ihocky2

I am not an expert, but to a certain extent yes. You can run the input in the box to pots sets up like they would be inside the guitar for one volume and tone. But you will not be able to switch pickups, or blend. It would be the same as running only one pickup if you used the box, so I would stay away from it. Just think through exactly how much you really need. If you don't change your tone often, you can eliminate your tone pots, you can use mini-toggles, for other things, same with push-pull knobs.

When I did a test fit on my TOM bridge, I bought a bolt that is the same thread, threaded it in and then used a ratchet to keep tightening it. It will run all the way through the bushing and bottom out in the wood, then it will try to keep threading as you turn it with the ratchet, and instead of keep lowering into the hole it will pull the bushing up.

While everyone else is correct that you will not come close to the cost of a LTD, if you are looking at a signature series from ESP, you are probably looking at a $1000 or more guitar. You can definitely build a guitar for less than $1000. That is not including any tools you buy or the cost of havign a fret job done buy a quality luthier. I've seen fret dressing go for over $100, so I am guessing a full fret job is going to cost more than a LTD alone. The very first thing you must understand is that patience is King and planning is queen. Everything else is making wood chips and sweat. The builders who make the best first products are the guys who can make a mistake and stop and think about a way to fix it without compromising quality. There are a lot of guys on here who plan guitars for almost a year before even buying the first piece of lumber. I am just starting my second build, and have been planning it for about 8 months not, I have built the thing about 20 times in my head. The more work you do up front, the better it will turn out. Buy books, use the search feature on this site, find others sites about guitar building, finishing, and repair. Knowledge is invaluable.

I like everything but the idea. You would need 8" fingers just to be able to play the thing comfortably. I think you could get close to the same result with an 8 string baritone tuned down. I don't know a lot about bass, so if I am wrong in that respect please forgive me. Making it a standard double neck would be more usefull. Still have both bass and guitar, but you can actually reach all of the strings at all of the frets. The high frets on the lowest string have to be darned near impossible to play. But it does make a nice conversation piece if you are budding luthier, just to show what you can do.

I like everything but the idea. You would need 8" fingers just to be able to play the thing comfortably. I think you could get close to the same result with an 8 string baritone tuned down. I don't know a lot about bass, so if I am wrong in that respect please forgive me. Making it a standard double neck would be more usefull. Still have both bass and guitar, but you can actually reach all of the strings at all of the frets. The high frets on the lowest string have to be darned near impossible to play. But it does make a nice conversation piece if you are budding luthier, just to show what you can do.

I moved into my wifes house after we got maried in late december. Since then it has just been remodeling the bedroom before I can move everything in. Now that it is getting nice out I am starting to clear our the garage to use as my shop, so I am trying to figure out where everything goes. But her father was a pack rat and left almost everything he owns and doesn't want anymore there for us to deal with. So for now, my shop designing consists mainly of tripping over everything, and trying not to break my neck. But I did get my lumber rack hung last night and it has a nice piece of ash hung on it along with a piece of curly maple which both will turn into my next guitar and a nice piece of lacewood which turn into a humdor or jewelery box. Now to just make room to build either of those.

What and how to use is depening on what you are trying to do. If you are trying to fill the holes from the wood pores, then you bought the wrong stuff. The Elmers wood filler is used to fill in nail holes and such in molding and the likes. It is too thick to entirely get in the wood pores. Second problem with it is that it shrinks back something terribly over time. Top fill the pores, you need grain filler. You can get water based or oil based. Each has their pros and cons. I know that natural colored waterbased wood filler is white, so your only choices with it is to either dye it or paint over it. The oil based doesn;'t shrink back as much and is better to use when using a transparent finish, but it takes several days to dry. If you have cracks or holes you are trying to fill the Elmers is more suited to that, but again it shrinks back a lot. You are better filling with either epoxy or auto body puty, and the better the brand the less it will shrink. Bondo doesn't shrink too much, 3m either doesn;t shrink is is extremely minor. Your best bet is to do a search for grain filler on this site. There is a ton of info.

I am going to be making a chambered tele-style guitar foe my next build. I am going to make some type of F-Hole, just not sure of the actual shape yet. I had a few questions though before I go any further with the planning on this. Since the hole is going to allow an opening to the inside of the chamber, do I need to put some type of finish in that chamber? It seems like that would be a place for a lot of humidity to change and allow the body to warp, or at least get moisture under the finish and cause it to have problems. When spaying my finish coat what is the prefered method to coat the end grain exposed in the hole. Should I just use a small brush to get all the hard to reach areas, or just try and get it with the spray? Will I need to polish the finish in the hole, or won't it be noticable enough to worry about it?

Buy Melvin Hiscoks book on how to build an electric guitar. It will answer all of your questions. It is basically the bible on this site. Almost any question you will have in answered in there. There are guys on there 10th build that still refer to it for information.

I like the pointed horns and the swoosh type front on it. I am not sure how to work it yet with sketching for a while, but it might be cool to incorporate that contour into the end of the fret board. If you look at Metal Matt's Impaler, it'll give you an idea (just less evil than his). If I get a chance I'll throw in a sketch later.

I like the shape of that, I think it will turn out nice. The only things I would say to change, is where the neck block meets the body. Instead of a fairly sharp corner on the bottom and a very sharp corner on the top, I would round them out a little. The corners will be tougher to get the finish into nicely and to sand and polish. It's just something about the nicely rounded body, with that square angular block in the front. Maybe try something like Ibanez uses for the JEM neck joints, with the rounded block.

I borrowed Wes' idea for the recessed TOM and it works great. Very easy to do, and I think it actually looks pretty good too.

I have never looked at a Bigsy up close, but if the holes are large enough to accomodate bass strings, you could use one if you built a 6 string bass.

I don't know the Charvel guitars off the top of my head, but it looks like the body is one of the Model series with a strat head. Check out this forum as well http://www.jcfonline.com/forums/index.php

You have received pretty solid advice so far. If you want a metal look, check out Jackson, Dean, B.C. Rich, Kramer. You can get some pretty good ideas to work from. If you just want a metal sound with a little more aggresive look without making something to impale yourself on, go with something like an SG or an RG. Pickups should be anywhere from medium hot like the SD Jazz and JB's to blazing hot like some of the SD Distortions or the Invader. Why the 26" scale? For drop D you are fine with any of the standard scales. Even for lower drop tunings, 25-1/2" scale is fine, just use heavier strings. A 26" scale is going to be harder to find in a slotted fret board, unless you are making your own. Drop D is nice for power chords, but not neccesary. Like every other genre, the sound is in the player more than the guitar.

I'm not coming on here trying to replan the entire build for you, but I think after you do some reading, you should really rethink your ideas. My first build was an RG body, because I wanted the simplicity of a strat style body, but I like the lines of an RG much better, definitely more metal looking. But there is not much difference the difficulty of the body shape until you get into craved tops. The process is the same. Cut out shape, sand to final size, route edges and cavities, sand smooth, paint, assemble (well, not that simple, but basically thats all you do, the shape doesn't matter). If you would rather an Explorer or a Vee, then build one. In fact those are a little easier since they don't have body recess cuts. For your first build you are probably better off buying a bolt on neck from ebay. I agree that I think a Jackson head stock looks better, along with the shark fin inlays. Bare minimum buy a slotted fretboard with simple inlays, or none at all. A lot of metal players only have a 12th fret marker. Even though it is only your first build, there is no reason to compromise your dreams. Build what you want and have fun with it.

I would try and find an explorer template on the net and just print it out. If you want a Jackson neck, keep an eye on Ebay. I bought one for under $100, but took several weeks, and did not have the locking nut or tuners. Or if you only want a Jackson STYLE, you wan order one pre-maid from Warmoth to the specs you want with the inlays you want. Before you cut the neck pocket though, I would make sure you have the neck your are going to use so you can use it for your layout. The best method I found is the one listed on this site, using two rails along the neck and clamped to the body. Good Luck.

I am looking for a bandsaw, but don't want to get something terribly expensive. I found that Craftsman has a 12" saw that has a 7" resaw capability. It uses a 89-1/2" blade. From the little bit of looking I have done, that doesn't seem to be a common blade length. Will a 90" blade work in this saw, or does it have to be 89-1/2"? Or am I better just looking for a different saw all together?

One thing to remember is that a level finish on a lot of cars is still considered orange peel in the guitar community.

I also like that he didn't like the mounting screws for the pickups so he used "extremely hard to find black machine screws and threaded inserts". Last time I checked McMaster-Carr was not "extremely" hard to find.

I think as long as you are using them on guitars you build and not selling them as parts and list them as moddified FR's you would be safe. I like working with Delrin when I can, but I question how well it would hold up in this situation. I rarely see strings break at the locking nut so I am not sure if you are really helping anything at that end. Plus with Delrin being softer than metal, I think enough bends and pullups will wear the slots pretty quickly and allow the string to slip. As for the saddle, I have been trying to come up with ways to modify them to be easier on the strings. The only thing I see as a problem with Delrin is the wear factor, especially on the wound strings. I just think that the Delrin is too soft. But no one gets anywhere by never trying anything, so I hope you still try anyway and I hope you prove me wrong. (At least it'll be someone other then the wife unit doing it)

My first question is why make a locking nut out of a slippery material. The idea is to lock the strings in place so they can't move. The Graphtec nut allows the strings to slide with less binding, just like Delrin would. So it kind of defeats the purpose of a locking nut. As to the licensing issue, I think it would be similar to dealing with copied body shapes. If you stay small and not enought to be noticed, no one will care. If you start selling enough, you'll get a cease and desist letter. If you want to come up with something new, I would try and redesign it to make it unique so that there is no licensing conflicts, and you can also lay claim to it and patent the idea.

Poplar and basswood have similar tones, and Charvel and Jackson have used both. I have heard several poplar bodies that did not sound very good, but have heard several that sound great. Poplar seems to be more critical of the pickups you use. I have never owned or worked with poplar, so I can not say what will sound good in it, but if you use the Seymour Duncan pickup wizard or the Dimarzio one, you can select basswood or poplar (depends on which site you use) and from what I have seen else where, the suggestions seem to work really well.

The first thing I would do is find the beaver that got at the pickup cavity and make yourself a nice hat out of him. Strip or sand all of the paint off. Fill in the pickup cavity with a solid block of wood. Take those 6 weird placed hole and fill them with dowels. If you're going hardtail, fill what appears to be the trem cavity through cut with a block of wood. Next thing I would do is go with a Kelly style lower horn. That long sharp point doesn't compliment the rest of the body. The body is very rounded except for that area which is all stright lines and possibly thin out the horn. After that I think the design has merit. But you are in for A LOT cutting and gluing blocks and filling in gaps. Once you get it cleaned up and redesigned, please post again.

Though I've never played one, they were good enough for Slayer and the Charvel Model series. But I've also heard Dave Mustain call them tone suckers.