WarriorOfMetal

it's a top mounted nut. here's mine.....i think the pics are too big to post here, so i'll just give you the links:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Meta...ger-back-sm.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Meta...ger2pup2-sm.jpg

(btw, yes, i know the tuners should be turned the other way around, but that's how it was when i got the guitar and i've never cared enough to do anything about it)

My 1988 USA B.C. Rich Gunslinger has a slight up-bow to the neck, and unless i have the action uncomfortably high, i can't play notes above the 12th fret or so without fretting out against the 22nd. the Ibanez truss rod wrench i have easy access to at the moment appears to be too small to fit properly, and the Gibson truss rod wrench i have (which i don't have easy access to at the moment), i'm told by a friend who owns Gibsons and a Gunslinger, is too big to fit.

this guitar's truss rod uses a socket type wrench, but it appears to be some kind of oddball size, and i don't know what it is or where to find one. if anybody has any info about this, that would be very much appreciated.

what other guitars have you used?

more than i can remember, but i've owned:

Epiphone T-310 Telecaster copy

B.C. Rich Platinum Ironbird

B.C. Rich Rave ST

Charvel CX390

Charvel Charvette 100

B.C. Rich USA Gunslinger

Aria Pro II AXL CST-3 Excel Custom-3

Ibanez AX7521 7-string

Fender/Heartfield Talon II

Ibanez RG7620 7-string (x2)

Ibanez RG750

Zion Radicaster

Agile PS-900

Kramer S-2027SM 7-string

Charvel CX692

maybe it has a different scale length to what you're used to & you're pinching in the wrong place?

i've only owned two guitars that were not 25.5" scale, and i've never had troubles switching back and forth between 25.5" and 24.75"....the guitar in question is 25.5"

....have you tried just moving your picking hand up & down the string whilst using your pinching technique?

yes

Can you get natural harmonic's?

yes

....because if you can, you should be able to get artificial's. Pinch the string at the same point as the 24th fret harmonic & it should sound the 24th fret harmonic.

i'll give that a shot and see what happens and report back

That is truly hard to imagine.

which part?

i've had this problem with this guitar for as long as i've had it, but it's the only guitar i've ever had it with. i've set the guitar up a number of times....even taken it apart a few times and put it back together after making upgrades and such, but for some reason i've always had a hard time getting artificial harmonics out of this guitar, anywhere on the neck. what could cause that?

I had the exact same problem on a 1986 Kramer Paul Dean - Neck through body construction, Honduran Mahogany body wings, s/s/hum configuration, brazillian rosewood fingerboard. I tried everything to fix the problem (intonation, pickups - even EMGs, action, strings, technique, truss rod...). This was the flagship model at Kramer back the the day.

Sold the guitar and never looked back. Its the only guitar on which I could not get good artificial harmonics. I guess some guitars just don't ring the same way as others.

yeah this one i pretty much refuse to sell, because it sounds absolutely amazing other than this problem, which is very frustrating.

To answer your last question - strings, pickups, setup (frets, nut, pup height), physical materials of the guitar, lack of gain or compression in amplification, playing style etc. Not that I'm generalising there as that seems to cover "guitar and amp" :-D

I think we can rule out style as you say "it's the only guitar i've ever had it with" so I think we know you can pull them. Ergo I think we can also rule out amplification and effects as you can pull them on other guitars with your setup.

This leaves strings, pickups, setup, materials.

Please elaborate a little on:

- make and model of guitar

- build type (set, thru, bolt-on)

- pickups

- amp and effects

- strings

...and we'll try to pinpoint it a little further...

Do fretted notes sustain well? Do you have a high or a low setup? What bridge are you using (fixed, trem?).

it's a 1988 B.C. Rich USA Gunslinger, bolt-on neck. alder body, maple neck and fingerboard. Joe Barden HB and S-Standard pickups. amp doesn't matter because i have the problem unplugged as well. i think the strings are D'Addario (been quite some time since i last restrung this guitar...i've been leaving it at home while i'm at school).

the guitar overall has ridiculous sustain. right now the action is a bit on the high side, but i've played other guitars with higher action where i could get harmonics with no problem at all. it's got an Ibanez LoPro Edge on it, with 4 springs, and set up to float, but i also had this same problem with the stock licensed Floyd.

i've had this problem with this guitar for as long as i've had it, but it's the only guitar i've ever had it with. i've set the guitar up a number of times....even taken it apart a few times and put it back together after making upgrades and such, but for some reason i've always had a hard time getting artificial harmonics out of this guitar, anywhere on the neck. what could cause that?

i made a very similar design to that a year or so ago....(please excuse the non-to-scaleness)

Well, yeah, you're right, why bother with sandpaper? If steel wool alone works for you, stick with it. I've sanded down a neck to get rid of the poly altogether, and put danish oil on there instead. Much nicer feel.

i think you misunderstood what i said haha.....i've used steel wool on frets, but it seems to me that it would make more sense in this context to use sandpaper first, because it doesn't seem like 0000 steel wool would do enough on its own.

cool, guess i'll go out and buy some more sandpaper tomorrow (all i have right now is 100 grit) and give it a shot.

Anyone want to recommend how high of a grit he should take it?

Actually, if it's just to make the neck smoother-feeling, shouldn't he start off pretty high, like at 600 or more?

The higher you go, the smoother it'll feel and the less sanding scratches you'll see. Try going to 2000...makes a huge difference.

Also, if you're sanding with steel wool...assuming the neck is still on the guitar...take some masking tape and cover up the pickups --the little bits of steel wool get everywhere, and they'll get picked up by the magnets, and then they're very hard to clean.

yeah i'm familiar with working with steel wool on guitars, done it a number of times. the original quote though said to use sandpaper and then steel wool. i asked the guy who said it for some more details, but he's not online right now so thought i'd get some opinions over here.

cool, guess i'll go out and buy some more sandpaper tomorrow (all i have right now is 100 grit) and give it a shot.

this quote is from another forum i post on....is this a good idea? if it is, what grit sandpaper would be good for this?

poly fin'd painted necks feel great if you sand and buff down to a matte finish using sandpaper and 0000 steel wool. the effect isn't so hot on nitro as it can get gummy.

the matte poly necks feel close to raw while still being protected.

Current

http://www.jemsite.com/jem/necks.htm

1993

http://www.jemsite.com/tech/img/t_nkwd3.jpg

1997

http://www.jemsite.com/tech/img/t_nkwd2.jpg

someone linked me to that same info on sevenstring.org, that's not quite what i'm looking for....i'm looking for more of a graphical thing, like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Meta...lneckshapes.jpg

that's one i did of my two Charvel necks at the first fret, but i can't figure out how to do the same sort of thing with my 6 and 7 string Ibanez necks, and have it overlap properly.

does anyone have a comparison pic of the two neck profiles? obviously the 7 is wider, but i'm trying to find out if it differs in any other way. i'm building a custom 7-string with a neck shape based on my favorite 6-string neck, and trying to figure out what's the best way to adapt it to a 7-string's size.

I really like your alterations, and I adore the way you've shaped the pickguard. 25 Frets would be cool, you know what would be pretty cool IMO is if on the 24th fret you had inlayed "Dragon" and on the 25th "Rider". Thats just me. I was thinking not the actual letters more like solid pieces of MOP with the letters etched out and filled, like how LTD has the model numbers on the 12th fret of some of their guitars. Any reason for going 26.5?

i did some re-thinking and because i didn't measure things on the sketch, i ended up having to alter the neck pocket in such a way that the neck will no longer be able to be a direct replacement for an Ibanez neck.....because of that, i think now that i might go back to a 24-fret neck and move the edge of the neck pocket to the location of the 25th fret, which lets me move the neck pickup forward by about 1/4"

i'm not gonna do any inlays, they'll just add to the cost, and it's gonna say Dragonrider on the headstock anyway.

the reason for going for 26.5 is because i played a Schecter Hellraiser C7, which is a 26.5" scale....the neck is thicker than i like on that guitar, but the scale length didn't bother me too much (which surprised me, because i have relatively short fingers), so i started thinking about using a 26" or 26.5" scale length, since the extra tension would help the 7th string ring out more.....especially since i tune the whole guitar down a full step in my band and use a .10-.59 set.

Xanthus, i was going to have a conversion neck made.....basically meaning that it would match the dimensions of the neck pocket on a 25.5" scale RG7620 neck, but it would be 1" longer, with the fret positions adjusted to compensate.....if that had been done, there would have been extra space left unused at the end of the fingerboard, which is why i was thinking about a 25th fret.......but like i said before, now that i can't make the neck pocket the same, i might as well just drop the conversion idea.

here's a pic of the latest version of the sketch:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Meta...bodysketch3.jpg

it looks like a few things will end up being changed slightly, as the neck pocket on the sketch is a bit longer than it's going to be in real life, i think....also, on the sketch, the neck is a little bit too narrow, so the upper horn will be altered slightly. the reason for these things is that i didn't actually measure much of anything on the sketch, it's mostly traced and altered. i was taking careful measurements of an RG7620 while working on the plywood for the template and discovered these discrepancies, so hopefully it won't end up looking drastically different.

also, because i've decided to make it 26.5" scale instead of 25.5", but i still want the neck to be able to be a direct replacement for an Ibanez 7-string neck, so i'm going to have a conversion neck made, which will leave more space between the 24th fret and the end of the neck than on an RG7620 neck. first thought: "that'll look a bit odd, that much blank wood...." second thought: "25 frets!"

The only reason I think it wouldn't be a good idea would be if you didn't measure properly

http://www.guitarbuildingtemplates.com/electricguitar.htm That's how this guy does it, although he usually has the front and back as separate. Depends on how many routes/holes you're going to be drilling, I'm thinking.

yeah, that looks pretty much like how i wanted to do it.....i have 1/2" plywood though (b/c the thinner stuff they had was horribly warped and cracked)....but here's what i'm expecting to have:

neck pocket

2 pickup cavities

control cavity

trem cavity w/ recess (probably will need to make or buy separate templates for the actual bridge routing, however)

spring cavity for trem

....i think that's all. i'd have to make the templates slightly different shapes, also, because of a particular angle i want to do for the "scoops" on the horns

bought some plywood on friday so i can make body templates.

does it make sense to include the pickup and bridge locations, as well as the location for the control cavity as holes through the plywood? my thinking is that i'd then have one template to use for the outside shape, as well as all those other holes that will need routing, instead of needing to place separate templates on the body for each part, so it would end up possibly being more accurate (provided, of course, that i measure everything properly)

Btw, where would you get said pickup covers? There is nothing better than a nice sexy EMG pickup housing, in my opinion. I haven't come across any in my travels across the interweb, heh. Not that I'm planning on buying any more pickups at this stage, haha. But like you said, maybe...

i found some similar to what he's talking about at wd music

here's a metal version metal covers

and here's what i think are the plastic onesplastic covers

like those second ones, yeah.......but for 7-string.

someone on sevenstring.org is working on getting a bunch of them from Kent Armstrong (they have a 7-string humbucker that has them, so we're trying to get just the covers).....still waiting to find out for sure if they'll fit DiMarzios though.

i've made some changes to the original design.

the upper horn has been moved forward by about an inch (that is, the tip of the point is about an inch closer to the headstock, and the back end of the horn has been moved up and out a bit farther). also, after buying an Air Norton 7 and D-Sonic 7 for my RG7620, i'm thinking i'll go with those instead of the original EMG idea....i am planning, however, to get a pair of black plastic pickup covers to give it the EMG look. i have also, after playing a Schecter Hellraiser C7, been thinking about extending the scale length from 25.5" to 26" or 26.5"

other than that, the design is basically the same, and i'll hopefully be starting on construction within the next couple weeks. been reading the Hiscock book as well

is it strange that even though i haven't even started actually building the first one yet, i'm already thinking about how the second Dragonrider will look?

Ok I just came up with this one after I saw a guitar that Nitefly SA made up Now cleary this one came out nothing like his ( I just Cant NOT do a pointy design ) anyway I really like how this design is starting off life now there are a few thing I may want to rework LIKE the base of the fretboard (Its a bit to long)

and the placement of the Volume and tone and Im also not sure if I want to add bevels to this design

!!METAL MATT!!

if you're talking about the one he posted in my thread, his is just a slight variation on my design, so really it's more based on my design than his

I saw your design and I thought it needed a couple things, First off I don't think that the top horn protrudes enough seconly, I dont think it looks mean enough, especially for a guitar named "Dragonrider" and also this goes along with number one, I think you will have balance issues as a lot of 7 strings do.

Use parts of my version or none of it, just a friendly suggestion, I'm really looking forward to seeing this one come together, good luck.

the upper horn is exactly as long as an Ibanez RG7.....although you may be right about balance issues, given that the headstock is longer.....i may try that...

btw you seem to have completely missed my headstock design haha (either that or ignored it )

yeah.....it does have a bit of the Performer vibe to it, but less of a "moving" shape. the horns were actually more inspired by the B.C. Rich Ignitor, and the rest of it is a combination of my Charvel CX390 and Ibanez RG's bodies, and i didn't realize the Performer similarities until a friend of mine pointed it out when i showed him the sketches. i'd seen the Performer before, but it'd been a while, so i definitely wasn't thinking of that when i made it.

Warrior, since you have the whole Dragon theme going on this project, then why not go the whole way with the paintjob? I agree with Xanthus, I'm not sure about the paintjob, I do really like the idea of those curves built into the body though. May I suggest finding someone who can do airbrushing and have them do something like scales, or something else to that effect? Just throwing it out to ya. Thanks for lettin me jabber.

Jeff

the idea for the color scheme came before the idea for the name. eventually i'll make another guitar with the same body and headstock that'll probably be done with a green burst finish, but that's not the idea right now. this color scheme has always made me think "power metal" and i was trying to come up with a name that evokes that as well, and i've got a huge thing for dragons....

Doeringer, i looked for the pic posting rules a couple weeks ago and couldn't find anything at all....where would they be?