tirapop

I like the pickguards on the originals. They were clear and they sprayed the burst color around the opening for the pickup, to cover the p/u route.

Jehle finished one guitar with gift wrapping paper.

The flakes are really big. I'd guess that it's plastic. Drum wraps use plastic sheets with glitters, sparkles, pearls, etc. Gretsch, which makes drums and guitars, offers guitars that have drum wrap finishes.

I remember seeing a post on PG where someone contacted Pagelli about how they put mother of toilet seat on a guitar. Something about acetone. Heat lamps and a vacuum bag would probably help, too.

I don't think Irwin was anything like Timothy Treadwell, the guy who "protected" grizzly bears and was eventually killed by them. Irwin was a bit of a showman, but, a dedicated conservationist. Treadwell, from what I saw in the movie "Grizzly Man", was self-absorbed and delusional. Irwin knew the animals he encountered and understood the risks... he didn't scold or baby-talk grizzlies like they were miniature poodles.

(BTW, "Grizzly Man" is a great movie... Richard Thompson playing guitar on the soundtrack)

Yeah, Irwin's death is tragic. As far as risk goes, he probably was in more danger driving around Oz in a car than in the somewhat controlled environment of his animal encounters. Dead is dead, but, there's something a bit more fitting to die in a passionate pursuit than to get hit by a bus or succumb to a disease that robs you of choice or your identity.

Anyone know of any hybrid styled guitars that have surpassed a classic original?

PRS?

As for "hybrid names", how about:

- Flying Paul

- Banjocaster

- Mockingbacker

- Les Bich?

No, this is a Banjocaster.

This is Warmoth's take on neck finishing:

To Finish or Not to Finish?

All our necks are dipped in an oil based penetrating sealer which is compatible with virtually all secondary finishes. This provides enhanced stability; however, it is not adequate protection for playing. We strongly recommend you apply a hard finish to all Maple, Mahogany, and Koa necks. Oils do not validate our warranty requirements.

We understand the attraction of raw or lightly oiled necks. They feel fast and are not sticky. Unfortunately, they are much more susceptible to moisture related warping and twisting. Our experience is that hard finished necks seldom warp. Less than 1 out of 200 (0.5%) are returned for warpage. Raw or oiled necks don't fare as well. About 10% are rendered useless from the torture. The more acidic your perspiration, the higher the odds are against you.

If you must play a raw neck, that's cool; it's ok. A neck is just a tool. Just be aware of the risk. If yours does the pretzel act, we don't want to hear about it.

For a valid warranty, a hard finish must be sufficiently thick to completely cover the wood. That means no wood is exposed and you are actually playing on the finish, not the wood. Now, it does not matter to us who applies the finish. Of course we would like to do the finish for you, but if you choose to do it yourself or have it done elsewhere the warranty is still valid.

Just about any finish, even "water clear" lacquers and undyed wax will darken the color a bit. I haven't ever bleached wood, but, if you want pale finished wood, I think that's what you have to do.

Check this out.

I think I've seen hacks online, where people disassemble cordless drill battery packs. Inside those proprietary battery packs are a number of generic battery cells wired in series. They've liberated the individual cells for other projects.

Has anyone taken apart a cordless drill battery pack? It might be possible to replace the cycled-out cells with new ones picked up off eBay or some online surplus outlet.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

On #3, you officially found your muse. That's inspired.

I'm already looking forward to numbers 4, 5, 6, ...

I don't know anything about the PRS product line, but, the Ed Roman link says, "we hollowed out and retopped a PRS"... as in Ed Roman's shop did the work. They hollowed out an existing PRS body. Which is why there weren't any sides bent.

The advantages of one kind of construction versus another depends on the type of guitar you want in the end. If you want a more acoustically dynamic instrument, stick with traditional construction. A dynamic top can be a good thing for quality and versatility of the sound... but, are more sensitive to feedback. That said, big hollowbody Gibsons and Gretschs find their way into loud music.

Monoframes, thinlines, chambered guitars reduce the weight of solid body electrics and split some of the difference between archtops and solid bodies. They're less apt to feedback, but, at lower volumes they won't have the full voice of an archtop.

Mike,

I think that's pretty much correct. The taper in the spacing between strings should be uniform, so the relation from fret to fret isn't distorted.

9956,

Danny Ferrington built a guitar for Ry Cooder with a dual scale neck. The two bass strings have a baritone scale and the other four have a regular guitar scale.

It is even stranger than a banjo, where the 5th string has a different scale, but shares the frets and the bridge, with the rest of the strings. On Ferrington's guitar, the bridge and nut are split. He split the fretboard, slotted each side for a different scale and then glued them on the same neck.

I think you pretty much have to be Ry Cooder to play it.

I was thinking somone should make some carbonfiber tuners. If nothing else it would look really really cool

I used to like the look of carbon fiber, until it turned up on "veneer" like trim pieces and then on carbon look contact paper.

What would look really great on hardware is mokume gane or Damascus steel. You can simulate it with polymer clay, if you don't feel like forging or metalsmithing.

I can tell you why its more expensive, Titanium is very difficult to machine. It is a rare metal. It is very expensive to cast or forge due to its strength. It has the highest strength of existing metals. In the case of this trem block, the quantities they order might be so low that they have to machine from solid stock, casting would be cheaper but only in large quantities.

If you were to go to a machine shop I'm sure the price would be even higher. Cost of the raw material, carbide cutters, machine time. Years ago I machined 2 parts for the military that went to some helicopter. They wanted this part made out of two different materials, 1 being titanium and the other Inconel ... both considered exotic metals at the time (20 years ago). The 6" diameter thin rings were a toolmakers nightmare as we couldn't keep them flat. We ended up jig grinding them to size with a spray mist after several stress relieve heat treatments. Thankfully I moved onto engineering and will never have to work with that material again.

Oh well, my 2 cents

Spike

Hey Spike,

Titanium's gotten much less rare, following the fall of the Soviet Union. The Russian titanium spigot is wide open. Titanium is turning up in lots of places: golf clubs, wedding rings, production motorcycle exhausts, bicycles, and trem blocks/barrel saddles. There used to be only a couple Ti bicycle makers. Now there are so many, there are even generic Ti bikes.

Titanium is a bear to machine. It's gummy, generates a lot of heat, and wears out cutters. Casting isn't too bad for non structural titanium. Oxygen is bad for strength in molten titanium, but, for golf clubs and trem blocks strength isn't much of an issue.

Ti is stronger than aluminum and less dense than steel. It isn't as strong as higher strength steels, nickel alloys (like Inconel), and some more exotic alloys. In aerospace, we start with aluminum. If we need more strength we go to titanium. If that doesn't work, it turns to steel. That's for parts with concentrated loadings. When the loads are distributed, it's aluminum, then carbon fiber... then maybe metal/carbon fiber hybrids like GLARE or Ti/GR.

From the horse's mouth.

I have used the cold rolled steel blocks by Bill Callaham for a few years find them to be of the highest quality. But after I developed the Titanium Trem Block, and put it in my guitar, I would never go back. The tonality, touch sensitivity, clarity, sustain and definition are all greatly enhanced. When you plug in to your tuner it really “sees” the difference as well. To me, the titanium block and saddles are one of the greatest evolutions to ever happen to the Strat.

It makes you feel sorry for all those chumps who've spent large on vintage Strats... with their lifeless, bland, clumsy, non-titanium trem blocks and saddles.

There have been threads on PG before about tone Nazi's. I remember one mentioning Strat trem blocks being the holy grail of tone. People swear by Callaham trem blocks. Certainly much nicer than what Leo put on his factory guitars.

Glendale Guitars will sell you Tele barrel saddles in your choice of Brass, Stainless Steel, Heat Treated Steel, Titanium, and Aluminum. Each one is supposed to have a unique sound. They also sell bridge plates in magnetic and non-magnetic steel, both are said to improve the sound over the factory bridge.

For all these things, the different materials have different properties: density, modulus (stiffness), damping coefficient, electro-magnetic response. There might be enough difference that you could actually notice. It might even be an improvement. I don't know.

If I was going to spend $330 on a trem block, I'd make sure that I could hear the difference and that I liked it.

You could also add weight to the body... as far away from the neck as possible to move the center of gravity further from the neck.

Anarchy,

The theory behind the alleged superiority in sustain of thru necks and set necks, is that neck vibrations are transmitted through a continuous piece of wood or through a wood-to-wood glued shear joint (the sides of the tenon), instead of through bolts in tension and the neck compressing the bottom corner of the pocket. The metal plate has neglible effect on the stiffness of the bolt in tension, no effect on the compression load in the pocket, and wouldn't affect sustain (aside from the additional mass).

If you want to eliminate the metal plate, you can. Look at any bolt-on neck with an all access neck joint body. They don't use a metal plate. A wooden neck plate would serve no structural purpose. Putting a rubber washer in the joint stack would make it less stiff and increase the dampening... both things reduce the energy transfer from the neck to the body.

You asked for ideas and suggestions. The consensus is don't bother. What you're proposing won't achieve the goal you've set out.

Very cool idea. But my main question... why so FEW of those 1/4 tone frets? You think she'd put them in more places...?

Chris

I don't know, I can only guess. The music she plays may only be in one key (or maybe just a few). In any Western scale, you have a mix of whole tones and half tones. The neck is fretted for what you might play, not, what you actually play. Appalachian mountain dulcimers play in a particular key, like harmonicas, and they are fretted to play in that key.

On Tuesday NPR's All Things Considered did a piece about classical guitarist Lily Afshar. On her new CD she plays her native Persian music. The music uses 1/4 tones, not just the Western 1/2 tones. She plays the music on a classical guitar. She does this with a guitar with extra frets, tuning some strings a 1/4 up, and bending notes.

There's confirmation at Warmoth's. You can either modify the pocket in the body or reshape the heel.

Since it's already glued and shaped, screws are probably a reasonable option. Worst case, if the joint fails, you make a new body. What have you got to lose, besides time and finishing supplies? You might want to put a little epoxy on-the-screw/in-the-hole to make sure the screw doesn't back out later.

I prefer the angled necks. Have you seen this before?

If it's thin aluminum sheet, you can cut it with a router.

How wide (stringwise) is the glue joint for the ebony scrap? With the fret tang wedged into that kerf, it's going to put a prying load on that glue joint.

I'd guess that asymetrical necks were the norm before widespread mechanisation and factory guitars.