Galaga_Mike

I've built 7-8 guitars and am starting to question my fretboard process. Curious to hear what other people do. I typically: 1. Cut fretslots a bit deeper than needed to account for radiusing 2. Do the inlay 3. Glue fretboard to neck 4. Radius the fretboard 4.5 (uplanned) Re-deepen the edges of the fretslots, maybe re-deepen some of the inlay pockets near the edge of the neck 5. Install frets The problem is that 4.5 step where I often have to re-deepen fretslots and some inlay pockets. Thinking about radiusing before fretslots and inlay, but I like the nice flat surface for working on inlays and for fretslotting. What do you guys do?

After building 4-5 guitars I decided to take the time to rebuild a few of my jigs. Just wanted to share this flattening jig. The rails are stacked mdf held down by bolts so I can change the rail height. Everything is based on 1/2 inch conduit and 1/4-20 bolts. I used tee nuts for a grid of hold down points. I'll also be mounting radiused guides on the short end so it will double as a fretboard radius jig (which was the whole original motivation).

I have a 1960's Kay acoustic that has been through the ringer. I need to refret the whole thing but the original fret slots are really wide. I know that stew mac has the fret crimp tool, but I'd rather fill the slots and reslot if possible. I think the Hissock book suggested filling the slot with veneer. Has anyone done this? Do i just go buy rosewood veneer, wood glue it in, sand it flush, and reslot? Any words of wisdom from someone who has done this? thanks in advance.

Building my 5th or 6th guitar, and I have the truss slot cut on my neck ready to glue on the fret board. I happened to put the neck board down on my tablesaw and noticed that there is a twist. One corner of the wood is lifted by about 1/4"-3/8". I don't have a very good planer, so should I: A. Ignore the twist. It's small enough that it won't matter. B. Try to twist it straight (I clamped it to the flat table overnight while I think about options). C. Plane it straight with my router sled setup. Not sure how accurate this will be. D. Trash it, cut my losses, and get a straight piece of wood. FYI, it's a bolt on neck so I could recover later, but I don't want to invest time fretting and shaping the neck if it's going to be worthless. Thanks in advance for the advice.

It's a solid mahogany back, no cap. I definitely borrowed the method from someone on here. Just route a cavity in the mahogany from the top until the remaining wood is the desired cover thickness. Then drill a small hole and feed through anthin scroll saw blade. Cut out the cover, then install a lip to catch the cover and embed magnets on the cover and lip. Hope that made sense. I actually find this method faster than trying to make a perfect fitting cover from other wood. Thin blade scroll saw is the key. The back wood is not bookmatched at all, just got a little lucky with the grains.

This was my 5th build. Nearly identical to my 4th build other than this one being a hardtail. I did this one as a 40th birthday present for my brother. He was excited to get it. I enjoyed doing this one because I did it in 6 weeks, which is pretty fast since I only have an hour or two a day for building. It was especially fun since this was the first time I repeated a build, so that: 1) I had all the templates and didn't spend all my time making new jigs. 2) I could redo some small mistakes I made on the first one. Overall, a good experience. My finishing has a long way to go. Here are the specs: Maple top Chambered mahogony body Set neck Rosewood fretboard with zero fret Locking tuners, roller bridge Grain matched cavity cover (same piece of wood) with magnets Alnico V Humbuckers (tried some cheapo Belcats on this one, not a big fan, will probably swap them out) Tru-oil finish

Very, very clean. The glue was 60 years old and ready to come off. Only took a little bit of heat and a scraper.

A quick photo for posterity. I removed the frozen rod, routed the channel slightly wider, put a shim in to make it shallower, and now the new rod fits in very nicely.

So I'm an electric builder that's trying to build up my acoustic skills. To do this I'm doing a neck reset and a refret on a 1960's Kay jumbo that I love. While I have the fretboard off for the neck reset, I was considering pulling out the original truss rod and replacing it with a newer two-way rod (like the ones stew-mac sells). I've used those in electrics and they work great. The original truss rod nut is close to stripped, I don't trust it, and it would be nice to have two way adjustment in case I need it. I will probably need to widen the channel slightly, but this seems like an easy retrofit. Is there any reason this is a bad idea? Thanks in advance.

Finished this build this weekend!!! I may thin out the neck slightly in the future, but that won't change the photos, so you guys can consider this one done. Overall I am really pleased with this one. Good things I learned: - Attention to detail is by far the most important thing in the quality of a guitar - Take your time - I like zero frets - I like roller bridges Lessons learned: - Plan your neck taper, not just your width at the neck. I can't believe I missed this one. Still not 100% pleased with the fix, I may work on it more if/when I slim up the neck. - I will probably fine sand/oil the fretboard before fretting in the future. This fretboard looks a little rough for my taste. Overall, no major mistakes, thanks to all the help on the forum and the countless In Progress threads that detailed all the jigs and processes.

Finished the Tru Oil process and wired it up yesterday. Plays like a dream. Completed pictures coming soon. I'm still considering shaving the neck a little more since it is slightly thick, but I'll play it for a week or so before I decide. Pictures to follow. It was nice to do some simple wiring since my last guitar was ridiculously complicated (sustainer, kill switch, coil taps, etc.). This one is just two volume pots with a push/pull coil tap for each pickup and a selector switch.

Oh, and to answer your other question: At least for a kill switch, the switch isn't carrying your guitar signal when it's not being used, so there is no tone impact. If you use it for coil tapping or anything else, it will be carrying the guitar signal and may affect tone (but I seriously, seriously doubt it).

There are two switch properties that aren't necessarily related to each other. The contacts: A SPST switch has two terminals and just connects those terminals when activated. A DPDT switch has three terminals and connects the C terminal to either the NO or NC terminal when activated. The actuator: Momentary - Only activated when pushed, deactivates when you let go Maintained - Activated when you push it, stays activated until you push it again. The arcade button I used was DPDT (3 terminals) but Momentary (deactivates when you let go). I've never seen a maintained arcade button, but maybe you're looking at one I'm not familiar with. I'll try to either draw out or explain better the kill switch schematics when I get some time.

I used one of these on a recent build. The biggest challenge was depth, make sure it fits in the body. They are momentary switches, so they only close the contacts when the button is pressed, which doesn't make them useful for any real on/off or coil tap uses, but they are great for kill switches. For "press the button to kill the signal", just do OutputJackHotLead -> Switch (C&NO Contacts) -> Ground I prefer to wire it in series with a toggle switch so that you toggle the switch to enable the kill button then you "press the button to make noise (let go and the signal dies)", just do OutputJackHotLead -> ToggleSwitch -> Switch (C&NC Contacts) -> Ground I like that second configuration because it's much easier for me to press a button on a beat than to release a button on a beat, and you can do some cool effects. Hope that helps.

Same here. Works on IPad but no luck in Windows.

Quick update. I ended up getting some good advice over in the Solid Body Chat forum and I belt sanded the neck to a slimmer taper. After that I have just been sanding for a few hours to go through 80, 220, and 320 grits. I then wet the guitar to raise the grain and resanded to 320. Today I put on Timbermate to seal the mahogany grain. I'm planning on starting the Tru-oil finish in a couple of days.

For future reference, here's what I ended up doing: I had nightmares of a router bit grabbing a fret end, so I went with a handheld belt sander. First I marked off the taper I wanted with tape: VERY carefully clamped the guitar and slowly used the handheld belt sander to bring the fretboard edge to the tape line. This was really controllable and went pretty quickly. The only drawback is that I can't get all the way down the neck due to the horns. I'm sure some type of industrial or benchtop belt sander would have allowed this. Anyway, this worked well. I recommend only sanding so that the paper pulls the frets down. Then I used a file to clean up the transition from thin board to wider board. It is much less noticeable without the tape lines to guide your eyes towards the taper. All in all, I'm glad I did this. The guitar plays much better and I can easily wrap my thumb around to the low E now. As clean up work, I need to: 1. Resand/file the back of the neck a little. 2. Rebevel the frets and polish the ends. 3. Replace three side fret markers that I sanded completely through.

That's right, the bridge spacing is great, so changing the nut won't make much difference. My plan was to taper the neck up to the 20th fret and leave the wider fretboard on the last two frets, but I like your idea of removing just the fretboard part at the body. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the input!

Is there any hope that a router bit could eat through frets? That sounds kind of dangerous. I was just thinking of a couple of long hours with a file. Then I would use a round file to shape the "swoop" near the heel.

Agreed. It would go from a thinner neck down to about the 20th fret, then "swoop" out to a wider fretboard for the last two frets. I think it would look really strange, but it would make the guitar play so much better.

I thought about that, and that would fix the nut end, but the bridge end is too narrow as well. To fix the bridge end I would need to remake a bridge base so that the posts stay the same but the saddles spread out. That seems more difficult than filing down some wood and frets.

This is a repost from my question in In Progress section, but it might be more appropriate and helpful over here. I have an issue with my build: The neck is slightly too big and about 1/16" too wide on each side. I'm sure that I can just thin the neck out from the back, but can I use a file to retaper the neck at this point? As you can see, the extra space on either side of the E strings is pretty constant down the neck, and it's just too much. If I could just shave some off the edges of the neck this guitar would be a dream. If I do that I need to figure out how to transition from a skinnier neck to a thicker neck at heel. Is it possible to retaper a fretted, set neck?

First string up! First impressions: plays better than any guitar I've ever owned. Action and fret buzz were fantastic with no adjustments. Love it. Now the one issue I have: The neck is slightly too big and about 1/16" too wide on each side. I'm sure that I can just thin the neck out from the back, but can I use a file to retaper the neck at this point? As you can see, the extra space on either side of the E strings is pretty constant down the neck, and it's just too much. If I could just shave some off the edges of the neck this guitar would be a dream. If I do that I need to figure out how to transition from a skinnier neck to a thicker neck at heel. Is it possible to retaper a fretted, set neck?

And routing out pickup cavities.

I ended up having a happy medium by just recessing the posts instead of the whole bridge. This gave me the extra 4-5 mm margin I wanted and I think it looks really nice, too.