mukluk

Hammering or pressing ? A generous over-bend is good for most hammering methods. For pressing, you want a fairly close match. I don't go too crazy about it, but lets say the board was 12". I'd want my wire (I just typed 'wife' instead of 'wire' haha) between 12 and 13 (notice how I left the " off, haha again).

There's always the question " well if they do pop up, do I want it to happen in the middle or the ends ? ". And if you're doing the job for a customer, the answer is easy : you'd rather have the middle pop up, because popped ends can mean a cut hand = potential lawsuit.

But I try to leave the wire radius a close match to avoid popping anywhere and since I use glue, I'm not trying to be clever with the barbs pushing sideways at the ends to help hold them down (which is so freakin' unreliable on a refret anyway)

i will be hammering it in, so you think that 9" radius that's going into my 12" fretboard will be good?

On that note, what do you think is a good radius to bend the wire to? My fretboard has a 12" radius, should i bend my wire to 12" as well? I've heard you should bend it at less of a radius from some places. The fret wire i am getting is pre-radiused to 9" so it would be fun to not have to do anything further.

i suppose the best step would be actually trying them out myself haha

any suggestions for guitars to try out? specifically what they have for frets, medium - jumbo - extra jumbo and such

Im no authority on the subject, but I think the style of music youre playing could help determine which fretwire you should go with. for Metal and Hard rock I tend to steer toward jumbo or extra jumbo, for jazz I think smaller size is more appropriate. If you play everything in between, go with a medium.

i would say metal and hard rock, but i would also like to be able to do chords nicely....that and i don't want the notes to go sharp

and if jumbos make ya go sharp learn to use a lighter touch.

it's kinda hard to keep the same pressure on every finger when trying to do some chords...at least for me anyways

I'm doing a guitar project and I don't know what fret wire i want!

http://www.lutherie.net/fret.chart.html

Just say which size you guys prefer and why. At the moment i am leaning towards something Jumbo, but i have been hearing that it is hard to slide up and down the neck. Also, i hear that Jumbo's tend to go out of tune if you press to hard and also go out of tune when you try to do chords...is this true? Whats the biggest Jumbo that is decent with chords, sliding and don't go real sharp if pushed down?

Well that's my speech...so what types of frets you guys like to play with and why? You guys like Jumbo? Medium? Stainless steel or Nickel Silver? Any opinions greatly appreciated! (take note of the link provided for wire sizes)

jackin my thread are we? anyways, i was swamped with classes about a week or two after i got into the shop before. i will probably get into the shop in the coming week.

About 13mm thick on mine - my LTD EXP is 14.5mm, although a lot of that will be paint I bet.

The bit where the body butts up with the heel block, and where the curve of the body meets the parallel of the fretboard edges is around the 19th fret. These were guesses from the photos I have of ESP EXPs but realistically it's only a good guideline. I'm sure that the template I made from my bolt-on LTD EXP introduced variations by the nature of it's neck joint.

Alrighty, thanks for you speedy reply To be honest i just wanted to make sure the tuners would fit, so i will wait to do any cutting until i actually have the tuners with me.

Just out of curiosity at the does it matter if the headstock scarf joint is below instead of above the rest of the neck (strange wording, but i can't find any other way to express it haha)? I had read in Melvyn Hiscock's book that if the scarf joint is above it sometimes makes the first 1-3ish frets buzz from time to time...got any insight to this? I also figure it would make getting the top of the neck nice and flat with the scarf on the bottom. Either way, do you have any techniques to getting the top of the neck nice and flat before gluing on the fretboard?

Edit: I just remembered some other things i was not 100% on. First, the neck tenon should go right under the neck pickups right (do you remember how thick/wide/long your tenon was by chance)? Second, where would you say i should start the truss rod channel?

Thanks again man.

Where is the neck joint? 18th fret right? Also, how thick is the headstock?

Did i mention how dead sexy you are for that long post?

Pickups....i've never been too much of a fan of the EMG-85s as they are higher output than 81s, and are usually found in the neck position! Crazy. I very much like the sound of EMG-60s in the neck position, and have decided on this 81/60 combo for mine. Some people use 81/81 combinations, but again, it would mean the neck pickup would be somewhat louder than the bridge position. No hard and fast rules exist here, just what I feel works better for me. If you have the option of playing around with these combinations (quick connectors are fantastic) then do so by all means.

Are the 60s good with solos? i had heard they weren't too great for solos compared to the 85, but better at getting cleans than the 85. Do you have a preference between 60s and 85s for solos and/or cleans or is it just based on volume changes?

Truss-rod....any idea on what you're using on this? I think that the EXPs used compression rods, which it seems makes for a more lively and resonant neck according to recent discussion on here. As I haven't used that type of rod before, I opted for a "safer" although perhaps less satisfactory dual-action rod from LMII.

I had seen on ESP's website that all their guitars use the dual-action truss rods, so i figured i would just go with that. Doesn't hurt that there's lots of instructions on how to install one of these.

The scarf piece was also joined to make it wider and I angled it in the direction of the tuners to avoid short grain. Overall, the neck blank was circa 60cm long and 7cm wide, at least making it a more economical proposition than the body was!

I am relatively new to woodworking... i understand the whole scarf joint idea, but could you link me to some information on short grain (pictures of)? Needless to say i am having trouble picturing your scarf joint angled like you put it, I don't suppose you have a picture or diagram of this.

As for the set of pictures showing different spots on explorers, they are very helpful. Do you have any plans from when you made your explorer neck/headstock (side view/top view) that you can scan or something? I will take any of you old plans for your exp, might as well make mine better haha.

Multi-piece blanks have some structural stability that one-piece blanks do not. That being said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a 1-piece blank, so long as the wood is dry, stable, and straight-grained. The normal blank is +/- 30"x3"x1". If you wanted the heel & tiltback without gluing extra thickness, look for a 2-2.5" thick blank.

I take it this is enough width for the whole headstock?

The gotoh locking tuners I have on my ESP stay in tune a lot better than the sperzels.

They lock from the top of the tuner; they don't have a locking wheel on the back.

The Gotoh tuners are the ones with the 16:1 gear ratio right? I will look into those if they are around the same price.

I am planning on making a pre-lawsuit ESP Explorer. I have all the plans done in full scale drawing on large sized paper.

Mahogany body

Maple neck

Ebony fretboard (24 3/4" scale, 12" radius)

Earvana Compensated Nut

White body and Black hardware

Emg 81 and 85 pickups

2 vol, 1 toggle and master tone

Sperzel locking tuners

Set neck

Just have a few questions before i start cutting, this is my first build and i figured i would post questions here and then document my guitar build.

1. What size of a body blank should i get that would fit an explorer? (i am not opposed to using scrap from the same blank to make wings for the body, although i would rather 1 solid piece with no joints)

2. What size of a neck blank should i get? Pretty much asking this because of the hockey stick shape headstock. Also 1 solid piece of wood, or 3 pieces laminated? Stack up scrap to make a heel?

3. I also would like some opinions on the Earvana Compensated Nuts and Sperzel locking tuners, anyone who use these that like them/don't like them? If not, any recommendations?

Any help would be much appreciated, hope to be able to get this project started by the weekend!