Racer X

Your title is fairly misleading by the way.

What you need to do is put on your punk belt with metal studs, maybe a few studded bracelets, and just play the crap out of it. Bounce it off the wall, spin it on the floor, spill some stuff on it, clean it with bleach, spray it with lighter fluid then light it on fire, shoot it with a bb gun, practice darts on hit, use throwing knives, tow the body behind your car, all while not trying to damage the neck.

If you are trying to get a "vintage" or "reliced" look, you cant really do it with polyurethane finishes, so some sandpaper for the forearm contour may be in order.

Thank you. That's exactly what I was trying to tell him. Be the real deal, not a poser.

Dude, it's an Epiphone. Play the hell out of it, beat the @#$% out if it. Why would you want to SIMULATE it. Friggin just DO it. If you hate the color so much, why did you buy it? I hate simulated relicing. Such a poser move, really. SRV didn't relic his Strat. He played it, unmercilessly. That's how it got like that. Do the real deal, dude.

This post inspired me to fire up TurboCAD and knock out some of the most common radii found on guitars as cutout templates you can "feel" under your strings when setting up. Primarily I did them to help Guitar2005 sort out a custom radius for a Tune-O-Matic by recutting the saddles but if they help other people out, then cool.

[original thread here]

Format is PDF for portability, print to A3 if you have the capability or to 2xA4 sheets. I would recommend mounting the paper on plastic to keep it's form. The templates I use were scribed onto some acrylic using a sharp point and some string. High tech baby :-)

DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE HERE

In the case of recutting your Tune-O-Matic saddles to a 16" radius instead of 12", string up as normal. Insert the correct radiused feeler between the third and fourth strings. It will sit under the first and sixth strings, with the existing smaller radius leaving the other strings higher. Depending on which way you prefer to work, pull the outermost strings which need lowering to the new radius out of the saddle and cut the slot deeper. I won't go into detail on saddle dressing, as I'm not too good at it :-)

After learning how to cut saddle slots, you should now have deeper slots with a string radius of 16". Same applies to smaller radii if you really want to go for that kind of thing. You'll just be cutting the outer strings as the feeler will touch third and fourth instead of the outer strings.

Hope this simple thing helps.

Oh yes, when printing the template make sure that the background gridlines measure one per centimetre. Some printers don't believe that 100% = 1:1.

Ah - apologies!! I will have to re-render the template tomorrow. TurboCAD seems to have faceted the radii very coarsely instead of as smooth curves. The 20" radius has been approximated to 3 straight lines...

Okay, I was gonna say it looked off. Just thought that it was something with the way it looked onscreen, as opposed to printed. I had already made ones like this, at one point, but it never hurts to have a second set. Beside, I did mine the old fashioned was, on paper.

I built a 1 piece maple tele a few years back. I glued 4 sheets of 40 grit sandpaper to a perfectly flat table and sanded the board flat after initial rough planing and measuring. Lots of elbow grease required but it worked like a charm.

did something similar to the Chandler Solist body I bought on Ebay. Wanted to ensure it was perfectly flat, since it was used, so I double-back taped several full pages of sandpaper to a large pane of plate glass, attached the handle I use to hang the bodies, so I had something to control the sanding with one hand, while I applied pressure with the other hand (the plate glass was double-backed to the work table). Then, I just took my time, and triple-checked my work, as I went along. Worked much better than I had anticipated, really.

I'd go the stain route. You start filling in black, then painting in opaque black, next thing you know, it about looks SOLID black, and the grain isn't as obvious.

Ah! Didn't know what you were referring to. Sorry, didn't mean to steal your thunder. hehe

Dan Erlewine talks of just such a dilema in his Guitar Player Repair Guide. I will Paraphrase:

Get a small length of metal tubing, slightly larger than the O.D. of the broken screw, grind one end into teeth, chuck it into a drill, and it will drill AROUND the broken screw (not all the way through the headstock). Now, wiggle the wood and screw till it snaps off, and remove the broken screw/wood plug. Plug hole with appropriate dowel, enlarging made hole if necessary.

Hope this makes sense, and helps. In short, unless you can get the screw to back out, by grabbing it, there appears to be no easy fix.

Well, any idea WHo all was at the party? Go from there. Speak to people. Did you call the police?

...and keep a close eye on Ebay.

Just did an alder Soloist body a couple months ago. Zero grain filler. Great tone, too. Man, I love alder!

Save yourself the headache, and get stainless rivets, instead of aluminum, if you can. They hold up MUCH better. Just ask my Fender case! hehe.

Yngwie Malmsteen has been reported to have used the insert method, as his necks are removed frequently, so it CAN be done.

The dowel method is the commonly used method of repairing stripped neck screw holes. For as many times as people have done it (Dan Erlewine, included), it has proven to be a successful mean of repair.

I would avoid the asian auctions, completely. Rampant crappy copies, amok.

My advice:...........................RUN! From all that I have read about the man, I wouldn't ever conduct business with the man. His reputation really precedes him, and it's not a good one.

If you are using alder, you shouldn't have to grainfill, as it is a tighter grain, then, say ash. I just had my alder Solist body done, over the past few months, and no grain filling had to be done.

Get shims for the saddles. They are out there. Having the same issue, currently.

Exactly. Sorry. I assumed you already knew the details of the job.

I've done it, and it works great. Did it on my Chandler Soloist project guitar, and it saved me some frustration. You'd be surprised at how much the wood can swell back out.

Yeah, I have his book, where he talks about how to do that. Very similar situation, here. If HE can cut one, as he states in his book, then it should not be a prob.

I've cut through 3/4" stainless, before, on those. Is a thinner, case-hardened steel block gonna be a tougher job than that? Curious.

Why don't you just cut the longer block, shorter? It can be done, fairly easy, if you have a bandsaw. Cut the difference off the end that the springs go into, so you don't screw with the block's thread holes. You will just more than likely have to re-drill the spring mounting holes. Not a big feat, if you are handy with tools, really.

If you need to move it up, you can also even cut the end of the neck heel off.

Carefully, of course, without disturbing the fretboard, but I did that once.

Just trying to make you aware that you don't always have to move the bridge, that the neck also can be moved/altered to suit the intonation.

Removing wood from the heel would make it even more neccesary to move the bridge. At the moment the full string length overshoots the bridge by about an inch(its roughly 64 cm give or take intonation). That is what I meant earlier. I would have to add wood to the neck to get the right distance if I were to only alter the neck.

Correct. The Bich is a 24-3/4" scale, and the Ibanez would be a 25-1/2" scale. You would have to adjust to the neck, of course (cause the frets are spaced for 25-1/2" scale), which would mean you'd have to move the neck AWAY, and not TOWARDS the bridge, thus making it even MORE difficult to do. You are right, just pick up another 24-3/4" BC neck, and you are good to go.

Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh?

Picha, picha picha! Me want picha!

How's that camo, coming, Dino. Dying to see pics of the completed guitar!