SawDust_Junkie

Thanks guys ! I'm still a little fuzzy here. On the examples that both of you showed, are these scarf jointed or are these one piece neck/pegheads. I am just a little unsure about how you "leave a little bulge" at the joint. Do you have to cut the pehead thicker at the point of the joint and then cut the angle into it. I was under the impression that I would just be able to take the initial neck blank and cut the end off at the proper angle to achieve the scarf. I don't see how I would be able to "leave a little bulge" doing it like this. From setch describes, it seems to me that I would have to cut the peghead out of a thcker piece of wood that the neck and shape it down to my final thickness in order to leave more wood at the scarf joint joint. Then make a cut at the same angle as I had cut my neck blank where the peg head is thicker. Does this sound right. Also, are volutes usually used whem doing a scarf ? Or are they usually used when using a one piece neck/peghead just to add strength as a one piece is generally considered weaker at the transition. It seems I also have read that a volute is used when the neck or peghead is thinner than most standard designs.

Hey stephen ! I'm interested in the Hot Rod. That is the double action, right ? (I think the double action ones are the only ones Stewart-Mac calls Hot rod). Were are you located and what method of payment would you be looking for. ( I don't have a paypal account or anything, so it would probably have to be money order). Can you PM me the pics ? I know you said sold as is, but to your knowlegde, is there anything wrong with it ? Does it work in both directions etc... ? Nothing cross-threaded in the brass nut or anything ? I am also assuming this is the 18" Hot Rod, and you said it had the 1/4" adjustment nut right ?

OK guys, I have done some searches and found a few threads here discussing volutes used on angled pegheads. I think I understand what a volute is and the puipose for it. What I am confused about is how the volute made or "incorporated into the neck to peghead transition ? Is the volute a seperate piece of wood cut to the same angle as the transition and then shaped when the neck profiling is done ? Or, is the volute actually cut in when doing the scarf joint ? I don't see how this could be done as the scarf joint is simply a piece of wood cut at an angle and then the pieces reversed and glued together to achieve the backward angle, right ? I am confused how the volute is actually created. Could someone explain this to me and maybe do a crude, quick drawing to illustrate it. Like I said, I have searched here and could not find any threads that really cleared this up for me, so if anyone can guide me to a thread that details this, I will more than happy to do some more reading on my own.

Hey Dave, is the lock nut made in such a way that you could simply grind down the flat bottom part that rests on the neck above the fret board. The locking nut for a Floyd Rose trem I have on an old guitar is flat and about about 3/16" thick. So I would think that you could easily grind off 1/16" or so by palcing it flat against a grind stone and that should make sure that you grind it flat also. Don't know if that would work for you, but it is the first thing that came to my mind.

Well my colleague brought in the wood this morning. I am a bit disappointed. The plank is only 4 1/4 " wide x 13/16" thick x 73" long. With these dimensions, I would not be able to get enough strips wide enough to make even a single neck blank. Like you said John, I ahd anticpated cutting the strips 3" wide, and the blanks that Stewart-Mac sells are only 26" long. But at only 4 1/4" wide I would only be able to cut the whole plank lengthwise to 3" wide and if I cut that strip into 3 pieces, each piece would only be around 24" long. on top of that, there are a couple of knots in the plank. Oh, well, never hurts to check anyway. I checked out my local hardwood dealers and found out that they charge around $5.75 for 4/4 S2S Mahogany. So, I think I must have been thinking about 8/4 S2S Mahogany, which they sell for $8.00 a board foot. In any case, my colleague must have been mistaken about how much he paid for this piece of wood. I may still take it from him if I can talk to a more reasonable price. I mak be able to use it for some neck blanks for some bolt-on type necks. or I could even use it for some nice Mahogany inlay stripes in a body blank or something. I will have to think about this for awhile.

Yeah I see what you mean, but my table saw won't cut that deep, and the slab I saw at the local shop was about 10" thick with some of the bark still present. Still can't see how I could resaw that. I do know a gentleman up the road though that has a rather nice woodworking shop.... Could be worth a visit ! I actually had him do the planing for me on my first project and he has some really nice heavy duty tools. Besides I have been wanting to take my semi-finished guitar up and show him what his efforts help me produce !

Thanks for the input guys. I guess orienting the grain like I illustrated would be almost like having the grain quarter sawn wouldn't it ? Not quit, but kind of close. This wood came from a local hardwood wholesaler and I am pretty sure it is kiln dried to an acceptable moisture content, and on top of that, it has been sitting in his house for over a year. I believe it is S2S, but it may even be S4S. I am not sure about that. Anyway, my co-worker is going to bring it in for me to look at and I just wanted to know what I had in mind would work. Aside from the direction of the grain, I have always been told that if glued properly the wood will break before the glue joint. So, I didn't think that laminating it would cause it to be too weak for a neck. The only issue would getting the strips planed or jointed really well to make sure that any seems would be as unnoticable as possible ?

That is one fine piece of wood Pa ! I found a similar hunk of Ash at a local woodworking shop, but it is only about 4' long, but about twice as thick as your original slab. I would love to have it as I could get several one piece body blanks out of it, and they only want $79.00 for the whole slab, but I couldn't figure out for the life of me how I would ever resaw it to the thickness I would want. I figured I would have to have a portable sawmill to do it. What did you use to resaw yours to get those 3/4" bookmatched tops ?

OK, here goes. A co-worker of mine has informed me that he has a piece of Mahogany that he purchased about a year ago with the intentions of building a banjo. From what he has told me, the plank is 4/4, about 7"-8" wide, about 6' long. He has about $70.00 in this wood and offered to sell it to me for $25.00. What a deal ! (If I can use it) Now I know that this wood is not thick enough to do a Les Paul body, and it is not thick enough to do the neck either, as 4/4 will be 1" thick at most. (As far as what I have seen called 4/4 here locally. Some dealers locally have 4/4 that they list as 1 7/8", but is actually rough planed to right at 2") My question is aside from being able to use this wood to build several nice Mahogany bolt-on necks, could I laminate the wood to make a piece thick enough to build a Les Paul set neck, or would turning the grain of the wood that way weaken it too much ? The wood I am pretty sure is not quarter sawn. So, if I cut the plank as I show in my rather crude drawing below in strips about 3" wide, could I then turn these strips on edge and laminate them together, to get a neck blank wide enough and deep enough to make a Les Paul type neck ? Or as I said would this cause the grain to be running in the wrong direction to get the necessary strength ?

Hey Luke ! They are both called rasps, although the "cheese grater" one has a another different name that I can't recall right now. I would not recommend the cheese grater type for shaping a neck. I used that type on my Strat copy to do the body contours, as the cheese graters can really take off alot of wood in a hurry. I used the file type of rasp to do the neck shaping. The flate side works well for shaping the round-over of the sides of the neck, and the round part of the raps works well for shaping the peg head to neck and heel to neck contours. A rasp and sandpaper is all I used for shaping my neck. . The file type can remove good amounts of wood also, but it is much more easily controlled that the more aggressive rasp.

Hey godin ! Good to see you here at PG ! I looked at your pic of the router tearout. It's hard to tell from the pic how deep the tear out is, but if it was me, since you have a unique design and aren't really locked into standard dimensions of a traditional shape, I would just do some more sanding and sand it out. The tear out doesn't look very deep to me and if you sanded the entire back end of the body, it seems to me you could remove that gouge without really changing your body design. I am kind of curious how the tear out occurred. It looks to me like you used a large laminate trim bit and tried to rout the entire body thickness in one pass. I have not had luck with this method either. I think you would do better using a pattern or template bit and make several passes around the body only cutting about 1/4" or so with each pass. I may be wrong about how you did this, but the way the tearout looks, it looks to me like that is what you did. In any case, I think Mike's suggestion would be the easiest way to deal with it. Make a filler putty with epoxy and sawdust as the dark edges of the sunburst should mask it well.

What about using a dremel with one of those side cutting bits. Kinda like a roto zip saw. The bit is like a drill bit, but with a more widely spaced turn to the cutting edge. I used one to cut out my dry wall around door framing and such when I finished my upstairs in. You could use the depth guage attachment on the dremel, which is like a small router base, and setup some straight edge guides for the base to follow to give you a clean route.

You know, I am in the progress of completing my first build project, and shaping the neck was the one thing I really dreaded. I was so afraid I would I would mess all of the hard work I had done. I used nothing but a rasp and sandpaper to shape my neck. I know this isn't practical for you guys who build lots of guitars, but for us amatuers who might knock out one guitar per year or every six months or so, it worked well for me. I was able to take my time and do the shaping a little at a time. Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of work to do it by hand with just a rasp and sandpaper, but I would work for while until I got tired, then set it down for a day or two and come back to it fresh. After about three or four session like that, I got it to where I like the feel of it. And shaping the neck turned out to be one of the most enjoyable parts of building my first guitar. I really liked the way I saw it take shape right before my eyes and using the rasp and sandpaper allowed me to go very slowly and not make a mistake. (Let's face it, you have to make an effort to take off alot of wood in a hurry using a rasp. This was not one of those cheese grader rasps, but one that is more like a coarse file, with a flat side and a half round side.) And I know the next neck I build will come out even better because of everything I learned on this first one. There was just something about doing it by hand with hand tools that seemed more like woodworking to me. Its just a mental thing I guess, it just seemed more personal to me than using a router and a round over bit. But, like I said, it wouldn't be practical for you guys who churn out the axes.

You need to look at the heigth of your brdige micky. The neck may be set at this heigth to accomodate the bridge. If this is the case, you probably do not want make any adjustments. If the bridge will allow for the neck to set lower, your two options would be to either route the neck pocket lower, or to sand or plane the neck heel down to lower it. I would think that making a template and routing the neck pocket would be the best way to ensure you get a good flat uniform surface for the neck to set in, and also ensure you don't create any kind of angle in the pocket. And using a template would make sure you did not mess up the contours of the existing neck pocket.

Allright, I guess I'll throw in my paltry collection too ! Guitars: MIM Fat Strat (which I removed the S/S/H pickguard setup and installed a S/S/S pickgaurd setup that a friend gave me when he changed out his American Standard Strat to a three Lace Sensor Blue/Red/Gold setup) My first build project Strat Copy of my MIM Strat (which has the original Fat Strat setup that I took out of my MIM) Takamine Jasmine TS38C Acoustic/Electric Ibanez Performance PF10-12 !2 string acoustic (with a Dean Markley soundhole pickup installed. I even installed a strap pin jack plug so I didn't have to have a wire hanging out of the soundhole) Behringer GX212 UltraTwin Amp Bass Guitar: Washburn Bantam XB-125 5 string Fender Bassman 60 bass amp Effects: Zoom 505 procesor PA Gear: Crate Pro Audio PCM-8 DP+ 8 channel powered head with two 300 watt amp heads 1 pair of Peavey 115 HC PA speakers 3 Nady SP-5 Starpower microphones 1 Shure BG 3.0 microphone 3 Audio Technica XM8 headset vocal microphones Drums: Ludwig Accent series Allright, allright, the drums are actually my wife's ( and my youngest son is becoming quite proficient on them too.) We all get together and jam in the upstairs family room. We are not performing musicians, but we have a great time !

Hey xebry ! Idon't know if you're interested in trying to save that laminate trimmer, but I found a link to the Porter Cable parts list for this unit. I think this is it. You did not list the model number. Anyway, check itout here and you may find the part you are looking for and it may be worthwhile to save the router. http://www.porter-cable.com/index.asp?e=22...h_posted_form=1 Good Luck !

I chose my own design with familiar elements. I think it is really hard to come up a truly original design that either isn't one of the classics or already been thought of. And, the classic Les Paul, Strat, Tele, are variations of a standard guitar shape, which seems to be hard to get away from in terms of playability, comfort, balance etc... I think the only avenue for marketing is to concentrate on quality above all else, and a somewhat unique approach to the old tried and true designs. But even at that, it would hard to make a name for yourself without some kind of celebrity endorsement or something like that. Of course I am brand new to this hobby, obsession, past-time, love affair, or whatever you to call what it is we all do, so what do I know !

Like I said anton, I'm a newbie myself, so I can't offer alot of advice. I guess it all depends on how deep the dent is. You may on track with your steam option, but I am only in the process of my first build myself and haven't gotten to the finish process yet. Try looking in the Inlays and Finishing section and do a search using different keywords like dents, steaming, refinishing etc... Good luck !

Hello anton ! I can't really help you with fixing the dent you made, but I suspect to do it properly will require actual re-finishing that can be trying for someone who is not practiced at it. But I did want to offer a trick I picked up for removing knobs. Take a thin tee shirt or other material and slip the edge of it under the knob. Work the material around the entire base of the knob and then pull it up around the head of the knob and twist it to enclose the knob. Then simply pull on the material and the knob will come off. Some knobs can be pretty tight and the material may tear if it is too thin, but I think you get the idea and just try different materials til you find one that works.

Hello there Cypher ! Nice to meet ya ! One of our fellow PG members has been good enough to cover some of the questions you have about wood. Take a look at this link: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...ic=9222&hl=wood I can't really offer any advice on pickups as I am not a bass player myself. But I suspect that just as with woods, there are certain pickups that are know for certain tones and qualities, the end decision is really up to personal preference and tastes.

The Behringer web site lists the price at $200.00, but I have them at Musician's Friend and Americ Music supply for $150.00. But the main attraction would be the versatility it would add to the amp. The ability to switch between models and the added expression pedals, all controlled by foot, would be much better than having punch up an effect on the amp control panel. Also the controls on the amp don't allow you to switch between "banks or change quickly from one effect to another several settings higher. At least on my GX212 you can't. You have to step through each effect to get to the one you want. I haven't had this amp that long and there be a way to set up different banks that you could switch between easier, but I haven't had time to pour through the manual yet and see if it works that way. And being that Behringer is a German company, I think the user manual leaves a little to be desired in the translations. It does not read very user friendly to me. For now I use my amp in combination with a Zoom 505 effects processor, and I actually like the efeects on the Zoom better than the built in effects on the amp. Although I have been able to get some nice combinations of both simultaneously.

Hi chris ! I have Behringer GX212 Ultratwin myself. I recently was talking with a guy at a local music shop and he recommended the Midi foot controller. I don't have any first hand knowledge of it, but have you checked out the Behringer web site description of it ? Here is a link to the site: http://www.behringer.com/FCB1010/index.cfm?lang=ENG I would be curious if anyone has any thoughts on it also. Like you, the foot switch that comes with the amp is very simple. One pedal to switch between channels and the other to cut the effects in and out. The only thing I would be unsure about is a quirk I have noticed with the amp, and I don't see any reason to believe the Midi controller would be any different. When switching between the effects on the amp control panel, thee seems to be about a one second delay after the old effect is released and when the new effect fades in. I don't perform, so this is not a big issue with me, but I could see how it would frustrate someone playing live. I am curious if your V-Amp2 has the same quirk ? Oh, by the way, you can also download the spec sheets and manuals in .pdf format at the link a added, of want a little more info. Take it easy !

Or you could go with a Seymour-Duncan slimline double coil, like the double rail perhaps in a standard S/S/S pickguard ?

I recently bought a used Grizzly 12" table top bandsaw. The only thing I have used it for so far is to try and cut the peg head down to final size on my Strat copy. That didn't work out too well. The blade kept straying. The blade followed the cut exactly at the bottom of the blade, but wandered at the top of the cut. I don't know if I didn't have the blade tension set high enough or if this was just too much of a cut for this small of a saw. I was also using a 3/8" blade. A guy I work with told me that a thinner blade would wander less, but I thought just the opposite, a thicker blade would be less likely to wander. I am anxious to see how this saw does on a smaller cut, like a body blank out of 6/4 Mahogany or an 8/4 piece of Ash. Any ideas ?

I like it, but I don't see how the strings are going to line up with the tuners. Do you plan to use some kind of string tree or something ? If you think about it the strings will not be able to make a straight progression from the nut to the tuners on that design. but I like the design and concept.