Batfink

I just need some warmer weather now so I can actually do some spraying

What are you spraying that needs to be warmer than it is now ?

That wouldn't be caused by fingerboard shrinkage - that would force the inlays to pop up or out completely. I'm with Cliff, it looks like it's been sunbathing and again i'd concur......pull 'em out and replace 'em.

Yes it would be, Fender did Tele's in rosewood. I think your biggest problem will be finding stock large enough......oh, and it won't be cheap !

Well, you could never accuse the Japanese of not thinking out of the box - the main question is though, what were these people thinking

Nice score Wez, i'll have to trail that around a few people i know - should upset one or two of the purist's !

Masecraft are, or were, listed under the PG supplier section.

They are well known worldwide (i know the British Museum use them) for their synthetic alternatives to horn, tortoiseshell and ivory as well as thier recon stone. Are you sure the rods in your posted picture are animal horn, looks mighty like substitute as oppossed to natural horn to me and yes, it does smell as it's based on milk protein apparently - well, that's what they told me anyway.

Gotoh make two versions - one for rear bolts and one for top screws.

All later Schaller's can be bolted from the back or screwed from the front.

Personally i always screw from the front after seeing too many broken headstocks in the 80's and 90's.

I don't think the guys a crook - just totally disorganised. One positive is it seems most people who manage to get hold of one of his bridges...eventually...recon it's the best bridge of it's type.

Metalhead - i wasn't implying you'd been hassling him, sorry i perhaps didn't word it very well. What i was implying is that he has a reputation for being somewhat late in his deliveries and short in his customer service 10 seconds on google confirmed that) so he's probably got more than a few individuals and probably one or two companies chasing him so he locks down even more.

Over the past twenty years in my day work i have dealt with a number of small scale racing car manufacturers and small scale precision engineering companies and to be honest probably half of them were just the same - inspired and intelligent people who were just so wrapped up in what they were doing the outside world didn't seem to even exist let alone matter - so perhaps i'm more used to dealing with such people.

Seriously, there is no indication whatsoever that this company actually makes these parts.

What, there's tons of info on Mannmade bridges, quite apart from the PRS tie up. It's also well documented that he is a one man band (no pun intended) and that his delivery dates are slow but well worth the wait.

Remember he's the same as any one man operation - the more time he spends answering people chasing him every 5 minete's the less time he has to get on with making what you want.

Allparts are (allegedly) the UK Hipshot importers so they should be able to get you what you want - you'll just have to wait for them to deliver and pay through the nose for the privilege !

That's not what i'd call cheap seeing that half the stuff is really too small to be easily usable and probably 50% of the remaining stuff would be destined for the bin due to knots, shakes, splits etc. I mean, £110 from a reputable timber merchant would get you a plank big enough for 2/3/4 bodies and 4/5/6 necks depening on construction.

I've got a Jet 10-20 and can't fault it - although i'd perhaps have gone for the 16-32 if i had more room.

Or you could just push a normal roll through a bandsaw.

An ideal way to lose a finger, gunk up a blade and not get a result

I'm the same as Cliff. Standard teeth down Gold Shark 2/0's with some 3/0 for laminates and recon stone.

If it's english sycamore yes because it's almost the same as maple. This is why there is all this confusion between maple and sycamore because they are pretty much the same thing.

Yep old thread indeed but, to put you right, the confusion is because what American's call Sycamore is a completely different species of tree to what we call Sycamore.

And the Wilkinson's are brittle, i had one crack on me without the slightest provication......never again.

Would a 15mm string spacing be that bad to play?

Yes, and especially with 8 strings. The fretboard would be huge by the time you got to the heel end - like 4" accross or something.

It might just be worth taking in mind that by the time you've stuck it on and buried the pearl in clear you may be adding another 2-3mm to the front of the guitar which may, or may not, give rise to some playing issue's....just a thought.

A picture of what you're after may help - do you mean like a Zemaitis pearl front finish ?

If they're gold pearl i'd inlay as flush as possible as there's always the chance that you'll sand through the gold level down to the white'ish below.

Using another 3 way is plan B, it'd just be nice to get one like the original.

I'm looking to do a guitar with the original Steve Stevens wiring which was:

H/S/S with a three way toggle switching between bridge and middle in a normal way (bridge - both - middle) and a two way toggle that brought in the neck in any position. Obviously i can find little DPDT switch's that are used for coil cutting etc but i can't seem to find anyone who sell's a full size toggle switch which has just two positions.

Anyone got a line on such a thing ?

Errr...if i'm not mistaken that's a sound-to-light circuit. They normally work on a microphone, i'm really not sure that taking a direct output from the guitar and feeding it into the circuit would work...perhaps Pete has some idea, he's a bit of an electronics whizz.

As for LED's in a neck....side or front ? Anyway, if you want the battery to last as long as possible and all the lights to be the same intensity when the battery runs down you'll need a resistor for each one, or one per pair at least and they'll need to be run in parrallel not series.

Just as a point i'd say gigging with a guitar which runs sound to light would be a nightmare and probably give you a headache. If it's just for fun i'd say use a simple chaser unit that you should be able to find as a kit in whatever your countries major high street electronics retailer. It'll be a lot smaller and easier to install.

If you want to go the fibre optic way as suggested by Ripthorn here's an easy place to start:

Fibre optic thingy

As usual when this topic rears it's head - the question is: why ?

6100 isn't that outrageous, i've used it as standard in most of my builds as it's what i'm used to being a collector of 80's Hamer shredders. Saying this i've now moved onto 6000 as Hamer used on it's Californian's and this really is big boys gear and makes 6100 look like F*nder vintage stuff by comparison.