frank falbo

Fret pullers-unless they're recessed. If you don't mind losing the ferrules, then you can put a screw into the string hole and thread it until it bites, then pull the whole thing out. It will chew up the hole in the ferrule, though.

Any pics or link, please? mullmuzzler | OSSMT Sorry, haven't checked this thread for awhile. I'll try to get some pics this weekend for monday. It came out pretty nice. I've actually been playing it a lot lately since I finished wiring in the coil cuts.

Yeah I'm just wondering if it's one of those pencils where the lead is kind of waxy, and the rosewood is too oily so it doesn't actually mark the wood. It just glides over it. You need like a regular wooden #2 pencil with the silvery lead, the kind from elementary school. And naptha the rosewood for good measure first.

Sometimes I'll put masking tape down and then mark the tape. I don't know what you're going to be doing with the centerline though, maybe you can't have a piece of tape on there.

What will your final finish be? Because if you're going to do a high gloss your korina will need it's grains filled. I'd do that first, and use a heavier filler, like a trowel grade. That way you know it won't penetrate the maple even if you get it on there. (mask off the maple) But then you'd have the pores filled. Even if you sealed the korina, like with sanding sealer or a washcoat, yes the stain wouldn't "penetrate" but it could still get inside the holes and be a pain to dig out. I'd want those pores level. Then anything you get on there will pretty much wipe right off. When you say you want the top black until it meets the edges, do you mean that you want it to have black in the figure all the way out to the edge? Or are you going to sunburst the blue to black? If you're bursting the edge then it doesn't matter since your black is applied over sealed wood. It will follow your mask line. You'd have tons of freedom not to get the blue (or black base) right up to the edge since the black burst will cover it. I imagine you meant the black dye though, and not a sunburst.

A little off topic, but does anyone know where to get the little grommets for the top of the guitar? Until now I've been shaping the top into little teardrop shaped holes to round out the string pressure, then soaking with CA. But that's only good for maple. Otherwise forget it, the string would jam right into the wood. I thought about using half of a rivet. I might try to find those at a hardware store. Maybe I could line the inside of the hole with brass tubing. Then even though you'd see the teardrop opening in the maple, you'd be sure the string would never embed itself forward in the hole over time. That'd be the stealth way to protect it I guess. Back on topic, your placement will determine the downward pressure against the saddle. If the angle is too steep, your string will rub against the back of the bridge on it's way down. It's great for a recessed tune-o-matic, like the Godin or Wolfgang. A sharper angle means more downward pressure. It's thought to make the string feel tighter since there's less sympathetic movement behind the saddle. It makes the bends more productive over less distance than with, say, a trapeze tailpiece where the string is real long and the angle is shallow. So long as the angle is sharp enough for good contact but not rubbing, I doubt you'll notice a difference in placement from string to string, because its already going to be a good, tight angle vs. a standard stop tailpiece.

Just disconnect the wires that go from the 5 way switch to the tone pots. Then remove any grounding to the casing to free the pots, making sure that you haven't interrupted the ground to other important components.

You know I never got into that pickup. I don't know why, but you either love them or don't, and I didn't all the other times I tried one. Thank you, though. So far I have a TZ offer and one other that I'm waiting to hear about. I'll post if I do a trade but in the mean time, keep them coming.

Check out the Mighty Mite style switches from Korea. They are pretty good switches and are quite short compared to a standard switch. I don't know how tall they are, and perhaps that's the one you're looking at. But that's the shortest one I know of anyway. Otherwise I like to do a L.P. style 3-way with a mini toggle that adds the middle pickup to whatever position you're in. You don't get the middle pickup by itself, but statistically that position isn't used much on a 5 way. You do get the "all three" sound which is very compressed and chimey.

Also unless I missed something you said you cut tops or blanks, etc. after you bought it. Wood has tension in it that sometimes releases after cutting. In other words, you could have a totall dry, flat neck blank. Then if you rip it down the middle like G&L does to install your truss rod, a few days later the pieces won't line up anymore. Besides the sawblade thickness, that's why you don't see a perfect matchup of the grains in the G&L neck. Because they wait awhile, then re-plane it before they glue it back together. I've never seen a G&L neck with a twist, though. But every time you cut it something will happen. Every time the climate changes, too. I agree with working quickly once you've cut it, too.

Hamer is a Kaman company now, made in CT. The old Hamer is dead and the factory closed. They're still nice guitars, but if you're looking for the Gibson connection I'd look to Heritage in Kalamazoo. My beef with Gibson is that Henry Juszkiewicz never designed anything. He controls a name now, that's all. Guys like Les Paul probably couldn't care less about the copies, cheap or professional. What Gibson doesn't understand is that the copies help them sell "real ones" even if they are exact copies-IF gibson's quality is appropriate to their price-which it is NOT. It's all about cheaping out, making a crappy guitar, selling it for 3 times what it's worth, and then cornering the market so there's no alternatives. It's been several hours and I still have that punch in the jaw waiting. I haven't calmed down yet! I've always thought Juszkiewicz was an evil man and I still do. He should figure out how to get the belt sander grooves out of his fretboards with the money he spends on lawyers. How 'bout taming that hump in the fretboard at the neck joint? That'd be nice. And can we not have 22 cracks in the binding where the fret tangs are when your soaking wet fretboard shrinks down? By the way you wouldn't have to do "weight relief" on a mahogany back if you got a good piece of wood you filthy animal. Still, he's no Ken Ley

I'm absolutely livid. And I'm not a PRS fan really, since the move to the new factory, but the singlecut isn't an exact LP copy. Gibson went around years ago sueing and threatening all the exact copy imports and heritage until they changed it enough that it wasn't the same. You'd have to buy a Gibson to have a guitar that looked exactly like a Les Paul. If Henry was here right now I'd punch him in the jaw. These suits are entirely based on the fact that others are building better instruments than he is, and he knows it. He knows if the Les Paul design was left to the open marketplace his Les Paul sales would nose dive. The singlecut is different enough that he should've been left alone. I think all of you should start a boycott of all Gibson products and inundate them with hate-mail. PRS has gotten big enough over the past decade that he could make an appeal to the public for a boycott and start a marketing war. I'd join in.

The ball pein is too rounded. It will dent the frets because all the pressure is isolated to one little part. You should grind a flat spot in the round head and buff it. My spot is about 5/8" in diameter and very slightly convex with rounded shoulders so no matter how I come down it doesn't put a dent in the fret. Except a couple times when I came down off to one side it put a little scrape on the side of the fret that came out in the buffing. As for seating the fret in one blow, the only way I know to do that is by pressing them in If you seat a section all the way you've just kinked the fretwire and then even if you seat the rest of the fret perfectly there's a deformity to the crown in that part. I tap across, seating the fret little by little without really taking the radius out of it. Sometimes with Ebony you have to give it a good whack or two in stubborn areas. Even then I don't dent the frets. That's why I said if you dent the fret with a flat polished surface you're hitting too hard or you have a weak batch of fretwire. I only dented fretwire my first few times as I was learning the ropes. You know, hitting harder because it wasn't "seating" only to realize it was springing out, and each time I hit it, it was just getting springier. Stuff like that. It wasn't the hammer's fault.

Duncans are made in the US and D.Designed/D.Performers are made in Korea. That's the biggest difference. beyond that its experience and opinion. I know one guy that didn't like the JB/59 combo in his LP and he loves his Schecter with D.Des. that was supposed to be the same type of sound.

I got this one guys, no problem: What you have to do is screwturn the right slot up the bolt angle. then when U feel it crank the metal, shave off the bottom shaft. Retune the accessory with the fret marker until you see the plating come off the receptacle. That way you'll know the graphites have tremolo. The knife angle needs to be hardened also. Reset the action to the string height with the camshaft, turn the trem claw and you're done!

I don't know why they never put STUFF in there! It would be neat if there were fake fish in there, or a bunch of pots and switches and other miscellaneous electronic parts floating in there. It would also be neat if they inlaid abalam stripes into the body matching the inlays, where the black tape lines would've gone on a striped one. Or put money in there, to represent all the money you wasted on a "Dewalt" guitar. I don't know Kev, I'd say you might be able to get a good "CD" quality sound out of it. Get it?!! CD's are plastic see, so what I meant was.. oh nevermind.

That's okay too. You could also route a "center strip" all the way to your first pickup cavity. You could even do that in the same wood as your neck, so you give the appearance of a deep set-in neck. Or fill the strip with a piece that has a couple laminations on the sides of your neck pocket. So you'd have a center piece with striped laminated sides. There's tons of ways to get fancy with it if you want. I like that "extended neck joint" look on a 6-string.

Perhaps is the neck pocket angled, and the screw holes are perpendicular to the angle? If not then it's just a mistake. But if it's not that much of an angle it may come out when you screw the neck on.

I think with a rubber malled you'd be looking to do a Three Stooges reenactment. You might break your glasses.

You can use ebony and you'll probably be fine, and it will look cool. But I'd use a piece from your body blank. You don't want to put a thin piece of wood in there that will not match the expansion and contraction properties of the body wood it's joined to. That's already a spot for movement, evidenced by the little finish cracks everyone gets around there. If you don't have any body wood left use something similar. If you want to put ebony in there after to hide the joint like binding or purfling that's okay. Then you can make it more obvious, like make a mitered edge rectangular border all around the end of the fretboard. To me that would make it look more "intentional" than just filling in the sides.

I have a black Air Norton, non F-spaced and no guitar to put it in. I have another guitar with an AN already. But what I could use is a good bridge humbucker, like a Duncan Custom, Pearly Gates, Parallel Axis Original or Distortion, Dimarzio Tone Zone, Breed, Fred, Norton, can you tell by now that I'm pretty flexible? It does not even have to be F spaced. I would like black, but if it's the right pickup, I'll put a chrome cover on it. There are pickups I don't like, though, so if you stick to what's on this list or something close it should make things easier. Something thicker with not so much "scream" so things like Evo's, Full Shreds, and JB's are out, and I have plenty of PAF style pickups already (No EMG's either) The Air Norton is clean with over 10" of lead, plenty for any neck pickup cable run. I'd like to just do an even swap and pay our own postage. Domestic US traders preferred. I do have like $9.00 sitting in paypal right now, so if you have something that you think is worth more than an AN, you're welcome to it. ps. You can buy it too, but I really need a bridge pickup, so I figured it was more efficient as a trade than having to sell it and then spend more money on a new bridge pup. E-mail is frank.falbo@sbcglobal.net

Sure, but its not a guarantee. The other pieces could also be getting grounded by the other components going through the cavity. So long as a connection is made you're fine, but if the adhesive lifts later, or if your connection is really weak than any shifting around could lift the connection. It's best to solder a connection, but if you don't it doesn't mean that contact alone won't ground it. As a sidenote be careful with the tape. The edge can act as a razor blade and slice your finger right open. I have only gotten cut once, but I always have little lines in my skin after working with it. So maybe use gloves, or what I do is to apply and press/smooth it out with a dowel rod or something other than my digits.

The problem here is that it sounds like you mean after painting it you sand too much away and reveal the wood. But you really mean that while you are stripping it you deform the body edge, right? As far as a fix, all you can do is round the edges uniformly to a more rounded shape to smooth it out. Or route the edge with a larger radius bit than what the edge treatment was originally.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, and it's sort of obvious, but I like to do the cover route first. I just think it's easier that way.

Beautiful work. If you're not totally happy with it you might have self-esteem issues! Hopefully all this reassureance will help you to be happy with it. By the way, what's that wood in the background under the fretboard? It looks a little wrinkled!