Xanthus

I never thought Smithwicks went well with computer programming either Thanks for the help Rob. After a combined hour on the phone today talking to this and that guy, I fixed the problem via - drum roll here - a free download from the Digidesign website! *faceplant* Now I'm upgraded for free to 7.4.2, so I'm pretty all set. AND I can record onto whichever hard drive I feel like. So in theory, I actually could save my external for my video games. Even though all this is said and done, it still doesn't really quench my desire to get Logic Studio..... I mean, a ton of software plugins, MainStage, SoundtrackPro, virtual instruments that sound REALLY good (I'm a big computer guy, give me virtual knobs over real ones any day), freeing up one of my USB slots, and I'll be able to use my One on One service with it.... it's really no contest. Aside from the $500 price tag....

That'll work. I did it on my second build, which was a neckthrough. Nice and clean Just make sure you tape off the channel when you glue it, much like a truss rod, so you don't get any glue filling up the hole. I'm looking forward to seeing this rendered in actual wood, or at least 3D. The lightness of the inner sandwich makes the waist seem a bit anorexic. Should be fun to carve out, though. Lemme tell you, that is one aspect of a build I simply don't have the patience for. Hence my overuse of router bits!

Just don't drill so far down that the bit comes out the back of the guitar. </personal experience>

NO BUSHINGS! We clearly need to start a push for alternative tuner designs, ones that stay in the headstock not by bushings, but solely by FORCE OF WILL.

Thanks for the advice, Rob. I unpacked and hooked up the MyBook I bought, and plugged it into the mac, whereupon it gave me the same issue as my system hard drive, not a valid audio volume. I took it down to the Windows computer and reformatted the thing to NTFS (it came shipped in FAT), plugged it in, and still the same damn thing. I can format it in MacOSX on the Apple, but I don't know how that will fare if I then try to hook it up to a Windows machine. Only one way to find out, really. I'm debating just taking the monetary hit and calling Advanced tech support or whatever that is. I just want this crap to work. ::EDIT:: Formatting this HDD into Mac Extended Journaled didn't work either. Now I'm officially out of ideas......

I don't understand why you need to do veneers on a pickup ring to mae them stronger. They're not exactly holding the guitar together. That having been said, I like the look of the pickup rings a lot. Very old world, almost Victorian design. But your mockup looks just as fine without rings.

As some of you might have heard, I got a Mac a few months ago, and due to classes, work, girlfriend, and the school musical I haven't really had that much time for anything other than dinking around on the guitar. Now that it's break, I'm trying to set up my recording "studio" again. I installed Pro Tools onto the Mac a few days ago, and ran into a pretty significant snag. When I try to open a new session I get this error message: "Session must be on an audio record volume." So I go into Workspaces and click on my hard drive and try to set the A column to R. I get this: "'Macintosh HD' cannot be designated as an Audio Record volume because it is not a valid audio volume." I can't open any of my work files because of this, as well. All of the help I could find online was, well, not helpful. I can't even call tech support because I've had my product for more than 30 days, and would have to talk to Premium Tech Support or some bullshit that will run me $3+ per minute, most of which will be dealing with hold music or stuff I've already done. The only info that I found that was helpful was getting an external hard drive. The only possible reason I can gather from this, knowing the ins-and-outs of computers fairly well, is that Pro Tools doesn't want you recording your work onto the system hard drive, that is, the hard drive that your operating system is installed onto. So does Digidesign just assume that everyone has a second hard drive on their computer? Or that Macs, the #1 computer for AV work, don't sell a laptop, their most popular computer type, with two hard drives? I mean, that's pretty presumptuous, to say the least. Fortunately for me, I just bought an external HDD. Western Digital 500GB, 7200RPM, Firewire 400, the whole deal. But see, this HDD was the one I bought to put all my Windows games on it. Once I get around to using Boot Camp to put Windows on my Mac, I would install all of my much-missed computer games on the external so I can play them again, leaving the actual laptop as free of general Windows nastiness as possible. But Pro Tools is basically forcing me to use my new purchase for my music projects. Does anyone know a way to finagle Pro Tools to let me save on my system drive? I could format the new HDD to FAT32, but I would rather not. I mean, FAT32.... speaks for itself haha. As a side note, I stumbled upon this: http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/ Pretty interesting. Does anyone have any experience with it? It seems to be for using a windows computer with the occasional interfacing with Macs, but I would be using it as the complete opposite.

I want to touch that. It looks so intense. Awesome work. And the splatter really doesn't build up enough that it gets lumpy? Sweet.

You could tint some grain filler to make it nice and dark before you TO it. Might add a good dimension to the lighter wood color. If not, I would do a thicker coat to even out the pores. Unless you want the pores showing (but I don't think you do, since you asked the question). Thanks for the scarf info!

It affects the neck taper because I had rough cut the taper to correlate with the point on the neck where I would have placed the nut. So by moving the nut back 1/2", the resulting taper is too thin for the nut and string spacing. I could easily place the nut where I wanted it to the first time, but then I would have about a finger's-width of "dead" neck space before the headstock angle. It would just look... weird to me. I can try and get a pic up sometime today.

ps. Kenny, as a followup to my question about my headstock, how thick was the piece of maple you glued on for the headstock on your scarf joint / also, how thick was the contrast veneer?

Interesting. I've only played stuff between 24.75-26". I was thinking about basses, though, how the longer scale length requires a thicker string, and applying it in reverse. Cool point you bring up.

@g_p: You're definitely right, I could pull off the veneer and do it again the "right" way. I'd need more veneer..... but that's not a huge problem, just a bit of a delay. @Kenny: I do like your idea, which I could definitely do if I ordered a custom board. I'm not entirely sure that the stock Stewmac board has enough extra meat at the end of the board to make this work. Would this interfere with the string pull towards the tuners? Strat-styled board usually go on strat headstocks, which have no neck angle. With my 13 degree angle, I would need to carve the extra piece to make it not fit. hmm.... My options as of now I think are looking like this: -Cut off headstock, glue on new one (maybe walnut? I have plenty... Or a scarf accent line like Kenny or Dan) -Order a board from Erik with extra meat behind the nut to carve down -Do a zero fret? I have a ton of Corian that might fill up the extra space I think I'm actually leaning towards cutting the headstock off and gluing on a piece of 3/4" walnut I have around. With this, I wouldn't have to put a veneer because the headstock would already be a dark color, and I would get a bit of a swoosh on the back of the neck like Kenny or Dan Sorbera. I would also be keeping the whole neck apparatus to 2 different types of wood. I kinda like that simplicity.

I would get a darker-sounding wood like mahogany. Reason being, you have a lot of things going against you that will make your guitar sound possibly too bright. -EMGs -shorter scales are more trebly -thinner strings required for tuning to pitch with a shorter scale are thinner-sounding

Looking great on the carve, Daniel! The wood selection really worked well. How long did that take you, to get the carve perfect? ps. Took care of your pics

@Rick: Well, at least it got you here, eh? That might be my tactic from now on, because whenever I have a question on my build threads, it doesn't seem to garner any attention. Anyways, Setch, this is for you: http://images42.fotki.com/v1434/photos/9/9...tscrewup-vi.jpg It's the best I can do until I can pirate a Photoshop edition for the Mac. By filing down the end of the headstock veneer to be level with the neck face, I have effectually moved the nut placement back 1/2", making the taper too wide for the neck... @Ilikes2shred: Strips of Walnut following the taper of the neck might actually look ok. I would just be worried about how to flow them into the headstock area, as well as how they would look with the non-tapered (3/4" thick) walnut strip down the middle. Hell, at this point, I might as well just scarf myself a whole new headstock..... Move the nut completely. I have a neckthrough blank that I'm working from, and turning it into a deepset neck, so I have a good 6" or so of extra space.

Hey all, I just started my third build and everything has gone according to plan. Meaning, by this, that nothing has gone according to plan at all. I had an extra neck blank that I cut off my stock from the second build, maple/walnut/maple. I used it to practice techniques before doing it on the "real" build, but it's still in good shape. These techniques meant cutting the neck taper with a bandsaw. Well, I cut it very close to the line. Still usable, but quite close to spec. Fast forward to last week. I had extra mahogany veneer lying around from build 2 that I wanted to cap the headstock of build 3 with. I came up with this cool idea, almost like a mitre joint or neck joint scarf, where I would veneer the headstock and then trim the veneer at the nut to the same plane as the fretboard. Then the nut would sit on the mahogany veneer and it would look all cool and fancy from the side. What I didn't realize that, in shaving the veneer down so the fretboard and nut could sit on it, I have moved the position of the nut back about 1/2" and now the neck is too skinny! How can I save this?! I have come up with two options: either add wood to the sides of the neck or add a veneer on top of the neck as a "fretboard shelf". I don't think either of these will look good. With a splice of wood on the side of the neck, you will see the joint when the neck is carved and tapered to its proper width. With a veneer in between the neck and fretboard, first off it will have to be about 1/8" thick to compensate for the nut moving back to where it "wants" to be. I think 1/8" thickness will be far too thick and not aesthetically pleasing. Also, what color would look good between maple and rosewood, save straight black? I'm all out of ideas... I really want to save this neck.

I would say you should be crucified for painting over that mahog, but the white and carbon fiver make up for it. Awesome work!

aaah, my bad, thought it was danish. Either way, satin look is the way to go. I'm going to try it (and probably fail, but hey) on my next build.

Wow! You're welcome for the help. And yes, I'm assuming I helped in some obscure way, just to be related to such a nice piece of gear. You drew the AutoCAD by eye, with just a picture for reference? That is some talent. I'm glad you got a girl who plays instruments

Also looking great, Kenny, and nice work on the laminations. They look sharp! Let's get us some more pics, eh? I vote a 'go' on an oil finish. Simo's latest work is pretty inspiring on that front. I think you could retool your headstock to a nice looking 4x2 for more SS-styled builds like this one.

Looking great! Nice job

Thanks for the info, Elysian! I never check the 7-string section of Dimarzio because my small(er) hands and 7 strings don't really get along I think they would sound quite nice in my project, but the only thing I'm worried about is having to totally reconfigure my tones on my amp and effects units. None of my guitars have mid-scooped pickups; on the contrary, my favorite guitar has a Tone Zone in it, which is very mid-heavy. It's still up in the air. I'm hoping to get a slab of mahog in the next couple of days.

Basically just fooling around with it as scrap. I have no plans to throw it away, though, don't worry! I'm as frugal as the rest of them. I'm watching the neck pocket and bridge in case I feel like digging up an AANJ neck and piecing this together into a complete guitar. And then when I become rich and famous for my Franken-RG you can say you saw it on the PG forums first!

Thanks for the vote, ae3! I'm thinking the Jackson 3x3 will look good too, well better than the Ibanez 3x3 at least. Still not sure, though. I'm still getting used to the Mac setup, so I haven't been able to find a good Photoshop replacement program (Or a Cakewalk MIDI replacement program, for that matter...) to whip up some crappy mockups. In the mind's eye it seems to work, so we'll see. Didn't get any work done today (holidays. duh.). More hopefully tomorrow, at least trimming the veneer to shape and figuring out a routing solution for a truss rod channel on an already-tapered neck....