guitar2005

In Canada, go to Fastenal. They have branches everywhere. www.fastenal.com

The Eddie Van Halen signature guitars never had a finish on their maple fretboards. Check out a Music Man or Peavey. The ones I've played only had a natural oiled finish. I even setup one of those EVH Charvels out of the store (man, what a ripoff those guitars are) and I don't remember seeing a lacquered fretboard there either.

I don't recommend mixing and matching different products. DEFT is a nitro lacquer and not everything will be compatible with it. You can experiment if you want and it might work short term but you need to know how it will work long term.

I would inlay with black epoxy. Building clear will take a long time and you'll see the maple edges inside. John's sig is not an inlay BTW.

Home made with the lee valley kit. The absolute best and cheapest around. http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=...,51208&ap=1

http://www.johnpageguitars.com/ Click on the "Price List" and "Gallery" tabs. He's got them on the body and headtsock. I think it looks reall classy. Of course, they're not ebony but some other balck stained wood.

I wouldn't worry too much about buzzing strings right now. Its really no big deal and can probably be fixed. I assume that you're referring to fret buzz. If you don't know much about setting up guitars, truss rods and fret work, bring it to a good luthier. Check this page out: http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/buzzing.htm A couple of questions though. 1- How do you want you Low E string (measure at the 17th-21st fret)? 2- How much relief do you have in the neck? 3- What gauge string are you using 4- Does it buzz along the entire length of the neck of only specific regions? Do you have close up pics of the frets? It could be that they're just flat and need levelling and re-crowning.

My local plastic shop can get colored sheets that I can use for binding. As for 1.3mm side dots, I know I've seen colored rods that could be used for that application. The idea is that some of those places might have what you're looking for even though its not listed on the web. Here's another example: http://www.professionalplastics.com/TURCITEXRODRED I say call 'em up and see what they can do for you.

standard yellow glue is fine for the nut. Even though the nut is cut, you may want to check the slot depth for each string. If they're too high, your intonation will be way off in the first 3-4 frets.

Try these guys: http://pleiger.com/rst.html You might also have some local plastic shops that have or can get this kind of product

LOL! A couple of weeks ago, one of the drummer's sticks broke and one of the piece came flying out of the drum kit, hitting me in the arm, resulting in blood. Good times. ... Which reminds me, I actually put some blood between the top and body of one of my last guitar projects. I believe that it will give the guitar some serious mojo, make the future owner play and sound like a god and all women will be at his feet.

Funny you should mention that, I still have a scar on my index finger from that damn nut that was on my crappy plywood '80s Kramer. I've been playing Floyd equipped guitars for more than 20 years and I've never seen or heard of the locking nut being spikey or dangerous. But then again, I've only ever used real Floyds and/or Ibanez Edge trems. Maybe the cheap knock offs are different

Actually - 180 grit will not give you a better joint, it will be weaker and there is scientific proof of this. You search this on your own if you want. If you have real issues with the board slipping and sliding, add a bit of tape around the fretboard/neck. You can also use the small pin on the neck trick.

The old fretboard must be perfectly clean. If you have compressed air, shoot it over the neck to clean out the pores. If not, you could vaccum it. Are for the surface, a scraped or planed surface is best. If not, go for 320-400 grit sanding. For glue, regulare yello glue is best in my opinion. Never had a problem with it.

1- Floyds don't suck the tone out of guitars 2- No need for locking tuners with a Floyd. 3- You DO need a locking nut A lot of people have a beef with Floyds. I think its because they've had bad experiences with cheap ones or maybe they have trouble setting them up.

+1 but you do have to maintain a bare wood neck (tung oiled or whatever). My 1987 Ibanez Jem is still fine and that has a simple oiled neck, no finish, 1 piece maple with scarfed headstock. Its a little more sensitive to humidity variations though so a quikc turn of the truss rod every season change is the norm.

Hey, if my tone deaf wife or drummer can hear a difference, I'm sure you could. The kind of pick you use makes a difference, the attack on the strings, where you play (closer to the bridge/closer to the neck). The difference is pretty noticeable to me but then again, I don't play with a wall of mid scooped distortion all the time.

I remember talking to a Dimarzio rep about pickup placement and orientation and he basically told me that there is no "right" way to either mount a pickup, its position or its orientation (adjustable pole pieces). We were talking about Zebra pickups and how I wanted to change the orientation so that I got the colors in the way I wanted to see them. Basically, he told me that there's a traditional or "purist" was of orienting pickups and that it had nothing to do with sound "quality", at least not for the pickups I was going to use, or 99% of the pickups on the market today. For something like a Diamrzio SD - there is zero difference. I think that you should try any pickup location you want and if it sounds good to you... it probably sounds good to others. Actually, I think that depending on wood and pickup selection, you should try to place the pickups in slightly different places to attempt to get to the sound you want. For example, on my latest build, I put the bridge pickup closer to the bridge than I normally would because the top wood is soft and I wanted to get some brightness and edge out of the bridge pickup. Putting it too far away would lose some of that bite I like so much. You can also see than I set the adjustable pole pieces towards the neck - another non-traditional way of orienting pickups. I wanted the neck side to be closer to the strings while having the pickups closer for more bite. Does orientation make a difference? A slight difference and you can't notice it easily. Does the crowd notice when playing a show? No Compare that to a Godin LGX and you'll see that the bridge pickup on the LGX is way far. Further out than a Les Paul. Result? A dull sounding guitar, even with a Dimarzio SD or EMG-81. The only reason why I keep that guitar is that it looks nice and has the LR Baggs bridge.

and does the radius sanding blocks are wide enuff for a 7 string , that is what i want to build . Yes

Anyone know where I can find a replacement LP Custom fingerboard - i.e. Ebony, white binding, block inlays. I'm trying to find a time saving solution to replacing a fingerboard. If I could buy one, ready made, it would be a real time saver.

Simple. Ca glue... hold it in for 30sec and you're done. No one will ever know except you... and us With Ebony, cracking & chipping is always an issue with old or dry boards. I just re-fretted a '74 LP Custom and the stupid board chipped when taking the frets out AND putting the new frets in. What a biatch! Having to repair chips with frets in place is no fun, let me tell you. One of the things I would suggest before fretting it, is to oil the board a couple of times with some kind of Fret board Conditioner or plain old Lemon Oil. That should help with getting a bit of humidity back in there

Finished the two guitars and took pictures of 2nd Evil Twin. The Photo Album is here: http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p...amp;uid=4316378 Full Front: The neck is superb. My best work yet. I can set the action down to 1/32" with minor buzzing. 3/32" action, the way I like it, is killer. Love the way the guitar feels too. It has a nice resonance to it. Real happy with this one. Honduran Mahogany (Ribbon) Body Black Limba Top with worm holes Scarfed Mahogany Headstock with Black Limba overlay Set Neck Construction Maple Neck with Jatoba laminate Cocobolo Fretboard, bound with thin maple strip and Cocobolo Pearl Side Dots Pearl 12th Fret Inlay Inlayed Bone Nut Steinberger Gearless Tuners Gotoh TOM Bridge Through the body string ferrules Fender Style Jack Gold Toggle Switch Gibson Explorer Pickups Thin Nitro Finish - Not grain filled so the grain is apparent

Ibanez uses their own locking designs known as Edge, Lo Pro, and Lo Pro II, among others. While they trace their heritage in design back to the original Floyd, that's pretty much where the similarities end. The original Floyds weren't designed to be recessed in a Strat body. They were designed to have the baseplate sitting on top of the guitar for dive-only operation. The recessing fad that started actually decreased the ability of the unit to keep the instrument in stable tune. The recessed Floyd design also allows to have the strings closer to the body, like on a standard Fender trem. There's nothing that prevents you from recessing a Floyd and have it sit right on the body, inside the recess... as opposed to having the Ibanez route for pulling up the trem.

Oooohh. Love that guitar. Can't wait to see it done. truss rod? Put it in just in case. I have to say though that on most of my guitars, the truss rod is left with no tension whatsoever. The ones I build myself are all with 2 way truss rods which have been set dead center (neutral) and I've had no issues.

How do those pickups sound? Any clips?