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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!

I thought about making a sarcastic suggestion of a bright lime green! That proves it: Great minds think alike. And so do we. You may be referring to Avocado Green.

Good enough then. The quality of the rest of the woodworking and the fit on from the top seemed to indicate something else was going on, but I was still wondering. Just looked odd. All in all, it's kind of a weird project, but you pulled it off really well. Looks very nice. Love white finishes too. True on the wierd. Will update when final pics are ready.

We were drifting towards a green swirl on black, like those Ibanez's.

agreed % The joint is very tight. The filler is there mainly to smooth out irregularities in the seam. I considered building or buying the whole neck and all but I got this low end used Epi G400 (you could actually hear its tuning change as you waved the guitar back and forth) for less than the cost of a purchased set neck, and it saved me having to route any pickup holes or anything else. I don't consider it so much destroyed as converted. I actually think I'll reuse the SG pickguard. You wouldn't think it would look good, but I fitted it on there and it looks kind of anomalous. We'll see. Good comments, thanks folks.

SGs have excellent high fret access. (Stock) Explorers don't.

Probably nobody remembers the Ovation Breadwinner from the 70's. This one is a custom maple body from Double X Custom Guitars, and a neck from ebay. I like the bent arrow headstock. We've been waiting for two years for it to tell us what color it wants to be. We'll wait two more if we have to. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1859...p;id=1314714324

While my SG->Explorer nitro is curing, I am making a pickup testbed from a butchered explorer I found. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025...p;id=1314714324

So a few months back I polled this forum about whether to convert an SG to an Explorer body style and got some good advice. I'm not sure about the forum's policy on linking to facebook, but in any event here are some photos of the conversion. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?page=2&a...p;id=1314714324 Will begin wet sanding in about a week.

That is an excellent idea. I think I'll wander over there today and ask. So there ya go. I went to Carrboro Music Loft and they sold me a saddle for $3 from their little tray of parts. Not a perfect match (+1 mojo quantum) but we are back in business! Thanks, folks!

That is an excellent idea. I think I'll wander over there today and ask.