Mattia

Heh. Oops. Sorry 'bout that. I'm terribly lazy when it comes to reading names. Ahem.

Seriously, buy a copy of the book. It's very much worth the cash. Amazon UK should have it as well, and shipping within the UK should be free. You can recess the TOM, though; simply make a tempalte for the shape of the bridge, route a slot that the entire thing can sit in, nice and low. Also consider you might want to not use a stop tailpiece, but run the strings down through the body to make sure you've got adequate downward pressure (if the tailpiece is too high, you won't). Thing is, if you want your bottom of fingerboard flush with the top, it'll have to be very, very low. See a strat for example; it's got a low bridge, but you still have the neck proud of the body. As to angling a neck through, yes, you want an oversized/thickness centre section/neck blank. You glue the wings on at an angle, and plane the excess off the neck blank on the front and back.

Never 'eard of it, but...sequoia's are redwoods. Softwoods. Big 'ol giant trees on the West Coast of the US? Used for soundboards on acoustic guitars once in a while, tone's similar to western red cedar, little bit harder, but more fragile/brittle than most spruces. This said, just because it's in the same family doesn't mean it's got the same properties, per se. EDIT: a quick look at Wikipedia reveals that 'Wellingtonia Gigantea' is giant sequoia (incorrectly named; invalid nomenclature), so a redwood as far as I can tell, and probably illegal to log, so probably windfall. It's NOT a hardwood, its a softwood. And kind of a brittle softwood at that. Not really something I'd use for electric guitars. Acoustic tops, keeping it's fragility in mind, yes.

What garageman said, and I tried to explain (apparently without much success.) Trying again: neck angle is pretty much irellevant to any tension or pressure anywhere, except in some cases where you have bridge/tailpiece combos that may not be mounted at 90 degree to the strings (ie, design flaw in my book). Headstock angle defines downward tension, string trees do. All the neck angle defines is, well, how the neck/string path sits in relation to the rest of the guitar body, really. It's all relative, really. The 'easy' way to look at it is to have your body design, with it's 'flat' horizontal plane, you pick a bridge of a certain height, so to fit the neck with the bottom of the fingerboard flush to the top, while keeping the strings where the have to be (hovering just above the fretboard) you need to introduce a bit of an angle, or simply leave the whole thing standing proud of the top, like on a Fender. Looked at another way: the geometry between neck and strings is fixed, and must be maintained. It's the heart of the guitar. The rest of the guitar is positioned so that this 'fixed block' (fingerboard-strings-bridge) is in the most aesthetically pleasing/construtionally sound position in the whole design. How you place this 'functional unit' in your design doesn't affect the downward string pressure (or shouldn't, if you do things right). Hoever, this placement is tied with proper fret spacing for 'thing that defines whether your guitar will be playable or not', IMO. There. Clear as mud now, I'm sure.

Yes, lovely! That's the kind of carve I meant. Good to go right there.

Eesh. I said I don't use stewmac's .200" wide one. That's too darn thick for my tastes. Where I get it: anywhere that sells it tends to have 1/8" x 3/8". It's a fairly standard size, folks. Composites places specifically, and both LMI and StewMac. I just get them from wherever I happen to need to order stuff when I'm ordering anyway (last time, StewMac, time before, LMI). Right now I've got enough for about 8 guitars, so I doubt I'll be ordering more for a while... Sound: evens out any dead spots/response, and your neck will certainly not be too floppy. 2 rods won't make it too stiff to adjust, either, assuming it's vaguely normal sized. CF has lots of advantages (more stability, no dead spots, slightly stiffer), and very few disadvantages (slightly heavier than just wood, mostly), and overall is a Good Thing. But this has been discussed lots, fairly recently too, as Wes correctly points out.

Minor correction to previous: headstock, glue tapered 'board, taper neck. Tapering simply refers to the 'taper' of the neck, from narrow at the nut to wider at the heel. Can also refer to tapering the back (thinner at the nut, thicker at the heel) prior to neck carving. Re: fingerboard, do what you want. I've been gluing my fingerboards on after the neck's in place. Doesn't really matter hugely one way or the other. Just make sure all the slot are routed first.

No, really not. Had the things for a long, long time now. At least, I remember seeing them yonks ago.

well, that's nice if you use Stewmac's .200" rods, but I certainly don't. I use a 'fairly standard' 1/8" by 3/8" rod, and, well, use a plain 'ol 1/8" spiral cut bit for the slots. Works a charm.

Lookin' good! I'd flow the neck/body transition a little more, and like thegarageman said, smooth out the back carve some. Have it be a more smooth transition from edge to center. On my own electrics, I like to carve the back so you can't really see a clear 'recurve' like you do on the top. Just make it all flow smoothly. The arch isn't as high on the back, but the kind of carving is still similar. The last one I did, hopefully you can see where everything flows by the reflection in the finish: http://www.xs4all.nl/~mvalente/guitarpics4..._finished09.jpg

Well, looks OK, but re-do the plans once you've read through the book. You're thinking things through step by step, so that's a very good thing. Few things: 1) Draw full size. Paper is cheap, and it's easier to draw full size than fiddle with scaling. Scaling only adds another place for things to go wrong. Besides, you'll probably want to make a template out of MDF or Ply or something, and full-scale? Good. 2)I'm assuming you're gluing the neck blank prior to shaping and routing, right? 3)I prefer to glue fingerboard (tapered properly), then do the headstock, then taper the neck, but I realize that may be a minority opinion here. 4) Do your control cavity routing after you round over the edges, but before finishing all the other shaping. Also, I'd drill the control holes through all the way first, then route the cavity around them. Don't want to futz with a router when everything else is finish-sanded. Other than that, you'll figure it out as you go along. Don't get too lost by trying to slavishly follow a big long list, but think about what you do when, and if what you're doing will make something else you want to do more difficult or not. Few other points: the nut goes on LAST, during setup. After finishing. You need to be able to remove the nut easily, because it will, eventually, need replacing. So post-finishing. Held in place with a dot of white glue, little else. Wood grade: if it's structurally sound (which you can safely assume it is), the higher grades are pretty much purely cosmetic. In fact, there's an argument to be made that plain, boring, quartered, unfigured wood sounds better than crazy quilted flamed stuff, simply because it's got regular, even grain, not a bunch of crazy internal funkyness potentially adding a fair degree of damping to it all. So don't worry about tone.

Eh? Each bridge does its own thing, and the baby grand is an all-in-one design, so don't worry or think about break angles. Not relevant. As for the angle PRS guitars have...depends on the model, and what bridge is on them, methinks. The McCarty's with the top stailpiece probably have a gibson-esque 2-3 degrees back angle. Honestly, while the height of the bridge affects the 'feel' of the guitar greatly, I've never seen anyone complain that a back-angle (which I would think the PRS trem guitars and Parker Flys have, only less. 1-2 degrees or so) feels 'bad'. It brings the neck a little further back, so you don't have to hold your hand forward. Different feel to a strat, for sure. My bet is you don't like the feel because the strings are floating about above the top of the body by a lot, rather than that the neck back angle's causing you to dislike the feel. The last PRS-style guitar had a 3 degree back angle and a trem (3 degrees back relative to the plane of the body blank; the top itself was angled back by about 1.5 degrees, and the neck needed to go a further 1.5 or so to line everything up properly). Feels good to me and everyone else who's played it. Very different from a bolt on guitar because the playing position shifts. Matter of taste, though. idch: neck back-angle has absolutely nothing, zero, nada to do with string tension. String tension is always the same for any given string at any given pitch. Always. It might affect the break tension over the bridge (downward pressure), if we're talking tunomatic, but it's unlikely, but the headstock end? The strings are always pulling on the same plane, same distance over the fretboard, so the back tension and the downward pressure on the nut are constant, no matter the neck angle. Think of the bridge, fingerboard, headstock and strings as a 'unit' that has to maintain a certain relationship. That never changes, or the guitar becomes unplayable. At what angle this whole is 'placed' in the guitar's design affects the look, feel and construction, but the relationship between those factors does not shift for any given scale length/headstock angle/tuning machine layout.

Well, that makes sense, given that Line6 pioneerd amp sim technology (DigiDesign's Amp Farm software/hardware, anyone?), and has been developing it ever since. The GuitarPort is still a lovely little piece of practice kit/bang for the buck modelling/recording, IMO. This said, I'd rather have a Boss effects pedal any day. Well, I would, if I needed/wanted anything beyond the lovely tones I can get outta my Rivera TBR-1, and the cheapish Lexicon does just fine for yer basic verbs, delays and modulation.

Yeah, pesky life. Now, to finish the strat, the tele, the acoustic baritone, get started on that pointy lefty explorer thing and those three other acoustics, singlecut carvetop electric for a friend, and maybe a personal rosewood neck guitar for myself. I've only finished one project this year, have one I started almost a year ago that needs finishing, and I want to finish at least the strat, tele, explorer and baritone before the year's out. Yeah, I'm a hopeless optimist. Ahem.

Hmmm....I suppose. Thing that makes me think it's glued on is the fact the colour doesn't go all the way down the sides, and there's a pretty darn clean stain line. Based on the description of the auction, though, it's a South American wood (Brazilian made body, so it's all brazilian woods. They give you scientific names and everything) I'm not familar with (quick google shows me it's in the same family as the true and African mahoganies, Meliciae, and has about the same density as mahoganies, but that tells me diddly about working properties or tone). If I wanted something in that colour tone, I'd look for some nice black walnut. Whitey: No, that's not Walnut down the middle. They're all south american woods, read the auction description for details. Also, alder's a pretty darn closed grain wood. Didn't need pore filler last time I checked. You know we're talking about the pores, dimples, right? Not what the grain looks like. You sure your bass body isn't Ash? Also, every true rosewood has quite a few pores, ain't gonna be smooth unless you grain fill it.

Could be black Walnut.

OK, where do you get your stuff from, then? Because his prices are in-line with pretty much everything else I've seen, short of a few eBay sellers here and there..

He mentioned it earlier: DePaule Supply. He's got various grades of Black MOP (At various price points, I might add). Stuff I got a while back was darker overall, #1 quality. http://www.xs4all.nl/~mvalente/inlay/blanks_MOP2.jpg Me, I've been very happy with the stuff Andy sells. Tell him what exactly you're looking for, and I'm sure he can provide it. Good product, good service, good prices, good shipping costs. What's not to love, eh?

No, I'd opt for using heat and water, much like bending an acoustic guitar side. Dry bending? No thanks. Slow, and I don't trust it to work, per se. Thing is, there's a huge difference between boiling a piece of wood, then bending and clamping it, and wetting a piece of wood, then heating it, letting the hot steam help plasticize the fibres and allowing it to bend. Heat blankets, even household irons (to a degree..blankets more versatile in this case) allow the heat to be distributed evenly. Wetting the wood a little, a misting more or less, then adding some foil to prevent the steam created from escaping immediately, then heating it will help bend the wood, and the steam will, ultimately, after it's done its job, evaporate. You'll end up with a hot piece of rather dry, bent wood. Also, well, 45 minutes seems a tad on the long side, but 5 minutes dunked in water adds up to a lot of water absorbtion, more than a misting+heat, or simply steam (most of which evaporates quite quickly, doesn't stick around) and an iron. Heat blankets should do the work in about 10-15 minutes, tops, and that's going really slowly with the bend because of the thickness of the wood. Probably cycle through the heat a few times to 'cook' it a little more as well, but that's a personal thing. If I didn't build acoustics, and only did the occasional drop top, I'd use a household iron, though, since a heat blanket is 60-70 bucks minimum, after all.

use soft clamps ,and even then you still have to sand out the indentions after application...at least that is what i had to do on my drop top ← Also, a wet paper towel and a soldering iron/household iron do wonders with dents in any wood. If it's just wood compression, most will steam out, requiring highly minimal sanding to get back right. The one thing I don't like s'much about the idea of boiling wood is the fact you've waited to get this stuff as dry as possible, and then...you drop it in boiling water. I'd probably use my heat blanket, bit of aluminum foil and a misting of water (that gets converted to steam by the heat), as well as a matched caul (friendly plastic to the rescue! Hurray!), but that's just me, I guess.

Pffffft. No basic physical specs are going to define the tone for ya in any sort of meaningful manner. All these numbers are, for one thing, averages. Different woods will have different tones, some won't have much of any tone (some woods just kinda go 'thunk' when ya bonk 'em, no ring to them), etc.

Yes, no.

Dude, please don't pretend to tell me what I do and don't understand. For the record, my characterization of US televised news services is based on personal experience and the opinons of several of my American, living-in-the-US friends. I like my news from several services and nations. I'm not accusing anyone of gross incompetence, or laying the blame for this disaster squarely on Bush's shoulders, and if that's what you read into what I wrote, I apologise for my lack of clarity. BigD's right, though; politics and religion have no place here, and I'm sorry I went off on that tangent. I hope you, and anyone else I may have offended will accept my apologies for that. Shutting up about politics now. The people who needed to do things were, and are doing their jobs to the best of their abilities, and I never said they weren't. Money's being freed up, and that's a good thing, and I'm aware of it. I have nothing but praise for everyone who's risen to the occasion, for the men and women helping in any way they can, and that's the important thing. Better levies *might* have helped, having better evacuation plans in place *might* have helped, but all of that is totally irellevant right now, as you rightly point out. It's about helping the people on the ground, and in the longer term, focus on rebuilding all that was lost, and hopefully putting systems in place to prevent a catastrophe on this scale from happening again, as far it's possible. Let's all remember that the aid is sorely needed *right now*, and will continue to be necessary for a long, long time to come. Let's all keep all those who died in our hearts and minds, but more importantly remember that thousands out there still need help, and will continue needing help.

Seconded! Buy the bridge before doing anything about your neck angle. Only time where you can get away with not doing that is, well, if you've built the guitar in question before, exactly, or if you're making a strat or tele, standard bridges, standard non-angled neck pocket, standard sized neck.

What RGGR said about NL; we've got a history of floods, and one of the more advance dike systems in the world, but it's not equipped for anything near Katrina's violence. Thankfully, for now at least, this part of the world doesn't get storms like that. This said, New Orelan's lacking levy system has been on the agenda for a long, long, long time and wasn't even remotely up to scratch. Besides the horrific human aspect to the whole catastrophe, the thing that strikes me most is the appalling lack of leadership on the part of Bush (and, well, that whole Pat Robertson/FEMA fiasco). The quotes re: 'its the war on Iraq's fault!' are coming just as much from US sources, not 'some Euro newsagency' (almost all of which, frankly, overall have better reporting than any US televised news service). And honestly, when you have additional funds given to any agency (Homeland Security, the military, whatever), cuts are going to be made elsewhere. Probably everywhere. It is, of course, rather naive to blame a single policy decision for any lack of funding in any other situation, though. People from both sides of the political spectrum are ripping Bush a new one in their editorial columns for his lack of strong leadership, though. I suspect Clinton or even Bush Sr. would've been much more decisive (better, frankly; his last few speeches, his slowness to react in any meaningful, helpful manner has been downright dreadful. Even for a man with precious little charisma or oratory skills to begin with...). I felt Bush's response to the last big crisis was decidedly lacking, and this one is similar. I have nothing but positive things to say about the people on the ground trying to help things out, and blaming any one party in this is naive, but ultimately, NO's levies have long been known to be not up to the task, this administration did neglect to send money to build them up, and now they're getting slammed for it, because Katrina hit. If this had happened during another administration, they'd get slammed for it, because it's not just this administration that's neglected to do anything about the levies. They all bet on nothing like this happening, and this administration lost that bet, bigtime, and is being called on it. I just hope people can be saved, moved to safety, given shelter, food, clean water and medical attention, and that one of America's cultural capitals can be rebuilt, and hopefully in such a way as to minimize damage from another such catastrophic storm. Because there will, some day, be more of them.