pan_kara

Nobody mentioned The Real Frank Zappa book yet? Must read.

I'm interested in all this, including the string gauges thay you all find that work ok. I have a 25.4 scale 7-string and while being an awesome guitar it doesn't quite handle the drop-A I tried a few times. So my next build will be a 27 scale 6 string wenge-padouk baritone aimed at using this tuning. I'm not quite confident enough to attempt multiscale at this point.

I'm not an expert but since I seem to be the guilty one here let me answer What we call "piezo" is basically systems that exploit the piezoelectric effect, where voltage is generated through mechanical stress (pressure) in a piezo crystal. so basically you put this material under the saddle and as the string causes the saddle to vibrate, this gets picked up and translated into alternating current. So this is independent of the sting material, and on the other hand it will pick up things like knocking on the saddles etc. Its best used with a preamp, the graphtech system has one, they call it the "acousti-phonic", but that's not the only option, I have a Mayones 7-string that has graphtech saddles, but they are using some preamp they designed themselves. The graphtech one lets you mix between the piezo and magnetic pickups (which of course wasnt needed in my case) The reason the graphtech system has 6 cables is that it doubles as a hexaphonic midi system if you add some additional hardware, so you have separate signal from each string. But thats not necessary in general, typically electroacoustic guitars have a single piezo "pickup" under the saddle with just a pair of wires running to the preamp, and that is probably the case for the one you link. Back in the 80's my brother had a really cheap acoustic guitar and he bough for next-to-nothing a small "piezo kit" which was a coin-sized thing that you attached with some sort or wax-resembling substance to the soundboard of the guitar, plugged a jack and played. No preamp. The tone was different depending on where on the soundboard you attached the thing. hope this helps!

Here is my first step into the world of guitar building, thanks for checking it out! Done with a dremel, a hand drill (in a drill stand) + a robosander and some hand tools. (ok, a drill press was used to do the volume knob in the end) "Nylon One" a nylon string solidbody specs: mahogany body with imbuia burl top (and maple veneer accent line) matching volume knob wenge-flame maple-bubinga 5pc neck ebony fretboard graphtech ghost piezo pickups (and acousti-phonic preamp) jin-ho tuners graphtech classical nut (41,5mm string spacing) 648mm scale, flat fingerboard radius jescar EVO gold fretwire finish: rusting plastic coat (brushed) and danish oil pictures: Build thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/topic/46785-first-build-a-nylon-string-superstrat/ Sound demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB_CvgFF8N0 thanks again!

Thanks a lot guys! I wasn't really sure what to expect from the Ghost system here, this whole guitar was basically an experiment, but indeed the sound is very usable. I just needed to cut the lows a bit, it was too boomy, plus I'd probably boost the top a little still. But other than that it really sounds pretty good just recorded direct. Maybe this guitar will motivate me to learn some classical or flamenco pieces... too bad I'm now spending most of my free time building instead of playing

And so I'm closing this chapter with a little sound demo video I recorded today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB_CvgFF8N0 enjoy!

I am proud of it, last year when I was starting this I had no idea if I'll be able to make a working guitar. I finished this one and two others that I worked on in parallel and I'm happy with the way they came out. Now - I'm getting ready to start preparing the templates for the next ones. My pile of top and fingerboard woods "for the future" is growing and I have a list of 10 or so guitars and basses that I want to try building. So yes - I think I'm addicted.

Thanks everybody! having purcashed an actual drill press I finally nearly managed to get a process down for making knobs with the hole for the tuner shaft reasonably centered. So I redid the volume knob (and made a couple more while I was at it) Some more photos with the new volume knob. (I oiled it this time to match the top finish, the previous one was dipped in nitro) The final thing I need to do is a sound demo video. This is coming soon. Then I'm starting another batch of builds

- 240 wet sanding... - what do you mean with backing? I might have gotten the word wrong - I meant what you're using as the sanding "block" (backing I guess is cloth/paper etc, )

Thanks psikoT. The cross-brushing, graing filling etc I think I more or less got myself, the secret here was the 240 girt I think. I started a lot higher. I think I was trying to sand with P320 between coats when brushing on nitro and then wetsanded with P600 or P800 onwards. Then the usual polish, wax etc - I ended up with mirror shine but the mirror was not "uniform", the reflection was distorted by the general "wavyness" of the surface I created. I'll try 240 next time I'm at the finishing stage (probably some time from now). Just to clarify: - you did 240 wet or dry? - what did you use for backing? Thanks again for sharing! And do enter in GOTM!

Whoa this looks killer! How did you manage to get such an even surface with the brushed-on nitro? Just sanding with a hard block? What grits did you go through? Care to share the process?

Looks like its out of phase - maybe try connecting it the other way around. Middle pickup out of phase does reduce the overall volume quite a bit in the neck+middle and bridge+middle configurations. One funny thing (and you can see if this happens in your case) is that in neck+middle notes played around the 17th-19th fret have the fundamental frequency mostly canceled out so they sound like played an octave higher than in reality. A pretty cool effect.

I have another newbie woodworker question: every once in a while when I place an order in one of the "instrument wood" shops I throw in a random top or fingerboard. As this wood will spend some time before being used some time in the future, I started to wonder - should I glue the tops (potentially also body blanks) or leave the two halves separate and store them like that? Is there any good reason for either or is it just a matter of preference? Any input would be appreciated Edit: as a thread with no pictures is boring, here's a piece of imbuia that I scored recently. Beautiful, and completely different than the one I used for my nylon string.

I haven't bought from them due to this 200 EUR thing, I'm just starting up with guitar building as a hobby. I think some people over here must have ordered something though. I agree that the prices are good!

I just saw this having a random click through luthier shops: http://www.tonewood.es/product.php?id_product=857 (too bad this is the guys with 200 EUR minimum order)

I'm in France at the moment. For some reason I thought I can only get it from the US and never came across the stuff in the online UK shops I was looking at but just after I read your reply I checked again and indeed - it even comes up on amazon and at least one of the merchants doesn't have the annoying "only UK shipping" limitation that hit me a couple of times already. Looks like I'll be ordering some of that stuff then.. Thanks!

I was using this: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for_Routing/Precision_Router_Base.html?actn=100101&xst=3&xsr=850 the base keeps the router perpendicular to the body surface - unless you fall off when there is not enough body to support it. Hence my suggestion

Nice work! The buckeye burl turned out beautifully! I like the V too - very nice with just dyed wood instead of painting it black. So are they all finished in just tru-oil? The end result is top-notch and looks like exactly the type of finish I'd like to achieve myself. Just less resistant to abuse than nitro or poly I'd imagine, but on the other hand easier to "refresh", no? Does anybody know any equivalent of this stuff that's available in Europe??

Wow, nice woods indeed. Can't wait to see the next steps! Those shooting boards are what grit? I'll be doing a bit of that soon, trying to decide between a hand plane and sandpaper.

Thanks guys! @The Fool Guy Build one man, when you're done with that cool strat of yours ! Its major fun, almost no routing except the neck pocket (at least the way I did it) and its tremendous fun to play. The softness and classical spacing combined with a thin electric-like neck and body make it quite unique. I will post a sound clip sometime when I fix the string issue..

Ok, she's nearly ready. I only need to redo the volume knob since this is just one I was testing on that I put here as a placeholder. And I need to get new strings since the A sting snapped for some weird reason. Thankfully I managed to take a few shots before that happened:

Welcome! I've been doing a similar thing quite recently (as one of my test builds - I only just started building), so I can answer from my limited experience. I didnt have any tearout problems with veneer - the pickup cavities I just cut out with a scalpel after the veneer was glued on and then finished off the edges with a dremel sanding drum. And maybe by hand with sandpaper after that, I don't remember for sure. But it wasn't problematic. How do you plan to do the body binding? I was also using a dremel with a small routing bit, in the Stewmac routing attachment. The lesson I learned was to always have something with the same height as the body on the outer side, otherwise its hard to keep the whole thing from falling off at the ends of the body horns. I glued it with superglue, but I might try the acetone method next time, I was getting some small gaps (partially due to my sloppy routing)

Lol I feel an urge to build a 666mm scale guitar now...

One thing you might consider - I'm planning to do a baritone build next and I was meaning to use my 25.5' template and just add another fret behind the nut, so to speak. Then I did the math and realized that I'm basically getting 27' that way. Not sure if this is what you'd want, I'll just use my old template and position the nut slot by hand.

Thanks guys. I'm really thrilled to have dreamed up this project and now see it finally take shape, pretty close to the original concept. I'm loving this guitar building thing Anyway, she's almost there. I mounted the volume pot, the graphtech preamp etc: Waiting for the neck and the strings: