hy_dro66

At our shop we charge retail for all pickups and install them for free if you buy them from us(if you didn't buy them from us we charge our minimum shop rate which is 37.50 total). It takes about 20 minutes to install them. I would not pay 100 dollars to have someone install pickups. Rip OFF

Gorilla Glue works great. I use it to laminate necks and bodies. I use titebond on fret boards and headcaps. I know a highly regarded acoustic builder that uses gorilla glue on almost everything. You can get both at home depot if your itching to get it glued up right away.

I was trained by great luthiers while building my first electric and first acoustic guitar. This saved lots of stupid mistakes and so forth. The third guitar I built came out close to exactly how I wanted it. I have 6 more in the works(a few are barely started). I've found that making jigs has eliminated hours and hours of hand sanding. I've also learned that making a full size drawing of your instrument helps tons. Everyone finds their groove eventually and I think that after you finish your second you will begin finding it. The idea of building a guitar seems very simple, however, we all know from experience how many little factors pop up when you actually go through the process.

I can't say the exact measurement for those but your average guitar (electric guitar) headstock is about .562 inches(18/32").

I'm not that suprised...because the last three bands I've been in, the drummer was the cause of all the issues. Also singers are just a pain to deal with most of the time(although the singer I have now is a great dude and doesn't cause trouble). Welcome to the wonderful world of "playing in a band". That does suck though. What a jerk.

Gregg Howe SRV Buzz Feiten Frank Gambale Van Halen Mark Knopfler Prince John Scofield Joe Satriani Vic Wooten

In what way is it too thin?

Pulling the frets is fairly painless. I use a soldering iron and fret pullers(go to sears and get a small pair of end cutters and grind them so the end is flat). They work great and you can go get new ones if you mess up the grinding process because they're craftsman.

Thanks guys. That's interesting. I'll definatly take what you said into consideration as I'm developing my basic design. I'm just making sure I get what your saying. If I build a guitar with the braces at a flatter radius than the top, in a few years the guitar will actually be less responsive than if I would have just used the same radius on the braces as the radius on the top? If that is what your saying than I'd like to sit down with the people who taught me how to build and find out where they're coming from. Thanks again.

I vote Greg Howe.

huh huh

Hey derek, sounds good. You don't have to brag either. Your playing speaks for itself.

That's great Boggs. I like it.

Looks good cro. Keep it up.

Basically what you said so far is true. The scale length is not the actual measurement to the bridge saddles. What you want is the high e string saddle to be able to adjust about 1/16" back from the scale length and the low e saddle to adjust about 3/16" or 7/32" back from the scale length. How I center a bridge is by placing some low tac tape on the guitar body so I can easliy mark with a pencil. Next I measure out the scale length and mark the tape. Then to find the centerline I run the straightedge down one side of the fingerboard and mark a line. I repeat that for the other side. Now you can measure the distance between the two lines and find center. Since you used the neck to find center you should be perfect. I left some common sense stuff out like, when you are marking scale length measure at two places so you can make a straight acurate line. Same with finding the center. Measure two spots and find the center both places then you can use a straightedge to connect the dots. When drilling through the body, you can use a drill press or hand drill(need a steady hand) and a template for drilling the holes for the ferrules in the back of the guitar. If you make a template that has six holes in a perfect line then you can have the holes be a little crooked coming through and it won't matter because the ferrules will be straight.

You could also try a Kustom 30 watt. Not tube but cheap, like 200 or less. They make smaller ones as well.

I glad to see there are other jazz guys out there. I love it. Your right it makes playing everything else seem less complicated.

It's interesting to me that more companies don't do more neck throughs. They are definatly the quickest to build and have more sustain. Bolt on's are easier to finish but they are usually considered cheaper then set necks and neck throughs...yet fender still makes over 1200 guitars a day. Go figure.

I think the sustain of a bolt-on can easily match that of a set neck if you insert studs into the neck and make it truly a "bolt on", instead of just using wood screws like most bolt-on companies do.

If you think of a speaker cabinet and how the sides and back have to be stiff so the speaker will respond to it's fullest, then having thicker sides in an acoustic guitar would theoretically be good for top movement. The issue with building one using the common method would be bending a thick piece of wood which you could conquer by bending 2 sets of sides and laminating them. Thats what a few high end builders I know are doing.

A good soldering iron would be numero uno. I use weller solder stations and they are freakin' awesome. They heat up really fast. Usually it takes like 10 seconds and they are ready to use. Plus the heat is adjustable. I have a cheaper one and it just doesn't cut it since I started using the weller. They are expensive but well worth it. Wire strippers are handy and so is a solder sucker. I also keep a pair of hemostats close by. Things that aren't really must haves but are helpful...the aligator clip stands from Radio Shack(they hold stuff for you while you solder), an ohm meter(to test pots and pups), shielding paint is nice but expensive and not always necessary, some cables with aligator clips on the end so you can test stuff without soldering, I'm sure the list could keep going but that'll get you rockin'.

Do they have switchs that look like les paul switchs with more poles for custom wiring? I don't use many crazy wiring ideas for me but it would be nice to have for customers.

This is of no help to the original post but the boxcutter thing made me think of it. My boss said he went to a seminar where this dude built a classical guitar (that played and looked good) with a knife he made from a car bumper and rope clamping techniques. We use some of the rope clamping at the shop and it works great.

I picked fender(excluding the real cheap ones) because if you know what you're doing you can set one up exactly how you want it and usually the necks cooperate(for the most part). Plus with a strat you can switch your pickup configuration to whatever you want cause you have a pickgaurd. I could have a picked a few others as well. The biggest thing these days is picking up the guitar and playing it. There are name brand companies out there putting out stuff that isn't worth what the price tag says. There are also a lot of unknown companies that put out good guitars for low prices. It's all about what you're comfortable with.

Cool