frank falbo

Yeah, let's have it. I would love to be educated on what is the right glue for each job. I mean, what if I've been doing it wrong for my whole career? I'd sure like to know. I like Titebond for any clean wood to wood combinations that aren't under a lot of stress, but including some bracing, bridgeplate, and a few bridges, too. Reglues are different, though. You have to deal with residue (hopefully you've removed it) and some chipping or tearing. So then I move to an epoxy or CA. I do most headstock repairs with CA. If there's graphite involved I use epoxy or CA. If I have graphite in a neck then I epoxy the fretboard on because titebond won't have good adhesion to the two strips. I thought titebond could shift a little under pressure over time, but someone said that titebond II was more likely to do that because it never really cures. But I've only used the original so I don't know. I worked with a guy who always used titebond for headstock repairs and I always gave him crap about it because I felt it could walk, and I didn't like titebond when there were minor gaps to be filled from chipping. Plus if the headstock wasn't broken clean off, I felt like you never could get titebond to go all the way in there like you could with CA. But they all held just fine. So most of this stuff is like splitting hairs. Maybe its my ignorange, but I can't bring myself to use hot hyde glue. It's like you're saying "here's this glue that has to be heated to use, and its not permanent because you can heat it up to re-fit a joint later. And by the way, it's very heat resistant!"

I think (don't quote me though) that I once used a 3/16ths bit, the next size smaller (and easier to find in stock) and the actual rod fit in just fine. Then I chiseled or dremeled each end for the blocks. I've also made the bottom of the hole rounded many times with a 3/16ths cove bit, so as to leave some extra wood under the rod. It also makes a nice cradle for the rod to nestle in if you have to use it to correct backbow. I've had their bit for a long time though, so this would've been at least 5-7 years ago or whenever the hot rods first came out. You'd have to check if the main rod section could fit in a 3/16ths slot. The other thing that's been discussed here is to use the 3/16ths bit and just poke your jig over slightly for a second pass to pick up the extra 16th. As for the rod itself. I like it. Unless you're making "Wizard" dimensions (and I know some of you including Jeremy are) it's not too tall. Plus I want the rod as narrow as possible. You get more strength out of a neck by having a taller narrower slot than a shorter wider one.

For Ebony if you can work quickly I would use Stew-Mac's black superglue. Then you don't have to mix the epoxy with ebony dust if you have to fill gaps. For a first inlay project, I would plan on having gaps

I would widen the slot personally. The fact that all his frets are larger would incinuate it's a smaller than normal slot. I mean there's only so many fret manufacturers. That being said, partial refrets are usually done in the lower register. If that's the case I like a real tight fret slot down there. It's the most likely area to show disproportionate forward bow. To widen slots I've used Dremel bits, and that's mostly to over-widen them for glue and less tension. If you want to widen a slot to accept a tight fret but you still want good tension, there's a few ways. One is to attack the fret tang or barbs. If your board is rosewood, I personally like an aggressive barb. I feel that without CA it will hold better, and with CA it just locks it into place even more. So I wouldn't personally take barb away if you're on rosewood. For ebony and maple I'd consider it. Another way is to widen the whole slot with a bit or a small section of blade. But a third way is to take either a dremel or regular drill bit, at around .040 or so, and drill about 7-10 "holes" into the slot, so you have a slot with relief notches in it. This allows the wood to compress easier, and fight the tang and barbs less. It also allows good tension in the slot. It can work even when the slot is smaller than the tang (excluding barbs) because it allows more compression.

Rather than pink or white noise, I would think it's more beneficial to use some sound that is more concentrated within the range that a guitar's strings produce. As a matter of fact, it may be more accurate to produce a mechanical picker and string them up with a surrogate "neck". The noise won't tell you how it would respond to string vibrations. Also having a soundsource blasting air at it is entirely different than transfering string vibrations into it. For example, a more porous wood will absorb more of the sound into it acoustically, and a tightly grained wood will reflect more, regardless of their density. So acoustically the mahoganies and ashes will absorb, fracture, and dissapate higher frequencies, even though those woods still do have good highs frequency transference. So you have to think along the lines of transference rather than absorbtion/reflection. So I'd try to find a "soundsource" that was contact based. As far as what's "flat" or what to use as a reference, there can't be one. You should just be looking at the results as variance from eachother, unless you want to pick a wood type and call it the middle ground, or use the one that comes closest to the mean average.

So what, then? Does a multi-scale fretboard have different disection points for each of the different frets if carried out to infinity? Rather than converging at a single point as you say? I know there's a "wiki" on your Fred 2-D site, but could you explain a way you could print the fretboard image to scale? That way I could just print on some adhesive paper (prior to radiusing, right?-your drawing would not be skewed for a radius) stick it to the board, and saw my slots through the paper. Heck with your drawing I could even cut the outside of the board, too. You have my total admiration for creating that website, by the way. I was going to do a multi scale 8-string, and I don't like where Ralph puts the perpendicular fret. I want it down lower, and I love the idea of no perpendicular fret, rather an "in between". As far as I can tell, you would only have the same intonation trouble you have in a regular board. I'd rather do one with an Earvana style compensated nut, and/or perhaps a "fretwave-style" fix here and there. To try to implement the feiten program across the multiple scale would be a nightmare without return on the investment.

If stainless frets are a harder, more accurate transfering agent, and that results in your guitar sounding worse, then your guitar is the problem, not your frets. You were relying on a softer fretwire to dampen some of the higher frequencies in the attack portion of the sound. It's like saying that when you switched to string throughs from your floyd rose guitars, you found you preferred the softer attack of the floyds. It's a fair criticism, but like all things roman, is laced with inaccuracies, spin, and some outright lies. A harder fretwire can't "sterilize" the tonewood, it can only increase the transference of vibration. If you toss tools after the fret job then your tools suck, or you're dumb and wasteful. I mean, what are your files made out of, nickel/silver? They can't take the wear? Idiots. I assume you do your final level with sandpaper and a flat or radiused block. Did you just mean that you have to throw out the sandpaper? Oh boohoo, some stickum sandpaper died a premature death Part of his game is to make rants that slant you toward the things he makes the most money on. From what I've seen they do average work at best. They probably don't want to mess with SS frets so the make a slam on them. He's worse than a politician. The Parkers are sharp and bright (or sterile depending on your perception) because of the overall design. The frets are only a small percentage of that. And why would SS wear out your strings faster? If they're buffed out the wear should be identical, if not longer! A well buffed SS fret will have less microscopic abrasion. Plus, as time goes on, they SS fret will keep it's buff longer rather than wear away from the string. Nothing will damage strings MORE than a flattened, grooved, or otherwise awkwardly worn N/S fret. Sometimes fretwear turns a burr out on either side. Is that better for the string? I'm done.

You could shim out the side so that the bit gradually moves away from the body. It would be a long shim and very difficult to cut. You'd have to make an angled cut on a table saw of just a few degrees, then turn around and cut the little strip off with a straight cut. I think it's a waste of time. If it were me, I'd do it all by hand with an electric sander and then a scraper and file. It wouldn't take that long. You could mark out your lines in pencil or masking tape beforehand, so you knew when to stop.

If you mean you have a P-90 space, then Dimarzio makes humbuckers housed in the P-90 housing. They are named "DLX" or "DLX Plus" etc. The DLX Plus sounds a lot like a Steve's Special so I've heard. If you have a humbucker space, then Gibson, Seymour Duncan, Rio Grande, and others make P-90's in humbucker housings.

They should just be vertically knurled. So a straight pull upward is best. Try fret pullers/cutters on the tube-o-matic bushings if you have them. They will be sharp and should be able to sneak under there. If you're stripping the guitar anyway you won't be worried about the scratch it will make on the finish. For the stop tailpiece I have even put the studs back in and used the claw of a hammer. You have to protect the guitar's face. You can thread the studs in deeper or shallower to get the right angle. The real problem is just breaking them free. Then they'll slide out easier. Really if you want you can use the threaded rods and nut on the tune-o-matic bushings with the claw of the hammer too. You just have to be real gentle in that first bump because even though you won't care if the finish chips up, you can tear out the wood.

I don't know why I didn't think of putting it here sooner, but I have a NOS 2-Tek 4-string bass bridge here that I'll probably never use. I'll never make a 4-string for myself. I like 6-strings. The bridge is cosmo finished, so it's smokey black, not jet black. It would probably go fine with black or chrome hardware. I don't have photos now but those of you who know what these are don't need one right now It's a great bridge that would dress up any 4-string project, or add sustain and reduce dead spots in a lo-tek vintagey bass. I didn't like those 2-Tek bridges on guitars, but for bass I always loved them. I don't know what's a fair price other than we paid over $150 new for it. If anyone is interested let me know. frank.falbo@sbcglobal.net

How long ago was that out of curiousity? Last time I spoke with Larry they were coming out of Europe again. Not recently, but within the last 2 years though. They could very well be the best bargain in the replacement neck market today. You would know better than I since you see more product and I'm not in retail anymore. Plus you know what the dealer net is. But there were several times throughout the '90's and until recently that they had product 1.5-2x the price of the competitors that needed twice the work. Literally every time I'd call and reference some previous problems with the necks they'd tell me that they now switched suppliers (sometimes USA, sometimes not) and that it shouldn't be that way anymore. They'd sweet talk me into how much nicer the new batch was. Some of that could've been standard sales pitch lies, but I know they did change suppliers at least 3 times in the last decade. To me, they've always been profiteers. Just about every experience I or my peers have had with them (and it's many, not few) has included them either lying or "spinning" the truth to make the sale. So I didn't have reason to continue to monitor their quality/value. But I noticed some $99 necks on their site tonight since you called me on it, and there's a good chance they're worth the money, I don't know. But my take is that if they never before cared about fret ends, level, cleaning finish off frets, etc. Then why is now different? The necks I saw were always sloppy and rough. And unlike Warmoth, you get only what's listed. You can't choose shape, size, frets, etc. so I think Warmoth is a better "value" if you include all the choices available. (some free, some not) Like I said before I've not seen them all, but my original statement still stands as how I see it from where I sit. Don't anyone flame me though, because I'm happy to be wrong, it's just the limited view from my periscope. Even now I'm kind of sad I'm writing this much, but I can't sleep I had a big fancy iced coffee drink tonight

Unless something has changed, the Stew Mac necks are from Godin/Lasido in Canada. They are pretty good necks. Mighty Mite is Korean made, and it's the same neck as any Korean Fender Squire neck. It's a good neck, too, but it's different. Mighty Mite is a cheaper way to get into different woods. Their Ebony boards and Birdseye necks are still pretty cheap compared to Warmoth or Stew-Mac. But the wood quality is lower. I used to work for Mighty Mite years ago so I know all about those necks. The frets are vintage Strat, so that's another big difference from Stew Mac. I've never found a WD neck that was worth its price. They never impressed me. I certainly haven't seen ALL of them but even when they said they changed suppliers I didn't notice any improvement. Warmoth is good, and then you get to pick and choose your features, more than anyone else for that price range.

They might've thought he was talking about an AANJ. I wouldn't trust Warmoth's advice anyway. Especially not for Ibanez. Before Ibanez had the RG's and the Jems, they were just making regular strat neck pockets on the 22 fret Roadstars. No AANJ, and no difference in the bolt arrangement or height, etc. When they introduced the Jems and RG's they just added the fretboard extension to it, same as Warmoth. Meanwhile, Jackson and ESP started doing all kinds of weird stuff, like 24 fret, 24 3/4" scale dinky necks, 24 fret necks that had the strat shaped heel but moved up to the 24th position, and ESP had that tilted neck plate with one offset screw. Some had a squared off tele shaped heel and others were rounded. But Ibanez just kept doing the strat heel with extra frets. Then they did the AANJ and that was new for everyone. It's really got no extension and its squared off. Nothing fits that. You'd have to cut it from a Carvin neck thru, or wait for a used one. But a friend of mine even used an old RG neck on a strat body just by sawing off the last 2 frets. It's the same heel.

If you have the old neck joint the Warmoth should work perfectly. Everyone else has the best of intentions, but for your particular guitar, the answer is "yes" it will fit. If there is any difference it would be that the Ibanez neck has some wood under the fretboard, and the Warmoth wouldn't. That means nothing, it's just a difference in how they cut the heel. The Ibanez heel has the regular heel part, and then there is still some neck wood underneath the fretboard on the extension part. That's why they cut that recess in the body for the fretboard extension. BTW, Tommy's company is "USA Custom Guitars" I think. If not, I know I'll finally get it right some day!

Just to clear it up a bit (and I think I'm right) The first RG's were just "strat" heels with extra fretboard extension for the 2 extra frets. All strat type necks will fit with regard to scale length, and those were cut with the rounded heel too. When warmoth makes a 24 fret neck, that's how they do it. So the Warmoth 24 fret neck will fit as well. As for the AANJ, no one beside Jeremy and other custom makers do that heel, and I think Warmoth are a bunch of fools for missing that one. There's a guy named Tommy who used to work there, and he started a company with a name like "american guitars" or something. (I still can't remember it!) I think he'll make AANJ replacement necks too.

I just prefer the longer scale because the notes are cleaner and stronger. It's not something I feel like there's a right or wrong answer to. Except for the mathematical reasons why the notes are clearer, but what I mean is that doesn't make it "better". Just better for me. I have a strong grip and a snappy pick attack, so I don't need the reduced string tension for my playing comfort. I'm too lazy to cut my own fret slots (plus it's sooo cheap) but if there was a board with a 26" scale slotted I'd probably use that a lot. I just recently figured out that there's enough width for a guitar on a Stew-Mac or LMI fretboard that's slotted for the banjo scale. The problem with the Stew-Mac one is it's only 3/16" thick. So I'll have to use LMI if I want to make a long scale guitar. I wouldn't use it for baritone though, I'd tune it to concert pitch. The "buttery" sound of a shorter scale is a reality, but mostly contributed by the string tension per gauge. I've always said you can't compare the 24 3/4" to 25 1/2" with the same string gauge. You have to adjust the gauge so that the tension is the same. The 9.5 or 10.5 strings are good to use for that. I find that if you get the tension to be the same between the two scales, the notes are still cleaner on a 25 1/2 with the thinner gauge because the string is longer. So a set of 10's on a 25 3/4" scale sounds better to me than a set of 10.5's on a 24 3/4". Even though we're talking about a 25" scale vs. 25 1/2 here, I was just using the LP vs. Strat scale to illustrate the point. It's all preference though, like I said. I don't assert that it's better for anyone else but myself. And it's coming from me as a player, not a luthier. As a luthier, you build to whatever the player wants.

For a 22 fretter, PRS moves the neck into the body farther, and moves the bridge and the bridge pickup back. Then, because of that, he moves the knobs back, too, so they're in the same relation to your playing position. It's not "too much" to modify from 24 fret plans, but it's not worth it. If you've made enough guitars that you can do without templates entirely (I've never used them) then you could feasibly just steal the pertinent info from the 24 fret one and do everything else by hand, but like I said, it's not worth it. If it were me, I'd be putting a smooth "all access" heel on it that contoured into the back of the guitar, then I'd put a toggle or two on there, and make it a 25 1/2" scale. So the template would be nothing more than wall art! Finally, if all else fails, just stay here and discuss it at length for 10 days and you wait will be over!

You know who makes a good plywood guitar? Greg Curbow. It's phenolic impregnated and void free. (or at least all voids are stuffed with phenolic resin) So the guitars and basses are really dense but then he cuts them real small and thin so they have some acoustic bounce, still with great sustain. To me, that's the kind of plywood where you have made a solid material, rather than the sum of the parts. I still don't own one, but they are great guitars. I feel the same about maple. It lets you design differently. Now you can make a real slim guitar because the maple can take it. But the slimness causes the maple to vibrate more. So you can go farther with that density. You can push the limits of guitar design. An all maple strat or les paul just kind of sucks, but if you design around the material, you can do something else with it. The Parker is the same way. It's a "dead" material combination, but it's slimmed out and contoured in such a way that there's some life put back into it. I guess I'm down on any plywood since you can accomplish the same type of thing with hard maple. If you make something real contoured like the Parker from ply you could have areas that, since they are carved out from top and back, are very weak because there's just a few glue joints between a few plys. Whereas a solid piece would be, well, solid. I don't know maybe its stronger than maple when carved thin too. As for a finish, I'd say some satin or textured finish would be the best/easiest choice.

No he's got it right. He's saying "How shallow can I go and still not have to use a string tree?" And in that case there are staggered height locking tuners also, so your string height graduates even if your headstock doesn't

Yeah but on a bass there is far too much room between the bridge and the fretboard. A pickup set right up against the fretboard would be too muddy IMO. Billy Sheehan did it and so did the short scale Gibson EBO basses. Rickenbackers are close up there too. They never sounded very good to me. I don't think its good to go much past the half way point on a bass. But that's totally my opinion and everyone likes different sounds.

Locations of harmonics is totally bunk. Harmonic locations change with every fret. The one thing that holds true is that the farther you get from the bridge, the more "tubey" bassy, and smooth it sounds. The closer to the bridge, the brighter, sharper, treblier it is, with lower output. On all my guitars, whenever possible, the neck pickup is pushed as far as it can go towards the fretboard. If there's no mounting ring, I will get it to butt right against the fretboard, like an Ibanez RG. Strat single coils are usually around the phantom "24th fret" location. But I think they sound even better butted agains the 22nd fret (putting the magnets around the 23rd position). I made a 20 fret guitar once and the neck pickup was up against that fretboard and it was fantastic. So you're already at a slight disadvantage with 24 frets. That's why I don't like 24 frets personally. It's a harder, more compressed tone. I have a couple 24 fret guitars and they do a good Santana sound, plus the in-between sounds are great. But individually the neck pickup just isn't the same. As for the bridge, too close and you're losing a lot of output and low end. Even the strongest humbucker can sound "tele-like" if it's too close, because those lower frequencies just aren't there. I like the Ibanez position or a little farther away. I have some guitars that are "screamers" and the pickup is closer to the bridge, but you can always get a "brighter" bridge pickup. It's that warmth and power that's elusive. Sometimes 1/8" movement is all it takes. The middle pickup can be centered between the two, although you have to think about what kind of tonal variance you want when its combined with the neck or bridge. If you want the 2 and 4 positions to be real bright and glassy, move it back toward the bridge a little. If you want 2 and 4 to be more agressive and meaty then move it forward. If you're using coil cuts, you have to determine which coil you want active. That makes a big difference, too. Since the location is totally different. There's no rule that I've found that wasn't just an extension of someone's preference or opinion. At least here I'm stating it as opinion

I can't believe what I'm hearing. What are they feeding you two up there in Canada? I don't want to make a long post, and I'd really have to think about it before I could make good sense against some of your statements, but I've said before that there's a point where laminations lose their benefit and begin to sound more like "laminations" than whatever type of wood they're made from. The bonk test isn't really to judge a resonant frequency since that changes with every carve you make. It's more to judge a decay time and high frequency absorbtion. And one or two laminations would provide one or two layers of cancellation. 50 plys = 50 levels of cancellation, or the remanufacture of 1 whole unit. But that finished unit is dead. If you like the sound of steinbergers, graphite brian moores, and other synthetics, have fun. But you can't polish a turd as they say. Void free, hand picked, marine grade, etc. still has a much higher glue to wood ratio than a three piece body. In all, I agree its a "sound" in and of itself. As is the steinberger (which I think sounds like poop-they were praised for their "tone" in a high fi/high gain world, not by any of my favorite guitarists) But if you want to hear more string and less wood, there're already a multitude of composites including the Parker that are doing just that. Trying to direct as much energy back to the string. So go string up your concrete sidewalk.

The smallest angle with no string tree will also depend on where your tuners are positioned. If you won't have straight string pull then you want more angle to be sure the strings stay in their slots. If you're using a Floyd Rose locking nut you'll need even more angle, or a string tree unless you want the strings to all pull sharp when you lock the blocks. I think you're coming at it from the wrong "angle" I would be trying to see what the maximum headstock angle I could get from that blank was. I believe angle is good, and has no real drawbacks. Wait, did you say 80's guitars and Kahlers were old school? Why, I remember when........

I love it being threaded. You can leave it set so that if you reassemble the guitar and want a little more angle, its right where you left it. Plus you can make sure it's flat and not leaning to one side or the other. I did my classical on it just like your single cut in the 6th picture from the top. It's a "real" top w/bracing on a hollowed back. I layed the neck in real deep, and angled it. So there's only about 3/16ths of body wood under the neck. The neck is almost the same depth as the body. I did all the wood removal with the hand router though, including the exact fitting, so then the pattern cutting bit just followed the pocket but put the final angle and depth in it. My hold downs are like yours too, but they're wood and I use leather as the safety pad. And they can be bigger because they aren't in the way of the router, since I'm routing from overhead.