javacody

A year or two probably won't be long enough to dry, unless you've got a kiln. You are probably talking more like five years.

Northern ash makes great baseball bats.

After the FET pinout, my second guess would be that you are missing a ground or have a bad connection to ground.

Also, how is the trim set? Have you tried messing with it?

You might want to have him supervise your first couple sanding efforts, just to make sure he won't have to strip it and start from scratch.

BigD, you picked out a nice chunk of wood there. Are you free-handing your pickup routes?

Those are all woods that don't need a finish (if memory serves) and probably wouldn't take a Tung Oil finish anyway.

The only good resource I know of on these woods is the warmoth website and the rampart guitars website. Even then, how do you know if the author's idea of "creamy" (just as an example) matches your idea of "creamy"? I wish I could help here with personal experience.

Are you planning on doing a bolt neck? If so, I'd go for it (I'm nutty that way), using the lightest piece of the wood you have available to you (amongst the three that you mentioned). If you don't like it, well, you can always make another one, and sell the one(s) you dislike on ebay.

I specifically mentioned that lightest piece, as from what I've read about the three woods mentioned, they are all fairly heavy woods (again if memory serves, and bear in mind that it is 6:32 AM as I am typing this and no coffee yet).

I can reimburse for shipping. How many beers you want?

The biggest point about using a neck wood like Goncalo, is that it does not require any finish. A neck is not a large chunk of wood. How much wood is wasted on furniture? Pens? Bowls? To me, using wood in a musical instrument is one of the most noble uses it could have. It doesn't just look nice, it sounds nice. It has the power to potentially reach millions of ears. What if it were a desk in some fat cat's office?

Also, look at all the countries it grows in:

Guyana, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Trinidad and Brazil

Doesn't sound like a rare wood to me. Birds-eye maple is probably more rare. Better stop using it. Better yet, we better stop using wood altogether. It's a living creature after all.

It also shouldn't be nearly as bright as hard maple.

Perry, if you make a guitar like in your avatar, could you sell me a tracing of that guitar? That is a very sharp v like guitar.

Paul, you could have just said, "Hello, my name is Paul. Look at my website." I think we could have inferred the rest.

I forgot to mention playing around with the clipping diodes too. Tweak these out to tailor the distortion to your ears. An odd number of diodes will give you assymetrical clipping (sweeter sounding). Start with two, and go from there. I first tried two different kinds, then three of the same kind, and finally, five of the same kind for a very transparent and sweet overdrive.

prost, nice body, how much does it weigh? Is it on the lighter side?

A word of advice (or several), socket the opamp. Buy several different kinds. I'm particular to the Burr Brown opamps, but the TI 4558 is nice, and the 4559 isn't too shabby either. I think the TI 4558 is a little sweeter sounding that the JRC 4558 (also known as the NJM 4558). You will here differences, some subtle, some not so subtle.

Another word of advice, seek out the mods. I've done the more/less distortion, tweaked capacitors, upgraded capacitors, etc. etc. It's fun, and the pedal ends up being much more useful. (go to diystompboxes.com and check out the forum, look for a link to Frank Clark's site, and also check out Keeley's site).

One last word of advice, you can buy TS5's on ebay for $20 to $30. They are excellent candidates for mods, and are the basic TS9 circuit, albeit with a much crappier box.

Once you build an effect, you will probably become quite addicted to it. I know I am. LOL

No special method. You use paste wax, which usually has oil as one of its ingredients.

Something that violin makers use as a first coat is raw egg white. It kind of seals the wood. Then apply your oil or varnish on top of this. Try experimenting with it and see if you like it. I read about it in a violin makers forum that someone posted a link to on this forum. I've tried it, and it helped to protect the wood better, and build a better coat of oil.

Thank God bandwidth and disk space are getting cheaper by the minute! LOL

Yes, Tung Oil CAN be used as a pore filler. Christmas came early for you bucko:

http://riflestocks.tripod.com/fgrain.html

Look at the beatiful flamed Walnut stock there finished with Tung Oil!

Yes, this is Walnut, but from what I've read, Walnut and Mahagony are both large pored wood, and should require similar techiques. Walnut is harder than Mahagony though.

It looks like they are sold out.

Do any of you guys have any experience making a neck out of Goncalo Alves?

I have a couple of questions:

• How workable is it?
  
• How stiff is it?
  
• What's the tone like?
  
• Where can I find a neck blank?
  

That's not a roundover, first of all. There are different shaped router bits for all different types of edge treatments. Head on down to a hardware store and see what they have.

Easy, veneer the sides too.

I don't associate brightness with basswood.

To me, using a Floyd adds quite a bit of brightness. I don't think you are hearing the wood as much as you are hearing the Floyd. Again, that is just my personal opinion from playing floyd equipped guitars way back in my Metalhead days (16 years ago). My basswood Japanese Strat wasn't especially bright, in fact, it was a little on the muddy side.

Regarding the heavier wood issue, there are other factors besides density that I believe alter tone. Generally, I would agree with the above statement concerning heavier density=brighter tone. However, this is just my personal opinion based on a relatively small amount of experience. (I've been playing for 16 years, but until I've handled a significantly large number of samples of a majority of the different types of wood, I wouldn't consider my guess to be anything other than a shot in the dark, but I'm sure self appointed experts who've handled a whopping couple hundred pieces of wood will disagree). YMMV.

Wes, was it a Stew Mac bit?

Ha ha, if you want chinese router bits, you can get the toolshop brand from Menards. 6 bits for $6! That's a bit cheaper than Stew-Mac. LOL They even come with a two year warranty. I saved my receipt. When they get dull after two guitars, I'm taking them back and getting new ones for free.

Hey Drak, are you thinking rifle shells would look good on a telecaster that happens to have a Steers head soundhole?

Hey, they even sell nickel plated shells! Cool.

I wouldn't recommend staining a veneer while its off a body, it may curl up on you (depending on the thickness of the veneer). I would recommend an Aniline dye for dying the wood. I'm pretty new to the guitar making game though, so I'm sure others will have better advice.

Those steer head sound holes are too friggen cool.

I'm getting into guitar building for the same reason as you, Drak. My ultimate goal is a Korina Gibson Moderne copy. I'm even thinking of learning to wind the pickups myself.