mledbetter

Oh.. i see.. that will be neat. I'm wanting to do my necks with brass inserts and machine screws.. and get rid of the heel plate. There are a couple of builders that put the machine screws right into the maple with no problem. but the inserts would be nice for maintenance reasons.. Sound like you're good to go. Did you get your pups from GuitarFetish too? He's got some great deals.

Sounds awesome. I only have 3 things.. 1) when you say curly maple plate.. what are you talking about? A nek plate? I thought you meant a control plate but you said screw in from the back.. so i was confused. 2) the bridge. You set the bridge 25.5" from the nut.. what part of the bridge did you measure from? You don't want 25.5" to be the end of the adjustment travel or you can't compensate. and 3) for wire.. keep it vintage.. Order a few feet of cloth wire from allparts or www.guitarelectronics.com. If you're not doing a bunch of crazy splitting and coil switching it should be pretty straight forward. Let me know how that curly maple binding works out. I wanted to try some too. I've got some really curly red oak strips but i'm not sure I would ever get it to bend. Plus it's oak so a ton of filling would have to be done. I've put it out of my mind and decided to wait for some curly maple.

dude.. that's in singapore!! i bet that would cost a pretty penny to ship. Nice setup though.. I'[ll be using the full sized porter cable because we have a few of them.. Can't beat them.

Just study davids. it's a much better plan and it's not that difficult to figure out. You need rods, linear bearings, a laminate trim router, wood to build your arms with and something for a coutnerweight. The linear bearings will cost more than anything else. 1" diameter thompson bearings will run you 100 bucks a pop from MSC or somewhere like that but you can get a pair on ebay sometimes for 60 bucks or so. It's much the same mechanism as a CNC as far as sliding.. 2 bearings for your y axis slide, 2 bearings inline for your x axis slide.. and those same bearings pivot for your z axis movement. Laminate trim routers aren't too expensive either. edit** it's not just linear bearings you're looking for.. it's a pillow block assy you want. The block has the linear bearings inside it. You might be able to make your own pillow block and put the linear bearings in side it.. I don't know.

The bulk of the latency should be occuring in the DSP part of the prog.. Latency was an issue during the early days of the rack mounted DSPs.. think back to the old octave and harmonizer effects.. Input on the computer is real time (given no other interference witht he signal) it's the signal processing that is the / between the i and the o This is why a slower computer will have a more pronounced latency. I run a 2Ghz laptop with 512 megs of ram. When it's a clean install it's fast and my digital recording and video work is pretty uch realtime but it's been almost 2 years since a clean install and that thing is as slow as molasses. Any kind of DSP stuff that my audio progs ask of the machine are much slower than they used to be. You have to have an unhindered processor. So many people download all kinds of utilites, have little system try thingies running and all this other garbage that it ties up processer resources. My first suggestion would be to clean EVERYTHING off that isn't necessary. As per the question about the MBox and firewire stuff.. I would think the latency could potentially be worse. In a sound card, your audio goes in and is converted to digital audio that the computer can understand and the sound card takes on that D/A conversion process, away from the PC. Leaving the PC free to do it's thing. With a USB input, your computers processor is doing the D/A conversion and that's just another step. General rule of thumb is to isolate functions. If you have a kick ass sound card, it will have the memory and proessor speed to get the sound to the computer ready for the DSP.. With hardware interfaces, if they don't have their own processing chips, they are throwing that proccess off onto the CPU which is already supposed to be ready to hit the DSP functions.. not have to do the D/A stuff first.. Same goes in video work.. people spend thousands on input cards that handle the realtime processing of video and keep the processor open for visual effects processing. And the best gaming vid cards work by taking all the rendering processes away from the computer, so i would say great soundcard will win out over USB and Firewire inputs. That's just what seems logical to me though.

That copy carver is definitely next on my list of tools to build.. Duplication and accuracy is a must if you're selling these things and what easier way to control quality that way.. You can still leave the final tweaking to be done by hand.. Carving tops is one of the most daunting things to wrap your brain around tool wise. This makes the most sense. As for the belt sander comment.. You could do the same thing with a drum sander, however.. getting on the inside of the horns and tight transitional areas would be nearly impossible for a belt sander. For that you're definitely better off with the angle grinder. Dean's custom instruments are still carved with an angle grinder.. that guy is flat good with one. I think he's using that carbide grinding wheel though and those are 50 bucks a pop. There are copy carver plans online.. The biggest supplier sells his for 50 bucks but David's rig looks way better.. the linear bearings are much more byulletproof than the big roller wheels the other guys plans call for.. It looks like an old wagon..

I don't think anyone suggested that you all MEANT for that to happen.. it's just one of those unfortunate things about logos. Anytime I design a logo, we would put it through the paces making sure it came across to all audiences in the way it was intended.. Unfortunately as well, you also have to remember that in many parts of the country the KKK is alive and well.. It's a different animal but it's still an ugly, ignorant animal that won't go away.. I'm in east tennessee and a big headline last year was some idiot that was shooting his gun in the air to initiate a fellow clansman and the bullet came down and hit him right in the top of the head.. How he survived I have no idea.. all his idiot friends got scared and ran off leaving him to fend for himself.. sad sad sad.. And tennessee is pretty far north for this kind of nonsense.. i'm sure it's even worse the further south you go. But like I said, even though not necessarily my styl, I think your guitars are awesome looking.. You can definitely see the quality in there.. in the little details as wes said. Great lookin stuff.

This Carving Wheel Seriously though.. something that hard you may have to do some sort of power grinding.. It's not cheap though. I wonder too about using a big router bit to get the shape.. A raised panel cabinet makers bit gives you about 1-2 inches of gentle slope.. they aren't cheap either though and it would be a waste of a 100 dollar bit if the Wenge eats it up and dulls it.. What about rasps? And hopefully you've got some good dust protection. I'm not positive about Wenge but a lot of the exotic wood dust is REALLY bad for you to breathe. I borrowed a friends carving rasps to work on ash and those things ate it up like it was nothing.. granted wenge is a lot harder, it's might at least hog most of the wood out... If none of that works you might have to do the stairstep routing and mallet/chisel work.

Do a search here on KTM9.. Bassman tried it and the jury is still out on how suitable it is. Doesn't get as hard as nitro. The most successful folks that use it have an infrared light bank to bake the finish with. Nitro is cheaper and will get harder. Other waterborn finishes have the same issues as KTM9 with hardness but a lot of folks feel that waterborn isn't as cristal clear as nitro. KTM9 is supposed to solve the clarity issue, but at 40 bucks a quart.. i think it's a big gamble. There are some other competitors like Crystalaq and seveal others that have the same claims as KTM9. My gut would tell me to stay away from wagner products.. they are consumer oriented.. I may be dead wrong but I have never heard of a luth spraying with a wagner setup. Lowes and HD sell inexpensive HVLP setups.. Woodcraft sells the TurbinAire systems but they start at 6-700 and i gather these are still considered entry level.. I would stick with conventional and get a good compressor and the best gun you can afford. Someone else will have to answer the accessory questions. I have no idea. I would hate to be stuck with the wagner or something like that and not have a real compresser.. Keep in mind you might want to use other air tools.. grinders, sanders, etc..

I know lots of people that use HVLP but they are mostly furniture and cabinet folks.. Some folks love them, some don't. I think it depends on what you are spraying too. LGM sprays poly and maybe that doesn't work as well with HVLP.. A lot of nitro and waterbased folks like HVLP. HOWEVER.. there is a far cry between a value gravity fed gun from Stew or Grizzly and the money you'll shell out on a good HVLP system. Even at grizzly, the nice SATA HVLP guns are 3, 4 upwards to 8 hundred bucks.. I would take the advice as "HVLP isn't as good a bang for the buck" if you're starting out. I would think a 6-8 gallon compressor would be ok, but it all depends on the specs. Just read it's though, it's max PSI and CFM at that level and match it to the gun's requirements. 6-8 is probably the low end.. Stay away from the little pancake compressors.. Mine can't blow for more than 2-3 minutes before kicking on.. Anyway, you can get a giant compressor for 300 bucks or so and spend another 100 or so on a gun and still have quite a bit less of an investment than with a good HVLP system. If money is no object then I would fully research HVLP and get other's opinions on it as well.

You can get a great deal on the Jets though if you watch out.. Woodcraft puts them on a big sale periodically.. They are awesome little machines. My friend has an extension on it so he can do almost anything.. Just not giant vessles or anything..

if you look at the biggest picture.. the pickguard is cocked to the left a little bit. It looks like it should fit just right. MusiKraft does good stuff, they make TONS of bodies and necks. Given that, if for somereason this auction gets too expensive.. just wait and they'll auction more stuff.

Yes that site is the best i had found.. I just couldn't remember the name.. Thanks for posting that. Definitely check them out.

Man all of a sudden GOTM is like the showcase for the pros.. absolutely awesome stuff. I dig that bass, awesome looking. I was waiting for Setch's LP to be entered. That is a beautiful instrument. Hell they all look awesome. Godin, I wish I had build half as good an instrument when I was your age.. You've got it goin on.. This month may be a 3 or 4 way tie..

Deft Search Results..

If the dyes overlapping causes undesireable results.. You main need to stain black, sand back.. then seal it.. Then do color #1/ Seal it.. then #2, Seal it.. then finish with #3. If you're spraying alcohol based dyes with an airbrush, you'll have a lot of control and it'll sit right on top of the sealer. I wonder if you would have an easier spraying red center, then yellow the rest of the way, then blue on top of the yellow for your green band.. Then it's a pure fade to green. Instead of yellow to pea to full green. Wiht the sealer in between though you won't have any color mixing.. just overlay which should make a smoother fade. That JET guitar is stripes. I saw a tie dyed guitar once. I thought it was a jet. It's on Ed Romans (choke) site.. Maybe it was a Jaros. But it was a red/blue/yellow/green tie dye, spiraling from the center. Definite reggea vibe colorwise, even though tie-dye isn't necessarily reggea i know.

Awesome advice you have there.. It's easy to blow someone off and tell them to go "get experience" but you have to start somewhere. The only thing I would add, is as you get into it.. get all the licenses and such you need in your state to buy wholesale.. Then you'll have AllParts and WD at your disposal at 50% of retail. You have to keep your overhead as low as possible to keep as much of your hourly income in you pockets as possible. Almost all of the legends in the business started out as repair guys.. Seymour Duncan, Sadowsky, Charvel, Jackson, Suhr.. It's a great way to make contacts. Good Luck.

If you want to go for the vintage look, nitro the whole thing.. You can scrape it off the frets after the fact, or tape them before.. either way. I think most just scrape the frets. I saw a trick once where someone ground the shape of a fret into the head of a nail and used that to scrape tha lacquer off the frets.. Steel wool should do it too I would thnk. I would imagine nitro will be a bit easier to get off the frets than poly.. The ReRanch folks say that nitro doesn't like the fretmaterial and won't adhere to it. If you want a more satin feel, do a tung oil or tru-oil finish. You can't go wrong there for a great playing neck. About 4 thin coats of tru-oil and you'll be in business.

I was thinking the same thing.. lol.. Hide a little inlay in there somewhere of a diver mask that says "p. sherman. 42 wallaby way. sydney" lol.. Incredible work.. the nemo comment is in NO WAY meant to detract from what an incredible inlay job this is.. You can tell who has little kids!

That is beautiful! I played a friends lowden once.. It is very nice.. nicer than my taylor definitely.. Was curious though, is this a refinish or something? Lowden changed their name to Avalon Guitars.. unless someone is still building under the lowden name. They are amazing instruments though, and deserving of an amazing inlay such as that..

Most custom builders buy Keller shells. Retail, you can buy kellers from Precision Drum (google, youll find it) and google "drum parts" as was said. On the wholesale end, google for "World Percussion" and you should find them.. They are a distributor for Keller shells, as well as several brands of hardware, cymbals, pretty much everything. If you're wanting to build your own, google (yes once again) for "build your own drums" and you'll get this guy hawking a video. If you watch his samples though you'll see how he does it. All he's doing is making a mold out of 2 plywood discs with a spacer between to give a depth.. Then he's buyint 1/8" poplar finish plywood which you can order anywhere, and rolls it and glues it with laminate glue. You do 3 layers or so of this and you have a pretty decent drum shell.. All you have to do is get a router outfit to do the bearing edges.. which is just a laminate trim setup with a 45 deg. bit. I'm a drummer and have wanted to build a set for years.. what keeps me from it is the hardware. By the time I add up lugs, hoops, rods, spurs, etc. for a basic set (i'm a 4 pc player) it still comes to over 7-800 bucks with shells. Building a guitar is much cheaper Good luck though, i'm sure it would be a lot of fun.

No i havent seen those.. I love david crowder though.. i'll have to check them out. Maybe they are branching out from their boutique clone roots. ------- Finally found the atom.. it didn't do too much for me, but the crowdster was cool..

surely he could do better than tom anderson. They are fine guitars but they are all strat and tele based guitars.. The PRS CE models are bolton and a lot of times solid finish. they are more like 1100 or so. I'd take a parker over a tom anderson any day.. if versatility is of interest those are awesome. You can lock the trems down to play hardtail, they play like a dream. Fretboards are dead level too.

1500 is plenty to get a great guitar.. punk or otherwise. If he doesn't know what he wants.. build him one! go pro. lol. Otherwise, if he's experimenting.. look for a deal. There are so many imports these days that are goo.. You can get a higher end Agile or Dillion and replace the pups and have a pretty killer guitar. But seriously.. if he's played yours and likes them at all.. let him commission you to build him one.. if he's deadset on buying one.. he might check out a parker.. or a PRS CE model (the bolton ones, they are quite nice really)

Yeah I think you can get acrylic mirror.. There's an ibanez model like that.. one of the vai sig models. I think it's acrylic mirror.. There is a chrome satriani model but from what I hear that is NOT an easy paintjob to do. You might check with a craft store..