postal

I disagree.

If it's MIA with walnut plug.... you can tighten it until it's so tight you cant move it anymore... When you back it off- loosen, it will eventually get into an area of freeplay- it will turn easily in either direction. Once you get to that point, if you keep loosening, it will get resistance again... and if you force it more, you risk popping out the walnut plug- Sounds like the voice of experience doesnt it?!?! There are no "as far as it will go" limits other than popping out the walnut loosening, or tightening it as much as you can until you can't budge it anymore.

If you have the allen wrench properly seated, and it turns easily in either direction, you are at the neutral point on the rod-

Sure you have the right size allen wrench?

After that....

The headstock access strats frequently have saw dust stuck in the hole- Especially the American ones with the walnut plug.... sometimes the mex ones with black plastic, but not so much....

place the allen in the hole, and smack it a little with a hammer to force it into the allen head bolt. Once firmly seated- then try turning it.

Fenders don't get broken rods all that frequently because the flimsy flatsawn necks are pretty easy to adjust.

Stain it black or tobacco brown.

Sand it halfway out.

Then stain red.

Then clear coat.

I *guess* I can understand why Matt didnt bind the end on his.... but I think either put the binding on the entire board, or dont do it at all.

Binding done poorly looks far worse than no binding at all as well.... If you're gonna do it, do it right.

And you dont have to "miter" the end either..... do the end first, sand the sides of the end flush to the channel on the sides, and the side strip meets at a nice almost 90 deg angle.... simple.

Is this what you're talking about postal?

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=20...uter%20template

That's it. The one I use. Works great. Just play with a little scrap first to get the hang of it. Only down side is you cant have sharp corners unless you clean those up by hand with a chisel. Plan on rounding your corners on the cavity cover, or chisels them out.

Forget it- it's for race engine parts and bladed tools. You want to imrove your guitar, slap some KY on the neck. You'll be able to play it faster. Cheap to.

Nice score!

I've heard great things about them. I have a hegnor. I had a $129 delta POS years ago- No comparision between the delta and hegnor or RBI. Heard makita has a good copy of the RBI though.

I know a number of you have made duplicators- I searched all those topics a number of times...

I'm putting one together myself using linear bearings and a 1 1/2 hp 1/4" collet router.

I'm planning to make my own stylus bits to match router bits I use, but what bits do you guys find most usefull?

I was thinking 3/4"-1" core box bit for roughing, and 1/4" downward spiral for cavitys and outside body shape. Is this a good choice?

I plan on making templates to run most work on this machine including routing PUP/electronics cavities, outside body shape, and *ROUGH* neck back shape. Also some of my guitars are highly detailed hand carved, and want to duplicate some of those on occasion.... and plan on using a 60 degree "signmakers" bit for those *rough* details, and finish them off by hand with chisels.

Thanks,

Postal!

Rockler and or woodcraft have a router template bit set.

Not a normal bearing template router bit.....

With this system which includes a router bit, brass collar and additional add on brass collet.....

You make the cavity cover exact size and shape you want.... run through the right combo of collet and collar to create a perfect oversized template and change the system out to use that template to route the body itself for a perfect match.

Once you're used to this system, you can use the same template to cut more covers as well.

Should be about $30 bucks- It's what I use, works great.

Yellow and red are translucent dye, the black is opaque. Do a search on sunbursts. There is a huge amount of info on how they're done. Then check guitar reranch, I think there's a tutorial there as well.

Grizzly is a tool supplier.

I would guess that they're "testing the waters" for luthier supplies. The president of the company is one hell of a luthier... and I think that its because of him, they want to see if they can build a customer base from those of use who have been using the usual expensive suppliers.

To date I've only placed one order with grizzly. I expect to place many more. I was very satisfied with the products and customer service, and time of delivery. Price was pretty damn good too.

To whoever complained about grizzly fretwire selection..... at least it's prebent..... Order straight wire from stew, and for just $75 more, they'll sell you a fret bender..... :D ridiculous.....

I bought about 5 truss rods from another builder, which I believe to be the grizzly H6031. I used 4 of them, and like them. (#5 is still under construction) They are pretty shallow compared to hotrods. I broke a hotrod, and since then, I've decided to NEVER use a hotrod again... Why should I pay a lot more money for a rod that is weaker?

I've never heard good things about Gotoh rods though- I like gotoh hardware- bridges and tuners and things, I thing they're good quality for a great price, but I wouldnt use one of their truss rods from what I've heard from others.

I've done this many times. Rhoads56 is right. Put the dust directly where you need it and drop thin CA on it. I put it in place with a razor blade, and use the flat side of the blade to "pack it down" where I want it- Try to only get the dust where it's needed- When you drop thin CA on it, itt will harden instantly. scrape it with a razorblade, and sand it down. It will fill perfectly and is undetectable.

-------edit-----

You should be doing it the same way with ebony-

Depends on species a lot though too I think. Rock maple which is commmon for necks, little if any flame shows on the flatsawn edge, but looks good on the quarter.

Big leaf maple- the soft one which is common for bodies, typically shows flame on the flatsawn and quarter both.

Anybody know what kind of glue Gibson uses for the binding?

The regular LMI/StewMac glue ain't holding tight to the fret ends.

Thanks,

MP

The glue will depend on the binding. But did you let the glue dry for a least 4-5 hours?

Using nitro binding, the glue is just acetone with small bits of binding melted into it until it becomes a gel like consistency. Very easy, strong and dries fast too.

ABS binding like what stu sells- they no longer carry nitro- is normally glued with an industrial grade of "weld on"- a type different than what stu carries. It has a 4 digit number instead of "weld on 16"... it's like "weld on 5407" or something- I forgot the actual number.....

I believe the only difference between these 2 versions of weld on, is that the industrial one is made of abs, acetone and MEK. The stu one I think is just ABS and MEK.....

So you could play mad chemist, add a small amount of acetone, and small amount of ABS to thicken it up again and try that.....

Or just use the stu glue, and wick some thin CA at the fret ends to try and hold them in place.

Dunno where to get it, but the 24 is exactly the same as the 22. The neck joins the body at the same location- the bridge is naturally in the same position as well..... so the 23,24 frets are actually a little difficult to reach on the real Jackson, since they didnt push the body back a little for upper fret access.

Hope that makes your search a little easier.

When filling wenge, you'll want to use the regular medium or even "thick". The pores are so big that if you thin out the glue you would need maybe 4 applications of glue to fill completely. With thick it should be about done with 1 application with a little touchup fill here and there.

You may want to try it before thinning it out. Interesting to know I can thin it if it wanted to though.

Good post Russ.

I've used black loctite 410 and epoxy with a black dye as well.

Group buy on 10 from bondtech looks like a good way for you guys to go. Sounds like a similar product to the loctite.

Ethan,

The bundle is run down the treb side because the fiber is very delicate, and will break if you try and bend it too sharply. The run on the treb side gives the most room to bend.

If you can do this with scallops will depend on how deep the scallops are, and how thick the fretboard is, and how deep you route the channels. With the fiber in hand, you can see how deep the route would need to be, and go from there.

This sounds very dangerous unless you've scalloped before, and know how to do it properly, and with a consistent depth.

Great tut- Thanks for taking the time. I'm also curious to see a pic of the bundle coming out the fretboard to the guitar body.

I use med and fine blades from sears or HD. It depends on the kind of saw you have, but the stew blades will probably work on some saws. Rockler probably has them too.

I'll try and check, but I think they oil and buff with bowling lane wax.

Great job on that.

I have access to a top notch "hegner" scroll saw. I used it for the one and only time I cut pearl. I superglued the pearl to a 3/16" plywood backer.... not the best choice, but it was handy.... I still have all my fingers even when cutting tiny pieces. I made a set of "celtic crosses". Not too much detail except the small size at the upper frets. Both straight and curved sections. I'm a noob with the saw, and it went fine on my first try. Some people learn how to use a scroll saw very well. I dont- yet.... I think though, that a good saw like a hegner, RBI, or the makita cheap copy of the RBI that there is *almost* nothing that cant be done with the saw that you could do with a hand saw.

I have not tried the handsaw, and probably wouldnt.

Talking to another guitar builder, he said he buys miniature "bandsaws" from stained glass shops with an abrasive blade, not a toothed blade, and says it's the best. I've not seen the setup, dunno the limitations, but heard these can be found for as little as $50 US.... something to check into......

Here's a pic of the crosses-

They go all the way to 21 fret... gets almost the size of a pencil eraser.... Couldnt bring myself to try a double on the 24th.....

HAHAHA! Touche`!

They do have a number of basses with it though.... 70', 75' JB, Geddy Lee 74' JB, marcus miller, and maple tops with binding.

Fender uses very thin fretboards, and some of those models listed are available with rosewood boards, so if the binding didnt go into the neck wood, at 21-22 fret the binding would only be about 1/16" thick....

Right Swede, Binding should be about the same thickness the entire length.

Mattia..... fender..... compound radius.... 2 words that dont belong in the same sentence!

It really isnt hard though. If you undersize your fretboard for binding, glue FB in place, unclamp after 1 hour if using titebond, scraping most excess glue out of the channel is easy at that stage- Let dry thoroughly, then grab a file. It doesnt take long at all to lower the channel into the neckwood at the upper frets. I've done 3-4 like this and probably took 10-15 minutes each neck. Checking the depth with a peice of 1/4" binding to see if the excess is roughly the same the entire length.

I forgot jacksons are compound radius. They tend to be about 200-220 thou though, so they probably do go into the neck wood a bit. They have other complications though, since jackson angles the binding so it's wider at the neckwood, and narrower at the top of the fretboard.