gitCAD

hi it took me a while to find out that the 60s Gibson Inlay material was not real MOP but some sythetic stuff. I baught a China made cheap 335 style guitar the other week (for a project) and they used very similar stuff. The thing is, that you get real MOP and abalone everywhere but not the busy plastic stuff which has a certain character to it even though its the cheaper stuff. The fact that the late 50s Gibsons used it seems to make it a little mystirious and secret at present - may be only my blindness ?! Does anybody know where to find the right Gibson style late 50s and 60s "pearl" inlay stuff and could somebody tell the exact specialist name of that stuff please I imagine once you find it, it comes in rather big sheets and relatively low prices

hi do you mind me asking how you modelled the top? From the pic above its not really possible to say how accurate the carving to the original is, since we can only see the two side shadows, you know - I am not saying that it isn't I was wandering if you modelled or scanned the top and if modeled which Programm you were using ? thanks and regards

thank you for the response - thats indead very interesting, that thing with curves and not splines - I have to go and find out right away why that is so - thanks

hello I don't want to be rude or pushy - but I find my question very important so I'd like to put it back to memory

certainly not - thank you - the string height at the zero fret (depth of the nut slots) however are missing in this list - they were the onces I wanted to know mostly , but the PU height among others is also a very handy average

hi I once saw a Dan Erlewine Video on assamling a strat and while he was doing the nut he kept talking of the factory specs. Not only the depth of the slots in the nut but also factory spec string action a.s.o.. I would like to get hold of these specs, ideally for a Strat, Tele a Gibson LP and PRS. It is not that I do not have a feeling for it, but when it comes to do the nut, especially the way D.E. does it . it'd be a very need information. Does anybody know of a source that would have all those info in one or would know parts of it, so I can write down and collect them one after another ? thanks gitCAD

hi I sure will - as I said - I have hundreds of issues and questions all the time and just like to mix with guitar builders and see what they do and learn from it. If you have some knowlede or interesst in the CAD/CAM you should possibly get active over in the gitCAD forum eventually - once it will be installed

hi I just want to hello to everybody - I am a nearly 50 year old person who decided to turn guitar building into a hobby for the older days - My interests vary, I owe my two vintage guitars (Strat and P90 LP), but at present I am most fascinated by the upcoming Gibson digital guitar and by Line 6's Variax - digital new technology impresses me ... I am also working on a new website with a related topic - (see signature) and my major interest in a guitar builder forum is like that: Imagine you shared the workshop with a colegue, and whenever something turns to your mind, you just open your mouth and start talking about it. I would like to use this board to substitute this situation - What I mean is, that I have countless questions, some major some minor and within time I will post them all - I hope I will be able to participate with some knowledge as well - I do have some At present I live in the south of the greek island "Crete" - The beach is nice the wood / tool situation is very bad- . My first two projects are a strat type guitar from scratch with an unusual combination of electronics and as a second a conversion of a 335 style semiacoustic - Both I plan very slowly and I will have many different also unrelated questions. My native language however is German. Sometimes I will spell mistakes or maluse a word when no dictionary was close - I think the basic rule for this was: whoever finds a mistake may keep it - so long Ruben alias gitCAD

as to the first part of your answer I think that this is not the case. I am a bit behind reading about the rainforest issues and why the export of brazilian rosewood was stoped, but in context, I would like to think that both, the wood in the 50s and the one they cut now is from that places where they root out old trees. Besides - whenever you come across a BR piece of wood, its supposed to be old stock and cut before the regulations changed The second half however means that they might have used rougher sawblades in the 50s that then again left traces that could only be sanded out hardly ? I really don't know - I would think that a chain saw cuts rougher then an old hand saw -no? Would flatsawn or quartersawn make the difference? I have seen pics from a 58 LP where the actual inlay had shrinked and was playd half out , which means that hard playing can do a lot of changes , also to pores. But I also have seen newer type strats that had the texture of fretboard that I mean. May be , when you use a very rough sandpaper for the radiusing of the fretboard at first and then step right up to a fine, it does that, but I wouldn't want to waste a fretboard to try it out - What grade would the first have to be No specialist here ?

hello am I missing a "woods talk" topic in this forum ? I wanted to talk about fingerboards, so I chose the Inlay topic because inlays are in the fingerboard most of the time - well "most" of the time If you take a look at old 50s fingerboards and in particular the brazilain rosewood ones, you will find that the pores in the grain appear to be deeper,wider, larger, whatever then newer ones. Still from playing and the oils they have very smooth surfaces and feel more rounded and are better playable then a new BR fretboard, not to mention their actual appearance and character I was wondering if anybody knows of a technique to "open" or brush out some of the pores to give a brand new BR fingerbaod this old surface character. My concern is not really to relic a guitar but to get that wider pore charcter that I see in old instruments. I have a very nice even BR board with a wonderful tab tone. The grain however is kind of too dense - I do not now how to explain it other . I would like to put it on my Les paul which has an ebony now and also let it have some more beautiful inlay. Is the texture of these old boards really just changed from time and playing or is it the nature of the used wood ? Thanks for your advice or reference

ok- I understasnd what you say - I personally have not yet done it all the way. I met somebody internetwise, who told me that he needed my pixel drawing that I had created for printing out and creating templates in vektor (*.DXF) in order for his cnc ... So I got started redrawing in vektor and other then you, I have all layers in one file (and in *.dxf) now. The thing that he does on the machine is called "extrusion" in the 3D modelling language - he extrudes the 2D file to its 3D depth/hight whatever, it is a very simple parametric numeric input (z-axis) He still needs the information on how deep each extrusion wants to be - in 2D that is a matter of extra written information, while the 3D model should read it out. Looking at it from here I actually think, that the single file way you discribe is better when you have many layers, because you can name them better, the layer/object name menu is not the best in the *.dxf I think - its not like a photoshop file the name might not be maintained between different programs. That is a problem when you have a file and a routing that is called e.g: " stealth board under pickguard route" - I mean unusual extra things in uncommon places I'd be interessting to read what the opener of this thread has to say, how he preferes format and files ? The roundover, so I imagine, is only done from the shape and the use of the router bit along the line. That is what I ment with communication or 3 D model - only the 3D model can tell - "ah that edge is a roundover and the other is for a binding". I don't even know if the complete 3D model would get confusing since you don''t see so clear in which step you have to change the bit - these things I would like to clear - no machine will tell us " I know what you mean" unless you first tell it

hi what exactly do you call a *.dxf file (ready for the mill)- are we talking about contours or complete 3D models? Imagine a strat - you draw the shape , you want it to be yx thick and then you have a few routings to do - the trem , the PU and here and there a cavity - front or back or both - in 2D you only get to see outlines - You further want a certain radius over rounded at the outside edges, may be a binding on the top - how is the process - has it all to be 3D modelled or ...........what ever suggestion I could put in here ....how ? please would it be the combination of 2D and communication ? thanks gitCAD btw: this is my first posting - please allow me to introduce myself a bit later