SwedishLuthier

I must say that both this and your earlier designs are really interesting. New and fresh but still balanced and not to avant garde to put the average guitar player off. Don't really know why, but the single cut somehow reminds me of some Italian and early Japanese designs, in a very good way. Regarding guitar building woods I think you have one of the best guitar wood suppliers in western Europe in Spain: www.maderasbarber.com If you compare as an example an African mahogany body blank from Stumac that one costs 114$ plus import taxes. From Maderas Barber it is 77$ and no import taxes applies! A Stumac curly maple neck blank is 47$ and one from Spain is 15$. On top of that I have got great service from them. They by mistake overcharged my credit card on the first order (they noticed that them self) as I have a business and shouldn't pay Spanish taxes. So instead of having them transfer the money back to me I asked them to surprise me with some goodies to make up for the difference and I can say that they were not being cheap on me. They threw in three of the best and most uniform ebony fretboards I have seen in a while (and oversized too...), some beautiful headplates, a wenge fretboard and some more. Only real negative thing I can think of is that they have a 200€ minimum order. Other from that I can say that I am 100% satisfied with my business with Maderas Barber. OK, back to the original topic...

I have used stainless and have gone from that to regular steel and haven't noticed a lower quality and I have used long and short verions of the plain steel inserts. And from those solid inserts I have moved to this type: (hiding the top part under the freat board). Lets remember that the plain steel are soooo much stronger than the traditional wood screw joint. With the simplest plain steel inserts like in the picture I use M6 size and Torx heads, meaning I twist the living daylight out of those screws and not a single insert has let me down over the years. So I'm pretty sure that any one of your inserts will do just fine.

that is not so good if you are going for the natural binding look Just make a cut within the outline of the body, using a cirkular saw and you should be able to have the perimeter of the body unharmed, thus making it possible with a "faux" binding. But as stated; I have not tried this personally, just seen pics of it being done. Someting like this (looking from the "back" of the top): staying clear of the edge of the body.

If only I could read... Välkommen i alla fall!

If you are doing a drop top you can actually (if planing good) make a series of relief cuts in the back of the top (OK, I have not done it personally, but seen it made) not extending all the way to the edge of the top. I believe there was a thread on this forum that showed how to do it.

Some combinations of string gauges, string heith, forse of fretting and a specific bridge sometimes place the string sadles out of range for a good intonation. Is this what happens? If not, I don't really get whats wrong if you follow Perrys advice

Welcome Fagerlund, looking good! Hope that isn't your current view from your workshop. Looks cold!

Or use water based laquer. I have made a copy of this guitar: (that fat bald guy is a true swedish guitar wizzard, Kalle Moraeus) for a customer. I used a water based base coat (LMI's KTM-9), flattened it out 100%, sent the guitar to be painted with that traditional nothern Swedish pattern using oil paint (I don't do that type of things), and cleared it all with KTM-9

Oak in a neck have been discussed a few times. A search should give you a lot of info and at least as much opinions

That would probably be a good solution if a clear but still warm sound is the goal. I made a electric uke and a mandolin using one half of a P-bass pickup each (way before I started to make my own pickups) and that has exactly that. A warmer sound compared to a Strat, slightly sounding like a P90 but not really as "compressed" sounding and with great clarity. And it is possible to wind the two halves different to make adjust for the lower strings.

If you do, please suggest 8 sting parts too. Have had some requests for Meshugah style instruments lately...

The second version is very similar to how I do tricky fret leveling on necks that twist under presure but remain straight without strings on. I have used a neck jig for years, but found that a simple L-shaped aluminum beam that I sanded perfectly flat, slapped some self adhesive abrassive on (stick-it from 3M) and slipped under the strings when the neck was adjusted as flat as possible with the truss rod worked even better than my neck jig with all the bells and whistles. Lerned that trick from Rick Turner and have only used the neck jig once after that and I was dissapointed with the jigs performance.

For me, gluing frets has up to now only been used for tricky repairs/refrets, ie not over sizing the fret slots on purpose, rahter using glue to hold frets in already over sized slots. My main reason is that I have never had any issues with the traditional way of doing things and thus "if it isn't broken, dont fix it". However I have recently ordered Papeter Stone to try out as an ebony substitute (inspired by Scott French Eco guitar) and that material might need a different fretting method. For new materials and methods I think gluing is a valid alternative. But for plain ole' wood... the traditional ways have always worked for me.

Yes, usually, but not nessesary. As mentioned before most modern “matched” pickup sets have a “hotter” bridge pickup. The reason behind this is that the movement of the strings (the amplitude) are bigger in the neck position compared to the bridge and the electrical output of the pickups if they where made identical would be higher from the neck pickup. The other reason for making a neck pickup with less windings are that this by itself is changing the tonality of the pickup, thus also matching the tone of the pickus closer to each other (not just output). On the other hand SRVs famous no1 allegedly had the hottest pickup in the neck position… With perfectly matched bobbins you will get one sound. With an offset between them you will get another sound. Me, I like slightly offset pickups in the bridge position and more offset pickups in the neck position. I feel taht it opens up the sound and makes it "airy". Some like the pickups to have as closely matched coils as possible. You can have an offset in the 10-15% range without loosing too much of the hum canceling effect The most recognized difference between alnico and ceramics are in magnet strength. Magnets used for guitar pickups (and other applications too…) are graded in simple numbers Alnico 5 are stronger than Alnico 2. Ceramic magnets are usually graded C8. The most significant difference is that a stronger magnet makes the pickup produce more current (higher output/hotter). But that is not the only difference. The real trick is to figure out how each grade and each material affect the sound and how you can use that knowledge to tailor a pickup to a specific sound. Learn to explore what difference an Alnico 2 magnet make to a pickup with Alnico 5 magnets. Then try a ceramic, or Alnico3, 4, 6 or 8 magnet. When you have got a basic understanding of those differences it is time for us to discuss the subtle differences between different pickup wires, different winding techniques, different screw, slugs, keeper bars, base plates and covers. And maybe discuss if a pickup sound different with plain ole ABS for bobbins or using the legendary historic correct butyrate for bobbins…

coil tap? Or possibly

Good idea. I'll try to do that. Some parts has already been done (bending sides, gluing head and end block, kerfed lining partly glued) but I'll try to document the rest.

I cann't find the original article. I found a short one but it is in Swedish unfortunately: http://www.skogssverige.se/node/37328 In short: Youngs modulus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young's_modulus) describes how much a material will deform under force. The youngs modulus is double across the annual rings kompared to along them. So a neck made of quarter sawn wood will flex up to double the amount compared to a flatsawn piece.

This is so great. It even inspired me to tell my 15 year old daughter that I wasn't at all going to build her that smaller alto sized acoustic she just dreamed up (and that came from nowhere, shes been playing all sorts of instruments over the years, staying away from guitars completely...). I simply told her she had to do it herself (with some guidance). And she agreed! So thanks for that great inspiration John!

Thanks guys! Actually no. I think there is a higher degree of shrinking across the fretboard when using flatsawn maple, but otherwise, no problem. I have read some published scientific articles "proving" that wood in general is stronger and more stable when flatsawn...

Yes it is. I'm doing two blodwood guitars right now and I have already scrapped one set of nice sides in the process. The second set worked OK with a bit of cracking. The cracking isnt bad enought to have me trash the set, just tiny cracks along the tight cut away area. I have glued them down and sanded everything smooth. Next set is up for bending soon.

The second pic is of an instrument with bar frets. That is an older style fret. More info at Frank Fords site: http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Guitar/Frets/00045BarFrets/00045barfrets1.html With a bar style fret you can easily deepend the fret slot to cut stright throught the fretboard, but up a wider steel bar against the end of the fretboard and but upp the nut to the bar to get a neat thing like in that photo. With modern frets you would need to cut a normal fret slot and then cut off the fretboard, leavin just a tiny amount of wood on one side of the fret tang. I think that it is a very high risk that the fret tang would split the wood. Of cause you could first fret the guitar and then cut it off. I dunno if that would lessen the risk of splitting enough. My advise is to make some test pieces and just try it our.

Oh, i don't really know. I'd say 12-15 coats. Enought to make it possible to sand it flat and re-coat but few enought to leave the grain visible and retain a bit aof woody feeling.

Ready and on her way to her new owner. Testimony from the owner (translated): "Thanks for a fantastic job! I will probably comission more guitars in the future. I'm very satisfied and the sound is scary good!" Hope you liked it

Neck and body ready for finish sanding closeup of neck heel testing with hardware before finishing dye and then tru oil, lots of it

Sliced arm rest shaping the neck More neck shaping