86barettaguy

did some calculating and measuring on my fr404. seems the neck-angle with a non-recessed OFR should be slightly less than 2 degrees. does that seem correct to you guys? at least that's the string angle when I raise the trem to a position slightly above the face of the guitar...

Or leave them on A-La Kerry King style. Just dont leave them TOO long cos they can hurt when you walk into a guitarist swinging his axe around and 6 ball ends lump you in the face! or your kids could mistake them for something eatable (my daughter keeps putting them in her mouth whenever I sit down to play )

ok, so I should go for a neck-through. if I can afford the material (don't even know if anyone has long enough pieces of good maple yet) that is. what should be my choice if maple turns out to be unavailable in 1100 mm pieces (I figured that's about the length needed for a throughneck but maybe I need it to be even longer?)?

are you making it bolt-on or neck-through? if it's neck-through maybe the guys at jcfonline.com could give us the neck-angle used on jackson soloists/RRs/etc?

which would be easier to make, a bolt-on neck for an existing body (saves me the trouble of having to make the body), a through-neck (probably what i'd want in the end anyway) or a custom bolt-on (which means I'd have to make both the body and the neck myself)? which way would be the easiest (I have a parts guitar already, now I want something that's more of my own personal guitar)? btw, it sucks having to use one of these screenfridge things for this, but my brother occupied the PC...

****! that's intimidating! makes me feel ashamed for not having built anything other than my kramer/allparts mutt... what woods did you use? and where did you get it?

My style of playing has changed over the years and I hardly ever require floating trems. I had an endorsement with BC Rich and Ibanez when I played professionally. I now have about 8-10 custom shop guitars almost all with Kahler floyds or edge trems. I have disabled most of them so that I can do alternate tunings quickly, without the need to reset springs and such. I do some teaching, etc... that requires me to be able to tune a guitar to a song in seconds, not many minutes and fussing with a screw driver to set the float correctly. The method of inserting a block in the cavity and loading up with springs works well, but I still have to cut ball ends and I still have these clunky pieces of metal that I simply no longer use. I was just poking around to see if anyone was producing a simple bridge that would replace a Floyd without alterations. Thanks for the brainstorms. how about just setting them up so that you have at least one guitar for each tuning you use? I mean, you're not using more than 8 different tunings, are you? on a side note, floyds aren't that bad. sure, they look slightly out of place when playing blues or whatever, but they're the best trems available. the fender-style trem (which is used by many people who think floyds aren't worth the trouble of setting them up) has all the same problems as the floyd and then some! there are only 3 reasons to use one of those instead of a floyd: 1) you think they look better on your guitar, 2) you don't have to cut the ball-ends off and worry about cracking the small locking blocks, 3) you think it has a major impact on your tone. but they still require more attention to stay in tune and even then they don't perform as good as an OFR.

note that kramer didn't use basswood for the striker series. they used plywood in the 80´s/90´s. now they use alder. either way, I'm not sure they're using basswood because it's cheaper. Ibanez used it for the JEMs for a long period of time before introducing alder (and it's still only a couple of JEM versions that use alder instead of basswood). kramer used basswood for the focus series. I think wayne guitars use basswood. isn't the wolfgang made from basswood as well? and the EBMM axis? Basswood isn't a bad wood. It's different from alder, yes, but it has its pros and its cons.

talented? not me. so, tell us more about it.

before you start working on the actual body, make a template. having a good template makes things a lot easier. plus, you'll make most of the serious mistakes with the template and won't have to buy another truckload of wood. have you considered neck-through? I'm thinking a neck-through would be easier to plan than a separate neck and body. trying to picture what you're after... a JEM with a more strat-like shape, set neck and carved top. basically a 24-fret strat with a carved top and a monkey-grip? how about doing a kisekae JEM and modify it in photoshop (or whatever imaging software you have) to resemble what you're going for? I think it would look better without a pickguard (strats get away with it because they look naked without the pickguard), but that's all up to you.

I would suggest either getting a neck and making the body or getting both the neck and the body (I'm sure you can find cheap used ones) and build a mutt. a tele should be pretty easy to make, compared to what the guys here are making, so I'd say it's a good design to start with.

yes, but has anyone actually compared a JEM body to something similar? I've looked at the blueprint, but I'm lacking the proper measuring equipment (and I can't bring my guitar to work because the measuring equipment there is always in use. besides, people would probably not like me spending work time measuring my guitars in that fuxpensive machine of theirs). right now, I'm kinda clueless as to why I want to know, but I guess the information could be useful one day, if I ever decide to build a JEM-a-like (what's that, my 205th project now? guess I do need a life after all...)

just curious about the size of the JEM body. I suppose it would be somewhat smaller than my (now finished) kramer/allparts mutt (large soloist-style baretta II body), but by how much? similar to my neckthrough kramer fr404 (soloist copy)?

you should consider it a hobby until you're making enough money from it to quit your job. really, if you love building guitars, do it on weekends or after work. don't try to make a living from it before you're 100% sure it will work. if you're good enough at both making guitars and marketing them, you'll be able to make a business of it. money is very important btw. if you don't have money, you can't buy the material needed. if you don't have the material, you can't build a guitar, no matter how good you are. if you don't have a guitar, you can't sell it. if you can't sell it, you're not making any money from it. so get a normal job, build guitars in your spare time and keep your fingers crossed.

scott: couldn't open that pic... anyone have some simple plans? just something to get me started (haven't figured out how to make the router movable in 3 directions while keeping it stable. yet.)?

if you mill the truss rod bullet, you won't be able to adjust the truss rod without taking the nut off (and if you do you still have to repeat the milling operation to get the nut back on). if there is a nut that can be used, use it. or maybe consider milling a slot in the locking nut?

I need a dupli-thing-a-moy! anyone feel like making a tutorial for building a budget dupli-thing-a-moy?

so, uhm, what about the weight of a double-neck? how heavy is a d-n strat, compared to a normal one? how do you keep the weight down? and what is it like playing one sitting down? maybe the upper neck could be a short-scale bass? bassists seem to be more in demand than guitarists, so maybe it's not that bad an idea?

the Fender System II trem would fit that description. it was used on some of the japanese "contemporary" models. I have only ever seen one in real life though, so I'd think they're pretty rare and deserve to be left as they are. guess I'm not much help...

well, kramer made aluminum neck guitars and basses back in the day. so I don't think it's impossible. but maybe instead of wood you could use carbon for the neck? using a highly figured top for this one isn't a bad idea at all. if the neck doesn't work, all he needs to do is get a new neck. it was a bolt-on, wasn't it?

if you're going for stainless steel, avoid austenitic ones (tension + acid, such as sweat, tend to be harsh on them if they aren't heat treated). sounds like a cool project though. I'd love to see it when it's finished.

Alternate tunings without having to change guitars............. plus they look cool onstage. and on the stand.

this old idea popped up again. I think I've got a couple of hundred projects waiting for me to start them up now... anyway, how do you go about making a strat-based doubleneck? I have a scrap strat body which can provide me with the curves for the general strat shape. how do I convert this shape to a double-neck shape? seems the lower body is placed more towards the butt... oh, damn it, I can't explain it... just look at http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Bodies/image...s/DBLStratW.jpg to see what I mean. I'm thinking a fixed-6/trem-6-string version with the upper neck having vintage-style frets and vintage radius and the lower neck having a flatter radius and jumbo frets. anyway, has anyone here built a double-neck? anyone have any tips? not that I think this project will get any further than the other ones (although all the PK Baretta needs is a pickup), but still...

just to clear things up, here's a HM Strat. http://freespace.virgin.net/john.blackman4...ages/hmfron.jpg

from what I can tell it's closer to a slimmed soloist shape?