fairyforest

Hi Aeleus. I love the idea of blind cuts. In combination with the hemi-semi fretting in the tutorial section it should be an awesome fretwork! Since I have no CNC machine I thought of making a fretslot template based on my libreCAD drawings and than cut the frets with my Dremel tool using a fine router bit. My question is now what kind of router bit are you using and from where can I get it? Another alternative I have in mind is cutting normal slots and afterwards bind the fretboard with the same wood type it's made of. I saw that in a Youtube Video at CrimsonGuitars and he said it helps to avoid shrinking when you work with Ebony. The result would be quite similar, but your solution is more elegant. Enjoy.

Impressing... ... need more time to go through all that and I'll post further ideas and I also want to give it a try.

Any idea how I could get a bit of upbow without putting my neck in the oven? I don't really like the idea... About the falloff, could I make it just on the buzzing strings (E and A)? Would be the best solution to find perfection in imperfection;-) Indeed a funny game... To prevent the fretboard from scratching I taped it completely with white conductive tape, that way a could also see by the color change how much I worked on each fret. I was also thinking of some kind of fret shield, but the only tape was working quite well. I'll try it next time, got the feeling that on some point I'll refret completely... The good thing about my cheap and old guitar is that I'm not afraid on working on it, and for now it just got better. I see you know much more about polishing than me, I'll stick to what I learned from the jeweler. What are tapers by the way? Thanks for all those patience words.

Hi Prostheta. Interesting words you wrote there. I was actually thinking of a construction which would result in a total stiffness and than shape the fretboard/frets into the needed position. If there is no further movement, for what do you need to adjust it? I wanted to get even furhter and take the adjustable rod completely out of the neck. But sounds like a bit of fine tuning is the better solution. I was always wondering why the trust rods ending half way to the bridge, now thinking about it, it's quite logically: you just want a slight upbow on the upper frets (in Windsurfing masts you call it "flex top" in contrast to "constant curve"). Till which fret should it reach in the perfect case? Taking into account that the maximum oscillation is at the 12th fret, I guess it should be around there... ...but we also have a slight downward angle since the bridge is higher than the nut, right? I think t'is really fundamental because from the 12th fret on the whole system could be than as stiff as possible to get max sustain. Actually there could be even a reinforcement between the first (maybe second?) fret going up to the headstock since this is kind of the weakest point because of the reduced thickness, is this correct? I hope I'm not getting too theoretically, really love to abstract things. For me it is really important to get a deeper insight of the essential functionality. When I look at a bolt on neck I see always such an imperfect construction. The neck should be an extension of the body, not a fiscally separated part from my point of view. I'll go on fine tuning in my head, for now my AutoCad skills are not reaching so far. Got at least my own fretboard designed..bit by bit, there is no hurry at all. I don't know how to express that correctly in a decent english: The path/way is the goal¿? Passion and pacience, Michael

How to design your own custom guitar from scratch, WillsEasyGuitar:

Hey SwedishLuthier. I'm hooked up with modifying my guitar for about 20 years already. And every time I start again, I tend to push my limits a bit further. After trying out with more patience my leveled frets, I figured out that the 5th and 6th string (E,a) are buzzing a bit up to the 8th fret aprox. I had to rise them quite a lot to get a clear sound. I checked my frets, but they seem perfectly straight. I guess my problem is that if have no upper bone curve at all because of the thrust rod problems described before. My neck is completely straight now. I saw a video from WillsEasyGuitar and he put such a neck into the oven! It might also be that I sanded a slight "v" shape along the neck, because of the exaggerated high 8th fret I had, which caused my leveler to rock back an forth, but I don't think so. I installed AutoCad 2016 with a free 3 years student license and started to design completely from scratch. I even created an Excel sheet to make my own fret scale calculations (based on Wills Youtube clases...). Anyone has an idea where the number 17,817 comes from? He uses it to divide the scale length to get the fret position. I also found a really cool website which calculates you the whole neck to print int out directly: http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/ Yesterday I stepped on some guys in the design section talking about carbon fibers, the idea excited me a lot and I started to integrate it into my plans. Got some decent contacts for fiber works. Thanks again to all of you guys for sharing your knowledge, I hope I can also add some useful hints. Enjoy, Michael

Hey guys. I'm quite new in the world of guitar constructions, but I spend long time modifying my guitar on my own. What I try to say is I can't really tell you anything directly about the rods you're talking about. BUT I spend many years with windsurfing, surfing and diving. In these sports both titanium and carbon fiber are absolutely essential for high quality products. Titanium is light and extremely strong, stiff and expensive. Titanium blades stay way longer sharp than steel blades for example. Carbon fiber is the magic invention after the glass fiber. Extremely light and stiff. Very good flexibility. High end windsurfing masts are made out of 100% carbon fiber. They allow the sail to twist, but it flexes really fast into its needed position. I started to imagine my first guitar project from scratch and thought exactly about what you guys talking about: Stiffness and reinforcement. When you look at a classic surfboard, there is running a wooden bar through the whole center line called stringer. In more complex windsurfing boards these stringers are modified to dense foam coated with carbon fiber and/or keflar fiber. Also the mast tracks have special fiber reinforcements. My idea was now to split up the whole neck or even the whole guitar to run a hardwood/laminated wood stringer through it with a layer of carbon fiber on each side. It would guarantee and enormous strength and stiffness which would lead to a higher sustain and less twisting problems. Now entering into detail about your questions: You have a long cavity running along the whole neck, why not trying to coat it from the inside with a layer of carbon fiber? If you would apply it properly with as less resin as possible and no air beneath you would get an supporting tube running invisibly along the whole neck and protecting also your sensitive first frets. I just read the first post again, you already planned to glue the neck out of several parts, you could even make a combination of one of the mentioned thrust rods, a stringer and an inner carbon coating. If the stringer also runs all along the headstock it should be nearly unbreakable and extremely stiff and twist resistant. I hope you guys understood my ideas, like I said in the beginning I don't have your guys specific knowledge but I love creating and combining and transferring techniques. Sorry for entering in more details again: I just checked your mentioned thrust rods, I would prefer the carbon version. If I understand it correctly they are mainly intentioned to run beside a main rod, because you cant adjust them at all. In the instructions it says that the titanium version needs no resin, which is correct,that would not make any sense at all because it won't stick to the metal surface. But if you sand the carbon rod and than apply the resin it gets one single piece with the surrounding wood! It still offers a slight flexibility, is lighter and really, really stiff and strong... I guess I'll stop now, I guess you got it. I'm looking forward to discuss about this topic, I would really like to see guitars with up to date technologies and materials. I don't really understand that the guitar industry sticks so much to designs and methods invented 50/60? years ago. In it's moment it was really cool, but hey guys, we're in the 21 century. That doesn't mean at all that I don't like oldschool constructions, but I would like to see more evolution and mixtures of both worlds. Enjoy, Michael

First of all thanks a lot to SwedishLutier and Guitar2005. Both were completely right. My notched straight edge was not as straight as I thought, and when I finished with all my work, the string tension lifted the whole neck slightly up and now I got it exactly where it should be. I'll resume a bit what I did: We are surrounded of a world full of right angles and straight lines, but when you need a perfectly straight line it's getting a bit complicated. To straight out my diy notched straight edge y used my diy fret leveler always changing positions to avoid possible imperfections of the spirit level. After having read the advices above I had enough courage to start sanding. I already marked all high spots with a black marker and all lower spots with a blue marker. This turned out to be really helpful and I repeated it several times. This way I was able to see all the time the evolution of my work. To compare the higher and lower frets I broke a cutter knife into several pieces according to the desired fret distances. Than I sanded with 500 grid paper along the frets, I preferred finer grain to advance slower (the whole process took me 8 hours...). Especially my 8th fret was extremely high so I sanded it separated a tiny bit down before continuing the sanding of all frets. When I finally got all of them leveled, I taped it all up with electricity tape and started to file with a triangle jewelry/key maker file. The big file in the video above was far to clumsy for me, and for the final rounding I switched to a straight file. Than I sanded directly with 1000 grid sandpaper to get the scratches out. I was afraid of sanding too much, that's why I chose such a fine grain. Finally I took my Dremel Tool with the polishing tip and polished all the frets using white polishing paste for jewelry. I have no idea how you guys are used to polish metals, in several videos I saw people polishing by hand with car polish. Jewelry polish allows you to smooth curves, scratches and edges with few effort and you get an amazing shiny surface quite fast. Now my strings are half as high as before, I need to get used again to play my own guitar! I wanted to paste a final picture but somehow I still don't get it done. When I click on the small picture icon I get asked for an URL direction. Pasting directly is also not working. Is there no easy way to upload directly into my post? I also saw the my media button. All my friends always told me to never sand the strings! I made it and it feels really cool. A friend of mine told me I should buy a decent second hand guitar instead of "wasting" so much time (and money) in my low quality old guitar. But I told him the important thing for me is not to have a perfect guitar (would be great anyways) but to learn more and to get a deeper comprehension of how things work and how to do it. I'm really happy that I found this web, I'll post soon again, I'll go now for a proper design with AutoCad, looking forward to read the next chapters of the tutorials. Enjoy sanding...

Hi everybody. I just signed up here to get some good advices, looks like I ended up at the right place. I have a Strat copy which is now more than 20 years old I guess, when I was a boy I swapped the guitar for a Skateboard. Since then I tuned her bit by bit. Now I am trying to level out the frets, and watched some videos on YouTube. My favorite one was this: I made a copy of an notched straightedge out of an aluminum bar and converted my spirit level into a fret leveler. I'm conscious that these are no perfect precision tools but for now I wont spend 100€ just on tools, It's more about learning for future projects. I took the neck off, got the nut out and marked all high spots, BUT I released the thrust rod completely and the neck is not getting completely straight. I has still a slight back curve, the straightedge marks like 2mm backward bending at the 21 fret. I waited for one day, releasing bit by bit the trust rod tension, but I fear after (maybe more) than 20 years the wood wont get straight again. What do you guys think is best to do now? I really like screwing around on my guitar, but I already miss playing her... I tried to add a picture but I dont really get how to add it to my post... ...bit by bit...