Tim37

i dont own a gibson but i will say that every one of them i have ever picked up seemed to feel diffent. its like every one of them is waiting for the right hands to be laid on them same with fenders. i would never order a gibson or a fender, i would have to hold it in my undeserving hands first. its sounds sdtrange but the consistancy just doesnt seem to be there im not sure if thats a bad thing or not.

the moderne doesnt have to be a total loss

unless the pots are scratchy (makes noise when you turn it) or the switch is weak i would leave it alone. there are tuts on how to pot a set of pickups if you want to do that or just buy some that suit your playing style there are about a million and one diffent humbuckers to choose from. like rip said the gfs's from guitarfetish are good budget pickups but the sky is the limit on diffent styles and prices.

well if you wanted to you could just blue the stainless steel parts. http://www.shootersolutions.com/ssgunblue.html a cool advantage to that would be if you marred up the finish during assymbley just dab some solution on with a q-tip and your back in buisness it sounds like you have your heart set on this and i guess thats ok if thats what you want or feel you need but beware of things like a trus rod thats a hard to replace item if it goes south.

Im gonna agree ya wont save enough to make a huge diffence if you building one off customs or just building for yourself. if you are building large quanities then i would talk to some of the suppliers you could get a decent discount on good stuff buying in bulk. i have got a few things out of china from ebay make sure to use paypal that way if there is a problem theres also a chance of getting a refund. i dont like to buy from other countries just because i know how much of a pita international shipping can be.

+1 you also will have the added bonus of no batteries to worry with.

i would skip the N. coil/S. coil there wont be enough tone shift for the hassel of it all. i would also just drop a push pull pot in the volume spot to control the split.

Mmmmmmm. Bananas

those guys build them assymbly line style. if you have a repetitious job like that your bound to get good and fast (well atleast the average person) if all you did day in and day out was fret guitar necks any of us would get fast. im still impressed with his and the other guys speed and accuracy but its not any thing that is unatainable. the problem with small scale is even if your turning out a guitar a week your still only doning one fretboard (well hopefuly only one) a week. you never get the time to get the practice that these guys get.

the dude doing the fretting was awsome.

the magents wont hurt any thing if they are touching the ground. when a wire crosses a magnetic field it will produce an electric charge in the wire. so if coil up a wire (the coil is simply so you can get more wire in the magnetic field) then spin in through a magnetic field you will generate electricity. the way a guitar pickup works is you move the magnetic field across the coil and that generates electricty. the strings manipulate that field thats why they have to be made of a iron alloy. the only thing that having a magnet on there could possibly do is distort the magnetic fields of the pickups and that could possibly cause some ouput diffences of the pickup.

You could do a traditional lay out then just lay the plate over when your done that way you don't have to make the final decision yet.

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Electronics/Switches/i-3192.html try this diagram

i was going to lunch with a buddy of mine yesterday who is a mechanic and i was reminded of why i will never have a buisness that deals with the public. a guy had his car towed in the day befor and asked them to make it run well they worked on it got it started but it ran like crap. the guy came in and said "it ran smooth befor yall worked on it" the owner "it didnt run befor we worked on it" customer "it certianly did it ran fine when when truned it around for the tow truck driver" the owner "then why did you have it towed" any way the guy was blaming the shop for messing up his car. the whole point to all that is i have delt with the public just remember some people you cant please no matter what you do and some people are just out to get something for nothing. just figure out your own way of dealing with those people and enjoy the rest. For me i just gave up and got out of retail.

i was thinking more like a old vcr or dvd player or a more modern tv most people dont have old tube tv's/radios they are getting ready to toss out.

for orgmorg that was pretty wood. I actualy though he toned it down a little on this build.

Every tree sounds different. That short answer is yes if you build a guitar to factory specs then they are gonna sound very close. When you start swaping things out its gonna sound differnt. Now the questio. Is how close and how different are they gonna be. If you swap out a trem for a hard tail bridge your gonna notice quite a bit of difference but say a set of locking tuners probably won't do much. Wood tone is tricky I will say different woods do effect tone but you can sub some woods without changing much.

ducati?

if ya just want to play around go find a old piece of electronic gear (tv vcr radio what ever) and desolder some caps of diffent valuse just dont get the electrolitic they wont work.

Orgmorg submited so he trumps all for my vote.

dude needs to invest in a jigsaw. if i where gonna try this i would go with a bigsby.

On your push pull ground both the top lugs, then Take the two wires on your pickup that you tied together (I'm assuming these are four lead pickups) and connect them to the middle lugs one on one side one on the other. Is pretty simple I'm just not sure if I can explain it right.

Unplug your laptop my strat gets pissed if I have my laptop charger pluged in close to my guitar.

Seems like a lot of work just to get around having a truss rod.

i know warmoth offers a side adjustment trussrod. if you could find one that could also be a option.