ShadesOfGrey

from what I've been told, cherry is a good wood. Walnut is too stiff for a tonewood, I wouldnt use it exept as a top or maybe fretboard is you feel adventurous.

Elm, I'm not sure about. But I think I have heard mention of it of instruments built out of it? Can't realy say.

A naturally finished cherry body with a mahagony neck and walnut fretboard sounds like a project I want to do though

I'll remember that 'pre-glue layer' thing btw. It seems like a very cool tip of the trade

3. Bamboo splinters f'ing hurt!

Not to mention they tend to infect. A lot.

A week or so ago I found some mention of companies selling / exporting bamboo plywood. Maybe that's an option?

You sure don't sound like a 60 year old man.

Would it help if he told you to get off his lawn?

If you have acces to a laserprinter, I believe that the printing is resistant to the thinner in finish.

For inkjet, they some places sell a 'sealer' type of spray you put on top of it so you can protect the ink.

In any case, you obviously should do a tester first before you do the actual job.

You might want to checkout Gimp, its a very good full featured open source Photoshop like program. http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/

Was going to suggest that too, but it appeared to me the OP already had photoshop so..

But yeah, I designed a logo a couple of months back on paper, drew it fullsize then scanned it in, then in gimp I made a layer on top of that to trace and tweaked / cleaned it up.

Designing stuff like that from scratch is possible with programs, but when going for something that isnt sharp angled / somewhat geometric but rather more organic or curvy I find doing it by hand first is just more intuitive or faster.

Annyway, good luck to your project

I am trying to come up with designs for a headstock logo to make waterslides, I was wondering if anybody could recommend a program/software for the pc that is fairly easy to use. I tried paintshop but i cant get text to come out on it smoothly, has very wavy lines aroung edges of text. Also, i dont want to spend a crap load of money either. Thx

What is your method? There are a lot of different ways you can go in photoshop (or simmilar progs) to make text.

You might want to try drawing the design rougly on paper first, scan it in and clean it up in photoshop instead. I find programs like that not realy conductive to designing unless I already have something to work with.

Alternativly, you could try a cad program. There are loads of free opensource cad software to use, I use freecad. Look it up on sourceforge.net. Cad isnt realy that easy to learn, but it might be worthwile if you plan on doing your own guitar designs.

Could you maybe post what you have?

That's a somewhat oddball inventory. Some decent stuff in there, but opened glue? Plectrums?

It kinda depends on how you want to sell it.. garage sale? Ebay/craigslist?

If you sell the soldering iron together with the solder & flux, you could get about 10-15 bucks for it. Depends on brand and condition I guess.

The tuner & metronome, I guess about 5 bucks each if your lucky.

The hardware, like the chinese strat set, humbuckers (generic brand?) and the locking tuners.. you could sell together too. If the humbuckers are any good, I think you can get about 15-20 for that. If the humbuckers are any good, you could go for much more but cheap generico second hand hb's... well, not much.

The instrument cables might go easily, but price depends on brand & length.

Guitarbuilding supplies like the fretwire, neckplates, inlays, shielding tape, etc. It kinda depends on how much of the material you have, I dont think anybody would buy stuff like that unless it's a really good deal. Or sell it toghether with the luthery tools.

If you sell the whole lot in one, I agree with soapbar. About 200 bucks seems right. It's not so much a question of how much it's worth but rather that a lot of that stuff isnt realy stuff people go looking for when browsing second hand.

But I wish you good luck nonetheless. I hope your not having financial troubles.

Simple. Mechanical stability is more important than cosmetics. If the first one is satisfied, then you can do far more with the second. Some woods look far better on the flat.

Cosmetics isnt really the priority for me if I have to use flatsawn.

Laminating the neck.. hmm, I kinda took it for granted you would do that.

But maybe it's because every kinda of book or tutorial or work-in-progress on the topic I've seen involves laminating, so it kinda automaticaly figures in the mental building plan.

I have a few planks of maple and wenge for laminates laying around, and also a paduak and rosewood fretboard blanks that are quite wider than needed and might be cool if enough of it remains after sawing to laminate the neck with.

Also, Wezv mentions carbon fibre reinforcement.. do you mean like a trusrod, or something else?

Not so short version.

I got the bug to build a couple of particular guitar shapes.

In a stroke of sanity, I decided it would be best to three step it.

1) Rebuild the electronics in a "junker" - If I can't follow through or get the sound right, I have no business building a full on custom. And should be cheaper by a bit.

2) Build a kit guitar of some type. Same reasoning as 1.

3) Build the thing(s) in my head all from scratch.

Having conquered 1 it has occurred to me that there's no reason I can't merge steps 2 and 3 by having someone else do the body and neck - at least for the first of the two ideas in my head.

Hmm, I'm not very experienced, have yet to finish even a 'from scratch build', but I think you can safely skip step 1. That might just be me, but electronics stuff is pretty routine.

I guess most learn that replacing their pickups and the likes. For me, it's something like changing strings or cleaning the fretboard. Not really building, more of a maintenance thing.

But if you never did even that, I guess I understand you want to ease your way in rather than jump directly into the deep end of the pool. I kinda feel exactly like you do then.

If you plan on doing a kit build, installing the electronics comes with it.

If it were me, I'd say the steps would be:

1) Kit build (make sure it's unfinished so you can experience finishing in all it's gritty details.)

2) Semi-scratch build: Buy a second hand or replacement neck and build a body around that.

3) Complete from scratch build.

And kinda related, I want to shield the cavities. I have a big roll of aluminium shielding tape, but I dont think it has staying power on top of the oil finish. In reverse, I dont think the oil will stick on top of the tape. So I guess I need to find something like copper paint and leave the cavities oil free?

Just leave the cavities unfinished, then you don't have to worry about whether the tape will stick or not.

That's a possibility, but unfinished means less stable because more moisture can move in&out right?

But yeah, an aquantance of mine told me he finishes using 'Rustins Plastic Coating'. Is that stuff any good for finishing bare wood on guitars? I might try that instead and only oil the neck, but I tend to stick with what I know so..

How important is having your neckwood quartersawn?

I guess it's pretty important for say mahagony, but can I cope with slabsawn maple for example?

Reason I'm asking this is that there is a nice local lumber supplier here that has decent prices and good service. Their inventory is mostly is more of a genera purposes / construction types of wood, altough they carry a few woodtypes suitable as tonewood. Mahagony, Maple, Cherry, Red Cedar etc. However, I dont think they have any of that in a quartersawn.

My other option would be to go to another shop I know. It's a more exclusive lumbershop that sells just about any type of wood relevant to instrument building or , have a lot of figured woods, quartersawn stuff etc.

Problem is that they overcharge heavily, even the standard lumber. The service is pretty bad, the location is very difficult to get there and a lot of their wood of in so-so condition even though you pay premium prices for it. The only reason they get away with it is the fact that they have only one competitor in the whole country, and it is literaly on the other side of the country.

And the other option I like even less, buying wood from the internet. I at least want to see & test the lumber before I buy it.

So that brings me back to my question. I dont think slab sawn mahagony is going to be that great for a neck, but maple is pretty hard even slab sawn. So will that be stable enough, or do I realy, *realy* want quartersawn enough to go that the expensive shop or order from the internet?

I've buried waterslides under True Oil just fine. As was mentioned, TO will build a film thickness and cam be lightly wet sanded and leveled.

If your set on a simple Danish oil, you might re think the logo, lots of cool things you can do other than waterslide or decals. Engraved, inlayed, laser etched. use a branding iron, molded, cast, metal. plastic, colored epoxy ......

I've contemplated branding too. I have a heatgun laying around that I could use to warm up a branding iron.

Thing is, I dont want to do something too involving as the reason I'm going for an oil finish is that it's going to be my first from scratch build.

I'm not dead set on using danish over thru though.. it's just what is available. I'm not realy sure where I can find an importer for that here.

I dont mind visible pores, more a case of economics.. I'd rather not have bucketloads of oil getting sucked into the huge mahagony pores. I was wondering if this works the same as laquer, or that oil penetrates a bit but is less 'fluid' in a way.

Once the oil has cured, a vinyl decal will stick fine to either.

So you put the finish *under* the decal? I thought it was the other way around

A waterslide wouldn't be very longlasting without finish on top, and a vinyl decal wont look very good. But if that is the only way without resolving to laquer

They look nice!

I'm not really a fan of the style of the painting (not my cup of tea), but I can see they are very intricate and unique

Gives a kind of south-american / aztec vibe.

I have a question though.. seeing the Epiphone logo on the bottom guitar, I guess you didnt build them yourself?

So, I was wondering.. did you refinish the guitars? Or did it 'on top' of the old ones?

I'm in the planning stages for my next project, which will be the first from scratch build I will be attempting.

Due to the hassle and problems I had with a block spray finish on my kit build, I'm thinking about just doing a natural finish by oil.

One challenge at a time, right?

But there's some things I need some clarification on..

The build will most likely be a mahagony body, and the oil will be danish oil (as I have a nearly full bottle lying around).

Will I need filler or sealer for the mahagony? Or will the oil act as filler in itself?

Secondly, I want to have a headstock decal of my own design.

Most methods seem to be either a vinyl sticker or waterslide, but I'm not sure if the oil finish will work with that as I've been told that the oild needs to make contact with the wood or would otherwise flake off. Does anyone have experiences with decals + oil finish or suggestions?

And kinda related, I want to shield the cavities. I have a big roll of aluminium shielding tape, but I dont think it has staying power on top of the oil finish. In reverse, I dont think the oil will stick on top of the tape. So I guess I need to find something like copper paint and leave the cavities oil free?

I cant think of anything else right now, but if anyone has input / suggestions / tips / issues / things to look out for when doing a whole guitar in oil vs. only the neck, I would be very gratefull

Well, you could do it this way..

1 Neck

2 Neck w/ coiltap

3 Neck & Bridge

4 Bridge w/ coiltap

5 Bridge

Dunno if that is 'keeping the contactpoints exactly the same' tho..

imo, if you have properly shielded the guitar and grounded the rest of the electronics, grounding the bridge / strings isnt that important.. especialy so if you have hum canceling pickups.

In any case, it is much safer for the player to not be part of an electronic circuit

There is no finish on. The kid i got it from was a dumbass. He scraped all the paint off. Thats also how it broke, I somehow "scraped" the wires off. And the neck is really warped. I'm willing to spend lots of work to make it nice though.

Any idea what wood the body is?

I just bought a guitar kit. The top is a flame but the whole guitar is already sealed. Will the wood dye work on this if it is already sealed? I thought I read that some like to seal it first. I don't understand how it'll seap???

I'll take a guess it's a maple top with a mahagony body underneath?

And is it a bona-fide maple top, or just a thin cosmetic veneer? Most kits and cheaper guitars tend to have just a veneer, though I have seen a few kits with real figured tops too so it's possible.

Also, what do you plan on putting on top of the dye? Oil finish? NitroCellulose?

Wow, that body looks pretty beat up. Still, $5 is a steal.

I cant realy tell, but is there any kind of finish on it?

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions. I took another look at it tonight, and realized that the capacitor leg connected to the tone pot tab was also brushing against the back of the pot-- just as had been suggested above. I repaired this, and the tone control now appears to be working.

However, one thing I'm noticing is that there is a distortion type sound in the background whenever I play, maybe at about 10-20% of the note volume. It disappears when not playing, and doesn't appear affected by whether I'm touching the strings or not. Any suggestions on cause of that?

Do you maybe have a high output pickup or the height is maybe very near the strings?

What do you use to plug your guitar in? I have noticed that for example computers and a few multi-fx dont like high output signals.

Dont think it's that, but it could happen.

Or maybe theres some microphonics in the pickup?

Its a Fender Jazz bass guitar and a pass pickup.

I just bought it from a kid for $5.

I have no idea what the stuff does, so thats why im on the forum.

So it *is* a bass guitar. I was getting confused by the weird pickguard & pickup combo.

But.. did you pay $5 for the bass or the pickup?

thats a pic of a dimarzio model one - but the ones i have seen had a black 4 conducter wire coming from the pickup rather than a braided wire

Can't say I'm knowledgable on Dimarzio's pickups, and no idea how old the specific model is. I've seen a lot different pickups where if the model was older, some newer of that model were slightly different than older ones. Different forms of shield wire like this example, different plastic of the coil 'housing', sometimes serial / model number is punched into the baseplate and sometimes on a sticker. Cant expect a production process to remain unchanged for decades I guess.

And the shielding looks weird btw.. why do a small area of the pickguard under the pots but leave the switch uncovered? If they didnt even do the whole pickguard, I can gamble the cavity itself is not shielded either

That pickup looks..odd.. Is that a bass pickup or something? Or a weird cover?

And is that also the only pickup in the guitar? If so, what is the switch for.. coil tap?

Switches are.. one volume and one tone?

Or here is another roughly similar analogy: think of the power section of an amp as a closed loop piping system connected to one side of a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is the interface between the guitar and the amp, we'll call it the preamp. The other side of the heat exchanger is connected to the open loop pumping system, the guitar. If the heat exchanger were to fail because it ruptured internally, then the two flows would mix and both systems would then be experiencing a massive failure.

Does that make sense?

Actualy, yes that makes sense. Good analogy, thanks

But I always figured the ground of the guitar wasn't just ground but also doubled as a sorts of return to make a loop? I've always been taught that current doesnt just happen, it's the flow that matters and that is why you have loops. If you break the ground, the circuit is also broken. Or am I missing how the amplifier figures in the equation? Does the amp supply ther pole to the guitars pickup or something?

Or does it work with a more static charge differential from the pickup?

I'm a bit ignorant on the subject I guess, but I'm genuinly intrested.