Mattia

Over the top. I like using a combination of wiping and spraying; on this, I'd probably wipe (and thereby blend) the blue/cyan with the yellow, and then spray tinted blue for the burst. And don't try it on a body, try it on scrap! Also, remember that that picture is photographed in a very well lit studio and likely punched up in photoshop to boot...

I've done it by hand/freehand before, and it's OK, but I think I'd be tempted to get one of those 'drill router rasp' type bits, ball shaped, and rough it out with that. Clean up with sandpaper. Might be worth a shot; the bigger issue with router bits in a drill press is that a drill press is too darn slow. Clamping a plunge router in place in a 'router thicknesser' type jig might work too.

Re colour: test, test and test again. That warmoth looks like it would require very bright colours in the middle-I'd likely apply a stain basecoat of lemon yellow or similar, and test s'more. You want colours that look like they're going to be waaaay to OTT if you want something that in-your-face toned, and then it's down to concentration (how dilute/strong), application and testing. The colour under a clearcoat will always be pretty different.

What Rich Said. There's not a huge amount of strength difference (if any) between flatsawn and quartersawn wood for many woods, but quartered stuff is more dimensionally stable overall (yes yes, all wood for necks should be dry and stable and whatever, but why not hedge your bets?). Runout is also important (grain lines running along the entire length of the piece. All that being said, rouhgly 99.9% of all fender-style necks are made of flatsawn maple.

Re Glue: TITEBOND ORIGINAL ONLY. Titebond II and III are not ideal; designed for more flexible joints, or longer working time, or other things, and don't have the track record Titebond has. I heard a rumour somewhere that Titebond Original is now called Extend, and that the Original is a newer, faster setting glue, but I can't find any evidence to back that claim up. Regardless, II and III are nice if you need waterproofness and can sacrifice hardness.

OK, out of curiosity...why? Marking the top of the fret and paying attention to what you're doing (ie, checking progress) only takes 10-15 seconds per fret, assuming a decent fret job to begin with.

Once again I find myself in complete agreement with you. The advice thing is generally something I'm very careful about, both online and with family friends. I only give medical advice to my own patients, and the above may have been construed as an appeal from authority - and as you rightly say, we're held to higher standards than Joe Forum and his anecdotal reports. This is the internet, so caveats always apply - in case anyone hasn't figured it out yet: if you have symptoms, don't ask questions on an internet forum, see a flesh and blood doctor. Not a website, not some doctor-to-be on a forum who's wearing his 'guitarmaking' hat. Also important to note: I know my basic allergology, but it's hardly my area of interest or expertise... Just to be clear: I recommend respiratory protection to everyone not as a future doctor, but as a woodworker. Not just (or even mainly) on an allergy level, but purely due to the dangers of wood dust - depending on the source you read, either some or all of it is carcinogenic. So I figure maximum protection is always the best solution. As I stated above I consider the respirator essential safety equipment for anyone working with wood dust, and use the bunny suit for stuff I think I am at higher risk of reacting to and that I want to keep working with. Website you might enjoy if you want some reasoned discourse/argument with the alt.medicine crowd from a british doctor with a sharp tounge and a sharper pen: www.badscience.net

Having used (and owning) both Schaller and Dunlop straploks, give me dunlops any day of the week. Sturdy, solid, less rattly, easier to put on and take off, and considerably more elegant. The only upside I can really find to the Schallers is that compatible extra buttons are very easy to find.

Hi Todd, I'm actually almost done with the med school, get my MD in August, starting the equivalent of residency come September! Homeopathy was a less harmful theory before we got decent pharmacotherapy, but I don't know that I'd call it a 'better theory' since it's essetially expensive bottles of solvent. Not to say that isn't absurdly useful as a fairly broadly accepted placebo (there are plenty of times it would be nice to be able to ethically prescribe sugar pills, so I suspect some of those homeopathic GPs have got something positive going for them...) Reading back, I wasn't all too clear, so let me empahsize: I agree with everything you wrote. I wholly agree with the 'visit your doctor' recommendation for woods you're having respiratory allergic responses to. But given that you'll not likely get an answer within a single visit, protecting yourself from dust seems wise, and cost-effective. I'd go so far as to say avoid stuff you're sensitised to completely if at all possible, but if you must work with the stuff, work with maximum protective gear. I'm not (currently) allergic to any woods other than iroko, which gives me very slight skin irritation, but I like cocobolo and pau ferro too much to try sensitising myself with them. A Tyvek bunny suit (equivalent of) costs maybe 6 euros, and can be reused several times (I don't wear it all the time for all woods, after all, but I do wear the respirator if I'm using anything other than edge tools), and a respirator with fine filters pays for itself pretty quickly if you look at the costs of good quality, high rated disposable masks. And then there are the reasons listed on Bill Pentz's site for good dust control. I figure a total budget of about 60 dollars will get you high quality protective gear for skin, lungs and ears that should last a good many projects/guitars, and most of that cost is a one-time investment.

It's just a pet peeve of mine; I'm a med student (for about a month and a half, anyway...), and when folks start waffling about the evils of 'chemical' medicines and then run off to use 'natural' fuzzy wuzzy herbal remedies (which, yes, often work) in the belief they're in some way better, safer, or potentially less dangerous, I get more than a little exasperated... (and don't get me started on homeopathy)

Wood's softer than metal, and it lasts fine, and there are tons of alum bridges out there that have zero problems with wear and tear.

Good dust collector, maximum prtective gear (gloves, tyvek bunny suit), and at the very, very LEAST a respirator system with fine particulate (dust) filters, not just a disposable dust mask; fine dust and allergens are a little more insidious and omnipresent than a couple of stray TB bacteria if you're actively sanding wood. Also, 'medicinal qualities' means exactly squat, other than it's biologically active. if it's got effects, it sure as hell has side effects, and it can certainly trigger allergies. Overall, though, if you're getting respiratory reactions, avoid it wherever possible and don't work it anywhere you can leave dust hanging around that you're ever likely to enter without full protection.

Adonized black or adonized aluminum would be my own personal preferences; my headless designs tend not to be things that play well with chrome or gold. Single units would be most appreciated, as I'm experimenting/branching out into fanned fret headless stuff these days. As for pricing, if it's equivalent to ETS pricing I'd most certainly be interested.

Strikes me as waaaaaaay too thick. Go to a model/hobby shop and look up waterslide decal sheets for laser or injet printers.

I think it depends...if you're viewing your amplifier as, well, amplification (like vocal amps and acoustic amps do), graphic EQs make sense. If you're looking at your (tube) amp as part of your instrument, then the tone stack, controls, interactivity, and 'inaccuracies' all contribute to creating a specific type of tone. not a jack of all trades, certainly, but something musical an interesting nonetheless. Then again, when it comes to amps, I pretty much like to go guitar -> tube amp, maybe with a boost pedal in front and an effects loop around the back for reverb (unless it's on board).

Honestly, if you don't want that nice 'wetted' oil look (apparent even when matted with steel wool, IMO), you're likely best off with a waterbased poly that does little to nothing at all to the wood tint (no wetting), but also doesn't give you that rich, deep colour something like oil, shellac, epoxy or nitro will deliver. My wood floor (oak) is done in a waterbase finish, and it gives it a very 'natural wood' sort of look, satin, without doing much at all for the figure. Which is fine for a floor. Me? I like what oil does. Makes the wood darker, certainly, but also deeper and richer, and it still looks very 'woody' and organic.

...that's what a 5 1/2" is for. Perfect size. I'd like a jointer, but I really, really, really don't have the space for it.

I install two rods parallel to (with minor tapering, following the edges of the fingerboard) the truss rod - see Stewmac.com's page on CF rods, under 'instructions', for how exactly. I use dual action rods exclusively, presicely because of the fact that sometimes, rarely, the neck is too stiff for the strings to pull relief into. 1mm strikes me as a pretty large amount of relief at 7th fret, though; I shoot for somewhere between no relief and 0.5 mm (average for low action: 0.2-0.3mm) at 7th. Too much relief will lead to more rattle, as will too little relief. Whether a neck bends or not under string tension is neither good nor bad, at least, unless you only have a single action rod and need the string tension to add a little relief.

Carbon rods will what? You mean fold up? Wood bends and deforms over time, inherent to the beast. May be minimal, may be more. CF does not and springs right back to the shape it was in before. Yes, a neck can be made so stiff you need a dual action rod (only happened to me once, though), but I'll keep using them.

Yeah, did that - have a 1/2" tri, 3/4" alum and a 1" woodmaster coming my way. Got the blades from U-cut, cost me 101.93 for a 145" blade (if you must know the precise amount), which seemed like a very reasonable price to me. I'm thinking I might want to upgrade my euro-style bearing guides to carters or similar, but I haven't quite managed to figure out which ones (if any) are 'retrofittable) to the upper and lower. These work OK, but not really fantastically well in some circumstances. (ps: that walnut's pretty speacial, isn't it?)

That's some fantastic cedrella you have there! I have a big pile of Spanish Cedar I'll likely be turning into both solidbody guitars (nice and light and resonant) and inner bits and pieces for acoustics; it's flatsawn, so good for laminated necks and solidbodies, but not so much for back/sides (not that pretty). Other than being a nice wood to work, and pleasantly lightweight, the smell is certainly a reason I'm going to process it into kerfed lining.

The Target USL is what StewMac sells as ColorTone Waterbased finish. Just in case you were wondering. At least, unless they've shifted to something else in the product line; Colortone used to be PSL (Target Premium Spray Lacquer), which later shifted to USL.

Published kerf specs are close, but every little bit matters! I figure if folks like Larry Davis and Bob Cefalu (both of whom cut more wood in a month than I even own, most like, and I own a fair amount of wood) swear by the Alum Master, I should at least give it a shot. Add the strong euro/weak dollar situation, a bit of disposable income, and the fact a 1/2" Trimaster (thinnest kerf of the carbide tipped blades I found) can be used as an all-rounder for a lot of things, and I figured: why not give it a shot? I also found a US-based remailer that has very, very reasonable rates on shipping (for shipments over 155 lbs in weight - easy enough if we're talking wood - 5-7 day delivery with air freight and invoices and all the trimmings comes to about 2 bucks 50 per lb shipped to the Netherlands). Now I just need to convince my girlfriend that I really do need more of that shiny pretty wood from the US of A and start raiding Gilmer's website and the like. And the Walnut is really stunning. Wiped on some thinner, and wow! Gorgeous colour and figure there. Almost a shame I didn't save some for a carved top, but really it's too expensive/pretty for that. Rather build 10 acoustics with it than 2 carved top electrics (and maybe 4 acoustics).

I figure out of the optimally sawn billet (the other one was me screwing up a little, letting my attention wander), I got 11 slices out of a roughsawn 8/4 billet. Only skimmed one face clean, as it was almost dead flat anyway (within a few mils over the entire length). So we're looking at roughly 54 mm thick to start with, 11 slices, cleaned of sawmarks, puts the slices at 3mm (conservative estimate - haven't actually bothered thickness sanding all 10 sets yet), so 33 mm of wood from 54 - roughly 60-40 like you say. I'll check when I actually get around to thicknessing the sets down, but it's probably somthing like 70/30 at best, under ideal conditions. Then again, I find Walnut's very easy to mill and cut. The blade had it tougher with Sapele (a little, anyway) and it was sharper when it went through it. But the Sapele's cheap (ends up at abour 5-8 dollars/set compared to 50-60 dollars per set on the Claro that had to be shipped from Oregon to the Netherlands...)

Well, yes, one's got a significantly thinner kerf (band's similar), and far fewer teeth (less carbide, wider tooth spacing). All that being said, with the dollar as low as it is, and me having a bit to spend, I've gone off and bought myself three 'lifetime' blades, as Rich puts it: a 1/2" Trimaster, 3/4" Aluminum Master and a 1" Woodmaster CT, each to be used depending on the expensiveness of the wood to be used (ie, how much waste?). Just did my first serious resawing last weekend using a Bladerunner from Iturra design, sliced up a billet of Sapele (back side sets, 2" stock), came out a little too thin on a few cuts because I wasn't feeding optimally) and then ran two sets of back/side billets in Claro Walnut through it, which came out lovely and gorgeous (looks stunning with a quick lacquer thinner wipe, straight off the saw...Rich has the bookmatch to this board, got it from Gilmer a good 2 years ago now or something like that), but the blade's now officially dull, leads off about 10 degrees from straight. Good solution for pricey wood that I want maximum yield on (got 5 full-thickness sets plus an extra slice out of the second billet, 4.7mm thick per slice, 4 full sets plus a smaller set (too thin at the edge) out of the other).