SwedishLuthier

Some finishes are simply “stickier” than other. What is the finish you are using (Nitro, shellac, polyurethane etc)? That info might give us some clues.

Amusing. For once I found a supplier in Europe without problem, but one in US was harder. LMII carry McFaddens Nitro in Galon containers and if you are in Europe: http://www.behlen.co.uk/

Yeah, well I thought that was obvious. You have to sacrifice something if you try to stay with a single 5-way switch. But OK not all of them…

My next thing to try out fron the guitarnuts.com is the mod with one master vol, one tone and one vol for the middle pup. All versions of pup combinations possible, including neck + bridge + fade-able mid at the same time

At guitarnuts.com you can find the schematics to what psw is describing, and a lot of other schematics for the strat. There is also a very interesting version were the mid tone is also affecting the bridge, but with an other value on the caps. About the TBX: This was added in the mid/late 80s. On "vintage" strats it’s different; one vol, one neck tone and one mid tone. Of cause there are variations available too.

So if I understand you correctly that wood have cracked out of old age. I dunno… Anyway, go ahead with the repair. I would do it the other way around thou. Starting with the crack repair will give you a better surrounding for the next step. CA (super glue) is the preferred glue for this job. It has very low viscosity and will flow/seep all the way into the very end of the cracks. This will close the cracks all the way, and not just at the surface. For the stud repair: Drill out a hole a bit oversized for the bushing (if it is a bushing and not a screw directly into the wood). Use a drill the same size as any hardwood dowel you can get your hands on (I would prefer maple for this). Glue the dowel n place and trim off any excess. Drill a new hole for the bushing/screw. This has to be done so that the hole is 100% perpendicular to the body’s face. A pillar drill is the right tool, but a handheld drill can be used if you are steady on hands. Practise if not. EDIT: I remember that Drak made a body out of almost rotten spalted maple and he used CA to get it stable. I think it worked out well, so CA is definitely the thing to use for those cracks.

OK, that actually doesn't get me to understand more about the cause of the cracks. Does the tremolo hit the wals when used? If so you might need to remove enough wood to make a base for some patches that will reinforce the walls. If the main problem is the post for the Floyd, then it can probably be fixed by removing the bushing that the post is screwed into, drilling out enough wood to be able to fill it with good hardwood and then redrill for the bushing. If sculpting an armrest seems like a big job, I strongly recomend that you find yourself an experienced luthier that can have a look at your guitar.

You haven’t told us what “not working” means but I assume that the pickup is dead. The schematic is good, and you are right about ignoring the part about the soldered red and white wires. I suspect that one or more of the components from the Epiphone has been damaged in the process. Start to exclude parts to find out what’s working and what’s not. I’d start with the pickup going directly to the output jack. Any sound? I no, the pickup is broken. If yeas try to add the vol pot, test it, add the tone pot, and test again. If the pickup is broken it is probably the wires from the coils that is broken. Try carefully to follow the leads and check all solder joints. You can also VERY CAREFULLY try to peal of some of the tape around the coils if you do not se any solder joints. As a LAST thing to do you can peal all of the tape off and substitute all the wires from the coils. Remember that this is a risky thing to do. If you have any doubt that you will pull this of, stay away from doing it. It is very possible that you will ruin a working pickup with a faulty wire if you slip during this procedure.

OMG! Is that a road kill, or what has happened? A new body will of cause fix this, but there might be an easier fix. Correct me if I’m misreading the pictures, but it looks like the wood is badly cracked in the spring cavity. It also looks like you’re so called luthier has tried to squeeze some white carpenters glue into those cracks (there’s something that reminds of smeared around glue in the bottom picture, at the right). First a question. Does those cracks affect the way the guitar plays and sounds? If not: Just leave it as it is. That is a serious advice. If I would do this job, I would remove all of the hardware and electronics. Then I would run the thinnest CA (Super Glue) into the cracks and clamp it tight with big, strong clamps, clamping cauls made to fit perfect and waxed paper to stop the cauls to get glued to the guitar. There is some risk that you will get CA in the control cavity through some of the holes in the cavity wall. Just fill the holes with paper towels or something similar to stop the CA from running out on the finish on front. You will have to clean this out later. Maybe someone else have a better idea for this part. When the CA is hard you have to address the original problem. Why is the wood crushed so badly? My guess is that the Floyd has been pushed hard against the cavity wall. Have someone been sitting on this guitar and by that pushing the Floyd all the way down? To prevent this you can remove some wood on the sides of the cavity. If you have a router, use it carefully. Also; if you are new to routing, practise on scrap. You can also use sharp chisels to remove any wood that might come in contact with the tremolo. Good luck

OK, searching for “tone pot” gave a LOT of hits… Anyway, if it's a standard Strat wiring (standard 5-way lever switch, vol, bridge tone, mid tone) it's a simple fix. Move the wire from the bridge tone pot to the 5-way switch from its current lug to the vacant lug. Now you got vol, mid tone and neck tone. If you also want a bridge tone, instead of moving the wire, keep it in place, get a 250K pot and wire it just like the pot without capacitor (original bridge or mid) except that you solder it to the vacant lug on the switch . EDIT: I might have mixed things up, regarding what’s a "standard Strat wiring". Isn't what you’re describing actually a standard wiring? The wiring whith neck and mid tone is described here. Tell us what you got and I'll try to help you to get it right

What kind of guitar is it? How many pickups? We need more info to be able to help. Also: Try the search funtion. I'm pretty sure the info is already availible in the forum...

This will make the neck look dirty and to some extent worn. But the wood will still be white and “new” looking. Try to find yellow tinted oil (as it is an oiled neck) and apply it thin until you get the aged appearance. Add the dirt and you’re done. Remember to apply the dirt at the right places to get an authentic look. Try to find a pic of an old, worn neck and copy the wear pattern, especially on the fret board. Try google Eric Clapton. His old black strat has a beautiful, worn maple neck.

You need the thinnest possible version of CA to get maximum penetration. The gel you have won't do it

My fret end procedure: For an unbound fretboard I undercut the tang by about 0.2 mm using a tang nipper. This way the neck can continue to shrink/expand due to humidity (a common problem up north) without any sharp fret tangs protruding. Then I use a file to bevel the fret crown. I do it freehand, but you might consider using a tool; http://projectguitar.com/tut/beveltool.htm After that I finish sanding the neck and at the same time the fret ends will get sanded at the same time. After spraying finish and fret levelling/crowning I continue to polish the frets with wetndry paper using my fingers as a backing and light pressure over the crown and a hard block over the fret ends. Moving up to 1200 grit paper I finish things up with a cotton wheel in the dremel and some polishing paste. The guitars leaving my shop have a mirror like shine on the frets.

+1 Reshape it so that it has the right measurements minus the thickness of the binding, and then glue the bindings on. If you have a rosewood or ebony board and don't like the look of bound fret boards, you can always get wood strips of the same wood and bind the fretboard with those. They are commonly sold for binding acoustic guitars bodies.

I think of is that the Line 6 Spider might be part of the problem. Don’t get me wrong. I use both a Guitar Port for home recording/demos and a PodXT Live through a tube power amp and a 4x12 cabinet for live gigs, so I really like the sound. But never the less I have experienced that it is in fact harder to get feedback with this type of computer simulated amps. The reason might be (I’m no specialist in this field) that all those products convert the signal to digital numbers, apply mathematical formulas on those numbers, and then convert it back to analogue signals. All of this takes time and I believe that this delay makes it harder to get a good feedback. A compressor/booster might help but it will also alter the sound. In the case with a digital amp simulator you also have the risk of overdriving the input stage. That type of distortion is generally considered to be really ugly sounding. First try another amp with your guitar and see what’s happening. If it works there the problem isn’t in your guitar (just to be sure). Then you can try a trick that I have been using to get feedback on bedroom level recordings. Get a compressor and a small practice amp (a pignose works great, but even really cheep ones can work). Split the signal before the Spider and get it to the compressor and then to the practise amp. Compress the living daylight out of the signal with the stomp box and you will get feedback at reasonably levels. And the audience will hear your feedbacking guitar through the Spider.

Acetone dissolves CA. Just let it soak a few seconds and you can pry the dot off And there are special CA removers, but then again, Acetone works fine,

If the wood is cracked I would use the thinnest version of CA, let it run into the crack and clamp it up. Use soft clamping cauls with a hard back (plywood with cork face) to protect the guitar, and put waxed paper between the guitar and the cauls. Be careful not to use too much or you might find that it’s easy to get stuck to guitar repairing…I mean it. This stuff needs some time to get used to. If you’re not used to CA, practise! Also be aware that CA won’t come off the finish. You’ll have to sand and buff the finish. There are instructions on that all over the forum. Having that said I would like to add a thing about the crack. If I understand your description right (having no pics to look at) its not sure that it is a crack in the wood. This type of cracks is quite common on bolt on necks and most of the time it is only a crack in the finish. It often looks like a wood crack, but seldom is. Is the crack visible on both the inside and outside of the neck pocket? Even if it is, its not 100% sure that it is a thru crack. Prepare for the CA fix; stack up on clamps, cauls and wax paper. Place the smallest possible drop of CA on the crack from the inside of the neck pocket. If the CA seeps into the crack, follow it with more until you can se it in the crack from the outside. Clamp it up, let it set and your guitar should be good. If the first drop doesn’t seep into the crack, you have a finish crack, which is purely a cosmetic issue. Good luck

Hmmm. I admit to some bad choice of words, sorry about that, but I'm not alone

This thread is about straitening a neck. I reacted to your comment that it wasn’t “the right way” (not a quote, I know) to do it with the frets in place. The comments on glued in frets are my personal thoughts and shouldn’t need to make you upset. If you don’t like it if someone have a different point of view, not my problem. AND Glu-in frets is a completely different topic so I will stop adding posts about it in this tread. About your re-used fret: I’m impressed. Nice job. I wouldn’t be able to pull the frets and re-use them. We are here to learn from each other. There is no need for name-calling in this Forum. I prefer NOT to be called a “Euro- snob” either, thank you very much.

This thread was supposed to be about straightening a neck, but OK... Soapbar: No1: Did you AT ALL read the line "Personal Notes"? The opinion that gluing frets is unnecessary is my PERSONAL opinion. I have NEVER claimed it to be “the true”. You can call me old school when it comes to gluing frets. No2: Are you recommending a not so experienced (my personal conclusion, based on the questions about truss rods) builder to pull and re-use frets? Not the best advise. No3: So you have re-used frets? I have never managed to do it, and I wouldn’t dream of doing it on a customer’s guitar. BUT if you have done it with success, good for you. I would prefer to NOT be called “a wild one”, thank you very much.

Fretting a neck DO make the neck bow some, but if you make your fret slots uniform (all the same with) they make the neck bend REASONABLY uniform. Therefore it is no problem to plan the fret board under simulated string tension. I’ve done it on several problem necks. My experience (based on more that a few scratch built necks) is that most neck reaches their shape within a week. If not, your wood, or even more likely your choice of glue or the actual glue joint is of inferior quality. A slipping joint between neck and fret board can cause the neck to continue to bend. Personal notes: Gluing frets on a normal and functioning neck with a working truss rod is silly. Frets stay in without glue if you do it right that first time. Using glue to keep fret ends down is the only sane use of glue when fretting. This method should only be used if you have a very problematic neck that bends A LOT when fretted. Then you should remove some, or the entire tang and then glue in the frets. Even in this case I would suggest another method. Simply cut wider fret slots!!! Another thing: Glues are seldom designed to bind to both metal (the frets) and wood (the fret board). I’ve seen hide glue and even Tite Bond suggested for this. Only CA is capable to do this in a good way. And when doing a refret on glued in frets where CA has been done the clue will produce poisonous fumes when heating the frets before removal. Stay away from glued frets. Do it right instead. But then again…just my personal opinion. That’s impossible. You’ll notice that after your first attempt to pull frets. They will get totally deformed.

If you are referring to the bushing that the posts screw into, I use a slightly smaller diameter for the hole. I measure the diameter of the bushing with the calliper into the groves (whatever they are called) to get the smallest outer diameter. I then do the same thing, but place the calliper across the grooved pattern to find the largest outer diameter. I then drill a hole that is somewhere in between those numbers. I screw an identical threaded screw into the bushing and use that to tap the bushing in place. My posts are rock solid.

Don’t worry, this can be fixed. First try to adjust it as straight at possible with the truss rod. Then plan the fret board straight. If you come reasonably close to straight with the truss rod this will be fine. I have the luxury of having built myself a neck jug, so I would do it a bit different. I would have finished the bass (no fretting), strung and tuned it, adjusted the truss rod as good as it get, mount the bass in the neck jig and plan the neck under simulated string tension. That way you eliminate any warping crated by string tension. A neck jig is easy to build and there is info on building one in this forum. Good luck

Based on my memory (dont have it on CD and the turntable is broke) he use the "I have turned down the volyme on one pickup and have the other up and just wiggle it forth and back" routine. But my memory might fail me... So that one more reason to have two volume and one tone. If not it is not possible to get that sound. BTW Did he even had two pickups in his guitar at that time?