ihocky2

If you don't ground the "input to the amp", then you will get noise due to an open input. Try hanging a guitar cord out of your amp with no guitar plugged in to load it down. Just opening the circuit instead of grounding it gives you the same effect. Thanks for the clarification. That makes sense. THe original post I responded to sounded like the the signal would either but cut open, or be directed to ground with nothing going to the output. I have also always worked with SPST switches in general electronic aplications where sound is not an issue and we just run the SPST in series in the circuit.

Automotive paint would also work well with metal covers. Afterall, cars are made of steel.

That doesn't seem like it would work. A SPST is an on/off switch. So in the on position your output signal would be going to ground and in the off position you would have an open circuit. If you are using a SPST switch you would simply put it inline on your output wire. That way when in the on position the signal flows through and when off, the circuit is open and no signal goes through.

A handheld jigsaw is fine, a router is essential as well as a hand drill. A drill press is very helpfull, but if you can find access to one, they are not essential to own.

This might come off as a bit arrogant, but if you want to sand it down to bare wood, then just sand it down. If it screws on, unscrew it and it will come off. The only hard part is making an accurate diagram of the wiring so you can unsolder and resolder it later and have it still work. Once the parts are off, get some heavy grit sand paper and go to town. An orbital sander will make things quicker, but all you need is sand paper and a sanding block. After a while you have bare wood. Beyond that, read through the paint and finishing tutorials on this site.

There are a couple of options. First is to leave it as is. Your outside strings will be a little higher off the board than the center strings, but it is still playable and you can still get a pretty good action. It's better to have the bridge flatter than the fretboard than the opther way around. Other option is to get so nut files and file the grooves in the saddles to change the radius. Just take a very little at a time and keep checking the string radius until you have it where you need.

I like it a lot better with the simple bevels. I think what might look a little off is how long the lower horn/point looks. The horn almost looks as long as the body.

I like the design. Did you try sketching one up with the ESP Explorer type rear. Where it curves in instead of out. Might make it look more point. Or could just make it look bad, but just a minor thought. I would absolutely go with the faded bevels. I also like the idea of only one control and recessed into the body a litte. Maybe use a concentric pot if you want both controls.

There is no simple answer as to what paint to use. There a couple factors involved first. What are you using to spray with? Rattle cans, spray gun? What type of clear are you using? Nitro, acrylic, waterbased, one part poly, two-part poly? Laquers and poly's donb't like each other, so that will eliminate a lot of paint choice depending which way you go. As for rattle cans I personally like either Dupli-Color or Plastikote lines of automotive paint. This is an acrylic laquer. I clear it over with DEFT Nitro. I've had no problems with them and have gotten nice results.

I can't speak towards the effects of cutting a magnet, but determining the polarity is fairly simple. You just need another magnet that has the poles marked on it. When they push appart, you have like poles, so you know which one you'r dealing with. Stewmac sells a cheap tool that indicates the polarity of a magnet as well.

It is an LP style, so that solves that problem. Any idea why that happens though and why they don't try to fix it?

I just finished my first project guitar. Well almost. I am waiting for the neck pickup to arrive. But I was too excited to wait and since it's easy to install later I went ahead and put everything together. I am using a 3-way toggle switch and when I flip it to the neck position I still get sound. It is very faint, but I can still hear it coming through the amp. The only thing I can think is that when I was looking at the switch it looked like the leafs where not seperating very much and it might be close enough for a little of the electricity to transfer but not enough for a full signal. Any ideas what else might be going on?

Squier's are a great place to start learning to play and for messing around on. But If you really want cheap to try and make sound good, just go on Ebay and find on of the junkers. For the money your gonna spend on the original guitar, the new pickups, the new bridge, the new nut, the new tuners, the new electronics you are going to be close to the price of a bare bones Fender Tele. If you want something to mod then you have a start in the right direction, but if you want it to sound like a true Tele you might as well save for a few months and buy a real one. Guitar building and modding is not a way to get an authentic sound for less money. Unless you come across a real sweet deal on a used body, you just can't do it as cheaply. If you look at the cost, it just doesn't make sense to try and modify a Squier to get a Fender sound. You spent 300 on the guitar. I am not sure what the conversion rate is, but in the US you are looking at the following prices. New pickup-$60 each. New tuners-$35 minimum. New bridge-$27 minimum. New nut-either about $5 for a nut blank and over $100 in tools, or around $40 for someone else to do it. And about $15 in better quality electronics. You already have about $250 in parts if you go with the cheapest parts you can find. Plus shipping. So you are probably around $280 -$300 in mods on a $300 guitar. And that is without having a fret job done.

You still will not get the same kind of tone out of a Squier though, because they use the cheapest body wood they can find instead of using high quality ash. My first guitar was a Squier because I didn't want to sink a lot of money into learning to find out that I didn't like playing. After I started learning how to build guitars and set them up I checked out my Squier and the fret job is slightly above poor, with the action being even worse. Squiers are cheap for a reason. Even with all of the mods you'll be lucky to get back the cost of the guitar alone if you sell it.

You can use either mahoganny or alder. I know Jackson uses alder body with maple tops, and they are almost strickly played by metal bands. I know a lot of shredders used to play them before Fender bought them out. ESP uses mahoganny and alder depending on the model. Ibanez uses both, but seems to lean more towards alder. BC Rich tends to go with mainly mahoganny. Your still going to have to decide if you want the wamer tone of mahoganny or the crisper tone of alder, but by using high output pickups you can get that real heavy distortion. Heck look at Ywngie, he plays on a Strat, but uses high output humbuckers.

Thanks for the explenation. That makes a lot of sense. I don't know how common that method of building a neck is, but it seems like a smart way to fudge a one way rod into acting like a two way.

I have a used neck that I bought for my next project. Everything is straight and in pretty good condition, but I will be refretting it. I just don't like the size ones that are one it. I have the book on fretting on the way from Stew Mac, and it should be here Tuesday. When I loosen the truss rod completely the neck has a lot of relief. Is this normal? When you build a neck from scratch, how do much tension do you have on your truss rod? My thinking is that it should be completely loose when you attach the fretboard and everything should be flat when it is loose. The repair book I am reading through makes it seem like adding frets will cause back-bow and not relief. I have to tighten the truss rod pretty far to get it to sit flat and that is without string tension. Does this mean there is a problem with the neck, or is everything functioning properly?

I know this an old topic, but wanted to add a little information about DEFT. I remembered seeing people saying that you can't spray DEFT with good results because it says not to spray it. I was on another forum and they were discussing lacquers. One of the members actually called DEFT and asked about spraying and was told by the company that they had to print that on the cans because of something with the EPA. DEFT says that you can spray their lacquer and get the same or better results than brushing it.

I wasn't refering as much to LED affecting the circuit, as I was to there being too much power flowing through the LED and frying it out. For some reason I forgot about wiring it parallel with a resistor. I was just working with an LED project that I did exactly that. I guess that's what I get for trying to think on Monday morning.

Make sure you find out all of the specs on the LED first. If you are set on using a SPST switch, you will have to run the LED in series with the switch, which means it is being fed full voltage. So you will have to make sure there is not too much voltage or amperage in the circuit to fry out the LED. And if you add resistors to cut the amperage, you will lose power through the rest of the amp. If the amp and the LED need two different voltages or currents, you will need to provide a seperate power supply (like a watch type battery) and either a second swith or a DP switch.

Correct me if I'm interpretting this wrong, but are you saying that Gibson does not use a scarf joint? I've never really looked at Gibson guitars because they just never really caught my interest. I'm not a fan of the Les Paul design, I absolutely hate the look of the SG and I prefer the look of the pointy Vee's. I always assumed that they were scarf joints. I know the main factor in a scarf joints strength is in how well the joint is matched. Even it is even slightly off, the joint will be weak. And that is one of the main down falls of a scarf joint. If they are preparedly properly, they are very strong. If they are not however, you are relying on just the glue to hold up.

I'm not doubting that the full cut out piece without a scraf joint will not work and is going to instantly fail. I'm just basing my opinions on everything I have read. Articles on the net, chapters in books, and blurbs in magazines all say that scraf joints are stronger. And I will admit that one failure books have, is that they are written by people who were taught one thing and thats is what they pass on. Ash, alder, and mahoganny are the standards for building guitars, so everyone assumes that what you have to use. Budding builders are also engrained with the standard designs and rarely vary from them. Without trying things you never know how well they will work. I did miss that they said it was from quartersawn wood. I had fliiped during commercials and must have just missed that segment. It does raise a good question though. How much strength is actually lost to figured wood, and how much figure must there be before there is a significant loss in strength?

I watched the show and there were a couple things that rubbed me wrong. I could be wrong but I have always read that any type of figured maple is going to be weaker for a neck. You get a nice look, but you lose the hardness of plain figured hard maple. But Kelly was saying they were usign flame maple for the strength. The other thing with the neck that bothered me was that instead of using a scarf joint, they just cut the neck and angled peg head from a large blank. You now have a lot of unsupported end grain. I also wasn't big on the finished look. Overall, I think there are a number of guys on this site that can build as good or better instruments with less specialized tools.

just scrolling through some posts, is this item still available or has it been moved?

If you want to operate an LED off the same toggle switch you want to switch to a DPST or a DPDT and just flip in only one direction.