foil1more

Some instruments are more susceptible to change than others. I had a cello that never went out of tune (later found out that the pegs were stuck in the holes). My current cello decided to go completely out of tune right before a concert because I left it in a room that was colder than normal.

Maple smells good. Mahogany smells like pickles though.

http://www.groffslumber.com/ This is where I get my lumber. I got figured maple, a piece of mahogany big enough for a one piece body, and quartersawn hard maple for a neck for under $70. They had a huge selection of wood (including quatersawn hard and soft maple and cherry) and you could search through all the piles to find the one you want. They are in south central Pa so they probably aren't more than an hour or so away from D.C. if you want to pick out the wood in person.

If you want more acoustic volume, you could add a small crescent shaped f-hole on one or both sides of the guitar.

Isn't 38 about the length of an upright bass?

I've heard that you may have to bleach the wood to get a good blue. I may need to do that on the maple top on my guitar but I haven't gotten to testing stains and finish yet.

I have a suggestion for color. I've been thinking of this since I first saw the wood on this guitar. Since the figure ripples out from the back cut away, like a stone dropped in water, I would go with blue. It would look cool if you could do a burst either light to dark or dark to light, following the figure of the wood. So instead of the burst being centered around the center of the guitar, it would be centered around the back cut away.

I used it to inlay my initials into a headstock. It is nice to work with but it smells horrible.

The values should be printed on the parts. You may have trouble measuring capacitance with a multi-meter but resistance should be no problem to measure. The values for capacitance are so small they may not register. I had that trouble during a lab in AP physics. And actually, I have heard that analog meters are more accurate than digital because they don't have any circuitry with its own resistors and such but that type of precision shouldn't be needed for guitars.

All bowed string instruments (well at least the good ones) have ebony nuts. The luthier who I take my cello to said he put an ebony nut on a steel string and it worked fine. When I have time (hopefully soon, college has put a stop to my guitar) I'm going to try an ebony nut on my acoustic (and maybe an ebony saddle). If that works well, I'll also make one for the electric I'm building now. Ebony is really tough and it will probably last longer than most other materials.

Uh wow... what happened to it?

Make sure you lay out the tuners and where the strings will go. Just eying it up, your bass side angles might be a little sharp going to the nut.

Okay then. Here is the good side of the handle. The dark wood generally runs through the center of the tree. There are a few little knots but this came from a tree that was about 5 inches in diameter.

What sites can you see images from?

Okay. Here it is. The center of this piece (and most pieces of this wood) is a good deal darker that the outside. I split the piece then turned it inside out so the dark wood would be on the outside. I finished this with tru-oil and it turned out nice (except for some little runs). I bought the sword at a gun show for about $30. All it needed was a new handle. Here's the plain side Here is the cool side The yellowish part of the wood is spalted. It is pretty stable and it looks cool here's the whole thing As you can see, this was a side project from my guitar

I've used hop-hornbeam for knife handles but not a guitar... yet. There is a certain tree up at the cabin that is straight enough for necks. It is a very hard wood and what I have used has been very straight grain. For that reason I think it would make a good neck wood. It is a very heavy wood (denser than maple according to a few charts I've seen). I've tapped the small pieces I have and what I have sounds pretty ringy. I don't think there is much difference between hornbeam and hop-hornbeam (hop-hornbeam is the one with scaly bark). I can post a pic of the sword handle I made if you would like to see a finished pice

I don't think this is here. If you are using chisels, knives, and other stuff that can slip, protect the hand that isn't holding the tool. So far, I've bounced knuckles off of a drill press mounted drum sander, missed and stabbed my hand with a knife (I'm not sure how I pulled that off), and I've stuck a 2mm gouge through the skin over my first knuckle on my index finger. If it would have been bigger, I would have needed more than a band-aid. All these injuries happened to my left hand because the right held the tool.

Okay. I may have found a source for a steel core high e and low f. I'm going to call tomorrow. It will probably be expensive but I'm willing to pay up to $200 for a good set of strings. This may seem insanely expensive. The only difference is that cello strings don't break often (if they are take care of). A set can last for a few years. I also want all the strings to be the same style of construction and the same tension so I have consistent sound and playability. They also won't chew up my bow (expensive to re-hair). I will also probably be making my on piezo bridge. The two L.R. Baggs pickups can't be used with the Ctrl-X mixer. I saw a link to a small preamp that boosts the single to match a magnetic pickup. I also found a nice link with the basic piezo parts that are used on the expensive production pickups. A lot cheaper than buying a pickup and modifying (possibly destroying) it. In other news, I did something productive in my freshman seminar class today. We were watching a movie so I pulled out my notebook and made a sketch. The headstock isn't actually going to be a carved scroll. It just looks like the profile of a scroll from the front. I'm leaning towards a p-bass style pickup with curved blades. The split coil will allow me to wind it as a humbucker. I'll have to find the place where the string vibrates the best to place the pickups.

Tru-oil is a very low fume finish. You can even apply it with your bare fingers (the directions suggest that). I would also recommend not using if you strip it and find ugly wood. Tru-oil will bring out ALL the grain. I replaced a broken grip on a sword I bought at a gun show with hop-hornbeam and finished it with tru-oil. I saw grain I didn't know was there until I finished it.

Physics discussions make me smile.

If it doesn't have the stripes in it already, you're not going to get the stripes. Like ihocky2 said, that is part of the wood. Not all maple is striped. If your guitar is a solid color it probably doesn't have the striping. Unfortunately, you can't know until you strip off the old finish.

To Geo: I was thinking the same thing with the pickups. I have a couple ideas: six individual pickups and a p-bass like pickup with a curved bar polepiece. I'll post some sketches soon. I'll probably also make the fingerboard. To MexicanBreed: That Cobra Cello is pretty close to what I want to do. The original idea was spawned by these. The larger instruments, the double bass and cello bass (same scale as most electric basses) have magnetic and a special piezo. I'm still waiting to hear back from L.R. Baggs about using the element or ribbon with the Ctrl-X mixer. I might end up making my own piezo bridge. Those cobras are the first fretted cello I've seen. I won't fret mine though. To pete: Cello strings can made from almost anything. Here are some examples The only thing that I need to worry about with steel is the higher tension (and different feel) compared to the nylon core I'm used to. according to the NS site, a guitar high E can used. I could probably use guitar strings but I don't know how they would sound and work for tuning. Bowed strings are flatwound.

I'm in the early stages of planning an electric cello. I say early because I won't have the money to do this till next summer but I want to start getting my ideas in order and getting opinions. The purpose of this is to be a rock instrument. I already have an acoustic cello but the feedback is horrible with a pickup. I also wan to play with effects. I borrowed my teachers pickup to experiment with. Celli sound pretty good with distortion and a wah pedal. I've been playing cello since 4th grade so I guess I've been playing around 9 years. I'm okay on electric bass but I really want to be able to use my bow (I tried it on the bass and it didn't work). My plan is to build a six string cello tuned F-C-G-D-A-E (tuned in fifths like a normal cello) It would give me a range from bass to guitar. The string length for a cello is generally around 28 inches so it would be roughly equivalent to a baritone guitar without frets. I plan to use an L.R. Baggs element implanted in the bridge for an acoustic sound. I will probably have to make my own magnetic pickups. The radius on a cello is very small so a normal guitar pickup wouldn't be curved enough. I will also have to use steel wrapped strings with a steel core. I'm posting this on this forum because I will build it like an electric guitar using guitar parts or building my own parts but if anybody knows a place that can do compound small radius fretboard please let me know. A cello fretboard is over $100. I'm probably looking at around $150 for one set of strings and about the same for the acoustic pickup so I'm trying to save as much as possible. If anyone has made a cello, please help. I only think I know what I'm doing. Some sketches will hopefully be done this weekend.

What about fender style straight necks? I'm (probably) going to make a flat neck with quartersawn maple

I'm close to Lancaster.