j. pierce

Wow. crazy. Cool site too. I'm wondering how one frets the extended fretboard past the nut, seeing as it's on the bass side of the neck, and the tuners would be in the way, but then I saw the mention of the "pinpoint capo" ( http://www.luthiers.nu/?show=111 ) which makes it make much more sense. And I'm much more enamored by this than the floyd, even w/o the extended lower range frets. Looking at the PDF, it seems a remarkably easy solution for something I've wondered about; individual string capos. I may just have to butcher one of my beater guitars this week.

I believe it is legal in NY. At least, I remember having had Everclear in NY. (Well, I didn't have it, but it was present.) Call your local liquor store. (Pick up the yellow pages) I don't remember how the laws go in NY, but in VT we can only buy hard liquors at liquor stores, whilst beer, wine and malt beverages can be purchased all over the place. If you need a smallish bottle (smaller than a fifth) it's probably behind the counter and you'll have to ask for it.

They just help remove some of the play in the clamps while you're setting things up - they actually end up being a little more helpful then they seem at first. The tool seems to work better by setting the caul on the fret and then bringing the bottom part up to meet the back of the neck. The set screws are nylon, I set them with enough tension that parts slide okay when I push them, but don't fall out of place before I start tensioning the clamp. The small one, yes, holds the caul holder in place. Don't fix it if it ain't broke, I suppose. Does your C-clamp based thing have one of those sliding rod type handles for increased leverage when tightening? That's the only thing I'd really like more for this tool - it's hard to press things enough with the twist handle if anything gets slippery from sweat or whatever. yeah, I'm off to get feeler gauges on my way to work tonight, I feel like that's a more accurate way to judge than seeing if a receipt slides under there, since I'm not always sure if the receipt paper is going under or folding. All along. Although, on the real "problem fret", (the one I couldn't get with the hammer) it's more on the end. After. Yes. It seemed to be spot on, but now that I look at things, it seems like it might be worse off than I thought. At least, not *perfect*, in a couple of spots. I also seem to have a problem with the "crown" of my board not being dead center in the neck - I've still got my 12" radius, but it's not centered over the neck towards the upper end. I don't know how much this will effect things as I get down there. Doing a few more frets just now, it seems to be okay, but it takes a little more playing with the Jaws to get it to work. yup, this I made certain of. Should be plenty deep. I'll check again, but doesn't seem to be an issue. No glue. I wasn't comfortable with it, really. I noticed a bit of springback after I finished pressing a fret - maybe glue would help this, but I'm just not sure how to do it properly. Hrm. I haven't had that problem at all. It is a little difficult to get loose at times, but not any more than I've experienced using clamps of this type. Just got to give a small nudge in the right way and it pops off fine. So maybe I should have played more before crying for help, I don't know. I did't finish the whole neck the other night when I posted this, I was a little frustrated and figured I'd stop rather than put in a whole neck of messed up frets. Part of the problem was obviously my using a new tool. I played around some more this afternoon. Pulled the worst offenders. I tried beveling the fret slots a little more after running across that mentioned in the Jaws 2 instructions and on LMIs fretwire page. That seemed to help a lot, actually. It's not so much that the frets aren't going in - they just don't get that final seating. . I'm not actually sure how much to do that, (bevel the fret slots) but I assume as long as the bevel isn't so wide it sticks out from under the fret crown, or so deep the tang can't grab, you're okay? Other problem seems to be that maybe the problem frets weren't going in straight. I guess I'm not sure what my problem is, but things seem to be working better. I'm still doing a fair amount more hammering than I had planned, and that's frustrating. I bought the press to have to avoid hammering so much. I guess so far it's less work than hammering was last time, so it's all good, but it seems to be less of a return on investment than I had hoped for. A lot of it seems to be me. I guess I was just hoping someone else would have a miracle cure for me Hopefully I'll get this thing down. Practice practice practice. Thanks for the help.

I tried a search but am uncertain of the terms to query to find my answer although I'm sure it's out there. I'm doing some fretting, and using the StewMac "Jaws 2". I can twist that red handle until I can't get it to go any further (maybe I'm just not strong enough) and I'm getting frets that look like they're sitting flush, but on closer inspection, I realize that I can just barely slide a piece of paper under the fret. Okay, I don't remember having this problem with a hammer. But I payed enough $ for this press I'd like to get some use out of it. So out of curiosity, I go and check some store bought guitars - on my epiphone, I can do this, slide a piece of paper on some/most of the frets. On my peavey I can't. So now I'm more confused. I imagine I need the frets more seated than this, and probably need wider slots or smaller tangs, although I ordered my slotted boards and fretwire both from LMI and believe they should match. It certainly goes in okay, it's just that last little bit.

What about the Dan Armstrongs idea with his old Ampeg guitars? (I always loved those things, but I'm a huge Greg Ginn fan. Someday I'll have the money) The pickups where potted into a brown epoxy, it seems, sort of like those Bartolini p'ups, and they had what appears to be "banana" (I think that's what they're called) connectors on them. The guitar had sort of a weird "scoop" taken out where the pickups went in, so you could slide it in under the strings.

Yeah, I got a set of DeArmond bass pickups off of eBay (which, incidentally I think where from the time period that Fender was making them) and I had the same problem - the screws seem to be too fat for the holes, but upon closer inspection, the holes where not threaded at all. They were just the right size that once you get the screw started it cuts threads into the (surprisingly soft) plastic. If you went for a smaller screw, you'd need some nuts or something , to hold the pickup onto the screws, wouldn't you? Most of the cracked plastic covered bass pickups I've seen have been on basses where the pickup screws down into the body, rather than up onto a pickguard, and someone has screwed it down too tight against the body.

another thing you'll notice is that it might not be so much the placement of the amplifier itself, but it's placement in relation to you. If the speakers is aiming at your ankle, and your fairly close to the amp, it will sound a lot less harsh than if you take the same amp with the same tone settings and move it to head level, or simply back up a ways from the amp. The sound on the high end of the spectrum seems to have a tighter "cone" than the mid range or lower end. I've had this problem playing live, where my amp sounds great to me, but I'm on a fairly small stage and right next to the thing. When I back out to where the crowd is standing, I realize it sounds ear-piercingly bright (and awful) to them and I have to roll the treble knob back a lot. Also, with open back cabs/amps, the sound tends to change a fair amount depending on whether there's a hard surface like a wall behind them.

I get a lot of wierd tool catalogs in the mail, I'm usually wary about buying tools through mailorder/internet when I don't have experience with the brand in question, but I got a a catalog from this company "Eagle America" (http://www.eagleamerica.com) the other day, and they have a few router bits I have't seen elsewhere, (Although I haven't really been looking) and it piqued my interest. The first 30 pages of the catalog is router and shaper bits. They aren't cheap, so I assume these aren't junky bargain basement bits, but I don't have any experience with their stuff. Anyone bought from them before?

Yeah, I can vouch for that being no fun. Break out the solid colour re-fin, or make a really funky pickguard. Those darn saddles don't have much travel on those things. After screwing it up once, I just ended up making a moveable TOM bridge, similar to some archtop jazzboxs, I guess. Flat piece of wood with dowels instead of screwposts, pop the bridge on that, stick shims between to get the right height. Piece of felt underneath to protect the finish. String it up and figure out exactly where that darn things goes. The dowels have the centers drilled out for a tiny drill bit, so I can mark where everything goes in the end without unstringing it and losing it's position, or tring to mark around the bridge. It's not very professional, I suppose, but it calms my fears about putting such big holes in my guitar. I don't know how anyone has the courage to mount a tremelo. What happens if you route the whole shebang in the wrong place?

I love the design - it looks like a PRS designed by Semie Mosley.

oh god. I just started writing, and not until I look back to I realize how much I rambled. That was a good half my lunch break that flew by there. I could have given just as much info in three or four pictures. I should have waited until I got home. Sorry! I'm a little long-winded sometimes.

Okay, sorry if this rambles a bit much, or if it seems dumbed down. I just jumped in and started writing. (just a note, I don't know what convention is, when I mention "first pickup" I mean the bridge, "third pickup" means the neck, and "second pickup" is obviously the middle. When I say "position one" on the switch, I mean just the bridge pickup. By "position five", I mean just the neck pickup. I don't know if I'm following convention here or not) Look at this: http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/LN-800004.pdf It's a data sheet for a Lorlin rotary switch available at Mouser. It's a PDF, sorry. I'll use this for reference. Okay, so in the upper left is a picture of one of these things. But look down at the diagram labelled "1 Pole, 12 Positions". That's a rough represention of the back side of one of these switches, and shows how these things work. Basically, at the point marked "A" on the diagram, in the center of the switch that's one of your poles, your common connection. You'll have a lug here, like on a pot. (The ones with pins are for mounting on circuit boards - so if you order one of these things, make sure you order one with solder lugs, so you can attach wires to it easier.) That lug should be surrounded by a ring of other connection points. (you get the idea from the picture upper left, probably.) Those are the points labelled "1" through "12" on that diagram we're looking at. So, basically, with the rotary switch in the "first" position, the terminal at point "A" on that diagram connects to the terminal at point "1". Rotate the knob one click, and now point "A" is connected to point "2". And so on and so forth, up to twelve clicks, and you connect point "A" to point "12". Some switches can rotate back to position 1 from position 12. Some can't. This one probably can't, that usually what that broken ring in the diagram means. So, what you could do here to switch pickups becomes fairly evident. Connect the hot lead from your first pickup to point "1". (If you want a tone control, you could connect that first, and then go to point "1"). Your second pickup goes to point "2", etc. ( Obviously you don't have 12 pickups. These Lorlin switches you can set so it won't rotate through 12 clicks. Or just buy a switch with less positions ["throws"]. ) Now, you take the connection at point "A", and run that to your output, or to your volume pot and then the output, whatever. As you rotate the switch, at each position, you'll be connected to a different pickup. Now, the problem arises when you want more than one pickup at the same time. Standard strat type switches do this by stopping "halfway". If our rotary switch did that, you'd see point "A" would connect to both point "1" and point "2". Unfortunetly, I don't know of any easily-obtainable rotary switches that do this. So, say you wanted to do strat-style switching, and you don't have those "halfway" spots. You can't simply connect both the first and second pickups to the "2" terminal, since now these two are always linked electrically, and any time you're using the first pickup, the second would be connected as well. What we need to do is combine our pickups *after* the switch. So we need an extra pole. So, back to the .PDF file I linked. Look at the next diagram, labelled "2 Pole, 6 Positions." From the back, this switch would look exactly the same as the first one we were looking at, except there's an extra terminal, where point "C" is on this diagram. This is the diagram we'll follow for the next little section of things. This switch works basically the same way as the last one, but in double. In the first position, the terminal at point "A" will connect to point "1", *and* the terminal at point "C" will connect to point "7". Turn the knob one click; and now the terminal at point "A" will connect to point "2", and the terminal at point "C" will connect to point "8". This continues until you're at the last position on the knob, where point "A" and "6" are connected, and point "C" and "12" are connected, at which point the knob won't turn anymore. 6 "clicks". (Again, a Lorlin switch has a fancy washer that could limit it to 5 clicks, and some switches have more positions or less. I'd say leave it at six positions though, and we'll get to that in a minute.) So, what you'd do here is connect your first pickup to point "1". Don't connnect anything to point "7". You'd connect both the terminal at "A" and the terminal at "C" to your output (or volume/tone knob and then to the output if you want that to effect all the pickups. If you want a volume or tone for each pickup, then they would go between the pickup and switch.) But why are we connecting from terminal "C" to the output if nothing is going to "7"? (and, by relation, thus nothing goes to point "C") Well, for our next position on the knob, we want to use two pickups - so you connect the first pickup to the terminal at "2", (this first pickup, it's also connected to the terminal at "1" as well - since these are so close on the switch you can probably just bend them a little and bridge them with solder, or use a short jumper wire) and we'll connect the second pickup to the terminal at "8". Since the connections from both "A" (which is linked to "2" with out switch in this second position) and "C" (which is linked to "8" in this second position) are running to our output, we'll get both our first and second pickups at the output. We won't have the problems mentioned above, because the output of those two wires never connects until we switch it to this second position. At position three on our knob, we want just the second pickup, so we connect that to the terminal at "3" and leave the other terminal ("9") that runs to "C" empty. The fourth position at our knob, we want the second and third pickups, so we connect one of those two to the terminal at "4" and one of them to the terminal at "10", they'll come out of "A" and "C" respectively, and join up at our output, same deal we did in our second position of rotation. The fifth position on this knob we want just the third pickup, so we connect this pickup to either the terminals at "5" or "11", leave the other one open. Same idea as at positions one and 3 in our rotation. (Of course, make sure all your grounds from the pickups and volume pots and what not connect at one point.) So a brief recap of the connections: (In parenthesis, are what position on the rotary switch the numbered terminals will apply to.) Now a few things to notice: If you wanted to do a two pickup setup with a rotary switch, you'd still need the double pole rotary switch (unless you found one with a "halfway" point like a standard switch) if you wanted to have both pickups on at one time. You just wouldn't need a 5 throw switch, 3 would be fine. Notice that any signal that comes in through terminals "1" through "6" is going to come out terminal "A". "7" through "12" will come out terminal "C". This isn't a big deal if we set it up like I mentioned above so that the wires coming off "A" and "C" join together at the next step in the chain (the output or the volume pot). So you could wire things however you wanted, the first pickup could go to the terminal at "8" and the second pickup could go to the terminal at "2". Position two on your knob will still be a combination of the two pickups. However, if we wanted a tone control for the first and second pickups and one for the third pickup, we have to pay attention to how things are wired. We could set up two tone controls, one each, attached to the terminals at "A" and "C", and then join the signals together *after* these tone controls. (Or volume, for that matter.) In this setup, make sure that the pickups end up coming out "A" or "C" in a manner that allows you to use the tone controls as you wish. Example: If the first pickups goes the terminal at "1". We also send this to the terminal at "8", (for our second switch position) and the second pickup goes to the terminal at "2". You then have a seperate tone control coming off the terminals at "A" and "C". In position one, the first pickup would be on it's own and the tone control connected to "A" would be the one that effected it. (the second tone control would do nothing) In position two, however, you'd have both the first and second pickups working. However, pickup one's tone control would now be the tone control attached to the terminal at "C"! And the tone control that was controlling the first pickup (the one attached to terminal "A") in the first position, would now be controlling the second pickup! This might be desirable, it might not, but take it into consideration. This can be nice sometimes, in that you can set it up so that a certain volume control is always the upper pickup of a combination, whether that's the 2nd or 3rd pickup. Heck, if you could sacrifice a switch position, and have two duplicate positions on the rotary switch, but they send that pickup through either tone or volume control. I find it easiest to wire one tone control to my bridge pickup before it hits the switch. Then I wire my second tone control after my switch, and wire up my switch in such a way that my middle and neck pickups will always go out the terminal at "C" when they are used, and then into this second tone control. After the tone control, I join this back up with the wire from terminal "A", then go to my volume control and then the output. Now about those extra terminals - Okay, now you could find a double-pole, five-throw switch, or use the Lorlin switch and set it so it won't rotate past the fifth position, but if you end up with a 6 position switch, why not use it for something? Well, you could just leave that position un-wired. This would basically make it a "kill" switch. turn the knob to the unused position, and everything cuts out. Helpful it you're playing high-gain music. But I think we can do better - since we're not using the standard blade switches method of stopping "halfway" to get two pickups, and rather using a double pole switch, lets do what they do with those fancy strat switches stewmac sells. Run your first pickup to the terminal at position"6", and your third pickup to the terminal at position "12", and now the sixth position is your neck and bridge pickups together. If you've got the extra "click" on that rotary knob, might as well use it! And you didn't sacrifice a switch position for it, like some switches make you do! Another option that might be useful is making that 6th "click" on the wheel a duplicate of the first position, so you don't have to turn the knob all the way around to get back to just the bridge pickup. So there you go. With rotary switches -> For standard 5-way switching with three p'ups, you need a Double-Pole, Five-Throw switch, (6 Throw to aslo have the neck/bridge combo) For 3 way two p'up switching, you need a Double-pole, Three Throw switch. (Sometimes they say "position" instead of throw, sometimes not. Sometimes it's abbreviated, like DP6T or 2P6T) The switch I mentioned below, the one available at Radio Shack, would work perfect. (You'll have to saw off the extra shaft on that thing though.) Now, say you wanted to *also* be able to use all three pickups. Well, we run into the same situation we did at the begining, with things being in contact with each other even when the switch isn't in the position for it. We end up needing a *three* pole switch. (one with an extra common terminal where "A" and "C" are in the diagram we've been looking at.) Thing is, getting a three pole rotary switch with enough throws (we probably want at least six throws, if not seven, unless we want the "all three pickups" combo to replace another option) is somewhat difficult. This is where those superswitches for strats come in handy, you can get things like this all in one control sometimes. But if you really want a rotary switch for pickup selection, and can't get ahold of a three-pole one with enough throws to do this, the easiest way is to cheat a little and add another switch to the mix. This could just be a mini toggle, but if you don't want to take up more room or make more holes, just go with a toggle switch mounted on a push/pull pot. Wire up your rotary switch like before. Then think about how you want to get to the "all three pickups" deal - I usually end up going from using the bridge and the middle pickup to using all three. So the "extra" pickup that needs to be switched on is the neck pickup. If you go from neck+middle to all 3, then the "extra" pickup is the bridge. You get the idea. All you do here, is wire up an open-close switch. Go from the neck pickup (well, since the wires from the neck pickup are already attached to the rotary switch, you'll probably just run extra wires from there - if you've got volume controls before the switch, that's another good place to run the lead from.) Attach this to one part of a switch. Attach the other part of the switch. (If it's a double throw, just pick whichever throw feels natural to you to "activate" the extra pickup - whether that's up or down on your push pull pot, or a certain direction on your toggle. Leave the other pole empty. We just want an "on-off" switch. If it's a double-pole, double-throw switch, we'll only be using on set of poles.) We've got a few choices - we could attach it at the terminals at "A" and "C", planning around any tone or volume controls already attached to those points, depending on how we want them to effect the added pickup. Problem with this, however, is that if we go from "middle and bridge" pickup to "all 3", and then go back to "just bridge" pickup without returning the "extra pickup" switch to the open position, we're still getting that extra neck pickup - getting from "all three pickups" to "just bridge" is now a three step operation. If this is a problem for you, one answer is simply to wire the end of the "extra pickup" switch to the terminal at "2" or "8" mixing it back in before we hit the rotary switch. This way, the "extra" third pickup will only factor in when the rotary knob is position 2. In fact, if the switch you used was a double-pole switch, you could use the extra set of poles to do the same thing for the bridge pickup, and connect up to pin "4" or "10" of the rotary switch. Now the "extra pickup" switch, when closed, will add whatever the missing pickup is from the normally two-pickup positions at 2 and 4 on the rotary switch, but leave positions 1, 3, 5 alone. If you added that 6th position we talked about, that will also be left alone, but of course, we could have used the extra set of poles to add the middle pickup to position 6 on the rotary switch, instead of adding the bridge to position 4. Or whatever. Of course, now, if we mix the signal from the extra pickup back in at the begining of the rotary switch, by running it back in at the terminals on the rotary switch, that extra pickup will hit any tone controls along the way. That might not be desirable. But I figure if you're running all three pickups, you've probably got everything dimed anyways, so to heck with tone controls. I've experimented with using an *additional* rotary switch, rather than a toggle, and taking those extra 6 positions to mix in either the neck or middle pickup as my "third" pickup, and route them to different places. At this point, the differences are subtle, and you might as well just add individual switches for everything and make your guitar look like a synthesizer with thirty little dials and toggles.

Okay. I get it. (sorry, I just still wasn't sure what type of switch we talking about) That's doable. I'm at work right now; I'll post an explanation when I get a chance (have to do it between tasks, it might be a couple hours) and if that's not clear, I'll post a diagram when I get home in the morning.

Ah, here you gol from the Seymour Duncan website, a schematic for three pickups, using a 5-way rotary switch and a three way toggle: http://seymourduncan.com/support/schematic...g_schematic.pdf PRS schematics with rotary switch info: (don't know how useful this will be) http://www.prsguitars.com/csc/schematics.html THe bottom of this page has an explanation of rotary switches: http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/schematics.php

OKay, I'm confused again, but if we're talking rotary switches . . . Most of the lorlin switches come with diagrams, and you can find them online as .PDFs at mouser. Otherwise, take your mulimeter and test for continuity between the connectors on the switch, check each position, and figure out how yours works. But yeah, they work just like a regular switch, except they rotate instead of toggle or slide. The connectors are in different positions as a result, but you basically wire them the same if you're just choosing different settings, however, if this is a pickup switch and you want some settings being more than one pickup at once, it's a little more complex wiring. You'll want to make sure that the switch you choose has the right number of "poles" (the number of connections it can switch at once - having extra is fine, you just won't use those) and the right number of "throws" (the number of positions the switch has - here, you don't want too many, because you'll have an extra switch position that you'll either have nothing [helpful if you'd like a quick "kill" switch] or switch positions that duplicate other ones.) BTW, Radio Shack sells rotary switches, part number 275-1386. What exactly are you doing with it? Honestly, I find that rotary switches are helpful for somethings, but playing live, I like a lever-type switch, it's easier to tell what position I'm in with a glance or a feel, and easier to switch during the course of a song. I've only used rotary switches in a guitar for swapping caps in my tone control; they work great there, I think for pickup selectors, a lever switch works better. If you want a rotary control for pickups, I might try a "blend" control using a potentionmeter to blend between two pickups. I find it makes for a more effective tone control.

Garehanman's linked thing there, those are cool and useful, but I think what you're looking for (from the original link) are rotary switches. Lorlin makes some nice rotary switches, you can get them from Mouser.com, as well as smallbearelec.com. Both places have other brands and types of rotary switches, I believe. The Lorlin nylon rotary switches are smaller than the one pictured in the original link, and they're mostly enclosed, so I've found they last longer. Small Bear has pics, check the fourth page of switches on the stock list. I use them in homebrewed effects pedals to swap out capacitors in tone controls and such. They make them in a variety of pole and throw combos; I have some onhand here that are single pole 12 throw, and some that are double pole, 6 throw. Both of these are set up so by moving this wierd washer thing you can limit the number of positions - if you want a 5 throw switch instead of a 6 or 12, for instance, you can set it so it will only rotate through 5 positions, rather than having an extra "unused" click in the rotation, or two positions that are duplicate. They also sell some that are 3P4T and 4P3T (again with the number of throws selectable. For some projects, I've also used the rotary switches pulled from printer/keyboard switches I got from a junk shop real cheap. Way more poles than you need for a guitar, I guess, (the printer switcher thing had DB25 connectors, so it was a 25pole, 3 throw switch - 75 wires coming off that thing! Maybe if each pole piece had it's own wire?) but if you can get them cheap, (I got mine for like a dollar a piece) they're handy, and half the wiring is already done for you (and maybe even colour-coded to boot!) Plus you get a real sturdy, fairly large metal box out of the deal. I can fit a whole bunch of DIY effects or a small practice amp in one of those. .j

If you're talking about the one with the closeup of the edge, It's a 1/4" walnut top, on top of the mahogany body, but sandwiched between are three of the coloured (W/B/W in this case) .6mm veneers from LMI; then I just went around all the edges with a 45 degree bearing-guided routing bit, which makes the veneers show up as a pinstripe/faux binding kind of look all around the edge of the body. Kind of like a multi-ply pickguard, I guess. I wanted beveled edges, but I also wanted binding; this seemed like the easiest compromise. I'm actually really like the look, because you get to see some of the body wood from the back of the guitar. Nitefly - Yeah, that's where the design came from! I kind of forgot, I just used the same full scale drawings I had made from my first attempt at a guitar. I love the look of those old Airlines. I'd like to try to make a guitar in this shape with that mosrite-esque body carve, similar to how the photos of the Airlines I've seen look like they've been molded. Eclipse - I'm going with GFS Retrotron p'ups for now in the guitars, with the plans to swap the pickups around with other types and brands in future until I figure out what I want. Right now the walnut topped guitar will have the P90s in a humbucker size, and the black one is going to have one of those filtertron-esque jobbers. The Bass is going to have Dearmond pickups, the TurboJet models. I had them kicking around, and really like them, and they route such that I can swap them for jazz bass type pickups with little to no modification to the body.

http://homepage.mac.com/sfjoshua/PhotoAlbum2.html I'll post more pictures when the projects are done, but here's where I'm at now. I lucked out and managed to get the finish sprayed last month, before it started to get too cold (and wet!) to do it here in Vermont. (well, at least outside; I don't have a spray booth) Ideally, I'd like to refinish these next summer, since I think I can do a better job, but this will have to do for now. These are all done with KTM-9 clear coat and System Three Epoxy; I may post more later detailing my experiences with the stuff so other people can avoid some of the pitfalls I had. Last summer I did my first from-scratch build, a maple-through, mahogany body with a body design pretty much in line with one of these guitars. It came out sounding great, playing okay (It's since been fixed up and plays real well now) but looking, well, not so great. But I learned a heck of a lot, mostly from this place (I started the thing with with nothing but Melvyn Hiscocks book and a few parts from LMI - I didn't even realize how much info was on places like this!) I figured I could do better, so I read up and learned an awful lot and experimented. As spring came round and I got tired of tweaking electronics, I dug out a bunch of the mahogany I had left from the first guitar and started building practice necks. I had enough wood for three, and they came out pretty darn good, so I figured I had to build some guitars around them and bought some more wood. (and now I have more leftover wood and will have to build more guitars next summer, I suppose!) Everything on these guitars was really done only as practice, I wanted to experiment with different things, so I tried a bunch of stuff and different techniques out. As such, there are a lot of little imperfections I let slide, not really thinking these where ever going to be real, finished, guitars. But they started looking pretty good unless you where up close, so I figured I'd finish 'em. Still have to do the nuts, fretting, install hardware, buff up the finish, etc. The black guitar is a 6 string copy of my cheap Sanatoga 12 string, (which is vaguely Rickenbacker-inspired, I guess?) since I loved the shape so much but wanted something a little better. Rosewood board with my first attempt at inlaying. (I need better bits and a better router base. I also tried to go for a "handdrawn" look on the hearts - I should have just tried for perfect and excepted "handdrawn" rather than attempting "handdrawn" and getting "lumpy") Wenge top, which was originally only supposed to be darkened somewhat, not black. The System 3 epoxy filler darkens some woods much more than you would think. (I.E., wiping it wet is not a good indicator of what the wood might look like finished in all instances) 5 ply binding, mahogany back/neck. Will have gold hardware, debating a kind of large, multi-ply tortoise pickguard. Maybe a BWB one. The other two, bass and guitar, are cocobolo boards, walnut tops, mahogany bodies/necks. There's a layer of veneer (three on the guitar) to make a pinstripe where the tops join the bodies. Chrome hardware on these, bigbsy on the guitar. Thinking an LP Jr. style pickguard on the guitar. ( I think guitars look a little naked w/o pickguards. All three of these are set necks, with fairly long tenons hidden under the tops. All those tops are three pieces, because I didn't have the wood to get across the whole top in two. The colouring on the walnut guitar looked like it matched a good deal more until I hit it with the System Three epoxy filler. I didn't mean to ramble on so much. Sorry. I'll post more pictures when they're all done.

Hrm, a week earlier and I would have just mailed you what I had left in my closet. I gave a bunch away recently. (It was extra from covering my cabinet, I had had it forever.) Any custom hot rod type places in your area? I got some tolex through a guy I knew (he just ordered extra when they were getting some and I paid him) They used to use tolex on the roofs or trim of some autos, or something, I guess, I don't really know. For some reason, this place used it. It was tolex, as well, not upholstery vinyl.

I like a neck angle on my guitars; keeps my strings away from the mic stand. (i'd just feel a little too dorky with one of those madonna-style, air-traffic-control, headset mic things.) but I like strat-style hardtail bridges. Assuming a flat topped guitar, would there be any problems with the strings coming off such a bridge at a downward angle, so as to implement an LP type neck angle? I can't forsee anything, but I could be missing something. Or would it be better to carve the top in such a way that the area the bridge rests on is also angled (in regards to the back of the guitar), so you have an angle in in relation between the strings and body, but the bridge itself is parallel with the strings?

Fender's new "baritone" Jaguar , the sort of successor to the Fender Bass VI uses a standard guitar Tune-o-matic (well, it's probably one of Fender's "adjust-o-matic" bridges, which seem to be TOM's with the Fender fretboard radius) It's not tuned like a baritone, or like a six string bass, either, I suppose (don't those usually have a low B or something?) but like a guitar tuned down an octave. The neck scale is longer than a baritone and shorter than a bass (28"). So I imagine you could use a guitar bridge and change the string slotting. Although this woudn't help if you want the traditional 6-string bass setup with the standard bass string-to-string spacing and resulting extra-wide fretboard. Personally, I could never play one of those, and really liked the Fender's Jaguar Baritone Custom because of the string spacing, although I wouldn't mind a longer neck scale.

I've got a guitar I wired up in stereo using the schematics off the Rickenbacker site. Works great and sounds awesome. Only problem I've got is some nasty hum with some setups - I'm assuming it's a ground loop problem since with the box I've made to go from the stereo cable to the two mono cables I run to amps or whatever, the ground is the same between all three jacks. I assume Rickenbackers Rick-o-sound boxes take care of this, but the going rate seems to be around 80 bucks - I assume that these use audio transformers to isolate the grounds, similar to the tail end of the hum free splitter at geofex but I'm not certain. I can assemble electronics, (done my own stompboxes) I figure I can build one of these fairly easily. But anyway, does anyone know what the innards of one of these boxes looks like? I'm not always so great with designing or understanding what electronics are doing, so I figured I should make sure I'm on the right path before I start.

I've been playing this Crate V30H recently - for the money (around 500 dollars, I think?) it is a great amp. We'll see how reliable it is; I've had to do a lot of work on Crate tube amps in the past (I can fix/build electronics, my friends are poor, so when gear breaks, I'm the go-to guy. It gets old fast.) for stupid things that could have been avoided, but this one seems a little bit more solid. The circuit seems to be based around a Vox AC30, with a bit more gain to it, and, as such, that's pretty much what the sound is - very AC30ish, with a bit more gain available. I really love the sound out of it, and I've been running it through a home-built 4x12 cab and for my main rock'n'roll band it's been perfect. I put it through smaller cabs when I'm playing more layed back country-fied stuff or indiepop or something, and it's pretty good there too - not going to replace my old Fender for that stuff, but I'm more comfortable bringing it out. The new group I'm now also playing with is a quite bit louder and faster, kind of thrashy actually, and I was using borrowed gear for it; 5150s, Randalls, whatever, we just felt like we needed something a little more bite. I brought the V30H one day though, and honestly, I loved it in this setting. There was plenty of "aggressiveness" with things topped off, although it wasn't nearly as "heavy" as you'd expect for a band of this type, I really loved the sound - it had enough clarity behind the distortion to let me add a bit more flourish and have it sound out without getting lost in the stereotypical hard rock tone. I think it also made the band more interesting, to not have the typical tone you'd expect for a band like this. The only problem is there's just not quite enough volume, even through the 4x12. It shouldn't be a problem at any show with a PA, but being a kind of punkish band, we play a whole lot of shows where the PA is two vocal mics, maybe a bit of the drums. I don't want to be blistering loud or anything, I just need a little more volume. I know the cab is plenty on it's own when I'm using a more powerful head, so I'd rather look into a louder head than carry another cab or a larger cab or something. So anyway, does anyone know of a head that still has that "AC30ish" sound, but is just a bit louder? Preferably something that isn't tons and tons of money.

I just did the finish on my recent project, it had a walnut top similar to the one that mugattu posted, but a bit more boring - I used KTM-9 - but what I really liked was the way the System 3 epoxy clear coat grain filler stuff brought out the wood - very nice. It darkens it more than you'd expect, and adds contrast. made it "pop" quite a bit. someday I'll get a camera and pictures . . .

I never understood what the problem was people had with strat volume knobs. Until I replaced the pickguard on my strat copy with a tortoise one made for a*real* strat. Probably under a half inch difference in the volume knob position, but just moving it a little bit closer to the "real" position and it's very in the way, for the way I play. But discovering the wonderful world of pinky swells. . . Sharp edges are a no, but I'm not big on body cuts, but that's because when I play guitar I have the whole thing slung so darn low. All my strumming movement is in my wrist (I'm getting both carpal tunnel and popeye forearms playing in my new, fast band) and my arm is fully extended downwards. Because my arm never really brushes the edge of the guitar (it's really uncomfortable to play sitting down for more than a set's length, it feels like I'm spending more energy holding my arm up than strumming) it never bothers me. I hate guitars that don't balance - I had a bolt on firebird, I had to hang it like an acoustic because I couldn't deal with having to hold up the headstock the whole time I was playing. I think the perfect guitar is an SG - light enough to jump around a whole lot, (I like to pretend I'm Pete Townsend, but I also drink too much coffee) but tone doesn't seem to suffer, hangs really well, the curves are right where I need them for the way I hold it, the controls are accessible but out of the way, the angled neck is just right if you have to step up to a mic stand, and that really weak neck tenon makes a cool vibrato if you swing the guitar around or push/pull on the neck. (I really abuse this feature - my SG made a really scary crracking noise from the neck at band practice the other day - my new guitar will have a trem and I'm going to force myself to learn to use it.)