Hardtailed

Ok, so I'm planning to assemble a Thinline style Telecaster: Thinline body with F hole, single coil at the neck and humbucker at the bridge with a Telecaster-style humbucker bridge, maple fretboard, and no pickguard. I'm thinking about getting the unfinished body and neck from Stewmac, they offer exactly what I'm looking for and the price is quite interesting. However, I'm wondering if I should instead order them from Warmoth, the biggest advantage I see is that all the holes are already drilled (neck pocket and bridge). I don't currently own a drill press and I'm not interested in getting a cheap one. Plus I could have the body done in ash instead of alder (although alder fits the bill for the tone I'm looking for). Should I bite the bullet and go with Warmoth (or even USACG) or is the Stewmac stuff good enough and I should just rent a freakin drill press? Thanks!

I'm finalizing wiring on my Yamaha RGX621D that I rebuilt. It now sports two humbuckers (Duncan Custom and Jazz). The custom only has 1 connector (had to repair it with what I had on hand) while the Jazz still has 4 connectors. I don't care much for split bridge humbuckers anyway, but I do want to have a serie/parallel option for the neck pickup. What I'm working with: 5 way switch and 2 500k pots with push/pull DPDT switches. One important thing is I want to be able to easily bypass the tone/vol pots with the bridge humbucker (one reason is I use my guitar's volume control to control gain level since my amp is a fairly simple Marshall 50 watters). So I came up with this concept: - Run neck HB through push/pull switch (tone pot) first to switch between parallel and serie - Connect neck HB hot lead to pole #1 on the 5 way switch - Connect bridge HB hot lead to pole #2 and #3 - Connect common from 1st side to common from 2nd side - Connect pole #3 on the 2nd side directly to the output - Connect pole #1 and #2 on the 2nd side to the volume and tone circuitry, and then to the output. If I understand correctly, I'll get the following sounds: 1- Neck humbucker with volume/tone active (serie unless otherwise selected by push/pull) 2- Neck and bridge humbucker in parallel with volume/tone active (neck HB serie unless otherwise selected by push/pull) 3- Bridge humbucker with volume/tone active 4- Bridge humbucker with tone active, volume out of the circuit 5- Bridge humbucker, volume/tone completely out of the circuit This way I can lower the volume to get a clean bridge HB tone on position 3, and then switch to nasty distortion easily. Or I can go to a bright bridge HB tone to a mellow neck HB tone (with the tone rolled off) without needing 2 tone pots. To this sounds correct? Any better ideas? Plus, anyone has an idea of what I could do with the 2 push/pull switch? I though maybe phasing, but that may be difficult since the bridge HB only has 1 connector. Could I switch the ground and the lead coming out of the 1st push/pull with the 2nd push/pull to switch the phase of the neck HB instead?

There's also the Wolfgang way of doing it: access through the finger board just past the 22nd fret. Adjustment at the heel without needing to remove the neck. You have to use the rod with the spole wheel adjustment though.

Ditto here! The little screws on my Les Paul's pickups are starting to rust, I'm so excited

Voodoo finish is done with swamp ash, not mahogany

You could use this: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Jigs/Mac...Drill_Jigs.html That's interesting too: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Jigs/Tun..._Drill_Jig.html

How do you want to finish it? If you leave it natural it'll look like my LP Raw Power

Although I agree with that, my band's singer has a MIJ Fender Custom Telecaster FMT which has a mahogany neck and body with a flame maple top, the neck is set-in and it's of course a hardtail. It has 2 humbuckers as well. Still, it sounds like a ... Telecaster! The only differences with a real LP are: 25.5" scale length, string through body (vs tail piece) and thickness. Of course the pickups are from Fender, I bet if you put some Burstbuckers it would be different. Another thing about scale lenght, a 25.5" downtuned a half step will have pretty much the same string tension has a 24.75" with standard tuning. Although I have to admit downtuning a bit makes my 25.5" guitars more Gibson like...

My regular Floyd is pretty easy to "speed load", just have to be creative: String through the tuning peg, lock the string there with the ball end, cut the string just long enough to fit it in the bridge. Lock the string in the bridge et voilà!!! Takes 5 seconds per string and not even one turn of the tuning peg is required to get it up to tune. Only downside: if you break a string at the bridge, you have to change it (you cannot just loosen the old one and lock it back in)

They're called "tone holes"!!!

That is one wicked looking piece of wood! The only spalted species I've seen so far were maple, so it's interesting to see something different.

An ash body coupled with an ebony fingerboard will be too bright in my opinion; if you end up going with classic Tele-type pickups you'll get a thin sound that you may not be happy with. Ebony adds a lot of attack to the tone, and ash is a pretty bright wood. I'd have a spare neck with rosewood on hand before trying the ash+ebony combo. You could always cheat an tint your rosewood black Some big name companies (Gibson for once) do so to be able to use cheaper species of ebony (which aren't as dark).

To stay more "in topic": don't forget that sometimes it IS important to have some kind of a fallback plan. The sad truth is that, there are much more people dreaming of a career in the music business (playing or building) than there are people actually making a living out of it. When I was in high school, I didn't have any interests besides music (well besides chicks and beer), but as you meet new people, get some summer jobs, go to college, you'll probably discover a lot of other things that will pick your curiosity. The problem is that, high school is the period where we have to make some of the most important decisions of our lives, but we're not necessarily ready for it. However, I'm happy I didn't decide to do music full time, because now I have a steady income which pays the mortgage and feeds the kid, yet I still play out once in a while, write some songs. It is true that my music suffer compared to when I was younger, because I don't have as much free time as before, but on the other hand I still have fun doing it because I don't have any stress, any pressure, cause it's only a hobby, I don't have to rely on it. The money I make out of it is pure candy for me. Sure I don't like my job as much as I like music, and I never though I'd end up in this field, but I like my job because it allows me to keep playing and because, well, it's not that bad. As for being a luthier, you have to added advantage that those skills can serve for other purposes, like cabinet making, or working in the construction industry. If you develop those skills, you can make interesting money working in related fields, and then maybe someday start a guitar store where you can offer your service to repair, modify or build guitars.

I have to explain that on a daily basis to other musicians who ask why I am still using a "one sound only, no mic simulated direct out" amp. I have to explain them that one good tone is much better than a 100 crappy tones, and then I crank the motherlover up and they understand It's amazing how some kids are influenced by marketing...

That's ridiculous: if he's not willing to pay, he'll always end up with "buffoons".