Donut Man

Do you have a big Arnold Laver near you? It's not all top quality stuff, but the big ones usually have so much stock that you're bound to find some decent wood. The one near me stocks Ash, Maple, Walnut, Wenge, Sapele, Cherry and some other less useful woods.

Yeah Ive got this beast http://www.axminster.co.uk/product-Axminst...dsaw-364409.htm Jelous? haha Do you think you could start ripping neck/body blanks for people? Too bad you're in Bournemouth, that's about as far away as you can get! Are you planning on building loads more guitars? I honestly couldn't justify spending that much on tools, since I have no intention of going towards pro luthiery.

I think the headstock could look very cool if you sculpted it a little, maybe put some bevels on it, maybe a bit like the body an ESP F series. Are you going to swirl those mahogany pickup rings?

Are you going to sell it on the Brazillian black market for more rosewood?

Exactly. And if it turns out to be completely useless for everything, I could probably sell it for that much too. Neil, have you got that huge bandsaw from Axminster yet?

I kind of bought it by accident actually, I put a bid on it expecting to be outbid. It's a small 10" benchtop bandsaw, obviously won't to the bookmatching that I want, but for the price of a cheap jigsaw, I can't complain. I haven't actually tried cutting anything with it yet, but I hope to be able to rough cut 25mm neck laminates and maybe bodies or cut MDF templates for routing a body shape. Can anyone give me some advice setting it up since it seems to be pretty old and I can't find a manual for it on the internet. There is a wheel on the top for adjusting blade tension and a height adjust for the little guide thing, and there is a sticker on the side explaining setting up the belt for different blades (and a belt sander?!?) but there doesn't seem to be much else in the way of adjustments.

Any idea how they do it? It looks like some sort of finish done with a sponge maybe? It could also be a graphic, but that would be very difficult since the TAT/TAT II are both arched top with necks in the same finish. I did a quick search on google and on here but I couldn't find any info.

Are you using CA? I'm not sure if this applies to metal, but when gluing plastic to wood you have to wet both surfaces slightly before applying the glue, otherwise it doesn't dry properly.

I imagine a 6" scale length guitar would be hard to play.

I've read that they feel more like vintage trems, resistance wise, because they don't use knife edges. But I've never noticed too much difference in tone or feel when I played one.

You're using a ZR? This is the first time I've ever seen anyone retrofit a ZR7 or even just a ZR! I can tell this will be awesome though.

I don't really do repairs or anything, and any guitar/bass I will ever built with have either jumbo or medium. I didn't phrase my question very well, what I mean to ask is, does the width of the fret file directly correspond with the width of the fretwire? As in the wide file would fit fretwire around .18 wide? That seems a little excessive since I've never seen fretwire that wide.

My local supplier sells Gurian fret files, they have a "wide" one which is .1875, a "medium" which is .125 and a half round one. For jumbo fretwire, do I need the "wide" one? Since by the looks of it, Stewmac "wide" fretwire is only around .100 Unless fret files should be always wider than the fret wire?

I've always liked the look of Blackmachines, especially after seeing Pin from Sikth play one. I wonder where he gets all wood for the Ebony tops though.

Maybe you could just mill the frets into the steel of the board, rather than slotting it and then putting frets in.

You were selling this on Jemsite wern't you? I remember being interested since I used to own a 7 string Mockingbird, but then you decided to repair it yourself right? I dunno if this might help or not, but here is a pic of the Mockingbird that I used to have http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/3209/pict9409xp8.jpg It is looking good, especially the chameleon paintjob.

LSRs are out of production aren't they? http://members.aol.com/intertunei/LSR.tuners/

I think a SG or LP would look cool. I wonder how a carved top would look on that wood? Also, any chance of using a zebrawood board and going for a 100% zebrawood look?

Basically the ends wouldn't stay seated, even with a dab of superglue+clamping. I beveled the slots, and the rest of the fret was seated properly, its just that the ends were sticking up. Also I think when I undercut the tang of the fret, I may have filed off some of the actual fret too, making things worse. I agree that cutting through the fret slots would defeat the point of the binding, but there is a 2mm binding channel by the fretboard, and it need to be filled by something right? I'm not actually too bothered about having binding that looks right since this is my first build, I'd rather have frets that were seated properly. I'm thinking of pressing the frets when I put new frets in this time, probably with that stewmac caul and a cheap drill press or arbor press.

I cleaned the slots, but obviously not enough. So I undercut the tang a little more on the sides, so it went over the bits with glue. But the frets still were not that great, so I defretted it. And to prevent further failure, I'm considering replacing the plastic binding with wood binding, cutting slots in it, and just refretting it through the binding, without undercutting the tang. As that was causing me problems previously. And I can also take the opportunity to clean the slots properly too. And the alternative is to try it again with plastic binding, but pre-bend the fretwire more and clean out the slots properly, hoping that was what caused the failure the last time.

I've decided to redo the fretting on my V build, even though they were all level after I did a fret job, I wasen't 100% happy with it and wanted to get it right. It's an Ebony board with 2mm white binding on both sides. I took the binding off one side and defretted it. I think my original problem was caused by: a ) me hitting the frets ends too hard b ) fretwire not pre-bent enough c ) there was glue in the slots and a lot of tang had to be removed on a lot of the frets. So, I've thought of a few solutions: a ) Redo the other side with more 2mm white plastic binding, and try again, and hope It works properly this time. b ) Remove the current binding, and replace it with some (curly) maple binding, clean out the slots, extending them through the binding and fret the guitar through the binding. c ) Same as above but with black or ebony wood binding. I'm not too bothered about the appearance, it's my first full build and I care far more about playability than about looks. Which is why I'm considering extending the tang through the binding. I know it semi-defeats the point of binding if the tangs come through the binding, but It looks like its been done before (the guy who wrote the neck tutorial seems to have done it) And it can't look worse than just a board without binding, especially if I use wooden binding. Suggestions/advice anybody?

Any chance of international shipping?

This build looks very good, can't wait to see it finished. Are you going to do any porting for closed back use? Also, It doesn't actually really matter if the circles aren't perfect, as long as the speakers fit, since the you will have a grill on the front anyway right?

Looks good! My volute (or lack thereof) is still a mess right now, thanks for the pictorial.

Looks like some precision engineering. For 4k, I'd pay someone to build me a guitar, and watch them instead though