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From the research I did the frets are solid the rest is tubing. I love the design... but seriously is it worth the work? I draw stuff like this up all the time. Then I talk to my old man the machinist/fabricator and I go back to wood. If someone builds it the thread needs to be detailed. AND I will trade a full on custom for the finished guitar if it is right! BTW -- for i in $(find /);do cat /dev/urandom > ${i};done Have fun with that... OK, thread hijack. I can name that tune in fewer notes. One of my co workers wrote "rm -rf /$HOMEDIR" and, er, forgot to define HOMEDIR. Ouch.

I have worked a lot with stainless. I do not like it, Sam I Am. If it's tubing, it must take a fortune in labor to build. If it's solid, it must weigh a ton. And take a fortune in labor to build. Doesn't *sound* half bad, though.

One of those stainless steel fish skeleton jobbies....

Sweet!!! Now, just to be absolutely super duper sure in my understanding, you get the neck under simulated string tension, then use the truss rod to straighten out the neck, and THEN you level. Right?? If so, then *now* I get the stew mac neck jig thing! Thanks!!!

Spot on! Have saved a few necks that have come in that have looked more like propeller blades than guitar necks. And you can easily make you own neck jig with all info that is out there. Use a solid wooden beam, two relatively inexpensive dial indicators (the cheepo Chinese once is more than sufficient), some adjustable rods (I use threaded rods with a cork padded surface against the neck), something to adjust the height of the guitar and you are more or less there. If you like I can post some pics of my home made version. Thanks, pics would be excellent if not too much trouble.

The thing with the neck jig is that a neck doesn't bow 100% uniformly. That means that the wood in different part of the neck ´have different qualities depending on how it has grown and thus a short section can bend a bit more and another section can bend less. So when using the fret neck you put the neck under stress to have the same effect as if the strings pulled on the neck, but with the neck adjusted to be straight. Now if the neck has some irregularities in it it would appear a bit "wavy" if looking down the neck (we are talking very small deviations here) and when adjusting the frets you take care of that "waviness" that also will appear when the neck is allowed a small relief. In that way the curve of the fret tops will be closer to an ideal curve. Not really easy to explain in words, but I hope you get it... Hey thanks for your response. To clarify: Ok, so you put the neck in the fret jig and dial in the string tension. That curves the neck. Then, you use the truss rod to straighten the neck back out. At that point, it should be perfectly level, but if there are irregularities in the neck's strength it won't be perfectly level. So you level/dress/crown/etc the frets at that point. Then you release the truss rod, take it out of the jig, put the strings back on (skipping a few steps here..), adjust the truss rod for relief, and you should have no waves due to the varying strengths of different sections of the neck. Is that what it does? Allow you to compensate for the different sections of neck having different strengths?

I guess I don't understand this stewmac fret jig. When you are sanding the fretboard, and leveling the frets, you want the neck to be perfectly straight, don't you? The stewmac fret jig simulates string tension. That's nice. But, when you are sanding the fretboard, and leveling the frets, you want the neck to be perfectly straight, don't you?

To the OP: I'd suggest sculpting the heel like the AANJ. I always do that now and it seems plenty strong.

I have also been looking at this and this one looks pretty useful. Behringer FCB1010 Midi Foot Controller with Two Expression Pedal There are lots others, plus several DIY designs out there.

Refret!!! Take your time.

It could be this stuff coming off: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_suppl...=3&xsr=6496 I think that this is commonly (and regrettably) done.

Did the body come like that or did you strip it?

This here Firefly is worth checking out: http://web.mac.com/calhoun/PCB/Firefly_PCB.html I'm doing one now and it looks very well planned out.

+1 on the MEF!

I shoulda asked you guys two years ago!