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I personally prefer low impedence 'vintage' sounding single coil pickups. You know, the ones that sound very clean and chimey. And, I prefer them over any humbucking pickup that I've heard yet. Sound engineers will tell you that you can cut frequencies out, but you can't add back what ain't there in the first place. The low impedence single coils with magnet pole pieces simply have the widest frequency response of any passive pickups. Also, by rewiring your axe to get some series combinations, you can get a much fatter and hotter sound. To me, a vintage sounding strat with all the good combinations comes the closest to being an 'everything axe'.

I made my first neckthrough back in the 70's just like that. The neck section was much thicker than the 'ears' on the backside and bulged out about a half inch in the center. I rounded the edges a bit, but the look never bothered me because it was on the back, and it wastn't uncomfortable. Besides, the extra wood probably gives better support.....

Wow, sand off the fingerboard? That's a lot of dust. I've only done 4-5 so far, but I always get 'em off the normal way, heat and moisture. Most recently, I had a nice '33 Epi archtop that I thought I would be extra careful with. I looked on Frank Fords exellent website and he talked about building a steaming rig out of on old cappucino maker, surgical tubing and a hypodermic needle. I made that, and by drilling little teensy holes in the bottom of the fret slots and some precision steaming, popped that whole fretboard off in one nice piece. I never thought of the idea of grinding down the existing board, though. It does have some merits, especially if you don't care about saving the old one. One thing though. I would certainly grab a draw knife or even my 22" jack plane and hog down a few passes first to make it go faster and breathe less dust. No?

Second the tung oil. A natural rubbed oil finish is becoming popular on electric guitar necks these days. It makes sense because shiny finishes tend to grab your hands if you play extra shreddy. Rubbed oil protects almost as well as an oil varnish (like a violin...or boat), and I'd guess MUCH better than laquer or urethane. Lets remember that even laquer is a relatively new finish. A few hundred years from now we'll see how it and urethane stack up against oil. My guess is they won't fare well. For an expensive Warmoth neck, I'd stick with tradition.

I don't see any reason why guitar pickups would be 'bad' in a bass, they really aren't all that different. Humbuckers have the magnet under the pickup and the field is unfocused compared to a single with magnet polepieces. That's why a setup like EVH's with a humbucker mounted on the slant works. The screws and iron polepieces of the humbucker won't line up visually with your bass strings, but I'm betting you won't hear much difference in string balance.

To me, single coil pickups not only sound better, but are more versatile in their tone combinations than humbuckers. This is especially true of low impedence (6k or lower) 'vintage' singles. As another poster pointed out, it's hard to get authentic single coil sounds from a humbucker. While the opposite could certainly be stated, it does seem like one can get closer to the sounds of humbucking pickups by rewiring singles (to get series combinations) than the other way around. I guess what I'm saying is that, since you've admitted that you don't necessarily need a bunch of axes, you could choose one that would get the most sounds...right? My recommendation would be start with a Grizzly strat style kit and rewire it. Mine came with amazingly vintage sounding pickups (alnico 5 low impedence), alder bod, rock maple neck with indian rosewood FB, bent steel saddles... the whole shmazool for around a buck fiddy. I moved the middle PU down by the bridge so that they're side by side and wired up as a 'slantbucker'. I changed the 5 position switch for a 20 pole mega switch, added an on/on/on DPDT mini toggle to switch the slantbucker to; parallel, series and single for a total of 13 possible combinations. With the two coils of the slantbucker in series, the sound is still 'strat-ish' but decidedly louder, fatter and with cojones. With the slantbucker in series with the neck single, the impedence is in the 15k range and amps complain nicely. Put this axe in the hands of a shredder and you'll have to pry it out.

Some shredders don't like the grippy feel of laquer on the neck. There is a trend towards finishing necks with just a hand rubbed oil. Violin makers finish the neck first with an oil varnish, then scrape it off the back and apply french polish, which is shellac.

Couldn't you just mix water with the dye to darken the wood, then put shellac over it?

Hot Hide Glue all the way, even on electrics. HHG is the strongest and best sounding glue for instruments, it just takes time to learn how to use. Titebond loses a lot of water into the joint when it dries, leaving a 'lattice' of incomplete contact. HHG gels first, which leaves a solid area of contact. It's obvious with say, chair legs. The joint may loosen, but the HHG remains solid on one side of the wood, leaving a much better supported joint. Titebond would just crumble because it's not solid. Also, more importantly to the instrument builder, HHG dries hard as glass. Titebond is rubbery and dampens the sound. Another advantage of HHG is that you can use less clamping pressure, or none at all. This makes a finished instrument with less inbuilt tension. Violin makers know that instruments made with tension eventually relax, and their sound changes as a result. The goal of building an instrument without tension in the wood is that it doesn't need to be 'played in' as much.

This may not help, but I'll add it any way. I have a couple axes finished with home made oil varnish, rather like you would put on a violin or old painting. Mine does not react with the latex on the stands, at least not the two stands I have. Oil varnish might not be what you want on your guitar neck though, because it is shiny and thick and shredders complain (it's good enough for me!) that it's squeaky and grippy like a laquer finish.

Are they humbuckers? Just mount 'em solid to the body of the guitar. Lots of 'boutique' makers are doing that these days, I think it got started with MM guitars in the mid 70's. The last couple axes I made have single coil pickups, but I've heard that solid mounting reduces microphonics and improves sustain, especially with humbuckers.

Mattia, I used to think exactly what you're saying now. Then, I thought some more.... But, like I said, it's really a moot point. You say, "The livest necks I've ever heard have CF and dual action rods". With the CF in the mix, it's a bit hard to point to the rod as the cause of the 'liveness', isn't it? Also, I like you're chutzpa! If a was a 'normal musician', and a professional piano tuner told me that he heard something, I'd be inclined to trust his ears over mine Any way, don't worry about it too much. Like I said, if it sounds ok to you, it's good enough. I've been working professionally with sounds that other people don't hear my whole life.....

A little 'artsy' maybe, but not exactly stupid.

Here's a bit from FRETS.COM by Frank Ford, he 'splains it better than I did; The basic action of the standard adjustable truss rod is by compression of the back of the neck. When the nut is tightened, the back of the neck is compressed and causes the neck to bend backward. It is really quite predictable because the back of the neck has a much smaller cross-sectional area, so it compresses much more easily than the front. If the truss rod were mounted closer to the fingerboard it would have to pull harder to compress the back of the neck, but it could still do the job, because the fingerboard is very dense material and really resists compression. Frank is a repair guy, not a guitar builder. On his site he explains all the types of truss rods, but doesn't weigh in heavily for one or the other...unless you read between the lines It's really a moot point. Double action rods seem to work acceptably well, just that my ears (professional piano technician) say they dampen the woods natural response. Now that I've made a neck of poplar, I'm ready to say that I think single action rods make a 'live' neck with greater sustain and more even response.

I love violins. The instrument most studied, and least understood. There's a lot to be learned from violins and the folks that make them. I haven't built one yet, but I've repaired and rebuilt quite a few and I've been adapting violin techniques to guitar building and finishing for years. 'Violin Making, as it was, and is' by Ed. Heron Allen is my favorite book. It just covers it all. It's been in print for ages, and some older copies actually have fold out full scale plans and templates! Another cool book is Antonio Stradivarius by W. Henry Hill. It doesn't cover much about building but it has many drawings of the masters amazing F holes and outlines, which were different on every axe he made. In my opinion, Stradivarius was very likely the most advanced woodworker in the history of mankind.

Soutpa's method would be good too. Reminded me that you can also buy those log sculpture carving tools that fit on a hand grinder, the ones that are like a disk with chainsaw teeth around the edge. Grizzly sells them, called 'lancelot and percival carving system' on page 328 of the '08 catalog.

Ok then, I guess I'll just bust out and say that I like single action truss rods better for two reasons. One is that they can be set deep in the slot with a filler strip above leaving lots of wood still in the neck. Secondly.....(deep breath)...I don't think that truss rods...work...by tension. Or, at least I don't think they work by pressing against the wood of the neck. I think a 'proper' truss rod works by balancing the pull of the strings on the other side of the thickest and most stiff portion of the neck, which is just below the fingerboard. A single action truss mounted low in the neck can compress that side of the neck because there is less resistance as the neck gets narrower into the C. Mounting single action rods under a curved wood insert is 'wrong' too, because it's still pressing against the wood. Pushing on the wood is bad because it changes the frequency response. It's always for the bad, because tension never lasts. Wood always 'relaxes' eventually. A single action truss rod that is only touching the neck at it's two ends is 'proper'. That way it is acting on the neck in exactly the same way the strings are, only it's balancing them out. The necks I've built this way have incredible sustain and even response. Of course, there's always the possibility that the sustain is due to some other thing, like wood. So, this last build, I made an electric with a CF reinforced poplar (!) neck and single action truss. Sustain? For days. If you think about balancing the pull of the strings, you can see that a single action rod puts only lengthwise compression on the wood of the neck, which leaves it more free to move as one piece with the guitar. I know what I'm saying is controversial, but my limited experience so far is supporting it. Just the fact that so many people accept the double action theory on it's face should at least throw up some red flags for some. Sorry for the rant, thanks for reading!

OK, I've built a few acoustics, but I still won't touch this with a ten foot pole. Heck, I've got a '33 Epi archtop (with cracks) that I've been researching for months, still scared to dive in. Frank Fords exellent website would be a great place to start an education about high quality repair. http://www.frets.com/

The Swede said it all. I noticed that when you loosen the strings all the way so that they lay down on the strings, the polarity becomes 'visible'. On a strat with a RWRP middle pup, the strings will arange themselves on one side of the polespiece tops at the neck and bridge, and the other side of the middle pickup.

Thanks again Prostheta. I'm thinking I'm going to dive in and preamp my modded strat. I can easily wire a bypass switch so I don't offend the purists. Only thing I haven't decided is whether to build my own circuit or buy a premade one. I've built other boards before, so it's not a matter of a hurdle to jump. My main consideration for building my own would be to get a circuit that would otherwise be unavailable, like one of those legendary ampeg octave, ring distorto-whatever it was that they only made a thousand of.... I s'pose this is veering off topic, but does anyone have any suggestions on their favorite distortion stomp?

The first few guitars I built were basses, and I put those 'jumbo' wide fat frets on them. When I made a guitar, I used the same size because I still have the fretwire. But, since then, a friend of mine who is a guitar tech for some big hair band and knows a heck of a lot more than me, suggested that I try smaller fret wire for two reasons. See, I'm a piano technician so my ears are very sensitive to pitch. One of the first things I noticed as a bass player starting to learn guitar was, the strings are very loose and the littlest amount of finger pressure on the left hand drives the pitch up. Of course, I switched to heavier strings too, but I'm thinking of refretting my axe with smaller frets. Another thing my tech friend mentioned was that smaller frets are easier to crown exactly in the center, leading to better intonation. So, a lower fret may counter unwanted pitch bending under finger pressure, and a narrower fret may improve intonation.

The Hot Rod is a dual action truss, isn't it? Since it works by pushing against the wood in the neck, depth is not as critical as a single action rod. I would just route the channel to a depth that looks like your leaving enough wood around the headstock joint. I wishes' suggestion of the volute is a good one. Single action rods have to be mounted low in the neck for proper leverage, but double action rods just have to be mounted low enough (and with a strip of wood above them) that they don't crack the fretboard off under tension. I'd be worried that if I routed a double action slot too deep, it might pop out the back of the neck!

All finishes affect the sound of even electric guitars. Rub on oil finishes are exellent on electrics and ribs, backs and necks of acoustic guitars. Violin makers go to great lengths to seal the soundboard surface before using an oil varnish, which doesn't soak in nearly as much as a turp/tung oil (or some other drying oil) hand rubbed finish. The damping effect of oils on soundboards has been a problem for violin makers for centuries, and well documented. Most serious classical guitar builders use french polish for the soundboard because it leaves the sound almost the same as unfinished wood.

prostheta, thanks for the warning. I was planning to install a preamp in the usual way, which would be zero gain, so that switching it in and out will not cause a volume change. That would be especially important if I used a distortion circuit. Don't want to have to readjust volume after switching it in. As I undertstand it the main function of a preamp is to buffer the guitar circuitry against the instrument cord which is an unbalanced line. An unbalanced line has much more metal on one side than the other because the negative side is a big shield. More metal means that side has more capacitance, which adds to the cap you already have on your tone control and cuts more highs (and some lows to my ear) than you want. Put a really long cord on a passive guitar and you not only lose highs, but you start to get a sort of flabby sound. I keep saying guitar, but my experiences 'till now have been only with electric basses. It seems to me that the issue of preamps in basses has been pretty well established in the years since I first put one in mine, but I don't see the same enthusiasm in the guitar camp. I'm thinking there's more to it than I know now? GFS has some tempting looking stomp box circuits that are adapted for onboard installation. They even have one that copies that 'tube screamer' one everyone uses.

All suggestions are good. Actually, a sharp, well adjusted spokeshave might be faster than a sander or surform. I rough out contours with a drawknife and hand chisels then smooth with the spokeshave. Very fast, and the curves come out smoother with less kinks than if you use a belt sander or files. Besides, I dont like all the sawdust and noise.