guitar2005

sounds like a bad design idea and its effectiveness seems limited. Typically the resonance affecting all strings is a good thing. That's part of what makes a guitar sound like it does. All of those saddles are eventually all linked together and it seems as though those long pieces of metal would dampen the string's vibrations, causing a loss of sustain and harmonics/richness of tone. I you want to dampen string vibration, you'd need those long metal pieces going down to be of different mass so that it can actually be musical and the damping is more evenly distributed for all strings, but then... what about the nut? For ultra clarity, would you not need separate nut saddles for each string? What about the neck? Would individual necks be the best solution? The whole idea seems flawed. The bridge doesn't even touch the surface of the guitar or any wood where its most important. I would also say that if clarity is the goal, I say work on your technique. Too many people think that more gear, more expensive gear is the answer.

Where can I get threaded inserts and what do they look like? So far, I've been enlarging the pickup plate so that a small wood screw fits through but I'm looking for a better method of doing this. In general, I use foam under the pickups. It a dark grey foam that comes in 3/8" thickness. I forget where I get it from though. Its been a while since my last complete build.

no You'll always see where it was glued together with a scarf. A lot of people use it as an excuse to put in some extra decoration. It's the same mentality as the Arts & Crafts movement in woodworking: highlight the joinery instead of trying to hide it. its just that this glue line is thicker than usual. I don't mind seeing the joint, its mostly the strength that I'm worried about and long term stability. In the 1st pic, look at the right hand side, bottom. The glue line is thicker there. I don't know what the max glue line thickness is supposed to be but I don't have to chance it. I might just start over and try to destroy this one.... but its nice birdseye... I want to keep it. Wes - I've has 5min epoxy stay soft on me, even though I had mixed it right. That batch was just bad. Which readily available brand do you suggest? I wound't know where to find loctite epoxy. Also, you have to watch it with the clamping pressure, don't you.

The portion that I broke is a cutoff, not the actual neck. In terms of using epoxy, I'm kinda leary of using it. Unless you have quality epoxy, the home depot stuff isn't up to snuff IMO and the stuff they have at Lee Valley is pretty expensive. I'll definitely try it someday, but not right now.

No. Cool. Coming from you, that really puts my mind at ease. While we're at it, any suggestions for gluing Ebony over maple? I always use yellow carpenter's glue but I wonder if that's ok for ebony - I haven't worked with the stuff for a while.

I glued up this scarf joint and after glue up, I noticed that the glue line shows. I'm not looking for perfection or anything but would something like this worry any of you: I tried to break the joint by standing on the neck and it held up (140Lbs). I then bandsawed off a portion of the neck on the side and after a couple of times of jumping on it, it broke off, but not along the glue line, like so: The thing is, this is where the neck will be at its thinnest (nut) so I wonder if that will have any adverse effects. Of course, the fretboard will also hold the thing together but... just looking for some of your opinions on this. thanks.

Seems cool, but I wouldn't want to play something like that. I'd rather see a lightweight back cover. Interesting guitar tho.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but... I need to buy a couple of 2-Way rods and I'm not sure which to get. I was going to go with the Allied Lutherie ones but the ones on the Grizzly site seems to be very nice. They have the Gotoh and the black, made in China one. For an electric guitar, which would be best? The black one seems like a great deal @ $9.95 but its hard to see what they really look like from the pic on the website. http://www.grizzly.com/products/Truss-Rod-2-Way/H6031 Should I go the safe route and stay with the Allied Lutherie ones?

I prefer a recessed TOM, simply because I find it more comfortable to play. I don't really like it when the strings are too high off the body but some guitars, it just feels right, like a LP. Usally, a 3deg. angle is enough, but I would strongly suggest you draw everything out at scale and measure the angle that way.

With all the nice amps out there for so cheap, I don't know why anyone would bother with modelling. Blackstar, Egnater, Marshall, Vox, Orange & Fender all have great little tube amps for cheap that can sound great. Even the older Valvestates from Marshall sound pretty good for the money. If you need all the different tones and want to experiment, the Vox Tonelab is very good. I haven't tried the Marshall JMD:1 yet though.

Now that is a great idea....When I rout out the rest of that pocket this weekend I will fit in a piece of one of my tougher woods to fill up that gap and replace the wood removed under the neck,and I will take a drop off from one of my other ebony boards and do exactly what you said....might even see if I can't inlay something into it with my bloody jasper recon stone that will match the color of the translucent dark cherry I want to use for the top... Hmm...what to inlay.... That's pretty much what I suggested. The mitered corners will give it a nice touch, if you decide to go all the way.

Enough room? You think its too thick or too thin? I'm going to use Sperzel tuners and I have another guitar that has a headstock that is going to be the same thickness that this one will be. It will probably be around 1/2-3/4" thick headstock. The bubinga cap and headstock will be thinner when I finish. Not referring to the thickness of the headtsock, although you should keep that in check. I'm referring to the mount of room to line up the tuners along the sides of the headstock. Have you drawn it out to determine whether it will fit?

Are you sure that you have enough room for the tuners on the headstock?

Maybe the simpest thing to do would be to make a new neck.

How a bout a piece of wood "binding" at the end of the fretboard, so that no endgrain is visible. Even that little piece at the could have the corners mitered. make sense?

so are all types of maple ok to use for necks? Yes - their botanical names usually start with "Acer". If it start with "Acer", you should be fine.

I've used silver leaf maple for necks. Very nice.... even had a bit of flame in it.

Good suggestion but even better is to do this before fretting. I build in a slight fallout towards the end of the neck and usually achieve just over 3/32" action without too many post build adjustments.

I need to install a Fender floyd rose like the one in this picture: http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b1/Cosmi...fenderfloyd.jpg Question is: Where can I get some templates/installation instructions for this tremolo? Is it to be considered a "Standard" trem or a "Wilkinson/Goth" trem? The Stew Mac tremolo bridge templates aren't really clear.

I use a router length wise for necks. Easy and fast. I'm always real careful with the heel, only taking very small increments at a time to avoid tearout. I also do the headstocks length wise but do the intricate detailing with the sander or by hand.

Always nice guitars from you, Drak. Nice work.

This is the way you should have oriented those laminations (Martin "Stratabond" neck - its a plywood neck)

Using horixontal ply like that seems like a real bad idea. That neck will bend like a whammy bar IMO.

I haven't worked on this guitar for the longest time. I've had all the parts but just got side tracked with life, other projects, lack of time, music etc... I'm now trying to finish all the projects I started and decided to finish this guy before I get too involved in the Thinline Telecaster I'm about to start. 1) I stained the lacewood black, 2) built a new neck out of birdseye maple/wenge (there were a coupld of mistakes I did on the original neck that were too big to keep), 3) made a Wenge fretboard with block inlays and 4) applied sanding sealer on the mahogany parts. All of the Mahogany will be painted black. The fretboard is bound with wenge and a small maple strip to add a contrasting line. Looks sweet. Here are some progress pics. I think that the next step is to grain fill, but I think that StewMac grain filler has to be applied before the stain. If that's the case, I'll grain fill with sanding sealer.