Black Mariah

Yeah. No. At worst you have to do a minute truss rod or tremolo adjustment. Make sure that the nut can handle whatever gauge string you're using. Some aren't cut for anything over 11's.

Yes, but don't use the paint on that. Use some foil. Well, I guess you CAN use the paint if you really want, but I have no idea if it will eat through the plastic.

I HATE THAT I HATE THAT I BLOODY FREAKING HATE THAT! What is ever worse are the ones that only work on the first few frets, so you get this nice dip in the neck around 7-12. At least I didn't have to screw with them. Box 'em up, send 'em back to India.

*SHUDDER* You know why I started repairing my own gear? Situations JUST LIKE THAT. "Nah, don't take it to some loo-theer that'll charge you $10... let me fix it!" Yeah right, Bubba. Thanks but no thanks. I'd rather dip my nether regions in boiling cold sulfuric acid than let you loose with a hot poker near my guitar.

The bridge pickup will almost always be louder than the neck, but it shouldn't be such a drop that you have to turn up your amp to hear the neck pup or anything like that. You might want to double check the wiring and make sure it's hooked up correctly.

Agreed and then some. I was afraid I may have played down stripping the truss rod too much. I'll just say it again, te biggest *REAL* issue with a truss rod is the potential for stripping or breaking it. If you're putting significant effort into turning your truss rod, STOP and get it looked at. This is one area where it's better to be paranoid than out $200 for repairs.

This is the exact reason virtually all guitars need to be set up again once they arrive at a store from the factory, despite being "setup" (and i use that term loosely) at the manufacturer. The amount of time spent in the back of a UPS truck has more to do with it than the truss rod adjustment that may or may not have been made at the factory. This is an enviromental change, not a direct result of a truss rod adjustment. Going from, for example, a humid Fort Worth summer to a beyond dry Phoenix summer is going to unleash the fookin fury all over a guitar. The key phrase here, for me, is "over time". The question is over how much time? Newer guitars won't react the same as vintage pieces, and in general can take whatever truss rod adjustments you can throw at them without blinking. My favorite example of this is a Charvel Standard I set up. When it came to me it had so much relief you could tell from the side, from across the room. A quick crank of the truss rod, damn near a full turn, straightened the neck out perfectly. I even put a straightedge on the thing to make sure I wasn't crazy. I had 12th fret action under 1mm, with no buzzing anywhere on the board. Perfect! The order it was on got put on hold, so it had to sit in the warehouse. Three weeks later when it came back in, it was in the exact same condition. It had sat in a warehouse in the middle of summer for three weeks and hadn't changed a bit. Obviously, this got me thinking that maybe all the crap I'd heard about truss rods wasn't exactly right, so I started paying closer attention to guitars that I set up that subsequently spent some time in the warehouse. It was very rare that any of these guitars needed further adjustments. When they did, they were usually minor adjustments. I realize this is anecdotal evidence at best, but it brought me to this conclusion... There is no set way to care for a guitar. Period. Guitars made of wood, for the most part. No two pieces of wood will ever react the same to given conditions. They both might warp, but their movement will be different. Don't rely on books, or even other people, to tell you how to care for your guitar. Learn how to make adjustments and just PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR GEAR. It will tell you everything you need to know.

Nope. They route out the back of the neck and install the truss rod from there. This is where skunk stripes come from.

Vintage gear I'd be more careful with, of course, but even then you just have to pay attention to the guitar. It's all a matter of knowing how your gear acts under certain conditions. No two guitars act the exact same, which is one reason I can't stand most repair books.

Don't be afraid of the truss rod. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to be afraid of it. It's not a magic wand. It will not blow up and take your guitar with it. It is just a chunk of metal that controls the bow of a neck. There is nothing special about it. The odds of you overtightening your truss rod to the point of breakage are mathematically insignificant. The nut will probably strip before you get to that point. Don't screw around with the "quarter turn, then wait a day" crap. Your guitar doesn't care. Unless you're in a bad enviroment for guitars (in which case you'll have problems anyway) or you're using really picky vintage gear, the neck is not going to settle. Don't think for a second I'm telling you to grab your guitar and crank away. Make what adjustments you need, and no more. DO NOT force the truss rod. Doing so could cause it to seize or, more likely, cause the nut to strip. Don't worry about any weird creaking sounds that emanate from the guitar. It's metal on wood, it's going to creak at some point. Worry about cracking sounds, especially if accompanied by shards of wood sooting at your head at an appreciable fraction of light speed. Guitar necks are not as fragile as you have been led to believe. Most magazines use such strong warnings because they don't want to get their asses sued when some moron takes a Black & Decker Combination Screwdriver, Belt Sander, and Turbine Engine and cranks is truss rod with it. Unless you do something truly stupid, you won't break your guitar by using the truss rod for the job it was intended to do. Ah, I can smell the torches firing up...

OOH! That's a cool idea! Like a five piece neck, and just fret the wood instead of using a fretboard. The truss rod can go in from the back. I love it. I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Cool Rails and Hot Rails are both humbuckers. I'll second the SH-2 as a neck pickup. Doesn't matter what you have in the bridge, the SH-2 is the right match.

Classical stringed instruments are tuned in fifths. This is why Robert Fripp uses the tuning he does (CGDAEG, low to high). Saying a guitar is tuned in fourths (and a major third) to be compatible with a piano is just question-mark inducing. It's eight octaves of chromatic notes. Unless you're using a non-western scale, everything you play is going to be compatible with it.

Alright, let me explain how this works and what the point is. The Speedloader is designed to make changing srings on a Floyd faster than changing strings on a ToM, and in tis it succeeds and then some. You can NOT use single ball-ended strings, even if you use a regular Floyd nut. It does not work that way. All of the tuning is done on the bridge, and it's a pain in the ass to set it up (we had a prototype at Jackson and it took our lead repairman over an hour to tune the damn thing). The deal is that once it's tuned, as long as you use the same tuning and string gauge, it STAYS tuned. The strings are double ball ended, stretched at the factory, and precision ground to exact diameters and lengths. If you break a string, you simply replace it with the same gauge string and you don't have to retune the guitar or reset the trem since you're replacing the string with one that is virtually identical. Some fine-tuning might be needed, but even that may not need to be done. That's the beauty of this system. You can pop one string off, throw another one on, and do what little fine tuning might have to be done in about 15 seconds. String availability is the main problem at this point, as others have pointed out. Last I head D'Addario was the only manufacturer making the strings. Hopefully this has changed by now, but I don't know. This is a very good idea, but I can't see it being any more than a niche product, like Steinbergers.

You're lucky you found that out beforehand. I'm usually right in the middle when I figure that out.

Yep, passive. Despite that, they seem to have a higher output than EMG's. It may just be a better high-end harmonic content or somesuch nonsense like that. About the only bad thing I can say about the Lawrence is that the low end just isn't there. Still, if you need a Dime/Slayer tone and don't want to mess with batteries, the Lawrences are your answer.

Standard tuning is completely arbitrary and is based on absolutely nothing in particular. There is nothing special about it, or any other tunings. There is nothing stupid about tuning in something not standard. Yes, this will definitely be floppy time if you don't beef up your string gauge. Just going down to drop D isn't even remotely an option. Try playing Stairway with a capo at the third fret. You might have the right chords, but it just doesn't sound or feel right.

I've been wanting to get hold of a Dimebucker and A/B it with a Lawrence L500XL for a while now. Anyone know how they compare? I like the Lawrence, and if the Dimebucker is better then I'm there.

Cheap bastard way of getting around those stupid tuners that only recognize five notes (what dipstick came up with THAT one?): You need to tune down one and a half steps. That's three frets. So what you want is for the pitch at the third fret to be what the string pitch would be in standard. Hold your 6th string down at the thid fret, then tune it down until it's an E. Now tune the other strings in relation to that one (check some other sites on how to tune using harmonics and fretted notes). After that's done, drop the 6th string down until the 12th fret harmonic is the same note as the open 4th string. That'll get you down to drop-B.

The Duncan '59 that I have is single conductor plus shielding. I have some DiMarzios of unknown model that are the same way. It's not uncommon. Typically vintage style pickups are like that because that's how the old pickups were, and they're trying to recreate that. All it really means is that you get fewer wiring possibilities.

Just put a ground lug like you'd use anyway through the foil and solder to that.

Already in discussion over here: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=9005

None of the tutorials mention anything about frets.

Mother of Toilet Seat is popular. Plastic, basically. You could also use wood for your inlays. I've seen quite a few maple boarded guitars that have ebony inlays. Looks very nice. If you're really cheap, you could fill the holes with bubble gum. Let it dry and you have colorful inlays for about $.25 per pack.

Why is removing the frets neccesary if you're installing something that goes between them?