ihocky2

After over a year of planning and narrowing down ideas I have finally begun my first build. I decided to keep it simple. Body- RG Style with bolt on neck Body Wood- Mahoganny (Honduran I think) Neck- Maple, pre-made Jackson neck. 25.5" scale, 24 frets. Recessed Gotoh TOM bridge Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded Humbuckers set. Ernie Ball strings- 10's 1 volume, 1 tone, 1 3-way switch Not sure of finished color yet. Today I finally got started making shavings. I had the wood glued up from several days ago. I sanded it all level and cut out the basic shape. Hoping later this week the take the router to it to trim the body to size and to cut the neck pocket. These are the body after being cut. http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b192/ihocky2/RGBody6.jpg http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b192/ihocky2/RGBody3.jpg

For now I am lucky to have access to several routers so I do not have to buy one for my self YET. I have heard a lot of good things about Porter Cable though. I am mainly interested in bench top type power tools. Drill press, band saw, planer, joiner and such. I know with a drill press you want to make sure the spindle is tight and does not have too bad of runout. All I know is that if or when I get a bandsaw I will need at least a 14" to be able to resaw with. Beyond that I don't know much what to look for in them. Planers and joiners I like the idea of, but it seems that it would be a tool I would not uses a whole lot. It sounds like they like to tear out figured wood, so I may just as well stick with hand planes and sawing to rough size. Also with table saws, is there anything I should look for in them.

Just kind of curious as to who makes quality power tools at resonable prices these days. I know for the longest time you wanted to go with Craftsman. But I know those days are long gone.I have seen people talking about Delta and have seen them at Lowes and their prices were good. How does Ryobi stand up. I know DeWalt and Makita are good for hand power tools, but can carry a hefty price tag, but sometimes is worth it.

One thing that I noticed (and I don't really know how it will affect the string placement) is that you have you bridge located parallel to the neck. You don't have it angled like usual on TOM's. That will affect intotation for you and as I picture this in my mind, by added the angle it will being the strings a little closer to the pole pieces.

I have found another automotive spray paint that I can find at walmart and a few other auto shops. It's called PlastiKote. It's an acrylic laquer. I know a few people who have used it on their cars and it seems to be pretty good stuff.

Just looked at this topic for the first time and came up with an idea for a simple vacuum bag that might be cheaper and a lot easier to get a hold of. How well would it work if you steamed the maple top, added your glue, and used a food saver vacuum bag? Does that creat anough vacuum pressure to pull the top down ad enough force to hold the top down as it dries and the glue sets?

Welcome, I am new to this myself so I can only offer the advice others have given me so far. Maple will give you a brighter sound, oak will give a nice sound but oak is fairly heavy compared to most of the other guitar woods. Pine is not a great idea since it is so soft. People have made guitars from pine before and get a pretty good sound except the wood likes to move a lot from it being so soft. I would recommend stopping in the reference and tutuorials section and reading some of the pinned topics, especially the do's and don'ts. There is a lot of information that will give you a great idea where to start and what you'll need. If you have any questions use the search function, if you have a question usually someone else has had it before and you'll gain a lot of knowledge by just reading through the past posts. I would recommend searching telecaster and I'm sure you'll get a ton of info. Good luck on your project.

Thanks for the help. I knew a certain portion was personal preference, but at a certain point there are just standards that every one finds. For example the tighter radius being easier to chord. I would imagine that a narrow extra high fret is going to be hard to slide notes on no matter who the player is. It looks like it's jsut going to be a whole bunch of guitars on my wall if I want to set each one up for a specific purpose. Hey wait, that sounds like a great idea. Now has anyone actually gotten their wife to believe this reasoning?

With so many options available with necks I was wondering how each one affects playing styles. Which fret heights are better for bending, which for a lot of sliding, which for speed, which for cords? What affect does the fret widths have? And then the same questions for the radius. Does the scale length make it easier to play certain styles, if not what purpose does the different lengths serve other than sustain? I know the shape and thickness of the back of the neck is just personal preference. With so many choices for all of the neck parts and design it gets confusing very quickly. I want to build a neck that I will enjoy and be able to play well on, but have no idea where to begin on my design of it other than I know how wide to make it, the materials I want to use, the shape of the peghead and that it will be a bolt on.

Thanks for the clarrification on the problems with nitro. Still not sure what road I am going to take and probably won't know until I order something. Since it is cheap and easily available I am thinking about testing some poly on white paint and see how it affects that color and see how it polishes out for me and if I can do a good enough job to not get witness lines.

I'm still new to this so don't get a few other opinions also, but I have read a lot where guys will just use laquer and skip the sanding sealer. Most sanding sealer is a little softer and has a higher solids content though. It is meant to develop a protective coating quickly.

The dry time doesn't concern me so much with any of the finishes. I have one that I can play while I am waiting for it to cure. I am just looking for a method that is going to show the least amount of errors. Which so far sounds like nitro, but like I said earlier I am afraid of the yellowing and cracking. How bad is the yellowing really? Say I did a whtie body, would it fade to more of a cream over time or would it tend to end up more of a TV yellow? Also how long does this really take and the same for the cracking? I am really interested in the waterbase laquer, but would like to hear from someone who has used it. Also any help on what the differences are with the acrylic laquer.

After doing quite a bit of reading I am a little more informed but just as confused on what type of clearcoat I want to use. I have 2 projects I am planning, one being a solid, possibly metallic, finish and the other being dyed. For the dyed I will be using either the Stewmac liquid stain or analine dye. But from there I am not sure what will work the best and easiest. These will be my first two finishing jobs, so I want something less complicated and more fool proof. I don;t have a spray booth so 2 part polyurethane is out. These are my following options and thoughts on them, a little shove in the right direction would be appreciated. Nitro: Pro- Less sanding between coats and no lines showing if coats are sanded through because of the layer melting. Less chance of runs. Cons- Goes on thinner than Poly. I really dislike the yellowing factor, I am looking to do medium to dark blue or green or purple, and want the color to stay the same over time. I also don't like the checking it does. Acrylic Laquer-I haven't found anything telling me a whole lot about it and the advantages over nitro. Waterbased Laquer Pros- A lot less toxic. Supposed to yellow a lot less and shrink less. Cons- Can't find enough people that have used it to make me feel comfortable using it and not much info on it. Polyurethane- Pros-Can be bought at home depot or lowes, goes on thicker, doesn't yellow or shrink. Cons- must be sanded well between coats, if coats are sanded through lines are present. When sanding between coats on poly, exactly how much must it be roughed? My main concern is if there is orange peel must I sand all the way until it all roughed, or shouldn't the orange peel bee too much of a problem?

How well would flat sawn walnut work? I have several pieces of it and want to make a bolt on neck (Strat style). I have to double check, but I think they are thick enough that I can use them as is. But if I have to I will glue up some laminates. Once they would be laminated would I have to turn them on end to make them more like 1/4 sawn or would they be fine left in a flat sawn position? I think the pieces are 4"x7/8" thick, but they may be only 3/4" thick in which case they would end up too thin until I finish shaping and sanding them.

Thanks for the advice. I took a fairly basic electronics technology in high school and deal with some electronic engineering, so I have a pretty good understanding of the components and what they do. I get lost when it gets into any of the alternate pickup wirings and switching, but I have never done any type of research on any of that either. So for now I think I'll forgo the books, at least until I get bored with one of my guitars and decide to mod it.

I am a newbie and am in the design phase of m first project guitar. I have already bought Melvin Hiscocks book. I am planning on ordering a few other refernce materials to get additional knowledge before I get to far involved. MY question is, should I by a book on guitar wiring now or wait. I can go onto Seymour Duncans website or go through Hiscocks book or find schematics for basic wiring just about anywhere and understand them. I currently own only 1 Strat and am building a guitar with 2 humbuckers. I do not plan to do anything with it other than standard wiring. I am not sure if I will be building more after this so I do not know if I will ever get into coil taps, series/parallel, splitting or any of the other stuff (which I know almost nothing about). With only starting off basic is it worth it for me to buy a book explaining all of the other ways to wire up, when I won't be worrying about it for quite some time.

This is my first post as well as my first build. I have searched and found a few close answers to my questions, but these are the ones I have remaining that I did not find answers for. I have decided to use a string through body TOM bridge, which I am probably going to recess instead of creating a neck angle. I have been looking on the stewmac website at the bridges and do not know which ones are good quality and which to stay away from. The Gotoh 510 is like $80 for just the bridge, while the Schaller roller bridge is about $40 and then they drop off to about $15-$20 from their. I like the idea of the roller saddles sinec they will not create as sharp of an angle for the strings to go over, hopefully resulting in longer sting life. I also like the fact that I can change the string spacing, but will they be likely to move on their own and mess up the spacing. If the Gotoh costs that much, are the quality on the other ones that poor that they can be sold so cheap, or are you paying for the Gotoh name with their bridge? I would appreciate any opinions from people who have used the different bridges