mistermikev

well as it were... this rod is magnetic... but the rod I got from allied luthier (known to be stainless) is not. therefore I think I can conclude the lmii rods are not stainless. good to know. I appreciate your insight.

well that's a good idea... i guess alum would be noticeably lighter... did not know stainless was not magnetic. I will def try that - thank you for the suggestion.

have been wanting to try some lmii truss rods just to see how they fair... thought I'd share what I found for my own future reference and in case anyone else is interested. slightly less expensive than allied luthier... free shipping making them moreso, and delivered w/i about 3 days for me. have to say... the welds on these look pretty good. the feel of the threads is very smooth. seems like an awfully small threaded block but I s'pose that accounts for more potential movement. These appear to be stainless steel but could not confirm via their website. all made in the usa. comparing to a few others... 5.2 oz for a 23.75" rod. 5.4oz for an allied luthier 18.375" w spoke wheel, 5.6oz for an allied luthier 19.75" rod w/o spoke wheel, 5.2oz for a bitter root 15.25" dual way truss rod, 5.3oz for an 18.`25 bitter root rod with a spoke wheel. 2.1oz for allied luthier 18" one way rod.

is a good point... that if anything it's going to be more a pita. that said... every locking nut guitar I've ever owned suffered this to some degree. my jem, my hamer, a kramer I owned a few years back... i always tighten the fine tuners 30% then lock the nut then drop the fine tuners back out to go back to pitch. This suggests to me it's kind of inherent in the floyd style lock nut. my hamer has an original floyd, my jem has low edge pro, my kramer had a more modern floyd (mid 90s).

right on. so you diy bbq sauce? noice. you just made me want to visit famous daves stat!

right on, it's more that if I'm going to buy some... and I know I'm doing a guitar where at least one pu cavity is seen... I'm going to go w/o silver. that said if i do buy a big can of silver based... I also have a spray can of carbon based I'll use at final i guess... or yeah, just spray some black in there. afa aluminium foil... then you have to solder all sheets together... just not worth the hassle imo but I have done alum tape on the back of pickguards where I know it will have several contact points to ensure conductivity to all strips. the advantage w plastic in theory would be to get a tube where I could squeeze out any air as I use the stuff. I think I would still store in a ziplock... but if you've got air inside the bottle... gonna have the evap problem. I'm gonna have to see what amazon has avail afa a refillable container that one could squeeze to remove air. super shield is water sol so should be fine w just about anything. edit - now that I think about it... might be best to get a small mustard bottle or something.

oh shoot moving the truss rod out of that area... that'll do it right there. knowing that I'd do the bolts w/o worrying too much. zero fret... interesting thing I heard the other day about zero frets... that they wear out that fret pretty freq. that totally turned me off on the idea. what a pita to replace compared to a reg nut. looked at the kahler locking nuts... they have the sm v shaped string slots so... no worries afa string movement. might have to snag one of those pro nuts with the flip mechanism. those are really nice. yes, i'd agree that there really is no point in a zero fret w a locking nut. the only real advantage to zero nut is it makes setting height part of the leveling process, and you can change string gauges... the floyd nuts are just sort of a V shape so pretty sure you could use just about anything in there w/o issue. I certainly wouldn't do that (zero fret)... but this just in: gtr players have all sorts of crazy ideas about that sort of thing lol.

with a kahler... you have to have a locking nut... no locking tuners going to do it. you could get the alternative screw down locking nut... just has wood screws instead of bolts. all that said... if you do things to strengthen the neck I think you'll be fine. make a vallute, do some precision drilling to ensure you don't bury the nuts too deep in the back... maybe consider a multilam neck. w a zero fret... i don't think you'd need a nut if you have the locking nut. haven't looked at the kahler version but the floyd keeps the strings in exact position so no need for a nut before it.

have had/have many a floyd... but never a kahler. I have one in a drawer but I think I'm req by law to build a pointy guitar for it lol. with it being a cam... my guess is it feels a lot like the trem king. very fluid action. def benefits from a lock nut. doing a lock nut- there is not much room for forgiveness. you can always shim it... but ideally want to nail that. Another complication is that if you do the bolt thru lock nut... it will significantly weaken the headstock transition... which makes doing a thin neck rather risky... esp if you've got a big truss rod going through right there. both my jem and my hamer ss are like that... surprise the jem has stress cracks and the hamer was broken. yes, maple is a nightmare for inlay work... but I'm sure you won't have any trouble. now michael j fox... maybe not (lol too soon?)

had you considered preval? those are these little kits you can buy at hardware store where you can mix your own spray. comes w an aerosol can. I mention because clearly the pictured guitar is using a tinted clear. it's kind of opaque so the grain is muted. The only way I know of to achieve that is w spray. that said... if you don't care about grain being creamy/opaque like that... and just want the color... you could simply mix up some water based gray dye w a small amount of blue. no reason you can't get that color... then clear over it... it's just not going to have that one aspect.

well oddly, in the case of that bass... in all the places where it was walnut the oil soaked in fine... but on that mappa burl top... it really sat near the surface and as i mentioned left it sort of waxy. I imagine I could have gone clear over the walnut w/o much trouble but that mappa... doubtful. I did whipe it after... but apparently not enough.

when I saw you post this on facebook I looked at that joint area and thought... "I think I know what the problem is"! less real estate than an sg. The prs is kind of like that too... it's an absolute marvel that more of them don't have issues tho... as it's a pretty vetted design. this should be quite the departure from prev builds for you - seemingly a shredder... and with a kahler... noice. look fwd to seeing it come to life.

well surprise - I'm wrong. I did some danish on my first bass and it was such a waxy feel... wouldn't have guessed that it would be anything but trouble with clear over it. I stand corrected.

no expert but anytime you hear "oil" followed by "lacquer/clear" - had at least better make sure you do some tests. i know tru oil is pretty forgiving in this regard but it's not really oil.

that is a great suggestion to the tune of "why didn't I think of that". it is def the air trapped in the can that did it in... perhaps I should get some plastic containers that I can squeeze the air out of and close. afa diy... I've read quite a bit about diy and commercial shielding and seen a number of shootouts. you get what you pay for. from everything I've read the versions with actual metal in them are by far the best. stew mac is very good... but mg chem super shield consistently gets higher ratings. I don't use metal based all the time because they are silver in look... so sometimes go with mg chem total ground if it's going to be visible... but I'm convinced the silver look is something you have to suffer if you want better shielding. honestly copper is best but all my ctrl cavities tend to have irregular nooks and crannys that make that impractical so my compromise is shielding paint and copper on the cavity cover. ymmv.

well my powers of observation are somewhat lacking sometimes!

well for the record... this isn't really about trying to make or save money... on some level, perhaps subconscious... I'm trying to dissuade myself from being so "into" it by knowing what it's actually costing me! do I think I could give it up completely if I wanted to? no, probably not. At the least it will make me more learned, and that is never a bad thing. thank you for the thoughts sir!!

even before the pandemic... the cheapest I could find switchcraft was philli luthier... $22. binding... well for a lp build getting thicker binding is key... and the best I could find (w/o looking around too much) was $11+ each. you figure you'll need at least one for the body, one for the neck, and probably half of one for the headstock plus some slop. shielding paint... the only way I can save money there is buying a big can of it. I did that years ago when I was building partscasters and even keeping the can in a plastic bag it dried up by the time I got done with 4 guitars. at $50... that's about $13 ea. I now buy little bottles from mg chem and they are about $30 plus shipping... and with 3 coats you get about 1.5 guitars out of them. that's a 1 oz bottle. thank you for the thoughts... def some places I could shave a few bucks here or there.

shit I'm sorry, I somehow missed your post. yes, that's the switchcraft premium. I'm well aware of some decent less expensive options. that said... I love the feel of switchcraft and oak grigsby. both have a stiffness you just don't get anywhere else. Both def things that would be easy to save money on if your main purpose was profit or just keeping costs down. I think one of the mistakes many builders make is comparing their build to mass produced. It'd be like comparing a painting done by banksy to a lithograph. As I said to AD... you don't get a guitar built by one luthier from fender/gibson until you go custom shop... and those start at $3400 and probably average $5000. These are not customized models... these are production models made by the custom shop... and you aren't going to find anything but switchcraft, honduran mahog, 5A tops, etc on those builds. I certainly am building for the love of it. cnc actually takes way more time unless you are producing in large numbers. I probably have spent 60+ hours just on cad/cam, and another 120hours building each of the recent teles I did. Of course I wouldn't go through that if it wasn't satisfying to me... and it is most def that. I love this hobby so much it has consumed me... and I have about 50 guitars I want to build... but I've recently come to the realization that I don't think I'll be able to afford all the things I want to build without at some point, to some degree or another, considering selling some of my completed builds or doing some builds for others. If you figure an avg of 800 each minimal parts/materials cost... don't even think about my investment in tools... that's around 7 grand. Nothing wrong with building cheap... it just doesn't suit my tastes. thank you again for taking the time!!

hehe, cooking dinner. one of my thoughts getting into cnc... was that it would keep my fingers away from power tools... and ultimately be safer given that it is easier to take very small bites of wood. I'm not sure how valid that is. that said... idk about cooking dinner. It could throw a workpiece at you pretty easily, or start a fire... so I'm pretty much watching it full time. I think ultimately, w/o even factoring in the design time... I would bet it actually takes significantly longer to do a one off on cnc vs by hand. I don't have a bit changer and so the time I spend changing bits after each operation, plus the time I spend aligning things... plus factoring in that you almost have to do a prototype operation for every actual operation... if you are really lucky at best you build two guitars... but more than likely you toss 35% of your first operations. I would bet the break even point is building 3 or 4... cause by #3 you know your code works as intended and can just run it. slotting and inlay especially. those operations take forever on cnc. that is part of my motivation here... I'm curious how much more time it actually takes. I def feel like my building has slowed down drastically since I started cnc... but it's hard to tell how much of that is just learning curve. afa chisel... um... a while back I damn near cut my index finger off with a util knife so... there is still plenty of that in my life! 150hours... so you figure a grand in parts... and 150 hours of build time... if you paid yourself a meager $20/hr that's a $4000 guitar. If you look at what it costs to get a guitar made by 1 luthier from fender tho... that'd be entry level custom shop... which starts at $3400... and even then a lot of the prep work is done by the factory so... pretty much on target. thanks for you feedback - very much appreciate it!!

that's a good guess. I've read over on tdpri that the typical flat top tele is generally 50 hours and that's a really simple build. I've read at mylespaul that the typical standard is 85hrs. I wonder how much of an under estimate that is for me!

no, I actually am fairly aware I guess... our own lef guitars uses them. Probably the majority here use them as every build I see seems to have one. Its just that I think the allied rods, and the lmii for that matter, are worth the small difference (in the context of the build). I have four left from the 5 I bought when I did the dano style... probably use them at some point to. oh, if I factored the cad/cam into the equation... esp given the learning curve for me... they'd be... I generally wouldn't walk away from the machine unless I was very confident in what I was doing... ie it was simple... I have a camera on it and freq have that on my phone while I'm in my office goofing around... but you are right - those hours factor into the real 'expense' of a guitar for me. I'm just really curious how long it takes me... as for the most part I'm doing one-offs... and this is def NOT the way to do them to make money... nor really is my design... but I'd still like to know the awful truth of how long I actually spend on them.

very thankful to have your input as always. good call - set of strings... I'm guessing there are 30 other things I'm forgetting and would love to hear more if you or anyone else sees a hole - will add that one asap. well... I'm not sure my raw material costs are reflective of what it would cost me today... but at a certain point you have to just put down your costs and let the chips fall where they may. the allied truss... I think it's a very reasonable point... cost/benefit. That said... when you are talking about a 900 investment and 95+ hours of your life... I'm not sure truss rod is the place I want to save $30. the allied truss is braised instead of welded... the metal is really high quality stainless, there is 1" of block at either end, the threads just feel like precision, and the spoke nut is much smaller than the Chinese variations of this rod. afa I know the cheapest dual action I can find is bitter root for approx $13 so not 8x but perhaps you weren't trying to be literal. I guess if one was seriously considering mass production that would be a good place to cut some costs tho so - good point. tallying labor - well if I trade/sell a build I'd like to know at what point it would be "worth it" for me and for me... that would include my time. That said I'm more curious than anything else. I'd also like to know how fast/slow I am compared to others (would love to know if anyone has an idea of how long various builds took them). I guess with cnc in the mix it's going to muddy the waters... but also I'd like to know what percentage of my hours is just running the machine vs working the parts/assembly. I suspect actually tracking my hours would be a real eye opener. the tracking app is a good idea. I think I might try to setup a camera and turn it on every time I work, but the track app would be a good fallback plan. thank you again for the input!!

Right on, I guess like anything else it all depends on how you do it . Now that I think about it when I was doing that with a jig I was using a bowl bit the whole time and that probably makes a big difference too not having sharp edges

not sure I agree that you can't get a smooth surface w a router. if your jig is smooth the surface is only going to have superficial tool marks that will easily be sanded away at 220 grit. When I did the radius for my strats - by hand with a jig... the sanding prior to gluing on a top was absolutely minimal 5 mins max. sure you are going to have to do some sanding either way... but the amount of sanding you'd do doing the radius-sanding-block vs the amount of FINISH sanding you'd do after a router/jig is night and day different amounts of work. i think above, you say after the belt sander you can do it in an hour... so figure 20 mins of belt sander + 1 hour of hand sanding... if you spent that 1 hour building a jig it's going to mean 10 mins of runtime and another 5 - 10 mins of finish sanding. more importantly... a router/jig is going to be much more consistent and less prone to issues when leveling. not saying it can't be done well... but even with guides at the side keeping your radius block flat... unless you use a 21" radius block... it would be very easy to get results that mean more sanding afterwards with a leveling bar to flatten things perfectly. iow it's more idiot proof and I suppose that's why it resonates w me so well!