orgmorg

Build whatever shape you like. I guess what I am getting at is that what you are proposing is one of those things that is mostly academic, and if that's what turns you on, cool, could be a fun experiment. But it's entirely likely it will make no discernable difference. I personally have found it best to avoid overthinking these matters. What's louder than 11?

I think I see what you are getting at, but there really isn't any way to achieve that. It's not like a marimba key where you can shave the back of it until you get the right note. Who knows what you would be left with if you did that to a guitar? Besides, the structure of a guitar and how it responds to the strings vibration is much more complex than a marimba key. If you build it well, it will respond to whatever notes you play.

I just replaced mine recently, I use the urethane tires which are really nice, and don't need to be glued. Got them from these guys here in USA, but they have a OZ ebay store as well: http://stores.ebay.com.au/SULPHUR-GROVE-TOOL

Walnut works fine for necks. I've done a few with it, seems to add a good deal of warmth. I like to use it on guitars with really hard body woods to balance out the tone.

I'll go ahead and get this one rolling with one I call "the weight" The name comes partly from the song by The Band, but also from the control plate which I made from the face of an old produce scale. The body is butternut, with a really gnarly weathered beech barnwood top. The neck is red maple, with a persimmon fretboard, and black pearl dots. I battered the butternut with a 2" polished stone ball over the entire surface, and then wiped black and brown tinted shellac on and off of it until it looked like this: The neck is finished the same, but without the distressing. The tailpiece is a cast iron drawer pull, and the knobs are a wooden thread spool cut in half. Pickups are samshin humbuckers, with chrome covers and metal rings which I hammered, antiqued, and recessed into the barnwood. The bridge and tuners are imports, with an antique silver finish, kinda like pewter. The trussrod cover is another piece of the scale face I used for the control plate. More pictures: Back of headstock Neck joint Full frontal Front detail So there it is, this will probably be the last of these full blown rustic builds I will enter. I will certainly keep building them, but if I enter another GOTM, it will be something different.

Did you click on " view results " ? Doing that lets you see the votes, but makes it so you can't cast one yourself. I just broke up a 3 way tie for first by voting for Matt's 8 string, fantastic work and design on this one, as usual!

I have noticed this a lot in shopping for humbucker sets recently. It seems pretty common nowadays to have a bridge PU with about twice the resistance of the neck PU, at least with many of the lower cost brands. I have been curious about this myself.

Well, you know, they say the first thing to go is.. hmm what was it they said?

I am using domestic woods exclusively. Osage orange, persimmon, black locust, honeylocust, and mesquite. Other than the mesquite, all of them have come from within 30 miles of my shop. They all seem to work very nicely.

Thanks from me, as well. Though I haven't won one yet, I have been totally pleased with how well my unconventional entries have fared amongst such finely finished works. For a short stretch, this past month, I was actually in the lead, which kinda blew my mind. But alas, I just happened to be going up against the cutest guitar in the world. Anyway, it is indeed a lot of fun!

I know, I was just having a little fun with the taking things out of context bit. My comments were not directed at yours per se, but continuing with the discussion at hand.

OK, I see how it is around here... Just kidding, I really didn't take it like that. But that's kinda like saying a telecaster is just a les paul with a bolt on neck. No worries, mate. If I didn't want to hear peoples comments, I wouldn't be posting my work here. I try to learn something from everything that is said, no matter how stupid it may sound at the time ( not referring to the quote above ) or how hard it may be to hear. I am here not just to show off and get my ego stroked, but to get my ass kicked, as well. The former encourages me to keep going, and the latter keeps me from getting complacent. In addition to being socially awkward, I am a freak and a recluse, so it would be very easy for me to get lost in my own little trip, but I want and need to keep building these things and do it for a living, so it is important for me to get feedback from sources that I might normally dismiss as irrelevant, especially considering how ecclectic my concepts are, and it is even more important to subject said sources to rambling, run-on sentences. I would so love to see the tiny LP in the hands of one of the dwarves in the stonehenge scene from Spinal Tap.

To be honest, the only tele pickups I've used have been the dragonfire brand, which seem to be a generic make that gets rebranded by everyone on ebay. I think they were about $30 for a set, but they actually sound pretty darn good! The ones I want to try someday are the Bill Lawrence keystones, a lot of die-hard tele folks swear by them.

A small box with a dehumidifier will work just fine for what you are doing. Most dehumidifiers have an attachment for a hose so you don't have to keep emptying the bucket, this will take care of getting rid of the water, so you can make it fairly air tight. They have a fan, as well, so that will help with air circulation. 15-16% is a good point to start this process. An old air conditioner will work as well, just don't vent the hot air, like you normally would to cool a room, keep the whole thing enclosed. Either way, don't crank it full bore at first, start off slow, and see how it goes. you can always turn it up later if it is going too slow, but you don't want to stress the wood by removing moisture too fast and/or heating it up too much. A dehumidifier or AC will kick out quite a bit of heat, in fact it may even shut down if it gets too hot. You will probably want to provide a means of venting excess heat. I've dried quite a bit of wood this way, but all domestic stuff. I'm sure Fryovanni will be along in a bit, he has more experience with exotics like cocobolo. But don't bother messing with vacuum drying. It really requires a pretty heavy duty chamber, and much more technical setup.

Here is my latest, the "Kelvinator" It is kind of a tele thinline mutant, with a reverse angled headstock, and backwards f-hole The top is american chestnut, from a barn board. It was rather cupped, and I put the convex face to the front, and flattened the back to create an arched top, while leaving the sawmarks on the face intact. The rest of the body is hickory, also from a barn plank. I chambered it quite a bit, but it is still rather heavy. The tailpiece is a name badge from an old refrigerator, which I drilled and slotted to hold the string ends: The pickguard is made from some aluminum sheet material I had laying around. No idea what it came from, but it looks like stuff you would find on the inside of a big old freezer, so it kinda goes with the tailpiece. Knobs are old Heathkit radio knobs. Jackplate and trussrod cover are made of brass. I left the chrome hardware bright on this one to match the tailpiece. Pickups are Stewmac Golden age, hot strat in neck position, and overwound humbucker at the bridge. 4 way tele switch with coil cut for the HB in the two middle positions. Neck is black walnut, with a persimmon fretboard and position markers made from #4 copper wire. More pics: back neck joint headstock front and back full frontal

That is super cool! Reminds me a bit of Clapton's old SG I love how the flamed maple shows through as a background. The matching case is nice, too!

Well, first off, oak and ash are not in the same family. Oak belongs to the Fagaceae, or beech family, while ash is in the oleaceae, or olive family. They are fairly similar in many ways, however. Oak is quite a bit heavier than the "swamp ash" that is usually used for guitar bodies, that is probably the main issue. It is also a lot harder, as well. I have a guitar I made with a 3/4" oak top on a 1" beech back. It is quite heavy and has a sharp bite to the tone. I usually keep the tone control halfway down on this one, whereas I usually leave it all the way up on most guitars.

Cool, thanks for bumping this back up again, I really need to get back on tis project one of these days. Got so much other stuff going on at the moment, though. Trying to get at least 4 guitars done in the next month for a show I have coming up, so it will be a while before I can finish this one up.

+1, but also make many shallow cuts, instead of one deep one. Not only is it safer this way, but it will keep the bit cooler, which will prolong it's life. Oak and beech are quite heavy, so chambering is a good idea to keep the weight down. In my experience, they tend to produce a real sharp biting tone. Tons of sustain, though.

I don't know that I would even use one as a bass. Maybe a canoe paddle.. If it had a trussrod. I don't mean to get too down on the guy- he's been able to make a living doing what he loves, and with what he charges, he's not taking anyone for a ride, but it seems to me a classic case of making excuses for not being able or willing to do better. Sure, you might get away with not using one, but you also might be ok with a beat up old hondo from a yard sale. If you're going make the effort to build a neck, it's just ten bucks extra and a little more time to put a trussrod in it.

Spanish Cedar is not actually a cedar, and not a softwood, either. I've never workrd with it, but from what I have heard, it is a lot like mahogany in most ways. So, probably not quite hard enough for a fingerboard, but definitely harder than any of the actual cedars.

You can modify a regular 5 string bridge, but you will have minor intonation problems. You will have to split the difference between the fundamental strings and the octave strings when adjusting the intonation. This is the bridge I built for my 8 string: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...st&p=369379 I made the base out of wood, but it could also be made out of brass or aluminum angle stock. this is a pic of it strung up- As you can see, there is only a small difference between the fundamental and octave string saddle positions. It might be possible to modify the saddles of a 5 string bridge to allow for this. Probably wouldn't get it dead on, but it would be better than nothing. BTW, don't set it up with the octaves on the bottom, like I did- it's a pain to play this way, and I'm gonna have to change it around someday.

I do stuff like that from time to time as well. Yes, it can be done, but it can be pretty dicey. Forstner bits, especially larger ones, can jump off track very easily and it's usually not pretty when they do. I was being conservative in my comment.

Maybe it should also be noted that forstner bits should only be used in a drill press.

Yes, but more specifically, it means it takes a large amount of force to bend it past the point where it will not return to it's original shape. Hard maple has a high MOE, but it is rarely refered to as "springy"