frank falbo

Yeah but clarify for me, the neck through goes all the way through right? You didn't carve away under the bridge, you have a log down the middle, yes? What I'm talking about is if your bridge is "floating" like on a jazzbox. Where you have no extra wood (besides bracing) under the bridge. It's just as thin as the top, less than 3/16" or so. Then the whole top can vibrate as a unit. What you have is two balloons on either side of center.

The people who've been telling you this, or the wolf tones? I'd prefer the former over the latter. When you say chambers I assume you'll have a solid piece down the center, or at least between the bridge and the back, right? If so, it's a waste of time worrying about that. You can design for the enhancement of certain frequencies and tones, but with the bridge solidly tied to the back, or at least with 1/2"-3/4" underneath it, you shouldn't have any negative side effects like that.

I'm not much for extended fretboards, the Washburns are the only ones I covet. The Maxxas has such an awesome neck pickup tone. The only thing I did to mine was install a 4-pole switch. At one time I had two push/pulls, but the 4-pole gave me all the combos I wanted. I wanted to build one using a copy carver. I figured you could perfectly hollow out the back just by making a mold of the outside, then using an oversized stylus and resetting the depth. Of course you'd have to put a "log" down the middle of the template to create your center block. I never was brave enough to use my own Maxxas as the template-maker. I have mixed feelings about doing a set-neck version, too. On one hand it would really make everything drive as one unit, but on the other hand, the early AANJ with the "tee nuts" is a really strong joint, and because it's not glued I think it adds to the snappiness of it. But an ebony board and an oil finish neck might be just what the doctor ordered. It would look good in a monochrome styling. And nowadays annodizing and powdercoating are more accessible, as are colored pickups.

Definitely don't do the "black/sand back". I've found that in contrast to flame or quilt, birdseye tends to look dirty and clogged when you stain it darker. If you want amber, just use amber. Don't use a dark mixture prior to the final color. I would just use amber over the whole thing, and the birdseyes will get remarkably darker in the appropriate areas just because they'll drink in the stain. For a medium blue or other "non-natural" color, the dark or black can work okay, simply because you're masking the natural grains and eyes anyway with the false color. Even then I'd stay away from black and just use a slightly more potent mixture than your final color as the initial stain/sand back.

Sometimes I'll drill a little hole for screw relief instead of cutting the screw or routing deeper. I don't like it when the cavities are too deep. Then again on factory guitars, I've been frustrated several times during pickup swaps, because their cavities are only intended for "stock" pickups. So I like having "universal" cavities on factory guitars (not as deep as Gibson's though) and I like tight, custom routes on my own guitars.

I usually route my bolt on neck pockets deeper than Strats, and with a little angle. I like the neck sitting deeper in the body. So I'm doing it for a different reason. I want the neck closer in. It also makes upper access a little easier because there's less distance between the heel and the fret tops. So if you took the neck down to where the fretboard was almost touching, you could have a pretty good angle. Just watch that you have enough room to lower your neck pickup. I fyou have a pickguard you'll have to cut the pickguard around the fretboard extension, not the neck heel. As for the mic stand element, I use a boom, or otherwise (gasp) I have one of those "dorky" Garth Brooks, Madonna, Britney Spears wireless headsets. Although I usually only break that out when I'm playing both lap steel and regular guitar. It's like wearing a pink shirt. If you're secure enough in your manhood, you can get away with anything! Seriously if you've ever worn one it's totally liberating, and limiting at the same time. You have to mute it whenever you're not using it because it picks up your breath like an obscene phone call. Also I've perfected breathing out of the "other side" of my mouth, kind of like when a smoker is trying to direct their smoke off to the side.

That's all good advice. I've got a Maxxas and I think it's one of the finest examples of guitar design -EVER-. Other guitars that are champions of design often ignored classic functionality of acoustic sound, like the Steinberger, or the old Brian Moore graphites. The Maxxas had every element focused on tone AND beauty AND function. So I hesitate to say that you could just as easily use a couple 1" pieces of Mahogany that were very similar, or take a 1" piece that is over 3 1/2' long, and rip it down the center and just flip it. My Maxxas is so lively and percussive, and it's possible that some of the magic is from the fact that it's the same piece of Mahogany all the way around. But IMO, once you insert a glue joint between the two pieces, it's less important that they be the "same cut" of wood. The only more clever solution I can come up with is a gang of highly trained termites that will eat away the inside in the exact fashion you want. Then again, if you had that, I'd say let them do the whole guitar.

Yeah I can do it. Let me know or have him e-mail me through here.

Useless. On the custom Jackson the guitar is already cut away far enough to not interfere with your hand. Unless he's playing on top of the pickups, it's just for looks. Basically choose one or the other. If the guitar is totally cut away in that area then you won't be touching it regardless of whether there's an angled contour or not. But if it's close enough that you'll hit it, then you can carve the angle in.

So do you just want a licensed one without a logo? Or one made by Floyd Rose? There will be Korean and Japanese licensed versions out there, and I'm sure you could find one without a logo. The Korean one will be lousy with poor knife edges and soft metal, but JD was very proud of the Japanese one that came on the S7420 and it's peers.

I figure it's 6 plus the shield. They can't leave the coil junction hardwired because you have to be able to use hot or vintage wind of each coil, regardless of whether it's in humbucking or single coil mode. You're probably referring to hardwiring the south coil ground to the shield. Then you get shield + 5 conductor. But I'd want my south coil "ground" to be separated from the shield so I'd have seperate access to it. You could junction them for the 513 wiring scheme, but I'd want the ability to reverse phase or something later. If your tap was at 60%, then you could effectively get a 40% tap just by reversing phase on all three pups. Not important for PRS who've done all the research, but pretty useful perhaps for one-off custom winds, like the ones PG members might be doing.

double post

Not quite, remember BOTH coils are tapped, not just the one that's being used for a split. That way he gets vintage humbucker and hot humbucker sounds too, not just when in single mode. So that's 3 conductors per coil.

You should have enough play in the bridge adjustments to have it angle one way or the other. Recently I did an OFR install where the guy wanted it to sit flush. In that case, I DIDN'T have any play in the bridge because it needed to sit flush with the top. So I routed the neck angle into the pocket, but left it a little shallow. (action would be too low) Then I put the guitar back together to check the action. That way I knew exactly how much I needed to come down to get the action perfect. I just maintained the exact same angle, and went that much deeper. Now the guitar is one of the few rarities that has an OFR completely flat/flush with the body for maximum contact, while still having the perfect action. It's that kind of planning and understanding that is needed in order to truly answer your question. By the time you've done all that, you can answer it yourself. And I'm not picking on you either, it's just a reality. If you're going to add an angle to an existing guitar, it HAS to come off the front, unless you glued in a base. But on a scratch build you can do it by trial and error, or drawing it all out as suggested.

Am I missing something, or couldn't you get a better fit out of that piece if you flipped the body over end to end. In other words, take your mock-up of the back with the outline, and put the end strap button where the neck joint is, and the neck joint where the strap button is. Maybe that would make the lower bout extend right into the bad section, I don't know. Even if you left the orientation as is, it should at least get better if you pulled the silouhette down a little bit. But my vote is for a return and refund/replacement. Even though if it were me I would keep it. I'd plane it a little thinner, or use the binding to cover it after using epoxy filler. You could probably even get away with a filler strip in there, cut from the waste. OOH! I know what I'd do! After I rough cut the body shape (no need to over-bevel the rest of the wood) I would take it to the belt sander, and get an angled bevel right there, removing all the bark. (maybe 35 degrees) Then I'd glue the new piece in at the angle and true it up. Then from the side, after you finish cutting the top, all you'd see was a crescent shaped line, that could easily pass as a grain line if you chose the right filler piece. That's another reason you have to rough cut the top first, to see what grain is revealed in that part. Man, I could make that whole thing disappear. But with binding, I guess it would dissappear anyway!

Not to mention we did a huge thread on this a few months back, complete with ignorant theories as well as quality advice and ideas. But the thread does detail how it would have to be done. As far as I know it's 5 tapped coils, each with vintage and hot outputs. Without the PRS circuit board, I think it would be easier to do with mini toggles. You'd have tons of them, but I think it would be easier to organize them in my mind.

Ha! Remember, it took me 15 years to have that "gotcha" idea. It was like the "flux capacitor" I just put that mod into an RG550DY here this morning. As for hearing the difference between the bridge and neck coils of a humbucker, it's totally audible. Especially when you're in the bridge position. I'd say definitely have that as an option. If you're using a healthy output humbucker, the coil toward the bridge will be really icy and vintage stratty, while the one toward the neck will be fatter and more robust like a hot tele. I just got a bunch of DPDT on/off/on switches for one of my other mods. (not as cool as the flux capacitor, but still cool ) It's my coil cut switch. The middle is humbucker mode, and the outside positions select the neck or bridge coil. I have it in several guitars and I won't go back to a simple "single/hum" coil cut again. Another way to TOTALLY hear the difference between coils is to get something like the Dimarzio Megadrive. Drop Sonic, or Steve's Special. They have vastly different sounding coils. So in addition to the minor change in position, there's a major change in output and tone of the coil wind itself.

Not yours, dummy, the Kritz one in the original post.

If it's a convex carve like the one in the photo then I recommend using flat files to finish off the junction points. The file is militant, much like the scraper. I use razor blades to finish up all the time. Mahogany and Ash carve like multilaminates because of the multiple densities and large pores. So the same principles apply there.

It's truly a matter of preference. If you're using satin, I'd say go thicker. That way you can always steel wool it a little in the future to get some of that satin essence back. Playing the guitar will buff a satin finish out in high traffic areas. If you're going with gloss, you could go thinner. Or you could go thin with the satin too, just expect some wear, and then expect the Maple to get dirty. To ask "as much as the body" doesn't help because I don't know what you do to your bodies. Definitely not as much as an Asian 1/8" poly finish, but perhaps as much or more than a vintage Fender/Gibson nitro finish.

That's kind of something I've always known, but I always forget WHY I know it. Then every once in awhile I'm reminded about why it's true, and I'll forget in a couple years again.

Whoa, check this out: http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/SWT36 That's a 3-way DPDT LP switch with a low profile. I'll be needing one of those someday I'm sure. It's probably the Petrucci switch, so you can get the Neck/inside coils/Bridge from a 2 humbucker guitar.

Have a look at the Ibanez Radius or Joe Satriani guitar shape. It is doubtlessly one of the most comfortable guitars to hold and play live. You don't have to make a copy of that, but you can see how everything flows, so there's nothing poking you, but also the top of the guitar "falls away" in the typical playing areas. The longer the upper horn, the better the balance. Its easier to pull a neck down a little than to have to hold it up. There are many ways to reduce weight that enhance, or at least don't harm the tone. An "all access" neck joint is good too. Which brings me to: The Ibanez Maxxas. That is THE quintessential "player's comfort" guitar. It's clamshell hollowed, has the AANJ, and sounds great. The bass horn is long, too.

And whtever the depth, it looks like you can bend the tabs back to 90 degrees if you need a little more room. Then just be clean with the solder so it lays flat.

I don't see the need for a rotary. I think you could do some cool things with a regular LP switch. You could easily modify a LP 3-pickup switch to do what you wanted to do in your first post. Pre-set filters like the varitone are very cool, but I find them more useful on multiple pickup guitars, as is Lucille. If I only had a bridge pickup, I would use the switch to choose the coils and/or series/parallel wiring. I'm sure there's a way to do that with a 3-pup LP switch. EDIT: Actually a rotary is a cool idea, but I would try to find a 5 or 6 way rotary, like the PRS ones. That way you could really explore all the possibilities of the coils, while still having some Varitone positions.