GregP

Obviously, "What do I need to do to paint this guitar white," followed by "and is it true that it'll eventually turn yellowish?" Personally, I'd leave it black. Black is more bad@$$.

If I were buying a neck, I'd be sending Doug a purchase order. I can't imagine you'd go wrong with Carvin or Warmoth, either, but for my money Doug would be the first choice, sight unseen.

Online tabs are wack. With such a high rate of epic fail, I rarely even bother. But online backing tracks... that's coo!

Pretty cool tutorial on the main site for doing one on a 6-string. Just repeat certain steps one extra time... nothing magical about doing 7 instead of 6. http://projectguitar.com/tut/trem.htm

Yeah, if they are bookmatched, they're not "well" bookmatched. But y'know.... I find bookmatching highly overrated anyhow. I like the old-school look of slight mismatches and mediocre figure. In this case, the figure's far too nice to be called "mediocre", so not entirely up my alley. !

Lots of great stuff. For me, it was down to Sorbera Bros, WezV's, and Jyrki's. Not to take anything away from any of the other awesome entries (and all were awesome!), but those 3 did it for me.

My mother always said...

seriously! What the...?

I hope you're joking about the punctuation. ;-)

Very cool idea for that split. You're mentioning "acoutstic-like" tones, though. Surely a piezo has come to mind, no? Even if you don't like the sound of piezo quack, this can be countered to a certain extent with a decent preamp, and can also be used blended with the magnetic pickups. That'll get you far more into jangle-ville than humbuckers alone.

Confirm that the wires are definitely going to the right lugs of the vol pot is the first place I'd check. Sounds like it's not picking up the signal all the way through the range of the wiper.

Mostly it's just a pity anyone would want to live in Adelaide.

Yeah, not "retainer" in the same way that it's meant for other guitar parts-- I was just confirming your suspicion that it's likely to accomodate a way to keep the strings from slipping out. Steinberger headpieces use a rubber-band thingy that goes through this channel, over the strings, so that the ball ends aren't at risk of popping out. Far as I know, all Steinies have used zero-fret. If you haven't alread done so, you should check out Robert's blog at http://buildingtheergonomicguitar.com/ and search for articles related to the Forshage guitar. He extends the neck a bit, as you describe, which is functional (prevents that "whoah, this is the end of the neck?" feel) but also allows him to put a touch of inlay up there. Greg

Cool beans, Mick, thanks for that detailed description. Might have to grab one of these myself some day before they stop being available. That extra channel is probably meant to accomodate the rubber-band-like string retainer thing that some Steinberger headpieces use.

Heh, cross-post. I also used white chalk as per Erik's instructions, fwiw.

2 ideas: 1. I would use a guide of some sort at least. If it's mounted in a stationary base (rather than a 'portable' base like a router base) then you can run the wood against a fence of some sort. Doesn't have to be fancy; just put a piece of straight wood to the platform part of the stand, line up the bit, clamp the wood down to hold it in place, and then go from there. If you can set a stop depth, you should do that, too. 2. Use a straight-edge and an Xacto or other thin blade to score your straight lines as deep as you can. Then tape off the surrounding area to the best of your ability. Then, 'freehand'. But as you freehand, just come as close to that scored line as you can. In many cases, the rotation of the bit will send the last millimetre (between the bit and the scored line) flying. If it doesn't, use a small chisel later, with the scored line as a guide, to clean it up. When I was inlaying my block inlays (all straight lines) I did a combination of using a hole-saw cutting attachment (used it as a mini router-base) and technique #2. Using the scoring technique, it's pretty easy to use a fine chisel (even if it's a construction-grade one... mine was like $8 or something) to clean out the bits that get left behind by not going right to that scored line. Even then, because it was my only major attempt at inlaying, I goofed one of the blocks up... I practiced on scrap first, but probably not quite enough. If this is your first inlay, I recommend putting in more practice time than I did.

There's a difference between fundamentals and harmonics. I don't think anyone's claiming that fundamental frequencies get cancelled. There's a dampening of high frequencies with humbuckers that are wired in series not because of the dual coils, but because of the... (insert correct word here... inductance, resistance, whatever it is)... created by all that copper wire. I'm not sure that ultra-high frequencies automatically qualify as "harmonics", either, which seems to be the common conception. Worth reading up on. <adds to list> But I wouldn't be really worried about humbuckers. Toaster-top single coils sure make a Rick 12-string sound good, but nobody's ever complained about the Gibson 1275!

No tips from me-- but I was a bit confused about why you'd check the behind the nut lock if you're going for the gold. It's a one or the other proposition.

Oh I know that, I'm just saying-- that guitar is typically referred to not as his signature guitar, but just as the "Red Special." When you talk about the Brian May Signature guitar, you're talking about one of the ones made by Guild or one of the newer ones. If I'm not mistaken, May formed his own little mark (might be manufactured by a parent company; dunno) called Brian May Guitars for the more recent ones.

Nah. That's just the Red Special. The Brian May Signature guitar has been made by various companies... I think the first one was Guild? Can't remember who did the much-acclaimed recent one. However... does the PRS McCarty count as a "signature" model? Not a player so much as a respected designer...

Ah, hence my confusion-- usually the signature refers to the artist; typically either a well-known or well-respected one. If you end up going into production, it'll be your brand, not necessarily your signature. Make sure you do some full-sized plans and prototypes. In the meantime, I'd still be curious to see a bigger illustration, with a neck also attached. Hard to tell what the treble-side cutaway is going to look like without a neck on there.

Not a fan, to be honest. I see problems with the visual balance (and perhaps the practical balance) of the shape. Also, not sure that making your own guitar qualifies it as a "signature" guitar. Best of luck, though! You get to call the shots, which is the cool part about making your own. Greg

I'm still not sure that luthiers are any more or less prone to conservatism than players. Any creative force who can exert a change on a stagnant medium sure gets my respect, though.

I dunno. You could just as easily say it's the player who pushes the boundary on the number of strings, and that string numbers "beyond the conventional" are primarily customer requests (players) rather than luthier innovations. "It goes to 11." y'know? Neither of those positions can be proved... it's all just opinion, and in my opinion it's more likely to be the player requesting X # of strings from a custom builder, than a custom builder creating something with X # of strings and hoping to find a market. Besides that, the entire point would need to be predicated on the idea that all luthiers know more than all players. You can find a self-styled (or even trained) luthier with a remarkable inability to come up with a good design, or you could find any number of players who know their instrument and could come up with an excellent design even if they're not the ones who execute that design. It's really too much of a stretch to imagine that luthiers are inherently more connected to the instrument than players. (do I hear a "Leo Fender"?)

Hey Mick, Is the headpiece a hybrid that has allen screws (or somesuch) to accomodate regular strings, or do you have to use double-ball?