dugg

The word 'cap' is sometimes used as a short version of capacitor, but that's a different thing than what you have which is a wirenut. To confuse the issue, the wirenut probably does have some capacitance, but I doubt anyone could hear it. In any case, as mammoth says, it would be better to use electrical tape.

I was thinking about a similar idea, but with preset trimpots combined with the caps on a multiswitch. Being able to switch the cap(s) completely out of the circuit would allow a brighter over all sound.

Grizzly is an amazing company, I've never been dissappointed by anything I've bought from them.

I think kpcrash's advice is good. I'd add that you could 'seal' the oil in with shellac if you were worried about it preventing the varnish from sticking.

ToddW, when you mention things like 'different temperments', you show that you aren't sufficiently educated in the subject. Bring something I can sink my teeth into and maybe I'll debate.

Double up on that cabinet scraper! One of my favorite tools. Trouble is, learning how to sharpen one from a written tutorial is just about impossible. A faster better way to sand? Sure. Drawknife and spokeshave.

The usefulness of out of phase pickup combinations is interesting to me. My present axe is wired to get three different OOP's; single-single, single-slantbucker coils parallel, and single-slantbucker coils in series. These three sounds are very, repeat VERY different from each other. Part of it could be the fact that I'm starting with three low impedence, vintage sounding singles, which tend to give much more tonal variation than hotter singles or humbuckers when recombined. The single-single combination has the most dramatic cancellation of frequencies, but the single-slant parallel brings the 'bandpass' sound lower into a very 'old time radio' area. The single-slant series sound has only a touch of the cancellation compared to the other settings. It seems like the slantbucker sort of overpowers the singles ability to cancel frequencies. The amount of variation between these settings made me realize that in planning future wiring schemes, any planned OOP wiring combinations for someone elses' axe should be tested first with the old aligator clips to see if the player will like them.

I used this diagram recently. http://guitartechcraig.com/techwire/tech17.jpg I think it's close to what you're looking for, but it uses the more standard type of 5 way switch. I couldn't access some of your links, but one I saw showed the Japan type switch with all the poles in a line. The diagram from guitartechcraig is called 'humbucker lovers', in case you want to try a search elsewhere.

As a professional piano technician, I'm suspicious of a tradesman who feels the need to protect 'trade secrets'. I disclose each an every detail of all the work I do for any client who wants to listen. I have full confidence in my work and don't need to hide anything. The reason is that I know you can study my methods 'till the cows come home and you still won't pose any threat to my business. There's no magic to finding your buzz. Just plain old technique and knowlege. The right luthier will fix it in a minute, and show you how he did it.

I'm a piano technician who can't manage to swallow any of BF's snake oil. I'd just replace it with whatever nut I wanted and ignore the Buzz BS.

That grizzly looks bitchen' and sure solves the problem of the reach you mentioned, dpm. Even with shipping, grizzly's prices are unbeatable for the quality. I'd jump on that in a new york second.

Yeah, you better sand it first or you'll have to apply a million coats to cover the bumps.

Prostheta, I'm not entirely sure whether it stops moving altogether, but I'm fairly certain the oil won't shrink and cause deeper pores that way. I would venture that some continued movement of an oil finish is one of it's advantages 'cuz as we know, wood is always moving a bit too. With the older spirit and oil based finishes, most everything is compatible. Laquer and urethane are newer finishes and seem to have more issues with other finishes as well as themselves. Let me know if there's any problem, I'll commit seppuku....

This might be a little late in the thread, but what the heck. I feel like a drillpress is essential to me, but that it doesn't need to be a very fancy or expensive one. While even a high quality bandsaw has a learning curve both for tuning and using, a drill press really doesn't. I have a cheapo of some kind that works just fine. I built a wooden table that fits over the cast iron one and it greatly improves the flexibility of the tool, but it's always been accurate and powerful enough for whatever I threw at it. If I didn't have one already, I'd certainly consider a Harbor Freight cheapo and plan to adjust and modify it a tad if it needed. Drill presses are machine tools that we woodworkers use for something else other than what they were designed, which is metal working. For wood, they're usually up to the job even if they're cheaply made.

Oils in wood finishes are what are known as drying oils. They don't really 'dry' in the actual sense, but polymerize by absorbing oxygen from the air. Unlike urethanes, virtually anything will adhere to drying oils, so a shellac coat is not really needed. That tru-oil is no longer an oil in the strictest sense. It's a solid now, and wll not only be more solid in three hundred years, but by then you won't even be able to tell for sure that it was tru-oil to start with!

Balsa ruled out? Dang, I better call up Ned Steinberger!

It depends on what you mean by glass smooth. I would say that you can only get glass smooth with a scraper. But, if you're planning to finish it with some thick goop like laquer, the sandpaper will be good enough. Just wrap it around a wood block to make sure you're just knocking down the high points.

I recently rewired my (passive) strat and found that the simple removal of a tone control was VERY audible. I'd say that on a passive guitar, having no tone or volume would give a more immediate, ballsy sound. And, I think anyone could hear the difference. Because my friend was one of Ned's first employees in Brooklyn, I have what is probably the only custom Steinbereger L2 bass. It has only one pickup, but it's mounted in the bridge position of the two pickup pickguard and has no tone or volume control. Pickup is wired directly to the output. I usually play it with a volume pedal but of course it is absolutely silent when you're not playing any way. I knew the 'berger wouldn't suffer from the potentiometers because it has active circuitry, but I still went for it because I liked the clean look.

Zach doesn't intimidate me, so I have no problem with his attitude....

Grizzly makes some great inexpensive planes based on the Stanleys. I bought a 22" Jack plane (they called it a smoothing plane) that I use ALL the time. I can make a perfect and flat compound radius on a fingerboard with that baby. I seriously doubt if any CNC, or belt sanding jig could match the flatness of a handplane. I also have a low angle block plane with an adjustable mouth, and some of those small cast iron ones with the handle that I ground the soles rounder on. Spokeshaves are indispensable, but for quickly hogging wood off of necks and bodies I use a drawknife. Speaking of handtools, I vote for a good selection of chisels too. Grizzly has some surprisingly cheap for the quality, like all their stuff.

Variations in wood species has some effect on tone and sustain, but structural parameters provide the basis for what we hear in the wood. A well crafted solid body guitar made of pine and poplar will have more sustain than a badly made one of oak or maple. Mass is only a tonal consideration to the extent that lack of structural stiffness allows it to interact in a given system. As a structure is made more flexible, mass interacts audibly by rolling off highs. This is part of the reason ultra light and stiff solid body guitars sound so bright. Remember, the mass of a wood species says nothing about it's resistance to bending or it's internal damping, both of which have more influence on sustain. Also, the properties of wood vary a lot within a species. If you go to the lumber store and try to bend some different poplar boards, you'll see that some are light and stiff, some are heavy and stiff, some are light and flexible, some are heavy and flexible. Part of this has to do with how the board is sawn. You could probably find a piece of heavy slab sawn maple that was less stiff than a piece of light, quarter sawn poplar. Oak is stiff and springy. Springy is another way of saying low internal damping, which means less loss of energy. Some energy is always robbed by mass, but only to the degree that flexibility and internal damping allow the mass to interact. So, stiff low internal damping woods have sustain and sound bright whether they're high in mass or not. In the last few years I used some bamboo flooring in various places of solid body guitars. A friend made a whole neck through out of bamboo in my shop. It's hard to tell what effect the bamboo had on mine and my friends builds, because they were built from scratch, not modified. More recently I modified a strat I have by moving the neck and bridge coil side by side and mounting the whole 'slantbucker' closer to the bridge. Chopping out the extra alder to mount the pickups closer to the bridge left very little wood in front of the six trem screws, and at the same time it occurred to me that a solid body guitar's grain direction is not optimum for supporting the screws. So, I mortised in a block of bamboo under the bridge with the grain running crosswise for better screw support. The difference was obvious. Much better sustain and broader tone. Not just brighter, but generally more clarity and lows too. This is the second cross grained bridge block I've used, but the first was put in at construction time, so I had no before and after. As an afterthought, has anyone seen Alex Csikys' guitars? Very interesting luthier. Some people think he's arrogant because he proclaims himself to be the best solid body luthier in the world, but his construction methods bear out his claims, and owners rave about his axes. He has a solid body made of knotty pine that he made from an Ikea table.

I recently used some flamed redwood on the front of a solid body. It's very soft and dents easier than pine. I bought some Minwax wood hardener, which I'm thinking is also a polymer resin concoction like that polycryl. When I tested the minwax on a redwood scrap, I didn't like the look of it, so I used thin shellac to bring out the grain first, then the minwax. My redwood was only moderately flamed and I had no trouble hand planing and scraping it, but my tools are hella sharp. Which is to say that I suspect dull tools are to blame when I hear people talk about tear out. Also, I did all the planing before I put on the hardener, which was a good idea because that stuff doesn't smell to tasty when you're working it. I don't have the safety planer, but I'm always suspicious of any machine tools' edge. I seriously doubt you could match the finish of a hand plane and scraper with any power tool.

Anything you buy from a 'tonewood' supplier will be overpriced, and no better than what you can find searching through the stacks at your local hardwood place. Quarter sawn wood is stiffer for the mass, so a quarter sawn neck will have more sustain than a slab sawn one. Also, some violin luthiers avoid using very figured wood for necks because it's thought to be less stiff than straight grained.

Yeah, wood all the way for the knobs, no insert. I've done it on only one guitar so far, but it's been played profesh for a couple years now and no problems. I don't have a lathe either, but I rigged up my drill press to make the knobs. Also, I drilled a 1/4" hole off center in the top which I inlayed a contrasting color wood 'dot' for position. Looks keen-o.

kpcrash splained it good. All's I could add is, if you still want to look at a diagram, I'm pretty sure those three switch strats were called Elite Strats. I bet you could find a diagram on Seymour Duncan's site.