j. pierce

Something I recently discovered is "pre-tinned" stranded wire - I got some from Small Bear electronics, when I was ordering parts for some pedals I've been building. It's great stuff, it's flexible without breaking like stranded, but being pre-tinned, it's got just firm enough to stay where you want it. It makes connections easier, and unlike the stuff I end up with from radioshack, the insulation can handle being next to a hot soldering iron for more than a second when you're trying to get something stuck to the back of a pot.

If there's a spring behind the saddle, you could remove that, it might get you a bit more play. You could also see about replacing that saddle with one that's slightly shorter in overall length, allowing the point where the string cuts off over the saddle to be moved farther back. (I don't know if this is doable, I usually use TOMs, but is seems different strat saddles are longer than others?) Perhaps you could make something yourself? I'd imagine something tele-ish in design wouldn't be too difficult to make with the appropriate taps. Might look a little kludged together next to 5 other standard saddles, but I can't see why it wouldn't work.

I'm sure others will chime in, but I did two necks with a flat bottomed, flat bladed spoke shave, it properly sharpened, it worked great. Roughed out the neck with files and rasps at both the heel and headstock and used the spokeshave to join them up along the length of the neck. Since then, I've also gotten one with a concave blade, (from LMI) which works wonderfully, but I find I still like the flat bladed one - it might take a little longer, because less blade is touching the wood, but I since the neck shapes I was working on where more broad and flat rather than really round, it allowed me a little more control in achieving that. I also worked with one with a flat blade and a curved bottom - about the only place this seemed to have an advantage over the other two spoke shaves was in shaping the heel, (since the curved bottom allowed it to cut in those inside curves) but you need to make sure it's sharpened and tuned well since you're planing end grain there. I prefer rasps and files and surforms for the heel, so I never ended up purchasing one of these for myself. Again, I'm not the most experienced, but that's my take on it. They're great tools to have around though, worth picking one up, IMO.

Given my history with glass, I don't trust myself not to get cut, but I've been thinking of trying this method out - is there a way to get the edges on the glass less sharp after you've cut it, or do you simply cover them up, or make sure you have the heavy gloves on when you work with one of these?

Another option that makes for less tear on your router and tends to go easier/faster, is to use a saw to cut out blocks from inside the body, all the way through. Then put a cap on both the top and the bottom.

All the boards I've ordered from LMI have had a zero-fret slot, and I've never had to ask. Chopped it off there for two guitars, and am trying out the zero-fret idea on my current build.

Does anyone know where you can purchase one of those V-shaped string through plates like those used on some models of Flying V type guitars? Preferably a chrome one? I figure it wouldn't be incredibly hard to make my own, but I don't know how I'd go about getting it plated. Google and ebay searches haven't turned up anything.

Are you building the body from scratch? If so, there's no real problem. Just take the changes you've made into consideration when planning your build. If you're using a pre-made neck and a pre-made body, you may have an issue. Read up on intonation. Depending on how that neck sits in the pocket, you may end up changing the scale length and messing up intonation. Not a huge deal, worst case is you have to remove and reinstall the bridge in a slightly different location. If it's a non-trem guitar, that's not so bad, if it's a trem guitar, it's a little difficult. If you get one of those 24 fret necks with a "shelf" type fingerboard extension, then this is not a problem. Those take these things into consideration by making sure the neck joins in the same place (i.e., the length from nut to bridge is the same) and that the extra frets extend pass the end of the neck and over the top of the body. Of course, this may mean modifying pickguards if they're present, and may mess up already made pickup routes (if you have the body routed for a humbucker right up against the neck, that will need to be worked around if the longer fretboard extends past this point.)

As we speak, I'm in the middle of fretting a guitar. (Well, not quite, I put down the hammer to come over to the computer, but you know what I mean.) And it's going great. Without a hitch. I'm a little over halfway down the neck, and it seems like I've spent less time than two frets used to take me. And it's coming out beautifully - I mean, I finally *get it*, it's just sort of "clicked" and I've finally grasped it. The true test will be how well it plays when it's all done, but there aren't any major problems with this fret job; no headaches to overcome, I haven't even had to pull + refret anything. Yet. (Hoping I'm not jinxing this by posting!) My last fretting experiences, while they worked out in the end (but I think they could be better - there's bound to be more levelling involved than I would probably like) were just very frustrating experiences. Learning experiences, but I was pulling my hair out nonetheless. (and I don't need any help losing any more!) So the point of this rambling post is to thank everyone here - this would never have happened without all the assistance of everyone who's answered my rambling posts, and everyone who's taken the time to share with each other here in the substantial body of knowledge that the archives of this board have become. I guess this sounds silly, I'm just really really excited at how well this is turning out and wanted to thank the folks that helped it happen. So, thanks. .j

I don't cruise many forums, but then I remembered the general topics section here at PG, and figured the folks here seem pretty knowledgable … Replacing the pre-amp tubes in my amp sometime in the future, and just curious is there an appreciable difference in preamp tubes marked 12AX7A and 12AX7B? Is it like the difference between 12AX7's and 12AU7's, is it a matter of gain, or what? At first I thought it was a manufacturer difference or something, but I've seen the same manufacturer (Sovtek I believe?) selling 12AX7WA and 12AX7WB tubes . . . I have some data sheets in one of my books, but nothing is popping out at me as radically different, and some google searches and some looking at manufacturers websites hasn't given up much info. thanks folks! .j

that is some beautiful walnut. I love working with that stuff. Where'd you get those pieces?

Thanks guys - appreciate the feedback. Yeah, I have worked with the wood before, so I'm aware of the difficulty involved in working with it. Dulls things like heck, and the splinters are very, very painful. But I appreciate you guys taking the time to mention it. Yeah, I've got some left over, I want to use it because it's beautiful, but I don't want to work with the stuff after this is gone. Thanks!

I understand the subjectivity of tone, I'm just looking for a general idea - Building a roughly LP style guitar - (mahogany body and neck, Gibson scale length, tune-o-matic bridge and tailpiece - still deciding between set and through neck, depending on what it looks like I can get out of the wood I have) if I replaced the standard LP maple top with one of wenge, am I looking at something that will brighten up the tone of mahogany somewhat, like maple does, or am I looking at another "dark" wood that will lend itself to a tone more like that of an all mahogany LP? Any opinions? I know there's a million factors in what determines the sound of any given guitar, I'm just curious what other peoples opinions are before I start and before I start looking for pickups and start making templates. thanks!

Erikbojerik - I take it from your post that you fret the board and then glue it to the neck - I'm debating doing this on my next build. I have to ask - how far along in the fretting process do you go before you glue the board? Do you level the frets? Get all the way to the fret dressing? Just attach them and trim the ends? Do you use any sort of measure to counter-act any slippage during gluing of the board? (I usually use small pins through the fret slots - I don't think that would work very well with the frets already there?) And what do you use to clamp a board down that's already got frets in it? Mattia - Yeah, the last board I worked with was indian rosewood. That's what I'm comparing the cocobolo to, I guess. I have worked with very little ebony, and I don't really have anything to judge "hardness" by other than my subjective experience in working the various woods, which isn't really a good indicator. (Especially given the length of time between working the various pieces.) Thanks for info. Anyone got any experience with those "fret barber" things? I've got a handheld tang compressor, but the added accuracy of those things seems worth it to me. I don't know. Seems easier to squish the tang rather than try and widen the slot.

I used wooden pins when attaching the wings on a neck-through, because I wasn't confident that the pieces wouldn't slide. Probably wasn't entirely necessary, but the extra assurance was helpful. I used four big pipe clamps (alternating from each side of the body to keep the joint from flexing up or down) and wood glue. Make sure your surfaces to be joined are flush.

I bought all my fretwire from LMI, and it does come coiled. Now, given some of the posts I've made, it's obvious fretting is one of the areas I still have a lot to learn, but I do feel that their wire was pretty much bent enough for use on a 12" radius board. When it's in a coil, it seems relatively easy to bend it a bit more by hand simply by sort of coiling it more - although I don't know if this is a good idea or not. Again, take what I say about it being bent "enough" with a grain of salt, because I'm still learning the mysteries of fretting, but LMIs wire does come coiled, at least everything I've ordered from them has.

Thanks guys. Yeah, the board is Cocobolo, which after working with, I'm assuming is hard like ebony? At least, it seems that way, particularly compared to the rosewood I was working with. And yeah, I learned a *lot* about hammering frets in these builds. Better luck next time, I suppose. I guess I'm going to proceed with things since I can flatten stuff out with the trussrod. If I have to do a refret, so be it, but I figure if that is the case this a free shot at practicing leveling out the frets. Thanks again, folks.

The board is a pre-slotted one from LMI, so the slots should be 0.023". It's a cocobolo board. The fretwire tang width is supposed to be .020", .037" with the barbs. Think this caused the compression? Thanks for the help, guys.

Okay, before I plan on doing anything, I plan on reading up on all the relevant info in my books, and spending more time reading here as well; but in the meantime I'm wondering if anyone can help me out here. (I have to spend a good time reading up everytime I do fret work because it's always so long inbetween.) Anyway, I have a recently-fretted neck on a guitar I'm building, and I'm preparing to level it. The board was flat prior to fretting, (or so I thought - now I'm doubting that) and I checked it out with a long straight edge here just to see how things looked. At first it seemed that the frets lowered a bit towards the higher frets. I explained this away because I had to hammer rather than press many of those, and I might have been a bit heavy handed. I figured no problem with things getting a little lower towards the high end anyways, that's how my main guitar is now, and these certainly weren't dropping so far that I couldn't level them out. But on closer inspection, I realized, it's almost more like a "hump" in the middle of the neck - the lower frets also drop off a bit, and with a straightedge the length of the neck, I can of rock it. It's a back bow, and looking at it again, it's kind of a bad case of it, too. Now, I've got a double-action trussrod from LMI in there, and I hadn't put any tension on it, so I tried tensioning it backwards. That gets rid of this neck bow. Prior to checking it out with a long edge, I was using a little fret rocker thing, and fret-to-fret the height seems mostly dead on, a couple of high ones, but in general nothing to sweat about. But tensioning the rod - should I do that? Reverse-tension the neck to get it as flat as I can and then level the frets? Is that a good idea? If that's a good idea, is this supposed to really happen, though? I mean, am I trying to work with a neck that's screwed up to begin with? I thought my neck should be pretty much dead flat w/o truss rod tension before I put the strings on. Could putting the frets in have made my neck back bow like this? I'm more assuming I was off when I decided it was flat before, (god knows I've been wrong plenty of other times) but is it possible for me to be correct and the neck *was* flat and fretting it made it back bow? (The frets did go in pretty tight, I guess) If so, is that a real bad sign for the stability of my neck? Should I have put a bit of tension on the trussrod before I fretted it? Also, should I get this thing so I can string it up (still need to cut the nut) and do that before I do anything, and then see how things look under string tension and where the rod needs to be when it's strung? Sorry for all the questions, thanks for any help. I'm still searching the archives, sorry it this is redundant.

I'm thinking of building a square neck lap steel type instrument with some materials I have kicking around from past projects. It occured to me, since it's to be played with a bar and not fretted, you would simply make the scale length "perfect" across the entire string spread, am I correct? That is, if you have a 24" scale (or whatever) then my bridges would just be set to 24" from nut to saddle with no real need for much adjustment since there's no compensation to figure in? Pictures I've seen of these things, they all seem to have frets. (I've never touched one, which is something I plan on doing before I undertake building one!) Is there really a need for this, other than looks?

I put a zero fret on one of the guitars I'm working on, I've only played one guitar with one, but I liked the sound of it, and it was nice to be able to bend at the first fret. My only question is, how far do people generally put the nut behind the zero fret? I figure it's not really critical at all, but after seeing other guitars than the one I played, I was surprised at how much further back the nut was behind the zero fret compared to the the one I'm working on and the one I'd seen.

A lot of the after-market tune-o-matic bridges I've seen haven't really had the bridges slotted very much, the slots are really just sort of started. At least on the lower, wider strings I've had to go in with a file and widen/slightly deepen the slot to keep the string from sliding around too much. Keep on eye on the height, you don't want to lower the the action unevenly or too much. (Well, he actually may want to slot a bit lower on the outside strings, seeing as almost every TOM I've seen is a 12" radius and I believe Jag's have a tighter radius on the fretboard)

I'm repairing the electronics for an old Gibson Explorer (I don't know how old, actually, but it seems older than most guitars I get my hands on) I could send you info you want. Send me a message if you got any more questions. I've got to remember to copy down the neck measurements on that guitar actually - it feels just right. I really hope the guy who asked me to fix it forgets I have it - I don't want to give this back! (of course I will, though - I could never take a guitar like this from someone - god knows it'd break my heart if someone did it to me)

that's what I'm using, a little square or triangle file - and I have to say - remember to do this *before* you put the binding on. It makes life a lot easier. Oh well, live and learn!

Well, I've been able to hammer the frets in the last bit on most of the ones I've had problems on. I know I didn't bevel the fret slots last time I did a fret job (with a hammer) and things went okay, but the rosewood seemed much softer than the cocobolo I'm working with now. As far as the depth, the slots are a fair amount deeper than the fret tang all the way across the board. I'm uncertain how much deeper off the top of my head, but I checked it with a card and didn't think I'd have any problems. How much deeper than the fret tang does the slot actually need to be? I'm still uncertain about the width and wonder if I shouldn't file down the barbs on the fret tang a little bit - does someone have a rule of thumb for what size tangs go in what slots? LMI says their fretboard slots are slotted to " accommodate our fretwire as well as other standard wire", but they sell a variety of fretwire. My slots are slotted to .023" wide, and my fret wire (LMI's FW74) is listed as having a tang width of .020" and a tang with barb width of .037". Does this work? The oddest thing is that my first slot (my zero fret) I used a piece of bass fretwire (I'll be fretting a bass neck next if I ever get this figured out) and the bass wire has both a deeper and wider tang and I didn't have problems at all. I'll finish this fret job up tomorrow and see how it goes, I guess. I think I'm getting the hang of it.