Xanthus

I think if you did a dark neck wood, with a light veneer under the light fretboard, and a dark binding, i might cry Like, wenge with a maple fretboard and veneer, and wenge binding.

Sweet! I live in Malden. I love it up in that area, Swampscott, Salem, Gloucester especially. Anywhere near the ocean, really I'm a pirate at heart.

Nice! Only thing I'd change would be to reverse the headstock, but it's too late now What kind of pickups are those?

oooooh, gotcha, I must've overlooked that in the pics Well that solves everything, now doesn't it? Excellent work! I'd just find some way to connect all the pieces to make setup easier. Maybe drill two holes through the pieces and throw two metal bars through them with washers and nuts on the end, so you can just measure a line, take the wedges out, and spread them. PS, where in MA are you?

I would worry about your router munching those delicious cheese wedges for dinner. what type of bit are you going to use? Because even with a bearing/template bit, I don't see how one would keep the bit from eating into the wedges. I might want to put all of the wedges on some sort of common back piece, so you can line it up perpendicular to the centerline of the guitar, and a stop piece to outline the border of the pocket completely, so you can run a bearing bit around it. Other than that, it's a pretty cool, easy-to-construct, and lightweight idea

I was actually thinking the same thing, and honestly, that's probably what I'll end up doing. I thought black plastic would work fine because it doesn't need grainfill/primer/color coats, and since I'm going to be doing the neck a natural finish, it'd save me prepwork. On further consideration, though, I don't think the plastic would take well to clearcoating without scuffing it up, and then it'd ruin the look of the headstock anyways. I'll probably just get a thin piece of whatever-type hardwood and follow the steps to prime and paint it, like my last one.

I've had that blog post bookmarked for a bit, now. Shoulda sent it along to you, man, sorry I haven't gotten to sanding the headstock down yet, but when I do, I'll let you know how it goes. I wonder what the diameter on that sanding drum is, that's a nice diameter for a volute... In other news, I know that people sometimes use a really thin plastic veneer/laminate strip in between wood types as an accent line. I'm wondering, could one use a plastic veneer and glue it to the top of the headstock and clear over it? I wonder how it would come out, looks-wise. Reason being, I haven't gotten to sanding the headstock yet, but it looks like I'm going to be short at least 1/16" thickness. It looks like the masking tape slipped or something, the pieces are still straight, but it slipped in the "too thin" direction. I was thinking that I might make up the thickness with a piece of black plastic-type material on the front of the headstock (and possibly as backstrapping, too, I dunno how bending the plastic would work, and really I'd do it only if the volute/glue joint didn't look fantastic). It'd save me from having to paint the headstock, too Any thoughts, anyone? PS: Good thing I changed my build plans to get two blanks out of my stock, instead of one. I had a feeling that a few problems would arise

Dots over that quilted top! For shame! hahahaha, lookin' good

Good idea, Prostheta, what're you building, a shortscale bass?

See above. Your 28" scale guitar is still only going to have a 21 inch fretboard. Bass trusses start at around 24" so unless you want to cut your own, you should still use a regular guitar length rod, and reinforce with carbon fiber.

C'mon, the last fret isn't THAT important Who ever plays up on number 22 anyways? But as far as appearances, attention to detail, and of course, rusted hardware, gimme Perry's any day.

17-18" is normal. Most places that sell truss rods have them labeled "bass" "guitar" "acoustic" and so on.

I agree, man that must have taken a decent amount of planning, and it looks sharp to boot. If you ever start developing hardware, you've got yourself a customer

2 trusses Excellent work, Magni! Just as impressive as the spalt top you posted a while ago, though admittedly with 10 tuners, the headstock looks a bit crowded. How does it balance, with that many tuners on the headstock? And is the bridge/tailpiece homemade? It looks sharp, though I noticed that each set of two is adjustable for intonation, not every string. Again, awesome job

I'm actually going to unclamp my scarf joint today. I did it following the tutorial on the main site. My only concern is that the two pieces might not look good together, because my walnut laminate has a cool albino stripe that might not look so well when scarfed. It was fine when I was planning to do an angled headstock, but at least I get two necks out of my blank, now. Oh well, I might learn to love backstrapping and veneers and the like. I'll post a pic today, if it turns out nice and ugly

I think 12 bucks is more than fair for the security that your 600+ dollar guitar isn't going to do a nosedive and require extensive surgery

Zakk is far too metal for anything Dunlop sells He goes to the junkyard for all of his guitar modification needs. That looks like a pretty young picture of Zakk, how many years ago was that one taken, any clue?

I hope you're not planning on modding or building a guitar any time soon, then

I'd clamp the body in a jig and use a drill press so you can be assured of a straight channel. If you want to do just a Strat jack, there should be a tutorial or something online, but a simple angled bit and sanding would work. If you wanted to do a recess like I'm planning on doing, it'd probably take more work. I'd search for a tutorial myself, it might be the easiest way.

Sperzel lockings I don't know how they'd work re: tremolos and string trees, I'm thinking between the bend of the string tree and the nut, tremol-ing would create binding issues. That's what the locking nut is for, methinks. However, with regular tiltback headstocks and a slippery nut, Sperzels work awesome for me. I even put them on my hardtail build.

Wow.... Like.... wow... I love those woods, they're so "active" as in there's a lot of motion going on when you look at it. I'm a fan, the only thing though is I would have a compulsion to just try and scrub the black off of that fretboard every time I see it

I'm in the process of building a Rhoads V myself, and I've been grappling with where to put the jack as well. I strictly use right angle cords, so I can wrap the cord inside of my strap with the smallest amount of "cord waste." At the advice of the wiser members on the board, I'm going to move the strap button closer to the centerline, for better balancing. Between the moved strap button and the right angle cord, I'm at a double loss of how to go about my placing my jack. I'm thinking of drilling a small angled channel, like the jack plates on strats, and putting a jack in there so the metal end of the cord will be protected by the body of the guitar. It's a lot of work, but I think it's possible. Even something as simple as the strat-style jack plate would work better for you than the placement on the guitar right now.

Why are the ferrules so far away from the bridge? The ferrules on my guitar are too far, in hindsight, from the bridge, and I don't like the way it plays with thin strings, I had to put 10s on them to make it "feel" right.

Thanks for that link, Wez! I might even do some sort of similar jig for the neck on my next guitar. I'm thinking, though, that a roundover bit of that size wouldn't make for a comfortable neck at all. Maybe I'll just use it to "hog out" the bulk of the wood, as it were. If anything, it'd save a bunch of time, and you'd get straight to the finer sanding/rasping. I'm looking forward to breaking in my new rasp set

I second this question. Without Dimarzio pickups stock, I'd seriously doubt that a JEM is what you're dealing with. And the Edge Pro is one of the better Floyd's, in my opinion. I've heard that getting an F-Spaced pickup isn't as essential with the neck as it is with the bridge pickup. I don't have a Floyd myself, so I dunno, just what I've heard. And I'm probably wrong anyways You could circumvent the problem altogether and get the X2N blades and call it a day, haha.