WezV

yeah i think you may be right - the verithin was only 1 1/4" thick!

you may be right - in that case check if there is a shim to remove if it is flat on the body then raising the bridge slightly is a good move, no more than 3mm or so at the rear edge though

the best way is to put a shim in the neck pocket here is a fender example this means you need to raise your bridge saddles and will have less thread above. you can also purchase the grub screws in different lengths or file the bottom shorter

i am interested in the kerfing bit from a structural viewpoint obviously the sides are thicker than a normal acoustic which actually gives you a similar glueing area to a normal acoustic side with kerfing but then hofner didnt bother with kerfing on its 60's verithin's (their answer to a 335, but fully hollow) - and they have a habit of imploding and opening up at that join quite often

oddly, i was reading a guitar mag earlier today and it had a short obituary for travis bean, the originator of aluminium necked guitars - looks like he died in july

it is a problem - the holes should not be oversized, but you should be able to push those screws through the body by hand

the lack of need for a truss rod is the reason travis bean and kramer started doing this in the first place

what i know is that if we got a tonal difference by doing that everybody would say "but its not glued on like a normal fretboard, your results are worthless" then somebody would post something about the mcgurk effect and tell me my brain is playing tricks on me - i see a rosewood board and expect a different attack to an ebony board so hear a different attack, all that gubbins to write off the obvious but what it does mean is that if you want to study something like the tonal difference of fretboards, it wont be accepted if you do it with a nonstandard mounting method and neck material - even if that may be a good way to compare just the fretboard difference without changing anything else

that may be negated by the unusual mounting method suggested

i was going to post that too - only real reason i can think of is for one normal, one fretless and maybe one microtonal fretboard been considering fretless guitar after this little demo of the vigier surfretter in iguitar mag http://licklibrary.ceros.com/iguitarmag/issue4/page/18/

yeah, epoxy should work if you rough up both surfaces i have a bit of love for the old travis bean guitars, not so much the kramers though - they have wood inserts either side of the neck to prevent it feeling cold but i never liked that idea due to the inevitable wood movement. iirc they had an ebanol fretboard

so erm, whats the story with the aluminium neck?

matching the grain aesthetically is only one small reason to do it - matching the grain structurally is more important the general problem with dowels for this sort of thing is that it can leave you screwing into end grain - which strips out much easier. but if this is smaller inserts rather than the screw in kind a dowel may be acceptable. this is a relatively low pressure area on tune-o-matic guitars. I would definitely plug on a wraparound which is under a lot more pressure plugs do have less strength along their length than dowels - but generally that strength inst what is needed although the problem i would have over here is finding dowel in the correct wood and sizes but i am in the habit of making plugs as they are usual for so many things in guitar repair where a dowel is thoroughly unsuitable. things like plugging tuner holes or any screw holes... and i have plugged and redrilled enough stud holes to know it will work for this, structurally and aesthetically if needed(will leave any tonal discussions to others, i have had to do it for different reasons) and its a good use of scraps and offcuts

that is what i would do - although i use a plug cutter drill bit rather than a lathe to make the inserts it doesnt have to be permanent either - if the plugs are cut for a friction fit they wont need glueing

or good for practising stretchy jazz chords, or even using as a lapsteel with that scale length

In which case, you should get plenty of volume mostly you will notice a little more top end

claptonised!

using the same bridges is going to leave you with swiss cheese underneath them i would be looking out for an adjustable 6 string bass bridge, or constructing something like that - preferably with strings mounting at the back of the bridge to save adding more holes through the body or have a look at the abm version of the single string bridges which allow you to string either through the body or from the back of the bridge

although now i remember there was one big downside to this process - larry told me lacquer wont stick to it. i had already lacquered some with rustins plastic coating - which did bond to it just fine, but normal lacquers may be a problem

Well,not exactly..I mean,I don't know if they have it in strips,but I know you can get custom sized pieces...and the acrylic impregnation is all the way through,so if you bought,say,a 20" by 1" by 3" piece impregnated with clear acrylic,you could cut binding out of it for the next several years.... There are other possibilities,like buying a custom piece slightly oversized for a neck and getting binding from it then making a neck with the rest,etc... Believe me,I want to try some of it myself. i have used the stuff from larry for binding before - i saved offcuts from a birdseye maple fretboard it was used on this and i had no issues keeping it clean

yeah, this interview is a bit more recent and has more details of the actual things gibson are accused of in amongst the other BS

yeah, henry has been doing the rounds whilst i do feel for gibson on this the real issue isnt about american politics - its about wood sustainability and i think henry should be trying to show willing on that front. they were a member of the rainforest alliance till this kicked off a few years ago, i wonder if he was pushed out! what ever happened to the series of alternative wood guitars gibson used to make - well players didn't really take to them did they! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_logging_in_Madagascar it is pretty easy to get 'illegal' wood with the proper paperwork from some of these countries and that is something we should all be aware of. by demanding certain traditional woods we as guitarists are supporting illegal trade of these products. i am as guilty as the rest of you on this ... it does seem to me that all gibson would need to do to get around the strange things they are accused of is set up a small shop in the country with a cnc mill to get fretboards closer to finished dimensions and possibly slotted before shipping them to nashville. seems like a relatively small investment to me

the angles on the lower half look a little off - but that could be other design features making it look different :? i dont like that monkey grip or alternating inlays - but other than that it looks pretty good

looking great! good use of the plec - i have a few of those around here, although i dont get the box candy with my BKP's very often

lets get this straight, because now it sounds different again which may be me misreading things - its why i like pictures do you have 2xvolume, 2xtone, 2 x light switch? if so i would do it exactly like a les paul.... pickup to volumes, volumes to switch, switch to output... tone control as a spur off from the volume but for the switch wiring look at the pic i posted - you only need to use the bottom half like the pic i have shown but you may find extra wires or resistors on there - some of them have them, some dont. get rid of them you can see that the two outside solder lugs on the bottom row of the switch come from the volume pots, the two inner lugs are soldered together and sent to the output.