fookgub

Hmm thats weird. Maybe they went out of business and no one bothered to take down the website?

But why cash the check, then?

Candy red over metallic black... metal!

Why not just ask Stewmac directly? If anyone would know, it would be them (hopefully).

This was posted a while back by, I believe, Erikbojerik (please don't kill me if it was someone else... I saved the text, but not the author). Maybe it will help.

Here's what I do now.

Radius, slot and fret the board (off the neck when you're building from scratch); you might have to deepen the slots if you take too much off when you radius. After the frets are in, bevel the edges, ten tape off the board so only the frets are sticking up (NO wood showing). Now use a Q-tip and coat the frets with a thin layer of auto wax. Remove the tape, then spray away. Level & finish sand to ~600-1000 grit, then score the edges & ends of the frets with a razor blade, being careful to avoid scratching the finish. Tape off the wood again, tweek the rod to straightness and level the frets. The clear coat will flake right off the waxed frets as you level. Crown frets, then buff & polish the whole works.

I just did this exact thing. I roughed in the angle on my belt sander, glued on the faceplate, and finished it with a file. Piece of cake.

Refinished!

Colors are a little wacky, as usual. I just can't seem to get realistic looking colors with this camera. But you get the idea. The last picture looks the closest on my monitor.

Front

Back

Back

Side

I love it! Diggin' the Fender offset vibe.

Yeah, I love the shape. I'm building another one in an SSH configuration.

Finished spraying lacquer.

Headstock 1

Headstock 2

When I started building, I used Stew-Mac's Hot Rods. Now I'm using Allied's two-way truss rods. I prefer them because they're a bit shallower.

Same thing for me. The Allied rods are great.

Actually, I stripped it. Had some problems with cracking in the original conversion varnish finish, so I took it down to raw wood and refinished it in lacquer.

Wes, how is your Exploder holding up? I'm thinking of finishing the neck in CV, but I'm a little wary after what happened to this guitar.

uh oh!

aftermath

neck work:

fretboard removal

fretboard removal

fretboard removal

fretboard removal

fretboard removal

headstock overlay

headstock overlay

headstock overlay

sidedots

ohh... +1 on the super thin. Do it. DO IT!

Not to derail, but I wouldn't mind seeing that sword handle, either. I've been wanting to get into knife making for a while, but I only have time for so many hobbies.

Guys, come on. Those are nice looking stools, and he's selling them at a fair price. With one post about them in the classified forum, we can hardly accuse him of spamming. Let's give him a chance.

Flat fretboards aren't very common on electric guitars and basses, but there are a few guys floating around that have them. Seems more common on basses. Most of the guys that have them seem to like them. It's purely a matter of personal opinion. I've never had the chance to try it, but I would like to.

As to the OP's question. I don't think a flat board will do exactly what you're looking for. It's normal for the low strings to need to be set higher. This is a function of the string displacement, and not the fretboard radius. One thing you might try is going to heavier strings. Heavy strings don't move as far when they vibrate, so you can often set the action lower.

I read about a guy that uses a Wagner Safe-T-Planer to cut a trapezoid-like shape into his fretboards, just for bulk removal. He follows up with a radius block. I suppose a surform could be used in much the same way, but it would be more difficult to control.

Why not just stick the switch where the tone knob is on your ESP? I can't see how you would accidentally hit that. Also, if you like the EMG sound, then stick with those. Wiring them up is not significantly harder than wiring a passive setup.

I think it's a cool idea if it's what you want. I really like the idea of very simple controls, but my desire for versatility always has me adding extra switches and knobs.

Almost any switch will work for what you're trying to do. You just need to make sure you get a size/style you like. I would lean towards a mini toggle (4th one down in the link you provided). SPST is what you need, but really any number of poles will work. Just make sure it's not the "center off" variety. If you shop around a little you can find switches where the "bat" part is flattened instead of rounded. I like those better. You can also buy them in black, which will look better on most colors.

Wiring this is dead simple. The pickup ground and hot leads go straight to the jack. If you buy an SPST, then there will be two lugs on the switch. Connect one of the lugs on the switch to the "hot" lug on the jack, and the other one to the "ground" lug. Since you're using actives, you don't need to ground the switch or the bridge. The only other thing you need to do is hook up the battery. Refer to the schematics on EMG's site for info on how to do that (it's really easy).

pair them up...put them next to each other where a humbucker would go..

what won't work? I know there has to be something.

Ry

It'll work just fine. I've done it before. It won't sound like a vintage PAF. It's hard to predict exatly what it would sound like given that there are so many different single coils out there, but it may sound good. The only way to find out is to try. Rio Grande's Tallboy humbuckers are actually two singles stuck next to each other.

but any way you might try radio shack

Humm. Radio shack is not my first choice for hookup wire. I even have a few rolls. Sure I can spend 2X's as much and buy from SM but thats no bargain.

I can find wire at Jameco or Mouser or even Allied who sells Belden wire for $28 per 100' rather than $40 at SM White Hookup wire . But I did have a thought that someone who buys wire more than once a decade has a better supplier, better selection and better price?

$5.75 for 100' of 22 gauge stranded at All Electronics. I know it seems unrealistically cheap, but that's the price on their website. They have shielded 2 and 3 conductor cable, too.

Nice. I really like that little arc of scalloping on the high strings. Tuning is F# to E, I assume? What are the scale lengths? Is the headstock scarfed or cut from one piece? Either way, I like it. Too many builders are lazy and use a square scarf on their fanned guitars when it should be angled.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...cuit_Wires.html

$40 for 100' roll of stranded 22 gauge wire!?!?!?!? I almost choked when I saw that.

Go to All Electronics (google it). They usually have good deals on wire. I've ordered from them a bunch of times. Lots of cool stuff there.

Abralon sells orbital sanding discs in 180-4000 grit. They can be used wet or dry. I haven't used them personally, but I don't see why they wouldn't work for the flat surfaces. The orbital is actually pretty controllable. I use it with 220 or 320 sometimes for flat sanding after grain filling. Erikbojerik has said he uses Abralon, and the finish on his last project was about 10 feet deep. Don't know if he uses a power sander, though.

Another way to save some sanding is to get your finish to level out really good while you're spraying. When I used conversion varnish, the finish leveled so well that I could sand a guitar completely flat by hand with 1000 grit paper in about 45 minutes.

I've been working on this for the past couple days, and I've gotten things mostly sorted out. I mixed up a batch of color in shellac using my original recipe. Much to my surprise, it was virtually identical to the colors I've been getting in lacquer. The only difference is the lacquer builds better, so I use half as much dye in the lacquer mixtures. I also mixed up a batch of the same color using fresh dyes that I just bought from LMI. Again, the color is exactly the same as I was getting with the "old" dyes. This was a surprise, and I was assuming the the color shift I've been getting was due to partial evaporation of my old dyes.

So, I've taken a few variables out of the equation. The old dyes I've been using appear to be the same color as the "fresh" ones I just ordered (this is for brown and black only, as I've been using "fresh" red and yellow all along). The colors appear to be the same in shellac and lacquer. I'm spraying the colors on offcuts from the same piece of wood as my original color samples from a year ago, and I have an original color sample to compare to. The only explanation left that I can think of is that LMI's dyes must be inconsistent from batch to batch.

Anyway, I would be very frustrated by this, but I'm starting to like the yellow I've been coming up with. I sprayed a burst on one of my test pieces last night and it looks really nice, so I think I'm just going to use it and go on.

You could also split that piece down the middle and add a piece of wood along the centerline to make up the width.

Separate leads are actually pretty common on Fender style pickups. Nothing to worry about there. Imagine how much noise is picked up of by 6" of lead verses the 1000+ feet of wire in the pickup itself.