thegarehanman

Does it stay in tune when a string breaks? It doesn't look like it. I've had an idea for a trem something like this one for a while now, but haven't had the time or resources to build it. The one I've got in my head wouldn't detune due to broken strings though. EDIT: Nevermind, looks like it does stay in tune after breaking a string. I'll be interested to hear your review, mickguard.

You're wasting your time. First, there aren't enough fret sizes to accomodate a smaller fret every 6 frets on a 27 fret fretboard that starts with medium jumbos. Second, you would need to re level the fretboard once you glue it to the neck, because the frets would no long be level after you handle the fretboard and glue it to the neck.

It may be an optical illusion, but it looks to me like the neck on that thing is very very crooked. You may want to get some string and see if the neck is actually in line with the bridge stud holes. If it's not, you may have to do a little (read: "a lot") more work than you bargained for. peace, russ

Yeah, sounds like you're trying to fit an F-spaced humbucker into a PAF slot. It's odd though, because F spaced humbuckers were designed for strats, so you'd think that they'd make the pickguard suited to an F-spaced 'bucker. Anyhow, if it were me, I would first surround the pickup hole with masking tape. I'd then trace out the area I need to remove. I'd cut the tape off of the area that would need to be removed. Then, with a dremel on its lowest speed and a small sanding drum with fine medium grit paper, I'd slowly sand away the material not covered by tape. However, if you're not good with a dremel, this is obviously not a wise choice. I've become pretty accurate with them though. I would avoid using a saw, as you might chip the abalone. However, if you own a jeweler's saw, that would work just fine. peace, russ

How low your frets are after the fret dress depends on how off the frets are now. To take the least material off, the neck needs to be under the same pressure it would be when strung up, while it's being leveled. This can be done either by leaving the strings on and using angle aluminum as a sanding block, or by putting the guitar in a neck jig. Either way, the truss rod should be used to get the neck as straight as possible under string tension, before leveling. Once the truss rod is adjusted, you (or the guitar tech) should be able to get a grasp of how much material needs to be removed, by setting a straight edge across the frets and measuring gaps with a feeler guage. peace, russ

...or if you wire them backwards.

Hah! Your build is one of the most creative takes on solid body building I've seen this year. That really means a lot, jon. Thank you! I don't know how much I'll get done this year, but maybe I can take that award home again. I've been dreaming up my next build for the last few months, not having enough ideas to get myself motivated to build, but I'm starting to piece the details together and I'm really getting antsy now. Right now I'm leaning towards an ash body and maple carved top, with black grainfiller and transparent white finish. White perloid binding on the body with one stripe of thin black purfling on the top and side of the pearloid. Rosewood neck with ebony fretboard and binding, with an inlay similar to the one on the guitar in the calendar, except using only thin white purfling, no inlaid hunks of wood. 6 strings (do I build anything else? oh yeah, a 12 once upon a time!) with a trem (not sure which yet, but it will be a strat variation) that I'm going to modify so that you can dive and pull up with it, but never worry about it going out of tune. My design is quite a bit simpler than that trem king thing; I was sort of dissappointed at their approach to that. Anyhow, sustainer, p90, and humbucker, with piezos in the bridge. The two pickups wound by mua. The p90 having standard 10k winds of wire with an AlNiCo 5, and the humbucker slightly overwould with a ceramic magnet. Simple controls on the top of the guitar, probably just vol and pickup selector, with a kill button by the neck and the rest of the controls recessed on the side of the guitar. Those will probably include magnetic and piezo pickup tones, a blend knob that controls the mix of the p90 and humbucker when the 3-way switch is in the middle, a piezo/magnetic blend knob, and the sustainer controls. I'll be using my tank top body style, like usual. nickel hardware, w/ white pickups Anyhow, I ramble; you can tell I'm excited about it though. peace, russ

I hear you about the fused read switch. That's why I put a gear reduction on mine. I will see how long the switch lasts, but with its now very low cycle rate (think, at 2000rpms, it's only cycling about 1.3 times per second) and lower number of cycles for pickup, I expect to get at least 50-100 pickups wound before worrying about replacing it.

Teak oil works really well and penetrates pretty deep into the wood as well, instead of just sitting on the surface. I really like how it makes rosewoods look and feel. It darkens them up a bit and feels smooth as silk.

I heard the stewmac one is underpowered. Plus, it looks like it onlycounts up and there's no way to take windings off the counter. If I was going to spend $300 on a winder, I think I'd just build it myself. With $300 into it, you could have it winding multiple pickups at once, build in a tensioner and an oscillating wire guide so that it's hands free. SwedishLuthier: That's a good point about the hand rest.Right now I sit on a stool while I wind, and I can actually just put my hand on my leg. The way the rheostat cover is positioned, the curved top edge of that plate acts as a wire guide, so I don't have to hold my hand up as high. I may eventually move the rheostat like you suggest, but right now, I don't have much of a reason to. I only touch it about 3 times per pickup. Once to start it and get it up to speed, once mid-wind to stop it and check the coil for problems (which I've been fortunate enough to avoid all-together), and then finally to stop it. I think I will put the oscillating wire guide feature on it though, just to save myself the trouble. I think I will probably make a few different cam profiles for each type of pickup, so I can vary the amount of scatter winding as well. I've found you can really tweak the high-end on a pickup just by adjusting that (the amount of scatter winding). peace, russ

Hey guys. I built a pickup winder a couple of months ago and used it for a while, but I got tired of its speed limitations and the massive wobbling of the faceplate. It was an ok design, but the reed switch counting from a magnet on the faceplate was no good, it limited rpm's to around 200. Anyhow, a couple months later and I decided to do a slight redesign. Below are pictures of the finished product. Basically, I switched from using a single, long bushing to support the main shaft to using two sealed bearings. I added a 25:1 gear reduction to the counter, and I changed the way the face plate mounted to the main shaft. So far I've run this at about 2500 rpms without problems. There's a 2:1 gear reduction between the drive motor (a $20 vsr drill) and the main shaft, and I think I could probably safely spin the faceplate at 3000-3500 rpms, if the double-stick tape could handle it. All the parts for this amount to between $100 and $150. The counter is just a cheap (and I do mean cheap) calculator. I just punch in "0," "+," "25," "=," and wind away. The advantage to using a calculator for this application is that it's really simple to subtract windings from the counter if you need to take any wire off the bobbin due to a snag or whatever. The plastic covering the drive chain is lexan. I'd rather not find out the hard way that my design needs a chain tensioner . Some P90's made on the new winder and fresh out of the crock pot. I pot my coils once immediately after winding (before applying friction tape) and then again after the whole pickup is assembled. I also put a few drops of wax in the cover and press the pickup into it, when I put the cover on. A shot of the "counter," speed controller (a ceiling fan rheostat), the wire travel limiters (nylon bushings with thumb screws), and the face plate (a 3" diameter polypropylene pulley from mcmastercarr) The gear reduction for the reed switch. The gears are from mcmastercarr. I had to tap the ends of the 1/4"-20 threaded rod to accept a 1/8" bolt (the smaller gears have a 1/8" ID). This is a most unpleasent experience when in the absence of a metal lathe. Full shot of the back Full shot of the front. That vsr drill is from lowes. It was $20. I picked it (because of the price...and) because it has a speed limiting knob. So while the rheostat allows me to vary the speed as I wind, I can limit the top speed of the winder by adjusting the little knob on the drill trigger. peace, russ

Just one? I got 3! I just have to figure out what picture I'm going to tape over that ugly guitar in the April section, yuck!

mick, if your band is panicking at every little mistake, me thinks you need a new band.

I do notice slight "tonal" differences between certain cables. However, I've not noticed any "improvement" in sound over high-end mass-produced cables (like monster) and high-priced boutique cables, like Klotz La Grange cables ($80 for a 20' cable). I only own the klotz because it was given to me by a customer; it's definitely well made, but it would be very hard to justify the 300% markup over monsters, which carry a lifetime warranty anyhow (which I've used and is very hassle free, might I add). In a studio setup, where you have to run hundreds of feet of cables for various components, I could see myself being led to think otherwise, but that's another story. peace, russ

I think it's probably actually there in case you mic your guitar and use the onboard piezo simultaneously, so you don't get phase cancellation from the two signals. I say this because (at least with the LR baggs unit, meant for solidbodies), there's a phase switch that's meant to be set once and never touched again. It's there so you can assure that you don't get phase cancellation between the magnetic pickups and piezoelectric element. peace, russ

for piezo equipped guitars, the ground is common, but I don't know if there's any sort of electrickery preventing any sort of ill effects. It certainly can't hurt to find out, a stereo jack, watch better, and LED amount to what, $10? Even if that doesn't work, all you need to do is replace the stereo jack with one of those jacks that has an internal switch (stewmac carries them). peace, rus

You'd need a battery. The current generated by the pickups is not nearly enough to power led's.

Sheet rock anchor in the ceiling (or a bolt into a stud), with an eye bolt in it, with 50lb braded picture frame wire hanging from it, with a metal ring at the end that goes through a tuning key hole. The big metal ring makes sure the guitar is supported, but the support doesn't obstruct spraying. Alternatively, you can hang the guitar upside down, forget the ring, and put a screw into the strap button screw hole. peace, russ

First try (very lightly) dampening the neck tenon and neck pocket with water. This will raise the grain in each ever so slightly. It may be just the ticket to getting the fit snug once again. Give it a day or two to dry again before you glue, just for safety's sake. peace, russ

I'm guessing the veneer you're looking at is striped (macassar) ebony? If so, remember to specify the same variety of ebony when ordering the headplate and fretboard, or else you may end up with a darker, more uniformly black variety that doesn't match the veneer as well. Where are you looking for veneers? I use veneersupplies.com a lot. peace, russ

If laminated on properly (ie, no air bubbles between the veneer and substrate, etc), you should not really hear a difference (at least not with the naked ear) between a solid body and the same solid body with a wood veneer (we are talking about >1/32" thick, correct?). Now veneer some rubber on the top, and that's a different story.

The question is not how well it will work. It would work fine, especially if you used a roller bridge. The major concern would be your ability to get all of the dimensions correct, so the tuner and its mounting bushing are both sitting on flat surfaces, as well as your ability to anticipate and appropriately machine the area that the string goes through the top. Another thing to take into account would be dead string length, since that would increase string "floppiness." It's possible it would increase it by much, since you'd lose all of the dead length at the headstock, but avoiding a shorter scale length, like a gibson scale length, would be a good way to avoid that alltogether. peace, russ

This is how I would do it. (that's a cross-sectional view, by the way)

And I guess you'd just slide the fretboard through that sideways? Sounds like a good way to free your hands of all those pesky, heavy fingers. I'd venture to say, based on machining costs, the cost of the blades, the cost of a big enough motor, and the cost of the linear bearings and bars, you could build a 24 fret, slotting saw for about 2k. Probably under 1k if you have a lathe and know how to use it. Obviously, to get reasonable results, you'd need a design where the fretboard is clamped down (a vacuum clamp would be ideal) and the blades slide over the fretboard. Not very cost-efficient for most of us, probably not even for myka, doug or perry, really. peace, russ

The shorter life span from dirt is a good point and a possibility, but "short life span" is relative, and if you want it that badly, replacing a pot every couple of years might not be such a bad thing. As for cutting the slots cleanly, that really is not hard to do. What I do is put a 1/32" diameter spiral downcut bit into my dremel, which is mounted in a dremel router base. I then clamp a straight edge to the top of the guitar, angled the same angle that you want the slot, spaced the appropriate distance from where the slot will be. Then I just mark the start and end of the slot, and make a couple of passes with the dremel. If it needs to be wider, just slide the straight edge over a little more, and make some more passes. If done correctly, the finished product can be tight fitting and very neat. I've only done this once, with no practice and I couldn't have asked for better results. A note though: take slow, shallow passes so you don't burn your bit up, because you definitely could considering the possible depth of the slot. peace, russ