Hardtailed

What's the point of building a guitar if you use standard wiring? Post all your crazy ideas, whether you've tried them or not. Here's mine: 1- Amp channel-switching guitar: Use a stereo jack and add a switch (or a push-pull) to your guitar and use it to change the channel on your amp. No need to be stuck around your footswitches anymore! (I'd love to do it, but I'm wireless so doesn't work...) 2- 2-pickups with juste one knob and no switch: for those who want the EVH kinda look: just one volume knob, nothing else, but like to have a neck pickup. Have the volume work on the neck pickup only, and use a push-pull which kills the bridge pickup. You can then have each pickup individually, blend them, or do the toggle switch rhytmic effect. 3- Regular Tele switching with a 3-pickup guitar: that one is pretty simple, it allows you to keep a 3 way switch for ease of use live and to keep that neck/bridge sound which you like, but while being able to get the Strat's 2nd and 4th position sounds. Simply use a push/pull to engage the middle pickup in parallel. Allows you to get all 7 sounds that a 3 pickup guitar has to offer. You can also use a second push-pull that engages the middle pickup in serie, by combining with the bridge pickup, it would give somewhat of a bridge humbucker tone. I'll try to think of other ones.

Wait wait, I'm not getting you here. The hole should clear the pickup cover completely, it will screw inside a pickguard, a mounting ring, or in the bottom of the hole.

Well, as for locating under an harmonic, I too find it's useless since the harmonic moves as soon as you're not playing the open string or the 12th fret... Still that's where Leo and Lester decided to put their neck pickups... It has more to do with being farther from the bridge, which allows it to pickup a softer sound. If you can hear a difference between the middle pickup and the neck one, then moving it around has to produce a difference... Of course, modifying a guitar from 24fret to 22fret just for that reason does not make sense at all.

Personally, my opinion is that, yes it is important to do a good finishing job, however I don't want my guitar to look like a piece of art, I want it to look functional. Those ultra-figured quilt top that look like you can bath in them look good in picture, but not the look I'm going for when I'm on stage. That's why my main guitar is a LP Standard with just a clear satin finish. It's very well done, but it looks like a functional guitar, not a piece of art, the finish is pretty much there just to seal the wood, and let you appreciate the natural beauty of maple and mahogany. My two projects (cloning a Yamaha RGX and building an ash-bodied Strat/Tele frankencaster) will be finished in a similar fashion. Plus, a finish that is too thick dampens the vibration, and yes I can definitely hear the difference when playing my LP next to a "regular" one (even though they are finished in nitro-cellulose). I'd rather risk getting a few dents than risk losing resonance.

Well, you do get a sweeter sound out of a neck pickup when it is located under what should be the 24 fret (that's why you can strike a natural harmonic over the neck pickup's coil, assuming it is properly located). But that also means relocating the pickup... which will look quite ugly unless you hide everything with a pickguard. As for the neck itself, most 24fret necks have a longer heel (and not just an extended fretboard like Warmoth does), so for a 22fret neck to fit, you would have like 1/2" of free space in the neck pocket... and that's assuming there is enough "pocket" left to attach the neck properly.

That's what Stewmac say on their site: the real scale is actually 24 9/16 At least that's what I read.

Hmmm, I'm planning an ash Strat and I don't really like the plastic look of Fender's Ash Strats. What would happen if I just sprayed clear satin on it without filling the grain... Could be interesting. That's sounds a bit like my Les Paul Standard Raw Power, which only has a clear satin finish and you can actually feel the grain, I love it. Almost looks like an unfinished piece of wood...

Gibson Voodoo is what I thought about too. Would it mean like, stain it black, then stain it red and rub it off right away so that it stays only in the grain "lines"? (like they do to give an antique look to mouldings)

So you're gonna spend all that time building a nice guitar with nice wood, and in the end all you'll have is a guitar with both pickups always on? Here, I have an idea if you don't want a pickup switch: use a push-pull knob, in full-down position, both pickups are on, when you pull on it it disengage the bridge pickup. Then you wire the volume pot to work only on the neck pickup. Why? Simple, with volume full on and the knob down, you have both pickups fully on. You want just the bridge? Turn the volume off and all you've got left is the bridge pickup in all its glory! The volume becomes a blender pot basically. And then, what if you want just the neck pickup? Leave the volume opened but pull on the knob! There you have just the neck pickup and you can turn it down for a cleaner sound, and then just push on the knob and you get your full bridge pickup sound back! And then, what if you want to do the LP-toggle rhytmic effect (a la EVH), leave the volume off and quickly pull and push the knob, turning off and on your sound. Man, I'm so clever, I'm gonna have to try it on one of my guitars Oh yeah, pickup selection: only thing I can tell you is make sure you get one that isn't too bright, because it's gonna be even brighter without a tone pot. A "muddy" tone like you're saying, will be hard to obtain without a tone knob. You could always have a fixed high-frequency roll-off (replace the pot with a fixed resistance)

That could work. Would it make the joint less rigid if some screws ended up in the filled area? Of course I could always use SS inserts...

My first project ever is "cloning" the body of my old Yamaha RGX621D (which is made of 6-7 pieces of what I think is alder, which is why I'm replacing it). I'm reusing the existing neck (that'll be my next project, but not for now). The guitar is a bit like a Ibanez JEM: it's 24 frets with no "wall" between the neck pocket and the pickup cavity, and the neck access is carved and the screws are not arranged in the typical Fender fashion. So basically, I'm afraid of not drilling the neck screw holes correctly and ending up ruining a perfectly fine body. Anyone have any tips on routing a body for an existing non-standard pre-drilled neck? Thank! Go Flames