Ripthorn

My thoughts are that it says semi-gloss, so you likely won't get the uber shiny surface you want, but I'm always up for trying new stuff.

I built my own miter box and use the stew mac fret saw and templates. The miter box took me about 30 minutes to put together from 1/2" mdf and is wide enough to slot a 1 piece strat neck. I have ended up doing enough, though, that I am considering getting the table saw blade and going that route.

One crucial bit of information is the neck heel profile. Regardless of who or where, that profile will be needed. Is this to go on an existing guitar? If so, what kind? Unfortunately, I can't help you with building it, but I know that whoever does will need that info.

That could be done. Just be extremely careful desoldering the pot from the board, as you could damage a trace or smd component easily.

Usually those little contact switches are not dpdt. That means you can't just solder your switch in there. You could clip the LED so that it doesn't draw any current, but the typical way of wiring things like this is to use a stereo output jack and wire up the ground of the battery so that it is open when the guitar cord is unplugged. That makes it so that no power is supplied to the circuit when the guitar is unplugged. That is how all active pickup guitars are wired. As for the first item, if those are dual gang pots, you would need a separate dpdt switch and dual gang pot, as I don't think they make dual gang push pull pots. So in short, no, there is nothing you can do with that push pull pot to control the circuit.

Well, things don't look very good for item number 1. From the fuzzy pictures, the pots appear to be dual gang, plus there is no resistance rating on them. Second, soldering into a surface mount board is really not recommended unless you have some mad skills. As for using the dpdt switch to control it, you simply leave the control always on (as far as the pedal is concerned) and then wire up the entire pedal circuit in true bypass. Good luck!

That is a great collection of wood and the first build looks like it's going nicely. Keep us posted. On an unrelated note, what Ibanez model is that in your first photo?

I have a 4" and a 6" pair of the metal digital ones from Harbor Freight and they have worked really well. I also have an inexpensive all-metal set of Vernier calipers that I use for setting to a specific measurement (e.g., 2") and locking them and using that to check as I get the depth or thickness close to the measurement.

Thought so. I remember seeing an old video from Dan Erlewine where he used a random orbital sander with buffing pads attached to that. You really can use anything, you can buff by hand too if you want. Last time I tried that I left like my right arm was about ttwo times the size of the left though There's a reason I like to call this the Armstrong method . I've done it this way for a few builds, but I will likely be changing that up sometime soonish.

When I was in college, I loved a song by the Bouncing Souls. It's called Gone and I think it is a great tune, I still love listening to it. Congrats on playing with them, and that bass seems to have produced a lot of music.

Your pickups are likely either not potted or poorly potted. Most any potted pickup (which is most of them) will do. You can do GFS if on a budget, or bare knuckles if you have boatloads of cash.

I've built the templates for 6 different model of builds that I have done, and I bet you could do it. It is much easier than building the guitar itself. Of course, if you are really looking for another to do so, there would definitely need to be more info, as demonx suggested.

I am working on my first commission right now and those types of thoughts have surfaced every time I've made a mistake, really. This is a set neck and I accidentally routed the neck pocket about 1/64th too wide, and when I found that out, I got really upset and had to just step back for a couple weeks. Then I ended up shimming the thing and all is looking good, but I definitely know what you are talking about. As far as builds for myself, I have cut up and tossed out two so far because they simply are not up to the standard I want them to be at. The really tough thing is that I work with lots of guys who love guitars, but don't build them. So when they see one of my builds, they tell me it's awesome and such, but I have to resist pointing out mistakes and stuff because I think that we hold ourselves to a really high standard as builders, even higher than lots of guitar enthusiasts. In the end, I think it's like my dad always said, the secret to woodworking is knowing how to hide mistakes and not tell anyone, because you won't have a perfect piece.

Just my thoughts: 1) Why paint an ambrosia maple body? Those things look awesome with a clear finish 2) You get that finish by using a white tinted base with a little bit of color to it (usually a little brown and maybe a little red) 3) After you get that color, you can seal with shellac and then put pretty much whatever you want over it assuming the shellac is DE-waxed 4) After your artwork, seal with shellac again, and put whatever clear coat on it that you want, probably satin based on what you described. I don't think you will find a really high quality nitro in satin, though I could be wrong, as I don't use nitro and the only satin nitro I know of is Deft and I had a really bad experience with that once, and exactly once.

I've got a mahogany guitar going on right now that will be finished in trans black using alcohol based aniline dye. I have done a couple test pieces and have the strength of the dye squared away, but what I am wondering is in what order I should grain fill, seal, and dye the body. My thoughts were to dye, spray a couple coats of sealer, fill the pores, then sand back the pore filler, spray another coat or two of sealer and do another treatment of pore filler (and repeat until pores are all filled). Then I would spray a couple more coats of sealer before moving to top coat. I will be using Z Poxy finishing resin for the pore filler. My one concern with this order is that if I accidentally sand through to the dye, I may or may not be able to just do a spot touch up of the dye job. If you guys were to do this finish, what order would you go in?

Spray some sealer on, put down the decal, and then spray your clear coats over it. You can still sand it, just be careful not to go through the clear.

Thanks for the input guys, sounds like I can continue on with my original plan.

So I am finally doing a set neck guitar, but I had some questions for those of you who have done this before. What are your steps and in what order? I have the body pretty much completely done: shaped, routed, etc. and the neck is routed to profile with the fretboard about to be glued on. My question is mainly regarding when you do neck shaping and when you glue the neck in. The body and neck are mahogany and I am going to be doing a trans black finish. I would like to pretty much finish the body except for final wetsanding without the neck glued in, but then there is the issue of glue squeeze out getting on top of the finish. I don't know if this will present a problem or not, thus I seek your collective wisdom. Any other pointers would be much helpful

I thought I read somewhere that it was common practice to seal before pore filling. Is this not so? I've always only ever pore filled wood for a natural finish, so I skipped sealer as there was no color to worry about. I've got a build going on right now that will be mahogany dyed black, so I just want to make sure I don't do something stupid.

What size wire? I have a few frets' worth of the FW-74 size from LMI. I'm not sure if it's long enough for all six, though, I will have to check.

I like C, but think A stands out most.

I read that it does not have the 100% burn in that the 6000 has. That turned me off to it, as I have been using 6000 with pretty good luck, though, as you say, it goes on thin. I just got some 1000 sealer to hopefully help with initial build, etc.

Make sure and let us know, as I would be interested.

Let me preface by saying I've never done the glue the frets in thing. However, in some respects, I think that a more "traditional" is easier: you don't have to worry about glue mess, refrets are easier, you don't have to be as careful with how much you over radius the wire (I know you can with the oversized slots, but then you have to have good clamping pressure all along the fret). Are there advantages to the oversized slots? I think so, I just don't think that they are enough (for me) to outweigh the method I currently use in my situation and how I build guitars. Others will want to and will have great success, and that's great. As far as glue, I have heard of some using CA. Depending on how oversized the slots are, you may need a thicker viscosity.

Just to piggyback on this, I have noticed that when I shield cavities with the stewmac paint, I tend to get resistances of anywhere from 20-150 ohms, so I would not use the paint as a ground connections. It will help to shield to a certain extent, but I wouldn't count on it, especially for signal grounds.