Lex Luthier

Instead, I use Tung Oil, which does a better job of penetrating the wood fibers, thus creating an excellent shield against moisture.

I've always heard from people how tung oil does nothing to protect the wood, though tung oil is what I use on all of my instruments.

Of course, I'm one of those wood-freaks who refuses to cover up beautiful wood with paint.

Me too.

Are you going to leave it as bare metal? Or do you have the ability to plate it in chrome, nickel, gold, or finish it in black?

Actually so can that tool so watch your fret ends as you go (take breaks and inspect after a few swipes with it).

I've noticed with mine it tends to file more at the starting point of my stroke, and I have to watch and make sure to take more passes in the other area to even it out.

soapbar strat, I've been wanting to do the theaded insert thing for a while now. Where do you get the inserts from? What size? What size machine screws? Any advice for installing the inserts? (sorry for the blatant thread hijack)

I was wondering about those too, and found some here:

http://www.leevalley.com

And here are countersink washers:

http://www.leevalley.com

I'm not 100% sure the screws are compatable with the washers, if I decide to use them, I will go check them out at the store to be sure. I'm sure there are other places that have them.

Here's one place, they also sell the "indie" bridges to make a customized spacing, I've used them and I think the minimum spacing you could get if there was no gap between them was 15mm, but I might be wrong, I can't remember exactly.

If your spacing is too narrow it could end up being hard to play.

I don't see how the fretboard call 'fall'...I have a turn of the century neopalitan mandolin and it's fingerboard is concave...it must have been made that way. The fingerboard could cup, but I would think you would then see a gap around the edges where it meets the neck.

I was once told by a bass player that fretless players prefer the fingerboards to be slightly concave, because it follows the shape of the finger better, I then told this to a professional luthier friend of mine, and he had no idea what I was talking about.

Try the MIMF for info.

I built one from the StewMac kit, seen here:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=6189

I've attemped to build one from scratch, but it wasn't coming along too well and I never finished it. The neck came out nice though, I put a dragon head on it instead of a scroll.

I would recommend the kit, it's great for the money. The plates are carved, but only by a machine, so you could graduate a tap tone them, etc...you could even get the kit to use as a guide for building one from scratch, also.

StewMac Kit

Entering my from scratch bass again.

Click the headstock for more pics

See this instrument being built

Specs

Two piece Walnut body

Black Mahogany dye stain with 25% sheen lacquer on body

Five piece Maple/Merbau/Maple/Merbau/Maple neck

Hot Rod truss rod

Ebony fingerboard

Brass side dots to match gold hardware

Polimerized tung oil on neck

Bolt-on neck w\ ferrules

Bridge from Custom Shop Parts

All other hardware from Allparts

Allparts humbucker pickup

Volume/treble boost push/pull, tone, series/split/parallel mini switch

Tusq nut

A picture would REALLY help.

I voted for CGHbuilder86's acoustic. Very nice.

A grounding wire is a tensile ligature composed of cuperic extrusions. It's main purpose is to prevent harmonic polarization overload, which can be increased expodentially by immense feedback.

Think for a second about all of the sonic energy that is being emitted by guitar strings. It so strong that pickups have to be wrapped in copper wire, just to shield them from the effects. Meanwhile, the pickups are desinged to be low-output devices; otherwise, a Marshal stack could amplify too much sonic energy and saturate the audience... much like radiation.

There would be more energy, but international regulations restrict the length of guitar necks, to limit the potential output caused by the increased vibrational output of longer strings. This is also why piano strings are encased in wood; to contain the potentially dangerous energy levels. (Wood insulates against various forms of energy.) Of course, groups like FSE (which is supported by people like Eddy Van Halen) continue to lobby against these restrictions, because they feel that longer strings give them the "performance edge" that they need. (There have been some compromises, like 35" necks on bass guitars... which produce less energy due to the lower vibrations.)

Meanwhile, FSE continues to push for a greater use of "grounding wires". These are connected to the guitar through a VALMD port, which is then connected to a cathartic decompressor. The claim is that these units will dissipate excess sonic energy slowly, so that it does not damage human organs.

However, scientists at the Berkley School of Medicine have made numerous tests, and have found that improperly installed grounding wires can actually increase the danger to guitar players. One of their studies even showed that the antenna-like qualities of hi-hats could absorb large amounts of this energy and transmit it directly to the drummer through the foot-pedal.

That's why it's important that the installation of grounding wires be handled by professional guitar builders.

I see, very informative D~s, but if you didn't understand all that camcool, the gentleman in this video explains it all in laymen's terms:

Grounding Wires

I've tung oiled EIR before. It would give the guitar a nice natural look and feel.

camcool, maybe you didn't see this yet:

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=11229

Everyone knows about your little "custom guitar builder" escapade.

I don't have experience with their tuners, but a bridge. The service was great, and so was the bridge, especially for the price. That's all I got.

When I made my own one of those a few years ago, I folded a piece of 220grit sandpaper around the portion of the file that went in the slot to hold it, and it has held it in the slot since I made it 3 or 4 years ago.

Where can you get American or European Alder? I think I've only ever seen it as"Alder". Fender probably uses American, because it would be cheaper than shipping it in from Europe.

It might just be my 2 cents, and they might be canadian, but they're still valid

You're ? I'm in BC, where you at?

I'm in Alberta, was just in Princeton BC over the weekend flying jets though

We used to have 5 acres of property up in the sticks in Princeton. We had a trailor on it, and would go up there and camp. I remember one night after the bond fire had died down and my dad and I were about to go into the trailor and retire for the night, I looked up at the sky and saw the most amazing thing...STARS...ALL OF THEM! It was the first time I had ever seen the night sky totally undisturbed by light pollution. The Milky Way looked like this big blob of light that stretched across the entire length of the sky. It was amazing, and I'll never forget it...

You mean RC jets? Me and my dad used to fly RC planes, well mostly my dad did. He had two planes, a trainer that he regularly flew and a fancy looking scale version of a real plane. He bought me a sweet looking trainer, looked like a sport plane, and a glider. The only one that ever flew was his trainer, none of the other ones were ever finished being built, because we relocated from Ontario to BC, then my parents got divorced. Basically all our planes have been in his crawl space for over 9 years, and will probably stay there.

It might just be my 2 cents, and they might be canadian, but they're still valid

You're ? I'm in BC, where you at?

according to this, you just use brute clamping force/pressure to get the arch:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Clamps,_...em.html#details

They sell standard jigs for dreadnaughts but I'm not building a dreadnaught.

That's exactly it. When I worked for a luthier bracing the tops and backs was my job. The back/top is placed in a hollow form, and the braces, which have the same radiused shape as the hollow form, are glued in place one at a time and clamped with go-bars. The frame, or side assembly of the guitar also has the arching sanded into it.

From what I've heard they're horrible. Everyone hates that at the harmony central forums, and there are also reviews at harmony central, maybe look at those.

I've basically heard they are complete garbage.

On a side note, someone at the harmony central forums is pretending to be Esteban, including having the user name, "Esteban", some of the threads are kind of funny.

Here's a link.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but....all the "quality" acoustics I've seen with maple back & sides use flamed maple, and not quilted maple. The difference is that flame maple still shows its figure very well when quartersawn (not always so with quilted), and quartersawn how you want the wood sawn anyway for an acoustic.

I think quilted maple back & sides would be very weak.

Quilted maple is also rarer.

I'm as big a tool junky as the next guy but if I waited to have the perfect workshop before I start I would never get a damned thing built.

Same here. Right now I'm waiting to get a thickness sander, so I haven't built anything since finishing my last project in February.

is this only true for neck tru as said in the original post??

What, the neck angle? The neck angle depends on the bridge.

Other - Esteban's GENUINE WOOD guitars.

Ok is there any other type of mill that works with a computer that can cut a body from a CAD fill thats 3000 or less. It doesnt have to be cnc. I realized i just needed a computer operated mill. Or is that what CNC means.

this will cut a body

So will this

LOL!!!!!