ihocky2

I'll jump on Wes' coat tails and agree that the size is a little off. I like the slimmed down looked, but I would look at slimming down the tail a little and shortening the back half a little bit. The narrow waist makes it look really long. I think the first thing though would be to slim down the tail a little though. It looks like that axe has some junk in the trunk.

It could be agathis. I never really looked into agathis before, but found a ton of info with a 2 minute search on Google. Not to sound harsh, but a lot of the info you need can be found with a simple search. Back to the topic, from your picture and the little bit of wood you can see in the neck pocket it could be agathis. My other guess would be cedro. I don't know if Squire ever used cedro, but I know the lower end Jacksons which are owned by FMIC have used cedro.

Double Post

A little more info is going to be needed. In 1986 the model 2 came with a Kahler Fulcrum trem. In 1987 and 1988 it came with a Jackson Locking trem, which looks like Jacksons copy of the Kahler. Neither of them had a recessed trem though. Just by the look, it looks like a hack job at routing out a cavity to allow pullups. I can't even say it was done as a recessed trem, since the stud holes would have been routed out as well. This looks like someone just tried to remove wood to allow for pullups. Here is a page with past catalog scans of Jackson and Charvel's. You can compare against these and see what you should have. I would measure the center to center of the post holes and compare them against a Kahler Fulcrum and see how it matches up. And then see if there is anything else that is a better quality that will mount to those holes. http://audiozone.dk/index-filer/CatalogScans.htm

Some of they stuff they were saying though sounded odd. Like was said about cutting the boards in half and then gluing them back together. Now if they are removing sections for neck blanks to make better use of the entire board that is fine. But then they said they allow 2 months dry time after gluing to let the wood fully dry again. That just strikes me as being a little over kill.

You're right, I am surprised. I've used emery cloth to clean up copper tubing before soldering and never though of it as that abrasive, while 60 grit will do a nice job of ripping skin from your knuckle in one shot. But I have a body that I am going to refinish in a few months, so before going to the heat stripper or 60 grit I will have to give the emery cloth a try first and see what I get.

If it's the thick poly finish that is used on the more recent ones and not lacquer, emery cloth is going to take a long time. What is you final goal with removing the paint? If it is to only re-paint it another opaque color, just skuff the top up with some 180 grit and paint over what is there. If it is to do a transparent finish then you have to sand all the way down. The quickest way is with some 60 grit paper and a sanding block.

I can definitely see potential in the design, I would like to see a full scale mock up before I pass final judgement though. But so far I am liking it. The only thing I don't like is the head stock. Might need to play around with that some.

I was refering to removing the fretboard if there is not enough overhand to add the extra frets. Then he is going to need a whole new board. If there is enough overhang, then he is okay with the original board.

I'll throw out a Soloist for a base design. I think a set of Seymour Duncans with a Jazz in the neck and a Custom Distortion in the bridge would work nicely. I like the way they both clean up for me, but can still drive heavily for the metal fans. The soloist was an attempt to get a Les Paulish sound with a smaller and lighter body. I personally think it is one of the more versatile designs. Maybe a little toying with the wiring and you can really get something versatile.

One question that needs to be answered is, is there enough fretboard to add the extra frets? If not then I see it as futile to even bother with lengthening the neck. Because now you have to remove the old fretboard and replace it and either buy one already fretted, or have someone do a fret job, or do it yourself. Any of those options are going to make it cost more to make yours longer than it will be to just buy a 24 fret neck. If there is enough overhang, I don't see why you couldn't add then length, but I think it is going to be much more hassle than it is worth. To get a solid scraf joint, you are going to have a tough time getting your cut nice and flat. I think it would be easier to build a new neck than it would be to add the extra length.

Where do you search to find someone local with a portable mill? I have 2 black walnuts that I am cutting down and one of them is about 25' and straight on the trunk, so I will get a lot from it. We are also doing some selective cutting at my in-laws farm and there is a lot of cherry. I have to look at exactly what species they are, but I keep getting told all of the cherry is black cherry, but that is not certain. There is also some sugar maple and some northern white ash. I want to get these cut into 8/4 boards where I can, but can't move that much lumber to a mill and they hit $250 an hour to mill and they said it will be about an hour per tree. Plus the hassle of finding something to haul all of that in since a pickup won't handle it. I have the barn on the farm to store it in to dry for a few years, so storage is not an issue at all.

I like the concept, and am always for thinking outside the box, but the design looks rather unbalanced to the eye. The top is really thin and has a deep waist to it, but the bottom looks rather chunky compared to the rest. I like the overall design and can see that there is something that can be worked out to really make the design look nice for a future project. I like the horns and the tail section, it's just the chunky control area and the thin waist that doesn't seem to fit together. I completely understand cutting the body with a jigsaw since that is all that I have as well, but you never bothered to sand the side to remove the cut ridges. It is very wavy and rough. Which also means that you probably didn't sand any of the other areas down, so you are going to have a hard time getting a nice flat finish. Same thing for the carve, it looks really nice and helps the design immensely, but I can see that you didn't bother to sand the edges smooth so it has the same wavy rough look to it instead of a smooth contour. It looks like you have some painters tape covering some areas in the last picture, if that is the case, please post some pictures with it removed if you have any. I would really like to see what the finaly design to the paint is since it is following the body shape. I think the paint design is going to come out nicely as well.

Well, his first post was asking how to reccess the cover, not how to cut the cavity and a matching cover. So I assumed that he is looking for how to cut the recess. My preference is to use a template for the cavity, and another one that is created oversized for the rabbetting bit I use. I prefer a 3/8" rabbett, which is a hair large but gives plenty of room for screws. Then I'll use the rabbett bit to cut the recess. Finishes up nice a clean. Or if you prefer to use enlarged areas in the cavity as posts to screw into, you can get away with a smaller rabbett to get just enough of a shelf to sit on.

Rabbetting bit.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that I actually I agree with him. I am sure that he is not saying throw something together that is only good enough. But more directed at the the people that agonise over minute details that only they know are there. Okay, so your finish feathers from 10 mils to 6 mils at the edge of a pickup route. Who cares? There is no point in fussing over that kind of detail. You sanded through at the edge of the pickup route, that is something to fuss over. I'll throw in a quote that I am a fan of though. "Good judgement comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgement".

If you want to get a nice looking a durable finish for a lesser amount of money, check with any local autobody shops. See if they can throw it in next time the do something black. They should be able to give you a good price since your guitar will basically just use up some of the excess paint in the gun. Just sand it with like 220 grit paper to rough up the surface before you take it in. And obviously take off all of the harwarde that you can and tape off the rest.

I like the idea of a deep wine type color faded out to a grey burst. Definitely will take some practice to get it to look right, but I think the end result would be extremely well worth it.

I have never really considered building an acoustic, mainly because at this point I feel it is above my skill level. But after reading this thread, I am thinking that in the future it may be fun to come up with an original design, something a little more extreme. Maybe a Warrior acoustic or something, obviously with a piezo. Not so much to build for the right sound, but mostly for the look and the challenge. But I definitely have a lot to learn abou acoustics first. But I do think it would be fun to try and see what I can come up with.

Defintely sand higher than 220. That is considered a fine paper, but will still leave visible scratches in the wood. I would try and get up to at least 1000. Above that may or may not help.

I would tru-oil all of the cherry. The fretboard has enough natural oils it shouldn't need anything. If it is not fretted yet, work on sanding and polishing the board better with high grits of sandpaper. If it is fretted, or that doesn't help, then rub on some bore oil (the stuff used for woodwind instruments) or in a pinch mineral oil. Let that sit for about 5-10 minutes and then wipe off the excess. That will help keep the board moist.

I haven't tried it yet, but I saw someone use one of these. The suspended that body inside and stuck just their arm and spray gun in through the flap, which was mostly closed. Then zipped it up between coats. Might work pretty well. http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=b...asin=B000KHWGI2

I am not a pickup expert, but if you want the sound of a single coil, you are going to want a low to mid output single coil. The higher outputs are going to start sounding warmer and can be driven to the point of getting muddy a lot easier. But for shredding you should still be okay with a higher output. The best bet is to listen to the sound clips that they provide and see what you like. Also listen to the ones at Seymour Duncan. Find one you like the sound of. If SD has one you like, I'm sure Dimarzio can tell you what is comparable.

I know that Veritas sells a seperate roller that is convex to use with their honing jig. This allows you to rock to the side and the more pressure and longer you work the blade on your stone the harder the radius. I have the standard honing jig and just skewed the blade in the holder to allow only one side to cut. I used a Ultra Fine sharpy to mark out the lines to line up on so as I moved through the grits I could reposition to the same place or at least close enough. If you have a bench grind with a tool holder, I would find something with the radius you want and trace that onto the flat side and just sharpen with a sweeping curved motion until you meet that line evenly and then go to the hand method for final honing. Also I know that scrub planes have a heavy radius to the blade to really hog out material. But jack planes usually have a little less of a radius, but still have one so you can remove material quickly, but more neatly. You won't get the 1/8" to 1/4" cuts you can get with a scrub plane, but you'll still get heavier material removal and then hit it with a smoothing plane wit ha flat blade with the edges rounded off so you don't get the edge lines. JM- I am not positive, but I think and even radius would be better so that you are taking a deep cut in only the center and taking less on the sides, creating less pressure on the blade and making it easier to plane.

Single coils generally have a lower output because they are smaller and have less windings and a shorter length of wire. If you over wind the crap out of one you can get just as high of an output. Hum cancelling is the ability of the pickup to cancel out the hum generated by common 60 hz cycle (the frequency at which standard electric runs). I can not give an in depth explanation to this, but look through the electronics section, I think there is something in there. If not check out the link below, there is a lot of good info. http://www.guitarnuts.com/index.php