thegarehanman

you can cut out a body pretty easily with a jigsaw as long as you're careful about not pushing it too hard around tight curves, to avoid making an angled cut. A good enough jig saw should run about $30, if memory serves me right.

I'm no expert, but this is how I'd tackle it.

I'd glue the cap first, countersink the washer holes with a spade bit, then drill the tuner through holes.

That way your not fighting a wandering spade bit and your centers stay constant.

Spade bit over forstner because you will get a cleaner edge.

I disagree, the bottom of a hole cut by a forstener bit is flat, with the exception of the conical hole in the center where the bit's guide drilled deeper. A spade bit however leaves a hole that is deeper on both the sides and center, with really no truely flat place in between. A forstner bit for the recess followed by a brad point bit for the rest of the hole is deffinitely the way to go.

peace,

russ

Do a search, this sort of thing has been talked about a lot. There's a lot of voodoo and misconceptions surrounding what "low action" is and how you should go about getting it.

I will tell you my secret weapon. If you lower the action a bit, your strings will buzz, but lower it about 1/8" lower and that buzzing will go right away.

sounds like you may have a bowed neck. check it out with a straight edge and get back to us.

EDIT: When you say "off the board," you do mean fretboard, right? Or are you talking about an acoustic guitar and a (sound)board?

Yup, increased strength would be correct. The tops have a dome shape though, not a continuous radius along the length of the top (like a cylinder).

It's not the pressure of the strings breaking over the nut that causes a neck to bow, it's the tension in the strings that's applied at the tuning machines.

jehle, the blocks at the ends and center will help the rod to act like a normal curved rod, but you're still isolating the force of the rod that's used to counteract the bending of the neck to only 3 spots, whereas a continuous curved strip more evenly distributes the force. Again, this may not make a noticeable difference, especially if you've got a well picked piece of timber for the neck.

Pete,

Have you considered using very thin superglue to pot your coils? If you're using polypropylene for the temporary bobbin holder, then you wouldn't need to worry about the CA sticking the bobbin to the jig. I think if you saturated the coil well enough, you'd get 100% penetration of the coil. It would also cure rock hard. Just make sure if you try this that you do it in a very well ventilated area (outside) with a decent organic vapor mask.

peace,

russ

The thing about a straight rod vs. a curved rod that seems the most difficient, in my opinion, would be the fact that most of the force applied by a straight rod will be focused at the nuts at each end. Whereas a curved rod more evenly applies the force along the length of the neck. This might not be an issue, but I would imagine in a side by side test, you'd see that the curved rod neck is a bit more predictable in terms of truss rod adjustment.

Have you considered routing a flat bottomed channel for a curved truss rod, then taking a piece of wood wide enough to fill that channel, cutting a long curve in it, gluing the bottom piece into the neck, installing the truss rod, then gluing the top piece into the neck, which in turn gets planed down flush with the neck? I think this would be pretty quick and be much more optimal than a straight rod in an over sized (depth wise) channel.

peace,

russ

Agreed. Unless you're paying something nuts like $20-$50/ounce for your epoxies, there's no way they're of the variety intended for high heat exposure. At a couple hundred degrees F, regular epoxies pretty much entirely lose their adhesion properties.

peace,

russ

It's a glitch in the code, just adjust your donation amount to compensate for the shipping charge. I believe the shipping charge is dynamic and proportional to the amount you wish to contribute.

I've never had problems gluing cocobolo, and I've glued quite a bit of it together in the last few months. I just make sure all surfaces are freshly sanded or planed. And allen, that top is H-O-T, hot!

Someone please invite him to PG. It will bring endless joy to my life.

The one time I did it, I used a PPG etching primer, PPG white basecoat, and PPG clear topcoat. However, I'm inclined to say that you could skip the first two steps if you scuffed up the plastic with some 00 steel wool and tinted your clear top coat white. If you don't have access to a spray gun setup, the enamels that auto part stores sell as "engine paint" or "brake caliper pain" would be an excellent 2nd choice.

peace,

russ

I've never seen anything but off-white and black covers. When I need white molded plastic parts, I just paint the part I need. If you pick your paints carefully, it can look just as good as any other plastic part, and take abuse as well.

if you can find a piece of tulipwood suitable for a fretboard, Jon (a member here who's screen name is "Jon") can dimension and slot it for you at a nominal fee.

That's completely normal. You'll never find a piece of flamed maple where the figuring and grain go in the same direction. Also, a joint where the grain goes across the joint and not parrallel to it would be an end grain to end grain joint, which would be very weak.

I took the rack(the part that goes up and down) out of the arbor press, put it in a vise, drilled a hole in it big enough for the fret caul (of course, start with a small dia. bit and work your way up to the final size in increments of about 1/16"-1/8"), then drilled another hole perpendicular to the previous one which I threaded. I put a set screw in the threaded hole to keep the fret caul secured in the other hole.

peace,

russ

The sustainiac model does have a switch that chooses between sustain/blend/harmonic modes.

If you're going with an LP style neck joint, then yes, you'll need to adjust the carve of the body to suit the neck height and angle that's dictated by both the bridge and pickup heights. Of course, the bridge height should be a function of your dogear p90 heights. If you're going to use a PRS neck joint, then the carve can stay the same and only the neck height and angle will need adjustment.

It can be made to work as long as you plan for the neck angle and the height the top of the neck sits above the top of the body accordingly. Although, as guitars and guitar hardware goes, most things can be made to work if you plan your build well enough.

Ok, well what I was getting at earlier, is that (from both experience and simple geometric logic) regardless of whether your strings form a conical surface or a cylindrical surface, because of the paths of the individual strings and the fact that in almost all situations the strings are slightly(or sometimes dramatically) lower at the nut than the bridge, the fretboard should always have a conical surface to some extent if you're aiming for low action.

peace,

russ

Well, I get the impression he would like to use the radiused block to remove the bulk of material. The truth of the matter is that you should spend the time getting the fretboard level so that there is no "bulk" of material to remove once the frets are installed. Just tweaking

Right on, greg. The best design engineers out there realize that the best design is also the simplest, if for no other reasons than it's likely cheaper to make, less likely to break, and easier to operate (with aesthetics, simplicity goes out the window, because otherwise my recent gotm submission would indicate that i'm an awful engineer ). Of course, there are tons of other considerations depending on the project, but that's not the point. The ones who can't design well either check gauges at plants or just get a phd and study materials or tribology or something "fun" like that.

So yeah, neck jigs.

You should have told me sooner! I went to that house and when I saw a Geo Metro in the driveway, I figured someone had probably already gotten to your appliances too!

PS

Let's just hope they're using something a little more refined than google maps to guide missiles.