guitar2005

Anyone install the frets on a flat, uncarved neck? I've never tried it.. I use a neck support caul, never had any 'pressure' problem. I'm wondering if it is a good idea; - That would probably prevent backbow, assuming an uncarved neck is usually +- 1" thick. - Frets would be probably be a little bit harder to press in, but will seat firmly in place. My concern is what happens when you carve the neck? I'm afraid build-up pressure may cause some frets to pop-out when the neck is thinner? Or maybe not, since the tangs will be firmly 'anchored' in the slots. I don't know... I never tried it. I'm fretting a neck-thru neck in a few days. I thought I'd give it a shot, but not without opinions from people who tried it. I'm curious to see if that would make a better/worst fretting. I would never fret an uncarved neck because carving the neck may affect its flatness. I carve with the fretboard on, re-check for flatness with a precision straightedge and fret when i'm 100% confident that the neck is true. Never had the "pressure" problem either, not with a generic neck support.

Black walnut should work just fine. I have some stock here and it looks dense and hard enough for a fretboard. I've used Shedua (Janka Hardness of 710) and that worked out great. Black Walnut is listed as a hardness of 1010 (Harder than shedua)

Not sure what the "optimal" body thickness is. You'll have to draw out your design with all the nice things like neck angle & height, floyd height and recess and body thickness. I think you'll be fine though. Make sure you get a short block floyd (not sure if you can get them but you might be able to get an aftermarket block), especially if you're also going to recess the back plate. The Ibanez Edge comes in a short block version (HR) for recessed installation. Check this guy out - http://www.floydupgrades.com/

+1 Slow down and stop building so fast is my suggestion, this way you may make less of these "mistakes" and possibly enjoy it a little more. +2 You've got talent, you just have to slow down and be alittle more focused. I can understand the feeling you have. On my latest build, I went crazy over the fret work. All the frets were seated perfectly - Best job so far. I partially screwed it up while levelling because my home brew fret rocker was not actually flat and I wanted to try a new method of checking fret level. Frustrated? You betcha! Never again will I make that mistake. I should have double checked against my reference tool. I say keep it up. With necks, I always make them a touch wider than necessary because I know I can always remove stock later.

I just installed a set of the Steinberger tuners on my Explorer (Not yet completed) and I love 'em. They have a real nice feel to them and the precision is fantastic. A little on the expensive side though, especially in Gold. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...30&start=30

Finding the stupid allen key is a hassle, I agree, but you can get one of these: https://store.ibanez.com/store/comersus_lis...p?idCategory=42 Problem solved. I'm sure there are other places where you can get the holders.

Agreed. I don't think that his hours are being paid tho. ... and I didn't realize he did the job twice (took the first cap off, to put a second one on). If it were me, I would have left that body exactly the way is was and made a new one from scratch... but that's just me.

Actually, I don't see this as a lot of work. Run the body through a thickness planer, hollow out parts of the body, glue top on, cut contour and route cavities. Not much more work than a top on any guitar, is it?

That alu nut looks real slick but I would go to the floyd nut without hesitation. Tuning stability is unsurpassed with a quality floyd and you'll be keeping the floyd bridge anyways. I just don't understand why you wouldn't keep the locking nut. If the reason for removing the locking nut is to do drop-d tuning, there's a simple solution to that - a D-Tuna (EVH). I had one on a floyd equipped guitar and it worked great. Worse case scenario is you keep the locking nut on there, just don't lock the pads onto the strings. Again, I don't understand the hassle of making a nut like that. Is there something I'm missing?

Nice piece of wood. What kind of bridge are you putting on there? That route looks non-conventional. When I see this thread, the first thing that comes to mind is "The Gambler", by Kenny Rogers... but I'm sure that your customer won't be playing that with his guitar

Untrue.The weaker magnetic field is compensated for by the preamp boost in the active electronics...that is kind of the whole point.Noise reduction,etc... Look...back the pickups off of the strings...you are not supposed to get "wolf tone" from emg....the 81 and 85 are meant to be sparkling clean...until you ADD the gain. But what do I know?I have only been using them on 90% of my guitars for the last 17 years...Before that I used Duncan. +1 I have an 81/85 set and neither one "needs" to be closer. You can set them up like a passive pickup in terms of height and they'll sound just fine. Actually, There won't be a big difference if you do bring them in closer to the strings.

I think we agree, just don't understand each other. Wes said it best... "you don't need to "fix" emg with an EQ"... and you shouldn't have to. Now having an external EQ to place before or after the pre-amp to achieve a certain sound is another thing, but that's regardless of the pickup you choose. To me, an EMG-81 sounds just fine, external EQ or not.

That's 1/8" wide binding with maple veneer glued to it, then glued that to the fretboard. You can tell its binding because the fret ends don't show on the side of the fretboard. Got the idea from rsguitars, in this thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...25186&st=15

A couple of new pics and an Evil Twin #2 is assembled The fretboard is dirty from fret levelling. I've had trouble with the fret levelling with this one because my home made fret rocker wasn't straight anymore. I just didn't trust the old 24" straightedge and feeler gauge method and had to try something new. I levelled more than I would have really needed to. Lesson learned. I just ordered a fret rocker from Stew Mac. What a ripoff at 25.00 bucks but really, worth every penny 'cos I know it'll be a good reference and will help for spot levelling on setup jobs. Here are two closeups from before I sprayed the twins. Headstock - Real proud of how this came out: http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL912/43163...0/291575988.jpg Fretboard - love this one: http://pic18.picturetrail.com/VOL912/43163...0/291575992.jpg

Not sure on sustain vs body thickness. I think its more the resonance of the wood that makes a difference, which is why I prefer Honduran Mahogany. Of course, beyond a certain thickness, the effects on tone/sustain are probably negligible. I think that at 1.9", there's little diff with 1.75". This is an electric guitar, so the body doesn't vibrate as much as a hollow body or acoustic guitar. Sustain will be affected more by the neck wood and quality of the neck/body join.

Increase in tone is relative. Which tones/frequencies are affected? I don't know. I just like the feel of a hefty guitar. With the right combination of woods, it could be made to be failry lightweight.

You can make the thickness anything you want. I made mine 1.9" thick

Kind of a weirdly hardline statement. Whether with passives or actives, EQ is an important part of many guitarists' arsenal. It's "BS" to think that you need EQ to "fix" something inherent in EMGs... External EQ, that is, not EQ on the amp.... Geeezzz. That's what others were suggesting for the EMGs, an external EQ. I say you shouldn't need one. That's what I meant.

With something like the EMG 81 & 85, can I get past the "less toneful and somewhat sterile sounding" attributes (which I hear a lot of people say) by using an EQ pedal to shape the sound? And from there, can I use the EQ pedal just for active pickup guitar(s) and take it out of the loop for passive guitars so I am not constantly tweaking my amp? I currently play a Marshall Vintage Modern and use a Fulltone OCD for overdrive, as well as a few other pedals or a Digitech GNX4 processor, and do not want to have to change setting everytime I change guitars. Otherwise, I might eventually pick up another amp strictly for high-gain stuff at some point. -Cheers The EQ thing is BS if you ask me. EMGs sound fine on their own. For clean sounds... again... fine with me. The EMG clean is certainly different than a PAF, or PAF Pro or something like a single coil in a Strat. Different isn't necessarily bad. Different guitars and pickups for different sounds, right? The only thing with clean sounds is that the EMGs really hit the input of the amp hard so you might need to roll down the volume knob on your guitar. If you find that you need to -externally- EQ your sound outside of your guitar amp with EMGs, don't buy EMGs. Just my opinion. What exactly does less toneful mean anyways? Its all subjective. Listen to artists that use EMGs and go from there. Do you like their sound? What kind of music is this for? BTW, nice amp choice with the Vintage Modern. If you like the Zakk Wylde sound, you'll be happy with EMGs combined with the Marshall. In a mahogany guitar, they should scream.

24" in length, 19" wide. That's approx what I measured on my explorer project. Diff between Honduran and African is that generally, Honduran is a little lighter with slightly bigger pores and the colour isn't exactly the same. What does that mean in terms of tone? A little livelier tone from Honduran. Depending on the piece of wood, you may not hear the difference.

Well, I currently use Vintage 30's in a 4X12 setup. Not sure how (if at all) that changes your recommendations (either in pickups or in speaker recommendations). -Cheers With a Vintage 30, I'd go with an Alnico magnet pickup. EMG 60, 60A, 89 are good choices in active pickups in my opinion. With the Vintage 30's mellower tone (vs G12T-75), you should be pleased. In passives, there's tons of choices. Have a look at the Dimarzio website - They have tons of info for their pickups to help in selecting one (including sound clips). Going with a pickup that has more definition and attack with the Vintage 30 could be interesting. Its all a matter of taste. The Vintage 30 could tame some of the in your face sound of a ceramic based pickup. I don't have V30s right now so I can't comment from A/B ing. I should have a new cab with V30s very soon though - 2-3 weeks time. I could post some A/B clips. The EMG 81/89 sounded horrible with the Greenbacks.

Thanks for the recommendation; I will try to check them out. How much difference in gain and tone between an active pickup (EMG 85, or Guitarheads active [w/ passive tone], etc.) and something custom wound for high-gain but more natural tone like WCR pickups? I guess I am inclined to go with an overwound passive because I like warmer sounding melodic metal and not necessarily as-heavy-as-possible metal (although having one such guitar in the future might be nice, not what I am looking for now . . .), or something that sounds like a computer or synth created distorted guitar. I will definitely consider all options though; if I was totally sold one way or the other I would not bother asking, hence this thread. Anyway, thanks for the great responses so far as well as any future replies! -Cheers The EMG-81 has a very sharp attack with helps getting proper note definition when playing fast rhythm passages and lead lines. The DiMarzio super distortion is right up there in terms of power too and has a similiar attack to the EMG-81, but it sounds more old school with its midrange and its not as compressed as the EMG-81. Just to say that you don't need a custom wound passive pickup. The D-Activator sounds like it has a lot of power too but I can't comment on it because I never tried them. If you don't like the attack of an EMG-81 or Dimarzio Super Dist, you might want to look into something that has an alnico magnet. If you like high gain but still want a bit of dynamics, the Tone Zone is kinda nice. The thing is, you can't look at the pickups without looking at the kind of speakers you have in your guitar cab. Its like the difference between a Celestion Greenback, Celestion Vintage 30 or a G12T-75 in terms of attack. The "active" equivalent would be the Celestion Century and Century Vintage with their slighty tighter sound and higher output (102db efficiency). Using an EMG-81 with a greenback is stupid in my opinion because you lose the note definition. Just something else to look into when selecting pickups.

I find it odd that the headstock would break on a scarfed neck. Never thought that was possible. I have a scrap neck I built 2 years ago with a scarf joint and I tried to break it. It wouldn't budge. I even jumped on it to try and break it. I still have it in my workshop as a reminder What make of guitar is that? Look like an Epiphone. As for colour matching, I try to get a close match. If you feather the color in, it should come out almost insivible. The technique worked on a Firebird Bass headstock I fixed 2 months ago. The biggest problem is getting a stain that as close as possible to the original as possible. What kind of finish on there? If its lacquer (which I doubt it is), the fix should be easier. With poly, it'll be harder to get an invisible fix. Regardless, I highly recommend that you DO NOT STRIP THE FINISH. You're asking for more work and trouble down the line - my personal opinion only.

Love that finger board. When I first saw it, I thought that you took two pieces of different woods to make that up. Love it. I'll have to make something like that someday.

yes yes we all know my carves are never the same as any real guitar. i get that every other comment. but what does a neck angle have to do with the carved top? and a few others finish before routing. like drak, with the magma attack guitar. The carve and neck angle? I ask because the carve is flat or looks that way. On a Les Paul, the carve actually has a bit of an angle in it... my LP Custom does. The carve angle towards the neck usually matches the neck angle while the rest, towards the bridge tends to go back to a zero angle. Not to say that you can't install your neck with an angle on that body. Depending on whether you go with a set neck with full witdh tenon or not, the design will change somewhat. There's also the bolt on choice. You guitar looks like a cross between a full blown LP and an LP Junior. I'm curious to see how this will come out. Keep us posted. Andfor the finish, I never realized that Drak finishes his guitars before routing anything at all on his guitars. Does Drak do bolt ons or set necks?