jonnyfontaine

have any of you guys much experience with that shielding paint? does it work well? where is the best places to get it? can it be tinted? do you have to apply it over any sort of sealer? but most importantly does it work? thanks... jonny

where do you guys get honduras mahogany from? and what prices do you pay for it?

ok, great thanks so much for clearing it up... i just realized that violins don't have book matched spruce tops, so thanks to all for the advice, thanks jonny

what if you got a board that is slightly thinner than 1" and you want to get a top that is about 5/8" in the center and 1/4" on the edges... if you resaw to equal sides than you couldn't quite get 5/8" on boths sides but if you cut in a taper you'd be almost there... but i'm asking this as a question not a statement... i'm new to this so i'm sure i'm probably wrong somehow... please educate me... thanks

i was wondering is it a good idea to resaw wood for a carved top into wedge or with a slight taper, like the way volin tops are resawn... like having the table of a band saw set a few degrees tilted and resaw so when opened, bookmatched the center is thicker than the edges? thanks... i know this must be a silly question, so i apologize in advance for this... sorry, but thanks for all and any help... jonny

i'm having a pretty hard time gluing up a 6-ply binding, i routed the ledge for the binding to .160 which is the combined thickness of the binding and i guess i didn't realize how thick the glue is because somehow the binding is always sticking out a bit instead of flush... so i was thinking, is it possible to glue all 6-plys of binding to the body in one shot all together at the same time with a super thin CA glue? i was thinking of trying to wick all around the guitar, but i did have a thought that the glue may not penetrate through all 6-plys and may not secure it well to the body... does anyone else have any thoughts, experiance with this... thanks so much

does anyone know what happened to the luthier than thou website... it's still up, but it hasn't been updated in forever... that blog totally rules too, it's too bad... that's actually how i heard about this forum... i learned quite a bit of stuff from that site... it's a shame it's not current, but i imagine it's gotta be hard to do that, work, and build guitars... so anyway, props to the guy ant setchell or whom ever, you're blog rules, and it'd be rad to see it updated some... either way that site was really great

hey... thanks for the advice about all parts... that seems like the best deal on binding, luckily they have the .020 in w & b... and i'm probably gonna have to get the tall .060 from stew mac... yeah i've used there binding quite a bit, and same with lmi... and both look good, they things i'm not too fond of about stew mac's binding are, one the price, two it's made weird like it's formed from a mold or something odd like that, you can tell it's not ripped from a sheet of plastic, not really a big deal but on some of them more than others the stuff is thicker on the tops and bottoms and sort of skinny in the middle, and also for some reason it over heats easily (when bending, and even scraping sometimes), i know that's my fault but other bindings are more forgiving... the lmi stuff i actually like, but it just hate the fact that it comes in 49" strips, i mean if they just made them like 7" longer you could use one strip for the entire top and/or bottom of a lot of instruments... and i actually like working with their binding, and i like the color... i like the price, i just hate the fact that it's so short, i mean the (layered bindings i.e. b/w/b .020/.020./020 and so on) anyway, so yeah i don't hate either place's bindings, i just prefer something more accommodating, and would like to know of more options... jonny

where is the best place to get good plastic binding, that's long enough for one piece to good the length of the body? i am looking for a white .060 like 3/8" or 1/2" and b/w/b/w/b .020/.020/.020/.020/.020 or any combo of (i.e. b/w and b/w/b or b/w and b/w/ and w) i know stew mac has the white binding, and the individual pieces of .020 white and black and they are long enough but i'm not too fond of there binding... and lmi has the b/w/b and all (and at a good price) but it's too short and gluing two lengths together and getting an invisible seam is proving impossible for me to achieve... anyway, any advice on where to find this would be greatly appreciated thanks, jonny p.s.- does anyone know where to find blank sheets or strips of plastic (abs or whatever) that can be laminated and then ripped into strips of binding?

i'm thinking about what pickups to use in this guitar i'm building, i was gonna put a pair of seymour duncan p-90's but i was thinking about the stacked P-90's a lot of people are using lately? i know gibson and SD make 'em... but i've never used them and i haven't ever knowingly heard them... does anyone out here have any experiance with these? do they sound like P-90's or just like a humbucker? thanks, jonny

what are your favorite pickups? not for each guitar or each different design... just your personal guitar, your style and your sound... what do you prefer? for neck and bridge? i gotta go with seymour duncan custom P-90 for bridge and seymour duncan vintage P-90 for neck spot... the best... those pickups rule

hi i'm sure the has been asked already but i can't find the thread for it, so i'm gonna ask for myself... what is the best glue for luthiere? for wood bonded to wood applications, like laminating tops, joining tops and 2-piece bodies, laminating necks, scarf joints on neck, gluing the headplate to the neck, and the ever so important gluing the neck to the body? i've been using regular old titebond the original kind... in a recent fine wood working test it tested plently strong enough, even stronger than hide glue in a few catagories... but i've heard that since this glue is plastic based or, since it has some sort of plastic in it, it has a detrimental effect on the sound waves traveling through the wood of the guitar?... and that hide glue since it does not contain plastics does not have this same effect?... and also that hide glue has a sort of sealing quality... that it will sort of seal the end grain of woods? anyway, i'm not sure of any of these myth or truths or theories but i'm hoping that someone here does... i've been contemplating using hide glue for quite a while now, but is all the extra work and cost worth it in the long run? i know hide glue is easier to disassemble, but if that is one of the only benefits i'd like to know... thanks so much any and all advice would be greatly appreciated... thanks again, jonny p.s. is that liquid hide glue anything like regular hide glue?

i'm not sure about the shipping info. but i've ordered all the fingerboards i've ever used from Lmi and they are great... the radius service is good and the slotting is very precise... i usually just sand the board with a fine grit to remove the very small tool marks from the radiusing, which takes no longer than 2 minutes, and it's ready to be cut to size i highly recommend them

what is the best way to cut a pre-slotted, radiused fretboard to width? in the past i have done it with a table saw and a tapering jig... but the fretboard always had a slight tearout right behind some of the fret slots (a small triangle) it was not too noticeable and the fret covered most of it, but i'm just afraid that eventually it could tear a huge chunk out and ruin the board? i've been tossing around the idea of setting up a jig with my router but since it's radiused i figure setting this up might take a lot of time, or with a band saw... or just get close to width and they hand plane it to final dimension... what has or hasn't worked for you guys? thanks, jonny *oh yeah, it's an ebony fretboard

thanks for all the good advice... yeah i let the wood sit out of a few weeks after it was resawn but it was almost one or two days after the resaw that it cupped.... then i sat it under some weights but, i didn't heat it or wet it at all... now i know better... but yeah once i glued it to the mahog. it was only around 1/16" higher in the middle on the top, and vice versa on the back... but sanded it, and the second time it was even less... and now it's actually staying flat... the cupping wasn't severe but enough to notice with a straight edge... but, now that it's staying level... do you guys think it will cup again after finishing and all that jive? but also i just wondering for the next one, if a quartersawn top would be a lot less likely to cup than a flatsawn top... but now that you guys have informed me about the importance of drying properly it seems this isn't as much an issue as once suspected... and yeah, i live in north carolina which is generally very humid, but it being winter it's not so bad... but actually it was cut in fall and glued up in the fall which can still be pretty humid, but there wasn't any relocating of the work, it was all done indoors at the same location... so thanks to all for the informative advice... oh yeah... off topic but is it worth it to get a quartersawn body or due to thickness does it not matter?