wohzah

If you have any experince with other forums, this one will be a suprise, the members show a level of maturity and intelligence not usaully seen on the internet... let alone internet forums.

I would say that to reduce scrathes that would happen from going against the grain, use 10 grit lighter sandpaper than you would normally, and add an extra finish sand with maybe 300 grit to make sure.

Also some woods have a very high iron content. Best common example I can think of is walnut, after a day of work your fingertips may be black. Could be your fretboard was not finished well or the finish has worn.

The use of hide glue is fine, almost any glue will work. Many a big deal master craftsman uses straight up elmers glue for jointing, it is more about pressure and gluing surface than anything else, especially having three sides of glueing.

I don't think bookmatching has a different effect than using a regular maple top (or anyother wood). You can use one sold piece and it won't deform anymore than with bookmatching. Again someone correct me if I am wrong

If you enjoy mechanical things think about making one yourself, alot of work and prescion but it is not impossible and can be very rewarding, as well as allowing you to tailor the trem to your guitar rather than the other way around. Right now me and a buddy of mine are beginning one for a bass he wants to build.

First the thickness of the wood is variable. Since the two woods do have different tones it is more up to you. The more alder, the more alder the guitar will sound, the more or thicker the maple the more maple. Here is good sight to find out about tones of different woods http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/options_bodywoods.cfm As for book matching book matching is when you cut from one board two pieces of wood that would have been on top of each other, so they have more or less the same grain pattern. Then you set the pieces so that they mirror each other. On a guitar top this means you take two pieces mirror them as explained and then glue them along the edge. This is then glued onto the back piece. This is very common with maple as it has an excellent grain, also bocote is excpetional for this. Also note you can cut a piece of wood as described to bookmatch or buy pre book matched pieces then glue them together. Often you will see pieces sold as bookmatched. Also anyone may correct me if I am wrong

you could build your own mounts pretty easily, find some scrap metal or plastic and just radius via bending or sanding.

I posted a similar post in a thread where a guy was asking about rasps. For neck and some body shaping I use a microplane rasp, works like a charm.

Wow, I have to say that finishing job is incredible! Nice job!

Also with humbucking pickups it is not as necessary. I belive you can use aluminum tape available at your local hardware store. (or at least mine )

I would like to think it is a block placed in the wood to affect the tone of the guitar, not unlike a mahongany body with a maple top or back. But I am not sure how a block set into the wood is that much different from a top of a different wood. So I would have to agree with the others that, if it is my idea, it is a bit of a marketing ploy.

I have figured out a different way than described to ground the wire to my tunomatic bridge, but I would like to say thanks for all of your answers.

I would have to give my vote to ivy, the finish is incredible, the carved top brings out the grain of the wood well and really looks great. Just incredible craftsmanship overall. Also to the rest of the builders great work, my jaw dropped when I saw how wide that nine string fretboard was!

How do you get the drill down into the cavity to drill the hole to the bridge insert? (tunomatic)

I was wondering how one usually gets the ground wire to the bridge? Also I was wondering if i could save myself some work if I tacked a small nail (or screw) halfway into the body inside the electronics cavity and just used that as "the bridge" as wouldn't it work as a ground just as well?

I second deans motion. Really good gunsafes also have humidity and temperature controls as gun stocks can be works of art made of exoctic wood. Most do not, but they usually lock out moisture and stay at about room temperature. Your only real trouble would be getting enough space for the stands, as you probably don't want your guitars just leaning any old which way.

Yeh great job

You might not want to leave that guitar out in the cold, the joints will change size as well as the wood acclimates to its respective environments (until it is finished). Other than that it is a great guitar I think using a tung oil as a finish would help to bring out the grain very well. Good luck!

So I just wire it like a single coil pickup, red hot, bare ground?

That is a little confusing, there are two wires coming out of my humbucker, shoudn''t there be 4?

So how does a glue in neck have the strength to stay in if it just a block of wood set tightly into the wood via a tight joint? Can glue really be that strong, there must be some kind of jointery or mortise. Simply a larger gluing area is really strong enough?

I have ordered two humbucker pickups from TOG on ebay (tricked out guitar) so far their products have been great so I thought that their great price on the pickups was well worth the loss of a name brand. But upon receiving the pickups there is a bit of hump. There is only two leads. Almost all humbucker diagrams I have seen have 4 leads, I am curious whether I should just wire the pickups like single coils? There is a red wire I assume to be the hot, and a bare wire I assume to be the ground. Whats the deal?

At first for my build i was planning on using a regular glue in neck, but after reading Martin Koch's building electric guitars he describes a heel that must be cut into the wood inorder to provide a larger gluing area thus strenthening the neck. My resutling idea was to combine the idea behind a bolt neck and a set neck and have a neck glued into the wood with two cylindrical tenons placed into the wood from the back of the neck joint into the neck almost in place of the bolts. My idea was that this would keep most of the tone and sustain of a set neck while still making things as easy as a bolt neck. Comments?

Does a truss rod also need to be bent? I saw in a book that truss rods are are forcefully bent in the channel. Is this true of all truss rods? The martin non adjustable rod on stewmac is 14" on my neck that would make it to right were the neck thickens for the joint. Is that the right size?