guitarmonky55

ok so i picked up a stripped down body for 50 bucks and it badly needs to be refretted, in addition to finished and more. the way i see it im willing to try whatever on this guitar to learn since it wont be a terrible loss if i screw anything up. so ive researched refretting, and i found a great tutorial on how to refret without too many complicated tools and such here. i have a few questions about tools to purchase and my steps. ok for a fret crowning file, i dont want to buy anything fancy...and this looks like exactly what i need: 3 in one crowning file would this suffice? i plan on just buying the wide file, im on a semi-tight budget and have no need for the other 2 sizes at the moment. would regular end cutting pliers from home depot work for removing the frets and cutting the ends? theyre only 10 bucks more for the sharpened ones on stewmac but id like to save every penny i can also, is there a quick way i can find the radius of this guitars fretboard without buying gauges? i was thinking about using a graphics package to make a bunch of circles nad cutting bits of them and printing them out and using that...think it would work? also, can i just buy like a little rubber mallet from sears or home depot or something to pound the frets in? i dont really feel like buying the stewmac one... so basically im going to: -yank the frets with pliers -radius sand and repair chips with rosewood sawdust and such -bend frets then hammer them in -cut them(use the cutting pliers i used to remove the frets?) -bevel the edges -level and crown any help would be greatly appreciated!

you didnt reconnect the ground wire, and while emgs dont need to be grounded, a passive does. its not a good idea to mix passives and actives, lose the neck pickup for an 85

i would ideally like a floyd, but i dont have a router or a good workspace as my house is in a perpetual state of reconstruction. i think ill go with a vintage strat, it looks like it will work i just need to put some more screw holes in to mount it up...no biggie ive gotta refret it so this will be the least of the work. [edit] ok warmoth has a 'standard tremolo' that is mounted on 2 holes, for 50, and stewmac has a wilkinson vintage style 6 hole for 90 bucks. as both require me to drill the same 2 holes, and they both fit, its not an issue of compatability but quality. im guessing the wilkinson will be nicer but what do you guys think?

ok so i scored a stripped down jackson rr v for 50 bucks at a music store going out of business. its routed for a trem, like a standard fender style not floyd rose. im not too sure on what im going to replace it with tho. it doesnt have holes drilled for posts like for a wilkinson or anything, and it has 4(strange?) screw holes where the old bridge attached as opposed to 2 or 6. what would be some good options for something that can do decent divebombs and stay in tune well? im not terribly familiar with these styles of trems, im more knowledgeable on floyds. any help would be greatly appreciated.

only about 3 weeks, and i went all summer without restringing b/c i couldnt afford to restring.....but ill give it a try tommorow when i have time, because im out of ideas.

ive never noticed this before but for some reason suddenly the 11th-13th and 17th-21st frets of my ibanez s1620 are making this strange oscillating noise on the high e string as if they are hitting something. i tried raising the action a little bit to see if that would help...nope. im wondering if its a truss rod issue.....but im not good at diagnosing things like this. any suggestions?

ok im back to chopping up one of my project guitars, and ive decided id like to skin the neck and replace it with a smoother finish. Its a mahogany neck, so am i correct in believing that i cant leave it unfinished or oiled? To my knowledge an oil finish is still nto enough to prevent warpage. is that correct? I plan on applying a thin satin finish to the back of the neck, but at this time i dont have an air compressor that is capable of putting out enough psi to spray lacquers(its a cheap one i found in the garage to mess around with my airbrush, only does about 30 psi and overheats quickly). is there anything i could do to the neck temporarily that would make it playable but safe from warpage until i can scrounce up the money to buy my compressor so i can put a finish on?

found the problem......we just re-arranged the front room because were doing flooring, and i had to move my gutiar next to the computer. i couldnt reach the amp power cord to plug into my other power strip so i used the 15 year old one on the computer. that was the problem. i moved it straight into the wall socket and its all fine now.

my other gutiars dont do this though.....??

so i picked up my ibanez today and whenever i touch the whammy bar and not touch any other metal part, i get thsi terrible crackling buzz. when i touch another metal part it goes away. when i touch just the pickup screws i get shocked. whast going on ? how can i fix it?

same thing? i was reading a tut over at reranch about dying a maple top like a les paul style, and are the stains on stewmac the same as what is referred to as dye?

ok so as a birthday present my grandfather gave me his old paasche airbrush, its a really nice one and its made to work with everything from lacquers to watercolors and such. as im an above average artist i figured i would delve deeply into learning how to use it, and i would like to use this to make some cool artwork on guitars that i build as well. so i have a few questions(ive never finished a guitar before) i know nitrocellulose is the finish i will be using. if i were to try to make some kind of artwork on the guitar, would i use nitrocellulose lacquer with pigments in it for the design? also, since its intricate art, and i can only do one coat basically, would i do a few coats of whatever my base color is and then the artwork and then the clear lacquer overtop? i see on stewmac that there are bottles of concentrated pigment and stain. the pigment is use for solid color and the stain for transparent color, and each are used by mixing them with the nitrocellulose lacquer...am i right?

alright i have some old pickups that ive decided to try to make a little more useable. im planning on replacing the magnet with something stronger(i believe this is some variation of cheap alnico, its colored similarly but its extremely weak, weaker than any of the other alnicos in my other pickups) where is the best place to buy new pickup magnets? im planning on finding the strongest/nicest alnico magnet that i can find and using that. ive never been a fan of ceramics though so those are probably out.

yep you got it.

for the red and white, you need to put them together and solder them, just as it says, then the insulating part is just covering it with something so the signal doesnt get awry by coming in contact with other metal conductive parts of the electronics. i used electrical tape on mine, but you can use heat shrink tubing, little bits of packaging foam, even masking tape or duct tape if need be. the important part is to make sure you get a good connection between the two wires, as if you dont the pickup wont function properly(i learned this the hard way on my first ever pickup job) other than that your just going to put one of the other wires to the hot output where your old pickup was connected on the volume knob, and then ground the other wire by soldering it to the back of the volume pot casing. since you are new to this i feel the need to tell you that you should first strip a length of the wire(about 1/8 inch) and solder the exposed wire to the ground. in case youve never soldered before, make sure not to try to melt the solder off of the actual soldering iron, this just makes a mess and ruins the tip. you want to hold the iron on the exposed wire, then reach the solder in to the part you want to solder. after a few seconds teh heat from the iron and the fact that the metal parts are conducting the heat will melt the solder onto the part. remove the solder, then remove the iron. if the wire is being real springy then grab some needlenose pliers or something before removing the iron and hold the wire down for a few seconds while the solder dries. alot of times it helps in these kind of jobs to get some type of desoldering tool to remove the old solder so you dont make a huge mess(once again i learned this the hard way my first time). you can either get some desoldering wick, or my personal favorite are desoldering bulbs, its a little rubber teflon coated bulb that you can use to suck up the solder, they cost 2.50 at radio shack.

gotta love zakks pinches. i find them so much easier to nail with these emgs!

can you say daisy rock?

i did a rough intonate but im waiting until my earvana nut comes in over the next day or two before i spend my time getting it perfect.

well i love rebuilding old guitars, and theres one thing i look for above all when considering it for a project:is the body itself good? necks, electronics,saddles, tuners, nuts, pickgaurds and frets and so forth are all replaceable and upgradeable. if the body itself sucks, then your in trouble. no matter what you do, you cant make a shoddy body sound good, regardless of the electronics and bridges and such that you put on it. i personally prefer epiphones for rebuilds because with the exception of the absolute lowest of the line, they are fairly solidly constructed and most all of them use solid woods as opposed to plywood ala squier. epiphone tends to cut corners on their electronics(evidenced by how weak their pickups are renowned for sounding) and other areas like that. i just finished my frankenphone sg, its got emgs in it, schaller locking tuners, earvana nut, scalloped frets, the works totally. it sounds and plays on par with or better at times than my 1000 dollar ibanez s1620fb. just make sure you get a decent body to start with.

well im having tuning problems, and from what i can gather nut hitching causes the string to go sharp and saddle hitching causes the string to go flat, and mines going flat.

ok my frankenphone has cheap metal saddles that have really rough saddles on them, and as ive learned this can cause hitching which will cause the string to go flat, which happens here. is there a way i can file down or smooth out these sharp edges? i plan on ordering graph tech saddles sometime in the near future but until tehn i may have to play a gig with this guitar and ill need some better tuning stability.

ive got a bunch of before and afters, ill post em as soon as i get myself some free webspace. im not totally finished with the guitar yet, ive still got to work on the pickgaurd and finish decorating the body as i please, and put my earvana nut/graphtech saddles on(waiting for them in the mail). so far i redid electronics, reamed out my 11/32 holes for schaller tuners, and scalloped the fretboard from 12-22(i plan on doing more b/c i like it so much). give me a day or 2 and ill get some up. i would never have been able to do all this without this site tho, especially the reaming and scalloping. [edit] maiden i notice you string around the back of the tailpiece, i started doing that too lately

yea the preamp is already inside the emgs

i just put in my emgs and tried it without a battery. 2 problems.......first is theres almost no output, and 2 is that what output there is comes through heavily distorted.

well good news. it was the battery, i got some fresh today and these pickups burn! as for the difference in volume, i found that in my excitement to hear my newly completed frankenphone in action i kind of overlooked adjusting pickup height and while the 85 was full up against the string, the 81 was still way down in the body just barely peeking over the pickup ring. i adjusted them and now they balance perfectly, wow i love these!