johnuk

I was watching the videos on this month's Guitarist magazine just now. One of the guys playing had a 'stutter switch' installed but instead of one the normal toggle switches, he used a momentary push to brake button. I thought it was a really cool idea because they're made to be toggled on and off very quickly and lots of times. It worked really well and you can get hundreds of different style of push to brake switches, unlike the handful of different ones you can get as minature toggles. I couldn't tell if his did or not, because of the light shining on his guitar, but you can get a lot of them with LED's already fitted inside them; these will almost certainly be on when the switch is closed, not open... saying that you may be able to find some that are the other way round. If you install a toggle switch on active pickups, install it where it will brake the signal leaving the pickups and going to the output jack. If you install it where it will only brake the power to the pickups it won't work. I did this on the advice of a luthier I called and found out quite quickly that active humbuckers, EMG's in my case, seem to have a switch on delay. When I flick the switch, they don't instantly come on, they have a noticable gap. That means that any real quick toggling is out of the question since they'll never have enough time to come on. Added to that, if your amp is turned up high enough, they'll never go fully off. Buy an expensive toggle switch whichever way you decide to go otherwise you'll just get lots of pops and bangs when you toggle it on and off. Good luck anyways! John

I sure hope you mean Ibanez's web page! I can't really remember very well but I think I emailed Ibanez once to ask them about the photo.

Speaking of Ibanez, how many of you guys in the UK have found yourself here yet... http://www.ibanez.co.uk/

You guys should check out Rhino CAD. http://www.rhino3d.com/ It's a cheaper version of the solid body enviroment CAD programs machining places use for writing their machine's programs. I don't know if it's just me but it seems very easy to use in comparison to the other CAD programs. The demo has a limited number of features but they're only limited compared to the trillion different ways of making a sloping edge the people need who are using it to generate really complex 3D models. The demo is FREE so you may as well give it a try.

That's some beautiful work Drak! I especially like the Purple Quilt Pre-Shot piccy, they're some very nice blues.

I like your ?gerbil?... may I touch it?

Is your Floyd a Gold One Sorry ELX, mines just chromed. I've noticed the gold plating seems to rub off or tarnish on bridges I've seen, I don't know if that's common or not. They sure look funky while they're still bright gold though. Bright gold on a deep blue is my favourite! I'll have to remember that line next time i trade in my car... I know... it sounds horrible! I am getting really tired of always being the one who ends up 50 pounds down though! I'm still dealing with this asswipe who sold me the $9 tuners for $50 for example. A lot of stuff on ebay they sell as brand new and in the box when in reality you can be sure at least 50% of it is actually the floor model put back in it's box and sold on, or returned goods.

ELX, if you have paypal I would be willing to sell you my original floyd rose if you would like it? I bought it brand new planning to fit it to my guitar, but my lack of wood working skills is making me wonder if for my first guitar I should perhaps go for a fixed bridge. My design has a channel running down the centre of the guitar for the neck to sit in, so aligning the pockets for the bridge would only cause problems for me. The bridge is the original and is literally brand new in the box. All I've done is open the package and rest it on my guitar blank to see how thick it was. I also added a blob of wax oil to the socket the arm pivots in to prevent it seizing or wearing away. At room temperature the stuff is a wax like material that's very slippery, as friction increases and it gets warm it starts changing to a liquid on it's surface so it kind of redistributes itself to the areas where wear is at it's highest. Nifty stuff. I paid $159 for mine without P&P. I'm not sure how that compares to what others have paid or what you were looking for but I would like to resell it for the same since it's still brand new. You can check my posts out on here and hopefully see that I'm not going to sell you a lemon. I purposely set out to keep the bridge pristine in case I decided to sell it again. I also have a Hipshot Tremsetter for the bridge which is also still new in it's box. It's very easy to install. I don't know if you've checked up about them but they stabilise the tremolo and prevent it from warbling on notes or moving as you perform bends and vibratos. I would really prefer to sell them both together as I have no use for the Tremsetter once the tremolo goes. I don't want to sound insulting but I'm not really open to debating the price as I would rather keep them than loose money on perfectly new stuff. Let me know if you'd be interested in them. Oddly enough I was just considering making such a post on here to see if anyone would like the bridge. I am in the UK, so I'm not sure how far apart we are. All the best, John (Who loves Ibanez's guitars )

I wouldn't carry on with it really. Wes is correct that unless you are only looking for a tack weld, using a normal stick welder or mild steel rods won't do. The Hot Rod truss rod is only about $14 US, or 5 - 8 pounds UK. Other than chaning curreny to AUS $'s, I don't see how it gets much more expensive. For me, 5 - 8 pounds outweighs the day I'd have to spend making the rods.

You could build one easily! I would say you'll need access to a tap and die set for cutting the threads. The blocks could also do with being milled if you can get on a mill, vertical or horizontal will do. If I remember rightly, both the threads on the Hot Rod are just right handed in nature. If you turn the rods themselves by hand you can move both the rods in and out of the brass nuts on the ends at the same time. Use brass for the nuts because it's easier to shape and work. You can also buy oil impregnated brass which has had oil forced into the structure of the brass under an evil amount of pressure. The brass effectively self oils as it is abraided. Stainless Steel wise I would suggest 316 since it's a high chrome alloy which will never rust; well, not unless you put it in acid or something like that! I would replace the bottom screw thread, as someone has said, with a fixed bar purely for ease. If you can get on a vertical mill you could just get a strip of brass and then machine a section out of it from the centre, leaving the strip behind on the bottom. Drill & tap the holes, thread the rod through and that'd be it. If you want to attach a hex nut on the end, I would question having it TIG welded unless you have a friend who'll do it for nothing. Usually if you go to these places the guy you speak to will say something like $10 just because it's an effort for him to change the job he's doing, not because he'll do $10 worth of welding. I have MIG welded stainless steel to mild steel myself. It stank, literally (It was a boat's exhaust pipe), and didn't look as nice as a TIG weld, but it worked. Even a tack will be strong enough to hold a screw thread. I used to have a 2k stirling welder which welded up to 400 amps of clean DC. My boss gave me a 3 - 4 mm thick stick electrode made out of 316 and the welder promptly put down a beautiful shiney join. We were messing around with it for about half an hour welding junk together until eventually we had the most expensively welded junk mild steel I'd ever seen. I turned it up for a joke and the electrode was vapourised instead! You want it DC welded, not AC. 316 stick electrodes work fine with a good DC welder. MIG welding anything is horrible!

Thanks for the help! I should have thought of that myself, it's sooo easy compared to what I was thinking of doing. We have a huge stockpile of scrap wood and stuff out in the garage so I'll make up a new base for the router tomorrow. The router I have is a 25 pound one made by some under paided poor guys out in the East. Straight out of the box there were problems with it, not big ones but annoying ones. The fence screws out right refused to go down one of the threads that locks it in place. The fence guide's chroming was already blistering off because the metal had most likely been chromed with rust on it. The depth lock sometimes decides to de-lock itself mid routing! That's a really annoying one. The depth gauge itself sometimes vibrates itself loose. And to complete the router, the dust extraction port decides when it will and when it won't actually extract any dust. What was worrying me was the depth problems, because even though I realised the router was giving me a much more accurate surface in general, even now and again it would go insane and decide to do something else. I didn't want it to do that and then leave a big piece missing where I would need to glue the neck to the body. Fixing the base should solve a lot of these problems. Out of interest Dave, how did you cut the channel for the guitar you mentioned?

The thing is that I've already routed out the pocket. I didn't want to go right up to the line in case the router dug into it at all so I kept a few mm away. The cavity is too wide for the router's base to span, so it'd be very difficult to put the router back into the cavity because the sides of the cavity are only around 2" thick; the router can tip easily on them. Which is why I've kind of ruled it out. John P.S. Why don't they make routers that have fences on both sides, then you could pin the router perfectly in place even over a cavity!

Oh my g-awd I'm knackered! [You'll find out why in a second] I've just realised I can't post ACSII style pictures here, ignore the words [space] I bought a 1/4" router bit last night to set about my guitar to be with. I have chosen a design for my guitar where-by the neck travels all the way thru the body but rather than being between the sides of the guitar, the neck sits in a pocket routed into the body. I believe this is called a deep set neck or something similar. Brake out the ACSII art! Top down of body: ------........------ |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| |XXX|...... |XXX| ------........------ Side of body: --------- [ space ] --------- |XXXXX|..............|XXXXX| |XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX| |-----------------------------| The scaling is quite far off on the second picture but it's not too bad. The channel is 146mm wide and runs the length of the guitar down to 17 - 19mm in depth. First of all, I route that entire thing with 1/4" bit, okay, not toooo bad. Then I began to block sand the routing marks off the cavity. Roughly 5 hours of sanding later, I'm were I am now. I can see it taking another 5 hours at least to block sand the cavity perfectly square. I have roughly 3-4mm left before there will be no neck / body step (not including the finger board). So I have about 1 - 2mm left to leave me with a 1-2mm step. I thought now would be a good time to ask your opinions on how I should level the cavity off. I have at my disposal: - Lots of time Router Belt Sander & Orbital Sander I didn't want to use the router anymore because it's prooving to be a real pain in the ass! I know that the top of my body is flat, so I started getting insane ideas for neat ways of getting the cavity perfectly level by sanding. More ACSII art! Special cavity tool: |**********************| Long piece of wood ************************ [..space..] ***** Short block attached to bottom of wood [..space..] ***** [..space..] SSSSS Sanding paper I thought I would press the long piece against the body top and then sand until the long piece was resting against the body top, meaning it was at the correct depth. I don't have a hand plane, but would one be accurate enough for this kind of work? Thanks again and sorry it's so long! I'm very new to all this wood working stuff, I'm much more used to metal, so I need to ask a load of questions! John

I did something similar to what you suggested, but without the template. I am having the adjusting nut under the locking nut, so my cavity only had to be a simple rectangle. I used the routers own fence to guide the bit down the centre of the neck, the neck is still in the form of a 146mm wide plank and made two cuts side by side. Like I say, I should have really drilled two points for the ends of the rod and then joined them up with the tracks routed later. Instead I've done it in kind of reverse, and now should really drill the ends to form a nice perfect radi on them... but some sand paper seems to have done quite well. I'm taking photos but I must be the only person now without a digital camera, so they're going on our superb, hyper expensive SLR and will have to be scanned when I'm done.

I return from installing the truss rod! I found a very small router bit from our Dremel. I also found that the smallest collet from the Dremel would actually fit into the collet on in my router. But that the router bit would not fit into the smallest collet. I am lucky enough to have a CNC lathe, so I very gently took some of the shaft off the router bit. I was then able to fit the router bit into the smallest collet, and this into the router itself. I used 30,000 rpm, very small cuts and slow transverse speeds. It took a good while to cut the cavity but the router bit was fine all the way thru. I was worried it might begin deflecting, it didn't. I think it took me about 3 - 4 passes to cut the cavity down to it's right depth, then I did the walls. The truss rod sits perfectly in it. I'm having to tidy the ends of the cavity up a bit by hand since the ends obviously didn't meet perfectly, but that's nothing serious. The router bits from Dremel are about 2 pounds I think so if you only need to do this once, this may be an option for you. If I did this again I would have drilled a pilot hole at the ends of the cavity so they were tidy from the start, but again... nothing major! John

Wes and Scott are right! Tuning a floating tremolo can be a REAL bitch! In a normal tremolo, the springs pull so hard against the strings that the tremolo can only tip forward, and only when you press the bar down, so it's as if the strings are tightening against a fixed bridge. In a floating tremolo, the tension in each string directly effects the bridge, since it can tip forward and backward now without you touching the bar. Say for instance you tune the low E string to pitch and then start moving towards the top E. By the time you reach the top E you've added a lot of extra tension to the strings overall to bring them up to pitch (If you just put on a new set). This tension doesn't just go anywhere, it pulls the bridge up slightly. In doing so, you now have a perfectly tuned top E, but you've effectly pushed the bar down on the other strings; the low E will usually be a good half step out. If you're starting with a new set of strings, leave the nut unlocked and rough tune the guitar. Go mental on the strings for a while with the whammy bar and retune them... they'll probably be about two or three notes off already. Go mental with the bar again... retune... I find it helps if I leave my guitar overnight after mucking about on it with the whammy bar. This gives the strings time to settle down and get used to being closer to the tension they'll need to be at later. Retune the guitar until all the strings are close to pitch. As Scott pointed out, tune the first three slightly over pitch at first, then the last three dead on. This last bit of extra tension drops the first three down close to being in pitch. I find that when I close my locking nuts the strings almost always go slightly sharp, so I purposely wind the fine tuners out and set my strings slightly flat. Then when I close the nut they're pulled up slighty and I can get the rest with the fine tuners, which will cover about a note in range. The strings WILL stretch out and drop out of tune over the next few days. This is why I like having my fine tuners wound out because I am fairly confident that I will need to make positive adjustments to them over the few days after tuning the guitar. First time I tuned a Floyd Rose it took me about 3 hours to get the ****er in tune! Have patience, it will happen soon!

I had this really annoying teacher for English just before my GCSE's. The most useful thing she ever taught me was that a shirt has one collar and two sleeves.... One N, two S's... necessary... Incredible huh?! You guys have no idea how much hated her...

I'm about to do this right now.... Just waiting for the glue to set under the piccy of the headstock I stuck on. Page Master, if you mean the Hot-Rod from Stewmac, as Guitar Frenzy said, it's actually very easy compared to other truss rods which require cavities with curved bottoms to them. Bear in mind, however that, as I recently found out, Stewmac will expect you to buy their own special $20 router bit to cut the channel. So if you're only doing it once this will turn a $17 odd truss rod into a $37 odd truss rod without postage. I am going out making my channel in a slightly different fashion, I'll let you know how I get along. Best wishes, John

All guitar amps take a line level input and amplify it. The voltage generated by an acoustic and that which is generated by a solid body lead guitar are roughly the same. As has already been said, all the difference will be is how the amp is designed to sound. Acoustics are often brighter and twangier sounding than lead guitars, so you may get quite a bright sounding tone from the amp with your guitar in front of it. You'll barely get any distortion from the amp so you might want to consider also buying an overdrive or distortion pedal with it. I'd say that you should save up and buy a used JCM 800. I have become the good will ambassador of JCM 800's now... You can get the combos for a few hundred $$$'s off ebay.

Definitly. The wood will almost certain move over time and you don't want your frets to suddenly start twisting out of shape or moving around!

Guitar Frenzy, I don't know if you saw recently, but some guy on ebay ripped me off when I bought some tuners from him. They're going back to be refunded. I have the fret board, I went with a piece of ebony. I used WinFret to print out a fret template and have the fret positions marked out with a scalpel. I play using ernie ball hybrid 9's, so I chose an evil 27" Ibanez baritone scale for this neck hoping that it would help increase string tension for a strength with lower chording, rather than having the strings twang out on me if I go extreme on them. I don't really like truss rod covers so I'm just going to have the end as it is on the Chrome Chick, that is just under the nut. Inlay material, not yet... I was wondering what to use. I wanted to flame the top with a blue fiddle back maple veneer. I wanted it to look more streamline than overly ornate, so I ruled out mother of pearl and abalone (sp?). I was actually thinking of perhaps using phenolic plastic and painting blue glow in the dark on the backs of them so they glow a tiny bit in the dark; not like LED's, I mean just enough so they're visible and kind of eiry looking. I don't know though. We have a CNC jewelery mill in school which I could use to cut a complex 12th fret inlay. Fretwire, I didn't want to order from Stewmac. I have read somewhere that the wire on the Ibanez JS10th is from Warmoth, or very similar to one they sell. So I wanted to get that from Warmoth instead (I need something else from them as well). I don't like the feeling when I change between guitars and the fret sizes change along with the fret board radius, I'd prefer it to be consistent. What annoys me is the blank postage rate these places charge. For instance, if I order a piece of inlay material alone form Stewmac, they'll probably apply a fixed rate postage to England of something like $16. A piece of inlay material would go in an envelope with a 30p stamp on it. However, I have a lot of time to buy these parts since my 'neck' is nothing like a neck at the moment. It's a 6" x 20mm blank of hardwood about a metre long with an Ibanez headstock profile sticky taped to the end! While I'm getting the fret wire and the rest I was planning to cut the truss rod channel, the pickup slots and bridge recess, then use a coping saw to hand cut the profile of the neck out the blank. Then it should be ready for gluing the board into place. As I won't have profile the back of the neck by the time I glue the board into place, would it be better to cut the slots with the board glued to the neck or with it off the neck? Does anyone know where I can find a routing diagram for a floating float rose original? The manual that came with the Floyd doesn't show you how to cut the pocket for a floating bridge. The standard tone block sticks out the back of the 1 1/2" blank, so it's going to the horizontal mill some day soon! All the best! John

How about the slot drills by Chronos? They're under the milling cutters section. They do a 5.5mm version, .2mm smaller than Stewmacs. I measured my truss rod as being 5.63mm wide using a micrometer. www.chronos.ltd.uk

Stewmac speakth... John, Thank you for your email. I would be concerned about using a 1/4" channel because the rod may lean over or twist in the extra space even when tacked down. That could potentially send your neck into a undesired twist. I suggest purchasing the proper bit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Looks as if I'm going the KrazyDerek route! Like I say G.Frenzy, I totally understand what you're saying. I'm not trying to get a work of art for nothing, I'm just trying to apply some brain power to it before I buy too much else in case there is some way I can achieve the same effect with tools I already have; am I using this guitar in a way to see if I enjoy building a guitar. I would probably have said what you had said if I owned the bit myself, so I appreciate that you're trying to help me! Now all I need is to find a smaller bit!

I guess I could see that being an issue with a larger channel but I still think you'd be OK with the 1/4". Stewmac does have good tech support, if you send them an email about this, they could probably tell you what to expect. The guys I have talked to aren't the type that would push you toward buying something you don't need - I trust them. Of course, having the right tool is comforting - good luck. BTW, where are you located? I've got a series of necks to build but after I get through them I could send the bit to you. I can't guarentee when that will be though. That's really kind of you Dave, I live in England, so it depends where abouts you are in relation I guess. The only other thing I was thinking of was similar to what Derek said, involving smaller bits. I'll email Stewmac and see what they say! All the best! John

Can you explain this a little further? I'm not sure how a 64th on each side would prevent it from working. I'm genuinely curious, not trying to pick a fight. Thanks for the replies! I think what G.Frenzy means is to do with how the rod expands. As you turn the nut, if the ends aren't held tightly in line with each other, the torque on the nut is enough to make the brass ends turn, rather than the nut pulling against it's own thread. I was just looking at it though, .225" is 5.715mm and 1/4" is 6.35mm, which leaves a 0.635mm gap all together; about 0.3mm either side. I totally understand why many guys would suggest otherwise, I really dislike the idea of not using the correct tool to do something like this as well. This is, however, my first guitar and I'm not luthier yet. I'm 19 and currently jobless, so I don't really have enough money to warrant buying a router bit I'm only planning to use once at the moment, nor do I really have any sort of dedicated work shop or tool room since I still live at home (In fact, I'm currently working on rebuilding our garage and back yard!). $20 isn't much for something that could last me years, but in my last job it took me about 4 and half hours of industrial packing work to earn that much! It was like mentally dying, 12 million make up removing wipes a day.... My router arrived this morning from the kind people at the royal mail. I happened to be walking round in nothing but my shorts when I heard them banging on the door. I was trapped behind a pile of plastic box covers and table tops as I saw the guy going back to the van. That wasn't going to stop me! I bravely leaped the junk, cutting my leg as I went and jumped into my pants on the way downstairs. Now I'm having fun making the cat stick to the ceiling by starting the router in the kitchen. Of coarse.... if anyone is feeling really kind and would loan me their .225" bit for a few days you would have it returned as it was sent and from then on in you'd own my life.... that's right, I'm worth $20...