Xanthus

That body shape is amazing! I love it, it looks very... "aquatic" was the first word that jumped to mind. I dunno, it just strikes me as very organic, alive even. And I second the request for some Q-Tuner sounds eventually. I want to know if these pickups are for the working joe, not another wannabe-boutique manufacturer.

Fret placement has nothing to do with the type of bridge you're using. The calculator will tell you where to cut for slots based on how long the scale is going to be. The bridge itself will have instructions on where to place it with regards to the scale length.

Yeah, I'm going to put it together, maybe throw a clearcoat on the body, dunno. If the girl doesn't want it, I'll probably throw it up on Ebay for a quick chunk of change. People'll pay more for a pre-assembled s*** guitar than the pieces sitting in a box, haha. ::EDIT:: Threw the Saga together today, as I had nothing to do. The short of it: If Saga guitar kits were a plague, it would be more feared than the killing of the firstborn. The long of it: It's a total PoS. Neck didn't fit in the neck pocket, didn't come with a neck plate or screws, not all the screw holes were predrawn like the box claimed, none of the holes were IN the right place. I shouldn't have to take a rubber mallet to my tailpiece to get it to fit. The neck pickup ring had to be cut because it was bumping up against the end of the neck. I didn't even install the tuners yet because the holes for the mounting screws are incredibly far from where they should be. The only thing that went together smoothly were the electronics. Nice snap-together, color coded, very cool. Undoubtedly less than quality parts, but assembly was good. I'm really looking forward to beating the crap out of this one. I already want to smash it on stage.

Thanks for the advice, Crafty! I'll look into the PAF Pro, definitely. To balance it out, I'd like something a bit hotter in the Bridge, so barring the Evo's, what about a Super Dist or a Tone Zone? But man, listening to Dragonforce makes me want to go out and buy a JEM. Can't help it, hahaha.

The maple would be a cool accent I wanted to get a BabyGrand for my last project, woulda looked excellent, but I'm poor as well. You mentioned him, so I took the liberty of tracking down SoundAt11. His shop is really nice! I kinda wish I'd stumbled across him before ordering my wood... Well, there's the excuse to build number 3. My girl is never going to forgive me for finding this hobby.

Mmm, I knew about the low pull of the EMGs, as much as the directions "set the pickups as close to the strings as possible" sound to my ears (blasphemy!). I actually had the pleasure(?) to play the D-Activators through my weapon of choice, Line6. They didn't sound to great. Took 'em over to the SatchBox though, and they were amazing. So I'm thinking it's the amp moreso than the pickups But yeah, I wasn't too thrilled with the D-Activators. So your theory about the Evo's would probably say that I shouldn't get them for my PodXt? Scratch that idea, then, hahaha, I ain't got no vintage tubes and a stomp, I've got digital modeling. Though, thinking about it, if Line6 ever came out with tubes with their products, I'd probably die of happiness.

I'm gonna toss in my limited opinion and say that I got a pair of EMGs, 81/60, and I love 'em to death, but I don't think I'd put them on any other of my guitars. In fact, I KNOW I'm not going to, but that's beside the point I just feel that they're too limiting, not versatile for me. Going with an 89 might be something to think about, just because it's made for coil splitting. It'd give you some variety. Unfortunately, clear signal, harmonics and distortion fits the bill of what you're looking for, as well as the fact that you play rock and metal... I'd just go for something more versatile. Definitely check out the PAF-modeled pickups from SD and Dimarzio. They all have sound samples on their websites. The Duncan JB/Jazz or JB/59 is a surefire win, I haven't heard a bad thing about them, heh. Any of the Dimarzio PAF's will do well, too. Hell, most of Dimarzio's signed artists are shredders Harmonics, clarity, technique, smooth distortion, everything that you're looking for. On another note, GBT, why would you shy away from Evo's? I played the JEM model with those pickups, and they were fantastic!

A recessed TOM isn't hard to do, so long as you've got a router and a straightedge. If you've got no neck angle (And the fretboard is raised about 1/8" off the body plane), you only need to recess about 1/8" or so, maybe a little more, to make the TOM work. I personally think that a TOM would look much sweeter than a Strat-style bridge, seeing as it's a Les Paul body shape and all. String through ferrules would look nice And again with no neck angle, so long as your wood is straight and your pocket is level, I see no difficulties with doing a set-neck with no angle. Will the curve at the end of the fretboard be concave, or convex? I think a convex curve following the swoosh of the horns would look awesome! And why choosing both limba AND mahogany? From what I hear, they're both very similar, and if you can get limba for the neck, why not get it for the whole guitar?

Holy carp! A+, that looks awesome. I ain't going to comment on the flag scheme (bit of an expatriate at heart), but my personal views aside, it looks KILLER! I got a few questions, though. -How does it balance, with both of the strap buttons being above the center line of the body? -Do the strings feel floppy at all, because of such a narrow break angle over the bridge, and the amount of string behind the bridge? I'm encountering a problem like that on my Explorer, but it seems to be alleviated a bit by putting thicker gauge strings on it. -I don't see any screws holding your cavity covers on, did you use magnets? -What's a Distortion Mayhem? Never heard of 'em before Again, top notch quality, I love it

No, it's a bolt-on, but the screws/screw holes are actually UNDER the neck pickup route. Thinking about it, it's a wonder how the neck pickup is going to fit there at all, haha. Check the picture again, you might get a better handle on what I'm talking about.

I'm assuming that you mean the roundover that the corners/edges have on them. I'd say it's pretty standard to do a 1/4" roundover with a router bit, no? I just took a few swipes of sandpaper to my 90 degree edges and called it a day. I like the lines pretty well-defined.

*drools* the 400NT is such a sweet instrument... It's what I was looking at getting before I said ****it and built my own. I'd give a good ol' +1 to filling the spot with super glue. I dunno if I'd fill it in with poly, because poly is meant to be sprayed, not spot-filled. I dunno, just my opinion. CA is the way to go if it's bugging ya, not poly. And a -1 to bondo. The only bondo I've seen is the stuff that comes in those enormous tubs and is a weird red/orange adobe color Unless it's going to be painted over. But the prep work for filling with bondo and then refinishing that already sweet maple sounds like such a pain.

I can't get over it, I LOVE this bass I just can't decide on my favorite part, the Cat's Hat inlay or the "webbing" on the front of the body. I'd love to see more basses with similar types of overlays on the top of the body.

(bump disguised as a question) When doing the neckthrough with a neck angle, would the general consensus be to have the little 1/8" or so lip for the fingerboard to rest on, or no? It's not a neck angle problem, but a humbucker ring problem. Without the lip, the fretboard would be basically sitting on the same plane as the face of the guitar, and since the thinnest pickup ring is 3/16" it leaves precious little wiggle room. I'm thinking of going with a tiny lip, just so things fit easier, because on normal bolt on guitars with neck angles, a bit of the neck pokes through over the body. In either case, I'm getting a friend to plane the sides of the blank square for me tomorrow I might draw up a plan and get the squaring and the bandsawing done in the same go. Now I'm just waiting on LMII. FedEx ground is wicked slow... ::EDIT:: I'm planning on taking a decent amount of pics during the neck-building process. I might assemble a tutorial of some sort, on the craziness involved in making a neckthrough with a neck angle.

Love it love it love it! Just killer, excellent design! What's with the neck pickup, is it a P90? The screws are different, but the humbucker size is the same. Sorry if this has been asked before.

OMG FORUMS ARE BACK UP!!! I just didn't know what to do with myself those few days. Anyways, thanks for all the advice, Robert. I picked up the kit yesterday and think that I'm going to be moving in a different direction with the kit. Namely, the garbage I've been staring at the kit for a while now, and at points I wish that I could get a refund for the gas I spent getting over there to pick it up. Where to begin... -The "flamed maple" is a veneer, yes, but I don't know if it should even count as such. There's no figure whatsoever! Aside from a small change in color, you wouldn't be able to tell if the top was a different type of wood. Oh wait, yes you would. -Because the maple veneer top doesn't have KNOTS in it! Saga sure has low standards when selecting their premium woods. I count 4-pieces of basswood, with the imperfections and knots filled in with some sort of wood putty. -Neck doesn't fit in neck joint -hardware is flimsy however -the neck looks nice! one-piece maple, rosewood fretboard, nice low frets. fretwork came out pretty nice, too, no goofs that my eye could see. So in conclusion, I had my hopes up WAY too high. Because living's in the way we die. I'm thinking of just assembling it as-is, painting it with spray cans, and giving it to my girl as a gift. Methinks it's comparable to the Squire Strat she's got now, hahaha. So my hopes of pimpin' out a sweet carved top (which was the highlight of my hopes. Carving a top scares the poop outta me) have gone down the drain, but it's all good. I've still got the V to work on. Speaking of which, I need to find someone who can plane my neck blank flat, because my hand tools aren't cutting it...

So I'm barely done gluing my neck lam's together for build #2 when my buddy calls me up and says that he has a guitar kit sitting in a box under his bed. He found it when he was doing some cleaning and said that if I want to come pick it up, it's mine. I asked him what make/model it was and he said it was the HT-10 Saga kit. So I'm looking at it online (haven't gotten around to picking it up yet) and thinking what I could do to it to make it half-decent. Ideas thus far include: -Re-backing. It's kinda like retopping, but with the back... I want to buy some mahogany and stick the carved maple top on, to give the PoS some actual tone. -Pickups. I'm thinking Seymours, getting a JB/59 or JB/Jazz, some versatile combo. Even if the project goes nowhere, I'll have good pickups -Electronics. new switches, pots, knobs, jack. -Hardware. Basically just better tuners, maybe bridge and tailpiece. -Painting. I want to do black/sand/black for this awesome AAAA maple top, spray the back with opaque black, and do a faux binding if the maple top is thick enough to do so. -Making a new neck/fretboard??? I figure that I'd use the bolt-on until I have time to make my own set neck and glue that and carve it. Now, the real question is... Is it worth it to put that much effort into a Saga kit? I dunno if I'm being overly optimistic, but I see a bit o' promise in the guitar, as well as the fact that the only money I put into it is the upgrades, becasue the kit is free

no if the addvice is crap......experiance i reckon ......you can't go round thinking you've got the chops because you've got +100 comments ....too bad irony doesn't work on the internet... It's all good, no offense meant

You mention fm transmitter and the first thing that pops into my head is that stupid iTrip attachment for the iPod. I'm sure there are much better transmitters out there, but even though I generally laud Apple for its product quality, the transmitter in the iTrip isn't fantastic. I think, if only for safety's sake, I'd stick with the wireless systems made for instruments over any old system. I know the two are very similar, but I guess it's just me. Also, what would be the benefit of having both a guitar wireless system AND an FM transmitter in the same guitar? I do see the benefit of having a wireless system and a functioning jack, but not all 3.

:D Man, that bass is HUGE! Just look at the size of it next to that kid! I actually don't mind the headstock, after a bit of staring at the design, it grows on me. Congratulations on the display, too Building something as complicated as a bass for a school show is a sure way to get noticed!

I was brainstorming this earlier, the wireless guitar thing. I think that if someone was talented enough, they could route a space inside the guitar body and strip all the electronics from the wireless transmitter. I bet you could use a 9v battery like an active system and hook up the transmitter to it, and hardwire the electronics of the transmitter to the guitar. Yes, the antenna would have to be outside of the body, perhaps where the output jack originally was (key if this was a retrofitting). The only downside I see to the project is that one would have to have a different transmitter/channel for each guitar, which would be pretty expensive. But if I could have a guitar that all I had to do was flick a miniswitch and start jamming wireless, I think I might cry. Oh yes, and also, you would only be able to play the guitar through your setup. Not like you can bring the guitar over someone's house and play through their system. *brainstorms* I want to try it, but I don't want to risk ****ing up a $150 wireless system in the name of experimentation. I ain't an electronics guy in the least.

Well, think about it for a sec. You've got to modify the nut for a Floyd nut (read: there's no shelf/space for a shelf). Headstock will need some serious mods. You're trying to route a straight pocket on a carved top. How's that going to be accurate? Gotta make a jig. You gotta make new holes for the Floyd studs. You need to cover up the holes from the tailpiece, because if I'm correct, the Floyd route won't cover all 4 holes for bridge and tailpiece. You need to route a humongous-ass hole in the back of the VERY thick guitar for the claw and springs. (note: the arched LP top won't rest flat for your router) And after all that, it's probably going to need to be painted again. It CAN be done, though. If you plan to build a Floyd in it from the very start. Otherwise there's a whole buncha problems that need tacklin'. PS. I did my own research on this, too, and came up with nothing. Leads me to believe that this job isn't done all that often. PPS. Too late now, but posting this in a different section might yield you more answers. I don't generally venture down here all that often myself.

A wee update, laddies! And by wee I mean tiny, and I'm not insinuating anything. I'm not even Scottish. http://public.fotki.com/Xanthus/build-2/ The website, again, for those of you who don't want to scroll up the page. I got the lam's glued and clamped and left them for 48 hours-ish. If you notice something strange in the pictures, it's because I wanted to try something new out. I threw down a layer of newspaper on the workbench (finally a use for the Boston Herald ) and then glued the lam's up. I wrapped the newspaper on top and bottom, getting it stuck to the glue, then clamped the lam's together and also clamped the whole thing vertically. My reasoning for this is I wanted the pieces to move as little as possible when they set. I knew I was going to have to plane the sides flat anyways, so I figured the less physical labor, the better. The experiment worked out awesome, as evidenced in the later pictures. The newspaper peels right off, and whatever is stuck to the glue is shaved off with the plane anyways. HOWEVER, I realized that my relative un-skill with woodworking tools was never going to get the sides square and level enough to slap a fretboard on. I used a hand plane, sandpaper block, power sander and electric planer, and though it's a lot better than when I started, it's still not good enough. Thus, I'm at a standstill until I can find someone who'll let me use a thickness sander or big-ass planer or something. I dunno even what the tool I need is called, I just know that I don't have it. Maybe if I bring my block down to Home Depot and ask reaaaaally nicely... I was honestly considering strapping a portable belt sander to the workbench and setting up a fence/guide rail, but there's no guarantee that my homemade jig will be any more accurate...

Huzzah! Hierarchy! Because we all know that clearly, the more posts you have, the more knowledgeable you are, and the more your advice matters. Posts are POWER. This message has nothing of relevance to add to the conversation, but at least I'll have one more post added to my counter

Wow, that looks REALLY good! I especially like the string-through holes following the back curve of the body, a really snazzy touch. I agree with Crafty, though, from my own experience with my TOM string-through and reading the thread about break angles, I don't think I'll do another string-through without reading up a lot more first. Those holes do look a bit far away from the bridge, I hope the break angle over the saddle will be enough to keep the strings seated in the notches. Not to rain on your parade, at all, Jer, it really is fantastic work through and through. In related news, my buddy says that he has a kit he never ended up setting up, just sitting under his bed. It's mine if I drive and pick it up. Chances are it's a Saga kit; they're the most popular kit brand, methinks. I'm crossing my fingers that it's an LP. Can't wait to pimp that out