the same as you GregP, but hte problem is im gonna be ordering the guitar from the US, and im in Australia, and it is going to take me a bit of time to get the cash! Oh well, i guess i can start off and just change my drawings later when i have the gear. Does anyone give me some measurements of a TonePros TOM bridge?

Hi, I'm in the process of planning a bolt-on explorer style guitar, and ive hit a bit of a snag even before ive put pen to paper Ive had heaps of time to think as ivw gone through other smaller projects, so i know what i want, and in traditional explorer style, I am going with a tune-o-matic bridge. Rather than shying away from it and just recessing the bridge, I dont see any issue with making the neck angle, however with regard to drawing my plans, i'm having trouble accurately representing what i want to build without actually having bought most of hte materials... Now, I may be wrong here, so by all means correct me if i am please! Im assuming there is a height difference between the bridge and the nut, hence the need for a neck angle in the first place right? Well for this project im planning on buying a neck from warmoth, but i dont have it (or anything yet), so im at a bit of a loss as to how im meant to draw an accurate representation of the guitar so i can figure out the neck angle without knowing the height of the bridge and nut. I could have sworn id seen people building guitar bodies/necks and buying the hardware later... so surely im just missing something? sorry for the long post! any help would be appreciated, as i would really like to draw some good plans before i start. - Dan

I'm pretty sure its totally synthetic, and from what ive heard, its extremely durable and has quite a nice tone, suitable for bass guitars. Cort use it on their Curbow series basses, and I think Ibanez have used it for a few bass models too. Ive never heard of a guitar made out of it, but of course thats not to say its not possible and hasn't been done

I use a plastic pick thats small! man looks like i have to go down to the shops and learn me some stuff about picks

Fabulous work mate, inspirational! I love the way the colour and grain of the fretboard works with the blue figured top. Although the top might have 'crappy' figure, I think its beautiful in its own way great work!

Damnit why couldnt there be a good Australian supplier there are a few places ive found local to me, but most are either REALLY freaky little guitar repair small businesses (how they get business i have no idea), and normal guitar shops who have guitar building stuff behind the counter.. but really have no idea what it is, so when you ask about it, they just give you a grin and say 'aww yeah i reckon thats worth about $180" $180! for a set of tuners! *censored* ok im done

If your after a little multi-fx, i can put in a good word for the litte Alesis unit (link) and the Zoom 505 (link) / 606 (link) All are great little units for someone new to this sort of thing and for the money the quality and range of effects is great. Still looking at around $70US though Definitely scour ebay - im in Australia so i cant vouch for sure, but keep an eye out for the Zoom 505/606/707 units, the Korg AX1000g/1500g, Zoom GFX-4/5, Boss ME-30/50 ect ect.. you may find you can pick up a great 2nd hand unit for not much more than what you would pay for a new entry-level unit all great units and generally found on ebay easily from poeple who are ugrading good luck mate - Dan

Not necessarily, becuase its possible to write a peice in powertab or guitar-pro that isnt possible/is very difficult for you to play on guitar and in a fairly meager sense you get to hear the tune that you tabbed from something in your head and any challenge that stimulates practice and development like that cant be bad

Yeah, and its no big deal... so your neck pickup will have a slightly different tone to what it would have been like had it been up against the fretboard. I personally would be happy at the way its turned out... the neck pickup will still have a fuller low end, but might have just that smidge more bite Ive got nothing against the solid colour in general (gloss black with gold hardware plz ), but it just seems a bit of a waste for not a very good reason - it could be a blessing in disguise!

Not before you learn how to palmmute properly boy-o IMHO i think its a bit poor the way you come across there ... sounds more like your giving up to me... Dont get me wrong though, im all for branching out, so here goes.. It doesnt exactly fit into any of your categories, but im pretty sure you wouldnt mind anyway, but take a gander at some of the softer stuff by Opeth, very nice. I would also like to second the notion of Stevie Ray and Kenny Wayne as well. Who knows what sort of abuse I might cop as well.. but I honestly think you should look a bit at John Mayer... im a big fan of his guitar work, i think its a bit of a shame he has chosen to go almost soley into recording pop (soft)rock style stuff, cause he gets bagged so much, but he has a great style on acoustic and is an awesome blues guitarist to boot. - Dan

I dont want to step on anyones toes, I agree with almost everything you said Roqviller, but I was under the impression a material with a good amount of stretch was the way to go... I dont mean spandex or anything but something with a good amount of cotton in it? - Dan

and still no pics? man if you could borrow a shop to work in, surely you could scavenge yourself a digicam!

I -think- it was said that the new LP style kit has a compound material body... im assuming like MDF or ply or something? not sure, do a search for the thread made recently about the Saga LP kits. I would go the HT kit if any - Dan

I could have sworn someone made a Mosrite style guitar and entered it in last months GOTM... Might be worth a look, but im probably just getting confused ah ha! i knew it it was Hitone check his handywork here: http://www.robstudio.com/guitar/

I would say its like buying a cheap brand telecaster copy

Draw detailed diagrams! I cant stress that enough, especially if youve never done this before.

Thanks a lot for the help guys - Dan

Thanks for the help, but i opened the back up and sure enough, the person i bought it off had chocked the back of the cavity up with cork.. he obviously didnt like using the trem! That fixed, im a bit frustrated with how hard it is to tune. Im happy to go through the right steps, but it seems like the strings fall out of tune very quickly... as in, in the time it takes me to reach for the allan key to lock down the nut, the strings have fallen out of tune at least a halfstep! so wheni lock them down, they are so far out of tune the fine-tuning screws cant adjust far enough and then after that, when ive eventually got it locked down and tuned, it still falls out of tune, sometimes without even using the trem! It just doesnt make me confidant at all i can even lightly use the trem and stay in tune. I mean, I know it would be a crappy trem, and it is single locking which cant help, but this is less than i expected. One thing though, and this is the kicker.. the strings feel new... could it be the strings are just breaking in and that is why its losing tune so much.. im aware of issues with holding tune for a new set of strings on a hardtail, and it makes sense it would play havoc even with a locking setup - ??? - Dan

Howdy, I posted a while ago on a different matter relating to this guitar ive just gotten recently (cort x series, superstrat styley). Coming from a very les paul style fixed bridge background with guitars, this is my first ever guitar ive owned with a floyd rose trem. This is definitely a licenced SINGLE locking floyd rose (im assuming from looking at it that means it doesnt lock at the bridge, only at the nut), and its probably a pretty crappy one at that. Now, before i ask my questions, ill just say i am getting a book by Dan Erlewine (sp) about guitar repair and maintenance which ive skimmed and seen it goes into some detail on living with a floyd, and if necessary, i plan to take a trip to the guitar shop to speak/have this thing looked at by their tech. ook then! it came with the strings loosened, so with a bit of mucking around, i tuned the strings as accurately as i could with the tuners, then locked the nut, and thetn fine tuned it with the fine tuners on the trem. all good. ok so i go to play, and i notice obviously now that the strings are tensioned, the back of the bridge has lifted itself out of hte cavity... cool. but when i go to use the trem, it doesnt operate in both directions... as in, i can use the tremolo arm to raise the pitch of the strings, but when i go to push down and lower the pitch (which is what i would consider to be the more important of the directions ), it is really really stiff and just doesn feel right. Obviously for fear of damaging something i havent pushed hard, but its obvious ive stuffed something up somewhere if pictures are needed, i can provide, but i cant at the time of posting, cause my sister has just had a beautiful baby girl a week ago so she has my camera Thanks a lot PS; also... the strings feel so loose like the guitar sounds right, but the stings are like so bendalicious! im used to 22 fret necks.. this is a 24... could that have something to do with it? - Dan

If i built a full guiar from scratch I wouldnt be suprised if mine came out worse than that, so im keeping my mouth shut! kudos for giving it a crack, im sure your next one will be infinitely better with all the lessons you will have learnt from this attempt

Awesome guitar man! I like One suggestion though - I personally think it would look better if you finished the headstock like you have the rest of the body (if thats possible). The black just doesnt doesnt work i reckon small issue though, and besides that i think its great. good job

What level are you at with your guitar? Ive been getting by on a Zoom 606 i got cheap years ago.... I think its a pretty good peice of gear if you can get it at the right price. My only real whinge about it is its lack of control over the equalizer (you really only have preset options 1-50...), and it seems no matter which one you choose you always have a lot of high end bite.. which isnt always suitable. Still, with some time and some presets off the net, you can get some awesome sounds out of it and should serve you well. Mine has gone through a lot, and despite its plastic casing has stood up to the task remarkably. edit - i should add though, now that i have some money, after a lot of thinking and testing im upgrading to a Boss GT6... its been a long time coming!

Always nice to have someone do the thinking for me when I have a brainfart like that cheers greg