Gemm012

Ebony has an even brighter tone than maple. That may be worth checking out for your fingerboatd. Galen.

I was thinking about a possible alternate way of doing the neck angle for a guitar with a bolt on neck and tune o matic bridge set-up. Would it work if I routed the neck pocket flat, and put the angle on the end of the neck instead? I hope you know what I mean. While I have a thread open, I may as well ask if anyone knows of any quality 7 string tune o matic bridge systems. Thanks. Galen.

Yeah, stupid me. I meant neck attachment ferrules. Sorry. I used the ones in the link. If you want me to try and get some pics I can. Galen.

I checked the three Ibanez necks in my house and I'm pretty sure that the '91 RG550 used the same piece of wood and the '89 RG570 used the same piece of wood. But the '90/'91 (I'm not sure which) Universe I'm very unsure. It could be the same piece, but it looks pretty different and I think it's a different piece. I really like the idea of the piece of ebony or walnut between the two neck pieces. If I ever grow a pair and build a neck I think I'm gonna do that. Galen.

First off, I've searched... and searched, so please don't tell me to search no more! Anyway, I've been looking for black and clear polyurethane in spray cans but am having very little success. I'm refinishing an 89 RG that has some of the original poly finish on it. Some places, like where I cut the grip, and upgraded to an aanj, there is no base of polyurethane. But, I've been looking to see if I could find any high gloss black and clear polyurethane in spray cans because I'd prefer to use poly as here in Wisconsin it's started to get cold, and it's my understanding that polyurethane is more tolerant of colder weather than nitrocellulose laquer. Also I'm not digging the wait time on the nitro before I can finish it up and put it together. I have found some clear in cans, but I don't know for sure if it would be compatible with any blacks I may find. If anyone knows that they exist or where I could find them, that would help tons. And if there's anyone in the Milwaukee area that knows a store that carries it, that would help out a ton. Thanks alot. Galen.

I don't know for sure, but if you have the ferrules, you could try drilling holes of various sizes and depths in some scrap and see what fits best. If you don't have the ferrules, you could use the stew-mac string ferrules. I just drilled the holes for these on an old Ibanez that didn't have the aanj that I converted to an aanj. They're a little less than 5/8 inch wide and you drill 3/16 inch into the wood. I found that 5/8 inch was a little wide but figure cause I'm gonna glue 'em in there it'll work fine. Good luck. Galen. EDIT. Link. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Hardware,_part...g_Ferrules.html

I actually like it pretty much. It looks different, but still has comfortable looking lines and flows pretty well I think. If you guys had read the specs included with the picture, you may have read "ESP reversed headstock (looking for shapes.)" Emphasis on "looking for shapes." That's intended to look like just a paddle headstock that's on diy necks. The only gripes I would have with it are the toggle switch seems a bit high, towards the end of the body, and the "V" pattern of the string ferrules behind the Bridge. And what type of neck to body joint were you thinking of using on that? It seems like there's not much room for enough bolts. Anyway, besides those things, I think it looks good and it would be buildable if you wanted to do it. Galen.

Oops. Looks like my post was just a minute late. I don't think there is any danger of you carving it down too far. In order for it to make a spot likely to break you'd have to make it thinner than the rest of the neck I think. There may be something about that specific portion of the neck that makes it weaker that I don't know about though. Good luck. Galen.

I think the thickness really depends on where the body wood is going to meet the neck. If you really wanted to you could keep the same original thickness of the rest of the neck, with the natural slope obviously, and not make it merge into the body untill past the 24th fret, but then it may be hard to fit a neck pickup in there as close to the neck as you may want. Unless you did like Rickenbacker basses and made the body's treble horn come off the neck at around a 90 degree angle, if you know what I mean. If not check out a picture of a Rickenbacker 4003 bass, or even the current guitar of the month. But, keep in mind neither of those have 24 frets like the Carvin neck thrus, and, to me at least, a treble horn that starts on the neck at a very steep angle and rounds over is much more aesthetically pleasing. Sorry for my less than stellar descriptions, but it's tough with that part. I hope my ideas help you out. And this IS all just my opinion so some it may not apply and may just be plain wrong. Galen.

Man, that's just despicable. Galen.

So if I filled the old holes with black epoxy, put the new offset dots in, sanded it flat, and stained it and put tung oil over it, it would work pretty well, right? How about my question about a maple board with black dot inlays that I want to make into a blank black finger board. Would just staining it black then putting a coat of tung oil over it work? Thanks for putting up with all of my newbie questions. Galen.

But I can use epoxy?

Oh yeah, also, do I need to put a finish on it to keep it from wearing off and staining my fingers? I really don't want to put a finish on this neck. I already tung oiled the back. I like the tung oil. Also, on a different guitar I've got, that has a maple fingerboard, I'd like to tung oil that. It already has no finish on the board or the back. If I just put the tung oil on over the frets, would it have any negative effects? Thanks Galen

Thanks. I actually kinda knew that sprinkling it on wouldn't work but I thought I had heard of that somewhere, and questioned it's validity because of that very reason. I know I'd have to sand the new inlay dots smooth to the board, but if I did that then stained the board, would it stain the dots (most likely shell dots)? What dyes should I use to stain the board? Thanks for all the help. Galen

Thanks, I had a vague idea of how that worked. I just wasn't sure if you put the glue in then sprinkled some sawdust over it. Will that method be visible if I were to choose not to put in any new inlays and have a blank fingerboard? Would the super glue mixture accept ebonizing dyes? Thanks. Galen

That's really awesome of you, unfortunately I don't have any extra rosewood. Thanks alot for your offer though. If I find any I'll contact you. Again thanks alot for the offer, that's really cool. Galen.

I had a very similar problem with my Jazz Bass (The screw even tore out right at the beginning of one of my band practices. ) So what I ended up doing was packing the hole full of two part epoxy and waiting for it to dry. Once it had dried, I redrilled the hole and put the screw back in. It's held well since. It still loosens up occasionally, but that's just the schaller design. This may not be the right way to go about it, but like I said, it worked and the epoxy is probably going to be stronger than pine. Good luck with that. Galen.

Hey, I have a fairly dark rosewood fretboard that desperately needs to be refretted. I'm customizing the rest of the guitar and thought I'd change the boring old dots. I may try and get a precut vine inlay from one of the suppliers in the supply section. I also thought that I may do offset dot inlays. Anyway, I wanted to know if there was someway that I could fill up the old dot inlays and make them hard to see. I was thinking about dyeing the board black anyway, so that may help hide it. If there are any rosewood dot inlays I can get, that would be cool. Anyway, if anyone can help me out, that would be really nice. I noticed on one of Jeremy's guitars (the blue sparkle RG to Jem convert with the blue vine) he made the dots practically invisible. Thanks for all the help to come. Galen.

I knew I had seen one somewhere . Thanks for the help, and for sortof defended my plan. I had planned on doing a real strong laminate with padouk, satine, walnut, and maybe wenge or bubinga. Those are just some woods I was thinking of. Galen.

Thanks for the humor, I needed some after having my plan subjectively torn to bits. I had been planning on having the highest string be a high A or maybe G if I tuned it down some so that there wouldn't be so much tension on the high string and it wouldn't break. I definately know what you mean about the high frets being way too close together, the distance between fret 35 and 36 would be .19". I'm more and more thinking of making it with fewer frets. Thanks for the advise. Galen.

http://www.gilmerwood.com/images/03-20-03iw-dm1.jpg I had sort of planned to do something similar to this bass, and have the body wood extend far up on the bass side of the neck (sort of like an extremely exagerated les paul) to help support the neck and have the treble side be cut so that I could get my hand up on the extra frets. I had come to terms with the fact that this thing would be horribly ugly. The idea was sortof to have one very extended range instrument then have my 6 strings. This is still of course a very early concept and I haven't done a whole lot of planning on it. I would almost like to have fewer frets so I could put a neck pickup in, but having all those frets on just one guitar is pretty appealing, even if unpractical and ugly. As for the picture that jnewman posted, seeing as once you got that far up, another 5 frets would be a fairly short distance, only go up to about a little past the neck pickup, it's not that far to stretch it for another octave. I think I've pretty well defended myself. That's not to say that this is going to work, but I don't think it's that unreasonable. I'm pretty sure I've seen 36 fret guitars before, but of course, once I needed it I couldn't find a picture. I'll search some more for the two truss rod thing. Thanks anyway though. More posts poking more holes in my crumby plan are welcome. Thanks Galen.

Hey, I'm new here, been looking at tutorials for awhile. I wanted to try and build an 8 string guitar with a high A instead of a low F# or whatever note it is. I'd like to make it a neck through, and with 36 frets. My question is, do I need to use two truss rods or will one do the job. I was thinking about maybe a 26" or 25.5" scale. Also, are there any high output pickups I could use for this guitar? I think I'll only be able to fit a single bridge pickup in there. I was thinking about EMGs, but like I said, I wanted something with a high out put so I don't know if EMG's bass pickup that I've seen on some guitars would really work that well. Thanks for any help. Galen.