j. pierce

What do you mean by a flow coat, Syxxstring?

Frankly, if you bought this new, you ought to be able to return it. If that's not a possibility, it should be a fairly straight-forward fix, but I'll let someone who can explain it better go through that.

I'm planning going with Auto-Air for my color coats, with a KTM-9 clear then, it looks. My normal method when using just KTM-9, either clear on wood, or with color coats made by mixing the colortone pigments in KTM-9, is to grain fill with epoxy (I've been using System-3, as I haven't even made it halfway through the bottle) first. On the maple topped bass, I shot KTM-9 direct on the wood as it didn't need a grainfill. I'm planning on using close-grained woods that don't need a grainfill on the next build, so I'm thinking I don't need the epoxy layer. But should I be able to lay down my base-coats of Auto-Air right on the wood, starting with a base coat of their 4000 series, like the 4001 white sealer prior to my color coats, or should I prepare the wood with something else first before I move to that step?

FWIW, John - I use regular sandpaper and spray adhesive on my leveling beams. I'm not sure it's the best method, but since I have plenty of each on hand, it's less than ordering stickit sandpaper. Also, you can get stickit paper for less than stewmac sells it in other places. You can make a fret bevelling file setup yourself for cheaper. It's not incredibly difficult to grind safe edges on small files for dressing. There's lots of ways you can save money, but for me, the big one was that once I had the tools, the costs of a neck in wood, truss rods, and what have you, even when buying a pre-slotted board, were considerably cheaper than the cost of a new neck of the calibre that I would be pleased using on my projects.

I think you're going about this all wrong. The obvious goal here is drive Pete nuts with an army of Corvuses. (Corvi?) Too much work, however. You could build miniature ones, which, while the effect might be diminished, could easily be mailed to him, one a day, everyday, until he goes batty.

What kind of finished look do you want? My friend made a clear pickguard with lexan/plexiglass from the hardware store, and painted the underside with some sort of rattle finish - I belive it was the Krylon paint for plastic - it only had to adhere enough to be there, didn't worry much about durability. He attached the clear pickguard with the paint side down after it cleared. It wasn't as nice a look as a guard with the color on the outside, but it was a cheap way for him to get a red pickguard. I'd rather have a proper pickguard made, but it worked. I'd be cautious about trying this around a vintage finish - I'd be worried about the paint on the underside of the clear guard reacting with the finish on the guitar when the two are stuck together between the pickguard and the body. But maybe that's paranoia.

I assume you mean a tiny paddly headstock like this? Hows the truss rod adjustment on that neck? Heel or headstock end? I've seen a couple of heel-adjust fender-style necks where the other end of the truss rod ends well before the nut of the guitar, around the second or third fret. If this is the case, chopping the head off is still an option. Is this for size/compactness, or just to offset neck dive? The large portion of the weight at the headstock is the tuners - I'd be tempted to leave the headstock as is and mount the ferrules in the old refilled tuner holes.

The strings don't touch the fretboard unless it's a fretless. I suppose you're right - and it would make sense, as the wear I'm thinking of seeing on old boards also shows up on classical guitars. I imagine it's from peoples fingers, I guess? I know a few players who strangle those necks hard enough I wouldn't be surprised if the strings were touching the board though. Same folks who complain that they can't get the intonation set on their guitars, and that they need a fret job every few years.

Oops - I posted while SJE was posting - and I made the same mistake! Sorry!

Well, the problem I've run across with my planned build is the 24" rods for a bass will extend right into the pickup cavity. The 18" rods fall somewhat short - although given the extended single cut design I'm planning, I'm imagining I'll be fine with a standard 18" rod. I understand that the truss rod doesn't need to go the entire length of the fretboard, (as it doesn't really do that in traditional guitar builds) but I've had a hard time finding information on the best way to determine the length one should use or how to best align it if it's "short". That's why I was questioning in my thread and here - I'd hate to build a thing and find I have an unusable truss rod! Although I'm not sure why - I've only made one instrument where I've ever really needed the truss rod. FWIW - I got a reply from LMI:

While tone is a factor, I suppose, I think the major reason you don't see as much variety of woods used in fretboards as other parts of guitars is because they have a different set of requirements for the builds - besides all the things we normally look for in guitar woods, they have to be resistant enough to hold in fretwire, and resistant enough to abrasion not to wear away to nothing as metal strings get pressed and rubbed against them over and over again. Another factor is inertia - guitar makers (larger companies, specifically) have a tendency to use what's always been used. This tends to limit what's available in a pre-made form for hobbiest builders. You're starting to see a lot more interesting woods being used in guitars lately (particularly basses) with the further availability of acrylicized woods and durable epoxy coatings- things that would have been crazy to use years ago (spalted maple!) are available in a much sturdier form after being impregnated or coated with these materials.

I'm still wondering if I need a longer truss rod for my build, myself. I've heard that LMI makes custom length dual action rods. I've sent them a message. (I don't have access to my email again until I get home from work however) I heard that they did, but I haven't seen any mention of it on the current website. I'll post back if I hear anything. A traditional single-action rod (like what you find in a fender) would be the easiest route if you do need a custom length - although installation is more difficult, all you need are some nuts and washers, some steel rod and a die. Stew Mac sells single action truss rods that can be cut to length, and then have new threads cut with a die.

EDIT: (this post was pointless bump on the truss rods question that was answered in this thread.)

Well, Fender did for a while. They used a piece thicker than what most of us think of as "veneer", but it's doable. I'd want to glue that with either a full-length caul the same radius as the board, or a vaccuum press.

Here's a pick of some customizing being done on a Fender:

Looks like you've got a neck with a Tele heel shape, and a body with a Strat neck pocket. From Warmoth: (go to the necks section and click "will it fit my guitar?") So, as you suspected, you're probably going to have to adjust something a bit to make that neck fit and intonate.

44 1/2" length on my ibanez J-bass copy, although this has two tuners each side rather than a longer 4 on a side headstock. The fingerboard is about 2.5" wide at the 24th fret. This of course is determined more by your nut width and bridge spacing - this instrument has a 2 3/8" string spread at the bridge, but I believe 2 1/4" is more common. It has a fairly common 1.5" nut width.

Seems to me an easier way to address this would be to make a table that holds everything (the spacers and such in that photo) in position and can be clamped to the mitre saw. A panel of plywood or what have you could form a base for everything else to be attached to.The bit on the right that the neck registers on would be attached there, but wouldn't have to be a large piece of wood - a big "L" attached to the base piece securely would give you clamping surface for both attaching the jig and the neck. The base piece of the jig could have holes to allow clamps to thread through to attach it to the base of the table. The piece touching the right side of the neck could be extended further to allow you to clamp the neck further down and clear from the saw blades, or the base could extend past the neck on the left hand side enough to allow you to use strategically placed toggle clamps or other hold-downs. This makes the whole thing larger, so depending on how your mitre saw is set up, you may end up needing to support the side furthest from the fence of the saw. Basically, I mean, a little tweaking the idea implemented in that photo, and you can make a jig that's easily set up and reused, and once secured, could do a series of neck blanks without having to reset the whole thing and replace pieces of wood. Me, I'll stick to bandsaw and handplane, and move up to a tablesaw setup if I ever get a real shop going.

I have a fair amount of coiled LMI wire kicking around - and while I like the wire, I'd prefer straight - It's not to bad to hang the coil on the wall, but I have enough kicking around that it's taking up a ridiculous amount of room; the worst are when you use most of a roll, and you end up with these coiled pieces that aren't quite long enough to stay coiled no matter how you attempt to do it.

Erik - looking to order; I had the spreadsheet at one point; but can't find where I put it. The links on the first page aren't working for me, I'm getting an invalid file error from Mediafire.

What do you think I should be using for a truss rod on this build? I have some double action rods from LMI salvaged from a couple builds I parted out - both the 18" standard rods for electrics, and the 23.75" rods for bass. The 18" rod would go from the nut to around the 19th fret with the end of the 1" adjusting nut just below the zero fret - at that point the neck is well into overlapping the single-cut area; I would expect that having the neck being overlapped by the body for maybe a third or so of the back of the neck on the bass side would limit any movement in that area; but I'm not certain. The bass-sized rod would cover the whole neck, but would also go right into the pickup cavity, even with the adjusting nut past the zero fret/nut at the headstock end. Can I get away with the 18" rod, or should I look into making or having made a custom length rod? I've decided to keep things simple for now, and go with a standard fret layout - I'll be building a fanned fret guitar at some point, but it's not going to be this build. I'm still waffling on 6 or 7 strings. I'm going to borrow a 7 for a while and see how I feel about that idea.

Inspired by rdiquattro's build I decided I really wanted to go with a cocobolo neck. The colors not quite right, and the dramatic curve along the piece in the far away shot is a trick of the photo, but I picked up a nice piece of cocobolo at the local lumber shop. It's actually thick enough I might be able to squeeze a one-piece neck out of it, (well, one piece scarf jointed for the headstock) but the plan at this point is a separate fingerboard, (I prefer to pay for a slotted board) although I'll probably go cocobolo on that as well. It's large enough that I can hopefully get some matching pickup covers and maybe even some binding out of it. It's almost perfectly quarter-sawn and has a beautiful ring to it. (My girlfriend says I should make marimbas out of it) Still a ways off from actually building this, but having a nice piece of wood around will help inspire. After discovering Auto Air Colors, which should work well with the KTM-9 clear coats I've been using, I'm looking forward to being able to pull off the Inca Silver front that I had originally planned for this build. Probably a black back. I've got paint samples coming this week. If I go solid colors, I'm thinking alder for the body again. Although there was some really nice black limba at the hardwoods place...

Like David's from the tutorial section? Cool! I was thinking something along these lines, but haven't really looked for the aluminum extrusions like that. They hold up okay under the weight of the router? Let us know when you've given it a test run!

We're talking about the same company that marketed the Firebird, Thunderbird, and SG right?

Yeah, I was thinking 'cool features' rather than 'innovation' Actually, what I'd really like in the guitar would be a built-in motorized hurdy-gurdy type wheel. I imagine that's been done too... I suppose a sustainer would be a similar effect. That would be the Gizmotron.