ryanb

It's certainly stable enough and strong enough to make a neck (assuming it is properly dried). I've never used it for a neck (but many other things). Let us know how it works out.

Since it is a new Fender, it will have polyester sealer and a polyurethane top coat. That means it will hold up to a bomb blast and will be extremely hard to sand off ... but it can be done. You didn't really say why you are stripping it back to bare wood. If you are just trying to repaint it, or add graphics (anything other than a natural, clear finish), you absolutely should NOT strip it down to bare wood first. That is the best sealer coat you will ever get for the new finish, and why bother with the extra work? Just scuff sand the surface so the new coats will adhere and work from there. Read everything you can before you choose you new finish types and make sure your products are all compatible. If you are going for a transparent finish, you might want to reconsider your plan. Assuming the guitar has a solid color finish now, it will be made of a number (maybe four or five even) of pieces of wood, and will not look very good. The transparent finish bodys are made of better looking one or two piece ash and alder blanks because the grain will show. You said you were doing a "graphic" finish, so this probably isn't relevant to you. I'm not trying to discourage your idea (I think you should do it) ... just know what you are getting into first. When you do the actual work, yes you should strip everything off the body first. Taking everything apart is the first step.

While it isn't necessary to wipe down most common fretboard woods before gluing, cocobolo CAN be much more oily. It completely depends on the particular piece you have whether you need to wipe it down. Wipe it off with acetone shortly before you glue it down with Titebond I. The acetone will dry very quickly, and will remove enough surface oil to prevent any problems. You can then leave it unfinished, or add some bore oil like any rosewood board. Use Tru-Oil for the neck. The neck laminates will make almost no difference if any. Choose what you like ... purpleheart will work great.

Better. The top-mount design is just as effective but it doesn't require the bolt holes through the neck, so it is considerably stronger than the through-mount design.

I have ordered Stew-Mac boards in the past and they have been very good. Of course, I got a maple board a couple days ago with some nasty tearout (much worse than the chatter on your board) near the bridge end at one side. Maybe they are having a bad month. I'm not going to bother replacing it, since I am pretty sure I can sand it out without too much trouble. Stuff happens sometimes. Ther rest of the board is great. (I normally make my boards anyway.) Stew-Mac still has the best customer service anywhere. If you are unhappy with anything, they will fix it, and fast. LMII has good boards too, but they are very thick. If you don't have the tools to thin the board down, you probably should go elsewhere.

The obvious answer would be satin Deft. However, there are lots of options ... nitro lacquer with flattener, an oil finish, Tru Oil, etc.

The ZR trem is 430mm radius.

Some of them had very good joints, while others were very poor. It varied a lot from one to another. There are a few threads with lots of good pictures over on jemsite if you are interested.

+1. Those are great bridges. I'd avoid the ToM, but if you do, go for the thru-body ferrules instead of the tailpiece.

Nice stuff!! Now while those ideas are simmering ... go put the blade guard back on your jointer while you still have all of your fingers.

I'm just waiting to see those 20 luthiers that worked for him open their own shop (either together or individually). That's a lot more quality instruments that should be hitting the market before long. There are plenty of ways Tom could have hired someone to handle the business aspects for him while neither giving up the company nor sacrificing what he wants to work on (ala Bill Gates model) -- but that is his decision to make. Good luck to Tom either way. It certainly will increase the value of the existing instruments, as production will drop to almost nothing.

IMO, the "offset" isn't the problem here. The other strings are fine. The problem is that the low E string slot is in the wrong place. The gap to the A is too large. If the strings are still too high at the nut, you might be able to fix it. Otherwise, you need a nut slotted where you want it. You say you think this is the same nut -- was the spacing off before? I'd bet it is a new nut. You may be able to get by with shifting the nut toward the high E, if you aren't bothered by the edges not lining up properly or the other strings being crowded down. You could also leave it the way it is if you don't have a problem with the low E falling off the board. But if you aren't happy with this guy's work, don't accept it.

No lemon oil. Use Bore Oil. On maple you need lacquer or poly.

I think you should just make a new body. Fixing up that body is going to be more work than making one the way you want from scratch.

You usually can (within reason) change the thickness of the fretboard some. It depends on the guitar, type of bridge, etc. You may have to make some adjustments though: like bridge height, neck angle, maybe nut height. You need to measure your guitar (maybe draw a picture), and work out the dimensions and angles. Then you will know whether your intended fretboard will work or not before you try.

Or contact DuPont with the N. American paint codes and ask them to provide you with the proper corresponding codes for Oz. Definitely don't try to color match against something on your screen or printer. You will usually be off by a huge amount, unless you have color-corrected output devices, software, and correctly-encoded images.

The difference from 10 to 12 inch radius is pretty small ... so it may be fine for you ... it's all preference. However, you can always shim the bridge saddles to match the fretboard radius of your choice. The bigger problem is finding a locking nut to match your fretboard.

All of those brands (with the exception of some Bosch) are cheap, consumer-oriented brands. They are light-duty for people who will use them once and put them on the shelf for 30 years. DeWalt is the professional division of B&D and makes some of the best tools out there (unlike the B&D brand stuff). And you pay for it. Porter-Cable (part of Delta) is a different company. It does sound like a brush problem ... if you want to experiment with fixing it. Bottom line is you get what you pay for. Stop buying cheap tools and you won't have them die all the time (and get better results too).

I agree completely with what Setch said. You already have the neck you like, so there's certainly no reason to change it. If you don't like the frets you have, you certainly should change them to something you do like. You could learn to do the work yourself without spending too much money. Or, if you don't feel confident at that, you could get a refret done professionally and still be less expensive than a new neck (do the new ones even come with a fret level and crown or does that still have to be done anyway?). If you can get the "junk" necks to practice on, definitely go for that. Think of it as a skill that will pay off for you down the road every time you need fret work done.

Stew mac also sells individual tuners. The easiest thing would be to buy a 3+3 set and a single extra tuner of your choice, left or right.

It sounds like the horizontal (preferably oscillating) belt sander would work best for you. However, I agree that when you need something truly flat, you need a jointer or plane, not a sander (although the sandpaper on a flat bar or flat table trick works). Most belt sanders don't keep the belt very flat ... it tends to wear unevenly and round off edges. There aren't many woodworking jobs that a disc sander is good for at all (and those are mostly end-grain), because of the circular cut on the grain. Get the belt sander and a good plane.

I thought those looked like the Radio Shack nibblers. I have a pair of those too (for nibbling, not for frets), and they do suck. The stew-mac ones can be found elsewhere on the net for a lot less too, if you want to look. Or just get them from stew-mac and be done with it.

You certainly can do a white blonde finish with spray cans fairly well, but I would recommend you wait for warmer temperatures. Check the specs for your finish to be sure, but most really need higher temps. Just don't use space heaters or something like that, as most paints (especially lacquer) can be very flammable.

Because unfortunately that's the way things often work around here. Most of the posts like yours are in fact from kids with no experience and know nothing. Perhaps you should provide some clue to your skill level in the original post so your question doesn't come off as a newbie question. Take those responses with a grain of salt or you won't hang around here long. (There is a lot of useful information in there too.) Still, expecting responses in ten minutes is just ridiculous. And most of the responses were useful and not condescending at all. BTW, since you asked for opinions, I will also offer my opinion that I also think you should leave it the way it is. It is pretty rare that you can strip down a solid-color body and find wood worthy of looking good with a natural finish. The chip could be repaired. Go to an auto parts store and get some touch up paint. Good luck with whatever you decide to do with it.

Well, I agree with that ... but with qualifications. Spring clamps certainly can provide enough force to clamp up a top, IF you are using enough of them, and the right sizes, and correctly distributed, etc. C-clamps do provide much more force, and force you can adjust. As mentioned (and for really any clamp) you need to use clamping blocks to spread out the force and not damage your good surface. There are a lot of different kinds of clamps and ways to clamp things. No one type of clamp will work for everything. Also, there are lots of different clamps that will work for a given job. You just have to choose something that is appropriate to the task at hand -- and available to you. I almost never use C-clamps these days (and then usually only for metalworking), because I have a lot of other options that all are better or more convenient. But if you don't have a lot of gear, the C-clamps will be infinitely more versatile and useful than the spring clamps. Just keep in mind that more clamping force is not always a good thing. If you clamp so hard that you force all of the glue out of the joint, it will just fail later. You need to clamp enough to get a little glue squeezeout (to ensure good contact) and leave it alone. If your parts don't fit well together, you need to correct your parts, not try to make up for it with bigger clamps. No matter how many clamps you own, there are always more you need ... because as sure as death and taxes, you can never have enough clamps.