Guitarfrenzy

Yes, and maybe we can now learn the newest dance craze. The Banana Slide... lol

I think Jehle would make a good Mod also.. Rockin' Banana Mod

Like you said the wood isn't that expensive to build a guitar if you cut everything out yourself. Now if you go out and buy a $35 warmoth maple blank (because you want to avoid scarf jointing), a $25 preslotted fingerboard from Stew, etc. Yes, you would be getting into a lot more money. In comparison, I just bought a 8 foot, 3/4 board of hard maple 3" wide that only cost me a little over 20 dollars. So you can see how much money you can save by preparing your own wood. As far as Carbon Fiber Rod's go, I only know of one builder who makes their own and it's Joe Driskill at Driskill Guitars. Would be nice to be able to make your own, because they are slightly expensive to buy, but I won't build a neck without them.

At the moment the wife and I are in the process of moving 45 miles to a different location, so every afternoon this week I've been working on packing things up. This weekend will be full blown fun.. lol I'm going to be off Friday to get a head start, and I have a gig that night... yikes.. So you can see right now I don't really have the time to do anything like that. I did hand carve the neck and top on the JV-1, because I still like using a surform sometimes, it's very fun carving a neck by hand and I missed that. It's sorta like how you could buy fretwire, yet you choose to use raw minerals, melt them into shape, and hammer them in with a sledgehammer.. Sure there are easier ways, but sometimes they aren't as fun.. Just to let everyone know.. um that was just a joke.. lol Right on Setch.. it's not that hard to make a neck. Well, not having enough tools to do so, would be a problem, but with some minimal tools you could build a neck if you wanted to. Like you said, each one of the steps aren't hard if you have enough information, patience, and the right tools to do it with.

Idch has a point. What method are you using to intonate? I hope your not using the harmonic 12th fret method, because it's not accurate at all. Basically you should tune the string open, example B string, next press down the 12th fret and check your tuner to see if your B note is in tune. If it's flat compared to the open string, then move the saddle forward toward the neck. If it's sharp compared to the open string, move the saddle back away from the neck. Each time you move or adjust the saddle, you'll have to retune the open string because it won't still be proper pitch. Repeat this process until they are both in tune, open and 12th fret. There are other methods used to intonate, and I will go into it in detail if you'd like, but it's unconventional and usually used with the Buzz Feiten modded guitars.

I've thought about that before, but kinda thought, nooo.. that won't work.. so I never tried to mix different colored wood to get a closer match. Thanks for the tip bro, I'll definitely give it a try next time.

Great to hear it.. It's not as hard as it seems right? As far as the control cavity goes, why not make it slightly wider? lol You might have to make a new template, but you'd not only cover up your mistake, you'd eliminate it..

How are you judging the frets? Hopefully by using a long accurate straightedge. Just saying it isn't playable doesn't mean the frets need work, it could be with the way the guitar is setup. Unless you can really get a staightedge on it, with proper background so you can see the fretwork better, your basically just guessing. Buzzing can happen when you have backbow etc. and could be solved by a simple truss rod adjustment, so like Soapbar was saying, it's hard to tell if leveling the frets will do you any good, until you have gone over everything first and eliminated everything else as the problem. Here's where I'd start, with the standard setup method. 1. Using a long straightedge and feeler guages, adjust the neck so that you have a relief that's in a workable range. You can check the relief by sliding a feeler guage between the bottom of the straightedge and top of the 9th fret (or whichever fret has the gap to the bottom of straightedge). I personally like a relief of .006" , but anything from .000" to .012" is good, as you can see I just split the difference.. lol Adjust the truss rod until you have the relief your wanting. 2. After the relief has been adjusted, you can capo the first fret to eliminate it from the equation for setting up your action. Using a 6" steel ruler you can adjust the bridge so that you have 4/64" (1/16") action at the 17th fret on each string. You can lower them later if you want it lower, but this is a great starting point. 3. Take the capo off the first fret and check for proper nut slotting. You can measure the distance between the first fret and bottom of string with feeler guages. Make sure it's not too low on any.. under .006" or too high for the bigger strings, over .020". You can also use another method that works fairly good. Press the string down at the 3rd fret and if the string touches the first fret it's slot it probably too low. If you do everything above and the guitar still doesn't play good or buzzes a lot, yes it's safe to say you need to either level or refret it. But I'd definitely do a good setup on it first before I did though. Good luck.. Matt V

I agree, I think that you can learn from anyone, because we all have different ways of doing things and if you can pick up just one thing from someone it's worth reading in my opinion. When I first started learning to build guitars, I challenged myself to learn at least one thing new about building a day. It didn't have to be much, but still it was important because it made me go out and seek information no matter what. So yes, I'm all for more tutorials, but don't just make a tutorial without actually doing anything, because you might misguide someone else as we've seen on PG before.

Wow.. great job man.. very nice for your first neck.. congrats...

Nice guitar BrianD, neat concept, and great build. How heavy is that thing though?

I never said you couldn't use handtools and handsanding to round over the edges. All I wanted to point out, is that if you have a router, and a roundover bit, then practice until you can use it without fear of messing the guitar up. It'd definitely be faster, easier, and accurate. I commend anyone who has put a roundover on a guitars edges by hand, that's a lot of hard work, but if you already have a router and roundover bit, why not use it?

You can do that, whatever works for you. What I do is extend all the saddles almost as far as they will go forward and measure your scale length from the nut (where the nut meets the fingerboard), to the saddle string takeoff point. I use a laser to make an imaginary string, an 1/8" away from each side of the fingerboard, and position the bridge so it's optimal placement. When you have the bridge at the correct distance and orientation, you can mark where your hole will have to be. For a Fender style tremolo it's usually 6 small holes, and for a TOM sytle, mark for the threaded inserts. That's how I do it, nothing written in stone though. As long as you end up with at least 1/8" clearance from the outside strings to edge of fingerboard, and have enough room for your saddles to intonate properly, then you've got it right.

Drak, the one I use is a cheap one I bought from Wal-Mart.. lol It works good though, but it's nothing fancy. It does come in very handy and you'd find many uses for it when building. If you can't find one cheap in your area, let me know, and I'll hook ya up bro.. I sand the neck heel area when fitting a neck to neck pocket. When building I actually make the neck heel slightly wider so I can sand it for a perfect fit. It's the same way a lot of builders do it, in fact, I remember reading that Thorn does it the exact same way. I found that trying to use a jig to make a pefect fit, that there was still more slack than there should be, thus I changed my method. There is a million ways to do this, but this is the way I like to do it. 1. Route neck pocket aligned with the center of the body. 2. Route pickup cavities using center of body as guide. 3. Align bridge and find proper placement before drilling or routing for bridge. I like to do the bridge last, that way you can get the string aligned perfect with the neck (1/8" from outside strings to edge fingerboard), and where the strings are over the pickup poles. Like I said, this isn't the only way, just the way I do it. It's best to make your templates this way too, so they are perfect and you don't have to do it for each guitar.

At least I know if I tried it that way, that's probably what it would end up looking like.. lol True, If I'm not mistaken a Tele's edge isn't the same as a Strat's. I think a 3/8" roundover bit is closer to what they use for a Telecaster, thus it would give you a smaller radiused edge. I wouldn't use anything bigger than a 3/8" for it though. Nothing wrong with being nervous, but don't let that stop you from learning more and getting better. Practice on scrap wood first, and make sure you don't set the router so that your making just one pass. You want to route away a small amount each time, and use multiple passes until it's done. Like I said, practice on scrap until your confident, then you won't be as nervous when you actually are ready to roundover the edges of the guitar body. Good luck bro.

What size roundover are you talking about? I would definitely do it with a roundover bit and not by handsanding. Handsanding would take quite a while and wouldn't be near as accurate. I use a 1/2" roundover bit to do the edges, but I'm sure you can use a slightly smaller one. You know you could use the roundover to get the edges close, then handsand until it's like you want. It would save you some work at least.

I'm sure there have been other threads showing slot beveling before, but just wanted to point out I explained it in the Making Of A Strat thread. Not sure if you've read it before, so that's why I brought it up. Never used a square file to do this before, but I bet it would work better. Nice tip..

I have a tutorial on how to find the correct bridge to use with certain neck taper, and nut width. Here's the link.. Bridge Spacing Formula Hope this helps.. I came up with this after running into this same exact problem, and so I wrote a tutorial on it, and saved it on my website.. lol

This is basically how I do it. A rough drawing of the first couple of steps I do. If you don't have a bandsaw though, you can use whatever you have to cut the angle. After you get these steps done, you can either use handplane or the router smoothing jig I was talking about, to make the scarf joint surfaces nice and flat. Hope this helps some. Matt

Like mattia, I get my headstock wood to a little over 1/2" before I glue the scarf joint on. I use a bandsaw to do this, and block sand to smooth out the marks the bandsaw leaves. Man there are millions of ways to build.. lol

I actually use a laser in all steps of building to reassure everythings aligned properly. While making the JV-1 I used it to check for center of neck with body in the picture above. I also use it for bridge placement. I use the laser to make a line so that it's 1/8" away from the fingerboard edge, which is where the string should be, and make marks on the wood to show where the saddle on both outside strings should be for exact alignment.

Unreal, I had no idea anyone would nominate me for moderator. I'm shocked!! I really appreciate it guys, and if you really think I would do a good job, then I accept. I don't want to become Mod if it means making enemies though, it's not worth it. I come here to talk about the hobby I love, guitar building, and how to build them better. From talking finishing with Drak to chatting with Thorn about his latest guitars.. It's just a fun forum. So it's up to you guys. If you guys have that much confidence in me doing a good job, I don't want to let you down by saying no. On the other hand though, I feel that everyone else, who was nominated, would make great Mods. In fact, I know that most of the members of PG could make good Mods, because we have some great members on this forum. I just feel privileged to be a member of this forum. Matt Vinson

Man Perry, that's awesome bro. I can tell you this much about the school, I bet they are learning a lot from it with you teaching. I wish I'd had the opportunity to learn like this, but there was no builders in my area when I started, so I ended up making a lot of mistakes.. lol.. Have a great time guys and we want to see all the finished guitars when it's over.. more pics please.. Matt Vinson

Very nice and clean work.. I would love to make a madolin myself. I have a friend who can play one great, and he always bugs me to build him one. It's hard to explain to him that just because I can build a guitar, that to build a madolin, I'd have to go back to school so to speak.. lol Keep us posted on your progress!!

That's very true. Why don't you try building a router smoothing jig, it works great for me, if your still wanting to get better at it. If not, buy the neck from Warmoth, nothing wrong with that, but I'm just trying to encourage you to not give up on it. I will make a tutorial on this very subject and show every method I know about building a scarf joint neck.