Mender

...thought it'd be cheaper/funner to build one...

Cheaper? One can but dream

...I miss my router :-(

It's almost like not having one of your arms, isn't it? Hope you manage to get kitted out soon mate

...that is a good technique to tie off the strings.

I was shown that technique in my teens by a classical guitar player who had always locked his nylon strings using that method. Since then, I have never done them any other way. It's just as good as using locking tuners, but a whole lot cheaper, and "cheaper" is definitely my favourite word

...A neck 44 mm wide at the nut feels heaps better than 42 mm, easier to play fast without your fingers tripping over each other, who would have thought your fingers can feel a 1.5 to 2 mm difference

You should try a 46 or 48mm nut width. Most of my builds have had one of those sizes, and that is the reason I never use locking nuts - can't find them that wide

I've always used locking machine heads or used the string-locking-itself method, and never had tuning problems.

http://vimeo.com/3587762

Watch the video from about 3.15

Your build is great. It took me ages to read through the thread, but the end result was well worth it

And Aussies, you do not have to buy Titebond there is nothing magical about it, good old Selleys is the poo too

That is a waterproof exterior glue, so it would be like Titebond 2. I think you would have problems trying to get dye to take on the glue lines. For guitar building, you would be much better off getting the Selleys Aquadhere Interior which will take dye.

The first two are actually the same machine, just with different names on them. Both are absolute rubbish. They are the old hobby bandsaw first marketed by Burgess, subsequently bought out by Black & Decker.

The DeWalt is (or at least it should be) a better machine, although I haven't used one. It has a wider throat than the others, apparently 330mm - the others are about 280mm, and the maximum thickness is 100mm against 75mm on the others.

Don't expect anything spectacular though, it is designed as a portable builder's bandsaw for cutting softwood timber and plywood. You will probably be able to cut guitar bodies and necks with it as long as you take it very slowly and use a coarse blade, such as 6tpi, preferably a skip blade. Anything finer than that for hardwood would mean you'd have to feed the wood through far too slowly.

Thanks...

I did think of a roller nut but rejected it for a couple of reasons...

One...like the LSR on my tele (which would be even better than traditional rollers, but again not suitable for this guitar) a "roller nut" would have to be moved forward in the nut slot so that the 'axle' was in the right place...so a permanent mod cutting into the fretboard so a gamble...what if it 'didn't work'?

Two...the "ball end rollers" would need to be modified...the lower strings would sit "proud" of the rollers (though these could be filled in a drill perhaps to a V to match) while the higher strings would be 'sloppy' and I wasn't sure if I could cut 'slots' in them without going right through to the axle or severely weakening them. How did you manage to avoid these problems? (any pics?)

Three...a teflon or graphite nut is pretty darn slippery and looks a bit more "traditional"...not sure that a roller nut on a single axle is going to be any "better" really...but it's the 'side pressure' that's the real killer (try pulling the strings in like my rollers do and you will get an idea of the tension put on the side of the slots of any nut with splayed out tuners like this...)

Still...they do work really well in this application and I might be tempted to use them in a nut or other application next time...hmmm

Over many years, I've collected a lot of ball ends, and there are a few different sizes. While the overall dimensions are pretty much the same, the grooves vary quite a bit. The ones off very heavy bronze accoustic sets tend to have a wider groove on the four wound strings, and these are ideal for normal electric 42/46/48 thou wound strings. I don't have any pics of the roller nuts I've made, but I don't use a common rail to fit the ball ends on. I use a short pin for each roller. Some pretty fine machine work was required to make the nut itself, as I had to machine a shelf at the correct height for each rod to rest on. This way, I had radiused roller nuts which worked well.

I haven't made any roller nuts for several years, as I no longer have access to an engineering machine shop. Three friends of mine were the directors of an engineering firm, and they used to do stuff for themselves out of working hours. I frequently went up the with them to use some of their machinery, the most useful of which was a 24 inch throat bandsaw Unfortunately, the company went into liquidation about 12 years ago.

Roller bridges can be done by hand with a few basic tools, as there is more space between the rollers, and it is relatively simple to modify a TOM to take rollers

Well, that is a novel idea Why didn't I ever think of that? I've made several roller nuts and roller bridges using the ball ends off old strings and hard stainless steel rod. You could even combine a roller nut with your idea, and that would really reduce friction

I mean the square vibrating ones vs the circular ones.

The circular random orbital sanders seem to cut faster and smoother than those square things, just make sure the thing is sat flat on the surface you want to sand before you switch it on, otherwise you'll have a curved groove on the surface where the pad makes first contact.

Don't ask me how I know...

You have more wood storage space than I have workspace!

Get hold of a strip of wide sticky tape, about an inch wide should do it, and preferably vinyl (insulation tape is great). Cut a hole in the center exactly the same diameter as the nut. Put it over the switch assembly so it covers all the wood around the nut.

Now get a bit of very hard wood, beech or oak is good. Drill a hole though this slightly smaller than the diameter of the nut. Now chamfer the hole slightly on one side so the opening is exactly the same size as the nut, but only about 1/16 of an inch taper, so when you place this over the nut and press it fairly firmly, the bottom of the wood doesn't touch the guitar. Press down and turn. There should be enough grip to turn the nut, and it shouldn't mark the guitar if you do it right.

I think this picture should show what I mean about the hole in the wood

It looks very interesting, but the killer will probably be the price, as with all new innovations.

I'd like to see (hear) one in action

Yep. Us moderators cannot do this, and unfortunately Brian is a very busy guy. Do ping him a PM by all means and thanks for supporting PG, Mender.

I sent Brian a PM earlier

I see someone donated at the end of May and already has the "Donated in 2010" thing under his name, but I think my donation on 25 April must have been overlooked

You're not old, Spoke. You're a youngster compared to me

On Saturday, I had the worst mishap I've ever had. I'm making a heart shaped electric guitar with built in amp and speaker for my six year old granddaughter. It is 3/4 size with a 22 inch scale.

I'm making the body out of four chunks of poplar I had laying around. Jointed and glued, then thicknessed. Next, cut the body shape on the bandsaw. So far, so good. Made a body template out of half in ply, and started routing. My router is (was!) a 1500 watt Ryobi with half inch collet. Got about halfway round the body and BANG! The end bearing in the router exploded. I mean the router bearing, not the guide bearing on the bit.

Of course, the whole thing stopped, and blew my workshop trip switch. After saying a few choice words to the router, I inspected the guitar body. A huge lump had been torn out of the edge, about one and a quarter inches wide, and almost two inches into the body, and about half the thickness.

The router is only just over a year old, and has had very little use. In fact, it's only been used to make one guitar, so obviously it is a rogue machine. Unfortunately the warranty expired in May, so it is a refuse bin job.

I've bought a new 1600 watt half inch router now. Can't remember the make - it's out in my workshop, but it has a three year warranty, and cost £90 (was reduced from £110).

I've routed out the damaged bit and cut and shaped another bit of poplar to fill the hole. I've glued it in with epoxy resin so there will be no gaps. Good job I'm painting the body, isn't it?

In years gone by, I've had a few mishaps, such as routing the truss rod channel too deep, routed a pickup hole off centre, and silly little things like that.

I thought 60 is the new 40 ?

I'm almost 63 and I feel exactly the same as I did when I was 40...

...completely knackered

Blimey. _{Remind me never to get on the wrong side of Drak lol.}

...

I am not sure why a water based stain should be better for a water soluble glue? Scratching my head but not saying its wrong.

I tried alcohol based stain twice, thinking it would be better than water based, but both times it caused the veneer to start lifting, even though I applied it sparingly. So I tried water based, applying very light coats, and it worked. I think the alcohol soaks through the veneer much faster and deeper that the water. I always apply sparingly, preferring to do several light coats rather than one heavy coat. That way I can get the depth of colour I want with almost no risk of the water based stain dissolving the glue

erm - dont associate this guys attitude with the rest of us UK folk

Quite so. I'm in the UK and I'm an easy going type, hating any sort of flaming or arguments. Civilised discussions I do like, where one can disagree with another in an amicable manner

Anyway, back to Titebond. I've used Titebond to stick open grain veneer down,. The first time was a mess, soaking through the veneer, but then I was given a very useful tip by a furniture maker. Use a rolled up bit of lint free cloth, put a smallish amount of Titebond on the cloth and spread it around (on the cloth, not the veneer!). Once you have a thin layer on the cloth, wipe it sparingly over the veneer, making sure the veneer is covered in a very thin layer. You don't want enough Titebond on there to soak through.

Allow to dry, about two hours. Repeat this operation another two times. Now you have a firm dry layer of Titebond on the veneer, which will stop the glue from soaking through. Now you can spread Titebond on the timber you are putting the veneer on. Spread it fairly thin, and as evenly as possible, so you don't have pools of the stuff on the surface. Don't put any more glue on the veneer. There will be enough on the timber to do the job. Now lay the veneer down on the timber, obviously glue side down. Use a length of thick dowel/broom handle to roll the veneer down firmly all over, then clamp in your usual way.

You may have to do a couple of test runs on offcuts to perfect it, but it works well. I've put thin veneer on three different guitars, and after leaving for three or four days, successfully stained them with water based stain, applied sparingly, and allowing to dry before applying subsequent coats.

Alcohol based stains may start to dissolve the glue as it soaks through, and cause bubbles to form under the veneer, so for that reason, I stick to water based dye.

(by the way, is there something in the UK water, this attitude and language seems to all emanate from over there lately)

Nothing wrong with the water It's more a problem with our government. The one we just got rid ran our country into huge amounts of debt and ruined our economy. Our new government is a coalition between the "rich man's party", who take off the poor and give to the rich, and a "don't know what we're doing" party who change their minds more often than they change their underwear, so we're doomed, I tell you, doooooomed!

Copy and paste works for me with no problem. This is the fourth paragraph for future reference.

The sound is excellent. This bass doesn't have the piezo pickup of its Japan-made cousin, the TRB5PII, but the two dual-coil soapbars coupled with the 3-band EQ are very versatile. The EQ is very user-friendly; there aren't a lot of bad combinations as far as setting the bass, mid and treble. The treble's frequency center is very high; even with the treble turned all the way down the bass can sound pretty bright (start turning the mids down and the tone darkens quickly from there). The mid control is probably the friendliest of all; there seems to be a built-in notch at 625Hz that reduces the honkiness of the mid control (or the mid's center frequency is high enough that the 625Hz band is in between controls). You can turn the mid knob up and get lots of punch without the bass ever getting a quacky nasal sound. The bass knob of course gives a lot of booming rumble, but you very quickly run out of headroom, and therefore the bass control should be used judiciously. The panpot control is the other of my only two beefs with the bass; turning the knob to its extremes to remove one or the other pickup tends to introduce a small amount of noise. This is most likely due to the way the pickup coils had to be designed; with a 5-string dual-coil design, one coil has to be larger for 3 strings and the other smaller for 2. That throws off the balance of the hum-canceling effect, and the result is a slight amount of buzz. With the panpot at center, the bass is completely noise-free, and the TRB-1006 6-string likely wouldn't have this problem.

The amplitude of the fundamental frequency in the middle may easily be more than 1.2 mm

That's strange, because I have a guitar (and have seen many many more) with the string action set at 2mm high at the 24th fret (10-46 string gauges), which means the height above the 12th fret is just 1mm (actually up to 1.1 allowing for neck relief), and playing open strings does not cause them to hit the 12th fret.

After all, the first fret is no higher than the second, the second is no higher than the third etc.

That's incorrect. Although, all frets have exactly the same height, a string fretted on 1st is higher than open (assuming the zero fret) a string, fretted on 12th is significantly higher at 13th -- just straight geometry.

That is not incorrect. All the frets are the same height (as you agree), therefore the first fret is no higher than the second fret, the second is no higher than the third, etc. The string angle changes slightly on each fret, but I was talking about frets, not strings.

the "zero fret", or a nut adjusted exactly to the fret height, will tend to interfere with the 1st fret when you play hard

Sorry, I disagree

In a perfect world, the best setup would be parallel, with the strings about 1.2mm above every fret, like this:

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Unfortunately, the world isn't perfect, and it would be murder trying to hold the string down behind the first fret, and of course, the fret spacings would have to be altered

I have never understood the reasoning behind having the nut slots a little higher than the fret height. It makes no sense to me. After all, the first fret is no higher than the second, the second is no higher than the third etc. Surely the nut slots should be exactly the same height as the frets. For this reason, I use a zero fret on my builds, and I don't hear any "out of tune" notes on the first few frets. Obviously, it isn't perfect, just the well known foible of guitar design, but it is definitely better than nut slots set higher than the frets.

An added advantage of a zero fret is that fretting at the first fret is just as easy as fretting at any other fret, and open strings have the same tone as fretted strings