pan_kara

I'd love to hear your opinion on these Opus4 pickups once you're done - I've used some Teslas in the past and they're not bad at all.

Pro, so how much did that cost? Last I looked it was something like 10 GBP per logo, maybe I checked something wrong.. I didnt ask them how much it would be if I send them the image file (I have my own lettering...)

I used quotes intentionally as I said - looking forward!

there is the "vintage copper" finish that schaller offers on their parts, not sure what they do exaclty.. (but I do love the look)

Nice! I'm doing my first maple-bound fingerboard now too Looking forward to the "tone-vodoo" studies

In the time it takes me between slotting a fretboard and putting frets in some people build two guitars.. but here's anyway my trickle update. Drilled and routed pickup cavities for the V I always make the same mistake when routing headstocks and I go too fast (or in the wrong direction). Result: Thankfully I ripped off a big piece that was easy to find - and to glue back on. After the fix:

How about next time someone does a neck modification like this they record the before & after dry guitar signal? Sustain is a measurable quantity..

Thanks, Scott. That was my plan in fact, at least until I come up with something different. Two guitars with it are already in the wild: a cheap RG refinish with a veneer and a fretboard swap that I did for a friend: and one I build for another friend as a first (in parallel with the nylon string)

I plan to do it numerically, to have something different. I just have to do the routes to mount the hannes (ordered a 13mm bit for the rear ferrules today) and select a neck for the tests.

Good points Paulie and I totally agree. There may be some reduction of sympathetic vibration at best. I don't think it's possible to eliminate it even if each end were isolated completely. The sound waves from one vibrating string will cause some degree of vibration in others. Is that not essentially what feedback is, soundwaves and vibration feeding off of each other? I'm not even sure eliminating sympathetic vibrations is a desireable thing, at least in terms of guitars. If you don't want the tones to influence each other, play a digital device instead of a guitar if you ask me. The concept may sell some bridges though. But not to me. I bought one because it looks good and looked like it would feel good. It does. And the guitars sounds great so it's not hurting anything......course I'll never know if it would have sounded better with a different bridge. Anyway there's some voodoo surrounding this thing, or Schaller wants there to be, so I thought I'd throw some bait in the water and see what hit it. You were first. SR I'm gonna be second. I have a test body, a hannes bridge and a cheapo bridge (or two). I'll be making a thread soon.

Moving on. The neck for Etna: routed the headstock to template: new zealand paua dots installed Now I have to prepare the fretboard and slots on both guitars and I can put the frets in. The V in fact is almost ready, the board is already oiled and polished, I just need to chamfer the fret slots. On Etna I'll be starting with the radius.

it is the same as poplar burl, apparently: http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/mappa.htm cool that you'll be coloring it. Can't wait to see how it goes!

ah, poplar burl. I love that stuff. I've seen a couple of Mayones guitars in the past where they colored the tops and they were looking insane. I tried staining a test piece but didnt like it so I tried shooting tinted nitro and I did end up with a nice blue guitar that everybody loved. I still have a piece of veneer waiting for me to build another one. Just saying in case you'd want to try something different than all-natural

I was meaning to suggest faux binding on this one... out of my own interest since I'm planning on doing a guitar like that but tests on scrap have not been successful so far. I think the maple top staining tutorial on this site is not compatible with faux binding in fact - the stain is supposed to be brushed on, the way I was doing this in the past was basically wetting the whole top with stain, which gave me a nice and even coating, but the stain penetrates so deep that 1. it soaks through at the edges 2. its nearly impossible to sand back to unstained wood to get nice contrast

Well this was my fingerboard glue-up number 5 or 6 so I have very little experience.. I'm trying to find a method that works for me. On another neck I was doing now I had the heel already routed to size so I used pipe clamps on both sides and that kept the neck from slipping sideways at the heel.. I clamped a wood block to the headstock to limit forward movement. And this was enough to get the fingerboard where I wanted. I think in the future I'll be trying to always have ~2 cm of wood left over past the heel so I can do the above trick. About CERN - the time to visit is before now and early 2015. After that the LHC starts up again and there's no more going underground. Anyway - progress has been slow lately, for Etna I'm a bit stuck on the body since I want to test an idea I have on scrap and this involves the whole front of the guitar, for the neck I'm ordering inlay dots for fingerboard work is on hold. The flying V is slowly advancing, I did the 12th fret inlay - this is my current design: first take the template and drill the 4, 5 and 7mm holes superglue, insert dots (white mother of pearl in this case), wait, sand flat

yea, as much as I don't like explorers I'd be totally up for building / playing / owning one like that.

you haven't seen the discussions that people have with others (or themselves) in comment sections in the code that we write Thanks. I'm somehow not convinced by the usual way of drilling through the fret slots. Though I might need to do that sometime but on these builds I was lucky enough that I had room to use this method of mine. Drop me a line any time you're near Geneva. I'm an official guide, I can show you around. No need to try to hit any special open days or anything

Love'em! Incredibly clean lines and beautiful tops. I already voiced my opinion on the binding earlier

it works fine. the only reason i use shellac is to seal the rosewood. trust me, i've had tru-oil curing problems with rosewood before. never had one when i seal with shellac. tru-oil is not like danish oil. it builds nicely if you put it on thin. but next time i may skip the timbermate grain fill and put on a heavy coat of tru-oil, then sand with it to make a slurry to fill the pores. just worried about sanding through again. I will also start sanding with 1000 grit as Ripthorn suggested. thanks. good to know. I might be needing this information soon. As for the sand-through problems. I'm by no means an expert but I'd expect finishes where the subsequent coats dissolve into previous coats (nitro, shellac) to be "repairable" in the cases of sanding through by shooting more finish into the affected spot. I think I was able to do this myself with nitro once. But. This works if you have ONLY one layer/type of finish. If you have shellac over stain then sanding through the shellac you also mess up the stain underneath and that is in practice impossible to repair locally. So you basically have to strip everything and restart...

This is not an answer to any of the questions, but a stupid question of my own: does it make sense to put tru-oil over shellac? I though oil is supposed to soak into the wood ... or is tru-oil unlike e.g. danish oil in that respect?

it does keep me (relatively) sane, actually

This is cool. I've been just starting out and trying various tools myself like that last year. My first neck attempt was all done with a spokeshave. You can then follow with sandpaper on something flat (and long) to make sure the lines are straight along the neck. Good luck!

Hey Pro, thanks! I guess my notes to myself will change when I make some really stupid mistake in a build .. for now they're relatively neutral. CERN? There's been some noise with this years Nobel prize in physics that went to Higgs and Englert for the particle that they predicted in the sixties and we finally found last year.. but otherwise we're in shutdown mode, preparing the experiments to restart with 2x higher energy in 1.5 years. I don't think we'll be able to say much about gravity, unless we're really lucky and we see extra dimensions, black holes or any of that crazy stuff. The CMB guys last I heard had the same problem as us - the more they measure the better the results fit the most standard theory.

Some progress on the flying V - fingerboard attachment. I used a similar idea as in the other neck - I had some fingerboard material past 24th fret and over the neck pickup cavity. So I used that for 2 6mm alignment holes: Then during the clamp-up I just had to watch that the nut side doesn't slip off center Following glue-up I routed the sides of the neck using the fingerboard as a guide, I'm now making headstock templates for both guitars. I'm also trying to come up with a template set for the schaller lo-pro tremolo. I'll do a test run on some spare timber when that's ready.

same here