Guerrilla Radio

Cool, You should be able to reach up in there and feel for the nuts. If they are loose do what you have to do tighten them up.

Yeah, I tried twisting them with my hand, but that didn't work out. Wouldn't there be some kind of nut under the MOP inlay to keep the bolt.. inside the bridge? lol.

Because I was thinking that's what i'd have to turn.

Any idea how I could turn the things without having to take out the inlays? because that's pretty much impossible lol.

Is the bridge itself secure? I know on some guitars (I'm not sure if ovation falls in this category) the bridge was actually held on with a nut and bolt on each side of the bridge(and maybe glue as well). The head of the bolt was often hidden under an inlay. If this is the case you may have a loose bolt that is rattling. Or I may have no clue...just another possibility.

Well, there are two inlays that are on the bridge. Hm... you may be on to something here.

any way that I could check this out without destroying the bridge? haha

EDIT: yeah, took off all the strings and felt around in the soundhole. Found two bolts right under the bridge. I'm guessing this is the problem that you've described.

Try tapping around on the top with no strings on, and make sure it's not your tuners.

Waaay late response, but it's not the tuners. It's easy to hear that it's coming from the bridge whenever i try to play the thing. So for now, i've just loosened the strings while it's not in use for a long time... because it's pointless to keep it in tune if it's not going to be played.

Possible? I wouldn't see why not, but I might as well ask, just in case. If I could avoid buying the buffing pads from stewmac, that'd be good, seeing as how i'm pressed for money.

I saw a guy polish his guitar using only swirl remover on youtube... by hand. and I was just wondering how effective this would be as opposed to polishing with the polishing compounds and buffing pads.

Any and all advice is appreciated.

WOW! those are perfect! So how exactly would I use Word or powerpoint to put it to scale? Just trial and error?

maybe if you set the scale of the page on word to 100%? I'm not too sure, but it's worth a shot.

Yeah, see, I don't think I'm gonna end up making another guitar, so making a template, to me, would be kinda pointless.

Doesn't matter, if your making a one off you would want to build a guitar which was much better than you could buy off the shelf.

Means no shortcuts.

Plus, you will be addicted anyway after your first.

Haha, yeaaah, I barely have enough money to make this guitar as it is. so we'll see about making another one. Haha.

Yeah, see, I don't think I'm gonna end up making another guitar, so making a template, to me, would be kinda pointless.

also,

I know it's too late, but you should have left the horns uncut until you routed out the neck cavity (I'm assuming a bolt-on neck). Gives you more meat for the base of the router. If you still have the parts you cut away, save them and put them back in place when you go to rout. If you do that, don't sand down the body yet as it will tip the router slightly and your pocket won't have a flat seat and you'll have a hell of a time trying to right it. Also, it doesn't look like you left enough meat for the neck. You may have to seat that neck deep into the body.

^someone from UG. the bolded part is my biggest concern. Will that be a problem? i figure I could always make the neck pocket and then find where I should be placing my bridge.

Yeah, i'm a noob guitar maker.

I came to this conclusion because whenever I palm mute the strings, and strum them (and I mean, really strum them HARD), it doesn't rattle.

I restrung it and seated the strings properly and it still is suckay.

damn.

Well; if you don't want to do it the right way you could always buy alot of sand paper and form the final edges by hand.

I make templates and use a router. Simple, quick and easy to make multiple guitars with the same dimensions. There are only so many ways to skin a cat and the two ways that have been suggested to you are the most cost effective and logical ways of doing it.

Some use belt sanders in conjunctions with spindle sanders but that's more equipment intensive. A low cost Ryobi router will get the job done in no time.

These threads that ask "how do I get around doing it the right way" or "how do I reinvent the wheel" really get lost on me, sorry.

well... maybe I'll just go with a more accurate bandsaw next time... there's a dewalt one in there for some really accurate cuts that would be good to use.

who knows, maybe I'll make a template on friday.

So yeah, here's an update for you:

I finally got some actual work done on the thing this time around. I had some trouble the other time around when I wanted to bandsaw the thing up; over my vacation, the big part of the board started to bow, so I had to cut that in half and then re-glue them and wait overnight.

Today though, I finally some work done.

The body, glue unscraped.

Some form of a guitar takes place.

More work will be done on friday. I'm not sure whether i should have sawed to the line on the body or if I should sand down to that. Either way. I'll figure it out from UG.

Yeah, that's how far I got. Now, I've got a question. I've seen a lot of people just do a rough cut on a bandsaw and then somehow get it down to the final size of the guitar. How the hell should I go about doing that? Haha, people have said i should use a jigsaw, others have said I should make an MDF template and then route it, but I don't want to do that. Can anyone give me a hand?

Sadly, i'm out of acoustic strings. haha. I'll pick some up when I go down to Guitar Center on friday. hopefully that's the reason why... I want to play my acoustic again instead of playing my electric unplugged.

yeah, basically on my cc24 acoustic, the bridge rattles when I strum the guitar. Don't know how it started, or why, but it does it. If I rest my hand directly on top of the part of the bridge where the strings go in, then the rattling stops.

Anyone know how I could fix this? I'm gonna go head and guess that it might involve me taking off the bridge and re-gluing it.

yes, it was a cheap guitar. should have gotten something different.

It's a beaut.

sucks that I don't know how to get a neck pocket angle the way I want it, haha.

Sure you can use the Badass. It's all about the height of the saddles --you'll have to set the Badass in so that the saddle height will work with the strat neck.

Usually Badass bridges stand pretty tall (very tall, in fact), which is why most of the time you'll need an angle for the neck, because otherwise the fingerboard has to stand very proud of the body (have a look at most Rickenbackers). You can recess the Badass into the top to counter its height --and since the guitar is already routed for the strat trem, you can leave a bit of a gap behind so that you can still string up the Badass.

So it's possible. Not sure why you'd want a Badass instead of a hardtail though. But if you want it, it's possible. Have a look through the site for info on recessing the bridge.

Ah, i didn't think that they'd stand that tall off of the body... so nevermind then, I'll just put a regular hardtail on there.

Thanks for the input!

My thoughts are no. The Badass is set up like a TOM, which means that a neck angle will be necessary for proper playability. What WILL work are the Hipshot bridges. They're a quality, recommended product. Use the Fret Calculator to find out where to place the bridge.

Dang... Oh well, looks like I will be going for the regular hardtail. I would go with the hipshot bridges, but they're very expensive... I want to order from guitarfetish because of the amazingly cheap prices.

Thanks for the advice though!

sucks that I don't know how to get a neck pocket angle the way I want it, haha.

So I'm coming here to ask. Would a badass bridge work on a strat (rather, a strat copy)? I've got an old strat copy and a neck that I'll be refinishing.. as for the body, I'm going to put a hunk of wood in the trem cavity in the back, fill it, and finish it, so I can put on a hardtail. i want the badass bridge (http://www.leoquan.com/html/guitardetails.html) to go on it. I just need some clarification.

Thanks!