RickBlacker

Wow, those are some beautiful Explorers! Very nice! Someone asked, why don't I create a set neck? Well, to be honest, this is my first body build, my guitar building skills are not yet up to par to build a neck. Someday, but not yet. You all have brought up some great points that I've not thought of. Probably the one that strikes me most is the thought of pushing the neck out further so as to have better access to the lower registry. For me, I'm not as worried about the upper registry, I'd rather have the nut closer to my body. I'm not a tall guy with long arms, so the closer the nut to me, the better.

That is a very nice looking guitar!

Right, but, I like these peavey tracer necks. very thin and play well. At least for me they do.

I had a feeling it was ok to extend it out. Also, in case it was not obvious, that is my plexiglass template sitting on top of the guitar body. Two follow up questions. 1) I see a lot of necks where one side of the neck has more body to rest against. Up by the low E string. Given the fact that I'm not doing a set neck, should I extend some of the body? I got to thinking about that the other day. I'd even consider scabbing in some extra wood there to thicken up the amount of support I could give it. I know this would look super ugly, however, I'm going to be painting this guitar. My maple top is not very pretty, not going to put a nicer veneer on it. 2) The neck I purchased already has mounting screw holes on it. The neck is maple. However, I already have some oak dowel. Is there any problem if I bore out the existing screw holes and plug them with my oak dowel?

Hey all.. This is my first body build. I've assembled guitars and modified bodies in the past, but never done a complete build from scratch on a body. Wanted to show my status so far and get some input on the neck joint area. As of now, I have the body created and cut out. I still need to sand up the sides back and front. I bought the blueprint off ebay. I'm building the shape of the body exactly. Having said that I am going to take some liberties on this. I'm not using a "true" Explorer neck. I'm using a Peavey Tracer neck that I bought off ebay. I've cleaned it and refretted it. Turned out nice. Can't wait to see how it turned out once I get it on the guitar. Also another liberty that I may take is, only one pickup and no tone control. I'm personally not a fan of tone controls. I never use them except to turn them all the way up. Because this is not a true Gibson Explorer neck I'm going to have to be a little bit careful. If you look at the first picture, I've indicated where, according to the plans I would have needed to end the neck pocket. Given that this is not a set neck, that would not leave me much support. So, I've extended the pocket out a bit, in fact a full 1-1/4". This gives me the same amount of support that the neck originally had. I can tell from the coloration on the back of the neck where it has been placed before. The bridge I'm using is also non standard Gibson. This is a Schaller bridge. I chose it because it has the fine tuners on it. Really like that. So, in reality, this is more of a basturdized version of an Explorer. But, that's ok it's what I was going for. I hope this does not offend any purists out there. Anyway, any feedback is GREATLY appreciated. I'd like to start working on the neck pocket this weekend.

Yeah I hear you. I have a bunch of maple left over, going to make another guitar out of that. I probably will get a planer before my next build. I know that there are some folks who really enjoy hand tools, I totally respect that. But, I have to admit, I like having power tools.

ihocky2 Thanks for the heads up on the tools. Rockler has a scary sharp system http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5983&filter=Scary%20Sharp I may buy that in the next pay check or so. Depends on when I build another guitar. I don't do much wood working as it is, but have found that building guitars is fun. So far. Hard to really say, this is my first, so it's good so far.

hey ihocky2 Do you have a power jointer that you use at all? I'm going to work on those planes that were handed down to me. Probably take them into some place like Rockler or Woodcraft to find out if they are even worth my effort. I'm sure they are. I don't have a sharpening station so I'd like to find out if they can sharpen the blades for me.

Last night I implemented a makeshift sled like the one in that video. Worked great. Have a nice flat guitar on both sides now. Really need a decent planer so I don't have this issue again.

I have a couple of hand planes that I got from my dad when he passed away. They are old circa 1960s. They were in bad shape, I cleaned one of them up. I tried to use the one I cleaned up, it still cut, but was not exactly sure what I was doing. I'm thinking about going a different route... Something along these lines.

Great ideas for the comfort factor! I may have to borrow your ideas and implement them into mine as well.

Thanks for the reply. I can take some pictures tonight and post them. I'm thinking about building a router plane jig. I really want this to be flat on both sides. However, I am curious about your comment about the upper wing and having it bow back towards your body. Why is that? Is it a playability issue?

Hey all. Attempting to build a Gibson Explorer. One of the drawbacks of my build is that I don't have a planer. Tried to use my table saw for thickness. That worked but was not perfect. After gluing up, cutting out the body, I've got some wobble when it sit on my table saw. Curious if this has happen to anyone else, and if so, how did you correct it? Also, did you worry about both sides being perfectly flat? Yesterday I ran across some hold hand planes that I grabbed from my dad several years ago. They were in bad shape, I cleaned up the jack plane and was surprised that it's actually in great shape as well as the blade. It seems to me that this might be my only salvation. Wish I had noticed this before I cut out the body.

Yeah, bandsaws are nice. I have a nice grizzly.

Great, I'm going to pull the existing worn down frets this morning and start checking things out.

Hi all. I have an old peavey tracer 22 fret neck i purchased off ebay about a year ago. Looks like rosewood fingerboard over a maple neck. It needs a new fret job and looks like a fretboard sanding. A long time ago I purchased Stewmacs fretting tool kit and fretwire. All this has been sitting for a year until I found time to build my Gibson Explorer cloneish guitar. I say clonish because I realize that the scale I'm going for is not the same as the original Gibson Explorer, thus have to ensure I'm to my 25.5 scale. I have the Stewmac "Fret Work" book. One of the chapters is about working on fender style necks. They do a complete refret and repare. HOWEVER, they do it all on their Stewmac neck jig. I don't have one, have no desire to shell out $300+ to buy one. At this time, not really interested in building one either. ANYWAY (sorry long intro to my question) With the neck off the guitar, no tension, is the neck supposed to be perfectly straight with no releif and or back bow?

Thanks guys for all your help, really appreciate it.

Hi all. I did do a search first. However, I got a strange error message stating One or all of your search keywords were below 3 characters or you searched for words which are not allowed, such as 'html', 'img', etc, please increase the length of these search keywords or choose different keywords So, I'm asking rather than trying to find it via search. I'm building a guitar would like to know what the optimal distance from center of bridge to center of bridge humbucker is. I have a book on building guitars but the plans that came with it is not specific, in fact, says that it's variable between the bridge and neck humbuckers. The plans are to scale, but was suggested that I don't measure from the plans as humidity could alter the size of the paper and the plans may not be exact. Thanks for any assistance! Rick

Did you use any special tools to make the string slots?

No man no... NOT firewood. I will fix it. It's a great player right now. In fact, I'd have to say that I enjoy playing it "as is" more than my Jackson DINKY. I was just kidding... Tremolo mess ups are the hardest to fix. Worst case scenario you could put a block in and reroute the whole tremolo cavity... I know you were joking.... I don't think it will come to completely filling in the cavity and starting over. I think by moving the entire bridge back a bit will help. I have the Ibanez Edge maunal (pdf file). It shows the dimensions for the cavity. I'll see just how close it is to what the body is now. Anway... Spending the day today taking it back apart and fixing things.

Well, that's part of it. I also want to move the entire bridge back a little. It's sitting too far forward and if you look at the saddles, they are sitting all the way back on the second screw hole. Nope, I think you're looking at it backwards. If I pull up, i have about 1/16 of space between block and body.

No man no... NOT firewood. I will fix it. It's a great player right now. In fact, I'd have to say that I enjoy playing it "as is" more than my Jackson DINKY.

The trem studs are metal posts, metal screws in the posts. Yep have a rounter and know how to use it. In fact, had to repair the neck pocket... Thought I could get cocky with my dremil using a straight bit with no guide. Well... That turned out to be a mistake. Ended having to glue in some scabs of maple and re-route... See pic, note however that those are NOT glued in. They're just sitting there. NOW... To add another boo boo... My router straight bit cutter slipped while routing (didn't notice) and look at what I got to fix next. Now the amazing thing... After all this neck work, the neck is PERFECTLY aligned... Couldn't believe how straight it ended up.

Hi all... A little history here. Bought this existing body, it's a san dimas style. I bought the neck off ebay. I've ensured that the scale is correct. Here are my issues. 1) I screwd up the alignment with the bridge posts. They are uneven. One is forward from the other. 2) There is no room to pull up on the bridge (wammy goes down only - cant pull up more than a 1/16" inch or so) 3) I want to move the posts back Here are two pictures the picture of the bad alignment. Yes, I screwed up. I knew better, I eyeballed it rather than taking an accurate measurements or using a jig to ensure that I was perfectly lined up between the two posts.... Here you can see how the alignment is screwed up here as well as how I have no room for the block to move. Here you can see how far back my saddles are for intonation. The low E string is as far back as I could set it. Not good I would suspect. Here, you can see under the bridge how much room I have left to move the bridge back. My thought is that I could move it back about 1/4" and still maintain scale with the saddles. This would move the bridge block further away from the body and allow more room to pull up on the trem. Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Never took any of it personally. It's all been VERY helpful. As a FYI, I have a pencil type, low watt iron. The solder is rosin core. My work may not look like it, but it is. I agree, using color coded wire is best, just didn't have any, used my cat5 cable. I will get some braided wire and use that. I have to take my guitar apart anyway and fix some things, but, that's an entirely different topic.