demon

its not what you think lol. ive got an EKO ranger that sin very bad nick an im plannin on restorin it. ive read that sanding is not a good technique for acoustics due to the thinness of the wood. the old finish is VERY thick though, and strippers that ive tried have barely blistered it. any reccomendations on something that i can easily get in scotland?

cheers guys. That pic that metal matt has posted of the annihilator is perfect to get reasonably accurate drawings from. They wont be exact or probably dimensionally correct. No chance i'll be able to afford a graphite neck, but i'll just make a wood neck. Not sure what i'll do for pickups, hmmm, i'm thinking out loud here, but what about 7 strings and a dimarzio evolution7, or maybe EMG active pups........

does anyone know what the guitar that the guy from misfits uses. it kinda looks like a neal moser design. Its the one that is in the scream video. Also does anyone know if it would be possible to get templates for makin one?

EDIT: I think its a Rand Annihilator, but i cant find anything when i search for it.

thanks guys, thats what i was needing to know. Dunno if i'm gonna bother changing the electrics on it. I was originally just goin to set up the action so that my mate could use it while i was working on his other guitar. but then I decided I was gonna do a freebie swirl job on it. (his other guitars a freebie job to! still, i need to build up my portfolio!) I love the body shape on it though, dunno what it is about it, but i think its cool! It looks the same as the guitar in LGM's first link, but doesnt have a scratchplate, or a spring cavity in the back (the trem is all self contained, tiny springs are under the block of the tre itself and attatched to the frame of it and theres a built in roller bridge) The existing body colour is white so I think that the swirl paint job will look pretty smart on it, cos the colours should be nice and bright. I'll post some pics in the inlays and finishing section when I'm done. havent had much luck finding paint that works well for dipping yet though.....

oh yeah, the headstock is the other way round on to LGM's pic

ok, maybe im getting better at this whole internet thing....Its from 1986-87. still nothing on value though

I have now narrowed it down to a guitar after 1977. i still cant find anything at all on the cat series....... oh yeah, its japanese, as im sure you gentlemen will want to take the piss out of me for saying it was probably american.

I promised to do some pretty fancy artwork on my mates guitar. So he wouldnt be without a guitar while I am working on it he gave me an old guitar to set up. The headstock decal says Aria Pro II the cat series. The body is quite curvy and I actually really like it. Its fitted with a kahler flyer tremolo, and locking nut and H/s/s pup config. The tone knob has a push pull thing on it to split the coils on the humbucker. The funny thing is theyve obviously gone to a reasonable amount of effort with the hardware, but the body is made of plywood. doesnt make sense to me.

Does anyone have any idea of where i could get a rough value of this guitar (my mate asked me to, but i cant find any info anywhere) im guessing its an american guitar, and its abviously pretty old, but thats about as much as i know. ill try and post a pic soon (im still using 35mm). was thinking of puttin a swirl finish on it, it would really look sweet with that body shape

is this guitar worth keeping original? I assumed that they were cheapo guitars and it didnt really matter whether i made a mess of it or not. Anyway, although the crackes do give it character to some extent, the finish on it is in a horrendous state, the cracks are massive, and cover the whole guitar, plus the lacquer has gone cloudy on the neck and parts of the body, so you cant even see the grain of the wood. Anyway, its too late, I've already taken the top of

cheers, like i said have never workied on an acoustic before so it will be a good learning experience, even if i make a mess of it. This things got a bolt on neck as well, so that should make things a bit easier (Even though the screw heads are massively tight and i cant budge them....) I take it that the old bindings and top will just come of with a little gentle persuasion. Ie No steaming

meant to say though, the top will need replacing anyway, cos theres a hole in it at the top. Could anyone possibly let me know hoe i would go about this. Cant find any tutorials on it.

i ripped out the frets on my p-bass to make it a fretless. It had a maple neck as well. It actually played not too bad after a couple of adjustments. Thing is it looks horrible, although I got the frets out very cleanly, it is hard to get the fretlines filled well enough to not be seen too much. In the end I bought an ebony fretboard and lifted the maple one off, replacing it with the ebony one. dunno bout the other question though.....

HI there guys, i added a reply in another post that may be slightly similar to this one, which I apologise for. I just got a really bad condition EKO. I dont know what model it is cos other than a label inside thats in italian, and says EKO, there is no identification on it. The finish all over is cracked to hell, and will need totally stripped off. Contrary to what i said elsewhere, the top wood itself isnt actually cracked, just the finish (I looked at it with my glasses on ) The bridge is split badly though, a couple of the tuners are knackered to. the side wood (dunno what type it is, I'm no expert) is really nice, kinda of quilted, but a much smaller quilt than quilt maple for instance. I guess from other posts that I've read that you need to use a chemical paint remover for the body wood. but i take it that the neck can be stripped normally (sanded) the finish all over is very thick. Has anyone got any suggestions on how to go about finishing this guitar. I thought about using linseed oil to bring out the nice grain. would this affect the tone adversely? Also, does anyone know where can get a new bridge from? and how do i get the old one off (It seems to be rivetted, rather than screwed/bolted) Tye other thing I wanted to ask, cos i couldnt find it answered elsewhere, was how do i remove the old binding? as the binding is already coming off in places, and it is scratched to hell anyway. I presume these guitars arent really worth all that much, but i would like to make a good job of it all the same as my first acoustic project. (does anyone have an idea of how much they are worth just purely out of interest?) Might even just stick on a piezo bridge if i cant get an original replacement, and make it into an electro acoustic...... Sorry for the long post guys. This seems to have posted a few times. Er sorry guys, it said that it didnt work.............

thats quite odd, I've never really worked on acoustics before, except for making the occasional nut, so I thought id look at the posts to see if some of my questions can be answered before i need to ask them. This is the first post i looked at, I just got an EKO guitar that looks identical to the one in the pic you've posted (the one in the middle ) Its suffering from the same problem, the finish on the neck is cracked to hell, the finish on the back is cracked, the bridge is split and not only the finish on the top, but also the top itself is all split! My dad jst gave it to me, it has been in the bin at the back of his warehouse for months (One of the workers put it there apparently) so he gave it to me for a wee project. I have a feeling it will need compkletely rebuilt, but im gonna look at other posts before i decide on this. Just purely out of interest, i dont mean to hijack your post kevman, but do you know any background on these guitars (ie: are they any good? this one seems quite well put together, nice action and so on (despite being buggered!))

i definately agree with you on that one, the finish you get is absolutely beatiful with the oil, and you dont get that slight resistance to to sliding your hands down the neck that i think you get with lacquers. Is there any special method to getting waxes to adhere to the oiled surface? I remember an RG i did my first natural finish on. I kept changing my mind on what sort of finish to give it, first it was waxed, but it was too much effort to maintain (Much more fun to play than maintain lol) so then i put a linseed finish on it (I'm still not sure whether i prefer a linseed finish or a tung finish) then tried lacquering over it. Of course after a couple of weeks, a lot of the lacquer was rubbed off where my hands and arms were rubbing against it.

I jus checked my supplies, and it is pure tung oil that I have got. I suppose Ill just have to be patient and apply many more coats. I actually really enjoy oiling necks. The beautiful sheen that you get with a nicely figured wood really makes it worthwhile. I dont even notice the time going by.

Was wondering how many coats of tung oil it would take to stop the grain lifting on a neck from the sweat off your hands when you play. On most of the necks that I have oiled ive put up to 5 or 6 good coats well rubbed in, and the necks have been beautifully glass smooth, but if ive been holding them by the neck with sweaty hands the grain has lifted slightly giving a rough feel and making re-sanding neccesary.

I made some scratchplates with aluminium chequer plate. I just cut then with a jigsaw and a proper aluminium cutting blade. Normal metal cutting blades tend to tear at the metal and you get really sharp dodgy edges which need a lot more filing off. I would also suggest you clamp the plate between two pieces of mdf or ply, the little thin pointy bits on the scratchplate tend to jump when you cut and you end up snapping blades, althoug this may have just been because i was cutting chequer plate (European stuff, there are four ridges, as opposed to the usual single ridge US style diamond plate) Once its cut, either hand file the edges smooth, or use a grinding wheel on a dremel.

has anyone here ever used actual Ebony for a guitar nut

I used ebony for a nut on a five string bass, and on a nylon strung acoustic. The one on the acoustic worked pretty well (and looked stunning) but the one on the five string ended up splitting with the string tension when it was tuned up. dunno what an elec guitar would be like though. I should imagine it would be ok anyway. I carved those ones from old piano keys.

would dish washing detergent not break up an oil based paint and cause it to mix with the water rather than floating on the top? dunno myself, jus wonderin. planning on doin a couple of swirls myself soon.

artists' masking fluid would be a good option, you might need a couple of jars though. I use it in a lot of my airbrush jobs and i think the stuff's great. it rubs off dead easy and doesnt leave any marks or residues. its also waterproof. Ive done a few arty things similar to dipping guitars, and it has never bled through. It generally costs between £4 - £5 (in britain anyway)

I am going to be building a neckthrough RG type guitar. I posted a thread a while back asking about the neck laminates, but I was wondering what the best type of truss rod would be. ive looked through a lot of the old threads and there doesnt really seem to be much facts...ie: most opinions seem to be personal preferences. I personally think that a double action would be too big, as the neck has to be as thin or preferably thinner than a wizard neck. That leaves a single action (which I prefer anyway) but Im wondering (yes Ive finally got to the point) whether to use a carbon one or a steel one. Do the different materials affect the tone of the guitar at all? for reference the neck was a rock maple - ebony - rock maple - paduak - rock maple - ebony - rock maple laminate neckthrough with basswood body wings.

iknow this isnt strictly a guitar question but it is related. i have a peavey 5150, but it keeps melting the solder on the pcb that the 6L6 power tubes plug into, then the whole thing blows. Does anyone have any idea why this might be? (could it be that I play a bass through it) The volume is rarely above 1 (its bloody loud) so the tubes dont get that hot. I emailed peavey, but they havent been much use. I was wondering if anyone knew how to test power valves with a multimeter to see if its them thats knackered.

Any help gratefully recieved, I miss my baby.......

I have read (and used) the tutorial on making headstock decals using acetate "plastic paper" but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on other ways of doing it. every time that I have used the method in the tutorial you can still see the edges of the acetate through the clearcoat. I found through trial and error btw, that instead of sticking the decal down with spray adhesive, if you spray some nitro down on the headstock, then, while it is still wet put the decal on and squeeze out the air bubbles, then spray lacquer over the top again, it works as well or better. Ill try and post a pic of one Ive just done (my scanner just broke, the day after I finally figured out how to post pics!) to show you what I mean about the edges. I am currently trying to price up the rub on decals that you get for model kits and so on, if they arent to pricey, ill just get some of those made.

cheers guys. With that guitar i didnt even bother sanding it down all that smooth, although i did cover the entire guitar with pictures I suppose, so i didnt really need to. The only thing I'd say about this method is going round edges, like the cutaway horns and going round the edges of the body the paper can crease cos it doesnt fit the curves properly if you know what I mean. Ive actually still got that guitar. I made a neck for it eventually, although it was a quickie build everything fitted into it quite tight and nice, as well as a crap guitar anyway like an encore or somethin never finished it though, went into a cupboard. like i said it was an experiment

hopefully there will be a pic attatched to this, ive been trying ever since i joined this forum, and havent managed yet, an ive been at it for an hour already trying to put this one on. anyway, for this guitar i cut out loads of pics from magazines and glued them to the body with normal kids PVA glue, then sprayed nitro straight over the top. I had no problems with ink running from the pics, or the glue dissolving etc. the only problem that i did have was the amount of nitro that i needed to get a smooth finish (about 6 or 7 half litre cans as i recall). PS please dont mock the body. i just threw it together from some scrap marine ply i had lying around specifically to try this finish. the neck, scratchplate etc were just lifted off a fender for the purposes of the photo.

ok, finally got it, but the quality of the image is bollocks but its better than nothing!

I live in a small fishing village in scotland, exotic woods are very hard to come by here, so i have never used them: therefore I am not sure what their tonal qualities are. hence the reason i joined this forum, and hence the reason i posted the question. I have mostly done guitar customisation, ie: artwork etc and havent done all that much guitar building (although I am an accomplished wood worker) I have done many pick-up upgrades, and therefore know quite well how they affect the sound of a given guitar. As I mentioned the woods were selected by the customer on a purely aesthetic basis, hence the reason I posted the question. My apologies if i sound like i am ranting, but my upstairs neighbour has been partying constantly for the past three days, i havent slept for more than 48hrs (Due to very loud jungle music pounding through the ceiling) and I am a little wired! Thank you however for the advice RGGR. I will look around for a different body wood, and suggest using the maple as a top.