PatientZero

So I went to Barnes & Noble today to kill a few minutes waiting to pick my girl up from work. On a whim, I bought a book called "The EVERYTHING Rock and Blues Guitar Book". I was planning to do a little light reading. Now, I'm an information junkie, I'm also a little obsessive about guitars. I wasn't expecting to channel the spirit of Howlin' Wolf or anything, but GET THIS BOOK. I don't care if you've been playing for 30 years, I know you'll find something useful. It concentrates on Lead playing, and explains a ton of the black art of scales and soloing. It's also written so a total moron can understand, but its not condescending. A genius won't feel like he's being talked down to. On another note, while doing some research at Guitar Center (which I like to think of as my own little library/laboratory/research and development theory), I almost talked myself into buying an affinity strat. For some sick reason, I felt myself drawn to it. I knew it was wrong, but it was like your best friend's hot mom. Sure its not the most normal thing, but she's HOT.

I'm really not a fan of V guitars, but for some reason, I like this one. One of the things that you can do to keep from wasting wood is to chop it up a bit. You have a lot of areas of blank wood, so instead of cutting the body out of the blank, chop up the blank into smaller pieces. then layout the wood in the general shape of the guitar. Creative clamping and gluing, but very doable. I hope that was clear, if not I'll try to sketch it out later.

I'm taking my precious time on this, for just that reason. The maple is the only piece with that kind of "in your face" appeal, but every bit of wood for this project is amazing. The basswood body is a perfect creamy piece, the maple for the neck is beautifully grained. The hardest part of this is being patient enough to do justice to the wood. UPDATE: I took the body blank to work today and thicknessed it on the Radial Arm Saw. Yes, I said radial arm saw. Took 109 passes, but it worked. Got it home and got it all sanded smooth again. I'll post pics of the body when I figure out my digital cam.

Ok, here's the project I'm working on. PRS "clone" 24.5 scale 22 fret 3pc Basswood body Quilted Maple Top Quilted Maple Headstock Veneer 5pc Laminated Rock Maple neck (set through) Ebony Fretboard Here's a few pics of the maple top, got it from Durawoods for a ridiculously low price: Bookmatch 1 Bookmatch 2 Quilt Detail In two of the pics you can see some variation in the color, heartwood/ sapwood I think. After the top is contoured, I'm going to bleach it to try to even it out some.

Make a stencil, use the stencil to spray sanding sealer, dye.

I was thinking of building a sort of strat copy, but I want to do something a little different, so I wanted to get some feedback on this idea. Ash body, blue/black burst Quilted maple pickguard (or possibly MOP) Rock maple neck/fretboard Lace PUP's standard fender shaped headstock, but reversed, smaller, 13 degree angle, and 4/2 tuners I know strat copies are pretty standard, but I've always loved that single coil blues tone. Thoughts?

"The distance from nut to machine head has no impact whatsoever on the string's tension. " Sorry Greg, maybe I was a little unclear, What I was talking about, is the overall scale length. Lengthening the distance between nut and bridge will increase tension to create the same pitch

Seriously guys, I have to come to EJ's defense a little, I met and got to hang out with the guy about 12 years ago in Memphis (a relative was driving his tour bus), and honestly he's a really friendly guy. He is obssesive/compulsive, and has said as much on a few occaisions, but he did take a few hours to sit and talk with a 15 year old kid (not to mention passing on a few little licks played on MY guitar). To tell you the truth, I honestly believe that HE can hear the difference some of the minute details make. He genuinely believes he can anyway. On another note, "go to a crossroads at midnight and let the old black man waiting there tune it for you." Does that work at an intersction? There's an intersection right by my house, but the only old black guy I've ever seen there at midnight was my neighbor, and he was going to the AM/PM for a beer. Besides, I don't think he knows how to tune a guitar.

Baritone guitars typically have 27+ in scale lengths. Given that everybody and their mom is playing Baritone or 7 string, you should be able to find a good bit of info. Keep in mind though, if you don't want to go with a baritone, you're looking at some obscenely tight strings.

the wiring, the paint, the neck, and some of the others will have a measureable impact on tone. By measureable, I mean that there is a difference, even though you probably don't notice. I tend to think of things like this in the analogy of olympic sports, like how every new innovation will shave off 1/10,000,000,000th of a second. It's a measureable differemce, but when its that close, the only ones who care are the guy buying the widget, and the guy making it. Everyone else just goes "hey, cool". As far as Eric Johnson goes, Look for the song "Cliffs of Dover". Eric's what happens when you blend Joe Satriani and Steve Vai with Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix. Phenomenal player from Austin TX. If you can find a clip of his performance on Austin City Limits, I highly reccomend it. If you want, let me know and I'll email you one.

The method I use is a little involved, but with a little patience, and a lot of attention to detail, I've gotten beautiful results. Using whatever design program you have, print out two copies of the text that you want. Make it actual size. One copy you want to adhere to the peghead (or whatever you're inlaying), and the other is for the material you're using for the inlay. Using an X-acto knife, scribe the outline of the lettering in both materials. In the peghead, use a dremel type flexshaft with a very fine engraving bit to carve out the inside of the design. In the inlay material, use the same flexshaft with a fine grinding bit to shape the letters outside of the lines that you scribed earlier. You should end up with inlay material perfectly sized for the cavity it goes in.

The only problem I've come across when using Purpleheart is that you have to seal it with epoxy. I've never seen any other way to keep the purple color, and when it loses the purple it gets VERY ugly. Almost like diaper-bottom brown.

thanks a million guys, that was exactly what I needed.

I've looked everywhere, and I'm in the middle of a google search from hell. about 12 years ago I bought an Epiphone Strat Copy. I'm trying to find out any details I can about this model, specifically the neck dimensions. I loved the feel of this neck, and want to reproduce it as closely as possible. Any help would be appreciated.

I know this question was already asked, but I might have missed the answer. How thick is the maple top? Looks alot thicker than the normal 1/4 I've seen for sale.