j. pierce

gone. thanks chris!

I'd ask over at the pickup makers forum at Ampage.org - those guys know their stuff and their pretty helpful. Some of those guys get pretty pedantic about specific grades of steel or magnets for their pickups, they certainly know their stuff, and may be better versed in explaining the tonal differences in various magnet grades. You may also be able to find the info you need just by searching the forum.

from an old Fine Woodworking magazine - I believe the article is free : http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Mat...DF.aspx?id=2002 Also: http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Ski...e.aspx?id=29500 I haven't actually browsed through that article or watched the video in a while, so they may not be helpful. There was a recent article (couple of issues ago?) about drying lumber in FWW, but I don't think it mentioned solar kilns. And this was in a recent FWW Q&A. It was a temporary kiln, to be heated to 170 for 24 hrs, to help with pine that's still seeping pitch. Perhaps using something like this for the intial drying of the holly would help kill whatever's causing the staining? I can copy the rest of the info if you want. I don't know much about this sort of stuff, not having had the space to deal with storing much lumber. Just throwing things out there that I had seen, however.

I recently wired a guitar for a friend with both a pushbutton and a toggle. The momentary pushbutton for when he wants the Rage/Buckethead choppy effect, and the toggle for when he just wants the guitar off between songs. Best of both worlds.

Depending on your cavity cover size and such, you could also construct a "box" out of thin gauge metal, properly grounded (with the "lid" being the shielded cavity cover) attached to the inside of the chambering. But I second Pete - carefully done shielded wire should be plenty fine. It's the approach I've used on most guitars I've built, and I've not had much of a problem with it. To make life easier, I usually wire a pigtail onto the shielding braid, and wrap that connection in heatshrink, so I don't have to worry about the braid shorting anything out, and it makes things a little easier to get the grounds wired than dealing with trying to get the conductor going one way and the sheild going another.

Ah, the red into black burst with a black back and white binding is one of my favorite color schemes. Yours came out much nicer looking than my slightly-similar padauk-topped versions from a few years back. I had the same thing - the backs of mine looked too good to cover up, but the black really pulls it together. But yeah, really like this a lot. Your work is getting very good. Nice job!

If they're the the grovers with the two part shaft that turns, I've found that you have to be careful to make sure the internal lock mechanism engages and doesn't slip as you're tuning it up. I've also found that when you down-tune with those tuners, you sometimes have to have a wrap or two on the tuners - I tried just tuning down my guitar with those, and before it got that slack enough to hit C, the locking mechanism came loose. All in all, I was never pleased with those Grovers that much. I prefer the thumbwheel style. They were just too fiddly for my taste.

If by "sheet" you mean Abalam-type material, it isn't the place, but I've been ordering all my pearl from DePaule Supply, and it's some of the best stuff I've gotten my hands on.

You can get a bit longer bits if you have a router that can take 1/2" shank bits. I use a Whiteside bit with a 2" cutting length, and a 3/4" diameter.

Many places I've been that surfaces wood has a minimum charge - they aren't going to power it on, run your top through and charge you for 20 seconds of work. Your place may be different. But it may be worth gathering anything else you think you might need surfaced if you're going to be paying for a half hours worth of time whether or not you use it.

Nice job! How do you like the pickups? Love the cream with tortoise combo.

never been a huge fan of carved teles myself. I'd be tempted to get some cheap rigid foam, and have a go at carving that, even something half scale, just to get a better idea. In the end, it doesn't matter which one of your mockups we like, it's what you like. (Or your client if this is for sale) and the easiest way to tell is going to be to see an actual 3D thing you can turn around in your hands and look at from different angles.

I'd like it with a slightly smaller pickguard that followed the pin striping better, in black, not silver. I have to question the mix of gold, silver and black and white here. I'd say if your string through ferrules and bridge are gold, use gold tuners too. Except your headstock appears to maybe be silver? Then the black tuners work there, so make the bridge and ferrules black as well. You can get away with black p'ups and gold or chrome hardware, but black pickups with gold and chrome hardware seems a bit much. And I don't think I'd throw a chrome pickguard that close to a gold bridge.

Could a poorly cut nut, one where the strings "edge point" is being made at the back of the nut, rather than the edge of the nut by the fingerboard be the issue here?

There's also Hipshots Trilogy bridge. I've wanted to try that for a while now. If you aren't looking for dramatic tuning changes, simply shifting the whole register up or down, some of the digital pedals are very good sounding these days. I have an Electro Harmonix HOG, and it does a great job. I can't do on the fly tuning changes into say, open slide tuning or something, but shifting up and down and having multiple voices and stuff does get you a lot of cool sounds. Plus it does lots of other neat stuff.