mistermikev

tru dat

well for such a small circle you'd likely need to use a dowel rather than a screw and you'd just have the dowel long enough to poke out of the material into the base of your router. could always use half inch plexi for the base of the router but typical base is 1/4" should work fine. (I typically have used this to do anything from an 4"R to 32"R circle). adjustable on the fly - no... but adjustable in the sense that you can drill multiple holes multiple distances from the outter edge of your bit and get any radius you want. essentially the sm principle of this: just done in diy fashion. using a full size plunge router or carefully drilling a hole and using just a reg router. EDIT: keeping in mind... is this the BEST way? i have no idea... it's a pretty easy method to get a perfect circle and easy is usually what I like to call best lol.

well you just mount the router to a board, then have a screw x distance away from the router bits edge... that is the pivot point. drill a central hole... then cut a channel by dragging in the circle... then use jig saw to rough cut out, then follow with a straight bearing bit. no idea what you mean by experience? learning? I just keep banging into things until it hurts enough that I stop lol!

absolutely not lost on me... surprised at how much of a difference you "feel" between low/wide frets and jumbo given the numbers are so minute. nut width, this readius vs that. the rolled edge can make a huge dif in comfort. that is exactly my motivation for trying to capture profiles from necks I like... so many variables! I've had a hard v at one point, and the blonde tele I made had a soft v based on the fender docs I could find online. both great feels but not exactly at the top of my list. lately all that I thought I knew about what I like has been challenged over and over - the 'les flaus' for instance is based on the thicker variation of the 59lp and per spec I should hate it... but I love it! very thick and as I've said before - feels like driving a delta 88... but for that guitar it just works. as a kid... i had an sg 90 which had a very thin(depth) neck but very wide string spacing and very flat. the axis profile on the most recent build is also very nice (asym). it's hard to imagine I would dislike anything but what is right for what guitar... well I think that is what I found in the les flaus. tension - that is one I have seldom thought about... but def a good point. yet so many things can effect the tension 'feel'. scale, headstock angle, bridge type and angles... for some reason the sg 90 always felt like low tension despite being a 25.5" scale. strats/teles seem to feel so dif. I'm currently deficient on 24.625 scale guitars so probably something like that in my near future. that scale length seems to really lend itself to feeling 'fast'... then again so many others that feel fast. explorer - that is odd... have never played one that felt fast... gonna have to go look up typical profile there. anywho, again, sorry for rambling on!

hard to tell that's not a real guitar. lovely. profiles - I appreciate the info. have been compiling a folder myself... of what I can find on the net, and a curve gauge traces from my fav guitars. there is almost no neck profile I don't necc like at this point... but certain ones seem to resonate and they are so different from each other. the wizard, an all parts vintage style tele, this prs knock off I have... looking at them on paper you wouldn't think they have anything in common! sorry for the slight derail.

ok, I'mma go out on a limb here... I get the feeling there is something there I don't understand. Have no exp w acoustics, but have made my share of holes, lol! Can't help but wonder why not use the ole 'router on a stick' trick to cut the hole?

if I may... I'm just curious of your source on the actual profile cross sections you used? honestly, for a long time, on both basses and guitars, esp has been one of my fav profiles but terribly hard to track down info online. ime it's generally a pretty thin/wide profile, sort of a shredder feel and similar a bit to the wizard... but I'd love to see actual specs to zero in on what it is that I actually am feeling. I have one set of cross sections I've found online... but they don't have any dimensions associated. totally understand if that's too much of an ask. it IS a very personal thing.

ah, gotcha... make the pocket for them bigger and just leave the area between for filler. good point. In this case the center letters poke through... but I suppose I could have cut letters out too. Is nice to have another option in the trick bag so thank you for that.

r u saying my pictorals (or my pectorals for that matter) AREN'T enjoyable by themselves??? how dare u sir! I am triggered. jk. ty.

well, I smell what yer stepping in... would just require cutting the slots a hair deeper to leave the backing on. the trick here being that we're talking about leaving the backer 'between' the letters so they will stay together and (hopefully) not get sucked up by the vaccuum or otherwise hurled into space by my router! I lost my center piece for the G, E, and R that way. I 'spose I could just use a razor to cut between the parts to separate them... and leave the backer on... but as long as it's abalone - no worry of acetone ruining it... so really pretty easy to drop it in a shotglass with some acetone in it and just wait for the bits to collect at the bottom.

well... full admission I was talking about doing it right side up... and then just removing the backer... I 'spose it would work reverse and cutting from the back... the main thing is removing this before glueing down would still allow me to see - and sometimes fitting really requires that for me.

well, that would all depend on you. I wouldn't call myself a professional either, but I know if I had to I'd just grab some files with a less aggressive edge (diamond needle files come to mind) and keep the file straight up and down to prevent ruining the finish around the area. it would take a bit of work as generally speaking there is approx a heavy 1/32 of metal. i believe they are typically brass with a coating that can easily flake off if you used an aggressive file. I do believe there are some that are steel but I don't think the gotoh is. I have no idea on the MIM bridge. just go to the seymour forum... those folks will no doubt have all the specific as they are a wealth of seymour centric info.

yes, it does when you have it in autofocus mode. I've tried that quite a bit... you can move the rectangle around to where you want it and then snap but that is how my first two series of photos were done and well... you see where that got me! I did find one interesting tid bit by reading the manual about that... apparently when you click on the zoom buttons after setting auto focus (green box) it zooms in on the green box area and allows you to further refine what is in focus... so will try that next time for sure. thanks again for the continued help/feedback/input biz - i appreciate it.

good advice, was actually thinking about this on the way to work. I was thinking to glue on some veneer backer and try to cut almost all the way through. the trick is... getting the depth cut just right. tape is so thin it'd be really hard - in fact that is basically what i did on this one - used tape to glue it down... but A) cut through the tape in places and B ) didn't use enough ca glue. you need to ensure you get all the way through the abalone, but not through whatever is at the bottom holding it together... tape is pretty thin. I have used veneer in the past, and I guess this is a lesson i'm learning twice. veneer has a bit more thickness to prevent the cut through and if you then soak it in acetone... comes right off. good advice for next time.

very much appreciate the advice - couldn't have gotten there without your input - can't thank you enough!!

oh man... should have done the dimarzio guitar first... would have saved some time... they have a lovely doc on the area T that answers many of my former questions! "Parallel Wiring - Because of the way these models are constructed, parallel (dual sound) wiring is not a useful option and is not recommended." - explains a lot of what I found with the seymour vintage stack. in mixed parallel mode they sounded really good... but stacked parallel sounded 'funky' and a bit 'weak'. really sounds like 'out of phase" but they aren't. well, that confirms it... feature not a bug. further they had this little jem: no word in there of whether the two top coils are rwrp to each other... but just checked and they are BOTH north up... so no need to flip polarity or phase. this means that when you split a set of dimarzio area T... will not hum cancel in middle position on a regular wiring... but works perfectly for my use!! as much posting this here for my future reference as for anyone else who adventures to play with dimarzio stacked coils (or seymour for that matter)

jeebus that is a good idea (cutting from the back in reverse and not all the way thru). the one downside would be it'd be hard to see to get the fit and to see if there are any issues before glueing in and sanding back... but that is a great idea all the sm. I think I'm going to see if I can use side dots and perhaps chop a few pieces off of my remnants to fill in first... see how it looks with the option to do just that as a fallback. def if I ever do this inlay or one this small again I will do exactly that... cut in reverse. good call. I like the idea of epoxy but in my mind it has it's own issues. sands back so differently from the wood around it that it would be easy to end up malforming the fretboard and using a heavier grit means more work to get to a finished surface. Perhaps all that is avoidable but I've had issues in the past. Add to that, that the thin ca has a nice property of flowing/filling in under the inlay should there be a gap. I guess with cnc I can be fairly sure there aren't gaps... but in the past, by hand, and using thick ca... had an inlay crack from pressure and that is the worst! I know ca glue can cause a little darkening in maple, but with those little applicator tips it's pretty easy to stay inside the lines and I have not seen too much issue from bleed through. esp if you use tru oil after - can't even see it or at least I couldn't on the blue twang master. I wonder if sealing the fretboard a bit with tru oil in advance would help with that...

hmm... well sounds like you'd need to get an after market bridge for it then. could always "make it work" by taking a file and expanding the hole. in addition, might want to ask your question over on the seymour duncan forum cause if it's a common problem... they will def know about it there.

spot on - I too am not really all that interested in doing the sm thing twice and was half thinking about doing a 7.25-12 radius instead of 9.5-12 for this but decided to keep that the sm to minimize the change. you are absolutely right about "less joy"... and high failure rate! the inlay here isn't actually glued down yet. I could recut a new piece... but I'm not sure at this small that I won't have similar issues... those little areas are so small... not much to hold the piece down. I could probably try to build a file to cut just G,E and R centers... might be worth a shot. the glue - well my plan was to tape off near the inlay and just hope for no bleed through. I've got the stew mac black ca glue - have not used it anywhere yet. bringing my thoughts to bleed through probably just saved me there. perhaps some strategic ebony dust and just use clear ca instead of black ca. afa face align... well these pieces are all from different pieces of abalone - there is a join there at the n in twang and the edge pieces are all from different chunks. was trying to give definition to the scroll design by varying the grain. was thinking I'd rough cut a piece and lay it flat. I do have some abalone side dots so perhaps that can save me. as usual... the feedback here will result in better work from me so thanks for that!!

not saying my work is anything to write home about... but if it ever IS... it would only be so without knowing how much time I spent on a rediculously feeble amount of accomplishment! Literally spent a good part of the day just cutting this one inlay... and still it's not right because a critical piece (see above the g there) got sucked up w the vaccuum. (thinks to himself "perhaps it didn't get sucked up and it fell off in the little plastic thingy with all the other bits... I'mma go check") Victory... (see way below) abliet a super pathetic one. def the center of the g, n, e and r were lost. I think I'll just try to cut some little shards and toss em in there and fill in with black ca glue. what do you think? well, have to keep in mind I learned some things like - this font is way too small... even using a .0177 bit. Next time you need to expand that ribbon n/s a bit more and get a bigger font in there. some

I'm really surpised that that pickup wouldn't fit in a mexican tele bridge. r u saying you have a mexican tele and this seymour pickup and you tried and it doesn't fit? is it an issue with the 'wood' more than the bridge? that I'd be much more inclined to accept but... i guess it's possible mexican tele bridge is different/smaller? I have no info on mexican but I know most aftermarket mfg try to make their bridges to match fender specs as they are supposed to be replacements. I suggest you take a dimensions doc like the one you pointed to above and print it out... see if it actually fits.

I'm sure I'll double up on many things biz will say... but I'll give you my take anyway. #1 start from a good plan if you are a begininer. I would suggest you consider "tele revision D" as a good place to start. you can find it on tdpri or on electric herald. it is a well established tele doc. you can find neck docs there too... but personally I just use fret2Dfind (avail on this site and elsewhere) to build a fretboard based on the nut E to E dist and the bridge width. afa stability there are a number of things you can do... 1 piece isn't necc best there as a multilam will be much more likely to be stable... but barring that... I would suggest you get some birdseye or at least HARD maple... NOT soft maple. good grain will make a huge dif here too. I would also advise that you don't cut your neck back profile really thin. I would also suggest using a 2 way truss rod. you do all these things, use a good fretboard, ensure that the fretboard is flat, and get a good leveling bar for your frets... and you'll have a neck you don't have to touch. tuning stability - one thing that will help there is going heel adjust. not having a big cut through the headstock/neck transition will stengthen the hell out of it... it's not required... but imo it is def a way to give yourself more of a leg up in that dept. almost any decent tuners (namebrand) will be fine... but cutting the nut slots yourself is a must. any factor slotted nut is not going to be 100% there. even graphtech - I find i freq have to hit the slots a few times to prevent binding. 90% of all tuning issues come from the nut. none of this is bible. we all have to choose what makes sense to use so hopefully there will be something there you can use. def consider more than one source for advice. lot of great members here and I'm sure a few more will chime in. here's to your adventure!!

oh shit... just realized you gave me the easy button there(quote at bottom). you've read my manual more than me - thank you for that. will try that asap.

right on thank you biz. I will dig out the manual again and try to go further on focus. admittedly I was so happy when I found the micro focus that I stopped reading right there. this cam has so many features... it's gonna take some experience to get a handle on it. my last fuji was/is a point and shoot and is easily the best I've found afa not having to change anything and getting decent pics. this one takes better pictures, but is def not point and shoot in the sm sense. just keep pluggin away at it and eventually get there. thanks again for the reply.

well that shot below looks pretty unnatural. trying to avoid that. I think if the shot above had been taken with less light it would be easier to get the blackness you see in the bottom photo with less adjustment to brightness/contrast and hopefully a more natural look but I get your point. further, the controlls... all that blurry-ness... still there in the second shot and I believe that needs to be reduced in the original shot. when I get my tripod I'll try to play with aperture size and exposure and see what shakes. thanks again for the reply.