crafty

There are many different species of rosewood out there, but it's difficult to work with in that it's a much harder wood than mahoghany and is tougher to sand out. But it is *the* most musical wood out there, besides spruce. The most sought-after woodwinds and marimbas are made of rosewood. It's rare, pricey, tough to work with, beautiful to see and hear all at the same time. Keep in mind even Warmoth bodies need final sanding and sometimes some modifications to fit everything properly. Koa, zebrawood, and ebony will also look very nice and give you a similar resonant, snappy instrument, but may cost more and be more difficult to work with. If money is no object, there is no substitute. However, strength wise, you may want to consider using maple either for the whole neck or laminating the neck with maple strips. If you were painting the guitar, I would go with alder, non-figured maple, or mahoghany.

Yeah, and Ibanez uses Basswood to reduce their overall costs too. So what? Alder is a good wood for any guitar, whether it be a bass, a bari, or a regular ol' 6 string. It is a brighter wood than mahoghany, but somewhat less bright than maple or swamp ash. If you want to spend the money on walnut, rosewood and padouk, go for it. But walnut is not as good of a tone wood as alder, and while rosewood is probably the best tone wood in the world, it is very expensive, difficult to work with, and can be a bit bright. So it comes down to what you want to spend and what kind of finish you're going to put on the guitar. Alder isn't exactly a presentation grade wood, and it would be a crime to paint a $400 Warmoth rosewood body.

Duh...to impress his bandmates with his ultra-cool new Strat with lots of little switches on it? Either that or it's to see how many different combinations of crappy sounds he can squeeze out of the humble Strat. I can make fun of this just because I went through this "Fender Jaguar" phase as well. I actually just restored my Strat from having three ultra-cool but mismatched SD pickups, a preamp boost I never used, and all sorts of parallel/tapping switching just to look cool. For some reason, though, it still sounded like crap coming out of the amp once it went through effects or processing. It was also much more difficult to remember what settings I needed for actually performing on stage. One new set of EMG-SA pickups and I'm back to the sound I really wanted. Clean signal throughout, simple to use in concert. Lots of little switches make for a cool looking axe, but c'mon, you'll never use 'em. I'll stick to my five-way switch and lack of push-pull pots and mini-switches from now on. But I'll keep the 9-volt battery

Awesome guitar! Nothing plays better than a real Gibson V, IMHO, although I haven't had a chance to play the ESP Dave Mustain V yet.

People who b*tch about the kind of wire used for point-to-point connections inside a guitar are the same kind of people who wish cars still had carbs and points ignition. Here's a tip: tell whoever you're doing wiring jobs for that you are going to replace the old worn-out, rat's nest wiring with new wire that will last longer and transfer a clearer signal from the pickup. You will also be shielding the cavities, which will not only reduce the amount of inference or "buzz" coming from the guitar, but will also greatly affect the sound of the instrument. The wire used for the wiring should not be the problem. It's more likely the shielding and replacement of old pots and capacitors, whose values have changed over time, that is causing your clients to lose that "vintage" tone.

Er, you might want to go down to Home Depot and see how much that chain REALLY weighs before you decide to use it as a "strap". Log chain is very heavy. Besides, it just looks dumb unless you really are Zakk Wylde... Why only 21 frets? You won't be able to play as "high" as Zakk... It's actually more work to front-route a V...also, if you go into it with a "semi-pro" attitude, it will wind up looking like crap. Treat it like you're building it for Randy or Zakk and you'll make a much better guitar.

IMHO, it's much more difficult to solder two thin wires together than it is to solder a wire wrapped around a lug on a pot. Especially because you'll have one hand free to apply the solder. Also, when you are soldering wires together, you tend to hold the heat on a little longer. This can damage the components further on down the wire, the wire itself, and the insulation on the wire. You also have to use more heat-shrink tubing as well. If anything, you should be very concerned about how your solder and wiring work looks. It should be clean, neat, and tidy to avoid shorts and signal loss. Most noise present in guitars can be traced to improper soldering and inefficient wiring. Like anything else, PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. Take apart an old broken stereo or VCR and practice your soldering skills before you actually hold the iron to your axe. A nice set of expensive aftermarket pickups isn't going to make you sound any better if you can't get them hooked up properly.

Hyunsu, It would be sweet if you put the same kind of inlay on one of your guitars, except using Korean or Chinese ideographs instead of our Arabic numbers like on this guitar.

Where's the little emoticon for VOMITING!! You dirty traitor!! Seriously, how was your experience with Mr. Roman's shop? Always been curious about that place. How much did you pay for the axe, too?

Most of the time, it really doesn't matter. The magnetic field on most pickups is so large that even if the polepieces are off a little it's really not going to make much of a difference at all. Keep in mind that the polepieces on humbuckers aren't actual magnets, like on single coils. The magnetic field is generated by the bar magnet on the bottom of the pickup and focused a little by the studpieces and screws. I've used an SD Alnico II Pro humbucker on the bridge of my Strat for years with no ill effects tone or volume wise. The high-E sits just barely south of its polepiece. EMG pickups aren't a problem at all with Floyds, either.

Man, a guy from Sweden travels to Australia to spec out a custom guitar?! That's one hell of an expensive axe!! And the top isn't even Ormsby Presentation Grade! I remember when my sister and brother-in-law went to visit his father in Brisbane a year ago. The plane tix were like, $3000 apiece, from Cleveland. That axe better kick a Jackson's a$$ all over the place for that kind of scratch.

You know what Jesse James would say: If the customer wants you to convert the neck to fretless, what's the problem? Seriously, it's no more invasive than a fret job itself. Just take out the frets, put wood filler strips in the slots, sand, shape for radius, and you're done! It's completely reversible, too.

When I used to play in my college's jazz band, practicing everyday for two hours plus rehersals, I'd go through a set of strings every week! Those bulk boxes of D'Addarios became my friend real fast. I wish my Strat had SS fret because those stock frets took a beating from those two years of constant abuse.

Actually, it's easier to run just two strings on the lower and higher E positions. Make sure everything is lined up THEN mark the holes.

Only one problem. There is no neck joint. Re-read that topic title again...

eBay's VeRO policy is interesting, to say the least. I guess their policy is to prevent lawsuits by simply doing whatever the mark owner demands. I suppose with the amount of items up for sale everyday on eBay, they'd get sued out of existence pretty fast if they didn't cowtow to the demands of companies like FMIC. Just a quick note, "Bigsby" is not a descriptive term. Gretch is actually trying to prevent "Bigsby" from becoming a descriptive term by defending their marks. I didn't know that eBay prohibited comparisons in titles, but not in the actual listing. Interesting policy. I wonder what term you COULD use to describe the specific style of trem in the title? Thoughts?

Kevan, That looks like you put a lot of time and effort into rigging up that display model, but quite honestly, I would have made a cover to fit over the entire top of the body. I also really liked the first design much better. Here's where my old marketing background comes into play. If I set something up on my table at a trade show that looked like it was rigged up with duct tape and bailing wire, I'd never sell a single unit. I think the engineering and design you put into the setup is admirable, but completely unneccesary. I would have simply grabbed an old neck, sawed it off at the twelfth fret (right at the tip of the upper horn on a Strat), ran the strings through the bridge at the correct spacing over the pickups and stub neck, and secured them over the end of the stub neck using some kind of fastener. It would look less jury-rigged and more like a display built by a professional modeler. I know nobody's probably going to see the top side at the show, but it would just look a little cleaner. Less complication also helps when the people you're training get their first look at the model setup. Just food for thought. Good luck with NAMM and your potential licensee.

eBay has the right to suspend your account for whatever they want. It doesn't really matter if you have the legal right to the mark or not. You don't have a legal right to sell anything on eBay and they can say "screw you" at any time. However, by comparing your trem to the real B5, it really cuts the legs off anything Gretch can do. Especially if there's quite a bit of difference in the part.

Write the title as: "Vintage-style Tremelo--Compare to a real Bigsby B5!!" In your description of the item, compare your trem with a B5. You can use a trademark in a comparison to another competing product. It doesn't matter if yours is licensed or not. How do you think Chevy and Ford get away with using each others' marks in commercials? Say something like: "Looks similar to a real B5, but costs much less!"

Thanks for the correction. Last time I saw an old Affinity in the MF Clearance Center in pieces it looked like plywood. My bad. Must've been something else, although I do admit that I tend not to pay much attention to Squiers. Why bother? Also, I forgot to mention that the difference between the necks on American and Mexican Fenders is a little more than the fret size. The American necks have dual-action truss rods and micro-tilt. Mexican necks don't have these features, although I'm not sure if they've ever made the three-bolt instruments in Mexico, in which case those would be equipped with micro-tilt, too. American necks are also 9.5 radius, I think most of the Mexicans are 7.5 vintage. In short, if you buy a Standard MIM Strat, it will be like buying a vintage technology instrument. The American Standards tend to have all of the modern upgrades such as knife-edge trems, noiseless pickups, no-load tone, larger frets, and on and on.

New MIMs are four to seven piece alder with an alder veneer on top. The route is H-S-S. My 1995 MIM is four piece poplar, no veneer, H-S-S route. New American models are two or three piece ash or alder, no veneer, H-S-H route. Pre-2001 Americans are two to six piece alder, ash or alder veneer, universal (swimming pool) route. Everything else like the China and Indonesian Squiers and Fenders are plywood, usually either S-S-S or universal route, depending on the vendor, mostly Samick. Japanese Strats are S-S-S route, usually high-quality pieces with two or three piece bodies. Wood varies, Foto-Flame Strats were also Japanese. Most have been made in the Gakki factory with other popular Jap brands like ESP and Ibanez. All Mexican and American bodies and necks are made in Corona, CA, and the Mexican components are shipped south for finishing and assembly. A Mexican neck will feel similar to an American neck, except that it has vintage frets instead of the larger and easier-to-play medium jumbos Fender installs on the AS Strats.

Well, you could exchange them and get the F-spaced pickups, or you could simply choose not to worry about it. I've used a non-F-spaced SD Alnico II Pro on my Strat bridge position for about five years now. No tone or volume problems here. That's with a relatively "weak" pickup output. The magnetic fields are so wide on passive pickups, especially Evos, that having the polepiece off a little isn't going to hurt your tone or reduce your volume THAT much. Vai might know the difference, but that's VAI. With a powerful pickup like the Evo in the bridge, you will not notice a difference in volume enough to crap your pants over. Also, the only thing that will really affect TONE is where you mount the pickup, say neck compared to bridge. The difference in spacing between "standard" and "F" spacing will not make a difference in tone between two otherwise identical pickups mounted in the bridge in the same type of guitar. Also, you probably won't need to exchange the neck pickup at all. The polepieces are probably lined up just fine. Tell you what. Mount the pickup in the guitar--but don't wire it up. String it up and see where the strings fall over the pickup. If the high-E is more than 1/8 or 2mm from the polepiece--you may want to consider exchanging it. But if it lays just on the very edge or within 1/16 or 1mm, don't worry about it, just keep it.

capacitors don't have colors or stripes...

Is it axial lead (wires coming out of both ends) or radial lead (both wires coming out of the bottom)? Mouser Electronics has your 40ufd, 500V electrolytic caps. I've usually had pretty good luck with ordering from them, too.

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