jnewman

The "user posted image" message means that, for whatever reason, your computer is not able to download the image from the server where it was originally located - he may have removed the pictures, the server may have shut down, or they may have been made private. They're pictures posted from another website/server without ever being stored on projectguitar.

That's exactly what you want, although you'll have to be creative in mounting it (they don't have the threaded bit you can use to just bolt them to a panel). I actually just looked, and mouser.com has 10K, 50K, and 100K, but not 25K listed. They do say "other values available on request," so it's possible they have them just not in their catalog. I'm really impressed the Digi-Key guy helped you out like that - by all my experience, digi-key has exceptional customer service, and this really confirms that.

Really? Huh... that's good to know. Like I said, I'm not a huge acoustic guy, so I haven't really been keeping up with what's been happening. And hey, PRS's are pretty CNC'd, too, and we all know how much some people are willing to pay for those . Godin, that sounds like a great guitar - I hope it works out and you get it built just the way you want it! Make sure to show us some pictures when you finally get it, all that cocobolo should look amazing.

I can help you with the volume controls. Slider pots are EXACTLY the same as rotary pots. You can find them lots of places; mouser.com and digikey.com are two major US electronics supply houses that have them. You wire EMG's the same way as any other pickup except there are also some wires that go to a 9V battery. You can add a normal switch to turn them on/off or use a switched 1/4" to plug your cable into in the guitar. EMG also suggests using 25KOhm pots not the 250KOhm or 500KOhm pots that are used with passive pickups. I've heard of people using up to 100KOhm's for them, but I can't give you any advice other than the fact that EMG probably recommends 25KOhms for a reason. So what you want to do is go to digikey or mouser and look for a 25KOhm audio taper slide potentiometer.

Those are gorgeous - that honeyburst is one of the best ones I've ever seen! Are you spraying normal nitro?

Looks great! That's some pretty fancy wood, and it looks like you did a really good job on the Leviathan body - let us know how it turns out. Ah, et je parle peu de français, aussi, s'il y a quelque chose que tu ne peux dire en anglais. C'est quelques ans depuis que j'ai l'etudié, mais peut-être je peux t'aider. Et bienvenu à projectguitar!

I'm sure you could make it work if you decide to really give it a go - one suggestion, though. String/springs will always be slipping and might get out of whack or break. I'd suggest that if you're going to try it, use a rack and pinion set - put a little gear on the pot shaft, and a straight bar with teeth to match the gear pinned to the trim block (so that it can swing). You'll need a spring to hold the rack (the straight part) against the pinion (the gear) but it wouldn't ever slip and would be much more reliable than string.

Ah, gotcha... So you'd put the tallboys above the quarter-pounders? Are the q-p's hotter pups?

Just curious, but what is it exactly you're looking for? (I'm not trying to find you the one perfect standard model if you really think you want a custom guitar, I'm just really curious about what it is you're looking for).

How do you have the switch portion of the push-pull pots wired? Could you possibly draw it out and post it? (Exactly as you have all the wires connected, not the schematic you're kinda-sorta working from) Are you sure you've actually connected every ground point in the schematic to ground?

So which is it ? If you don't like any production guitar, how do you know you will like a custom one? What is it about production guitars you don't like? What characteristics of specific brands do you like/not like? Are you sure a custom guitar will actually be able to give you what you want?

Are you going in terms of increasing quality or decreasing quality? I have some Fender Custom Shop Texas Special single coils (are these similar to the Tex-Mex's? Fender doesn't seem to be selling Tex-Mex's anymore) that I actually really like, although I've been wanting to try Tallboys and Quarter Pounders for a while (I'm not a big fan of active pickups, so that leaves out the EMG's).

You might want to look at Larrivee - they make some beautiful, incredibly musical guitars, including some with the B-Band acoustic transistors and preamps. I'm not a huge acoustic guy, but every time I've seen or heard a Larrivee, I've been HIGHLY impressed. They're from Canada, if that means anything . I've also heard people say they like their larrivee with the B-Band transducer better than the Taylor 710ce - although it's entirely possible they got lucky with the larrivee or unlucky with the taylor. They have a bunch of different models from about $1000 on up to about $4000.

Oh, heh. Misread your post. Sorry.

This should probably be in one of the discussion sections, not the announcement section. That said, if I were you, I'd make a template out of thin plywood (3/8 or 1/4) to guide your drill - having one of your fancy new tuners skewed off at an angle would look pretty silly .

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=guit...ase_pid/361286/ Official Fender white pearloid 11-hole 3-single coil strat pickguard. This is what came on my texas special strat, it looks pretty good.

Read the reply from Clavlin above. A major concern with inlaying shell before radiusing the board is that you will have no idea what color or pattern you will end up with. If you pre-radius the board and then inlay, you have a much better idea of how it will look when completed. I realize that most Jem vines are not shell but the general idea of radiusing after doing the inlay does have it's risks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess the problem is that I'd never imagine doing anything complicated enough where I'd need specific hair colors . Clavin does make a good point, I didn't really read down past Setch's reply when I posted.

There is a close relative of the drawknife called an inshave that I would think would be PERFECT if you wanted to do it with hand tools. Here is an example, although these specific ones are kind of pricy: http://woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=1999 That's what I'm going to use if/when I start making carved tops. A lot of people have also been using power sanders recently.

I'm going to be doing some kind of oil finish, although I'm not sure which one. I've been looking at the Sutherland Welles brand Murdoch "hard sealer" and "table top" tung oil/resin finish. It's pretty fancy stuff and I've heard good things about it - it's available in the Garrett Wade tool catalog, among other places. I don't want to do any lacquer because I'd prefer not to have lacquer on the neck and the neck's going to blend smoothly enough into the body that a line where the lacquer stopped would look really silly . It's entirely possible the humbuckers aren't drawn quite to scale on that drawing - I didn't really have any reference, so I just sort of drew them in. Now that you mention it, they do look way too small. We'll see about fretboard choice... maybe it'll be a surprise for everyone . I've been thinking about it, and I might go to one volume pot and a concentric tone pot (so I get independent tone for each pickup). I think I'm going to get the body together and really look at it and see what I think looks best, but that'll be a while. I actually really like the standard strat headstock, but I've always thought that really wildly asymmetrical headstocks looked a little silly with those perfectly straight wood lines going up the middle - that's why I drew up that little mostly symmetrical headstock. I didn't realize until I'd already drawn up the whole guitar that the headstock looks a lot like the Warmoth Variax, but I like it so it's what I'm doing. I can't wait to get started on the real work!

1. A,D 2. Tuned: 5, New Strings: 4, Humidified: 1, Polished: 3 3. That depends - are they more models from brands I like? I'd rather go to a shop that sells Fender and Gibson guitars and Victoria and Marshall amps and nothing else than a place that's loaded up with cheapie low-end models. Not that I can afford a Victoria - but I walked into a shop one time that had a bunch of 'em and the guy who ran it was nice enough to let me and my buddy have fun with one for a while - that's a hell of an amp. 4. A lot when they have Ernie Ball regular slinkys on sale for like $15 a 10 pack . 5. B/C - I like 'em to have basses, keyboards, etc - doesn't have to be anything terribly fancy. 6. Rockin' Robin in Houston, Tx. Like… Guys who work there actually know what they're doing an can do serious work on guitars. It's possible I won't need it anymore now, but it was nice when I did. A great selection of new and used instruments. Prices seem about 30% high... but you can talk 'em down about 40% . Dislike… Sometimes they don't have a big pile of amps, but that's not big an issue, they always have good ones. 7. What things annoy you about guitar shops? Everything about guitar center and sam ash except the cheapness. Last time I bought a guitar I had to go to guitar center because Rockin' Robin didn't have what I wanted. I sat there playing a guitar for 30 minutes, decided I really liked that specific guitar, went to buy it, and the guys behind the counter tried to give me one still in its packing from the factory that I hadn't even seen for my thousand dollars (I set them straight and took home the one I'd been playing). And then they charged me about a hundred dollars for the Fender case that comes with the d**n guitar from the factory. They took the new one they tried to give me out of its cardboard box it'd shipped in, out of the Fender hardcase, and tried to sell it to me with a cheaper SKB case. AAAAGH! 8. Would you prefer to buy a guitar from a shop or online? A shop. I'd never buy a guitar I hadn't played first unless it was a real cheapie and I was pretty sure I was going to get a bad guitar anyway.

That depends... do Jamiroquai and P-Funk count as disco? Heh. I already voted for blues, but I'll donate a half a vote to disco if they count .

Since that picture was kind of fuzzy, here's a nice picture of about a 5"x8" section of the walnut dampened to show the grain: It doesn't really get dark like that along the edge, but when I used my flash there was too much glare - so this picture was just taken with lamplight, and it's uneven (I cast a shadow). It's not quite that red, but it's close - that's what the yellow light you get from normal lightbulbs does. There IS more red in it than usual for walnut, though, and it really shows through with the grain wet. If anyone cares, that's the spot about eight inches in from the close end of the left walnut board .

Yeah, I'm really just thinking about things out loud right now on the fretboard - every time I look up I see a new wood that I fixate on for a few minutes (almost none that are actually new to me, just ones I get reminded of). As much as I love the way maple fretboards look (and I do, especially birdseye), I don't think I want to do it on this guitar - I don't really like lacquered fretboards and I don't want it to start looking like EC's strat on the Layla album cover . The title of the thread is sort of a misnomer - I'm not actually going for anything like a normal strat . It's just that to me a stratocaster shaped body and fender profile neck fit like a glove - I can't imagine a more comfortable guitar, so that's the body shape I'm sticking with for now. I want a warm, crunchy humbucker sound for blues, though, so that's why the heavy walnut and the neck through and the humbuckers and the TOM . All I have so far is way too much wood (two or three guitars' worth), some paper cutouts I made off of my existing strat (they look funny because of the angle - they're right), and the drawing I posted at the top. I'm going to try to get at least the neck blank together this week, but then I'm going to be gone for two weeks and there won't be any progress . Anyway, here's the wood and cutouts: Jimmy Newman

It could be worse... my first guitar was made out of chipboard (like MDF only not as heavy or strong ). 1995 or so Peavy Raptor. At least his has thin pieces of solid wood, heh.

Jeez, no kidding - I can't stay in my seat .