Xanthus

*whistles* Beautius maximus Lookin' real good, and good luck with the inlay. Looks to me like it's going to be a bit of a pain. 8 Strings? I'm crossing my fingers for a low B and a high A, doubling up the low strings is just too painful for me

Heheheh... Same here. Thinking about a hardtail Laiho/RR crossbreed Flying V neckthrough with a reverse Ken Lawrence headstock, myself. Now, someone needs to scrounge up another $700.......

Thanks a bunch for the info! ::EDIT:: And don't worry about the drilling (I mean, worry about it, but not too much ), my 6-inline tuner holes aren't perfect... and they're a wee bit more close together than i'd like them, haha

Yeah, I'd like to see some follow-up pics as well (and yes, I realize that the last post on this thread was......). I'm trying to figure out a solution to a similar problem. I want to do my neck-through cherry red, but it's a maple neck with mahog wings. I was planning on filling in the grain with a pretty dark grainfill, but I know that a) The maple won't take the grainfill as much as the mahog will, and the maple will come out a lot lighter than the mahog, with the same amount of coats. However, I want to keep the color as consistant as possible, over both pieces of wood, and haven't been able to think up a good way of doing it, save from just layering quite a number of coats onto the maple. Any tips on doing something like that, anyone?

Yeah, excellent job on that build, looks really nice! Surprisingly, I think the CC looks the most striking. In a semi-futuristic flying V way, it really fits the look. A quick question, if I may. What did you use/how did you go about finishing the limba in cherry? I'm looking for a good place to get painting supplies (pretty settled on ReRanch, I think), and I'm thinking of doing the same type of finish on my own guitar.

Yeah, I think I could take a bit off the headstock, but the stupid prefab neck is a 1-piece maple flatsawn. I don't have the utmost confidence in its structral integrity as is, so I'd like to have it as thick as possible. Check my link /\ up there for more info.

As far as the maple goes, you're building a neckthrough? Is that going to be a maple neck? If so, you're going to be routing your pickups right into the maple, which should give you a brighter sound than a traditional SG (total mahogany). I might want to agree with Heely in that a maple top might be a bit much. http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics.shtml /\ I'd check there for some wiring diagrams. I don't think they have a P and a mini together, but I'm sure they have both separately. http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks/necks....uitar_neckwoods /\ Warmoth just did over their neck woods section with a cool rating system. It should give you some ideas for fingerboard woods. Keep in mind that Limba is said to be very similar, acoustically, to mahogany. Good luck!

I don't think the lack of intonation would affect the tuning across the entire board. I mean, I had my Wilkinson Carvin for around a year before I even HEARD of the word "intonation." Intonation affects fretted notes, and I assume you're tuning the open strings. I was thinking, though, and maybe your springs are junk. If they've lost their sproing, they're less able to retract into a "stable" position, and after a few whammy's, you'd be tuned out flat. Course, I dunno if there's an empirical or systematic way to check if your spring is unsprung. Sounds a bit like a medical condition I'd flip your axe over and see if you need replacement springs. On a semi-related note... I had a dream last night that the guitar I'm building ended up having a tremolo in it. One of the worst dreams I've had in a while Good luck!

Precisely, which is why it's all the more wonder for me why they even make the staggered tuners, if the shortest posts are way too short on the *thinnest* of reccomended headstock thicknesses.

Yep, agreed to the headstock, but boy, doesn't that wood look nice? I love the grain pattern, makes the guitar look more alive and swirly. It's got some nice character to it.

And you, mine. I swear, I'm going to upload my pics to a photo host and start a thread... ...One of these days Yeah, I threw up Boston as a general marker for everyone. Don't want to get too specific, over the internet, ya know? It's fulla crazies! Yeah, I like to refer to myself as residing in the Greater Boston Area It's all the same for someone with a car.

I'm actually thinking of doing that, seeing as I've run into yet another problem. Thanks for the idea! -Xanthus

Ok, so I really think I'm going to name this guitar "Imperfect," seeing that Murphy MUST have his hand deep in this one. I know a TON of people use Carvin necks and Sperzel tuners. And nobody I've heard of has said they've had any problems using the two in conjunction. Well guess what? I've got problems with them. Go me. My headstock is 9/16" thick. The Sperzels are for 9-to-11/16" headstocks. I drilled my first hole, for the high E tuner, and fitted the tuner in, screwing it tight. And the string hole BARELY pokes over the top of the nut and washer. And I mean barely. I checked my Carvin, and not only was the headstock 10/16" thick, but ALL of the posts were the "high" ones. Granted, I might have wanted to take these measurements before hand, but I'm sure that others have made the same mistakes. I can safely assure myself that the string hole (at least for the e and B strings) will not clear the body after it has been painted. I mean, it says on every website that the different tuner heights are made for 6-inline headstocks. So that's what I bought. I suppose one alternative is to find a place that sells single Sperzels and get 2 more tall tuners. I could get away with the medium tuners in the e and B strings; I test fitted one in place. Another would be to shave some thickness off the headstock, but 9/16" is already pretty thin, I don't think it'd be structurally sound to take off any more... low_end_fuzz actually suggested to countersink the tuners (I'm assuming the top side), which seems like a good idea. It wouldn't take off as much as thicknessing the whole head. So... has this happened to anyone else? I'm taking a safe guess that yes, it has, to at least one other person. If anything, this could be a warning to another noob, when buying parts. -Xanthus ::EDIT:: When I said "first hole" I meant for the tiny stabilization pegs. The tuner holes themselves have been long done.

....... Holydamn... That is motherlovin' beautiful, man! Congrats and a HALF!!! Put as much time and care into the rest of the project, and I'll be more floored than I already am! Nothing bad to say here, nothing at all. Though, perhaps, has anyone done a study as to what percentage of a fretboard would be comprised of MOP, inlay, etc, to make a difference in tone? Beautiful board, man. Keep us posted with the rest of the project. \m/

Hot DAMN that is one awesome looking guitar! Awesome job so far, it's turning out to be quite a piece of work! That body... That's one body I'd love to run my hands over. ...Did that come out the wrong way? You get what I'm saying, though. I'd love to get a hand on a template for that one, it just looks like it's going to be amazing to play. Con-GRATS! -Xanthus

Straight from a n00b's mouth So I've decided on either Heritage or Dakota Red for half of my Explorer project. My plan is to paint the guitar body black (it's a neck-through) and the neck and bevels one of the two reds. Since I'm still unsure on whether I want the grain to show through on the bevels, I picked the SG-style Heritage Red as an alternative. I'll have to use a primer under the black, and none on the bevels, if I want the grain to show through for the heritage red. Has anyone used Heritage over a primer? What does it look like? I'm also thinking of using dark grain filler on both the mahogany and the maple, to accent the grain, if I go with Heritage. So it's either: Dakota/primer, Heritage/primer, or Heritage/no primer. OR would it be better to get the Heritage wood dye and mix with reducer? I'm assuming that the resulting solution would be sprayed, as it says on the ReRanch site that it can't be applied directly to the wood. Heh, this is me knowing jack about painting. In any case, I like the feel of a satin neck, not gloss. I know it's easy if the neck is a bolt on, but I was wondering if I'd be able to just tape off the neck, shoot the gloss over the body, then do satin over the neck. Is that a generally accepted practice? -Xanthus

I saw "Bush" and "Machine Head" in the thread title, and I had to giggle a little bit And, opposite to your problem, Jaycee, I'm looking at my Sperzels and my 10/16" headstock and thinking "Man, that wood is WAY too thick for these tuners!" I don't think that the screws are going to tighten enough to uncover the hole to put the strings through. I mean, if Sperzel says it can be that thick, ok, but I still thinking I'm going to take 1/16" off of it, just to be sure. All this trouble could be circumvented if I drilled the little tiny stud holes. I should get on that -Xanthus

Yeah, I'll see if I can dig up the website. Really kinda bummed I didn't save the link, but I'm not a bookmark person in general. In the event I can't find it... This guy built a neck that was actually twisted, from straight at the neck heel to, I dunno, some sort of angle at the headstock. His theory was that playing up on the first few frets twisted your wrist into something awful (a problem for my bassist, who likes to play with the bass around his knees... sigh). So what he did was twist the neck/fretboard away from the player, up at the headstock, and then leveled it out at the end, following the natural motion of a player's wrist. I assumed a special bridge followed. If anyone else ran across this site, please post it here, but I'll do some searching and try to dig it up. -Xanthus ::EDIT:: http://www.vintageguitar.com/gear/details.asp?ID=78 It's not the website I was looking for, but it's the same principal and construction. I believe the original website I found was a bass with the same construction.

So I take it that nobody has ever purposely made a fretboard with a concave radius, then Hey, if they make convex, flat, compound, and even ergonomical spiral fretboards.... -Xanthus

Welcome to the boards! Those look like excellent bodies, beautiful, professional craftsmanship, congrats! I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work! -Xanthus

Carbon has two natural crystalline allotropic forms: graphite and diamond. Each has its own distinct crystal structure and properties. Graphite derives its name from the Greek word "graphein", to write. The material is generally greyish-black, opaque and has a lustrous black sheen. It is unique in that it has properties of both a metal and a non-metal. It is flexible but not elastic, has a high thermal and electrical conductivity, and is highly refractory and chemically inert. Graphite has a low adsorption of X-rays and neutrons making it a particularly useful material in nuclear applications. /\ Just a little something I found on Google. Link below for further reading. http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1630 -Xanthus

Congrats on both builds, Jeff! Both of 'em look amazing, especially the semi-hollow! I'm loving your proposed color scheme for both of them. As far as the headstock, I'm at a similar crossroads with my Explorer build. What if you got some veneer for the headstock and engraved a design on it, then put the veneer on the guitar? All you'd have to do was clear over it, correct? That, and thickness the headstock a bit to make sure your tuners fit on. I'd love to do a decal on my headstock, but I think that even the wonderful tutorial by Bill Jehle on the main site is too intimidating to me, not to mention all the "what-if's" that would creep into the back of my little perfectionist mind, like "Will the lines from the transparency paper REALLY disappear onto the black headstock? What if they don't??" and others. I'd go with the pearl on the veneer, personally, if only for the fact that it looks more professional and impressive to me. Man, those guys that can do all them crazy inlays...... -Xanthus

hahahahahaha, yes indeedy! 1/8" holes drilled width-wise through the center of your guitar body opens up the sound and makes your cheap-ass Squire sound like Jesus' PRS. Ed Roman said so. All joking aside, I'm assuming you mean drill to the high-E ferrule on the BACK, because hell if I want my drill coming up and out the top If I drill and solder a wire to the back ferrule, would it "catch" all the strings, if you follow me? In my incredibly limited electronics experience (Science Fair, third grade), it'd seem more logical to drill to the post on the bridge, because the bridge touches all of the strings, rather than to the ferrule, which touches only one string, and would have to take a longer path to reach the other 5 strings. Or am I just totally making this up? Haha, in either case, thanks for the advice, Rob! -Xanthus

Yeah, another n00bish question, I know. Searched the forums, but didn't seem to come up with any solid answers on the ways to ground a TOM, but more whether or not grounding was necessary. I'm using the TOM bridge with the screws, not the studs, and stringing the strings through the body. I've taken apart my other TOM guitar, and there's a tiny hole going from the bridge pickup cavity to where the stud is inserted. The wire attached to the post is soldered, I assume. This is the typical way to ground a TOM, correct? Just checking to make sure I'm not missing a better/easier way to go about it, before I start drilling more holes into the project. -Xanthus

True, saw no blue burst, just an Iceman and an Ibanez... ...But I ****** LOVE Dragonforce