dpm99

You might look into a kit. Get a new body and a new neck. Then take the electronics out and put them in your new guitar. Painting/finishing would be a lot of work, but maybe your dad could help you. Search ebay for "les paul kit" and similar.

If you were talking about putting a Fender neck on a Squier guitar, it would be much easier. Epiphone/Gibson necks are glued in place. It would be a very difficult project.

Shielded wire should be grounded at both ends, otherwise it acts less as a shield and more as an antenna. It's not difficult to demonstrate that connecting the shield at both ends results in better noise rejection than connecting it at only one end. The practice comes from the lazy way to solve a ground loop; this was picked up on by some of the less scrupulous cable manufacturers and sold as a virtue (pretty much anything used to sell cables is nonsense ).

Connect it at both ends. Ideally there should be a central point for all those grounds to come back to - either the output jack or a star point.

Sporky, could you clarify that a little? According to my understanding, it's supposed to function like an antenna. That's how it shields. It gathers the ambient 60 cycle hoobledeegooblee in the air and sends it to the ground. I'm not an electrician, but that's always worked for me. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything to connect it at both ends, of course.

Here's the basic principle. Everything wants to go to ground. If you touch a ground wire to any line, the signal will immediately go to ground. (That's how most kill switches work, by the way.) A shielded wire is really two wires. The wire on the inside carries a signal. The shielding acts as a second wire, and it connects to the ground. That's how shielding works. If any stray interference is in the vicinity of the wire, it will connect with the shielding and get sent immediately to ground, before it ever has a chance to interfere with the signal line.

A pickup selector switch deals only with the signal line. It's not typically shielded or grounded, though some might argue that shielding would be helpful.

All grounds must connect to the ground on the output jack. Otherwise, they're not grounded. The ground is carried through the output jack, through the cable, through the amp/pedals/whatever, then sent to the electrical ground in the plug.

I'm not sure I entirely understand the question, but I hope that helps.

Prompted by this thread I tried on of my upright bass piezo setups, installing under a Fender style bass bridge. It worked fine but still sounded pretty much like an electric bass. There was some attenuation of the highs but otherwise no big idfference.

Wait... I'm sorry. You hollowed out a spot underneath the bridge on a solid body electric bass and affixed a piezo to the bottom of the bridge? I've heard of people doing stuff like that before.

You say it sounded like an electric bass. Did it sound good?

Ok, I didn't vote for pan kara, but I did want to say that's a freakin' amazing first build! Well done, sir.

This was an excellent month.

It is gonna be an Explorer-type? It sounds like you're trying to build something to stand in the place of an acoustic guitar. Am I right?

There are many, many cheaper options. I'm sure that bridge you linked to is fine. I'm of the opinion that with these piezo bridges, it's more about how the sound is processed than how the sound is originated, but that may just be me. If you need a lo-pro solution, here's one:

http://www.guitarfuel.com/Acoustic_Preamp.php

I have one of these in a drawer waiting to be installed, so I can't give a real review, but other products I've ordered from that company have been great.

Just a thought here.

It sounds like you plan to replace everything on the guitar except the body, and even that you want to sand down and refinish. And it might just be poplar anyway.

Building that kind of body isn't that difficult. The neck is much more difficult that the body, in most cases. So why not just buy some wood and build a whole new guitar? Then you'll have two.

Otherwise, go forth and conquer.

It's hard to get information on this topic, but it boils down to this. You're going to at least need a piezo buffer if you want to blend in magnetic pickups. A preamp is better, and you're unlikely to get the sound you want without a preamp. For the piezo pickup itself, you can get those piezo saddles, and I think they're pretty good. But I think it was Pete that several years ago took the element out of a Radio Shack piezo buzzer and stuck it on the tremolo block of a Strat. Supposedly, the results were pretty good.

I have bench envy.

Also, welcome to the forum!

Point taken. That's a pretty great piece of wood. I was just pointing out that you're never going to see perfectly straight lines either on the end grain or along the length of the board. It's turned into a pretty nice neck too. Almost done.

This is about as close as I typically find in the local hardwood store. I used this without laminating. That piece of Bocote cost me about twenty dollars.

That's an excellent question. I used to wonder a lot about species. A good place to start is here:

http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Necks/NeckWoodsPop.aspx

Anything Warmoth uses is probably gonna be ok. But then you have to pick the right piece. The trick is to get something with straight grain and no defects. Even a small knot can ruin a neck. You have to look carefully. Ideally you want something quartersawn or flatsawn. If you don't know what those terms are, Google them. In short, you want the end grain to be as close to perfectly vertical (quartersawn) or horizontal (flatsawn) as possible. If you find a piece of wood that really, really great, but it's slightly riftsawn, you can always rip it down the middle, flip it over, and glue it back together, so you have the endgrain in a \\\V/// pattern.

If you can find something the right size and shape, you might be able to get something as exotic as an East Indian Rosewood neck blank for around $20. Domestics will, of course, be cheaper.

Buying local is best if you know what to look for.

This looks just like a jig I built to make radius blocks, except with mine, the router goes in the swing and the workpiece goes in the bed.

You are correct. It works. To do it, just take the wires that would be going to the switch and bring them together into one line where the switch would be.

I'm sure this is an obvious choice, but you've tried Timbermate, right?

There's much to be praised here. I love that trick with the surgical tubing though. I'm gonna use that.

If you use dewaxed shellac, you shouldn't have a problem. Zinsser makes a dewaxed shellac they sell everywhere. Even Home Depot has it.

That is quite the handsome paint job on that Anv edition...man that would look good in my garage.Wish I could afford one right now

Yeah, and I can't imagine you'll ever see a better deal on a quality, brand new 14" bandsaw.

No need for that! Just take it out and measure the tuner post. You'll pay a ton at a store. Another thing you could do is order those tuners from Ebay and just take the buttons off the tuners and install them to your current ones.

Incidentally, allow me to offer two more recommendations. Here's the first one.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Guide-Band-Saw/dp/1565233182

That's a great book, with several chapters on how to select a bandsaw to fit your needs. SPOILER! He's gonna say the Jet and Grizzly are pretty much the same machine.

Also, Grizzly has their anniversary edition of the G0555 on sale for $445. That's insanely cheap.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/14-Deluxe-Bandsaw-Anniversary-Edition/G0555LANV

The thing you have to be concerned about is the size of the tuner holes. Those tuners fit 5/16" diameter holes. If the ones you have are the sames, it'll work. You may have to drill some holes for screws on the back, but you can do that. Just use the correct size bit and take your time.

One more thing. Tuners are one of those things where there can be a significant difference between good ones and bad ones. Bad ones don't hold tune as well. Whether the ones you linked are good or bad, who can say? They're a simple open backed design that should work if the holes are the right size.

Just search Google for tuner buttons. You may have to replace all six, and it's possible you might spend as much as you would on upgrading the tuners with a set from guitarfetish.com.