Narcissism

I personally have a scalloped board with an OFR. Having a scalloped fretboard will require you to change your playing style a little bit. You'll have to fret lighter, but it'll train you to be able to play faster, as you'll be spending less energy pressing the string down. As far as bends go, the other strings will go out of tune just as much as usual. You'll just have to play correctly in order to get the sound you want. "When people ask me how I get my sound, I tell them that the sound comes from your fingers. You can make any settings sound good if you play your instrument correctly."

I just use a dowel wrapped in sandpaper of whatever grit I need to use... It may not work for everyone, but that's what works for me. I do it this way because I don't have any space in my house for powertools, so I do everything by hand.

well, i've been avoiding Vista due to the resource hogging. I still have XP. However, resources are definately not a problem, as I have a 500GB HD, 8GB of RAM, an Athalon FX 2X64 Duel Core processor, a GeForce9600 Graphics card.... okay getting nerdy... Resources shouldn't be any problem, but the goal is just to get sound from my amp/drumset to multiple tracks on my computer. Just memories, and maybe some rough band material. You know the deal. its like when you have a song written in your head and you don't have a tape recorder, so you just call your voicemail/answering machine and record it there... except you're slightly more prepared.

So, here's the blueprints I figured out for a RR1 style, and a sort of improvised KV style that I came up with... It might actually be to exact specifications of a KV, because the RR1 style body uses a 45/45/90 triangle with a 25.5" Hypotenuse. I basically took a Roads and doubled it... I think... I really don't remember, because i drew it up while i was watching TV. So I took the MDS 2x4' and cut it in half Then I glued it together. As you can see, my redneck side is showing, as I had to be resourceful when it came to clamps. I only have two actual clamps in my tool closet. The MDS really absorbs glue. I'm curious to see what it does with Polyurethane. Anywho, here's the body cut out with some rough sanding and some work with the shaping done on the lower horn One other thing I wanted to point out with the MDS, as far as sanding and planing goes, the resin holding the stuff together basically just lets go and causes all sawdust to be the same size particle whenever you try to sand it with any type of sandpaper below the grit of 120. I haven't tried anything higher yet, but we'll see. Has anyone else had experience with MDS?

Today I started making a body. I'm using a material which is very foreign to me. I started making a KV shape out of MDF. I'm still calling it wood, but it is very different from wood to work with. For one thing, the circular saw just flies through it, and same with the jigsaw. However, sanding and planing is probably the biggest pain in the butt! while using the hand plane, it seems to get bumpier. While using very high grit sandpaper (50-60), it seems to make it smooth, but it doesn't seem to make any progress as far as getting closer to my original draw lines. I have about a milimer on every edge to compensate for any saw slips or gouges. Also, when i initially had it, it was 3/4" thick. The plan was to cut the board in half the fat way, and then glue one half on top of the other and get a 1.5" thick guitar. The stuff is pretty heavy, so i figured this thickness will do OK with hardware included as far as weight goes. So here we go: This is my guitar. You can see the new Schaller OFR that I installed, as well as the new pickups, and the beginners scalloping job. I used a chainsaw file, as it was the only round file I could find. Now I have better tools to do this kind of stuff with, like a Dremel! You can also see in the picture, how the bottom trem post is leaning, and where the bridge is actually crashing into the pickguard. There's a few chips taken out of it. Here you can see the corner of the bridge pocket that I modified. You can alsosee some of the black paint splatter.

Would you look at that... I must have skipped right over it when i was scouring stewmac. Thanks!

Carvin will offer more if you order over the phone. They didn't offer a 5 string fretless paddle headstock when i looked online, but they were cool with it over the phone. Warmoth on the other hand will be pretty stingy about the word "custom" because they seem to only like selling whatever's in stock at the moment.

Hi! I've been looking around at all the shops around town, and wouldn't you know it, Vermont doesn't have any wood dye... the most hick state in the entire United States doesn't have any woodworking dye or anything like that sold around here. So... does anyone have any? I'm looking for black aniline wood dye (the powder stuff) if anyone has some left over that they're not going to be using. Anyone?

Unfortunately, i don't know anything about tune-o-matic bridges... but i'm going to assume that if there's exposed metal on the bridge somewhere, then you can ground the wire onto it.

That's a pretty cool Idea, and I wish i could do the same with access to the proper machines. My only question concerns the aluminum. From what I learned in casting, cutting, and stretching aluminum, i've come to the conclusion that aluminum is a pretty flexable, and not very strong metal to use. Do you think it'll resist wear from the strings creating a lot of tension on it? I may have been using pretty low grade aluminum, but from my experience, aluminum isn't hard enough to deal with tensions like that.

Grounding is what electricity wants to do. So in every application, in order to get electricity to work in your way, you'll need to eventually reward it with ground. In this case, the bridge is going to be your ground (or the trem claw, if you're using a floyd rose). What you need to do is make sure that the exposed metal is touching the exposed metal on the bridge. If you're using a tremclaw as your ground, then you need to solder the ground wire to the trem claw. Some pickups don't require grounding (EMG actives, etc.)

Alright, i'll try the Audacity program. Thanks a lot for the help everyone. As far as recording goes, I really just want to get my ideas into an audiable form so i don't forget them. I have a tape recorder, but having one track kinda sucks. Plus, i'm really not looking for extra high quality or anything like that. Just something where i can say "computer mic... record this." and "program, record this track while i play over this track." and "other program, turn these 4+ tracks into an MP3 so I can upload it onto myspace" All the effects I need are in my crappy little Digitech RP50 which I run through my bass cab. I traded a Line 6 POD in for this thing, and it really does the exact same thing... only without the problems, lol

I have a weird feeling that this is a joke, but there is also the main website which answers all of your questions. www.projectguitar.com has a pretty big tutorial section if you need it.

Hey everyone, I'm looking around and I haven't had much luck aside from some trial versions of cakewalk and some other program that i used that had 2 tracks on it. I was wondering what programs everyone used to record as far as multitrack software goes. If anyone has free ones, that'd be awesome! I just got my wii drumset plugged into the brain that i used to have for my roland electric set a while back, and it seems to work pretty nicely, so I can now record drum tracks through my bass amp! So I would like to write some more songs and hear them somewhere besides through the voice in my head, lol. Thanks!

I used two clamps, and that worked out pretty well. I do wish i had more though

I'd say the best wood to practice on is the scrap wood that you're making the guitar out of. Cut off a small block of it and have fun!

When I get new things, my first thing to do with it after i'm done playing with it is to take it apart. I got kind of sick of guitar at one point and I took it apart and put it back together. Then I decided "why not scallop these frets?" Then I decided "why not replace these pickups?" Then I decided "why not replace this neck with a fretless one (on the bass)" Then I decided "I've got every part of repairing a guitar down... I should build one!"

I think companies and independent luthiers will only take notice if you're blatantly making copies of their instruments. Like, if you made a stratocaster and actually put fender's logo on it, or if you make a Ken Lawrence style headstock on it and sell it to people as a "Ken Lawrence (copy)" One thing I've noticed about bodies is that if you make them slightly different, then you can get away with it. That's how ESP got away with their pointy explorers when Gibson sued them, and how ESP got away with their modified headstocks after Jackson sewed them. Ibanez's RG and S style guitars are basically strat style with pointier or more contoured edges. I guess it all depends on how offended someone gets and how far they're willing to go to get you to change stuff. Ormsby doesn't seem to mind people doing multiscale guitars as long as they don't call them "Multiscale" with a little TM sign after it I guess. *shrugs* Gene Simmons bought the rights to the word "it," so you may have to pay him if you decide to call your instrument "it."

That looks really neat! Its amazing what you can do with a little stain splatter. I like the glow-in-the-dark inlays too.

I always use knobs that you secure by tightening a screw on or use an allen key. That way if I need to take off a knob its easy and my pots won't get damaged.

depends on a lot of things. typically bass pickups are arranged so they can pick up frequencies from larger strings without bottoming out.

Hmm, i'd play it! I'll be watching this thread. Cool design! It looks like you put some time into it

Maybe there could be a link to the build thread, as well as the story. I guess this stuff would all be sent by the owner/builder of the guitar, right?

It still looks pretty nice, even with the Poly U. Thanks for posting this though, because i'm going to have a somewhat similar finish on my bass, and this gives me an idea of what it'll look like. I'm satisfied with the V and the flame top, and i'd be happy to play that on stage. You can always just take the cord and wrap it over the strap pin while on stage.

I like my Dunlop Crybaby: 535Q. It lets you dial in the Q variance (amount of tonal difference), and it lets you dial in how far you want the frequency between completely open and completely closed. That doesn't make sense i guess... You'll have to try one, because i don't know how to explain it. But that's the one that I like.