dalandser

I just traded for a couple pieces of figured maple veneer with another member (Thanks to Chris) to put on the headstock of my Schecter 006 elite. The body is a carved top with a trans black flamed veneer top that came stock. The headstock was painted with a cheesy painted logo that I sanded off. I would like to get the veneer for the headstock as light (silvery white would be perfect) as possible to contrast the transblack body. I got the idea from the white Bill Lawrence pickups that I installed in it. I researched and found a couple products such as Daly's AB Wood Bleach and Hood 190 two part wood bleach that are supposed to work well (even better than oxylic acid) for lightening. They're about $25 shipped and I don't plan on using them again so I was wondering if anyone knows a cheaper alternative that could work well. Also, I'd like to clear coat the veneer after it's glued and sanded down quickly and simply. Can I sand the veneer smooth and use Krylon clear to build up (sanding between coats) to match the body's thick clear coat? It doesn't have to be perfect, just thick and durable. Any advice is appreciated. Thank You, Anthony

.... I was putting the inserts in backwards...

Traded. Thank You, Anthony

I inherited a broken guitar from a neighbor that was moving out. I'd like to trade the tuning keys for a piece of flame maple veneer big enough to cover the headstock on my Schecter 006 Elite. I forgot to measure the headstock, but I figure a piece that's about 8" x 10" should be a fair trade. I also have the bridge for this guitar and I'll throw it in the trade if you would like it. I'll mail out the neck which is intact and just cut off the part of the body that is still attached if someone wants it for the cost of shipping. The tuning keys are 18:1 and have some of the gold rubbed off on the edges, but are in good condition otherwise. Here are some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/WDW4O...feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/y2udi...feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/-cY8n...feat=directlink Please email dalandser187@yahoo.com since I don't check the forum frequently. Just put tuner trade, etc. Thank You, Anthony

I would measure the neck with calipers from the center to each side (maybe with a line from the middle of the end of the heel to somewhere measurable by the headstock - or the screw holes could be used as a frame of reference if they're drilled already) to see if one side tapers too much than the other. The neck pocked could be measured as well to check to see if it's not squarely cut. If it's the neck, then it's up to you what you want to do. I like reshaping my necks to fit my hand anyway. Usually some 220 grit and tung oil gets the job done for me. I heard someone sanded through to the truss rod cavity one time, but they must have done some pretty serious sanding. If it's the body that's not square, you can shape a piece of wood and glue it into place.

I'm wiring up a Music Man JP6 with the special 3 way switch and I'm getting too much hum when I plug it in with everything connected the way I have it and the pots and switch screwed up against the copper plate. I have some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/7bIlR...feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VuMEY...feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/xN1Yk...feat=directlink I noticed that there's a possible short between the white and black terminals on the neck side of the 3 way switch connections. I don't know enough about circuit boards to be sure. The other thing I'm not sure about is the bare wire that is connected to the screw in ground terminal. I left it unconnected and got hum, then I connected it to the volume pot lug with that shares the cap lead. Same hum. The hum goes away when I touch any part of the bridge or pots, so I'm pretty sure it's a grounding issue. The ground wire to the trem is securely wired and the output jack wiring should be ok because it's stock (the connections to the jack anyway). Anyone see my mistake? Thank You, Anthony

I like Hipshot Contour and 2 Point Flat tremolos. They don't have a knife edge to mess with and have a hardened roller surface instead. With some Hipshot Grip Lock tuners and a Graph Tech black Tusq XL nut, you'll be good to go. The final ingredient: This guy knows what's up with tremolo setup. Thank You, Anthony

I wrote about my mistake on the "Oh ****" thread, but it's about six pages long so far so not too many people may get to the end of that one. Yesterday I put some threaded inserts into a Wizard II neck and they did not go in straight so I attempted to drill them out. I forgot to step down in drill size to begin with and ended up jamming the threaded insert into the neck even further and it's threads started to crack open the neck in a couple directions and lifted the fretboard off of the neck in a few places above the screw holes. I then drilled out all the inserts the right way and dowelled the mistake hole after filling it up with titebond II so that glue would squeeze into the cracks as I tapped the dowel in. The cracks didn't close up on their own after drilling out the insert because there may have already be debris holding them open slightly. I clamped the glued up neck over night and took some pictures. I ordered some Satellite City Hot Stuff - the thinnest formula they make - and I'll squirt it into the cracks when it gets here. Here are some pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/An_IJ...feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XN3vl...feat=directlink http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/LiZQ2...feat=directlink Two Issues: 1. After I dowel the rest of the holes and smooth everything out even again, I want to try putting the inserts in again. I put some into another neck, but it was a one piece and I think that going against the grain in the Wizard neck made it more difficult for me to get the inserts in plumb. I'm thinking that as I drill out to 9/32" dia x 1/2" deep I'll drill about an extra 1/8" at the point where a machine screw can sit in the cup made by that hole and then go back to drilling 1/2" for the rest of the diameters. Then I'll take a 1 1/8" machine screw and thread the insert up to the head. I'll slowly use a screw driver to turn the screw that should be locked into the cup in the middle of the hole at the bottom and drive the insert in plumb. I'll add lock nuts as needed drive the insert to the final depth of 1/2". 2. Since the cracks have some height to them, this might affect the levelness of the frets especially on the treble side high frets. Should I just put the neck on after I'm done as is and get a professional fret level (I know a guy that does it for $40 because I offer to set up the guitar myself after) or should i get everything locked into place in the pocket and measure to see if both sides of the neck butt up to the top of the neck pocket with the same height exposed and then sand down with a hand block sander held at an angle to adjust accordingly? Any advice for these two items or other advice in general is welcome. Thank You, Anthony

I've been thinking about it and I ordered some thin super glue last night to squirt into the cracks and I think I'll just keep the fret board on and use the superglue there as well, being careful not to get it all over anything. As for putting in the inserts I don't think I can use the drill press since I can't make it crawl like a hand drill. With stronger lock nuts maybe I'll get better results. Any suggestions are welcome. Thank You, Anthony

I noticed that there were a few people from Australia on this forum so I didn't know if it could get that hot there - but now that I think about it, it's winter right now down there. My girlfriend is from Victorville, CA - it gets that hot there - no thanks. Here's some 'mild' weather coming up: http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USCA1197 Anyway, I used to work with HPLV sprayers doing custom cabinets and other stuff and I think that just as good results can be had by taking your time with the stuff people mention on here. Thank You, Anthony

I agree. I made a move that, looking back, was some dumb@$$ery: I had my big mistake today. I couldn't get some threaded inserts to go vertically into the neck I installed them in and I couldn't figure out how to get them back out so I figured I'd bore them out and dowel the holes and try again, this time using a better thought out technique (involving my drill press, a philips head bit, a machine screw and two stainless steel lock nuts - the brass ones I used stripped out and got me into this mess) to get them to drive into the neck vertically. It's been awhile since I've done any work with shop machines (bought my $50 drill press last week) and I forgot to start with a small drill size to core out the middle of the insert and went straight to the same size drill bit that had been used to drill the hole that the insert was now in. Pushed the insert into the neck and cracked the thing in a few directions (3 piece wizard II neck) and popped the fretboard away from the maple for about 1.5" on one side above the area in question. So far I bored out all the inserts the correct way and dowelled the hole I made the mistake on, filling it up with titebond II first so that the glue flushed throughout the cracks I made as I pushed the dowell in and clamped the neck to stay over night. I used a razor knife to open up a couple of the cracks that didn't look like the got impregnated with glue and squished glue in there with my finger. Next I'm thinking of lifting the fretboard off the neck above the screws and regluing it just to make sure that I fix my mistake completely. I checked out the tutorial for this so hopefully it'll be smooth sailing from here. Any pointers will be appreciated. Thank You, Anthony

Thanks for the info. The momentary switches have confused me a little since most of the circuit information I have read denotes circuits as being closed and open. I happen to have a momentary (ON) switch (as described on the website that sent me it as a free sample), but I'm not sure if this means normally open (circuit off) or normally closed (circuit on). I think I found the answer to my question here: "N.C. contacts = Normally Closed contacts = The circuit is closed (i.e., "On") when the button isn't touched. When you touch it, you break the signal." From: http://alexplorer.net/guitar/mods/killswitch.html It looks like either kind of switch will work with their 2 schematics. I think this is the right way to wire it so that when it's pressed it's the same as turning the volume to zero, rather than disconnecting the signal altogether and getting nasty amp noise. I'm not sure, but I'll find out once I get to that part of my project. Oh and now I'm only working on one guitar - two is too many for me right now. Thank You, Anthony

I was also thinking of putting a killswitch in the hole for the old tone pot. I have a momentary push button switch labeled (ON) - is this the right kind of switch or do I need an (OFF) switch? Does anyone have an easy time making wiring diagrams for the concentric vol (outside) tone (inside) with the killswitch? I'll be able to figure it out on my own, but a little help is always appreciated. Thank You, Anthony

So far it all sounds good. Good questions and good advice. Those warmoth bodies are expensive and nice so I wouldn't imagine that there will be any imperfections that will need sanding when it's received. They use nice woods as well and I'd be interested in doing some kind of natural finish with the artwork that you describe if this was my project because of this. If full primer / paint is going to be used then spray can primer will be fine and rub it down smooth and thin with 0000 steel wool (finest grade). This is better than sand paper because it conforms to body contours and allow a nice even primer coat on edges. As long as you don't go too heavy on any coat of primer, paint or clear, then I would stick with the steel wool between coats or at least after using a block palm sander on the flat surfaces with 400 as recommended by fanlee. As for the temperature, if that's 50 C then I'm sorry, that's hot, but good for drying - out of the sun of course. 50 F is cold and you should think about moving the piece into a warmer place for drying otherwise you'll run the risk of waiting a long time for the finish to cure and runs / sags developing. I would be interested in seeing a completed picture as well. Thank You, Anthony

Hello, I am putting together two HSH guitars with import 5 way switches and I would like to use a single concentric knob for the volume (outside) and tone (inside). I'm just not sure which pot values to use considering the middle single coil. It seems like 500/500's the way to go, but I just thought I'd ask. I couldn't find any applicable info searching 'concentric' under this forum section. A schematic would always be helpful, or at least just letting me know which lugs are connected to the inside outside knobs. I could probably figure this out when I purchase them by looking at them, but this could be useful to someone else down the road. Another idea I had (but doubt I'll be doing it) for an HH guitar would be to have the same concentric vol/tone setup and two locking push button switches (arcade button style) that turn each pickup on and off. At first I figured this would be easy by just putting the switch between the pups and the pots, but then I read that it's bad to cut the circuit off completely (in the case of off/off coming up with both switches turned off) and that rather than get a cool killswitch effect, I'd get a 'just unplugged the guitar from the amp effect' where the amp would give it's unplugged sound rather than just making the guitar volume zero instead. It seems like it could be done, but I don't understand electric circuits very well yet. I think this system could have some pretty cool effects and maybe speed up some switching effects that people could use. I don't think that it would be a problem figuring out what is on and off after some use - HH design is pretty basic and easy to hear the differences in the pup selections. Anyway, the first question is in regards to what I really plan on doing. The second one was just to see if maybe someone somewhere would like to experiment with the idea. Thank You, Anthony

I really like this guitar.

+1 on the Safety Glasses

It seems like it's up to you, really. I like those marks and if I was making the guitar I'd keep them - maybe smooth them out a little w/ some sandpaper and paint it that way - maybe sand through the paint to the wood in those places or something. Since it happened before the paint / clear then you can still have a nice solid finish to protect the wood. Body filler sounded like a good idea to get rid of them - just fill them in, sand them down, then do it again (and maybe a third time) to make sure that it's nice and smooth with seamless transitions from the wood to the filler. Hit it with a light coat of primer to be able to tell if it will be visible later. Original shape too, I like it.

This sounds like a good idea. Putting a thin coat of clear over any custom paint job seems like a good idea too keep it intact and fingerprint / smudge free while working with it. I really like the swirl patterns and colors as well.

If you spend some time working the clear coat so that it is evenly scuffed, then after a the black, gray, and final clear coat are applied, you should have some nice results. If you sand through any spots on the red - no big deal, you can paint any such areas black or gray. You may have more experience with painting then me, but here's my 2 cents for the project: I would make sure any imperfections are smoothed out to the black and gray parts while the guitar is still masked off for each color. This will save you time rather than wait to do any smoothing until the whole guitar is unmasked and then decide there's one spot that doesn't make muster. I would then apply one or two light coats of clear (light, light, light) and another light coat or two on the whole body between colors. If the coats stay light and consistent, then they will be very unnoticable in the finished product and help the paint stay protected once it's applied. If the clear gets too thick, well... Just keep it nice and thin and your guitar should stay about the same weight and tone. If you apply too much black, gray, or clear during this process, you'll get a material build up line at the tape line. Avoid this if possible by keeping your coats nice an thin - since the guitar is masked off, you can keep the spray can (assuming this is what's being used) pretty far away from the body and watch that thin coat appear. This is also another good reason for putting a clear over each layer - protect the thin coat of paint (this is a guitar after all and not a boat, door, or a wall getting painted). If you do happen to get a thick build up you can either do a quick smear and remove as much of the paint while wet and then wait a couple days and sand it down and try again (keep the guitar masked, but redo the tape around the smear) or wait until the paint is dry enough to remove the tape and fiddle with the build up line, assess how much you don't like it and then decide on sanding down the problem spot and remasking. After writing that, the first option seems a lot easier, but sometimes you might not notice the build up until after you unmask. Mask the whole body for each color - but just use tape around the edges of the new color and masking paper (any paint supply place has it for $2-3 a roll) or just double up on some newspaper held down by the tape for the large sections of masked body. This saves time and tape=money. Either way, you can do a those full body clear coats between the colors and then smooth everything out without as much danger to the paint that you've already applied. If you're patient and let the clear coats competely cure between doing the colors (waiting a good 2 days or at least until when you touch the clear coat it feels hard like plastic, not tacky at all), then you can use four ought (you'll see 0000 on the package at Ace, HD, Lowe's, etc.) steel wool to buff out each full body clear coat layer if you don't have a buffer or want to use a buffer. Just go easy, easy and you won't go through the clear coats. Steel wool is awesome because it forms to guitar's contours - just don't use to try to get rid of a drip - sand paper is better here. Just dust off the body each time between coats to get rid of the remnants. You'll probably want a nice rotary buffer or such for the final clear coat(s). I don't have one yet, but I'm looking to get an attatchment for my cordless drill. All that or you can just try to bang out the whole thing in an afternoon. Depends on what you're feeling

Thanks a lot for the help. You guys saved me a lot of money considering I was thinking about doing this to 3 guitars. As far as being able to just use a regular backplate on a strat, this is of course 100% correct, but I'm going to test out my woodworking skills by making a custom aanj neck pocket on a garage sale Ibanez strat from the old square heel as well as another square heel - aanj conversion on a guitar I've been projjing on for awhile. I don't have long fingers and the new neck joints that Ibanez uses are really great for improving upper fret access. The only part that ibanez doesn't use from this kit was the threaded insert / machine screw combo as they just stick to the regular wood screw which works anyway, but I figured if I'm going to be drilling at least one new hole and have to be cutting down screw lengths, then it's worth just dowelling and gluing the holes and doing a little extra work. People seem to like this system. I'll give it a shot with reasonably priced parts. Thank You, Anthony EDIT: I found the ferrules @ stewmac under hardware and the machine screws and threaded inserts at Lowe's (like Home Depot). The threaded inserts were in the sliding hardware bin marked "Furniture".

I'd like to make custom all access neck joint on a project guitar and I need to order this hardware: http://watershedguitars.com/cart/index.php...amp;productId=4 Ed Roman also does it: http://www.edroman.com/techarticles/NeckMountingMyths.htm I've tried to find the parts on general hardware sites, but I'm not sure what the 'ferrules' and the 'threaded inserts' (socket cups?) are called. I know I could buy enough parts for a lot of guitars for the $25 that the one website is charging if I can find out what the parts are called so I can order them from a general hardware supplier. I figured this was an ok area to post this question since I saw a guy post a question about which glue to use for a neck. Thank You, Anthony

Thanks for the info. I was thinking that a dremel and a steady hand could do the trick nicely since I was thinking about improving the neck access to the higher frets. If I were to do this I would put tape (blue tape) down and just dremel through the tape to protect the existing finish near the work area and keep it there until all the sanding was finished. It turns out the guitar was plain black though and the pictures that I had purchased it from were simply pixelating the black finish into a blue / black look. I'm going to sell the guitar because it didn't fit me. I do have a new project and it's time to figure out how to strip it completely - searching the forum for chemical products that will work on new guitars. Here we go! EDIT: I bought a heat gun. If everything goes smoothly according to plan with my custom aanj neck joint then I'll try taking the finish off.

I was considering refinishing a solidbody that has an interesting marbled paintjob in a way that will leave the original finish on parts and reveal the natural wood on other parts. This look is sometimes used by PRS in their neck scallops that are natural while the rest of the guitar is painted. Also Hamer and Parker will do this on some of their headstocks. It seems that I will have to mask off the part that I would like to keep the original paint job and be very exact with the stripping process to make it look good. The guitar is an import so I'm pretty sure there will be a poly clear and sanding sealer. I would appreciate any suggestions for how to do this. It seems like chemical stripper is necessary as well as a masking material that won't melt or allow the stripper to soak through the masking to make sure that the original finish is preserved under the masked areas. Thank You, Anthony