Hoser Rob

Semi hollow bodies were invented to give some of the resonance of a hollow body with the sustain of a solid body. At least that's what Gibson said back then and they'd know. PLus you get a lot more feedback resistance than a hollow one ... but you can easily get feedback if you know what you're doing. Check out the intro solo in B.B.'s How Blue Can You Get from the Live at Cook County album. SOme of the nicest feedback I've ever heard.

Those Martins that you'd do compression fretting actually did have truss rods. They just weren't adjutable. I suspect this archtop is similar. Heat pressing is probably the best route to take.

I think you'll find that most fretwire has a tang width less that .023". However the pointed studs on the tangs extend much wider. You shouldn't have any problems.

www.stewmac.com sells a kit to save rods that have stripped threads or have been broken at the nut end. It ain't that cheap but it may be what you need. Or maybe you should just remove the fretboard, use a larger rod, and rout the slot to accept it. Both the above and www.lnii.com sell good rods.

Generally alder is more midrangey and goes well with rosewood fingerboards. Swamp ash is more transparent sounding and is the classic choice with maple necks. As far as working it the finishing would be a big difference. Ash has a very porous grain and you need to do pore filling.

The reason it sounds like crap probably isn't the UST ... especially if it sounded OK with steel strings. As mentioned, nylon strings don't have the tension to drive a guitar top designed for light gauge steel strings. Plaus, if you didn't adjust the rod, the neck is almost certainly backbowed if the rod works at all. You've got about 60% (or less) of the string tension you had before. Unfortunately, unless you've got a double action rod, that's probably out of the range of the rod. Try loosening it anyway if the neck's too straight or backbowed. And, like someone said, you'd probably need to raise the saddle unless the action was high before.

I wouldn't put a maple top on a neck through. It'd be way too bright for me.

"A guitar player" told you you should use a maple body. That doesn't mean he/she knows what they're talking about. Maple isn't actually that common in solid bodies. There are a number of suitable woods but the best sounding guitars are usually made of lighter weight wood. I've seen some killer electrics over the last 30+ years and almost all of them were light, if not featherweight. Those old valuable Gibsons and Fenders are much lighter than the modern ones. Lighter wood resonates more freely. it's that simple. All that stuff about heavy body = better tone is pure marketing crap. It started in the 70s when the big makers started using cheaper wood for the bodies. Unfortunately there are a lot of ill informed players who still believe that BS. Try basswood. As someone said, for a first build you don't want to spend a ton of $$$. It's pretty cheap, really easy to work, and resonant.

Yes, there's going to be a difference. More subtle if the top is solid ... that's where the sound really comes from on a guitar, the B & S just color the sound ... and quite pronounced if the top is laminated too.

If the fretboard is rising past the neck/body joint, that could certainly be your problem. The truss rod can't fix that. It has no effect past where the neck heel starts. Perhaps the neck angle has changed over time and it was flat all the way up to begin with. That's why "fall away" ... the fretbeard dropping away past the neck/body joint ... is so common. First, you'd want to get a good straightedge to really check it. It's really not that easy to eyeball something where a .005" difference can cause fret buzz. If it's not actually rising I'd suspect a high fret. They can pop up over time. If you don't have enough fallaway, which I suspect is what's happening, you're going to need some fret levelling done past the body joint to get the proper amount.

Once you find a neck shape you want, go to www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets and use the neck tracing technique shown there.

It's largely the bridge and strings through body. Ever heard a hardtail Strat? No Tele pickups but very Tele like. They're not nearly as common as the whammy Strats but they're my favorite Fenders.

Jeff Babicz does know how how to make guitars, I dare say a lot better than anyone who posts here by a long shot. Never heard one so I won't say. However, I think it looks silly and I don't know where you'd get strings that long around here.

Can you still get those roller nuts like Fender once (and still may) put on the Strat plus? They're a bodge to install (no worse than a locking nut though I imagine) and will work very, very well with a standard Strat vibrato. Especially with a set of Sperzel tuners.

A Tele with humbuckers, even a set neck one, still sounds like a Tele. A lot of it is the way the strings are mounted. A hardtail strat sounds rather tele like to me. And, of course, the scale length. Sonically and feel wise that's the main difference between a Fender and a Gibson. That's according to Roger Sadowsky BTW. You'll never get that poppy sound without it. Also the fact that there's no back angle on the headstock. A real swamp ash body and one piece maple neck/fretboard with skunk stripe helps too.

First, get yourself a straightedge ... at least 18". Then you can really see. If you want to bypass whether the fret tops are level (the effects of wear etc) get one of those www.stewmac.com notched ones or save some $ and grind your own notches into one. If it's actually twisted a bit you may be able to pull the frets and sand it flat using a radius block.

Forget it ... it's way, way too much effort and it'd would still look like crap because the part of the fretwire that goes in the slot is narrower than the slot. That's what the tangs are for. Fill the slots with something else. www.frets.com is always the best place to start. You'll need a proper set of modified cutters to pull the fret. www.lmii.com or www.stewmac.com has them.

www.frets.com is probably the best lutherie site out there. www.cumpiano.com has some great articles. www.stewmac.com too.

www.stewmac.com is a good place to look too.

Obviously the wood affects tone a whole bunch ... at least 50% and I don't see why that's remotely controversial. An electric guitar is an acoustic guitar. It's just not very loud. The pickups can't put in what's not there in the wood. You can often improve cheap ones by putting in better pickups but you can't turn a mutt into a great guitar that way. Better to put the extra $$$ into a better guitar. Try the following experiment: go into a guitar store with at least 3 or 4 Teles or whatever on the rack when it's quiet (I know, that can be hard to manage). Put your head near each one and rap the body with a knuckle. The one with the best and loudest sound will virtually always be the best sounding one plugged in.

I definitely go with lighter is better. I've tried some ridiculously good electrics and almost all of them were pretty light to featherweight. And they sustained just fine, thank you. All that heavier = better crap was basically marketing started in the 70s when guitar companies started using cheaper (heavier) wood. Those good old vintage Gibbies and Fenders ... not that they're all fantastic ... are a lot lighter than the modern ones. In fact it's really really hard to get swamp ash that's that light. The closest thing is probably a Japanese wood called sen and that ain't that easy to get either. Heavier wood just doesn't resonate as much as lighter stuff. Basswood is really light and undderrated. I had a basswood Japanese Tele once that sounded great.

New tuning machines wouldn't help if the string changing technique is flawed. My favorite method is the one over, one under one. I learned it from one of Dan Erlewine's great columns in Guitar Player years ago and it's quick, easy and really stable. www.bryankimsey.com has a good explanation. Pencil lead in the nut slots is good, and lip balm is too. My favorite thing is Triflow, which uses fast drying volatilized oil with Teflon particles in suspension. You can get it in bike shops in a 2 oz bottle that even has a little pipette like WD40 comes with (just remember to throw away that stupid tape and use a rubber band ... it'll last years and you'll lose it otherwise). You just need a very small amount. You don't need to squeeze the bottle, just the little drop that comes out of the pipette is plenty. Then wipe off the excess. Also, if your tuners are sealed, snug up those little screws holding the buttons on. Not too tight ... they won't work better too tight than too loose.

www.frets.com has a good howto on filling fingerboard divots. It's the definitive lutherie web resource. Bookmark it.

BTW ... forget about perfect intonation. Guitars, like almost all modern Western instruments, are equal tempered. You cannot have perfect intonation on any equal tempered instruments since they aren't designed to give you that. What they do is to spread the out of tuneness around so it's not too objectionable. If you want perfect tuning you need to use just intonation. And if you do that, unless it's a fretless instrument like a violin, you're only going to be able to play in one key or its relative minor. That's why equal temperament was invented and where the title of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier came from. The idea is to get the instrument as much in tune as you can and then be able to play it in tune. I've seen extreme examples of that ... a buddy who used to live here had a 30s Dobro that was the most off key guitar I've ever seen. He could fret it in tune, no problem.

You didn't say exactly how the neck is attached. If it's a neck thru or set neck I'd route a bridge cavity myself. If it's bolt on you can just shim the neck. Not the crappy shims that factory made ones often use but one that fully fits the neck pocket. Cut a thin piece of hardwood and sand it to the right thickness. If you don't want it visible, put it onto another piece of wood and make a tapered shim, one end tapering down almost to nothing. That'll give you a bit of a neck pitch too. What's a decent action? Depends upon how straight the neck is and how level the frets are. Also how hard you play. Some of the best players I've ever met like really high action.