guitar2005

I'll use steel wool sparingly, often, as a 1st pass after general levelling and crowning. After that, its grits up to 1000 and then, polishing on a dremel buffing wheel.

When I use it, always cover the pickups with tape.

Its not quite in the middle of the neck. Its only 4" below the nut.

When you use thicker neck blanks, the lower down teh neck the scarf will be.

Yes, I see and understand that. I'm just curious as to why there's that white piece of wood there.

What it also does is to hide any imperfections when aligning a laminated neck (not to say that KEA need that). It's not going to hide if you are way off, but if there are a tiny bit of slippage during glueing it will show up very nicely (NOT nicely...) when doing laminated necks. A thin contrasting piece hides that and also is very decorative on its own.

Yeah, that's what I figured. Getting those pieces perfectly lined up is time consuming and once the glue is on, it can become stressfull.

Another point (or two).

Make sure you have a smooth surface to apply the paint on. On one of those pictures, I can see some defects under the paint. Fix that, then paint.

The other thing is that as you go higher in grit as you're sanding/levelling the finish, apply gentle pressure and let the paper do the work.

Its not quite in the middle of the neck. Its only 4" below the nut.

When you use thicker neck blanks, the lower down teh neck the scarf will be.

Yes, I see and understand that. I'm just curious as to why there's that white piece of wood there.

Wow. Your builds have come a long way.

I have to ask... why the scarf in the middle of the neck?

Exactly. Neck angle has nothing to do with the action.

If you need to angle the neck to accomodate a certain geometry or build style & bridige, the action is still setup the same way.

Personally, I like strings closer to the body. I build to maximize that proximity, within reason, of course.

First I'd just imagine there is no body at all - just the neck and the bridge. Action is defined by the position of the saddles relative to the projected surface of the frets. Regardless of the type of bridge. So I can't see any fundamental relation between neck angle and action - if there is one then I'm missing something and I'd be happy to learn what

I do worry about lubricity of the nut, just not the tone so much. For trem guitars, black tusqXL is my go-to. I've never tried graphite. Then again, I rarely do trem equipped guitars, which is why I don't have to worry much about the lubricity.

Perhaps, but if you're going to stock up on nuts, might as well get the Tusq XL or Black Tusq XL. There's really no point in getting the regular Tusq.

I like the tusq nuts that are out there, but bone is nice too. I don't worry about the tone of the nut much, as it has its largest effect only with open strings.

The nut will also affect tuning stability, so its more than just about the open string tone.

I like Tusq, more specifically, Tusq XL and Black Tusq. They're consistent, slippery, easy to shape and last a long time. Its the only nut material I use.

Sold. Please Delete

I have a grizzly 14" with riser and I love it.

I've used "Soft" maple (Silver Leaf) and also Birch. Both will make very good necks.

I think I need to clarify. A straight neck is the best place to start. Trying to add relief to a neck by sanding is a bad idea.

Adding relief with the trussrod on a straight neck with the trussrod is the perfect way to do it.

In most cases if a neck is not straight to begin with it can never be straight.

Exactly... and to go even further, when under string tension, you never know exactly how it will behave

Another thing that comes to mind is how would the pickups be replaced or swapped out? There doesn't seem to be a way to remove them once installed.

The intonation must be dreadful and I just noticed the placement of the pickup selector switch and volume control. There's no way you can have the selector in the neck position and not hit it while playing.

The concept is interesting but it needs more work IMO.

If a neck I built needs more than a 1/16 of a turn of the trussrod to straighten it is a _fail_. I will cut it up and put it in a trash barrel (or give it to a family member).

However I also do not do repairs anymore nor do I try to reproduce vintage instruments where this technique was employed.

Trying to predict how a neck will act and compensate for it by doing something silly like adding relief to the fretboard no longer sound like a good idea to me. I am not smart enough to calculate how much a neck will move or flex under tension. In my opinion it was not a better technique but a bad idea propagated through the ages by tradition.

Take all of this advice with a grain of salt as it is my opinion, a process and idea that I have arrived at after 20+ years of building guitars.

Regarding the truss rod turns - it depends on the TR.

In terms of relief, depending on the guitarists style, more or less relief may be needed. Personally, I have guitars that are setup almost flat and others that have quite a bit of relief. Why? Different guitars for different styles, sounds, music pick attack.

I always get the fretboard as flat as possible and use the best straightedge to check it as I'm radiusing and flattening it.

I then incorporate a bit of fallout at the end of the neck, typically around the 17th fret to the end. The amount of fallout is slight, less than half a mm.

I find that helps in getting wide bends sound clean higher up on the fretboard.

In terms of backbow being induced when fretting, that should not happen. Make sure your slots are the proper dimension and clean them before fretting.

Why is nearly every bridge angled? Im just not sure why you would go to all this effort, yet use plywood?

Not only are the bridge angled, the white guitar has a trem bridge with no trem cavity, installed as a hardtail. Very odd.

IMO, there are much easier and efficient ways to produce a hollow/thin/light guitar. Just look at the Fender Thinline or any other semi-hollow solid body.

I like the concept though, but it seems like more work than needed.

We are a quite tight comunity and we are a bit protective regarding spam and selfpromoting as there are a few full time builders here, a couple of "semi pros" like myself and several (very competent) amateurs on this forum. Your competence will be apretiated if you are willing to share ideas, production methods and other things freely.

If you ask me, anyone that posts their work on a public forum is doing some self promoting.

GFS,not GHS...

Fixed the typo in my post.

GFS Strings are pure ****. I tried a set just to see and I had to take 'em right off. Don't waste your money on them.

If you need strings, the major brands are a good bet but I've had great luck with webstrings when I gigged regularly 3-4 years ago.

I'd get 12 packs at a time. They're just as good as brand named strings IMO.

I find the rub-down interesting. Are they simple to apply? Any tips/tricks to get them right?

I've potted those pickups and they sound great once fixed up. As for the cap, try it potted and see what you think.

I need to have a white or silver decal made for a dark headstock.

Does anyone here know where I could find someone that could do such a thing? I had a guy that made some for me a couple of years ago but he's no longer reachable.

I agree with curtisa. Try another pickup as a test. I've been using Dimarzios for 30 years and never had issues with them being microphonic.

I don't recommend a Dimarzio PAF in the Strat. I think that the PAF Pro is a better pickup for a Strat.

The coil split is a definite plus in the Strat and for the middle/neck pickups, I'd get a medium/high output pair of single coils.