johnuk

Hi, I bought a router so I can cut the pockets and bits from the mahogany. The first thing I want to do is to route a cavity down the neck for the truss rod. I will be using a 1/4" bit for the pockets at the bridge end. What really gets to me is that Stewmac seem to have purposely chosen a stupid size so you are forced to buy their gear. Their truss rod, the 'Hot Rod', is great otherwise. It is two brass rectangular shapes with the two threaded rods running into each. In between, the rods are covered in red plastic tubing slightly thinner than the brass nuts. The installation recommends a totally stupid router bit size, 7/32's. The nut is very thin (The same size), adding another millimeter and making it routable with a 1/4" bit would be unacceptable it seems, since then you don't need to buy their special routing bit. Would it be totally stupid to route the cavity with a 1/4" bit and then use a millimeter of shim stock either side of the nuts to get a perfect fit? This rod doesn't require any sloping in the cavity, and the only two contact points are the brass nuts. The way I see it, necks are shimmed with plastic cards, bits of paper and the likes. Although a nut is much trickier to get to, shim stock is practically free... special router bits are quite the opposite! The shim stock will of coarse need securing in place with some epoxy to remove the chance of it working loose. Is this a veeeery bad idea or should it be okay? If it's not, do any of you know where I can get metric sized router bits? I only need to make one cut with it. All the best! John (P.S. Have any fo you ever used a Peterson tuner?)

Hey! That's kind of similar to something I do. I've only been playing for about a year and a half, but early last year I bought some aluminium pics from the US. They're just a normal, medium sized rounded off tip shape, but they have holes drilled in the gripping end near the top in a line. I bought three different kinds. I kept playing with one blue one in particular because it felt the comfiest. Now, a year on, I found another of the pics lying around and held my blue pic up against it. Shhhhhhhhh--ite! There is about 3mm of solid aluminium missing from my favourite pic. Over the last year of painful guitar practice, I've worn the pic into the most ergonomic shape ever. The tip is very smooth and rounded off, but more cool than that is that the sides of the pic or also curved where they meet with the strings, and it's always just one side, since I must have subconsciously picked up on which was offering least resistance. When I play, I don't hold much of the pic out, I hold it so my thumb rests very close to the tip, so there is only about 2mm or so of the pic sticking out. I rest my pointing finger about half way up on the other side, so it's very difficult to scratch the guitar, and my thumb is close to the strings. It amazed me because I'd never looked at the pic before, and then when I it was almost perfectly smoothed off, as if it was machine cut. I have actually drawn round this pic with a pen and keep the drawing safe in case I ever loose the original. When I do loose it, I go round the house going mental trying to find it. I even added some string and hung it round my neck at one point, but it made playing too tricky! It's so perfectly shaped to how I play it makes aritificial harmonics easy compared to a new pic. I never really use any other pic now. The downside, if I loose it I go mental... and also, it leaves aluminium dust all over my fingers after a few hours playing. Without realising I then touch things like the white paint all over my room or the curtains! Ack! My next plan is to buy some titanium and make a cople of copies so I don't loose them so easily! I love my BLUE PIC!!!!!! YAY! I'll take a photo of it for you some day!

No problem, It's a combination of things. Firstly it's the first time I'm buying most of this stuff, and although I usually try to be as careful as possible the second factor comes into play literally 80% of the time. That factor is how I can actually pay for stuff. I started looking at getting a genuine Visa or Credit card and the bank just goes nuts on people my age now, it's like they're selling you double glazing. They want the absolute maximum risk factor for you to run a debt into and rake the interest in for them. So I kind of gave up with all the messing around to get one sorted. As a result, I can only pay using my -Electron- Visa, that's far from a normal Visa. Of all the online stores I try with this card, I could really count the ones which will accept it on one hand. Luckily, Paypal will accept it. There are no real luthier supply places round here, so most of the stuff I buy I do so from Ebay. It was only when I tried that I realised Stewmac would actually accept my card! What makes Setch's point worse is that I have actually ordered parts from Stewmac, and could have got the tuners from them at the same time. If he refunds the tuners and doesn't just replace them, I now know of somewhere I can get them other than Stewmac or the US which will be a lot cheaper. Most of my ebay stuff I get a lot cheaper than I would usually. I was able to easily get twice what I bought a TIG welder for on there and the same for a Lexicon processor I had fun with! Too much good luck.... it was destined to happen!

I'm not sure which to believe, but anyway, I recieved another reply so I'll get them back in the post this Monday hopefully. My normal opinion would be to believe him but the sentence "so someone else doesn't get cheap ones" worries me slightly. I am over 3000 miles away so there's no chance I'll be able to see him in person, but then again he has sold nearly 1000 items so it's quite likely he is an actual store I guess.... who knows! But thanks again for your help! ---------------------------------------------------------------- hi, totally unacceptable on this, sometimes a distbuter will change brands, they don't tell the dealers & this happens! best thing is to send them back to the P.O. Box address, you can even send them postage due if you want, make sure you ship them by Airmail, not economy, cuz packages shipped econony usually don't get delivered!!!! *laugh* when I get the tuners back, I'll refund you promplty, we're very busy right now, but I'll definitely make sure about the other tuners & make sure they're Gotoh, so someone else doesn't get cheap ones. if I have the same model in Gotoh in stock, I'll just ship ya the correct set! anything else, just ask! sorry for the hassle on this! usually the shipping dept. inspects everything before it's packaged, but when it's busy, they don't always do that! -Sean

What is particularly odd about this is that the genuine Gotoh tuners he sells, he does so for $10 less. He does sell a number of tuners, some of which are genuine Gotoh tuners, but he has included the Gotoh logo on a number of other auctions for Gotoh style tuners. The Gotoh style tuners are the ones that he sells for $10 extra, the kind I bought. He has been quick in replying and sent me this email.... I have asked to return the tuners and exchange them for genuine Gotoh tuners. I will be reclaiming the import duty from the post office when I send them back and I'll have to see what else happens. Thanks for your opinions on this! John ------------------------------------------------------- John, hi, how are you? you know, I checked on this tuner issue & you're right, they're different than the Gotohs, however they're NOT suppose to be! the distributer we deal with changed brands, which they're done on other items, but the thing is they don't tell the dealers, which is annoying for us, becuz we're very reputeable & honest, especially with the Ebay customers. I'm going to check the other tuners we stock to make sure they're Gotoh or not, so someone else doesn't have this problem! we always go out of our way to please a customer, so you can return them or whatever you feel is fair, it's your call! sorry about the tuner mishap! -Sean

I just found the other tuner, there are 6 there, it had fallen out the pack and to the bottom of the bag. But still... I've probably been waaay too polite! If he refuses to refund them (I don't want them exchanged) I'll see if ebay are willing to cover them. ------------------------------- Hi Sean, I got the parcel through this morning. The bridge and pickup surrounds are fine, but I think there may have been a mistake with the tuners. Since the Gotoh logo was in the description, I took the word style as a figure of speach. The tuners I recieved are those by Jin Ho, sold by WD Music, which a friend of mine buys for $9 a set. I am very against complaining but the quality of these tuners is in no way comparable to Gotoh's. The Jin Ho tuners already have scratches on them and have a questionable action. The parts were packed so well they would have been bullet proof! So I am wondering if these are the actual tuners I was bidding on? As the Gotoh logo was in the description I would question if it's unfair to expect them to be at least similar. Regards, John

I'll see what he says! This will be interesting...

I had to pay 20+ pounds importation tax on all this stuff, so I'm just hoping he's going to tell me someone must have packed them wrong! Ughhh! I'm going to go mental if this keeps up!

You're joking......?

Hello! My second parcel came thru from the US today with some other parts I'd ordered in. I had bought the parts from a guy on ebay who seemed really helpful. They included, a set of chrome pickup surrounds, an original Floyd Rose in it's box and a set of in line tuners. The pickup surrounds are of questionable quality; they do not look as though they've been machined square in anyway. But they're not too bad. However! I really liked how firm and positive the action was on the Gotoh tuners I have on the Chome Chick JS10th. So I figured I'd also get some Gotoh SG38's. I found the same guy selling the bridge was also selling SG3805's. I am unsure whether or not I took it for granted these would actually be genuine Gotoh tuners. He used the words "Gotoh style six-in-line tuning keys, chrome finish, model SG3805(almost identical to the Grover tuners)". And then since he included the Gotoh label I thought they must be Gotoh tuners. I was fairly saddened by the pickup surrounds, but even more so to discover the 'Gotoh' tuners were in fact vacuum sealed in a WD Music package. What makes me sad is that I am going to be putting a huge amount of effort into this guitar (Which is my first hand built one), and I don't want that effort off-set by using horrible parts from the start, the same reason I spent a lot more buying the original Floyd Rose bridge than I could have done on a licensed bridge. It would appear that WD Music have labeled these tuners as SG3805CL's. In comparison to the genuine Gotoh tuners, they are pretty bad! The chroming is not bright, but instead a dull steely colour. Around the winding post itself I can easily see deep, visible machining marks. The casting isn't too bad, but the surface is covered in deep scratches and pits that are just not present on the Gotoh's. The action of the tuner is relatively positive, but seems to run over bumps as it goes, so the gears are likely not aligned. I am just wondering if it is unfair of me to not expect this since he used the word 'style' in his description? These tuners are nothing like Gotoh's except in their bodies are roughly the same shape, the handles aren't. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...%3AEOT%3AUS%3A3 More to the point, it states there are 6, and for some totally unknown reason there are 5 in the pack from WD Music vacuum sealed in place? I have opened the pack to check for any identifying marks, Gotoh is definitly no where to be seen on them. It says 'Made in by Jin-Ho R2' on them (That is worded correctly). Am I unfair to ask for these to be exchanged? For a start I'm one tuner short!

Feel sorry for me being so poor and unequipped as to even think this... but... I was going to see if I could find any small hacksaw blades that would cut the slots. RioGrande sell a huge number of special jewelery blades that go in a normal hacksaw specifically for cutting very precise cuts. Figured it might be easier and cheaper than buying a backsaw. I have a micrometer so I'll be able to check the blades anyway. I'm talking about the kind used for metal working, with very fine teeth. Have any of you tried this idea already? I not trying to go cheap ass on every tool I need, but this is the first guitar I am building, so it would be a serious financial outlay to buy all the specially made tools in one go. We have a CNC jewelery mill in school but the ever burning annoyance that it is probably has safety switches all over the safety screen, so I'd never be able to get the neck under it (Plus it's cheating! )

Holey ****....... that's quite a unique power you have! Remember, pain leads to fear and fear leads only to the dark side... use your powers wisely Jedi! The sweet-hey is your's.... enjoy it as you bask in the glory you deserve! Now I'm off to download the 2001 - A Space Oddyssey theme tune!

Ahh yes! Jimmy Page! I don't know if it was him, but all these mad things you're meant to attach to your guitar are similar to what I was talking about... I think. I just got my box full of junk thru from a long aways away in the US; Stewmac. I spent the afternoon stroking the ebony board, messing around with the Schaller strap locks, playing with the truss rod and fiddling about with the Hipshot Tremsetter. I've never seen one before in person before, and I'm unfortunately the kind of ass who is not content with some just working, I need to mess around with until it's broken and I've figured out why it -used- to work! The Tremsetter is still in one piece, remarkably, almost 12 hours later! Does the D-Tuna work like they say it does? I wanted to fit one to a floating Floyd Original that I'm going to stabilise with the tremsetter. Have you ever tried this route yourself? Thanks, John

duuuuuh...... deeeeer....... duuuuuuur!!!!........ DUN DER!!!!!!! http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,...ller_Tuners.ssc Any good? If you can guess that tune, you win an imaginery sweet-hey!

I'm genuinely scared..... I remember reading somewhere about one famous guitarist who had wires all over his guitar so he could bend perform some kind of whacky racers style bending trick by pulling on this wire, which raised this particular strings tension. Was it the guy from Led Zepplin? Who's name I've totally forgotten now! Meh.......

Chrome looks sooo nice! But make sure it's triple chromed! You don't want it scratching up (And believe me, it will otherwise! )

Anodised Blue / Black / Brushed aluminium silver? Chrome Illusion? Have it airbrushed with some funky picture or pattern? You're doing a kick ass job on it!

Can't frets be set in glue to avoid all these problems? On Warmoths site they explain how they fill the slots with glue then seat the frets. "Using a special injection system, we apply a thick gel type of super glue to the entire length of the fret slot. The fretwire is then pressed into the glued slot. It is significant to note that there is an oil film on the fretwire. This oil prevents the glue from bonding to the fret. The fret is locked into the fingerboard as the super glue back-fills in behind the barbs on the fret tang. The end result is that the wood is still free to expand and contract with seasonal humidity changes, without splitting, and the frets never pop up! Because the glue is not bonded directly to the fret, there is no increased difficulty encountered during subsequent refrets. The last step is then to fill any gap at the bottom of the fret slot with the same gel glue"

Buy an alloy that has been heat treated, www.onlinemetals.com Heat treatment is shown as a T somewhere in the name of the alloy. T3 is when the alloy has been treated then cold worked to add strength. T6 alloy is left alone after it's been treated. There are two common types, 6061 and 2011. I think... 2011 may be easier to machine than 6061. One of the alloys is better at forming chips and coming away from itself, 2011 possibly. I have seen what is meant by this, if you try turning certain types of aluminium on a lathe, chips won't brake off. Instead you get a very long razor blade like spool of wire coming off. I have had suitably nasty cuts given to me because I've tried to pick it off the lathe by hand. [Duh!] The heat treated alloys are supposidely super metals. They literally are bullet proof in some cases! I think the aerospace industry uses T6. Why not try titanium? That has to be one of the weirdest metals I've ever seen! It feels like aluminium but you can barely even scratch it.

I've not tried it yet, so I have to ask, does the block come away from the base of the tremolo itself? If it does, machining it will be easier. If it doesn't I'll have to watch out for marring the bridge into a low quality, ebay purchase, finish! I wanted to profile the body similar to the S series from Ibanez. Would a 1/4" thick top even bend that much without steaming? I don't really want to try steaming a top into place yet.

Good ideas! I was going to use a maple veneer but somehow I doubt that'll be thick enough. We have a Bridgeport mill in school so if it's too thick I'll whip the tone block down a tiny bit. Hopefully I won't have to touch it but it's best to check first I guess!

Does anyone know the minimum thickness a body should be to install a Floyd original? Floyd Rose's link to Stewmac's installation diagrams is messed up. Their whole site is. I was able to view other people's submitions to Floyd Rose while trying to contact them because the form wasn't set up properly!? They need to seriously sort it out considering the kind of things they sell. My piece of wood started out at 2", then I watched on in horror as the guy fed it thru the machine trimming off big shavings of it. It's just over 1 1/2" thick now, I think it's something like 39mm, so he took about 5mm off. Now I'm concerned that I shouldn't route the cavity until I have checked out the bridge, in case I need to rapidly convert the project to a fixed bridge! Oh yea.... and of course, as normal, this guy happened to have Brazilian Mahogany lying around. I phoned everywhere in the North West, even a privately owned tree plantation in Wales, and NO WHERE had it. I buy the wood, take it for planing, and it's sitting there.

I'm guessing the wood wasn't made out of several precision-machined parts.... Nope, it was made out of a tree that's probably a hundred years or so old!

I live in the UK as well. I am 19 (Today! YAY!) and only have an Electron Visa card. This is without any doubt at all, practically useless. I bet there are 16 year old's with stores cards better than my Barclay's Visa card. NO WHERE takes it except Paypal and about 1% of online ordering places. They still put 'Master John Heritage' on my letters, then send me letters about 50,000 pound house mortages and other similar stuff that's really useful for someone they think is 16. Forget places like WH Smiths and all the rest, look for an expensive looking book shop, one that only sells books, not pens, pencils, coffee, tip-ex or sticky tape. Quote the ISBN number and ask if they can order it in for you. Lots of bookstores will because they buy from bulk suppliers anyway. We have one store here called Albertson's (?sp?) and they will order practically anything you want, book wise. Get the Yellow Pages out and look for some local book stores, give them a call and see if they'll order it for you. Amazon will be able to give you the book's ISBN number, it's the same no matter were it's sold, and almost everywhere will quote it. Now more importantly, everyone stop arguing!

Thanks Setch, that's exactly the kind I was thinking of, the Stanley I mean. I'll get one of that style and give it a go anyway. I'll see if the technician or my neighbour will lap the edge for me to make it nice and pointy. On the video the guy said to help make smoother cuts he'd suggest cutting on an angle, rather than trying to cut with the entire blade at once (Image how a lawn mower's blades cut), and that seemed to work for him. Another annoying question... I've barely used TurboCad in my entirely life... how the heck do I get the JS schematic to the right size? If I try to print it as is, it tries to run off two hundred b'zillion pages from the printer. If I set the measurments to millimeters, then click fit to page, it says it's about 1:5 scaled down. 1:5 seems somewhere closer than a forest of paper, but that's still a lot of paper just to cover a guitar body and headstock. What stupid, embarassingly simple, click box option am I missing?