Bizman62

I don't make that much in two years!

Fixed.

As you may remember I wasn't too impressed about it earlier. Now with the pickguard I think it works, the creamy stripes of the ebony make a big difference!

Our local musical instrument dealer still praises Samick after some 25 years since the first ones came to his shop. They have to be a good quality manufacturer as they have built instruments for many big names including Yamaha, Ibanez, LTD, PRS, Epiphone, Jackson... Not Fender, though Price or brand doesn't tell how well a guitar plays. The best guitar vendors adjust every guitar they sell as the factory setup rarely is good enough. Often the nut has been left tall which makes chording a pain. The fret ends may also stick out, either because of poor filing or shrunk fretboard. The intonation may be off, the truss rod loose as well as bolts and screws... Some issues may be intentional to be fine tuned for the actual player, some may be because of climate changes during transport and some may be for eliminating tension related problems during transport. Shortly put, a well set up guitar plays well. Regarding sound, the sound of the solid body guitar comes mostly from the pickups. The neck has an effect to the sustain which is part of the tone, it also affects the overall "feel" or "responsiveness" as it vibrates. The player has a big role as well - you can't really judge the sound of certain guitars by hearing each of them played by a different player! Just give me any great guitar and it will say "thump, thump" when I play it! And lastly, the body has quite a minor part in the sound of a solid body electric. Congrats for a great instrument!

Yepp. That's the basic Strat wiring. The "B" pot is volume, the two "A" pots are tones. There's lots of snake oil information about grounding but it's really very simple: All ground wires and grounded parts have to end up to the sleeve of the output jack. The style is free, from a spider web to a single metal plate and anything in between. In the picture you can see that the cover of the volume pot is a collecting point for all ground wires, in your harness I suppose it's the white wire. If you're worrying about soldering three extra wires to the pot, you can combine the pickup grounds and solder them to a piece of wire which you then solder to the pot. A 3-to-1 adapter if you will. If you do that, remember to use tape or shrinking tube to protect the joint.

You were lucky! Super glue and pale dust usually end up much darker than expected, mostly because of the heat produced by the hardening process - you may even see smoke sometimes! On darker woods it works fine, though, and as your fretboard has those darker lines the choice was most likely right.

Ahh, didn't understand that. In that case there's no problem at all. Thanks for clarifying.

I'm not one to tell how others should do. But so you know we have members with names referring to their own company. Also, what do you think TGF thinks about using their trademark as a nick?

I wouldn't be surprised... Now that I've listened to a couple of dozens of their songs it seems obvious that they nodded to most any direction. Many songs sound like pastiches with elements of several songs of a certain artist - like their cover of "Heartbeat" on their debut album: Pretty similar to the original but the drumming was from "Peggy Sue"... And some of their vocal harmonies sound like those of the Beach Boys... Are they sort of a wiseguy band, quizzing the listeners if they could name the source of inspiration of each song?

No. At least not at this point. The pickups you got are humbuckers, meaning there's like two single coil pickups counteracting the hum out of each other inside the cover. Splitting the coil disables one of the coils so there's only one coil active. That will somewhat have the characteristics of a single coil but not fully. A better option is to use different guitars instead of trying to make an all-in-one mashup. Versatility is only good to an extent. Think about it this way: If you're a session musician playing the guitar parts for any style of artists, you can choose the type of guitar that would best suit the task instead of something that's somewhat close to that. If you're a gigging guitarist you don't want to spend ten minutes between songs trying to find the setting for the next one, you'd rather take that other guitar and continue playing while the audience is still interested. On a gig you don't need that much sounds anyway, mostly what you need is "quieter" for rhythm and "louder" for solos. Your hands create the biggest part of your sound after you've found the pickups you like. BTW why are you named after another guitar forum?

If I saw right in the pictures they're soldered together for a humbucker action. So just apply some electrician's tape or shrinking tube over the bare end to protect them from grounding.

The Strat type wiring would be to put the yellow "Hot" wires into the three lugs of the switch as marked. Gather the black "Ground" wires to somewhere where you can easily connect them to ground, most often to the back of a pot. You can tie grounds together by will as long as they all have a connection to the sleeve of the jack. Protect the red/white soldered ends so they don't accidentally get grounded. That should give you the Bridge - Bridge+Middle - Middle - Middle+Neck - Neck options typical to a Strat, only this time as humbuckers. Your pickups have the option to be split to semi-single-coils but that would require a additional switches.

That smile on his face!

That matte baby blue with shiny pure white plastics... So fresh! That looks like something Esa Pulliainen could use if he went metal!

You didn't need any help, just a little encouragement.

With jumbo frets you'd only be touching the strings anyway so leveling the crowns will do. If you'd push the strings down to the wood using jumbo frets you'd be out of tune with every note! Think about playing a Gittler guitar... No fretboard at all! And you can still get clean notes out of it.

You may be interested in this as well, I know you'll understand the language of the article:https://riffi.fi/artikkelit/juttunaytteet/kaularaudan-saato-sopiva-monttu-kruunaa-otelaudan I'd try tightening the truss rod to get the fretboard as level as possible. A notched straightedge will help. Then level the frets as you'd normally do.

As I didn't even know what the "dreaded s-curve" actually means, I googled... And found this: https://hazeguitars.com/blog/s-shaped-guitar-neck However, I don't think that his theory about the secondary pressure of the truss rod would be that much of an issue with dual action rods. Are the curves down or up? If they're down, the dip at the 6th fret is something that the most skilled luthiers have carved to their fretboards for centuries. Similarly a fallout at the last frets is common practice.

No wonder My Sharona was an international hit, it really has all it takes to be a great rock tune! Listening you to play it made me search for other tunes by the Knack, truth to be said Sharona was the only one that got pass my fifties/rockabilly state of mind of that era... Had someone invited me to listen to their album back then I may well have liked it! At least the first album has lots of echoes from the earlier decades including a Buddy Holly cover... Oh well, I may have mistaken the band being either "punk" or "heavy", something that a ducktail guy would not touch! My loss!

So many details! That's exhaustively engineered, yet every detail serves a valid purpose. That'll be an acoustic on steroids!

The Holy Trinity of distance, flow and pressure... Well done!

Hi and welcome! There's a ton of lists of "essential" tools needed for building a solidbody electric guitar. Do I need to say that every list has dozens of tools? A lot depends on the type of woods: How close they are to the final dimensions etc. For shaping the outlines even a handsaw will do and if you buy readily cut fingerboards a fret saw may also not be needed. You can also carve the neck pocket and control cavity as well as the pickup cavities using a drill and a chisel - some high class builders here do exactly that! But I'm digressing... You'll need at least a saw - bandsaw, hand saw, jigsaw... be creative, they all can be used for outlines and you can even cut a top out of a thicker plank with a hand saw a plane - a hand plane or rather several sizes, a jointer plane especially a drill chisels and gouges - for a flat top mainly for tidying the cavities files and rasps a router and a variety of bits unless you're going to use chisels and drills for cavities a ruler/straightedge for a) measuring the scale and b) maintaining your centerline and c) presetting the action sandpaper - don't skimp on quality, good quality sandpaper cuts both faster and cleaner and doesn't clog so it lasts longer scrapers are nice too... sharpening stones for your chisels, gouges and planers glue clamps a fret saw flat head end cutting pliers for cutting frets close to the fretboard a set of screwdrivers a soldering iron for electrickery whatever I've missed like templates (make your own), fret files, fret rocker... For bare necessities I recommend this video from a Refugee camp:

Actually, Ace Tone was a Japanese musical instrument maker, in a way a predecessor of Roland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Tone

Ace-tone sounds like a marketing name for a crappy Chinese instrument or amp!

Damn you heavy users! You made me google for other meanings of ipa... The misleading abbreviations for pure alcohols make me think of some secret "boozers' association" who've created a code language to sound like sophisticated intellects while talking about their favourite beverages...