Prostheta

Wow. That's a pretty harsh thing to have happen John. Good job we all wear safety glasses around heavy woodworking machinery eh?

Board arrived yesterday John - you're a gentleman. This will take pride of place on one of the instruments this summer! Many thanks again.

+1 Mattia WD40 is great for cleaning bits after use for storage. Wipe the bits and bearings down with a cloth dampened with WD40 as opposed to spraying it directly onto the bit however as excess can just cause dust to collect back where you don't want it to!

Ummm...it's not actually bad until your liver metabolises it, in which case it becomes carcinogenic...

That will be the benzene then CMA. Everybody loves the smell of benzene because the body enjoys it.

Would you need to? I thought the race was sealed. Most lubricants would probably attract dust and make bearings more likely to seize.

You're correct in that ferrules aren't required on the top of the bridge Vinny. I think pariah got the gist off the bat, whereas the question led the rest of us to think about ferrules in the back.

Thanks all - i'm settled on going down the lighter non-metal material route. It was an interesting experiment with the brass nut, but i'm not happy with it for several reasons, this resonance one included! Corian sounds like the material of choice with Delrin a close second if I can't source a reasonably large chunk of black Corian :-D To be honest Doug, I wasn't overly enthused with the sound of the brass nut (resonances nothingwithstanding) which is why zero frets seem a much more attractive proposition. I suppose if the sound of a "fretwire nut" isn't good enough for me then I should try taking up the harp or piano ;-D

Thanks WS. The brass nut is in the instrument with a non-zero fret setup. I'm changing tack on future builds to incorporate a zero fret, and dropping the brass nut for sure. I'm 90% sure i'm going to use Corian or Delrin (Acetal) for the guiding nut as it's cheap, available (well, Delrin is anyway) and easy to work with. Before I commit, I wanted to identify the source of the problem so I don't have to mitigate it further down the line using extra measures! Do you know of a source of black buffalo horn, as I wouldn't mind trying it for the experience WS? It needs to be a 56mm wide piece however (just over 2") so standard blanks won't fit. Thanks.

Interesting. I've been experimenting with Corian as nut material, and may use it as guiding nut material. I'd rather not go down the lines of using rubber. I think you may be correct about the metal nut issue Erik - the mass of the material is weightier than the string material, whereas bone, ivory, plastic, graphite etc. are lighter. It perhaps doesn't "stop" resonance over the break point the way a lighter material does.

Finland is a world away from Sweden, Dirge. Finns live in sauna in the middle of forests. Swedes have cities and ATM machines. Finns are concise and dry. Swedes sell MDF furniture to the rest of the world, laughing. Finns have Conan O'Brien as president. Swedes have Valborgsmässoafton. Finns have Vappu. Finland is the sixth happiest nation in the world, which is surprising when you meet a Finn. Sweden is seventh. Linux was invented by a Finn. Sweden invented Abba, beards and jumpers. In general however, Scandinavia has an awesome educational standard which the rest of the world would envy if only it knew where Finland or Sweden lay on a map. My wife is Finnish, can speak five languages and is the light of my life. You don't want to be drinking the water - you want to be finding yourself a Finn, or failing that - a Swede. Finns chop wood better however, and the women are better at woodwork. I may be generalising here.

That's the beast. As it states on his site however, there are difference options in temperament adjustment (12-tone Equal Temperament, Thidell Formula 1, Die Wohltemperirte Gitarre, Meantone Blues) so there are still shortfalls. Would be interesting to try out, but I don't like the idea of my string bending becoming erratic. Imagine how crazy wide vibrato would be! I think the Buzz Feiten or Earvana systems are more applicable to fretted instruments however.

I can't see changing the material changing the overall sound when I introduce zero frets. The rubber wedge is definitely a contender for a solution as I may use it as a guiding nut beyond the zero fret for this purpose. Sounds like you had the same resonance problem I had Soapbar.

I still find white socks a confusing thing as I always wear black. White socks go grey, even with the best intentions. So yeah - anyway. Vices.

Get your powertools off the workpiece and away from the corner of the vice man! I'm going to lose sleep now. Looks handy - but most tools and hardware are handy to have rather than "to not have" :-D GAS-II

Wow. That's like the musical equivalent of astrology! I think you would need to do some serious math on the fret distancing, and I believe you'll be looking at weirdly shaped frets. The instrument will be played "best" in particular keys if I casually skim read that article correctly. It's fascinating stuff for sure, but again I believe it will be a case of trading one problem for another as there is no perfect solution unless you decide to play the guitar in Cmaj forever :-D I believe I saw a guitar a while back with bendy curvy frets which attempted to achieve this (plus a Yamaha sig guitar with one or two bends IIRC) but I postulated that you could throw string bending right out of the window. What has made you decide to pursue this? It would be great project as proof of concept, but perhaps impractical for a fretted instrument. A piano, harp or other non-fingered note instrument would benefit best from this I guess.

Just checked their updated site - you may need to ring them to get the fretwire as it's not currently listed. I hope they stock it as I want some myself!

Stop typing in Americanese Neil ;-D http://www.basscentre.com/

Try the Bass Centre in the UK as they sell Warwick fretwire for refrets.

An unfortunate problem which seems worse on one of my instruments than any of the others - when amped up, the string beyond the nut resonates and causes overtones/harmonics to be passed back to the string length between the nut and the bridge when muting. Very annoying when you're playing staccato passages or muting! I know a lot of guitarists wrap electrical tape around the strings when studio recording, but my issue is a lot more pronounced. For reference, the nut is brass (i suspect that may be exacerbating the issue) and the string lengths vary from 2.5" - 6" from nut to tuner. The nut is quite heavy because of the material it is made from, but is seated adequately rather than being loose. I'm wanting to learn and discuss other people's experience on this, as i'm changing my nut configurations to counter this issue as best as possible. I'm using zero frets from hereonin, so the guiding nut material can be changed to anything realistically. One dampening method i've considering is a string bar with a strip of dense rubber on the underside, and the other method is a guiding nut with slightly deeper slots then "normal" and rubber strip in the centre to absorb string vibration. Either of these methods beat electrical tape *outside* of the studio! Thanks all.

It looks like the bridge part of a TOM bridge being recessed slightly to reduce the neck angle.

I actually just checked the heights of my EMGs compared to my passives, and they're not really much closer, if at all. I've just never backed them real far back from the strings. I've been trying to find the source of information which advised me that EMGs needed whanging up closer to the strings than passives. Admittedly, it's probably years of accepting some fact like "you can put EMGs closer than passives" and it devolving into a "you must". Strange how you never usually question something you've been comfortable with for years. I'm going to make a point of moving my pickup heights tonight Wes just to regain the feel for doing so. I think that's why I've dropped into the comfort zone guitar2005 - i've probably just not noticed the difference like you do with passives. So yeah anyway. Back on topic with a slight aside. Even though i've never had any appreciable problems with magnetic pull on strings from passives, I don't think this is even an issue with actives.

The string will hide it in use, but if it’s an issue (ie. plating coming off on other parts of the bridge/saddles) then I would contact Hipshot as they’re very very very good on customer service. Really. They are.

Given that 85s are such high output, it would make sense to back them off a bit, true. It's not that everyone *wants* to put them closer to the strings, it's a case of they *have* to be closer (not as-close-as) to the strings because of the weak magnetic field exerted by EMGs. The balance between distancing your pickups from strings whilst tailoring your output levels is just as relevant as it is with passives. Shame EMG design precludes adjustable pole pieces to do this of course.

I have some fine brass tubing that I was considering for that Wez. Instead of epoxy, I was going to pop lengths of the tube into the pillar drill and "core" out 5mm yellow acrylic same as I did with my fluorescent bass markers. I have a love/hate affair with epoxy anyway :-\ The sheet of yellow acrylic I have is for the control cavity and possibly scratchplate, but i've not hit on a shape I really like so far.