Bizman62

They all are nice variations of the theme and as such worthy to be built. Having seen your previous builds I voted for something I don't seem to have seen you build yet!

The video Mike referred to is this: https://youtu.be/qmDAIlEGO_Q?t=5580 Happy birthday, just take care with getting older or you'll go past me!

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IMO it's important to at least hint to all of the things you'd have to take into account when adjusting the action. Following that principle, a rarely mentioned thing is to carve the fretboard concave from the nut to about 10th fret, the deepest spot (~0.5mm) being around the 5th. That will give the string more space to vibrate at the extents of the first harmonic. Assisted with some relief it helps getting the action as low as possible.

You're right about the arch and fall away and for potential future readers it's good that you mentioned them. I didn't draw it since I wanted to focus on just the angle when a string is pressed. But they indeed belong to the recipe for a low action without buzz.

Makes sense... It's been a good day, I've learned something new! If for nothing else, setting the flakes saves a ton of lacquer which can even have an effect in how alive the guitar is. No tonewood gets better with a 1/4" layer of plastic!

That's close to what Mr. Rosa says, for the same reason he says that the material of the nut doesn't affect the sound on a pressed string. And my logic has nothing against that. That's interesting and I can sort of figure out why it's so. A string is a straight line between the nut and saddle but when you press it there's an angle in both directions. If the neck is dead straight and the action is the same all along the fretboard, the spot where the angles are identical is at the 12th fret, right in the middle. The steeper the angle, the harder it is to press the string down. Thus we make the nut end much lower, trying to get the angles match as close to the first fret as possible for the lightest possible feel. And we don't have to worry about the angle at the bridge end since we don't play past the 24th fret and there the angles aren't much different to that on the 5th fret.

Thanks! All I know about floyds is the looks so I can't help you. But Tone Stone as a name is simply hilarious after all the debate of tonewoods! Further, "music of the earth"... Their marketing department sure has earned their pay! In all seriousness I wonder if granite was any better than milled metal. The density of granite is similar to aluminium, only third of that of bronze or steel. Just thinking out loud...

Good point @Bjorn.LaSanche! Not only bending, metals also wear and fatigue. Slowly but surely the thin wire will break when you least expect it to. - I have been using this briefcase for a couple of decades daily and one day the square wire loop of the handle just snapped - and it's 4 mm thick! The other loop is still fully intact. Another example is what I learned about my car, the copper cable from the alternator had snapped because the continuous jitter and vibration had hammered the flexible wire hard and brittle.

You/he do(es)n't tell if the action is too high or too low or different to how you had adjusted it so just store this to where you think it belongs: Just a couple of days ago I wathced yet another Jerry Rosa video, this time about adjusting a new mandolin to suit the player. A major issue was that the player felt that the action was high while the measurements told the contrary. How can that be possible? Well, the explanation was very simple although I've never heard or seen it discussed elsewhere: Some players want to press the strings right down to the fretboard while others barely make them touch the fret metal. Now this mandolin had jumbo frets and the player was the fretboard pressing type. There's no action low enough to compensate that distance! So putting smaller frets in was the solution.

Why need to pretend? Isn't it obvious that the super strat player dreams about one? "Oh Lord, won't you buy me an LP Junior? My friends all play strats and I must make amends."

You most likely know this so just as a reminder: If the neck feels clumsy or thick, the culprit may not necessarily be the actual thickness. By experience I can tell that it's very easy to leave too much meat on the shoulders of the neck profile - a rounded square instead of a rounded V. The illustration shows the difference between a tall oval and a circle. Note that the thickness at the centerline is the same which will keep the neck stiff. Yet there's a lot less stuff at the joint area where fingers start and palm ends.

Not entirely blurry! The upper right corner is so crisp I could almost read the letters on the bolt. I strongly suggest you to perform this trick at least weekly, or rather right before you start doing any serious work: Keep the Shift button pressed while clicking Shutdown. That will force Windows start from scratch instead of using potentially cumulatively corrupted settings Windows tends to save to speed up the start. Sleep mode still makes Windows wonky.

It may come straight or curved, in either case you'll have to make sure that the radius is tighter than your fretboard radius.

Isn't this Trini Lopez playing a guitar with florentine horns? I have no idea about the brand or model but there's several videos from 1967-68 on YouTube with him playing that guitar.

This build made me view some Trini Lopez videos to find out what kind of music he made and how this guitar is related to him. Well, whaddayaknow, it appeared that I knew his music without having known the name of the performer. And I must say that you've managed to catch the vibe of his guitar and raised it to the next level!

A glossy guitar with a matte pickup would be my choice... I've seen and posted jankier pictures on this forum, no need for excuses.

It does look a bit rough indeed. Then again, on my screen it's three times the actual width so it looks worse than it actually is. But none of my guitars have that long grooves on the fretboard. Someone recently posted a link to a YouTube video where Rob Scallon built a guitar with a pro luthier. The luthier spread CA glue all over the ebony fretboard to seal it - in your case some dust would be required to fill the grain. The biggest issue with filling is to protect or recut the fret slots. Filling the slots temporarily with snugly fitting pieces of plastic should work to keep most of the slurry out of the slots. I was thinking about credit cards but they're too thick. A slice of a disposable cup (used yoghurt cup?) might be of right thickness and might not stick to super glue - they use both PP and PET for those so test which sticks to the glue the least!

It's not fool proof and most certainly won't make pitch black ebony out of pale maple but compared to dye the result can be much more vivid. A lot of the success depends on the tannin content of the wood - which can be improved by applying tea! Here's a quick reading article with some photos showing what to expect: https://makerdesignlab.com/experiments/how-to-ebonize-wood/

I can understand your concern about the TOM tilted half an inch further back on the bass side really makes a difference as the adjustment range of the blocks is another half an inch. The image below illustrates and exaggerates the issue by assuming that the normal situation would require the blocks to be in the front position while on the angled bridge the string line is drawn with the blocks being pushed all back. As you can see the issue would be bigger on the bass side. However, at the very maximum the narrowing effect would be about 3 mm for the low E at the bridge which means about 1.5 mm at the 12th fret and 2.2 mm at the last fret. And as the bridge pieces usually already are pushed a bit back on the bass side the effect would be even less. Take a ruler and see for yourself!

Have you studied it now that you've heard about it?

Back to the original subject: Congrats for the GOTM! The competitor was good and most likely fulfills the wishes of the owner but yours took the idea of "Built by Me in my Shed" to another level. The devil is in the details which you had plenty and then some more but apparently you're sort of an exorcist and managed to evict all evil mishaps.

That's what I've read the guy having done it saying. But he also said the combination sounds great so I thought why not give that option a chance. A new baseplate sounds like a viable option as the measurements seem to match with square ones. Getting chrome covers is another thing, not easily achievable!