frank falbo

Let's see the jig! I don't have pics but its basically a flat piece of MDF that you rest the body on. And it's just for solidbodies. It's two pieces really, one that stays flat on the bottom and one that ramps up when you thread it. The body is secured with clamps, or in the case of my Radius bodies, I have to use tape (lots) because you can't get a good grip. I suppose I could make extenders for my clamps to get them farther into the body and over to the flat surfaces. But I only use it to cut the angle. I use a hand router to route the cavity first, to about 90% of its final depth. Or in the case of putting angle into a factory guitar with the pocket already cut, I just go right to the jig. Anyway, I have threaded inserts in the top MDF up by the neck area, and as I rotate the bolts in there, it simply elevates the neck side of the body. Then I use my multi-speed drill press as an overhead router with a 1/4" pattern cutting bit to re-route the bottom of the cavity to the appropriate depth and it puts the angle right in. Since the MDF that the body is on spans the whole length of the body, it's not a 2:1 ratio like I said above. Whatever the height of the neck side of the jig is, plan on reducing that by 1/3rd, since the saddle point is usually about 2/3rds the distance from the neck pocket to the strap button. (by the way, I haven't used it on an explorer or anything like that) So I've always ended up with exactly the right height in bridge if I use that formula. Basically the bridge will elevate by 2/3rds the distance you've raised the neck end of the body. If you wanted to make it more sophisticated, you'd actually pivot the top piece along the saddle intonation line. Then you'd have a 1:1 ratio of elevated height to increased bridge height. On some guitars I don't want the bridge to move at all. I just want the neck to sit lower in the neck pocket for better access and a sleeker, lower profile guitar front. So then I deepen the neck pocket and angle it at the same time. It's pretty easy, basically it works out to where if you've deepened it by 1/8" for example, then on the jig you also need to put 1/8" of tilt, and the bridge location stays the same. When I made it I used Strat dimensions, and I did get real nerdy and I did a lot of math. So I hope everyone knows I was just fooling around. Most guitars will have the saddle point right at 2/3rds of the way between the neck joint and the butt end of the guitar. So if you use the butt end of the guitar as the fulcrum you'll be okay. But I thought the idea of coming at it from overhead, and moving the workpiece instead of trying to make a router template that angled was a pretty good idea, and I can put a precise angle in a solidbody in a matter of minutes. Truth be told you don't really need the clamps or the tape, as long as you are holding the body in place while you move the jig. Also I have an oversized table for the drill press.

Forgive me for raining on your nerd parade, but unless you like unnecessary calculations, there are better ways to do this. String length is roughly 2/3rds neck, 1/3rd body. And it makes an "X" not a triangle (or two opposing triangles) I don't know the nerd math name for that, though. But basically for every increment you lower the headstock along that plane, you raise the bridge by twice that distance. Consider the neck joint your fulcrum. I was (I emphasize "was") good at math back in the day. But the reason I don't like to get so technical about it is because there are so many other factors. First, is your neck angle calculated assuming a straight neck? Once relief is applied to the formula your bridge needs to be lowered, since the relief begins around the 15th fret, and affects the general trajectory of the neck angle. Second, and perhaps more importantly bridges have so much adjustability that you really need only to get within range. Third, the desired action and string gauge can result in over 1/8" of bridge height movement. Often we do neck angle before installing the frets. Do you know the fret size you'll use? Because that changes the string height too. I have a method that precisely calculates neck angle but its built into a jig I made, so its done in real-time rather than with formulas. Please recognize and apply the tongue-in-cheek factor (we'll call it "n") and apply it to the previous "nerd" comments. It's really my own insecurity coming through (we'll call that "e") plus years of real experience with many guitars (call that "r") and finally my arrogance ("d") and you will realize that I am really just: n x e + r + d = Ha! You guys are nerds for even reading this far! You probably thought I would say that I was a nerd too! Well think again nerds!

If you're looking for "secrets" I have one. Satriani's tech does this and I mentioned it here once before. Although compound radius boards are nice, they're not really necessary before the 12th fret. So when refretting he starts to flatten the board from a 9.5" on frets 1-12 to around a 10-10.5" radius by the 22nd fret. This makes it so you always have "fall away" when you bend, but you can still have low clean action on the outer two/four strings. He then takes it a little step further and slightly compounds the fret tops too, after the 12th fret. So the real playing surface radius goes to about 11" (ha! this one goes to eleven ) My trick is to customize it a bit more. Really if you think about where we solo and bend, and how we bend notes (up or down) you'll see that the real problem areas are the B and E strings when bending upwards. Those are the notes that choke out when you're trying to get the lowest action possible. So I put the compound radius either into the board or the fret tops or both, but it begins around the 10th fret between the G and B string. Then it fans out from there, until the radius is flatter all the way across at the 22nd fret. So it makes almost like a trapezoid instead of an isosceles triangle that starts between the G and D strings. It's never failed to give me the best playability, better than compound radius. It also holds up better under temp changes and truss rod adjustments because of the "pseudo fall off" in the problem areas. The other half of the trick is not to adjust the bridge for that radius. The bridge should have the right radius to compliment the 1-12 fret radius. That's why the compounding ends up being a fall off.

That could very well be. Although the bottle I have now is the original. I just like CA whenever repairing screw holes. Even if you do drill them out, the fibers are all distorted in there from either the stripping or the drilling or both, no matter how sharp your bits are. I feel like the CA sucks in there and dries hard while the titebond just coats it. Which is fine for glue joints but I think bad for screw holes where you remove most of the dowel anyway, and are basically left with a thin cylinder filler tube. I feel the same way about tremolo post holes. Any time I can saturate a "high wear" area with CA it makes me feel better. Not even really for my experience, but for years later when someone is swapping necks around on one of my old guitars, it will stay stronger through future wear.

I always use strings, because I want the low and high string to be centered from the outsides of the strings to the edge of the fret playing surface. It's just a preference, I'm not saying its the right way. In reality it means there's slight favoring to the treble side to offset the string diameter difference. (about .018") You could use the center of the string. Let's face it though, wood moves. Also many "factory" necks arc to one side or the other, or they aren't perfectly straight along the edge. So you do what's best for each guitar. But I never do it by measuring. I measure the scale length and usually draw that line straight across but that's about it. Any guitar that is "pretty much centered" will play the same.

I'd say the thin superglue is best. Sometimes I use a regular dowel, since I know the thin CA will penetrate it, and I just pound it into the screwhole without drilling it out. I'll usually taper the tip of the rod. But it's soft enough to really conform to the hole and the CA locks everything in place and fills little gaps. With wood glue too often I go back and take the neck off later and the dowels have walked out of the hole slightly. Wood glue can move like a glacier over time. You might also try just dripping a little thin CA into the existing hole. It will coat the surface and often "unstrip" the hole. Plus then its stronger around that area from the CA penetration. I did that with a mahogany neck recently and it was perfect. But I caught it before it really stripped. I could feel that it was about to strip out.

I have a couple all flamed maple guitars and one solid quilted 7-string almost done. It's very misunderstood. I make them thinner to trim some weight, and one's a Satriani style so that's not too heavy either. It's very open in the upper midrange, and it's a strong, cutting sound. The beauty is you can combine it with pickups that have fat low end, and not be concerned that it will be muddy like a Les Paul. It's nothing to be afraid of. Now soft maple, like lots of Korean guitars use, is a little harder to get a good sound from. It doesn't have the sustain or attack of hard maple, but it does have the brighter sound which makes it sound sort of cheap overall IMHO. Maple would be great for the scooped sounds because it's so strong in the mids that you would avoid sounding weak. Bright really isn't the right word. More like tight and sharp with strong mids. That 7-string is going to be great. The low B is tight and not muddy (string through TOM) I've had it strung once already. I don't know why it's not used more for 7's. I have one more piece of the solid quilt and I may use it for an 8 string.

That photo of that $17.00 one is a Gotoh and its a fantastic bridge. There's nylon bushings to keep the screws taught and rattle free, and the saddle slots are great. You want to stay away from the Korean and other low cost ones that have big "V" grooves for the strings. They cut the strings and because of the way they're machined, its very hard to file a nice smooth roundover in there as a repair. Plus with the deep "V" groove the saddle is a lot taller than the string, and it's sharp so it will be uncomfortable against your palm. So the Gotoh is great, and the price is even better!

You can screw-lock a knob to a split shaft pot. Try to get the screw located right between the two halves. This way it won't work loose as easily nor will it bend the one half inward toward the other. A trick for centering the hole if you have the knob already, like if you're using dowel rods or a plug cutter, is as follows: Clamp a piece of scrap on the drill press table. Drill a hole the size of the knob (outer diameter) and insert the knob. Without changing anything else, change the drill bit to the inside diameter. Then when you drill that hole it will be perfectly centered. (unless you moved something As for Myka's brass tubing, that's a great idea. I've drilled and tapped wood before with metal taps and it works quite well with hard wood. Then you can soak superglue in the threads if you want to feel safe. That shouldn't strip out. But the brass is a better idea, so long as when you are drilling through and tapping, you don't compress the tubing. Maybe its better to stick a dowel rod in there when drilling and tapping so you have back pressure. Some of those hobby shop brass tubes bend real easily.

Right. I didn't "have to" but It was my own personal 7-string, and it just bugs me that the allen head is on the "bottom rod". If it was on the top rod, then you could do what I did on that guitar. I routed the straight channel from end to end (of the brass collars) and then I routed a "U" shaped channel that was almost 1/4" shallower just for the allen head. So I gained 1/4" of neck wood at the headstock. If you're drilling through like a strat, then you don't really "lose" wood because you have it on top of the allen head, but that's not structural up there. Mine is a pseudo angled headstock with no volute, and I wanted more wood there. It just seems silly that on angled heads you have to remove all this extra wood so the allen nut can lay deeper in there. Especially if you're going to drill for a Floyd nut, too. I suppose if they reversed it, you wouldn't be able to get it in a strat headstock because it would sit too high. Anyway, I am way too particular about headstock wood. I want every ounce there that I can get. But I didn't want you to think I had to reverse it or anything, I just did it for my own guitar. Otherwise I've always installed them the "right way"

Yes and for goodness sake, Derek, don't ever build that guitar! You'll poke someone's eye out - probably your own!

Actually they do. The grain is pretty similar, and the best "swamp ash" is from down around the base of the tree where it's soaking all the time. That makes the pores a little more swollen and makes a lighter, more airy and snappy sounding guitar. You can have two blanks from the same tree and they'll be different as night and day. If you're looking at it in person, just pick it up. There's a huge weight difference. But if you're looking at a photo, hard ash can be more yellowish compared to the creamy peach tones of Swamp Ash. Those are broad generalizations. The biggest giveaway, even if I'm looking at a photo of a sunbursted guitar, is the size of the pores. Its a pretty small difference but I can make an educated guess based on the size of the "holes" overall.

I'm sure the instructions are correct, but I always take a visual of the bridge, and decide where I'd like the saddles to sit. Especially on a tremolo. The farther back the saddles are, the greater the pitch change per degree of movement. Plus there's cosmetic implications. For example I don't like the way a Wilkinson looks if the saddles are extended way off the back of it. So I always measure from the high E side (since that is the string that requires the least, if any, compensation) to the nut, with the high E saddle placed where I want it. Then I mark the stud location from there.

Oops I started typing that response before your last response. Anyway the only thing you might want to do differently is to drill the hole first, while the neck still has all its wood. Then route the channel. It should be cleaner than drilling into the channel. That would get pretty chippy and you'll blow time filing and chiseling the fibers away. Just make sure you use a depth stop. There's nothing wrong with going slightly oversized (1/64th) on that hole either. You don't want the adjuster binding against the hole, plus I've seen slightly crooked welds on Hot Rods before. So it rotates eliptically.

Of course the Hot Rod can be installed either way, but the question is how much headstock do you want to lose? The allen head is what I consider the only appropriate model for headstock adjustment. You can't use a lock nut with that big barrel adjuster, it will be in the way. The idea is to leave as much wood as possible at the headstock. I don't mind head adjusted truss rods, but you have to be smart about it, like using a volute or whatever. My beef with the Hot Rod allen head is that it's threaded so the allen head goes on the bottom when it's headstock adjusted. If it were threaded so it could be on top, I could save another 3/16" or so in the depth of the channel right there at the end. I actually did it on one guitar, and it was great. The rod adjusts backwards but I don't care because I would rather have the extra wood. Its a birdseye maple neck with no volute.

I didn't know you'd be using piezos. Even if you don't come near the electronics, you could (but probably not) end up with the "deeper" string slots coming through louder than the others. So if you're flattening the radius, then your g and d could be louder than b and a, etc. I don't know for sure other than the old Mike Christian graphtech piezo saddles used to say in the instructions that you could get a little more output by filing the saddle slot down a little. I'd ask Tone pros about that one. As for the compound radius, Stew Mac sells compound radius fretboards. I would start there. Then your radiusing is just some mild levelling after glueing the fretboard, and you already have a compound radius to guide you. But yes, if I'm doing a compound radius from scratch I usually start with the smallest radius (the "nut" radius) and then I flatten as I go up. If I know I've levelled it to 10" for example, then I'll go to a 16" block at the last few frets, and sand until the whole middle section is flattened to 16", and I'm just about to hit the edge. Then I basically connect the two gradually. So I know the outside edge is straight, and I'm "lowering" the middle. I think that's better than starting with 16" and then rounding the lower frets. You can't maintain a good level that way. I always cross check with flat blocks or flat files, too. If you're doing it right, you should be able to take a flat block or file from anywhere across the board and travel in the direction of the string and have a perfect level. I also take a different approach to compound radiusing sometimes, and that is to maintain the same radius until about the 9th fret. Then I begin gradually flattening the radius from there. But I also do it starting roughly at the 10th fret but between the G and B strings, not dead center, and then fanning out from there. If you think about it, we only need the benefit of a compound radius in those "solo bending" regions. Then the rest of the neck has a more natural feel. It takes a lot more work, but if you can visualize the physics of it, its really the best of all worlds. Satriani's tech does something like that, where he keeps the 9" radius up until around the 12th fret and then tapers off to about 10.5 or so. Then he flattens the radius a little more in the tops of the frets.

You can "re-radius" a T-O-M just by getting one that doesn't have string slots in it, and then varying the depth of the slots you cut. I have made set necks where I run the neck all the way to the bridge pickup cavity area, and under the neck pickup cavity too. I like that neck attatchment method because the bridge is still mounted in the body wood, and therefore vibrating the body. Whereas a neck through basically vibrates like a steinberger with the wings "complimenting" the tone, but not dictating it. Ebony is just wood. It sands, files, and polishes just the same. Yes it's hard, but I'll usually put a compound radius into an Ebony board (or any other wood for that matter) with 80-120 grit paper in the radius blocks. Then I'll switch to higher grits to take out the scratches and polish it. I usually finish Ebony off with at least 600 grit because its so hard and smooth that it really benefits from it. Rosewood is so porous that you can't really tell whether you finished off with 600 or 220 grit. It looks pretty much the same once you play it in, or wipe it down with lemon oil.

I've made my own bridges before. If you can get some nice saddles off a different bridge it's easier. Also unless it's a tune-o-matic style you'll have to drill and tap each saddle for individual height adjustment. Then when you're all done, it's still brass so it will tarnish without a finish. But there is brass lacquer and epoxy style finishes that work well. Yes, the brass can wear out, but I even prefer an all wood bridge on some basses, like what Carl Thompson does. I've used cocobolo, ebony, and rosewood. Also consider using all wood saddles, but drilling a hole in the middle to inlay a piece of steel (or other alloy) rod. Then shape it to cradle the string. That way your saddles would have the look and tone of wood with a hardened steel pivot point for a sharper attack and long wear. That would work on a tune-o-matic style as well, with or without adjustable saddles.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but at 19 yrs old AND having never built a guitar before, I would recommend you buy a neck. Whether it's a neck through like Carvin or a bolt neck, I just can't see the Hiscock book taking you from zero to hero on your first build. I say "at 19" but it's really not your age. I was building great guitars at 19 and I have several of them still. But they really weren't my "first" of anything. In other words, the first body I made was already after I had mastered pickup and tremolo routing, and after I knew how to work with wood (partially thanks to woodshop class in High School) The first neck I made was after I had already done highly successful truss rod & fretboard replacements, and dozens of refrets, beginning with simple fret levels before that. And I didn't make an acoustic until I had done bridge reglues, bracing repairs, and neck resets. Building a guitar is fun and rewarding, but it's also heartbreaking if you spend all this time on it and you can't stop it from fretting out unless the action is high because your "first neck" has tension and leveling issues. You make a gorgeous guitar that you can't really play. Or since you haven't mastered neck shaping it doesn't feel good to your hand. I'm just trying to save you some grief with some wisdom of years of building. I'm not trying to rain on your parade. If anything, I'm trying to make your experience more joyous and rewarding.

That's actually the opposite of what sustain is, but I think you might've meant it the other way around. If the wood is vibrating, then it is taking some of the energy away from the string. If not, then you have just invented perpetual motion. The string has to give up energy to make the body vibrate. Maple and other dense or stiff woods (or graphite, stone, concrete, etc) don't vibrate as much, therefore allowing the string to keep more of it's energy and sustain longer. You're right about the woods but not the explanation. To agree with GuitarMaestro, I never build a guitar for sustain. I have excellent sustain from all my guitars, even the bolt-ons with locking trems. Its all about the build quality. Stiffness of the neck is very important. I despise the tone of graphite reinforced necks, but they do add sustain. Ebony boards add stiffness, as does a solid, high tension fret job vs. "pool of glue" fretjobs. A great deal of sustain is in your technique. I hate to say it, but its true. The way you squeeze (too soft and the string dies out) and if you put a little vibrato in there you can get some additional vibrations out of the fret rolling itself, and the tension fluctuations. I heard it said once (can't remember who) that the electric guitar will always have "enough" sustain. How much is enough? Have you ever played a note and hoped it lasted longer than it did? I haven't, really. I wrote a Guitar Shop article that pitted tone against sustain, and showed how many things are a tradeoff. Softer body woods like alder will sustain less, absorb more vibration, but then again they're producing more warm tone, etc. A maple/walnut/graphite guitar will sustain more but sound thinner because you're hearing more "string". Some things are universal, though. Heavy bridges solidly attatched are always a sustain improvement. A good sharp headstock angle is also an improvement even to the fretted notes, since it tends to hold its position better, similar to adding brass headstock clamp devices. Sharp clean angles at the saddles are good. Bolt ons have less sustain, but then again I prefer the tone of a bolt on many times. I like the "mixed tone" you get from two independent units on either end of the string, rather than the cross checked tone of a set or thru neck. Physically the neck and body are so different, that they are producing such a different "tone" you can get some cancellations of various frequencies when you "lock" the neck to the body. But that's also what makes the LP and PRS sound so cool. When designing for sustain you have to try to harness all the energy you can to reflect back to the string, not be absorbed or squandered away. Basically search out any areas where you could be losing vibrations and lock them down, or eliminate them in the design.

I did it twice when I made 9-strings (bottom three octaved like a 12-string, top 3 plain so you could still solo) I used a piezo too, because why not?! The saddle slot is right there! Its a totally different sound. There's much more snap and sparkle to the notes, and it makes fret buzz more apparent. So much so that you may want to hardwire (or switch on) a .0022 cap to ground to basically shelf off the extreme high freqs. I'm not talking about on a piezo, for those you want the extreme highs. But for that bridge pickup. The .0022 cap to ground almost simulates 30ft of guitar cord. Its relatively harmless except to the extreme high end. You could also try 250k pots, or even 100k. For grounding, I used ferrules in the back to anchor the strings. Then I grounded one of them. That made that string grounded. On one guitar I used a string retainer bar across all the strings at the headstock. That grounded all the strings. On the other, I used a brass nut-same story. There's more than one way to ground the strings! I thought about figuring a way to ground the truss rod and then ground that to the brass nut but that was a waste of time. You could use a brass saddle and ground that. You could also make a custom saddle with a thin sheet of brass laminated between two pieces of bone or whatever. So you'd have a brass stripe down the middle, touching the strings. Or you could put a brass plate under the acoustic bridge and ground that. Drill the string through holes in that so they have to press against the brass. It's totally doable. And you can shape it however you want. A relatively traditional large acoustic bridge looks great on a strat body.

Preslotted fretboards from stew mac or warmoth aren't tapered. Probably LMI is the same. Anyway, I taper the boards first. I'll run them along the jointer to make sure I'm straight and true. If I'm adding binding, I do it before the board is attatched, and then I can just reduce the width of the board overall. You have to be careful planing the binding down from the rear but you can even do a light kiss on the jointer once before you put the board on. I like to taper the board first because then when I'm carving the neck I have a straight and flat reference point. I'll carve up to the board, use that to help be sure I'm straight and true in my overall back of neck carve, and then put the final roundover into the board (or binding) after I fret. Both methods are fine. Everyone has a way in their head that they feel comfortable carving things. However you envision yourself doing it initially or instinctively is probably the way you should do it, because subconsciously your skills and strengths are telling you something. I know that sounds weird and cosmic (which I am not) but it's true. The way you imagine yourself tackling a job is usually the way you'd do it best.

Are you sure that's not one of those aluminum guitars? There was a company trying to make aluminum guitars and they had all those holes to reduce the weight. It was pretty sill in my opinion. You could do it, but I think keeping it clean might be a pain! As for how it's done, just get a drill press and some speed boring bits.

It's a great bridge. The white nylon bushings on the saddle screws keep it from ever rattling, and the nuts lock the saddle screw in place.

As a sidenote, on a new planer you can't assume the blades are set right (on the contrary, assume they are set wrong) So if you have one of the three blades (or whatever configuration you have) a little higher, it can gouge the wood, almost like you really are working one blade instead of three. So then it's also like spinning the bit at 1/3rd speed since there's less frequent contact with the new plane surface. I don't mean it can gouge the wood just by it's own misalignment, but rather that it's assymetrical aggressiveness would contribute to tearout.