frank falbo

Yes it's a 1770, and I have 2 other proline necks on different guitars. They're wonderful, although they require the most adjusting of any of my guitars. Probably the ebony. It never wants to cooperate with maple. They're always fighting about which way to go. The question was for musmanjam sorry for the incoherence.

If you're using a standard electric bridge you'll be fine. The strings will gradually move to the inside of the neck as you go higher up the register, though, since the bridge isn't the proportionate width. That's fine, but what it means is that with the standard bridge, your strings will never be farther apart than at the bridge. And that width is fine for standard pickups. You might notice it doesn't appear to be directly over the poles, but anything within 1/16" to either side is basically acceptable and will be within the magnetic field with no real volume reduction. If it bothers you, get a pickup with a bar magnet, a "rails" design, or a Carvin pickup. Those seem to shoot out a little farther. If you made your bridge wider it could be an issue, otherwise I think you'll be fine.

Did you want it to tarnish, or did you just want the copper color? You can get a copper plate, and often that is an undercoating in the plating process. Its soft and it will tarnish quickly. But to achieve a copper color you might go for a powder coating, or spray an antique brown tinted lacquer over gold hardware. Lots of gold hardware is done that way. The gold plating is thin and more yellowish, and then the protective lacquer has orange/amber in it to really enhance the color. So you could start with gold or chrome and mix a tint that gives you the color you want.

You might say that they add "value" to the guitar.

I have an Ibanez proline with the push buttons, and another push button assembly that I saw someone at a shop throwing away! I saved it and it's going on a guitar I'm making. It doesn't let you choose coil combinations, but you can preset a pickup combination. With 3 pickup buttons you can do any combination and also preset tapping the bridge pickup. So you could go from, say, bridge hum w/middle single to bridge single w/neck single. Or from bridge hum to all three pickups as singles. A little off topic, but I also wanted to ask, what are you trying to do? Maybe there's a way to do it without 3 poles.

The only time I've needed multiple functions I just got 3PDT and 4PDT mini-toggles from Bartolini. I don't know where he gets them but they can't be that hard to find. Sometimes you just can't go "stealth," you have to make a switch look like a switch!

For little jobs and touchups I'll use the cardboard box. If you want to get rid of fumes that's great, you'll need ventilation. But for minimizing dust in the finish, I like stagnant air, at least until the finish has flashed. So I leave stuff in the box, and even close it part way sometimes. If you are in a garage or outside, a back or top fan will just bring particles in. Maybe spray the item, then put a clean furnace filter over the opening before you turn the fan on. That might help. If you need ventilation for the fumes, then you could hinge a "front door" that is made from a furnace filter so you can close it after you spray. Then I'd have the hole in the box be pseudo isolated from the fan. In other words, have a slot in the back of the box at the bottom. But set that up as a false back wall, with the real back wall with the hole in it behind that one, and the fan in between them.

If you were going to stain the neck darker then I guess you could do that before glueing, too. So you'd get a more uniform color and a cleaner edge. Plus the stain would be under any glue squeeze out. Otherwise a little glue line, or glue that stuck in the pores would lock out the stain. Besides that, I vote no finish until you're done. Unless you think its easier to do the headstock before the neck is attatched, I'd go for that.

I read this kind of fast so forgive me if I missed it, but I don't think anyone mentioned a deep set neck yet. That's what I use a lot. It's like a neck through but it only goes to around the bridge or middle pickup cavities. It works better with a top, but if you're using the same wood types, and stop it inside one of the cavities, it blends right in. The problem I have (just me - not trying to change anyone else's mind) with a neck through is that I don't like the bridge mounted to the same wood as the neck, especially if it's maple. (I know the studs are often barely off into the wings, but to me its still that same area) That's me. You can carve a deep set neck the same way as a neck through, and it's not much harder to build, if not easier. You can bandsaw most of the "U" channel, and then route it final. Or like on my classical, I left about 3/8" on the bottom of it (like a huge bolt on cavity), and routed a neck angle into it. So I had to do that all with the router.

Stew-mac's rod is thin (narrow). To me that's more important than it being deeper. It's a good rod, and yes with flame I'd like to know I had the ability to correct a backbow if I needed to. As for "more metal than wood..." I think just about any truss rod is acceptable, but steel rods, graphite rods, two rods, or something like a PBC tension free neck sounds and feels really different. I can't stand it. That doesn't make it wrong, if anything I'm small minded. But I can't stand to feel a neck lay dead in my hands. I want to feel it vibrate. The neck is your most responsive part of a guitar. I can always tell (batting 1000 so far anyway) when a neck has graphite or steel rods in it. That's about the only thing I'd latch onto from a metals debate. But a single rod, double rod, whatever. Just use what you want, but my vote is for the hot rod over the warmoth type with a flat bar on top and a rod on the bottom. The top rod applies more uniform pressure than the flat bar in my experience. The flat bar can bend, and get a memory over time. I think the rod is less likely to. I think the Stew-mac rod weighs less, too.

It sounds a lot like J.E. Mosers polymerized tung oil varnish, but with linseed as the base. (is that what you use Lex?) I love that finish. I also love the General Finishes Arm-R-Seal oil/poly finish. I see almost no need to ever do a body in straight oil again. Necks, maybe, since there's a dry feel to natural tung oil that the finishes don't have. They can feel like a "coating" on the neck. But for bodies I love an oil/varnish or oil/poly blend. Cocobolo will take the Arm-R-Seal and the Polymerized tung oil varnish. Maybe it's the linseed oil base of the tru-oil that reduces the adhesion and curing. I didn't read the whole thing so maybe I missed it, but you should be wiping down the surface of oily woods like cocobolo with naptha, mineral spirits, an oil soap mixture and a damp rag, or even a household degreaser if nothing else. The kind of thing that will flash the oil off the surface. Then apply the finish before new oils, already present in the wood, draw their way back out to the surface. The oil "finish" that you're applying has hardeners infused in it. The wood oil doesn't. So the deeper you get your finish to penetrate without the wood oils "diluting" it's curing agents, the better. That's part of what's happening with the oily woods. Their oils mix with your finish, and it changes the makeup of the finish. Kind of like putting 1/2 vegetable cooking oil in your finish. It'll never dry. I've waited 5 days on a headstock, and I might have to scrape it clean because I forgot about the little part where the rosewood fretboard extends behind the nut. It's a perfect line. The Mahogany is cured hard and the rosewood isn't, because I didn't clean it first.

I agree. The only reason you'd need to strengthen a headstock is if you had some endgrain exposed right at the angle, or if you had carved it too thin. With laminates it's unnecessary, especially since you have enough wood to do a nice big volute. (I know you do otherwise you'd have to do a scarf joint!)

If those are your preliminary choices, I highly recommend the Bartolini System 111B. You will never look back. I will dance in front of the computer in my underwear if you aren't converted. Of course no one will see it because I don't have a webcam, but if my wife walks in on me she'll get a kick out of it. Seriously, the System 111B would actually do most of what those other systems could do, all in one system. I've actually converted players from each of those setups that you mentioned individually. I try to control my enthusiasm on forums because everyone has their bias, and most people think of Bartolini as a high end bass pickup manufacturer, and it is quite the contrary.

This is kind of what I meant when I said I've seen this debate get nasty. That's part of the reason I won't commit to a position. But I realized that my posts were theory related, so I'll clarify that I have switched around mounting methods on several guitars. Even in the past when clients wanted to add rings to a guitar just for looks. So far, I can't say there's a difference. And believe me, guys, I'm trying really hard to see a difference. I've written articles on how everything makes a difference. String trees, headstock angle, trem block material, break angle at the saddle, etc. I am "pro-nuance!" For right now I still can't see this one. But I also am a firm believer in "if it works, do it." Eric Johnson is a nut but if batteries and cover plates and waving some magic wand over his amp makes him think it sounds better, than he should do it. I fully support Wes hanging his pickups because he says it's better. In that case he's right, even if some of us think he's not right. The fact is only an instant test that's recorded will ever solve this debate, and I don't think any of us care that much. But its fun to stretch the mind with these posts. I'll let you know if I ever build a guitar with instantly removable shims, or retractable pickup cavity bases. Until then....

They're at www.bartolini.net and the site is pretty informative. You can e-mail them or perhaps send an e-mail to Tom Wagner. He's a distributor. Allparts also became a reseller years ago and apparently have a decent stock. They can custom order I'm sure. If you wanted a truly custom order, like a specific pickup sound mounted in a special sized chassis, those can take unrealisticly long. Although on a custom project from scratch, usually if you order a custom pickup it'll be ready by the time the instrument is done. The thing about an 8 string is that if you're thinking "I want a PAF tone" your low strings will suffer. If you want the low strings clear and piano-like, your high strings may sound sterile to you. His standard 6-string bass pickups are good for low end clarity, but have a pretty "guitar-like" voicing on the high strings. I think its part of knowing that his 6-string bass pickups are used in "lead bass" situations. That's why I'd take the chance with stock units. His treble/mid/bass preamps bring out the slap/pop frequencies, so if you use the "flat" TC3 preamp with a mid boost, and set it for a fat lower midrange boost, you'd have a top notch "guitar" system, even though you're using pickups sold as 6-string bass pickups.

It can be considered obsurd for a solidbody, but I believe in it for anything with an acoustic top, like a jazzbox, violin, dreadnaught, etc. But maybe not a 335 with the center block. What is obsurd is to listen for a resonant frequency. Because it's not the resonant freq inherent in the wood itself, but rather the size of the piece. Like slowly emptying a glass of water while tapping it, the resonant frequency will change as you carve the body. So a body blank's freq means nothing. Now, you might tap out blanks to hear the decay. If one makes a hard knock with no decay while the other rings out for 200ms, then you've found something "in the tree" that will carry over regardless of the size or shape.

If I do an 8, I'll use Bartolinis, perhaps three P62 bass size, sort of a 3 strat singles setup with an active system, low mid boost probably. Note to note clarity over the entire dynamic range is essential on an 8, and even a 7 for that matter. Most of my own guitars have normal passive pickups, but for string separation within a chord, and low note clarity (i.e. anti-mushiness) Bartolini is the man. Any degredation along the way to the rig causes greater damage to the low strings than the high ones, even though signal degredation usually happens to the high end. Its that clarity you need for the low notes. The higher strings already produce enough highs. So I would take an active system over a Duncan. Otherwise for your gear drop tuning is about the best test you can use for now. If you're planning on using heavy overdrive (like, its not for jazz comping) it's true that lots of amps will just fall apart pre-OD in that range. In other words, the power amp would handle it just fine, but the way it distorts is affected. I imagine Line 6 stuff, and other modelers would work well here, because they are a digital process to the sound, not an actual overdrive of a preamp. In other words, they don't know you're not supposed to tune that low, so the OD model simply follows you down there, where an actual amp would flub out.

this is exactly what i did when i built my vee Sorry, I was typing as you were typing.

You actually need a mechanical picker like Bartolini and probably other manufacturers have. Then you'd have to be certain the pickup height was dead on, etc. I've heard the "microphonic" theory as well, and it could be true but I still attribute the noises you hear to "shake-ups" in the magnetic field. Tapping the pickups vibrates the magnet within the bobbin and it's relationship to the baseplate, which is also magnetic. Again, locking it down hard to the body shouldn't alter how it hears string movement. As for the pickup hearing more than just the strings, it's really not. The pickup is not microphonic enough to "hear" the wood choices or the bridge type or whatever acoustically. Those differences are coming through in the way the string vibrates. Someone argued once that if you have the amp cranked and overdriven yo can shout into the pickups and you'll barely hear it through the amp. Like that was proof. (some of that sound is the breath passing over the strings by the way) But if you played an A chord it would be deafening. So even if that's "evidence" you have to consider your ratios. You're screaming is much louder than the guitar is acoustically. Yet the string sound is exponentially louder than the screaming. What I'm saying is that even if a difference was there, the ratio between sympathetic microphonics and magnetic disturbance itself makes it inaudible. (IMHO) Besides, if we're talking about what most people refer to as direct mount, with foam or springs underneath, you haven't really changed anything at all, just the location of the screws. Wes' definition, to me, would be the only way you'd actually have a material difference. I'd ask Wes, when you speak of that difference, did you (on the same guitar) remove the direct mounted pickups, deepen the route, and then re-install? Or are you referring to some guitars you made with direct mount and others with rings? That's not a challenge to your opinion, by the way, I'm just curious. Like I said, I'm not holding to this with an iron fist, but its what my bestest smarts tell me.

If you use the thin CA it will suck its way into the little cracks and cloudy areas where the poly has lifted. Poly won't do that. CA is the way to make cracks sort of disappear.

Keep buying there, you might find a '57 Strat that's been completely encased in another, larger guitar!

I've seen this debate get ugly before. Here's my take on this as short as I can make it. Pickups are hearing the magnetic disturbance from the string vibrations. All the traditional things that people say affect tone do it by changing, even if it's ever so slightly, how the strings vibrate and respond to it. (wood choices, bridge, nut material, etc.) I won't take a firm position on this, but it would seem that the mounting method would only produce an effect on the tone if it were suspended so loosely (like hanging from strings or something) that the actual magnetic disturbance was capable of moving the pickup, or vibrating it. So my answer is: All other things being equal, no effect on the plugged in tone. The opposing viewpoint can only be based on the theory that the vibrations of the wood themselves are transfering to the pickup and making the pickup vibrate, which in turn changes (sympathetically) how it hears the string. Even if true, I don't believe anyone can hear that. At that point it's a purely cosmetic decision.

If it's an angled head, you can shave a little off the top and laminate a figured wood "cap" to it. I say figured because why not if you have the chance, right? But it could be anything really. The lamination in and of itself would add stability. On a straight headstock you can't really get a flat surface to laminate to without weakening it even more by routing away more wood by the fretboard. Also you could simply put a veneer over it as is. That will thicken it a little, but usually not so much that the tuner nuts don't clear the curved part of the posts. I've made a few thicker heads where I recess the tuner nuts and washers with a forstner bit so they are still in the right place but the wood is thicker. You could do that with an 1/8" laminate. If it's a maple neck it won't accept the CA very deeply. It'll be more like CA "paint." If it's porous like mahogany or koa you can drench it with CA, but on a natural finish it will change the look of it. It'll be like a "wet look" and if you oil finish the neck it will stand out. Even with a thin finish, those grains will be "filled" while the others absorb finish and have an "open pore" look. Finally, you could route say, 1/8" grooves from around the 2nd fret to the A tuner and epoxy graphite rods into them. (this would be coming at it from the back, not the top like the first two suggestions) Put them to either side of the truss rod, but over about 1/8" so closer to being under the A and B strings than flanking the truss rod channel. You could use ebony or some other hardwood too, but maximum strength will come from graphite.

Yes. Move your head and your light source at the same time!

RUT! Ha! Get it?! You see because that's what the jigsaw would've ma......Oh forget it.