Mattia

I've used oil-based fillers a few times, and I do not like 'em. No sirree. I simply don't like soild-colour fillers, don't like how they work, sand, look, nothing. I've yet to try epoxy fill, but it's being used very successfully by a number of smaller shops/builders, particularly in the acoustic guitar world, because it can seal the wood, pop the grain, and not affect the colouration, all in one go. I'm no big fan of staining most woods that require filling m'self, see. Also, you can tint epoxy if you want to, no probs. In 'non glue' land, I'm quite partial to waterbased fillers, such as the Target product StewMac sells. Yes, you do need about 3-4 applications to get a smooth, even fill on rosewood or mahogany, but it sands rather nicely, is perfectly clear, and is a snap to clean up. It doesn't pop the grain well, however, which is why I generally seal with shellac, fill pores, sand back, re-seal with shellac. Works well for me. If I were going to stain, I'd do it after sanding back to wood post-filling (careful sanding required, so as not to open up any new pores), and before re-sealing with shellac.

Yeah, Andy's a great guy to deal with, top notch product, fast shipping and handling. I'm going to have him test-cut a few logo inlays for me, because I use 'em on all my instruments, and I'd rather spend my time cutting more creative/less repetitive patterns :-)

I say build what you want. My guitar-related project was a strat assembled from Warmoth parts, but really, that hardly counts. My first from scratch project was a chambered PRS-inspired set neck guitar (I wanted a cross between a Les Paul's curves, and a Strat's ergonomics, and I only discovered PRS existed afterwards. Didn't get out much in guitar-land/read guitar mags at all at the time.), top carved inside and out. Worked out just fine, although I do think I should refinish it at some point ('cause the finish job? Not so fantabulous). After that I built several set neck, a neck through, an acoustic, and only now am I getting around to a flat bodied bolt-on neck guitar. Well, two guitars. And they are lovely and simple, but if they're not what you want, you're up for a challenge, and you're patient enough to do it right, build what you want to build. And plan to keep building.

I don't build enough, or enough identical guitars for real jigging up to be the best possible thing. For fingerboards, I radius, slot, mark the taper with an exacto, fill the line with something visible (if I'm binding the board, minus the binding width, natch), saw off the excess, and simply use a good old-fashioned, sharp handplane to get it down to size. Time per board is, post marking, maybe 5 minutes, and it gives you the best possible gluing surface. I don't necessarily trust ebony not to blow out on me if I route it; rosewood boards I'd be more comfortable routing to size. I'm not a big fan of gluing then tapering, but that's just the way I build my necks. I've done the 'glue then taper' once, and I didn't like it. I prefer to locate the board accurately, tapered and all, and have that define the rest of my carving. The edge of the board becomes the edge of the neck, and about 30-45 minutes with hand tools (mmm...microplane rasps and scrapers yay!1) later, and I've got a completed neck.

Addendum: 'traditional' rods would be Gibson-style rods. Ted McHugh came up with the things, and Gibson implemented them first, I believe. Curved rod-style doodads.

Uh...depends on the guitar, really. Plenty of vintage guitar buffs out there with the requisite knowledge, although a model and serial number (if present) should go a long way in helping date a guitar. Dismantling it may or may not provide clues/evidence as to its date and/or authenticity.

The distance they need to be. How close/far depends on the guitar, the pickup strength, blah, blah, blah. As close as they can get without making things sound funny/getting whacked by the strings when they're played all the way up the neck[tm], or maybe a hair further away for safety's sake. Seriously: there's some stuff on guitar setup on the projectguitar pages (and probably some throughout the forum), and tons in any good text on guitar setup (Dan Erlewine's stuff is a great place to start). I tend to crank 'em up, playing the strings a bit all over, and if the strings sound weird/are affected, back them off a tad. Look it up. Tons out there on the subject.

Yeah, skinny necks and speed have diddly to do with each other, far as I'm concerned. To each his own, of course, bit thin necks tend to make my hand cramp up rather badly, and they're simply not that comfy to play on. I have medium-large hands, and that's kind of the neck I like, too. Fairly thick, but one that doesn't feel massive. I do an aysmmetrical carve, a la SRV/Van Halen (see Warmoth's contours page for pics), with smooth, rounded fingerboard/neck shaft transitions (ie, the fingerboard isn't squared, its part of the neck carve), a flatter, more 'V' shaped shoulder on the treble side (because I play thumb over), moving the apex of the curve slightly towards the bass side of the neck, which has a more 'rounded' shape. It's fairly subtle, but with neck carves, even removing a tiny amount more wood can make the difference between an OK feeling neck and a great neck. This pic might help a little, or it might not. One of the strat/tele project necks after I'd finished the first round of carving. Still needed some refining, but you can see the slight asymmetry: http://www.xs4all.nl/~mvalente/guitarpics4/stratele78.jpg

Yep, pretty much. My necks are generally between 20 and 22mm at the nut (overall depth, including fboard), and I wouldn't call any of them 'huge'. They all have an asymmetrical carve (think SRV/Van Halen/Music Man necks) which makes them feel a bit 'smaller' than they really are, though.

Tone, I can't comment directly, although I've seen fairly positive reviews. People tend to place it in the 'mahogany' tonal family, ish, which is about where it's at in terms of weight. Works well, no probs, although some people are allergic to the dust (but then again, you should be careful about all dust, particularly when it comes to your lungs). However, it needs grainfilly. Density has exactly nothing at all to do with whether or not it needs filling. Rosewood's got pretty big pores, and it's a lot denser. Wenge's plenty dense, and has just about the biggest pores of any wood I've ever seen.

With Zebrano's golden, variegated and frankly beutiful hues and colours, I wouldn't do anything with stain that could potentially 'mess' with the depth; the guitars I've made and seen with the 'deepest' wood finishes are those finish more or less strictly 'au naturel'. Stained maple can be very dramatic, but that works best (IMO) if you're trying to 'play' with less 'natural' colours (Reds, blues, greens and whatnot). Otherwise, I'm not a big fan of staining woods. Half the point of selecting strikingly coloured, interesting woods is so you don't need to finish 'em. Light coloured figured maples are kind of the exception there, as they'll 'take' lots of different hues without complaining. Otherwise, pop the grain, clearcoat with (if you must) a few coats of slightly amber tinted clearcoat, then finish with 'regular' clearcoat. Remember than Nitro yellows with age, no matter what. Oil pops wood grain something lovely, giving it a lot of depth, but isn't easy/always safe to use under gloss laquer (I've done it successfully a few times, though. Gotta dry good 'n hard, seal with shellac, spray over that). Schellac, perhaps something other than the 'blonde' you get everywhere (some nice orange shellac, dewaxed though), just a few coats wiped on, will give any wood a beautiful warm, deep, glow, pop the grain, and pretty much every finish out there is compatible with it. Just my 2 cents.

http://www.routerbits.com/ is my more or less 'one stop shop' for router bits. Good prices, fast service, top quality whiteside bits that last ages. They don't quite do all the sizes, and for some things (say, small diameter template bits, short cutting length for pickup cavities) StewMac is probably the easiest way to go. And as Drak said, they last ages anyway.

If you're using, say, a hot rod, leave it alone, has plenty of adjustment as is. I doubt your neck's going to be hugely out of line with the bigger necks on the market, and the truss rods on those are generally placed in the same place as on smaller necks.

Well, I'm not too sure guitarbuilding for customers is necessarily a great way to get away from demanding clients. You have met guitar players, right? Now, look at guitar players who want custom guitars. Worse. One of my 'fears' about going pro, full time (other than the financial side of things, the 'I can't make a living at it' fear, and the fact I do have other interests) is that it might take the fun out of building. I do this stuff for fun, because I love the instruments, and I'm starting to sell things to friends because I've kind of run out of a) space and excuses to build more for myself. As for courses, I jumped in with practically zero woodworking skills; they're great to have, but remember that guitarbuilding is a much more precise, meticulous business than cabinetmaking. It's more akin to machining, building to very exacting specs, with a side order of artistic woodcarving. It's a different mindset. I've had cabinemakers tell me I was loopy because I wanted to thin a soundboard to a fraction of a mm. I mean, I'm aware of the fact the size will change with temp and humidity, but still, given stable conditions, I'm gonna be working very, very precisely, and under half a mm is not outta line where precision is concerned. Another 'vacation with a guitar' option is Mark Bailey guitars, up in Scotland. Go for a week, build yourself an instrument. Looks like fun. Ultimately, you're the best judge of your skills, and building several isntruments and getting feedback from pro and semi pro players (honest feedback is best, although it can be hard to take) is the best way to learn. Oh, and start practicing fretjobs and finishes (in my book the toughest things to get absolutely flawlessly perfect).

You made the right choice IMO ← I respectfully disagree. While a bandsaw is surely a wonderful, fantastic, great thing to have, you don't, strictly speaking, NEED one to build guitars, electric or acoustic. A good jigsaw and a good router will do just fine until you do. I wish I had a bandsaw, but I really don't have the space for it (the money, potentially yes. The space...no. I hate it when that happens). The router is my favourite power tool, and the most used. For tools: buy as you need them, don't invest in all of them up front. I work out of my tiny-ass student room (outdoor roof space for anything making dust), so it all pretty much needs to clear away quickly and easily. Also, means the bandsaw's a pipe dream. Not gonna happen, like, for years to come. But ya gotta build. My 'arsenal': 4 routers (well, 3; one's on permanent loan): Bosch plunge, PC690 and a PC310 lam trimmer. Each between 100 and 150 dollars. Plunge capacity is useful for some things, but not essential, IMO. Metabo heavy duty jig saw B&D hand drill (used sporadically) Cheap chinese Drill press (tuning machine holes) Orbital sander (hand sanding is teh suck) Dremel+StewMac router base: essential for inlay, OK for headstock binding, useless for anything else. On to hand tools: Japanese saws, various. Best. Saws. EVER. For any straight line cut, fine or coars, fretting, everything, can't be beat. Maybe 40 bucks total. Hand planes: block, #4, #5, all stanley, the #5's a vintage plane, early 1900's, cost me 50 bucks incl shipping (friend of mine found it for me and shipped it out). They're out there. Chisels: I like 'em. A few goods ones are better than many cheap ones Specialised fretting tools: got the nippers, tang cutters from StewMac, don't regret it. ..then there's a bunch of rasps (microplane is king), a sanding drum or two, that kind of thing. I'd guess I've got maybe 1500 dollars in my current 'shop' setup, possibly as many as 2000, but not much more. I'd like more, but for now, I'll settle on having these tools, and woods stockpiled for about 30 acoustics, and most of the woods for another 6-8 electrics.

Yup, pretty much :-) I like it. Besides, Euro's cheaper than Sitka or Engelman on this side of the pond.

Never known Martin or any other company to actually sell their seconds. Through their Guitarmakers Connection, yeah, as parts, clearly marked as such, but nothing else. Bring it to an Authorized Martin Repair place, and see what they'll do. DO NOT fix it yourself, because you will void the warranty on the thing.

Few things: use lighter woods for the neck (say, mahogany rather than maple), and use mini-sized tuning machines. Strap button placement and body wood also have a lot to do with it, of course. Other than that, you can build 'mockups' out of plywood that are the right shape, strap them on, and add some weights: clamp on the headstock that weights roughly what a set of tuners weighs, clamp in the middle of the body equating to, say, 2/3 of the body weight (templates weight something) plus weight of hardware and pickups. That should get you ballpark figures, and I'm sure there are bits of cad/engineering software that should be able to work out balance (ie, give it mass/density of various components and go), but I don't know about those.

Head over to the MIMF, read the library section there; this topic comes up again and again (in the Jam Session section generally), and has been answered many a time. My impressions, albeit ones from an amateur with no aspirations to go pro: there's always some sort of market, but you need to find your customers before you give up your day job. Figure out if your guitars fill a gap in the market at all. Get your instruments reviewed, get them played, listen to feedback, and figure out what people are willing to pay for them, what it costs you to build them, and whether the difference is something you can live on. Look at the literally hundreds of custom builders out there, and the level of work they're producing. Can you match and/or beat that? I'm fairly certain there are a couple of instrument building courses (at colleges, generally. I think) in various locations in the UK as well.

Yes, that's true, but we're talking freshly planed. A planed board from the store really should at least get a scrape before gluing. The mythology is that sanded or scored joints will hold better. A crack, if it's clean and fits will, will make a perfectly fine joint. The surface will be split, which generally translates to a very clean, tight-fitting crack, and if it's glued fairly soon after it cracks, it should really be fine, and qausi-invisible to boot. The surfaces mating will probably be pretty darn smooth, individually, just not flat. Two different things. This said, the 'best' glue for this would probably be hot hide (most invisible line), second choice titebond for me. For a crack running all the way down a body, all the way through, I don't think CA is the wisest of choices. It'll stain the wood, leave a clear glue line (works better on darker woods), you won't be able to get stains to penetrate where the CA did, and it's not the strongest of glues ever. Me? I'd get the maple top off (palette knife, household iron, patience. You can always bind it if you muck up the edges), join it properly with the top off, sand off glue residue, and then, if you want to, reglue the top. Then decide what you want to do with it. If nothing else, it'll be a valuable learning experience, intro to repairwork, if you will. Seriously, if the wood's simply split (due to, probably, dyhdration), gluing it together with hide glue is quite likely to result in an invisible joint. Good excuse to look into using hot hide if there ever was one. However, you'll probably want to get some new wood, and start on a second body anyway. Just don't give up on as perfect a repair as possible quite yet. Oh, and next time you want to harden enamel? Use a hairdryer or something :-)

I'd say you can get considerably more than 20 necks out of one bit, unless you're making them all out of something that eats edge tools for breakfast (and none of the commonly used woods do, really). Probably more like 100, with a re-sharpen in there somewhere, if not even more. With router bits, depending on the wood, a 1/4" bit may leave with a smaller than 1/4" channel (plywood dado bits do this on purpose, I believe), and honestly, if you seat the rod tightly somehow anyway (I generally add a tiny bit of scotch tape to the edges so I have to push it in firmly. No rattles there. Don't like silicon because if it gets anywhere where finish needs to go, it's bad. Very bad. So be careful if you do use it folks!) This said, I don't think the expense for the router bit is huge or terribly outta line, so I've got one, and I'm happy I do :-)

Eesh. I mean, it's a big-ass board, but why not head straight to Gilmerwoods and get one similar for (probably) a good bit less. This being said, the stuff, cut up as acoustic back/side sets, is going for crazy!high prices. Just check LMI's website. I've got 4 sets of the stuff, for acoustics, and lets just say I paid less for all of them combined (and they are all at least equivalent to their top grade sets) for quite a bit less than one set would set me back there. It's wild, gorgeous stuff though, that's for sure. If this guy feels like marketing to the people who buy those sets at those prices, he can recoup his money and then some. Also, Sapele's a lovely wood for necks and such. Bit heavier than Honduran and Khaya or Sipo (the other 'African Mahoganies'), generally plain/ribbon figured, but there's really naught wrong with it. Besides, it can be had for very little cash if it's 'boring' looking.

I use HotRods on all my guitars, pretty much. Easy to use, reliable, adjust well, quick to install, no problems with 'em. Depending on the wood you use, a 1/4" bit should be OK for the slot (which should be a hair tighter than 1/4"), or you could just go ahead and get the 'proper' bit for the job. Not that idioatically expensive, especially if you stick with the HotRod for future builds. If the slot's slightly too wide, the 'pad with silicone caulk' trick should fix that kind of minimal thickness discrepancy really quickly. My preference (as proven by the bunch of 14 HotRods on my shelf) is for the 1/8" allen adjuster. I also don't make crazy!thin necks (don't like them), but if you do, you really have to pay attention and make sure not to carve through to the rod. As thegarehanman said, you they're pretty thin, but they're the same thickness all the way through.

Honestly, assuming you cut the nut slots so that they're flat, and only 'bend' at one location (at the leading edge of the nut), and follow the string path straight through elsewhere, it doesn't matter much how everythings angled. Of course, it takes more skill and practice to get the nut slots just right if they're angled sideways as well, but assuming a good nut job (hur hur) it shouldn't 'break' tuning stability. If your nut materials' soft (say, graphite), you may find it wears sideways a bit, but it will also wear the slots themselves deeper, and at the same rate. So when it needs replacing, it'd need replacing anyway is my feeling. If you cut the nut slots that way (ie, straight line from tuning machine to leading edge of nut) you've only got a single 'kink', or angle in the string, and it's one you'll have anyway if you're building with an angle headstock, or even with a straight pull headstock. You need to downward pressure. Of course, if you go super wide and crazy, you'll be adding a lot more angulation than the, say, 12-15 degree a straight-pull back angled headstock would, and that might get fiddlier. As for bends, you'll get a different feel with more or less string to either side of the nut and/or bridge (back length, basically; the tension's identicaly, but when you bend a string, assuming no locking malarkey, you stretch the WHOLE string, including the bits not between bridge and nut, so more string = relatiely easier to bend because there's more material to distribute the change in length/tension over. Geddit? Seperate issue entirely to scale length, which is what determines the string tension when tuned to tuned to any given pitch given the same string diameter/construction). Personally, I prefer a 'straight string' pull look, and it takes guesswork out of angling nut slots, as well as, if designed properly, giving you the same even angle on each of the 6 strings, which gives you a more 'even' feel across the strings, because the angle (although not the string's afterlength) is the same on all 6. Gotta count for something, right? When all's said and done, design what looks good to you, do a good job with the nut and setup, and you should be fine. Plenty of Gibson LP's out there with rock-solid tuning stability. Personally, I think their headstocks are way too huge, but that's a personal issue I've got ;-)

That makes sense. ← FWIW, my TOM/Stoptailpiece guitars (ditto Les Pauls, I believe) have roughly a 2 to 3 degree angle. This said, I recalculate the angle with each guitar I build, just to be sure. Mostly because I've yet to build two identical guitars, otherwise I'd just lock it down and jig up for it ;-)