GodBlessTexas

All but the green Tele on that page are Variax transplants. The Variax system uses a piezo pickup in the bridge to feed the sound to the processing electronics, so you have to use the Variax bridge. The 300 and 500 come with a stop tailpiece that's just a normal string through body with the piezo pickup. The 700 has a custom tremolo bridge with the piezo pickup as well. There are no aftermarket parts to replace the bridge at this point, only bodies. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

He's gutting Variaxes to do the work. See the other variax thread here. Lots of info there. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Reminds me of an axe that doesn't get mentioned much these days, but I was in love with these back in the 80's. Behold, the Ibanez 540P, Alex Skolnick's (formerly of Testament) axe of choice until about 1989. I remember seeing him on Headbangers Ball (back when eMpTyV still played actual music) practicing with it while they were being interviewed by Ricky Rachtman. Definitely a metal guitar. Here's the link to the 1989 Ibanez Catalog. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Yeah, that looks like a Fernandes Vertigo or a Jazz bass mated with a Telecaster and had a pretty awesome looking kid. I agree somewhat about the horn, but given the space available on the wood you have to work with, I think it's still going to be a beautiful guitar. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Once you've done enough project management and seen massive million dollar plus projects go down the tubes because someone forgot to take tiny details into account, you tend to sweat those things. I was assembling my price list of parts on Monday, and I was doing some comparison pricing on bridges when I realized they came in different string spreads. Until then I was blissfully ignorant of any difference, and to me bridges came in two flavors: stop tailpieces and tremolos. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a sucker for blue Strats, and I really enjoyed the information you conveyed with that buildup presentation. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

OK. Measuring correctly, it is indeed 12-3/8" to the 12th fret, for 24.75" scale. Just to verify, I compared to my actual BC Rich neck, and the necks are identical as far as fret and nut spacing, and I verified that it is a 24.75" scale neck by researching the model. I don't know why I didn't try it in the first place. I think I like doing things the hard way first. So, given those variables, I believe a 2-1/8" spaced bridge would be appropriate, given what I've found online. Is this correct? Thanks for your help, and I really enjoyed your strat buildup thread and picks. I enjoyed yours much more than the new Fender Bad Boy Blue guitar, which shares more than a striking resemblence to your strat. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

It's possible that my measuring device is suspect. I did it right before I went to bed because I was barely home yesterday. I'll get out my good square and make sure my measurements are correct. To make sure it's not user error, should I be measuring from the middle of the nut or the edge of the nut where the string clears to the center of the top of the 12th fret? It's quite possible that my measurements are off because of my measuring incorrectly on one or both of those measurements. Also, how did you come up with the final bridge spacing? I'd love to be able to file that away for future reference. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Which is it...one or two? hehe Maybe try and make more bolt-ons and keep track of your time, material & tooling costs and compare that to your neck-through building costs. Track it as precisely as possible or it's a waste of time. Also, look for something that will make your product stand out above all the other builders that are already out there. ← This is good avice no matter what you do. To be really successful, you have to keep track of your time and costs. It will keep you from overextending yourself on multiple projects that you don't realistically have time for, and allow you to quote prices as accurately as possible to customers. It will also allow you to view where your biggest costs are, which means you can try to reduce them to increase profits or lower your prices to be competitive, because the low-cost guitar market is dominated by the big manufacturers. But there's money to be made in boutique guitars, quality workmanship with attention to detail, and customzation options that you just can't get from Gibson, Fender, etc without paying through the nose to their custom shops. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Thanks for that. From the nut to the 24th fret is aproximately 18-9/16" according to my notes. I got the 25.5 scale measurement by doing what the Stew Mac scale calculator suggested: Nut to 12th fret x 2, which was 12-5/8 * 2 = 25-1/4". That's why this is such a huge pain. The original bridge was interesting, to say the least. It was a two piece tremolo unit. The first part, which was mounted to the body, was a rectangular bar about about 5/8" H x 1/4" D x 3-1/2 to 4" L with 4 mounting holes in the center and a V groove along the long side that accepted a knife edge tremolo bridge piece unit. I've never been able to find a suitable exact replacement, and I've scoured every website, e-bay ad, and parts catalog out there. So, no matter what I put in, I have to drill holes, but if I'm going to be drilling holes, I want to make sure that I do this right the first time. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

OK. Musician's Friend has none that are red tagged in stock of either the Variax 500 or 700. Reading the Line 6 site, I found this and this, which states: So, it looks like they use "may" an awful lot instead of "will" when talking about voiding the warranty. My guess is, if you actually spent the money on a Warmouth body/neck, they'd have a hard time voiding the warranty since it's a licensed product. The only area where they could get you is if you fry the electronics while installing them or you don't get a "guitar repair shop" to do the work, but how many of us do guitar repair work? If I can get my hands on the electronics for around $200, I definitely would do this. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Ok. Better question. Would it be ok if I just installed a 2-1/8" E to E bridge? Anything I should be concerned with doing that? I'm going to have to do some surgery on the body no matter what new bridge I put on it, so I'm open to suggestions. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Actually, all of the current Affinity Series Squiers should have Alder bodies. The Squier Deluxe Series have basswood or mahogany bodies depending upon the exact model. The Squier Standard series all look to be made out of Agathis. The Delonge was a Standard series guitar, but you are correct that it should have had an Alder body. I must say, I was pretty impressed with the quality of the Squier Affinity Strats ("crafted in China"). The electronics leave a little to be desired, but the neck is smooth like butter, and the feel of the whole package is pretty nice, especially for a $125 guitar. Mine has no problems staying in tune, though I stay off the tremolo. An excellent base if you want to build a Strat up and you don't have the skills to build your own yet, or the money to buy higher priced parts. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Interesting. I'll give them a call first thing in the morning. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

I'm refurbishing my first love. An Olympic copy of a BC Rich Warlock. I actually recently bought a Warlock from the same time period, and other than the fact that the Olympic is laminated, it's superior to the BC Rich in every way, especially the body shape and contouring on the top and the neck (24 frets and a really nice, almost Wizard-like feel). Back to my story. Sometime between the last time it was all together and working and I decided to get it back into working shape, all the parts for it that weren't attached to it disappeared. That was almost all of them excluding tuners and trem claw. Anyway, I need a new bridge, and I have no clue what width it needs to be from E to E. The most common I've seen are 2-1/16" and 2-1/8" for electrics, but I'm not sure which one I need. I took some measurements and they are as follows: Nut width: 1-5/8" Nut E to E: 1-3/8" Neck width at 24th fret: 2-1/4" Scale of the neck appears to be 25-1/2" if my calculations are correct (actually, looks closer to 25-1/4"). Thanks for any help. I would like to get the parts ordered ASAP so I can get her back together this weekend. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

An ounce of preperation is worth a pound of touchup , or as my daddy used to say "Do it right, or expend double the effort to do it right the second time." It's obvious you didn't really know what you were doing when you decided to veneer the top. I'm sure just attempting something without having a firm grasp on the subject is something all of us have done at one time or another. I know I have. With that said, go back and read this thread. Everything you need to know about what you did wrong (and how to fix it) is in this thread. The reader's digest version: Practice on scraps before you try a big job like a guitar. Point: Veneering is not easy, and veneering large pieces is even harder. Use Titebond for your veneer or any other suitable white or yellow woodworking glue, and use very little of it. If you've got a vacuum press, use a glue designed for vacuum veneering. Point: The right glue for the right job. Substitution will lead to suboptimal results. Squeegee out the glue until there is very little glue at all, then apply. Point: A little goes a LONG way. As far as making the veneer less pourous, that's really not the point. The point is not saturating the part with glue and having it bleed through. The glue needs to get into the veneer just a little to get a good bond between the veneer and the substrate, or else you'll end up with a weak bond and eventual delamination. I highly suggest reading up on veneering in woodworking before doing this again if these tips don't help you. Good luck. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Deer Park! I grew up across the channel in Channelview. I agree with the reamer, but highly suggest not doing it with the Dremel unless you have a very steady hand. Either way, use masking tape over the holes to help prevent chip out. Good luck. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

From the thread he links to, he's gutting working variaxes to do it. Looks like an interesting idea, but the cost of entry is pretty steep if you have to buy a Variax, gut it, and then build another guitar. I don't know why Line6 doesn't license the Variax to Fender, Gibson, or any other guitar maker, or outsource the building of the guitars to someone else. I think the variax is a great idea, but the feel of the units leaves a lot to be desired. And Warmoth has pre-routed Variax bodies licensed from Line6. It adds $100 to the body cost. http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/line6/line6.cfm Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Pots are cheap, so why not experiment? Guys like EVH and SRV used to hack their guitars to hell and back looking for the right sound. Buy both and see which ones you like best. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Generally, public exposure to an idea before a patent application is filed should negate the ability to patent the idea. The Fender Strat has been around over 50 years now, and they've not gone after a single person who manufactured a design based upon the Strat body in that time that I'm aware of. They'll be hard pressed to show due dilligence in protecting their common-law IP rights by letting high profile manufacturers like Kramer, Charvelle/Jackson (now part of Fender), Ibanez, ESP, and others make designs that are only subtlely different than the original Strat design. Even Gibson has made a guitar based on the Strat design before. While Gibson did get a design patent on the Les Paul in 1993, they also protected their common law IP rights by suing anyone and everyone who made a LP copy over the years. However, since design patents only last 14 years, they'll lose exclusive rights to the design in 2007, when it goes into the public domain.Gibson's trademarks, which can last indefinitely as long as they take pains to pursue them, will remain intact. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

And now most of those major manufacturers are a part of Fender. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

My neighbor did custom paint for bikes, helmets and hotrods, and I had the pleasure of watching him do his thing in the paint booth a time or two. He always left everything uncleared until the end, but I'm not sure if it's necessary to do that. GBT

My name is Joseph, and I live in the DFW area of Texas. I've been playing guitar for 16 years, and recently stumbled upon this place because I'm refurbishing a couple of my first guitars. But after reading, I've been bitten by the bug to build my own. I've done some woodworking, though most of my work has been in metal fabrication and plastic reinforced fibers (fiberglass, carbon fiber, and kevlar). Hopefully by this summer I'll be through with refurbishing my guitars and will be able to start work on my own guitar. GBT

That's beautiful. I've always been a fan of the SG, and that one is a beautiful example. Nice work. GBT

Those are nice flames, and an awesome job. My only suggestion would be to add some bright orange to yellow highlights to bring out the flames more. It's too red and /orange. GBT

A very big issue when it comes to power tools is the fact that many of the brand names OEM them from Asian manufacturers. Take a look at Grizzly's old power handtool line and the Black and Decker models. They're identical except for the color. Sears also now OEM's their power tools, and I wouldn't buy most of them. GBT