G_urr_A

Ok, since you all seem very negative about it, I'm not going to try. I'll probably build the neckthrough from scratch instead (gives more experience, but also bigger hole in my wallet). And I'll do the refretting and inlays.

now, to confuse matters, i must ask about coil splitting. what is that? or is that the same thing? then, whats it called when you have an additional "hot" wire from the pickup, which shorts part of the coil, giving less output. or am i on a bicycle ride in the middle of nowhere now?

1. The neck pickup does get in the way. I could however have the bars go into the neck, and weld them to a metal plate, which would surround the neck pickup and be covered by wood. 2. The neck would probably be held in place good enough by the string tension, and epoxy should do a good enough job. 3. Some metal, hardened steel or something. But in what way they would counter act the truss rod, I can't see. The bars would not go deeper than maybe to the 19th fret (24 fret neck), and the truss rod has nearly no effect at all out there. 4. Got access to a drill press. 5. Bars = $10 at most. Epoxy = $5 at most. Ready made through-neck = $194.85 (stew-mac) I still think it's very possible, and less time- (and money-) consuming to convert. But I'm not so sure if I wan't to be without my KE3 for as long as it would take, and of course, there is a risk of doing something very wrong, so it would take even more time to fix. If someone has a guitar laying around, and is willing to donate it for a tut, I'm willing to try, though.

How about drilling two holes into the neck (one on each side of the truss rod) and drilling corresponding holes into the body, and inserting metal bars into these holes, and use that to hold the neck in place. This would leave the heel to be very freely sculpted. Do you think it would break?

Ok, thanks! I've never done any type of warming up or so when playing, but I guess it isn't too late yet.

I'd say you do it after the paint, but before the clear coats. Or before the paint, but then you'd have to mask it. The rest of it would be just like any inlay in a neck, I guess.

I've been thinking about how to get the best and most guitars from what I have while still not beeing blown away by the expenses. What I want is to have a guitar that looks like a Jackson Kelly, is neckthru, and has sharkfin inlays, and a guitar that looks like an Explorer (specs yet to be decided upon). Since I allready have a Jackson KE3 (in semi-bad shape, needs refret, lacks cool inlays), I thought that instead of building both of the aforementioned guitars from scratch, I could save some time and money by converting my current KE3 into a neckthru, and while I'm at it, do some fancy inlays and refret and refinnish the bastard. What I'm wondering is if there is any possibility that one could, by glueing on pieces of wood to the neck, and routing out a bigger neck pocket in the body, convert a bolt-on neck to a neckthru. Do you think it's possibly? If so, anything in particular that I would have to think about?

would you mind sharing your "stretching and warm up excercises"?

So a lot of the difference is to pay for attention to detail? Oh, when we're somewhere near that topic, what is "quartersawn" wood? It would probably make more sense to me if someone said the swedish word for it... Anyone willing to explain?

What about aluminium foil? Does it work for shielding?

Also keep in mind that since the fingerboard is going to be conical and not cylindrical, you'll have to move a long sanding block more where the radius is bigger.

I've been wondering about the prices on some guitars compared to others. Have a look at, for example, a Jackson KE3 and a Jackson KE2 (specs for both can be found at www.jacksonguitars.com). The KE3 retails at about $650 at my local music shop, the KE2 for $3700 (last time I checked). Now, the differences between those two guitars are as far as I can see, of rather small importance. The KE2: -Is availible right and left handed -Is availible in way more colors, including graphics finnishes -Has maple top instead of veneer under transparent colors -Is neck-through -Has quartersawn neck wood -Has ebony fretboard, instead of rosewood -Ships with Seymour-Duncans instead of Duncan Designeds -Has a tone pot -Has original, not licensed, Floyd -Includes HSC -Has binding on fingerboard and headstock -Has real mother-of-pearl inlays -Has quality-brand pots and switches -Has painted headstock What is it that justifies the difference in price?

Jackson KE2 for me...

It does seem a little hot, but putting the guitar in a cold place and then a hot place makes no sense to me. I could be very wrong though.... I guess Rye knows, so please, tell us.

hezochiah, we're talking degrees C, not F. Tjena PunkE. Då är vi minst två svenskar här. Finns det fler?

bigsuhr, the problem would be (at least it is for me (i've made the same mistake)) to keep the router on the body, since some parts of the body aren't wide enough for the router base to stand on...

Or you could leave some wood under the bridge that would look interesting.....

derek, what bridge are you going to use? if you don't want an angled back neck, I think you'll have to recess the bridge.

You should be fine with changing it, as long as you make sure that the strings are still held down onto the bridge, and that the strings can reach all the way from the stoppiece to the tuners.

I was asking about pickups and wood and where to get stuff and such over at www.metaltabs.com/forum. After a while they started getting a bit pissed, so someone (atifman maybe?) pointed me to this forum.

That is one great way of getting people to read your posts... Good one!

Masked binding isn't really binding at all. It's achieved by masking of the sides of the top, thus leaving natural wood color as an edge around the top. There's a good pic of it over at www.warmoth.com, somewhere. What wood are you using for the rest of the guitar. If it's a dark wood, I think you could go without any type of binding, and just stain the whole thing (or paint the sides, and stain the top). If it's a ligther (brighter, less dark, whatever...) wood, I think natural binding would look better.

I guess you could try to find a way to bend the top, or have one that is thick enough for the contour, but I'd say that's more trouble than it's worth, so I'd go without the contour. Binding shouldn't be neccessary. If you paint the guitar with solid colors, you wont see the top, so it'll look like a "normal" guitar. If you use stains, I'd say masked binding is the way to go.

The switch itself does nothing to your tone. The only thing it does is it selects which pickups to use. Since ESP uses 5-way switches for 2 HZs, I guess they can be coil split. Except for the 89, the active EMGs cannot be coil split, so you'll only have use for three positions on the switch (one pickup, both pickups, or the other pickup).

You would not *need* to replace the switch, regardless of if you buy the zw set or separate pickups, but it's a good idea, since a 5-way switch with only two pickups means two dead spots. Oh, it'll be more obvious where to solder which cables.