frank falbo

That's how I did mine. I brought the neck in so that the fretboard meets the neck pickup. If you look at a 24 fret Ibanez RG with the All Access Neck Joint, the neck pocket doesn't have a back on it. It just goes clear through to the neck pickup cavity. So that's what I did to this guitar. This guitar is a 22 fret Ibanez Saber, and I put a 22 fret LP style neck on it. Luckily, the neck I was using had a long heel, otherwise you'd have to carve back the neck pocket. I did that anyway, because I converted the heel to an AANJ at the same time, but I didn't have to. For a strat, you'll probably have to fill the body holes and re-drill them farther back. If you wanted to have minimal modification, you could just cut off the front two holes of the neck pocket, and sand that smooth. The distance from the front screw holes to the edge of the neck pocket is about the same distance you'll be routing back the pocket. Then re-drill those back on the new section, fill the back two holes, and re-drill those. Then you'd just have that flat tip section where the neck meets the body to touch up. Or leave the wood showing, and oil it or seal it with something. That's the most stealth way I can think of.

You could also remove a good bulk of the wood with a radial arm saw, and use a dado blade if you had one. You could get all the way up to the fretboard and then finish with the overhead router/drill press. You could probably do it without removing the neck if you wanted to. I don't think it would weaken the neck joint to remove the maple from around it and then reglue.

You could try the guts from an electric Variax. Then you'd have the nylon string sound fed through the same simulators that the steel strings would have been fed through. It would truly be like a nylon string electric guitar. I mean it would be fake, and it would attack and sustain like nylon strings, but the algorithms would be the same. So it might produce pretty passable electric sounds.

I have a guitar with chrome covered humbuckers. So I put this Duncan Alnico Pro tele neck pickup in the middle position and it looks fantastic. But it doesn't sound that great. I'd like to trade this for something brighter and clearer. This is a real smooth neck pickup. Anyone with a Tele would like it. Here's a list of the kind of tele pickups I'd take in trade: Duncan Vintage Stack (preferred) Duncan Hot Rythm Dimarzio Twang King Dimarzio Virtual T What I can't use are things like 1/4 pounders, vintage replicas, etc. I need good high end response. And it has to be chrome covered, or else it defeats the purpose. e-mail to frank.falbo@sbcglobal.net

Right away it seems you have hot and ground backwards on your output jack. Other than that I'll see if I can see anything else.

You can vary the tension and feel of a wound string by varying the ratio of wrap size to core size. Also hex core vs. round core alters the overall mass. So you can have strings of the exact same gauge that will have different tension to reach pitch. Still, Slinky is a marketing term only, and bad information is what it is.

What he said about slinkys is insane. They work fine on a trem. He must be under the illusion that the name slinky means something. It doesn't. They're just strings like any other. I've used them all. Hey I guess that really is "guitar noise" as in "you can ignore it, it's just noise." As for the elixirs, they shouldn't be a problem either. The only thing I could see is if the wrap loosened from the string. But if you are torquing properly at the bridge that shouldn't be an issue either. At the nut however, if you keep loosening and tightening it there, it could sever the wrap, I don't know. I can't stand the feel of elixirs, so I'm the wrong guy to ask about those in particular.

You'll need a fine tuning tailpiece like the Schaller one. Locking the strings witht he pad throws them out of tune a little, because the pad shifts a little, or sometimes your angle is such that he locking actually pulls the note sharp because it pulls the back end of the string down a little. I wouldn't recommend it without a fine tuning tailpiece, however I would highly recommend it otherwise. A fine tuning TOM and a lock nut would be a neat combination.

Yeah, unless you decided to put a 22 fret neck on it that was from a G&L, a Peavey, or some other guitar that had the longer neck heel and no extension. Sometimes the pickguard issue works in reverse, too. Like if you had a 21 fretter before, you might go to put a 22 fret on there and it hits the pickguard. Or if you don't realize it you'll screw the neck down and crack the extension because it's resting on the pickguard, before the neck heel hits the bottom of the pocket. I've had people bring me those repairs in the past.

Well my offer to swap necks still stands. It seems you're not eager to sell it or modify it, so by default, perhaps you are "most eager" to replace the neck with a dot inlayed one. I have a body right here that I think would look better with sharktooth/binding.

You'll be fine. The only big name 22 fret necks I've seen without the overhang are G&Ls and some Peaveys. Everyone has been doing strat heels the same way for quite a long time, since replacement necks first came out in the 70's. I don't know what made you guys start to overanalyze this one. The only possible thing you might notice is that on some strats, depending on the neck depth, the pickguard has to be cut away to accomodate the 22nd fret. So you might see a little strip of paint there where the 22nd fret extension used to be. But if the guard went under the fretboard exstension then you won't even notice. Or a new pickguard would fix that.

That's true, he did warn you. You can sand back to the mid coat and try dusting the area over to hide it a little. But it will always be visible. If the clear ran, I can guarantee it re-flowed the mid coat and pulled it too. I had that happen in one little area on my Radius, luckily it was right at the tip of the bass cutaway, and the strap button basically hid the whole thing.

What gave you the idea for a basswood neck? It's a poor choice without a lot of extra stabilizers like graphite or steel. Even then it's debateable. The fact that you'll be using a longer scale makes it even less likely to succeed. Yes you'll need a neck angle for a wraparound bridge. You can't really recess it because you need access to the lower end to string it.

There's going to be a ton of sealer below the logo. So you don't have to sand to bare wood. Just sand evenly until the logo is gone and you'll be able to finish right over the sealer, with or without a new logo. I don't know what your guitar looks like or what color it is, but personally I like when a strat headstock is painted gloss black.

Um, yeah I didn't misinterpret anything. For those of you fretting before install, if it works for you, that's fine. Although I feel the same as Jeremy. You leave yourself open to a lot more problems than doing it after you glue the board. I wasn't saying no one should EVER fret before glueing the board, although that would be my candid advice. But this isn't even about that, because if you're fretting first, at least it's you doing the fretting, and you're controlling the process. A pre-fretted board has been fretted for how long? Who knows? When was it fretted, how was it fretted? Was it even level before fretting? It's indeterminable. If that board was fretted and then shipped to you, there's almost no way the frets will all be seated properly by the time it gets to you. Setch goes from the countertop to the neck. But if I asked him to fret me a board, and then ship it over to me, no matter how good he was, there'd be issues when it got here, like the ones Jeremy described, unless maybe if he shipped it here still attatched to the countertop material. And I wouldn't base anything I do on what a big factory does, especially Gibson. They make rollercoasters. If any big factory does it that way, remember they have all the precision clamping machinery to go with it.

Or I'll swap you my dot inlay/no binding neck for yours. Then you're done!

You can buy them, but it's a mistake. It's the wrong way to do it. The frets should be installed after the board is laminated to the neck.

Sometimes OFR knife edges have a narrow radius so they don't work with all types of studs. But if I were you, I'd fill the area as described, or with my method below. Then use Ibanez Edge studs and anchors. They will be about twice as wide as the tear through. So you'll have a lot of anchor area against new wood. Plus the damaged wood area will mostly be drilled out. But some of the Edge studs have too sharp of an angle on the groove and they can bind up against the OFR knife edge. So if you get the studs from ibanezrules.com, ask for studs that have the widest groove in them, and Rich will know. If you use the big Ibanez anchors, first soak the entire area in thin superglue. That way all the soft, damaged wood will get locked into place. Also the CA will penetrate the wood fibers and strengthen the whole area. Then you could use the fill methods mentioned above. Or what I'd do is to route a channel about 1/4" on either side of that mess. So you'd be superglueing about a 3/4" cubed piece of hardwood into that whole area. Basically replace from the trem cavity opening to the pickup cavity, about 3/4" deep, 3/4" wide, and whatever that length is between the cavities. So you'd have lots of glue surface, and a nice new area to redrill. I'd make my piece go past the pickup route into that cavity a little. If you went deep enough with it, you'd be able to actually add some wood in front of the stud hole, before it bumps the pickup. You want to really make sure it never comes out? Make it a trapezoid, with the larger part by the trem cavity, tapering toward the pickup cavity. Either way use superglue for this one. It's the most reliable, and you can soak it down after the piece is fitted, to be sure it penetrates everywhere.

You could strap two battery powered amps to your legs. One for the piezo and one for the magnetics. But then you'd still need two wireless mics to mic the speakers. Then all that stuff would be so heavy that you'd probably have to sit down. Then you wouldn't need the wireless. But seriously, I don't even know if you could use two different belt packs, because don't some belt packs use the shielding of the guitar cable as the antenna in some way? What I'm saying is you might cause trouble if you have the same "ground" going to each belt pack, depending on the wireless. Mine all have antennas hanging off the bottom, so maybe I'm nuts, but I thought that's why you couldn't use active pickups with certain wirelesses. Maybe I'm just remembering from way back, to consumer-grade wireless infancy. There were some old Audio Technica wireless units that had relay switches in them so you could do things like change amp channels from the guitar. It was a little velcro momentary switch. Maybe you could rig something up so that whenever you switched to the piezo on the guitar, it automatically switched your signal to go to the different amp/PA/processor, etc. It would be pretty complicated, but kind of fun if you could pull it off. I don't know if this exists, but in broadcasting, many times you see them wearing a two mic pair on their lapel. I always thought one was a backup. I wonder if they feed the same belt pack, or if they do, I wonder if they're just both on all the time, or if it's a "stereo" wireless like you're saying. I wouldn't think they were both on at the same time because the close proximity would cause phasing issues.

Part of what makes the Maxxas so vibrant is the fact that it's a bolt on neck, so that center core of the body can vibrate more independently of the neck vibrations. If you merge them, even to create a mahogany neck through Maxxas copy, you won't have the same result. The string vibrations will be governed by that center neck thru unit. The chambers will be vibrating sympathetically. With the Maxxas, the chambers vibrate right off the center block, which is detatched from the neck, and carries all the string tension.

Definitely sand the base coat. If you don't, then any raised specks will become little black dots once you finally sand. The black basecoat should be perfect. BUT there's no need to wetsand. Just dry sand with 400-600 and go from there. There's no reason to add water at this stage. If you're lucky and the last base coat is perfect, then don't sand it. It's better to put the mid coat right over the base coat as it dried naturally. But it's more essential you have a smooth surface. I sanded once during the mid coats, because subsequent coats re-flow the preceding coats. But it's a good idea not to sand the mid coat. Then wait until you get a good build out of the clear before you wetsand (or drysand) it between coats. You don't want the sanding to penetrate the clear and start leveling the mid coat. You can buff early on in the cure time, because it's really easy to get a good buff while it's still a little soft. But if you do, you'll be re-buffing it later anyway because of the shrinkage. It really takes forever to cure, and it's really never cured. It's always softer than a good pro-grade nitro finish.

I've thought about the Hipshot Trilogy bridge for a lap steel, and I might use one someday. But it doesn't do bends like a pedal steel. But I like the idea of having alternate tunings right there. I always thought they looked silly on a regular guitar, but on a lap steel they'd be pretty cool. Then they have that B-bender alternative that seems to work like the Epiphone bender, just with a drop D added to the low E string.

I like them positioned a little farther away from the bridge than the standard Gibson placement. Plus, the "superstrat" is so much brighter than a set neck, 24 3/4" scale guitar, so you get a much screechier bridge humbucker sound from the very same pickup. Then if you have a floating trem, it's even thinner. So I find that you don't really lose any pinch harmonics or typical bridge pickup overdrive characteristics if you go forward about 3/16" from Gibson placement. And there's no quicker way to ruin the warmth that you thought you'd have from a humbucker than to put it too close to the bridge. I'd rather not have to go to a higher output, more muddy pickup just to compensate for the loss of low end. I'd rather go with a brighter, cleaner bridge pickup and have the location gain me some extra lows and smoothness. But that's just me.

Maybe you already know this, but you can do a P-90 like a strat pickup, too. You can use rod magnets pressed into a fiber top and bottom, then wind directly around the magnets, or tape them off first if you like. Actually I just realized that the Fralin link talks about that method of construction too. Anyway have fun! P-90's are a great choice to start winding! The bobbin is really oversized, so there's lots of room in there, and you won't even come close to the edge unless you grossly overwound it. Plus it's pretty narrow so you're going back and forth pretty quickly. A few crossovers aren't as big a deal as if you're trying to do the picture-perfect, tall strat coil with every wind tightly pressed in the perfect order. Hey they're supposed to sound kind of distorted, right? You can't do wrong! Anything you do "wrong" will actually be cool to some people, like scatterwinding or losing your tension, etc.

It's a recipe for disaster. The only time an oil finish should be used on Basswood is if it won't be used. So a picture frame, a carving, etc. Something decorative. No matter how much you build any oil finish, you'll still be able to take your nail across it and leave a line. Every pick scratch is permanent. The only "natural" finish I'd use is a hard satin poly like Defthane. The satin will help your eye think it's natural, but it'll be better protected. An epoxy based filler is a great idea, but Basswood doesn't have any open pores to speak of, so you'd end up with more of a surface coating. Still that might be a good idea before the poly. Or you can give the whole guitar a superglue bath!