dugg

I hate to 'drop names', but I did these experiments in the late 70's with one of Ned Steinbergers first employees in the Brooklyn factory, Beo Morales. Our conclusion? No such thing as sweet spots. These days, I'm a fan of 'extreme placement' of pickups. That is to say, as far from, and as close to the bridge as possible.

Yeah, liquid hide glue has urea in it which causes it to keep reabsorbing moisture, either from the air or in your case from your hands. Though I've never used it on a binding, I think hide glue is probably the right choice, just not the liquid stuff. I've used hot hide glue to make 'plastic wood' as you've done, and it works great. In fact, over the last few years I've started using hot hide for just about everything, it's that good. Just takes some practice mixing and setting up your assembly to be fast enough, but the results are much better than any other glue.

I would favor making up the diff at the bridge end, maybe it can be done without rerouting? I've put pickups in all kinds of positions, and I personally don't believe the theories about 'sweet spots'. I often put humbuckers as close as possible to the bridge, some Music Man guitars are like that too.

CF bars or rods stiffen the neck not so much by their reluctance to bend, but by their reluctance to stretch when placed near the edges (cross section view) of the neck. By that reasoning, the two bars under the outside edges of the FB stiffen the neck laterally, but to support the neck from flexing in the normal direction, the third bar should be down near the bottom of the 'C'. I do this by carving a slot and covering it with a 'skunk stripe' similar to a Fender but smaller.

I bought my G055 about 5 years ago now and it's the most useful power tool in my shop. I can use a "3/4 blade for resawing easily and it tracks absolutely straight. I usually use a "1/2 only because that one get's left on and used most for other things too. If that Grizz is adjusted right, you don't need much tension at all, the blade will track straight. The wheels do need to be planar, mine weren't when the saw arrived. Also, as someone above pointed out, squareness of the fence to the blade don't matter (check out 'point' or corner fences). You can waste time on that a while, but you'll soon find out that it's no more important than a flat sole on a handplane. I built my own fence riser out of birch ply, it just press fits down over the fence and works a charm. Tuning a bandsaw takes some practice, but it's the key to using one.

It is a smart jig, but I don't like sandpaper either. +1 "a hand plane is the quickest method I have found apart from a machine" and "and you get a much finer finished surface than with sandpaper" and "Hand planes leave you with nothing but nice little curls that are easy to clean up." besides the real bottom line is this; I would use any excuse at all to bust out the absolutely most satisfying and fun woodworking tool ever invented; the handplane! (especially my Grizzly 22" jack) Ah, the sound of it....

This little saw from Lowes has the right size blade. It's the pull blade on the right, I forget what the size is. .025"? Something like that. http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=prod...1%20Multi%20Saw

That's absolutely the most beautiful body shape I've seen in a long time. I've always liked JM's and I think you may have actually improved on that design. Nice piece of wood too, be sure to post more pics as you finish it! Water based anilines are the most permanent fade resistant dyes available. The fabric anilines are about a third the price of the ones made for wood and I'm not sure there's a difference. With such a beautiful piece of wood, I'd consider using shellac as a sealer over the dye instead of going right to the laquer. Maybe even finish with french polish instead? Just my idear.

I've never bought a stewmac paddlehead, but I've seen one on another guitar and it seemed very close to the nice quality necks that come in Grizzly kits, of which I've built two. The $140 Grizzly strat kit is only about twenny bucks more than the stewmac neck alone. The Grizz kits only have IRW FB's though.

I stopped using the big 'beams' of CF like stewmac sells and switched to installing three thinner CF rods at the three (cross section) 'corners' of the neck. I get the thinner CF rods at my local hobby shop and they're nowhere near as 'spensive as the stewmac ones. Besides model airplanes and helicopters, people use CF for kites. Heres a link to a good kite site; http://www.goodwinds.com/merch/list.shtml?...solidflatcarbon

I'd grab my 22" jack plane and flatten that puppy right out in about 3 minutes. No noise or dust or wasted wood.

Brian D's method is pretty much how I would handle the ferrules. If you're interested in an easy and cool looking alternative, here's one I recently did on a custom Tele-ish body for a friends USA strat neck. http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images0...3b27b5bad7f.jpg Instead of ferrules, I bought a chunk of brass from the hardware store and recessed it into the back. The brass has holes for the strings and is held in with brass screws. I've done ferrules, and this method is not only easier, but I think it makes a more solid looking connection. I doubt you could hear the difference between this and ferrules, but it adds some mojo factor.

Actually single action compression rods come in two flavors, with a curved fillet above and without. I personally use a straight SAC rod because I don't 'believe' that a truss rod works by bending as so many people do. My trussrods work because the backside of the neck can be compressed easier than the top and the rod is set low in the channel close to the back. Straight SAC rods only balance the pull of the strings, but don't attempt to bend the neck in the opposite direction of the string pull. The outcome is a much more lively neck with better sustain and less dead spots.

I've used Dylon fabric dyes (which are aniline based, pretty sure) to dye two bodies so far, one alder and one poplar. I just bought it at Wallmart. I did black dye on the poplar body and, though the Dylon works well, dying light wood black is tricky. Some things I read (sorry can't remember where) suggested that straight black dye would look bluish unless yellow and red were laid down first, so that's what I did. I wasn't happy with my results, but finishing is often like that in that you're the one who knows the imperfections and others usually think it looks fine. For me, a bit more practice would give exellent results. You may already be more competent with finishes than me, it's my weak point. Just want to warn you that dying wood black has some difficulties, but that I can also see that if done right, would look really nice.

"but that's not as fun. " Hey buddy, dem's fightin' words!

Exellent link, thanks NotYou.

I'm pretty sure that in order to get the value of two caps together in a tone control you have to put them in parallel, not series. Here's a link to a neat little switch that I've installed on one axe so far; http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi...amp;thread=3883 Might give you some ideas....

Grizzly has a new product here; http://www.grizzly.com/products/Fret-Leveling-Kit/T20825 It looks like a radiused caul like you want, no?

"but come on how arrogant can one person be." Hey, I resemble that remark! Seriously, I think he's soft spoken compared to me. To my ears, his tongue is firmly planted in his cheek. It seems that arrogance is the only legit complaint against Zach, and even that might be contrived?

I would either dye the body wood first with a yellow/orange water based dye (I use Dylon made for fabric) then build up gloss with french polish, or mix the Dylon into the (wax free) shellac and keep french polishing 'till you're happy. With FP, you can just keep building finish, and if you make a 'mistake' it can almost always be fixed with more FP. Also, if you decide you don't like the FP, you can just put something else over, like an oil varnish or even urethane. Anything sticks to shellac, and shellac sticks to anything. Here's a good link to explain FP; http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Te...nchpolish1.html

I'm a 'believer' in single action compression truss rods, so I like to have a relatively flexible neck wood paired with a very stiff and hard fingerboard wood. My current choice of neck woods is Poplar, and I've been messing with Ipe for fingerboards. Ipe is incredibly hard. Harder than the hardest rock maple by quite a margin. When you ring a piece, it sounds like alumin(i)um and sustains for a very long time. Ipe is currently marketed as decking and it can be left outside in the elements completely unfinished (!). An other interesting 'new' wood that might make a nice FB is bamboo. One of my apprentices made two axes with bamboo necks and Ipe FB's, so we have tried it as neck wood but not on the FB. Bamboo is actually plywood though, and the floorboard material that we used did have some voids here and there. While I'm certain you would need no finish on an Ipe FB, I think you'd need to finish bamboo somewhat like maple, unless you liked that 'dirty' look.

Yes, I just ordered some electronic parts from them about a month ago. I was a little sketched at first because I just payed some e-mail address or something (paypal, right?) that I'd never done before, but the order came right away and was good quality stuff. Also, my order was packed in what I thought was an overly small box, but there was nothing damaged. The prices for the guitar specific electronic parts were the cheapest I found on the internet.

Sometimes you got to look past the trees to see the forest....

Wow, this is such a cool forum. I came on this thread with basically a dissenting view, and did NOT get burned! Thanks you guys. NotYou, the method I learned from Cumpianos book is simple. If you run the plane parallel to a middle line on the FB, you create a cross section of a cylinder. If you run the plane parallel to the edges, you create a cross section of a cone, or compound radius. I have a nice 22" jack plane from Grizzly, only about fiddy bux. The thing about a compound radius is, any amount of it is a big improvement over a normal radius. I'm fairly certain that you can eliminate fretting out just as completely with a somewhat less than mathematically exact compound radius, like you can easily plane by hand. I'm just saying that the radius is probably not as accurately calculated as it would be by machine. I still stand on the idea that the plane makes a flatter, more accurate, better feeling FB than a router.

I dig Zachary. I love his style, and I think he's correct in calling himself the worlds greatest guitar maker. I've been looking at boutique builders since the web was invented, and by my standards, no one compares to Zach. He's the only builder out there that I have any desire to emulate, at all. My main criticism of him is that his prices are too low for handbuilt instruments, even if he has found many ways to decrease cost and labor. But, it was the price of that PRS that he bought early on that inspired him to try and make instruments so inexpensive in the first place. It's almost like his low prices and the methods he uses to achieve them are an artistic statement. Also, for those of you who don't understand Celts, he's not bragging, he's boasting. There's a difference.