thegarehanman

when you slot a nut, you angle back the slot so it's going downward in the direction of the tuners. if the nut just has flat slots it would work fine, if it was done right...it probably won't be so easy.

when i hear shaping i think neck profile or heel contour, not bolt on neck router template...left brain perhaps

My first pick would be the JB, second would be teh custom. The distortion definitely has a scooped mid tone to it. I love using JB's, very clean pickups.

We can definitely say it will effect the tone less than if you made it into a thinline. I image it wouldn't negatively impact the tone too much.

why not route out everything under the pickguard? That should drop a few pounds.

you mean the profile of the back of the neck? or perhaps the heel...please enlighten us

bump...

and new pictures!(that's when you say "yay")

Here are thumbnails linking to fullsized images:

The top getting glued to the neck and sides with my home made version of stewmac's clamps. Can you believe stewmac charges $15 for a set of 6 of those? I made 16 for less than $10. They ended up being a bit too big for gluing the top to the body(they'll be the perfect size when the back goes on). I just cut 1" pieces of pipe to use as spacers. Oh, and a little hint for clamping the top of the horns: the clamps slip off if you try to tighten them on the horns. Cut a block of wood about 3" long and cut a curve on each end that matches the radius of your clamps, then zip-tie them together. Now they are tugging on eachother and can't slip off the guitar(presto!).

The top being clamped on from another vantage.

The back of the guitar. Nearly done w/ roughing out the shape.

wooden binding being glued on.

The inside w/o the back. As you can see, I've shielded the control area. The reason for the darkness of the wood is a tinted vinyl sealer. I thought that would provide enough darkness for the inside, but I've decided to paint all of the inside flat black.

These are all of the inlays for the headstock and neck. There will be a tree on the headstock w/ my signature over it. The leaves will be fret markers and the pile of leaves will be at the bottom of the fretboard. I have not done all of the engraving yet though, so there are no veins in the leaves as of now. Oh, and the inlay materials are abalone, gold MOP, and flamed maple.

I hope it's ok that I used the thumbnails. I know you're not supposed to use more that one pick, but I figured the thumbnails would be acceptable. If it's not ok, then just say so and I'll change them all to links.

Oh, what the hell. Let me mix things up with a carved top. I know that tele has quite a following, but I've got nothing to lose. I built this guitar about 4 years ago, summer of freshman year if I'm not mistaken. This was the first guitar I ever built, but you'd never know it looking at it.

Specs:

-mahogany body

-laminated, mahogony, set neck

-24.75 scale

-ebony headstock overlay and fretboard

-M.O.P. signature inlay on headstock and star inlays on fretboard

-PPG paint all around with white line detailing on the back

-Schaller chrome tuners, straplocks, TOM bridge, and tailpiece

-Seymour Duncan JB and Jazz humbuckers

-Volume and tone knobs for each humbucker

-coil taps for each humbucker(the volume pots are push/pull)

-plastic control cavity covers with lexan inserts to make the wiring visible

-7ply binding on the body, 3 ply binding on the headstock, and 1 ply binding on the neck

-bone nut

-all fretwork done by yours truely(I only say that because I know not everyone on this forum will do their own fretwork).

After I built this guitar, I knew I would never be happy with a guitar I did not build.

http://xs36.xs.to/pics/05276/headstock.jpg

Let me appologize in advance to the administrators if there's anything wrong with my pictures. I resized them to 640x480, and every other entry had several pics so I figured it would be acceptable.

And let me appologize to everyone else for my camera sucking.

In my defense, I never said "too bright." But I agree with the idea of being able to mellow out a guitar. I'm just always one to go for that mellow tone from the start. Make the guitar ooze mellowness.

Water on the body is no problem. It had to contact maple and mahogany and there was no water damage. Notice I wrote that you should wipe it off before applying. This get rid of most of the water. The strips StewMac sells are not long enough to wrap the whole body. So you have to use 2 pieces and join them at the base of the guitar.

Oak is fine. I don't think any of us would bother to look for or pay for an ash, maple, or mahogany dowel.

It'll sound brighter than a mahogany neck. On the bright side(ha, ha...get it?)it should sustain a bit longer than a mahogany neck.

Ha, I forgot to give you a direct answer...you'll be fine with a maple neck and mahogany body. It just won't sound the same as a mahogany neck with a mahogany body, but that's not neccessarily a bad thing.

did you dip bare wood? I was thinking about it. It seems like the finish wouldn't be as good as it could be if you dipped bare wood since you'd probably get a small amount of raised grain. I think it could be almost perfect if you started out w/ a primered body that had been sanded to about 1000grit.

It seems most people avoid using wooden binding. I don't know if that's because they're intimidated by it or if they simply don't like it. Regardless, I think it's beautiful and compliments a flamed maple top very nicely. This is the first time I've used it and it's going very well. I am using the b/w/b/w laminated wooden perfing from StewMac as well astheir 1/4" maple/b/w/b binding. I must say, this binding is glued together remarkably well and if you can bind a guitar with plastic binding, you can almost definitely use this stuff. You don't even need to use a bending Iron.

My first attempt at bending it didn't go so well. I dampened the binding and put it on a bending iron. It really did not respond to that as well as I had hoped. So then I decided to try something that most people would avoid. I submerged the binding. To my suprise, after 10 min. in the tub the binding didn't separate and it bent like a rubber band. It's 3/16" to boot, impressive to say the least.

So here's how you do it. And remember: I've only done this with StewMac's binding.

-Submerge the binding for approx. 10 minutes. I used steaming hot water, that makes it a bit more flexible. Try not to leave it in for too much longer as the binding WILL delaminate.

-Take the binding out of the tub and wipe off any residue so you don't get your guitar body wet.

-Get a roll of particularly stick masking tape and use the tape to tape the binding in the channel. Try to get the binding as snug as you can. Taping on the side of the body first and then pulling the tape inward, to pull the binding to the body, before affixing the tape to the top will help you get a closer fit.

-Use lots of tape, make sure you get your curves almost perfect.

-Allow the binding to dry out for about an hour. It may require more time depending on your temperature and humidity.

-Take the tape off. Be carefull not to damage your wood. Masking tape should be fairly gentle on the wood though.

-You can use wood glue to affix the binding, but I used the binding glue StewMac sells for gluing their plastic bindings. You may disagree with me on this one, but think of it this way: if it can glue plastic to wood, it can glue wood to wood.

-Use tape or big rubberbands or whatever you want to hold the binding against the body while the glue dries. I just used more masking tape.

This method worked perfectly for me. I hope this helps anyone who may have had problems with this. And remember, this has only been tested with StewMac's binding. I have heard horror stories of using this method for other companies' purfings.

**EDIT**After doing some testing on some scrap pieces, I have come to the conclusion that anything over 10 minutes is too much. At 15 minutes the binding begins to delaminate, but is still workable. Anything more than 20 minutes and the binding will definitely delaminate. Just soak it for 10 minutes and you're golden. **EDIT**

Or....

drumroll please...

make a double neck thinline!

A semi hollow being "brutish" is a bit harsh. Have you any idea the labor it takes to arch the front and back of a jazz box on both the outside and inside? Let's not deminish the work of others; saying things like that will get you verbally raped...eventually.

As far as the soundhole goes, i wouldn't go with a acoustic guitar soundhole. That's what it sounds like when you describe it. Also, the way you explain it, it sounds like you're going to have 3 tone knobs, 2 volume knobs, and a 6 way switch(strats have 5 ways). Don't you think that's a bit excessive? Think of it this way, when you're playing with any guitar, how often do you change the settings? I play a lot of gigs. I ALWAYS have both humbucker signals feeding with the volume and tone at 10, and I never need to change it. My effects cover any other sounds I need. Occasionally I'll use a coil tap.

I suggest you do some thorough searching of the forum. That will answer most of you queries. And I don't mean to burst your bubble, but you haven't really reinvented the wheel as you might have thought.

I appologize if what I say is hard to swallow; I'm a blunt fellow.

And another note: check the string spacing on that gotoh bridge, you may need to look for some particularly wide pickups.

who done it, boss?

you may think gorilla glue is stronger, but in this case YOU are wrong.(you are the weakest link, goodbye). if you ever look at how gorilla glue expands, you'll notice that it foams. It's quite porus. Now unless you're going to glue the screw into the hole, gorrilla glue is not going to work. even if you did do that, it still would probably come back out. you want to do it right. then open up the hold just a little bit, glue a dowel in the hole, then drill a new hole for the screw.

Are you sure you're getting an input signal. Perhaps you have to turn up the input gain. Are you using your pc's mic input or line in?

It matters you know.

if you ever just fill a hole with glue and rethread it, use Devcon! I suggest the CORRECT way of doing it(wood glue, dowel, cut, redrill), but if you're just going to fill it and redrill it, use Devcon. It's an epoxy you can buy at lowes or homedepot. your guitar will tear the threads off of the screws before the devcon will strip. I've seen people fill holes with stripped threads in engine blocks with the stuff. But for the record, I think you will be happier in the long run doing it the right way.

My baby...I guess you could say I'm still in labor

http://xs36.xs.to/pics/05274/2003_0714guitar30018.JPG

I say build it. Especially if it's a bolt on. If it's a set neck and you make a mistake...well you'll never make that mistake again, you can be sure of it. I built my first neck when I built my first guitar. It plays like a dream and I can set the action lower than a hoe on a dance floor. I got to use the inlays I wanted too. I didn't have many specialized tools. The only things I bought from stewmac to do it were a tang nipper, a leveling file, a radius block, and the caul for pressing the frets in which i adapted to a $20 press I bought from harbor freight. Don't waste your money on their hammers, home depot(or harbor freight, or any hardware store) has almost the same thing for a quarter of the price. I bent the frets by hand. I'll probably build a fret radius(er) soon though. And since then I've bought a crowning file.

If you can get access to the tools you need(which might I say aren't very specialized), then go for it. You will be so happy you did it when you're done. Just take your time and read all there is to read about it. And remember, truss rods are not magical mistical things, just pieces of metal.

And if you f*** it up...it wasn't my idea for you to do it.

chemical stripper should take it off. there are all different levels of chemical stripper; what i mean to say is some are more evasive than others.

i imagine if i owned a guitar company, it would be hard to determine what's copyright infringement and what's a coincidental resemblance. however, i'm certain that my first line of action would be to avoid a law suit. i'd prefer to just prove that my guitars are better.

if memory serves me correctly, it's 2 degrees for a 24 3/4 scale length. keep in mind the compensation ratio changes with the scale length so the angle will not always be the same. however, for all intents and purposes 2 degrees will suit you fine.