henrim

Exactly. That is one reason I went with oiled neck. Although the bigger reason is that I never liked playing with a painted neck. And I tried for years to like playing with one. The only worry I have with altering the neck is the fact that I did this neck ten years ago, didn’t document anything and I can’t recall the truss rod dimensions exactly. Not that I was going to do dramatic changes but the unknown bothers me. I would like to know the size of the field before I play.

I was thinking 9V but 18V would be something to explore.

So this guitar. Now that I've played it a bit more I think the passive EMG's need to go. The good thing about the design is that it's really easy to change pickups without removing strings I will install EMG 57/66 TW pair to it. Since they are active some rewiring is needed though. At the same time I'll do some refining to the cavity area. And actually I need to take the strings off too to fix the nut. I filed it a bit too low. Before making a new nut I'm going to try putting a 0.1mm shim under it and see if that works better. Other than those fixes it's an ok solid body. (Maybe the neck is going to see some shaving at some point too...) I was going to put some cheap Fleor pickups to my 3-pickup rebuild guitar but now the EMG H4 and H4A will go to that guitar.

My old router table was like this. It had an handheld router fixed under the table and an old car jack acting as a lift. It kinda worked but it was pain to adjust. So I decided to upgrade it a bit. While I was designing a new lift I thought about upgrading the spindle too. I got a Chinese 2,2kw spindle and a VFD. Some linear tracks and a ball screw. Then I figured that since I had some left over stepper motors and control hardware from a previous project it would be fun to have the lift motorised. So I did a proof of concept. Machined the real thing. Made a cabinet for the electronics from the sheet metal that I saved when our water heater died. Made a mount to fix the monstrosity to table. At this time I also upgraded the stepper motor and controller. So the only thing that was left from the previous router table was the 10mm aluminium plate where the previous router was mounted. Decided to use it although it had unnecessary holes in it. I just made the center to accept inserts to minimise the gap with different bits. I was going to use magnets to hold the insert in place but the thought of it coming loose while routing made me decide to fix the insert in place with two M3 bolts. The table top with some tracks and an Incra fence which I'm not actually using anymore as made a new fence with micro adjustment. Spindle is silent compared to regular handheld router. One last thing. A warning about Chinese spindles. I don't remember why I opened the spindle in the first place but I found out that the thing was not grounded at all! Now it is.

I have used DIYLC quite a bit for drawing synth modules and guitar pedals. I hadn’t realized it has guitar wiring functionalities too. Have to try it out! I have reported a few issues/wishes in GitHub and I have to say that it is a privilege to use a tool that when you report an issue you get a personal reply and the issue actually gets taken care of. No such thing with big software companies! Thanks again for such a great tool!

Crwth (sounds like one of those internet abbreviations, or rather looks, I have no idea how that is pronounced) is closely related to Swedish Talharpa and Finnish Jouhikko. At least they are all played with a bow and feature drone strings. Although crwth seems like a more sophisticated instrument than the Scandinavian ones.

Fretted the fretboard with some jumbo size stainless steel wire I had. Not much leveling needed. For dressing I learned a neat trick just a while ago, which everyone else probably knows but I feel stupid I hadn’t thought it before. I ground and polished one edge of a needle file and it’s butter smooth against the fretboard. I could dress the frets without using protecting masking on the board. There wouldn’t be any scratches but I use tape to prevent ebony from burnishing. Anyway the tape doesn’t rip and the file slides soooo smoothly.

Aluminium part is turned in a small metal lathe. As well as the padouk part, IIRC. Yes, that is a modified Switchcraft end pin jack (for acoustic). Switchcraft jack is made of chrome/nickel plated brass. I removed the plating in the lathe and turned a aluminium outer ring for the jack.

I found a knob I was going to use on this guitar. And then not. And now maybe. Originally this guitar was going to use Schaller locking tuners but they went to an other guitar Now this is going to have Schecter tuners with a brass cogs that go well with the jack assembly that has a bit of brass in it too. Tuners have ebony knobs, so I’ll either make padouk knobs to them or make the pot knobs with ebony. I’ll have to try. I’ll make anodized aluminum pickup rings that should go nicely with the Schaller bridge. Some 70’s vibe on this one.

I wish I knew. I'll just have to come up with something. I'm not expecting anything phenomenal though

The top is flat but the backside is carved so the thickness is not uniform. At the center the body is 47mm.

Right, their website is a mess. For all general glueing I use Kiilto B3 (a D3 glue) which is sold in regular hardware stores. For guitars, so far, I have used only Titebond Original because I have it.

Milled a triple pickup ring. I will shave a few millimeters of the width still and clean it up but this is now how the pickups will be mounted. EMG’s likely. The thing is made of POM.

Yes, that’s what I have understood about glues too. Titebond has handy bottles and nozzles though I might add a bottle of it to order if I buy something else, but otherwise the glue I get from local hardware store is just as good. Pickup rings could be the solution . I tried some that I had but didn’t like them that much. I may machine new ones. Actually I’m just about to go to garage to mill a combined three pickup ring for the rebuild in an other thread. At least that is something I’m going to try out for that one.

That is a Schaller 455. No longer in production. I like it too but feels now a bit too heavy on this guitar. Or unbalanced. Maybe I need metal pickup covers after all. That could help. Btw I have one extra that I could part with.

Btw in the picture the pickups appear greenish which they are not. Lighting conditions to blame I guess.

Got a new patch of nitro and started to prepare the top for spraying when I found myself pondering the hardware once again. With the black guitar the vision was clear when I started working on it again. With this one, not so much. In the very beginning I think was going to make pickup covers for this one out of silver. I don’t want them anymore nor do I want to make them. I then thought about wooden covers. But if I had to make the final decision right now I would just use white humbuckers as is. Or almost as is as I stained the plastic a bit on those in the picture. Originally they are too bright to my liking. Maybe I just paint the bottom plate black, shim them to height and screw in place. The bridge is an other concern. It’s too bulky. Anyway the studs are already in place so I will just live with it. The third thing is that I don’t have control pots planned. Reading the earlier discussion I have had some plan about knobs, which I didn’t like. The good thing is that I don’t quite remember how they looked so maybe I can design them the same knobs again and like them this time

Thanks for correcting me. I just meant to say they are the type I would never use. You gave the reason why not. I prefer Torx because they are universal. But for the looks I rather use hex socket heads (metric).

Neck bolted with five M6 bolts. I only had Phillips head countersunk screws but I’ll change them to hex socket heads later on.

Got the neck carved to shape. Profile is kinda flat C. Really flat. I keep on thinking that I would like to play with that kind of profile but I don’t know, haven’t ever played with one. But I will find that out the day this gets finished. Neck fits nicely in its new pocket. Next I need to bolt it on so that I can finish the heel area.

If you want golden hardware you can get a chromed bridge re-plated. Going from chrome to gold, plating can be applied directly on top of chrome without stripping.

Got the neck dimensioned. 22 frets is what is going to fit. Tightly. I’ll get to try out the neck shaping fixture I made some time ago. Headstock shape will be finalized once I get tuners. I need to make new gauges that I have planned for the neck shape before I start carving. And I guess I’ll radius the fretboard first.

While I think the subject deserves its own thread I’m happy I reopened this age old thread that ignited discussion about the matter.

Back in the 80's in my teens I made my first guitar. My own design, inspired by the metal guitars of the time. I made the body of mahogany. Two humbuckers and standard tremolo. It had a Ibanez neck. I then got more in to hard rock and got my self a brand new white Gibson Les Paul Custom -88 (worked hard to gather that money!). I then took my build a part and sawed off the horns it had on the neck side. Making the shape more like a RR Jackson. I also chiseled a cavity for third humbucker (not enough space for four I guess!). I did not finish the rebuild at the time but I have had the body blank with me ever since. Now, three decades later, it was the time to see if the guitar can still be salvaged. First I thought it can't. But then I thought it's worth to try. I leveled the body and cleaned the pickup cavities. I had to move the neck back a bit but I can make it 24 fret with 24,75 scale length. Originally the body was black sunburst with clear lacquer. At some point I painted it some sort of flaky candy red. I'm going back to original. I wouln't want a sunburst but the edges have to painted and I want to show some of the beautiful Brazilian mahogany. Wood that you can't really buy these days. Original neck was all maple. Now it will be maple with an ebony fingerboard to better match with the black sunburst. I have made a neck plank, cut a scarf joint and chiseled a truss rod groove. Using hand tools as much as I can this time because I want to remember the feelings I had when I did this guitar for the first time. Quite therapeutic

That is the reason it is not used (that) much commercially these days. Bad for saws and planers. Aspen likes to be sanded though. In the home shop I don't like to put aspen through the planer, but I plane it with hand plane as it doesn't take much time to re-sharpen the blade.