frank falbo

I guess the answer is still the same. Be more careful and switch to a finer grit when it's time to do the edges. If you're using an electric sander to strip, like a random orbit, then stop before you get to the edge and block sand the edges. You're really asking how to improve your technique, and if its something that happens to you often, then you have to change the way you do things to eliminate the possibility. Finer grits, more caution, more hand work, etc. You have to take what causes your error out of the equation. It might mean it takes more time for you than someone like me who has total control of a random orbit sander because I've spent countless hours with them in my hands.

The best way to not do that again is to not do that again. You just have to be careful along the edges. I don't really touch the edges much when I'm sanding between coats or wetsanding before buffing. The buffing pad does enough on the edge to smooth it out. Unless I have to remove drips or major orange peel, I only hit the edges with 1500 grit or so right at the end so they're straight, and without lumps.

Of course we do. Antagonizing us won't make us answer any faster. The screws don't matter at all. But everything else must be "connected." That means you should get a dab of solder where one piece meets another piece. Of course it can be anywhere along the joint. Then make sure a piece comes up and rounds over the corner of the cavity onto the area that the cover touches. Then do the whole cover. For a good solid ground you can solder a wire from ground to somewhere on the shielding, but simply making contact with the potentiometers should be enough.

Actually I have a couple lock nut necks that are on hardtail guitars and I just leave the locking pads off, but I don't like it. I wish they had regular nuts. Someone said Allparts has a bolt on nut with Ebonol on top for the nut material. So you can have a direct replacement nut that's not locking.

Yes. Locking nuts throw the guitar a little out of tune as you lock them. Without fine tuners you won't be able to compensate for that. If you use a Schaller fine tuner stop tailpiece you can do it. Otherwise sell the nut, buy some bone, and you'll have enough left for a ham sandwich.

The neck angle doesn't matter. The downward angle from the nut to the tuners is the same no matter what you do anywhere else.

I've always used a ball pein hammer. It was my grandfathers, and the handle is near petrified by now. I soaked the top part in CA, and ground the face flat, then buffed it to a mirror finish. The mirror finish is the key to not marking frets. If you can dent a fret with any mirror finish hammer the fretwire is too soft, or you're hitting too hard. But any roughness to the surface will mar the frets for sure. The flat section on mine is about 1/2" diameter on the small side. The big heavy top makes for a sort of "dead blow" action without the oil and shots.

As long as it's been bumped, I'll mention Mighty Mite pickups. Not just because I used to work there, because we hadn't begun importing the pickups at that time anyway. Ibanez and other manufacturers helped the Korean factory really bone up on pickup making, and they bought all new machinery, which instantly improved the overall quality. That's when you started seeing Duncan Designed, and now a Bartolini mkII coming out of Korea. They made the Ibanez ATK pickup over there too, which was fantastic. At this point, if you give them a design, they can make it almost as well as the US manufacturers. They'll be a little less consistent, though. But nobody gives them the "good designs" because they need the heirarchy to remain intact. Actually, I think the Sky pickups are Mighty Mites, and the P-90 is the Kent Armstrong P-90 everyone likes. Don't quote me on that though. Their bargain pickups are poop, but the alnico PAF types, hot ceramics, and alnico singles are very good quality for the money. For someone like Lichtfield, they are a great "stock" pickup that would sound good enough to sell the guitar, with a small enough investment that you don't feel bad if it's replaced.

It does mess with the cutaways, though. So in carving your cutaways you may find that you don't just use a tracing of a PRS, but maybe you round the inside of the upper cutaway differently. The PRS body comes into the neck joint with straight lines, so widening the neck might move the neck joint over enough that it's into the carved part of the upper cutaway. But even on a real PRS the top carve seems to start about 1/4" from the fretboard, and that'll accomodate a 7 string. So I guess I'm saying forget everything I just said. But if you're going to do something PRS-like but different, it is something to consider. Even the Universe if you superimposed it over a Jem would show a little difference right at the neck pocket in the way that they round upwards to approach the neck joint, mostly on the treble side.

You guys do realize that making your "waste triangle" start from the strap button area and open up as it goes toward the neck will put the flames in the opposite direction than they are in the photo? They'll start in the center and then go towards the headstock, not towards the bridge. To do the same pattern as the picture on a V you'd need an insanely huge piece. (perhaps bigger than most trees ) The triangle in the pictured guitar started at the neck joint and went out towards the strap button. So it actually works against the natural shape of a guitar, being thinner at the cutaways and fatter at the lower bout.

Maple usually has a clearcoat, whether it's thick or thin, satin or gloss. It's not usually oiled because that shows dirt very quickly. But EB/MM does it, and so do others. So plan on finishing it when you're done with whatever you're used to or to match what you already have. If you have black dots, be careful that in sanding you don't let the paper get clogged and press black plastic dust into the surrounding maple. That looks bad. For filing, maple is easier than Rosewood because it has a more uniform grain and density. Its going to be easier to put a satin finish on it than to wetsand and buff a gloss finish. Either way, I'd use something that coats like nitro, defthane, or other poly, even water based, instead of an oil. If you like the dirty look then use linseed oil and follow up with paste wax.

I thought about that as I was typing. It's the curved ones that need to be CNC'd. I don't like the idea of a "split" fretboard that much, for stability reasons. I guess it would be okay, but with a double action truss rod the rod would be pushing up right at the split, or just a little to one side if it was a 7 string. You could also drill a little hole (3/32nds or so) a the junction for relief, and try sawing right in to that point by hand from each side. (one straight, one fanned) It would be a real pain though. Then you'd still bend the fret and there'd be some relief with that hole for the bent tang.

Yes, because if you are taking the same off each piece (folding it together and cutting the angle) you still have a bookmatch. Any axis at which you "open the book" will be matched.

I love the idea and am totally jazzed about trying it on an 8-string. Soapbarstrat is right about it not being really necessary on a 6 string. I have some guitars with both scales, and I like them each for what they are. But on a 7 or 8 you're trading too much off in either end. Either the lows are too flabby or the highs are too tight for classic soloing. I met Ralph in the mid '90's and he's awesome. He's a total "nerd" as far as the science of it goes. He's dead right with all his conclusions, though. Except maybe the clang tone. He says people comment on the string to string clarity and depth within a chord and he attributes it in part to the reduction and displacement of the clang tone by the multiple scales. But guess what? He's using individual bridges and that alone minimizes crosstalk. Plus, the longer scale for the lows IS clearer. Not to mention a well built guitar doesn't hurt. I've played them and if you don't think about it, you don't even notice it. If you look at your hand, as you extend your reach it fans out, so widening your reach as you go to the bass notes is a natural occurrence. Dare I say it felt more natural to play on, in that it seems more suited to our anatomy, and the expansion of our digits. The scale expansion was like a bonus. So don't anyone worry about converting. I was playing it "regular" with total success. You don't have to learn "angled chords." What I'm still trying to figure out is that it would seem that you could pick any point as your "center point" where the frets meet. It just changes where your bridge is located. In other words, if you cared more about the low chords being natural than the high solo area on the low strings, you could have the "straight" fret be inthe 7-9 range. If you use the 12th, you'll have a more dramatic "fan" on the first few frets. That doolan pic looks like the first frets are almost in line and the fan is most apparent in the upper frets. I think on an 8 string, too large of a fan down low would make chording too difficult. As for paying Ralph, he deserves it, and if I could press a button and make him rich, I would. But for me to try one 8-string (for myself, not resale) since I already know how to do it, and could do it with the tools and skills I already have. I probably won't pay him. Plus I'll be doing it my own way, regarding the "straight" fret, and the custom scales I'll use. Like I might measure for a 26" scale at the low B (string #7) and let the 8th string fall wherever that is along the trajectory. But my marking points would be on the B and high E. By the way, when you said "can it be winged" in your post, I thought you meant could the scale expansion be "arched" in, like as an exponent. In other words, go from one scale to the next, but that the top three strings are less affected than the bottom ones. The scale extension would be progressive. Then I also thought of how you could have the first three strings be straight, say 25" scale, and then start the fan after that to get to a 26 by the low B. You'd need to CNC the fret slots and you'd have to custom bend each fret. I'm up for fretting it if anyone can cut the slots!

We all know psychics are fake, right? Well I'm going to show you how they do it. I will predict the future AND read Jeremy's mind at the same time, and I will tell you exactly what he will be thinking the first time this car is in action: pleasedontcrashpleasedontcrashpleasedontcrashpleasedontcrashpleasedontcrashpleasedontcrashpleasedontcrash Beautiful work! If it does crash you can always find a big section of it and laminate it to a guitar top. Then you won't have to keep saying "still not a guitar"

I like to position the bridge (all types for that matter) so that the high E has a little room to move forward, but is up towards the front of its travel. And you position off the breaking point of the high E saddle. When a guitar is set up, the high E usually farthest forward, then maybe the D is next. So don't angle it so much that the D can't come forward enough. But somewhere around here is a blueprint style drawing of the angle. Anyway the high E is farthest forward and requires the least intonating compensation. So with medium action, it's right about at the scale length.

For the electronically clueless, many manufacturers are using .022uF capacitor. That's what a lot of people consider a "normal sounding" tone control. If you go up to a .047 or higher, it will remove more treble and be more muffled sounding. If you use a lower value it will remove less treble. You could go higher if you're trying to get a smoother, jazzier sound, or lower if you want to just "take the edge off" of a bright bridge single coil without losing as much definition. Using a value that's too high will really reduce your output along with the treble, since guitar is heavy in upper mids. The higher values will also "bleed off" more treble when at "10" because of the resistance inherent in the potentiometer. Very loosely put, a 250K pot turned all the way up is kind of the same as a 500K pot turned down slightly.

I'd stain the headstock black first, so that there's a cushion between you sanding through the paint and actually revealing the naked wood. Also I'd use as little paint as possible to still cover the surface. That way it just soaks into the grains more than resting on the surface. Then use clear to build up to your final depth. If you spray heavy black you might just be using a razor or exacto to scrape the inlay clean. If the pearl is porous the, black will get in there so tape off any of those parts, and I would tape off any joints between two pieces of pearl. They may look tight but if black seeps in there you'll have a line that is hard to clean because it will go deep.

You can use a razor blade, and the trick is to go in the general direction of the grain, but with the razor at a 45 degree angle. After a few strokes reverse the angle. That should knock off any high spots while still removing wood quickly. Be careful of the corners because they can but big gashes in the wood. You might want to snap the corners off with pliers or round them over. You can also use a big file, but it will take long. If you're sanding without a block then your fingers are conforming to the high and low spots, so you'll never truly get the surface level.

I would still use the three way switch. You could wire the blender output to the middle position so that you would still be able to flick between positions, but your middle position balance would be set by the blender. You would also retain the tele look, although I don't know that you care about that. You could replace the tone knob with the blender or use a split pot as volume and tone in the volume spot. I think you'll want audio taper, and to be sure that at the center detent both pots are at 100%, not 50% like a "crossfade." Any center detent stacked pot sold for a bass should be fine.

If you can, get even pressure across the top part of that bend. (and the rest of the top if you can, for that matter) In other words, don't just clamp it from the side of the instrument. Lacewood has that hard "swiss cheese" skeleton with the softer bits in between. Any time you have a "multi-density" wood like Zebrawood or Lacewood you want to be sure the whole surface is tightly clamped, because those different sections can expand and contract differently from eachother over time, even though they are experiencing the same weather conditions.

Right. And then it probably goes without saying that the currently "unused" lug is the black battery lead, and the other two remain hot and ground.

It just looks that way because the outside neck through wood is the same as the body wood. So it's blending together in the photo. Really you only have to seat the neck about as far as any set neck guitar to have a stable neck joint. So going all the way to the strap button is unnecessary. I use a deep set neck often where it stops somewhere around the middle or bridge pickup, and the rest is body wood. Then the bridge is driving body wood, not the neck extension. If you want the neck through sound, then you have to run it all the way back at least to the bridge studs.

The finish is the hard part. Its so soft to the touch that anything but a hard poly (or the Parker composite shell) will dent up pretty easily. I'd opt for several thinned out washcoats as a sealer. They will soak in like a sponge, almost disappearing. But in penetrating and curing they will strengthen the surface down about 1/8". "Soaking" an acoustic top would harm the resonance. But acoustics take less body abuse than electrics usually, and its more acceptable to have a softer finish on top of an acoustic. I'd use a pickguard, too, even if its a clear one. Any pick scratches would probably dent it up without the heavy poly finish. It will sound pretty open and rich in the mids (I'm including it in "the list", darren) with clean crisp highs. I'd love to make a chambered spruce body for myself one of these days. Even a Les Paul style with the pickguard would be good, because the carved top and the pickguard keep the body out of the way of harm. Because of the strong grains with the soft "meat" in between, it will almost have a hollowbody resonance to it even without chambers. It is perfect for neck through wings because having that neck piece go all the way from nut to bridge really combs out a lot of mid frequency dynamics. Think like "neck through is to compressor, as spruce wings are to expander"

Hey Drak (or anybody) I've always stayed away from black because I felt that it reduced the three dimensional quality when you moved in and out of the light. Like if you use one color, you'll have light and dark sections. But then when you reverse the light source, they flip. The light spots are dark and the dark spots are light. I do the sand-back, but usually with a more heavily concentrated or deeper hue of the color I'm using. Like a dark forest green, sand back, then emerald green. Or navy blue followed by an ocean blue. Does that make sense? My question (finally) is what is the tradeoff? I love a finish like yours, anyone who doesn't is a fool, but have you sort of "locked in" the quilt pattern? I imagine there is still some "sparkle" to the non-black parts, but I'm wondering if what you're left with is more like a photo-flame finish, where the look is the same from all angles. I have a solid flamed body, and since its a solid piece, the flame is a little more mild than some of the hyperflamed specimens you'd use for tops. So I'm wanting to do something to bring it out but I'm wondering if this type of finish would be counterproductive, and if it would look more "alive" with a dark brown, sand back, then amber. It'll be a 2-tone burst.