John Abbett

The powder stuff that they sell at woodcraft. Really potent stuff. I mixed it with water. One little platic thing will make two quarts, and I only used a little bit of that to do a guitar face. -john

A little of this, a little of that.. I took the blue powder and it was too bright, so I added a little black. It was a little too blue, so I added a little touquoise. It was a little too green so I added more blue and some h2o. Now it's just right. I have enough to do a few guitars then I'll have to play with it again. -John

Hi all, Here is my latest build, it's all mahogany body with curly maple top. It's my own formula of transtint blue/black/green with nitro. It's cream binding with chrome hardware. The pickups are the PAF ones from Guitar Fetish. I don't have pictures of the back, but the back is contoured like a fender strat. http://www.flickr.com/photos/15318670@N06/...in/photostream/ There is a button at the top left to zoom if you want. -John

I was thinking about what someone said earlier in this thread about how they thought tune-o-matic bridges suck tone. My last two guitars I made the neck angle so that the tune-o-matic bridge is set so it's at a perfect (But on the low side) height when it's screwed all the way down to the bushings. This give it (Bridge) a much more solid feel. No wobble at all. I can raise it up a little if I want, what I thought I would do is if I want to raise it up, I would put a washer under the screw and screw it all the way back down. This will continue to give me a solid connection. I figure this gives me a nice solid bridge without any thread wobble. This may not matter, but I figure it can't hurt either. The trick is making sure that you don't mess up the neck angle and have is to shallow where you can't get the string height low enough to suit you. Of course this means there isn't a lot of height between the strings and the body, but I never have a problem with hitting the guitar, I don't play with pick guards, and it's not a problem. Some may want the extra 1/4 inch or so of height. Any thoughts on this? -J

Roll pins.. I'm not a machinist, but say you had two metal plates that needed to be joined one on top of another. You could pound in a roll pin, it would compress in a channel through both. You can remove it with a punch. It could also be used like a key, where there was a hole insteal of an open U groove. It fits tight in the hole, it compresses and won't come out on it's own. Needs a hammer and a punch. I'm sure there are lots of uses for it, probably Mr. Google can tell you more. They sell Kits at Harbor Freight tools with a bunch of different sizes for a few bucks. They must be used for something regularly. -J

http://boatbuilding.wordpress.com/2008/04/...a-broken-screw/ Found a link that describes it.

Here's another approach. Get a roll pin that has an inner diameter that is slightly smaller then the outer diameter of the screw you are pulling. File a couple of teeth in one end, chuck it in your drill and drill it right over the screw with the missing head. It will grab that screw and thread itself over the top of the screw. When it's on the screw the screw will come right out. They sell kits at the woodenboat shows that I go to that are roll pins that have teeth cut into them. They demo pulling brass screws out of oak. Pulls them right out. It only works with screws where the head is missing because the old screw has to thread itself into the roll pin. Once it's on there, it's harder to unscrew from the roll pin then the wood and it pulls out. You take some pliers and unscrew the broken screw from the modified roll pin and you can use it again and again. You have to make different sizes for different screw diameters. I don't remember the name of the company that makes these, but they sold a set for different diameter screws. -John

Thanks for the response. You're thinking.. That's a great start. The problem is that the single cut actives the dummy studs, not the screw studs. They are under the cover and I get a volume drop. If I reverse the ground and the +, it would active the correct set of poles, but then the entire HB would be out of phase when I'm using both HB. It's going to be a more complex change I think.

Guys/Gals. I wired my newest guitar using this diagram. It's Exactly wired like this: http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUHH3T2206 It's two HB with a push pull on one tone to coil tap both HB. Everything works. It's really clean and organized. The problem is this. The HB I bought from Guitar fetish are a neck and bridge combo. They are wired the same, but the posts are reversed. One side has screw posts and the other is blank posts. On the second HB it's reversed the Screw Posts are on the opposite side of the HB and the blank posts are hidden under the cover. + is screw posts, 0 is blank posts under the cover. Neck HB + + + + + + 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Bridge HB 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 + + + + + + The wiring is the same for both HB. So I pull the single coil switch, and both pickups go to single coil. The problem is it's the bottom half of the HB in both cases. That's great for the bridge pickup. The + posts work great, great volume, etc. The Neck pickup is split and is using the blank posts, which are under the cover and I have a large volume loss. I need to figure out how to coil split the neck pickup and leave the top half of the HB active. My HB wiring is like this: Neck: Start - Black = Ground + + + + + + End - White Start - Green = + 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 End - Red Bridge: Start - Black = Ground 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 End - White Start - Green = + + + + + + + End - Red Red and white are connected, and go to the coil cut switch. In the example above if you connect red and white and ground them, it bypasses the bottom HB. It does the same on the other HB, but that's not the half I want to cut. I want to cut the other half. The other hb is the same wiring, just the + and 0 are reversed. I thought about how to do this, and I don't want to reverse the polarity of the two HB. If I just reverse the wiring on the HB that is wrong, when I'm in the middle possition in HB mode, the two pickups will be out of phase. Any suggestions? I think I've got a pretty good handle on this, but just don't see an answer. -John

Sorry you are having problems. Isn't there bracing on the inside to keep that from happening? The bracing should be curved to support the curve of the back. I'm surprised that it can move that much with the supports. It should crack the braces before it can move that much. If you take it back into the "Dry" room, it will shrink, and you may be able to POP it back out a little at a time. A couple of wedges inside that you can gradually push together to spread the plates might work. I suspect that this is going to give you a lot of headaches that may be resolved by starting over. You can take it apart and reuse some of the parts. If you are determined to save it, use the humidity problem as the solution. Say you get it back to where you want it, how do you plan to keep this from happening again? You will coat the outside of the guitar with a finish, but the inside is still raw. It kinda sounds like your wood is not fully cured or kiln dry. -John

Sorry I missed that. I looked in the forum and google. Thanks! _John

It doesn't have to be expensive to spray nitro. Nitro is so forgiving you can spray it with about anything. \ I keep a few of the Preval Sprayers(sp) around, they are about 10 bucks with the replacement cartridge about 4 bucks, they are disposable sprayers. It has a little glass jar that you put the Nitro in, and a pressurized cartridge. I used them outside and they worked great. I went through three of them to spray my first guitar. If you were doing one guitar it would be cheaper then investing in a sprayer. The sprayer I use is a cheap-o from Harborfreight tools. It's a gravity feed sprayer and I hook it up to my porter cable pancake compressor. I got the compressor with a nail gun for under 100 bucks. The sprayer goes on sale for 20. The sprayer does a good job. I don't run it non-stop. I spray, then release the trigger then spray and release the trigger, when the compressor comes on so that I keep the right pressure up. I spray at 40 lbs. My compressor can keep up fine if I don't hold the trigger down the whole time. I found that if I hold the tigger down and the pressure drops I get larger droplets that are harder to level. I'll keep the magnet idea in mind, it would have been the obvious way to remove them from the surface of the guitar. Wrap a magnet with a rag and run it over the guitar. Oh another lesson learned. Make sure the holes you drill for the studs for your bridge are deep enough. If they are too shallow and you take a hammer and pound them in and they are sitting pround of the body, it's a pain to pull them out without marring the finish. Ask me how I know that one! I was able to remove them by inserting a bolt into the stud, and cutting a block of wood that fit in the pickup cavity that was slightly higher then the bolt. I used big pliers to lever the studs out. No damage to the finish. I did use some words that would impress a sailor when I realized what I did.. So then you are really Pissed and take the body to the drill press to deepen the holes. You forget that the bridge ground wire is in the hole. The drill grabs the wire and pulls it right around the bit and then you can't get the bit out. It was a bad night. More creative language utilized. -John

There is a link or a post somewhere that talks about fixing a problem where you roll off the volume and your tone gets muddy. Can someone point me toward that link/post? I can't seem to locate it. Thanks! -john

+1 on steel wool.. It caused me a nightmare. You can't see all the little particles and blowing with the air compressor doesn't get rid of them. I've banned the stuff from my shop. It's a shame, because it does a good job and cleaning up fretboards and frets and polishing inlays. It's just not worth the problems it causes. -j

All, I've been posting and asking questions on finishing for a while. I've done a few guitars and have learned a lot about finishing through suggestions from the board and trial and error. Here are some of the things I've learned. Hopefully it will help someone. Things I've learned. 1. I don't bother fine sanding the guitar as I build. My shop is dirty, I can't possibly keep a guitar clean as I built it. I shape the guitar until it's time for finish, then I finish sand all at one time and immediately start the finish process. No more fixing little scratches as I go and wasting time. 2. I don't sand the guitar to crazy grits when I'm going to apply a stain. I sand to 320 then it's good. Sanding wood to 1000 grit and applying a water based stain is a waste of time for me.. 3. I sand to 320 grit, getting everthing even and level. I pre-wet the wood with a sponge, raising the grain and then lightly sand it smooth again with 320 or 400. 4. I apply two coats of dye, putting it on heavy. If I put it on too lightly it doesn't look as even as a heavy coat that I put on with a clean rag. I put the second coat on fairly soon after the first coat. I don't wait for it to dry. I do this just to even out the color and darken it. I don't sand after, I apply two coats of blue with an old t-shirt and let it dry. That's all there is too it. It's not complex. From all the discussions it would seem it's rocket science. Two heavy coats with a rag over a 5 minute period. Done. 5. I wait for the stain to dry completely. I don't want moisture under the clear coat. 6. I wait for a time when the garage is warm and make sure the guitar is the same temp as the garage. I had trouble when I brought a warm guitar from the house into a colder shop, the guitar cooled and gave off little bubbles that showed up in the finish. I work with different temperatures, but heat has been a problem. I've sprayed in a cold shop without any issues. I heat the garage, making sure the concrete is warmed up. I open the garage door and spray. Once the overspray is out, I close the garage door and let the garge warm back up. I think this works because the spray and the guitar are warm, and I warm the garage back up before the spray starts to harden. It only takes a couple of minutes to spray and the room heats back up quick. Not ideal, but it has worked and I don't have to leave a guitar waiting to spray until summer. Heat has caused me problems. Clouding and bubbles. I don't spray over 80 degree's anymore. It's too risky for me. I have a lot to learn about that. 7. I spray Behlans Instrument Lacquer at 1-1, one lacquer thinner to one lacquer. I use dixie cups to measure. One of each with get me a nice thick coat. I don't use sanding sealer anymore. It doesn't make as good a bond between the lacquer and the wood as lacquer without sanding sealer. I have places where I bumped the guitar before it was fully cured (Like two weeks later) and I get little ghosted opaque places where the sanding sealer and the lacuquer meet. I just use lacquer. 8. I spray the top of the guitar horizontal. If you spray with it hanging on a hook you have a slightly higher risk of runs and sags. I put it on a stool or workmate, spray the top until it's wet looking and let it sit for a few moments. It only takes a couple of minutes to firm up. Then I hang the guitar and do the back and sides. 9. The little fuzz that you see right in the middle of the guitar - DON'T TOUCH IT. I found that no matter how careful you are, you get your finger in it and then you've moved the finish and have a mess. If you wait until the coat is dry you can take the fuzz out with 600 grit sandpaper and it will come right out without leaving a mess. 10. 2 coats a day, 2 hours apart for 2-3 days gives me a nice coat. I use about 1/3 - 1/2 of a quart of lacquer. 11. I hang it on a hook through the tuner holes for about a week. It's firm to the touch in a day, but if you put it on a stand or a anything, it will take impressions of what it's sitting on. I put it on a table after 3 days and there was a rubber placemat, when I picked it up 5 minutes later the placemat was impressed on the guitar. 12. After about a week, I level sand with 600 gritt until it's evenly scuffed. 13. Buff with cotton wheels with plasticote fine and ulra fine bar compund. The first guitars I did I did with increasing grits of sandpaper and scrach remover at the end. Took several HOURS. Buffing took 5 minutes tops after 600 gritt. Best investment I've made in tools is the buffer (Home built). I wish people had told me that yes you can do it by hand, but it's a major pain in the ass. Get a buffer or buy the wheels and put them on a drill or something, doing by hand with sandpaper is a long process. This is my current process, which will change each time I build, but this past guitar it worked great. I have a Blue Curly Maple top that has a deep 3d effect, like looking at the grand canyon from a plane, the finish moves when you move the guitar like one of thos code rings. The lines shift and move all over. The blue is even and dark. The finish is thin and even and clear. It took one evening to completely finish sand the guitar, tape up the binding and apply two coats of blue. It took three more eveings to spary the Nitro. Let it sit a week, it took one long evening to sand with 600 and buff. An evening for me is a couple of hours after my Daughter goes to bed. Anyway, hope this helps. -john

When you say Smooshed.. Do you mean it drops the Highest tones because it doesn't pass them, or does it do something else to the sound? Is it the length of the cable, which increases the impedance, or is it the quality of the wire? This is all academic for me, but interesting. If all of this is true, then the quality of your solder joints could make a difference in tone too I would guess. -John

I thought it was Bull when the magazines do a Input cable review, and tell you which ones "Sound" better then the others. A cable is a cable right? I guess it does make a diff. I still think it's very small. However, my "twinkle twinkle", and "mary had a little lamb" and "frosty" concert for the 4 year olds probably won't be affected by my 10 dollar cheap-o cable. I don't think they will complain any. If so, I'll send them to my "roadie" to complain or my "stage manager". =) -J

http://terrydownsmusic.com/technotes/guita...uitarcables.htm I thought this was interesting.. Don't know if it's accurate, but it sure looks like it. -John

If you have a 500K tone pot and you solder on a 500K resister you will get somewhere in the 250K range when they are both full ON. The problem is that your range won't be the same as if it were 0-250K. You will Always have 250K in the loop. Your Pot won't behave the same as normal. What it will do I can't think of with this headache, you can play with it. I suspect your range will be limited somewhat. Let us know what happens. -John

I didn't think about how to level them, just how to inlay them.. Duh.. I made some home made 12 inch radious sanding blocks to level fretboards. It wouldn't take a second to lop off a few sections that were the width of distance between the frets where you needed to level the inlays. Since the curve matches, you can run it side to side on the neck (You normally run it up and down the neck) and carefully level the inlay until you hit wood. If you put some thin tape on the area to the outside of the inlay, it would protect the wood a little until you got down level with the wood. Just a thought. It would at least give you a consistant radious and smooth inlay. -John

Here is a link to the finished (Not buffed yet) project. It's a pretty large picture sorry, I couldn't link to the small version. http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_p0NuWfXXLt8/SNat...-h/IMG_3595.JPG

There are a couple of good sites out there. The method I used was to just use thin wood, and clamp it to the sides and the formed center block. There is a little under 3/8 height difference and it bends well with those changes. I have a mold for the sides and the center that keeps them secure, then I put bar clamps across the body, anchored to the workbench (The body between the bench and the clamps with the clamps going horizontally across the body.) I then use wedges to push the top down to the center block gradually over several seconds to let it give a little. You could use a heat gun if it get stubborn. My tops are solid curly maple a little under 1/4 inch thick. There is a point a little under 1/34 inch thick where the top gets flexible, it's a magic thickness. I spread glue on the middle and the rim and slip the top under the bar clamps, clamp the neck and center of the bottom and start clamping the heck out of it. It's quite funny to see. It does work. Oh, the whole thing is raised off the bench (The mold) so I can clamp the edges to the mold all around. I think I use about 25 clamps to get it done. Here are some links to get you started. This covers the mold. They sell top and bottom plates. I just made mine and pressed them into the shaped mold with clamps. http://www.upnorthstrings.com/es335body.pdf

I just did my first inlay, Gibson style trapeziods. I did it with a sharp razor knife to score the outline, and a shap chisel to cut out of meat of the material. Took a while, but my daugher was sleeping and I couldn't use the router. Using this method, it wouldn't have mattered if they were fretted or not. It took 4 hours to inlay the trapezoids and level them. There were 11 of them. I'm guessing I could shave an hour off next time for lessons learned. My point is, if it's fretted, think of a different method of attacking the problem. How about a sled on some plywood that you can keep the router level to the neck without resting on it.. That would give you flat recesses. My .02. -J

Uhhh.. Have you tried turning on the amp? Wahhhh..! Sorry. -j

The one I had was an old craftsman, it had something like a 6 or 7 inch blade with very few teeth. It cross cut like crazy, but was very agressive. If it hit a knot, it wanted to pull the whole top assembly. I got rid of it. Nope, no cable. The head assembly was free moving. -J