nollock

I realy like the first 2. The 3rd i dont like, but thats probably more to do with the inevitable weirdness of being 3 octave. The 4th I aint too fussed on, too much arse and a skinny chest ;-). The 5th is probably my favourite although i'd shorten the upper horn a bit, its a little long for my taste. I had a quick look at your site and imo you some great designs. It'd be realy nice to see some of them make it into the real world. :-) Do you intend to make them at some point? chris

Just wondeirng if anyone here uses it and knows if when using my spray gun I can leave it for 30 to 60 mins without cleaning it. I know the stuff doesnt cure for 12+ hours and will redisolve during that time, just wondering if I can get away without cleaning the gun between coats. cheers, chris

I am making my first guitar (almost finished now) and I have made the neck myself. I messed up my first few attempts, router tearout, poor measurement and glue failure. But I went ahead and finished them as much as posible. Luckily I had a spare fretboard that was cracked during shipping so I glued that on one and practiced fretting & inlay. I could have carried on with the first neck as the tearout was on the heel and would not be visible, but I decided to keep trying untill I have a good neck I was totally happy with. So my advice is to try making a neck, if you make a mistake try again. But dont stop at the mistake, carry on and use it as practice, you can experiment with differant tools and find what methods suit you best. You dont need to make a perfect neck first go, and you dont need to use the first neck you make. chris

A Quart is roughly 1 litre iirc.

I dont think west system has a special hardener / epoxy for oily woods. Iirc they just advize wiping the woods down with denatured alchohol prior to gluing. One option is smith all wood epoxy. Smith all wood epoxy at LMII Another is Excel Polyurethane Excel Polyuethane chris

Hahaha great idea

I dont need a coffee table, and it's a bit naff anyway. The top is a nice bit of wood but the legs are just pieces of 2x1" with no decoration or anything. I supose I could do it up but I'd rather be doing guitar related stuff so it'll probably end up being used for that.. cheers, chris

I rescued an old coffee table in the hope that the top wood be ok to use for a guitar body. I am pretty sure it's mahogany and seems to be a single piece just big enough to do a guitar body, although only 3/4" thick, so would need a chunky top on it. Here's a pic would it be ok to use? Any reason not to use it? thanks, chris

Why dont you find a very cheap 2nd hand guitar and try to modify the neck on that. If it succeeds you then have 2 guitars and will be better able to do the same to your epiphone, if it fails you learnt a valuable lesson and didnt trash your good guitar.

To be honest I dont think I know enough to give you advice on that, I just use an old (very old) planer/jointer that I inherited from my uncle. All i know is it is a 10" wide cut, all cast iron, f*in heavy, and I think a 1 HP motor. Only thing I would say is to make sure it has cast iron tables, and a rock solid fence. chris

Personaly I dont think you need to sand them. I have tested quite a few differant woods & glues and found that freshly machined with either my jointer or thicknesser produced the strongest joint. Sanding the surface seemed to make no differance. That said I always keep the blades realy sharp, so I am not to sure whether that would still be true if they were not so sharp, as I have read that a blunt planer can damage the surface of teh wood and result in a weak joint. Also I think normal wood glue works by a molecular bond and doesnt need a rough surface like epoxy seems to. The absolute worst surface from my experience is one that has been untouched for many months, it seems either residue setles on it, or oil rises to the surface, or maybe the pores close up, but a bit of wood that has been lying around for a long time often doesnt hold aswell in my experience. So all I do is run the surface through my planer/jointer. And i found it quite hard to sand a 2 inch wide piece of wood without spoiling what would otherwise be a snug fit. It always seems to end up a very slightly rounded because the outer edges seem to end up sanded more than the center. chris

So how do you make weiner sticks? chris

I got a 4X1x36 inch maple neck blank that has been sat on my shelf for 4 weeks and has developed some twist & bow, about 1/5 of an inch. I got 2 other similar blanks at the same time and they are fine, stacked flat on the same shelf. They are all flatsawn. So what should I do with it? Should I machine the bow/twist out, should I clamp it, or should I not use it at all? Also will this be down to a humidity change between the shop & my room? Should I think about getting a dehumidyfier? cheers, chris

Will this be ok for spraying geetars? I have access to a big compressor. And i will be spraying water based laquer, the KTM stuff from LMII, its pretty thin like most water based stuff, about the consistency of unpasturized milk. Is 150ml enough to get a coat on a body? I only need to do one guitar at a time. Would it be ok for doing a sunburst? I have no idea how the nozle size & airflow relates to teh spray size. http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=23266&recno=5 many thanks, chris

How thick should the remaining wood on the front be when when routing the back cavity for the electronics? Also how would you do it with a carved top? I mean do you go for equal thickness all over, or just do a set depth and recess the controls where needed? cheers, chris

Hi, my cousin bought an SRV strat while on his hols in the US. Thing is he doesnt use the trem much, and has hardly played the guitar since his return. So he only found out 2 months later that the trem arm wont go in properly. Actually it wont screw in at all. It looks to me like the top plate doesn't line up properly on the block. Anyway heres some pics... you can see the small grey lip that is stoping the arm going in straight. Thats with the trem arm pushed in as far as it will go, theres no play in it, it is jammed (lightly) at an angle. Just wont go in straight. I figured it would be worth taking the trem to bits and putting it back together, see if it lines up properly after that. Also I thought I could file a small amount off the top plate so the trem arm can get a clear run at the hole. He aint too keen on that option though, and I do understand why, at least I understand that he is worried about it keeping it's value. I dont know if we should just contact Fender and get them to fix it, but if it means sending it over to America it'll probably be alot cheaper just to buy a new trem. (Its a left hand trem, at least its a right handed guitar with the trem at the top) Any advice / comments would be most welcome. cheers, chris

http://www.hostwerks.com/~dave/images/rn01.jpg

The double sided sticky tape I use for holding wood while I work often tears out wood fibers. Its a helluvalot stronger than you think, and to be honest I would be more worried about getting the tape residue off the guitar than I would be about it falling off. And why not just try the sticky tape and see how it works, if it doesnt work try sommat else. chris

good one it sure is fun to mock people who cant spell isnt it ← See the winkey smiley ---> <--- that means he was joking, not mocking. chris

Yeah i think its for celulose car paint, tried it and it evaporates off very quickly, couple of minutes tops. cheers, chris

Would cellulose thinners do the same job? Is either of them safer to use? Just I can pinch some cellulose thinners from my brother. cheers, chris

http://fastener-express.com/ search site for threaded insert, has down to 2-56 which i think is about 2mm diam. http://www.modelfixings.co.uk/threaded_inserts.htm smallest they have is 4mm, but might be worth emailing them cause they dont list everything and will try to find what you want if needed. chris

Why not buy a few of these... http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=22374&recno=2 chris

Does bubinga need any special preperation for gluing? cheers, chris

I can highly recomend this place, very polite and helpfull. They have allot more than is listed on their site so its always worth emailing them if you cant find what you're looking for. That said, I am not sure how good those zinc alloy inserts are as most people seem to use the brass ones. http://www.modelfixings.co.uk/threaded_inserts.htm chris