dalandser

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.

Thanks for your comments guys. I think i will go the decal route. The swirl paint is not flat, it has ridges. so would you put a coat of clear,sandsmooth then apply the decal then add another coat of clear?.

Sarradan

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