Rista

Thanks for all replies. I just searched for pictures of Kwila, Merbau and other woods mentioned, and they do look very similar to this wood although none of them has as many little channels. I don't want to take chances and use some "unknown" wood for my fingerboard so I took mattia's advice and went to order some EIR blanks from madinter.com. I couldn't believe how cheap they were but... the minimum order is 20€ and they ask 60€ for shipping costs. With taxes, it's going to cost me more than 100€ for six fingerboard blanks which is a bit too much for me since I'm on a budget and I don't really need six fingerboards

I'm having real problems finding rosewood or ebony for my fingerboards here where I live. So, the other day my friend gave me a 4 meters long piece of some darkish and heavy wood that's supposedly been sitting in his attic (I think that's the word) for years but we don't know what kind of wood is it. I like the looks of it but I'm not sure whether it would make a good fingerboard. Anyway, I've made a few blanks out of it. Here are some pictures: http://img15.imgspot.com/u/05/346/20/DSC008901134523410.JPG http://img15.imgspot.com/u/05/346/20/DSC008911134523532.JPG http://img15.imgspot.com/u/05/346/20/DSC008931134523645.JPG The wood is very heavy and seems very strong. It's a tiny bit darker and less reddish in person. Perhaps it's just my monitor. Also, that "white stuff" isn't as pronounced. I've tried searching for pictures of exotic woods and couldn't find anything that looks even close. Does anyone by any chance know what wood could this be and would it be a good choice for fingerboards? Thanks.

Hey Tr4f1ka, are you by any chance from Croatia? I think I've seen the same question asked on some Croatian forum just a couple of days ago. Or it's just me imaging things again Anyway, if you don't find anything, you can easily make your own plans using Corel Draw or some similar program. PM me if you need any help about that. That's how I made the plans for the two guitars I'm building and they turned out to be excellent (the plans, not the guitar, I haven't finished them yet hehe).

Speaking of Graph Tech trem nuts... just got a preslotted one. But it's a little wider than it said on the website (44mm vs 43mm). String spread is 36mm which means the distance of outer strings to fingerboard edge is 4mm on each side. For comparison, my Jackson Kelly's nut is 43mm wide with string spread of 37mm which leaves 3mm on each side. Now, should I sand off 0.5mm on each side of the nut to make it 43mm wide (and have 3.5mm from string to edge of fingerboard) or leave it as it is and make the neck 44mm wide at the nut? Sorry if this sounds confused, my English isn't very good.

1 5/8" would be around 42mm, right? Does anyone know if ESP explorers are the same thickness or thicker than that? I'm making an explorer and I made the body 45mm thick because I thought that's how thick explorers were. Now, it does seem to weight a bit more than I would like. Probably because I made it too thick and mahogany isn't the lightest wood out there. I don't know whether should I plane it down to 42mm or leave it as it is I haven't routed any cavities or the neck pocket yet so it wouldn't be a problem if I had to make it thinner. Anyone else with an explorer to take measurements? It would be of a great help

Thanks, that helped a lot. Cheers.

You mean 24.625, not 24.635 right? I didn't buy a preslotted fingerboard. I want to do it myself so I was wondering what scale to use. So, if I were to use the real 24.75" scale, I'd have to "compensate" it by moving the brigde a bit further than 24.75" from the nut, right?

Thanks. But like I said, I already did some search and couldn't find a definite answer. Some say the actual Gibson scale is 24 9/16, some 24 9/19" (?) and some say it's 24 5/8". I didn't know there were that many "24.75" scales so I just wanted someone to confirm it.

First of all, hi everyone. I'm new here Now, I'm building my first guitar. It's going to be an Explorer with Ken Lawrence style headstock. I wanted to use a "standard" Gibson 24.75" scale but I've read somewhere that the actual scale is 24.625", not 24.75". Can anyone verify this for me? I've done some search but couldn't find a definite answer. Am I correct in saying that a so called compensated 24.75" scale means that the true scale length is 24.625" but the bridge is placed as if it were a 24.75" scale? Thanks in advance.