matthew bryan

Hello all, I ordered my parts and they will be here this weekend. I am going to wait to order my neck blank and fret board for the very end because I am very scared of one thing......warping! I have two options: (note; I do not own a planer or jointer and I live in Southwest Louisiana) 1. I can order the neck blank already planed to thickness and jointed on one side. When it (and the fretboard) gets here at roughly the same time I can start the woodworking and make the neck to the point where I can get it shaped, frets in, and sealer on it to minimize it turing into a question mark on me. Again this is Louisiana and it is about 85-100% humid all the time. My shop is my garage so no humidity control. This blank is dry but will come from up north so it will probably start sucking water the second I unwrap it. 2. I can order the blank rough sawn and let it equilize with my shop/area. Wait for about a week, contact a cabinet maker and get him to plane\joint it to my specs. Order the fretboard and then get to making a neck. Which one do you all recomend?.....or do you have any other suggestions? I want to be safe because this is my first one and do not want to break my confidence with a warped neck to start with. I do not want to deal with warped wood right out the gate with not having tools to do so. By the way the blank is quater sawn plane maple. I have this planned down to the number of steps I am going to take for everything but am scared to start because of this one issue! Any advice is wanted! Matthew

Drak......here is the link to the Ibanez site that describes the pu's on the guitar......do not know if it is accurate but it is the only info I could find..... http://www.ibanez.com/guitars/guitar.asp?model=JS1200

Yep the thickness from top to bottom. I have a strat and do not own any other guitars so I have no comparison. Just wondering if this is standard to most popular modles out there or is it a matter of taste. Thanks

Thanks for the reply.

Hello, I have a set of strat plans and see that the neck tapers in thickness from first fret to heal. In your experience are all electric necks like this? Do any have uniform thickness (distance from top of fingerboard to bottom of neck profile)throughout the length and is this the same for acoustics? Thanks for any help.

Thanks for the info....looks like the screw fits in the side of the saddle and wedges it in place. I think I am going to try the single string bridges on my next build. thanks again.

Hello all, I was wondering if you can move the string contact point backwards and forwards on the ABM single string bridges to intonate? The pictures I can find does not show a way to move it for intonation (that I can see). I can see where you can move the string hight though. If it does not have this capability then I guess you would have to mount them with precompensated distances for correct intonation. Thanks for any info Matthew

Hello all, I am planning a material finish for my next guitar. The top of the guitar will have a 1/8" to 1/4" radius all around. I was wondering how you would go about getting the material over this evenly all around the guitar and if you could can I use a larger radius....say 1/2"? One idea I had was to put a piece of masking tape up to the point where the material ends at the radius and trim it off there. I was afraid of shrinkage that way though and the line of material would be uneven and not to good to look at. Any ideas welcome!

Hello all, I am in the process of making my control cavity on a prototype guitar. The cavity is rectangular in shape with rounded corners. The size of the cavity is known and an MDF template has been made to this size. I drew out the outline, double stick tapped the template down and routed away. I then took a rabbiting bit in the router to make a ledge for a recessed cavity cover. My next step was to take a piece of paper put it over the hole and trace lightly around it to get the shape and size of the cavity cover to make another template. NOTE: once I make these templates the cavity will be the same on any more of these type of guitars I build. So with that said it seems to me that I am doing this the hard way....fitting....tracing...fitting....etc. I was wondering.... 1. Does my current method sound sane to you? 2. What other ways are there to doing this? NOTE: this control cavity is not in the standard areas electric guitars are known to having them and it is not a common shape that I have found. I was looking for an easier way to make coustom cavity covers without the paper tracing step. Thanks for all your help

Hello all, I am about to start my first fret job and first re-fret job as well. Every where I read I see that it is recommended to "slightly" over bend the frets prior to hammering\pressing so the ends will stay better. (I will be hammering by the way) I was going to build the fret bending jig listed here on the site for a 12" radius and was wondering how much tighter to make the jig (for the slight overbend). I was going to go for a 11" radius but thought to ask here first as to what you recommend. Any thoughts? Thanks

Anyone out there?

This Thread This is the first time I am attaching a URL so I hope it went through. If it did not the guitar I am talking about was a strat that was hollowed out and a top with an F hole was put on. An acoustic bridge was attached with a piezo element. The questions I have are: 1. Was any wood besids the thin top under the bridge? That is to say how did he glue the bridge down without crushing the top? The top was put on before the bridge. 2. If there was no other wood under the bridge besids the thin top then how did he keep the thin top from bowing up......I saw no bracing. If the answer to #1 is a chunk of wood was left to add strength to the bridge attchment .....then disregard this question. 3. I lost track of this thred......I was wondering how much of an acoustic sound this design has? Does it sound like an electric plugged in on a clean channel?...or does it sound like an acoustic? I was wanting to try this design but I want an acoustic sound with this electric shape. Thanks for all the help....I have learned a great deal here!

Hello, I tried to find the thred or link to the discussion on how to drill string thru holes in a straight line from front to back......and have them line up on top and bottom. I was not sucessful in my serch. Might be wrong words......can anyone help here?

Hello all, I have ben lurking here for a little while and have learned a great deal. Thanks to all who teach here! My question is....what is the lowest profiled tune o matic style bridge. I want to minimize my neck angle and do not want to raise the fret board too high off of the body. I have searched a little here but have no answers as of yet. Thanks for any help.