thegarehanman

Perhaps you're right, rich. I was just thinking that some of those concepts would have seemed pretty overwhelming in highschool, regardless of interest in the subject.

Rich, I think the physics class in question is highschool physics. Maybe it's AP, but that still doesn't buy him much. My AP highschool physics class never got anywhere near bending moment, harmonic oscillations, dampening, or sympathetic vibrations, which I assume is where' you're headed.

You certainly could do it, but consider using two humbuckers a pan pot(this will allow you neck only, bridge only, or a combination of both in any ratio you want) and a volume pot. This achieves the same thing but choosing your sound will be easier and you can still do volume swells. peace, russ

Well, if you really know your stuff regarding electronics, then consider inventing new and unique effects pedals and similar devices. There's a niche market for bizarre sounding, hand built guitar pedals.

Um...suggestions?...find a career with job security? Really, if there were any guitar related easy money making schemes, we'd have already exploited them around here already, we are about 4 thousand strong on this board I think. You can make money building guitars from scratch, but that's still not simple. EDIT: If you're looking to make some cash doing something guitar related. Look into learning how to repair guitars and do setups. I mean really read up on it. Buy and read as much literature as you can, talk to as many people as possible regarding the subject. Then practice on your own instruments. On top of this you could do modifications to other people's guitars to their specifications and charge them for parts, a markup, and your labor. If you have no experience in this field, then a fair charge for your labor would be in the -|minimum wage| range. When you start practicing on your own instruments and getting the craft down, then you can stop paying your customers and work for free for a while until you could be considered a pro. I know you don't like hearing all of this pessimism, but you'll have to understand we've seen tons of guys come through here looking to make a quick buck and screwing honest musicians out of their hard earned cash for poorly done repairs and modifications. peace, russ

Bottom line is you will take a loss. It's hard to say what that loss will be since who knows who will be looking on ebay at the time, or what that person's "dream guitar" will be, or even what your workmanship is like. The retail cost of parts is just too high for there to be a reasonable chance for you to assemble a guitar from premade parts to your specifications with no name recognition and then make a profit. I know this sounds pessimistic, but I'd hate to see you get your hopes up and be crushed by the results

Absolutely not , don't believe a word any of us say. Spend your money as you please and consider your loss a charitable donation to poor musicians.

You'll be lucky to make a reasonable return building guitars from scratch where the profit margin is much higher.

OOoooo.....DO IT. And do it now. (please?) At least let me finish a guitar first, ok mattia? Rest assured, if nothing else, the tutorial will serve as an excellent excuse to build a vacuum pump.

No problem. Thanks. Maybe soon there will be a tut on fiberglass/kevlar/carbon fiber cases. Good luck!

A router(implied by the word "route" in "route a truss rod channel?"), either handheld with an edge guide or mounted to a table with a fence. That pretty much covers it. Routing the neck will be much easier if you have not tapered it yet. If you are using a double acting rod, your channel will be the same depth through out. If you're using a single action rod, you'll need a set of curved pieces of wood for your *handheld* router to ride on to give you a curved channel. Obviously, the double action rod is much easier to install. May I suggest you buy Melvin Hiscock's "Make Your Own Electric Guitar?" peace, russ

I don't build as a career, but many people who come to this board have aspirations of building full-time. Let me just tell you what I've seen and know. The custom guitar/bass market is VERY COMPETITIVE. For this reason, unless you are very well known(and often unless you have cheap labor or cnc assistance), you will not make a huge profit margin. It may take you years to just earn enough to pay your general bills, much less live well. Generally, it's accepted that if you don't know how much to sell your guitars for, you shouldn't be selling them. This stems from the idea that when you're ready to sell, you'll have an idea of how much you want to earn hourly, how much parts and wood will generally cost you, and how much time you'll have to invest in any given instrument. Some builders sell guitars after they've built only one or two, some people wait to sell until they've built 10 or 20. However, a general rule of thumb is that the more s*** you send out your door in the form of guitars, the more s*** you'll have coming in your door in the form of angry customers. So DO NOT sell anything that you feel even remotely dissatisfied with. If you want the opinions of guitarists about your builds, let them play them, not just look at them on forums. More importantly, to get honest opinions from them, don't only ask them what they like about your builds, ask them what they don't like or would change about your guitars. This could potentially reveal some flaws in your builds that you had not previously seen or given attention to. While there are tons of custom solid body builders. It seems that there is a greater demand for custom acoustic or custom archtop builders, or at least that trade is more profitable(I could be wrong, but I seem to remember hearing this on a few occasions). The problem here is that the quality of your instruments tone will rely much more heavily on your building quality and style than a solid body wood. This means that it may be harder to sell your instruments until you get a buzz going about how good your instruments sound. Of course, the opposite holds true for your instruments if they're built poorly and sound terrible. I'm sure I've missed some things, and remember that this is just what I've gleaned and think. So take it with a grain of salt, but do give these things some consideration. peace, russ

You could spray a b/w/b pickguard with a tinted green clear coat(probably would have to use poly, not sure if nitro would stick). The black areas would still look black, maybe with just a hint of green, and the white spots would look green.

I'm working on a guitar that has the top curved in this manner, but not the back. What I would recommend is drawing the curves on the end of your body blank and routing out as much material as possible in the front and back. Then for the front, use a surform or in-line sander to get the top to a smooth, uniform curve. For the back, you may want to use a disc sander or something similar.

So laminate it with epoxy. I think it's going to be difficult(but not impossible) to laminate a pickguard perfectly without the aid of a vacuum press. If you lived in the states, I'd offer to use mine to glue it all together for you. peace, russ

Spray sheds are nice, especially since they can serve as storage space during the other 99% of the time when they're not in use. Make sure you get yourself a decent explosion proof fan to evacuate the fumes.

If his cutting rig is a miter box and handsaw or a miter saw with a thin blade, then the radius shouldn't be an issue. If he's using a thin blade in a table saw, then the radius may be an issue. Regardless, having the board off of the neck with no taper will be the easiest option for him.

Bartolini sells a model for the stingray, don't know how close the sound is. Perhaps it's the same exact pickup.

Actually, I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular. I've never ordered a preslotted board, but rich did slot a board for me once upon a time. I've since purchased a slotting blade and some templates which collect dust as I'm consumed by college.

Ah, may have been jackson they made them for after all. Check out their site and see for yourself. Why not email the companies to find out about colors? I'd think that was an obvious one.

The schematics you want can easily be derived from the schematics available at pickup manufacturer sites, so I won't speak on that. However, you should know that when you say "resistors," you mean "capacitors." Putting a resistor in series with your pickups will reduce the volume like a fixed volume pot. However, putting a capacitor in parallel with your pickups will attenuate some of the frequencies, thereby giving you the effect of a fixed tone pot. Changing the value of the capacitor will change the frequencies attenuated, putting different values of resistors in series with the capacitor will vary the magnitude of a certain frequency the capacitor is able to bleed off. Well, that's all not exactly correct, but for what you're doing, it'll serve as a fine rule of thumb. peace, russ

I don't know, seems this guitar is a big waste of time now that you let that cnc mill "eat the guitar's soul." . Really, the only people who should be opposed to cnc milling are the ones who have never had a chance to use it properly. It really opens up a world of opportunities, not so much in woodworking as in metal and accordingly, custom hardware .

Measure your slot spacing to confirm this, but that first slot is most likely an indicator for where the nut should go. The reason it's slotted for a fret is so that you can use a zero fret if you so choose. If you want a nut instead, use a table saw, or router, or whatever you should chose to either widen that slot(only remove material on the headstock side of the slot!) or cut the board at that slot, depending on what your design calls for. peace, russ

I tend to disagree. I use my table saw for all sorts of stuff and all of the sawdust ends up in a big pile under the tablesaw. I think I'd catch a good 80% of the dust the saw makes if I put a shoot under it.

I believe the Fernandez sustainer is made by sustainiac.