SwedishLuthier

Nice to see some new pictures. Looking good Rich. I have also updated my page today. The box is almost finished and the neck is roughed out. I have some nice pictures showing my Taylor-inspired neck attachment that I am really proud of.

When buying wood you can always look for the FSC-mark. The idea is to produce wood in a responsible way. There are rules about how to harvest the wood and replanting and stuff. Check out www.fsc.com for more info. I think that all wood that LIM sells are FSC wood nowadays. So if you want to shop mahogany with a slightly better conscience, by FSC wood If I remember correctly a lot of old Burns guitars had necks made from birch. Unrealize: You might also try beech and oak. I have used both for body woods. They are heavy though, so it is more practical to use it for chambered bodies (that’s what I did). Pine was used in some of the first Teles. Pear, cherry and also apple have been used in instruments for hundreds of year and should be available here in Scandinavia. Check if you can find some. Me I’m have some willow laying around that used to grow at my grandfathers house. It has been drying for some 25 years now and I am about to check if it is usable for body wood. For more inspiration about odd wood being used in guitar check out Robban Sarlings site: http://www.aresguitar.se/ He is a very nice guy and he also happily answers questions about different wood and how that can be used. He was that one that convinced me that I should have a go at using beech for a body. My main point is that you can use what ever wood you have if it is strong, stable and dry enough. It might also give you a unique sound and a unique guitar.

I have used friendly plastic to make a mould of the neck profile at the first and 12’Th fret. Worked fairly well.

The "in progress" page is updated and a new page on deflective tuning added.

Marketing. So it is a rubber tree then?

From guitarnotes.com: Nato Mahogany tonewood is a lower specie and cheaper to obtain Asian Mahogany Takamine and Brian Moore along others use it extensively. Also used by Fender. I’ve seen it used for acoustic guitar tops, backs sides and neck. I guess it would be very good for electric bodies and necks and perfectly all right for acoustics. The only thing that might cause you trouble is bending the sides. Don’t know anything about how nato bends…

Then I will continue to call myself professional then

Just to be clear about this: Are your strings new? Or really old? In that case (old) get new ones and let them set for a few days. Old strings never stay in tune and new needs to set. Other things to check are the posts and the “knife” edges that rest on the posts. If they are dented or worn it will prevent the trem to return to its balancing point. And when talking about this: You have the trem floating, haven’t you? A trem that rests on the guitar body is a completely other beast.

Just in case someone does a search for this later on: It is possible to do it another way. I came up with this after calling myself an idiot about one hundred times after I discovered that I forgot to drill the hole to the post and insert the ground cable. You can drill a hole all the way to the post and screw a loooong screw like a drywall screw or something similar into the hole so that it makes contact with the post. If you have the right length you will now have only the head of the screw sticking out in the control cavity and you can call it a ground tab and pretend that you are really professional… or just admit to your mistake and share the solution.

+1 on sound characteristics of the first guitar. I still have my first but I don’t use it. It is too crappy Maple IS a hard wood (and I don’t mean hardwood). Mahogany is easier to work with but of cause much more expensive. Try alder or basswood or the body if you need something that is softer to work with. Both are used in guitar building and sound nice.

It sounds like a good project and you seems to have the working order down. Maybe the hand held sander isn’t tough enough to take care of the finish. You might try a chemical stripper. Will save you hours of dusty work. Why replacing the bridge? Is it busted or something? Some more info is required to help you. If you are going to detune a lot you might want to have a look at the trilogy bridge: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_tailp...gy_Bridges.html I was thinking the Strat version and the original HB mounting (I guess that it is mounted to the pick guard).

About using unorthodox woods for backs and sides: Bob Taylor made a guitar some 10 years ago from woods he found in the dumpster behind the factory. He used heavily soaked oak for backs and sides and some other junk wood (don’t remember what right now) for the top. He even filled the nail holes with aluminium to show everybody that it was really made out of junk. Taylor guitars is currently building a tribute model: http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/models/pallet.html This was all done to show that expansive tonewoods cannot make up for the lack of good craftsmanship and good construction. The classical guitar “guru” Torres ones made a guitar with backs and sides out of papier mashé (glued up old paper) and it was reported to sound OK. He did it to prove that the most important part of the sound box is the top. What I’m trying to say is: Go for it. You might find something new and interesting and you will for sure learn something along the road.

Put masking tape along the sides of the fret you are going to pull. Then any chip in the wood will get caught and not lost. Then it is an easy task to glue the chip back with some CA glue. You have the chip and the tape hold it in the right place.

It depends on your definition on cheep. My running rate for doing a new nut on a Tele is 40€ excluding the one for the nut.

Well, you better sleep light. If you sleep too deep I will be there in a minute to help you get rid of that curly birch.

Maiden, you might have missed the smiley at the end. It was meant be provocative. Nevertheless it is my strict opinion that if you use active pickups like EMGs the choice of wood DOES become less important for the sound in the finished instrument compared to using passive pickups. C’mon, the pickups are the most tone-contributing part on an electric guitar whatever pickups you use, period.

EMG pickups. Then the wood doesn’t matter anymore.

The problem with that is that 1) the screws will be going back into the end grain of the dowels (which doesn't hold as well), and 2) most dowels are pretty soft wood anyway. It's a good technique for a lot of things, but I don't like it very well for an application like neck screws with that much tension on them. Some alternatives would be to use a stronger filler material (maybe epoxy), switch to larger diameter screws, or to put thread inserts in the neck. This has been covered a couple of times and some of you might know what I’m about to say: Drill out the surrounding wood. Make your own hardwood dowels (I have described the technique for this a couple of times in similar threads, use the search function) glue in and re-drill the holes. I have done this like a dozen of times and there ha e been no problem with the screws chewing up the new wood just because the go into end grain. Any other “easy" fix is as begging for more problems. The toothpick method is the second best and will work for long times. Epoxy, wood putty, titebond and similar substances are NOT formulated to do what you are trying to do. It might hold up for a while, but it will fail over time and it will not let you tighten the screws very hard And as Mickey says: If you tighten the bolts that hard you should consider threaded steel inserts and steel machine bolts instead. EDIT: I did the search for you: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...ill,and,redrill

I can see it coming: - the Inconel tremolo arm for the unsurpassed tone transfer to your knuckles - the Glare pick guard screws for transfer of vibrations to the pickups - the Ti/GR tuner for tuners that tune themself Remember were you saw it first

David I had a look at the progress of that interesting guitar. I noticed that it had side dots on the DOWN side of the fret board. Is it a lefty guitar? Or do you put side dots on both sides of the fret board? Or did I miss something? Rob The guitar is coming along nice. Looks like it is going to be beautiful. Have you strung it up yet? If so, how does it sound? I have a few new pictures up on my web site. Gluing the braces right now and will update with new pictures as soon as I shoot them EDIT: Pictures of the braces being glued, the sound hole ring and the first pic of the bridge is up right now.

I got some info from another forum They bolt the neck on and the bolts are concealed in the pickup cavities. I also think that it isn’t worth the work to do it that’s way. I’d classify it as a marketing hype, nothing more.

5” x 37” for the large one and 5 ¾” x 12” for the cutaway version according to the catalogue. No info on thickness and wattage, but I guess its pretty thin and maybe some 100-200 Watts. I used 450 totally using light bulbs, and that wasn’t enough for the cutaway. So somewhere around 200 for a direct contacting heat blanket might do the trick. Hopefully some one else have more accurate information.

David that is a seriously wonderfully wicked guitar you are making. I really would like to hear the result. I noticed that you use a similar type of neck block like I do. Do you use a bolt on neck joint? BTW the in progress page is updated with a few more CAD-drawings. One of them is actually a detail of my neck joint system.

Everything below is assuming that you would like to combine two HB and one SC in the Super-strat way, giving bridge HB-in between strat style-middle SC- in between strat style-neck HB sounds with a 5-way switch. If they come from a set they are most likely two “normal” pickups and one Reverse Wound Reverse Polarity (RWRP). Then the *different” pickup (the one with one yellow cable in your case) is the RWRP. That pickup is both MAGNETICALLY and ELECTRICAL out of phase with the other two. Now magnetic polarity is hard to change, but the electrical polarity is as easy as use the black instead of the yellow as hot. “HOLD ON A SEC NOW! The middle pickup is REVERSE WOUND. You cannot just flip the cables around and call it a non-reverse wound pickup.” Well, actually you can. The direction of the winding have nothing to do with it. The main thing is which end is ground and which is hot. Or as Jason Lolar called it “the path to ground”. If you wind a pickup set and ground the start lead on two of them and ground the end lead on the third that one is actually going to be “reverse wound” even thou it is wound in the same direction. Ok so electrically you will have no problem with combining your SC with a HB. But magnetically? Well if you have 4-wire HBs you will not have any problem. One coil in the HB is always south and one is north. You *only* have to find the right leads to the magnetic “partner” of the SC (use a cheep compass to determine magnetic polarity), match a north SC with the south coil of the HB or vice verse and combine them. Sound is crappy? Probably electrically out of phase. Flip the two wires from the SC and try again. Only two wires from the HB? You will probably be fine anyway. A HB and a SC will most of the time sound nice combined. Just run the hot wires in parallel (you can also try series) through the switch and listen if you like the sound. Try screwing the pickups on a piece of scrap at the positions you are thinking of and hold it against a (electric) guitar and listen for the sound. Oh, and your pickup. Most likely a short in the coil. Try a cheap meter like sumphead says.