Prostheta

Yeah - I've been trying to balance the tension against the gauge. Too floppy and it'll defeat the point of intonating it and the tone will suffer. Too heavy and I'll have to modify the bridge!

Excellent work! Fast approaching the finishing post :-D

Really? Wow. That's scary because I'm building my own 8-string over a 30" scale and I thought a 0.060 would be more than adequate!!

If that picture could have a caption, it would be "surprise!!". If only my guitars would throw a party for me too

True enough. I've never had an EMG go down on me (so to speak). A $1000 is a ridiculous price for a pickup!!

Make with the video man! That would be super awesome :-D

I thought as much. I was hoping that the longer scale would allow me to use a slightly lower gauge. That said, I still haven't committed to 30" yet so 27" might still be on the cards.

I remember reading your build thread a while back. Awesome instrument! I didn't even realise that you'd made a 100% purpleheart neck till I looked back on it again this morning.

I'm more referring to the way the demand has pushed up the prices in the second hand and "cut price" sector. You can regularly see second hand EMG pups on fLeBay going for well over half the retail price whereas when I bought an 81 and a 60 I got them for under 1/4 of retail.

Also, EMG distributors are unable to supply pickups outside of their territories so I can't order from the US for example. In the UK I rely on thomann.de (near retail price) or staff price from a local retailer (well, one of my guitarists works at a music store...) and I get a very good price direct from Sound Technology, the UK distro.

The lack of availability of decently priced second-hand pups from places like fLeBay mean sales at retail are more common to satisfy demand (a lot of EMGs on fLeBay are new/retail also). Until the market saturates and fLeBay gets flooded with a backwash of second-hand EMGs that people want to swap out for JBs, Invaders etc. I will still have to buy via retail myself!

Can anybody else think of cheaper places to buy EMG other than fLeBay or a relaxed retailer? I would be very interested same as Matt!

Hey Rob - yeah, we're playing with Dry Kill Logic as top support on Wednesday night. Are you a DKL fan or are you (clutching straws here...) the Rob from London, formerly from Lincoln?

Nice bit of French polishing there, Rich. I had a look at the Liberon range a while back but couldn't make head nor tail of where to start.

The stoptail ain't even stopping anything :-D

Have you considered an oil finish? You can have the satisfaction of doing the finish yourself, plus you don't need space to do the work! Tru-oil is awesome, but I'd recommend investing in some top quality lint-free clothes to apply it.

Oakley price as high as the market will support, which has made James Jannard (the majority shareholder and founder) one of the richest people in the world based on publicly traded assets.

I wonder how rich the hippy on the EMG site is. Especially as I keep buying from him.

You'll be lucky. Successful marketing has elevated the EMG brand into the Oakley stratosphere :-D

You might get lucky on fLeBay if you find one on Buy It Now, but auctions tend to get bid on a lot for EMGs. Rare one goes cheaply on standard auction. I would be tempted to say "befriend a music store owner or repair tech and try to get them at trade". I can usually buy EMGs at trade+VAT+10% which isn't too shoddy compared to full retail.

First plan of action is to set up a favourite search term on fLeBay which will inform you of items possessing "EMG" and "707" or "40DC" in the title and hope something comes in on Buy It Now at a decent price!

Best of luck. I would like a couple of 40DCs myself for the Vampyre 5.

It's a bit awkward to work binding into that internal radius. I made three attempts at it before succeeding using heat and softening with acetone. It'll be more difficult for you since you're using laminated binding. Hope you succeed - Iceman's (men?) rule!

It's looking great now you've made some progress - how's the binding on the lower horn coming along?

I would just go for a dedicated extractor because you have a guarantee it will meet it's purpose.

Not at the moment. I'm full of cold and daren't venture outside. Erk!

+1 on the EMG45DC!! I've mounted mine inside a purpleheart pickup ring on the eight-string build I have on the go. Very long pickup too! I'm considering adding a second one, but I'm not sure.

Huge difference. I bought the white Axminster extractor (same shape and size as that one) and it's awesome. Huge capacity, strong vacuum and far superior filtration. It's not the chunks and coarse dust you want to worry about, it's the fine dust that normal vacuums just churn back out.

I guess the difference is in whether you are after something specific when you don't have the finances (pain!) and when you pick something up which is a great price whilst you have got the cash. I didn't mean to pick up the S1670FM (oops! mis-called it an RG there in my previous post...) but it was going on Buy It Now for a totally stupid price, case and pickups included!

Moral of fLeBay is: Money - when available - will expand your instrument purchasing scope hugely. Always. When money is not available, that which you desire is ALWAYS on sale for something just out of reach of current ability. Therefore money is inversely proportion to the availability of desired items, and items are spitefully proportional to the available funds.

Hmm. Well, the eight-string i've got underway is designed around being a 30" scale tuned F#BEADGBE. I prefer 10-46 sets on my "normal" guitars in standard E, but I have no immediate idea on how to calculate string gauge based on a crazy-ass scale and low tuning. My gut tells me to try out a 12-56 set for low B through high B with an 8 on the high E and a 66 on the F#. I presume the change in gauge vs. open string tuning would require the D/G/B/E strings to be plain as opposed to a wound D.

The other worry I have is actually getting the string to fit through a normal strat-style saddle as the bridge I have is the Hipshot eight-string bridge. I can't see it being an issue hugely although I might have to round over the saddle transition a little due to the heavier wind and possibility of unravelling.

Any methods of working this little paradigm out would be greatly appreciated as I would be using the hit and miss method otherwise, and that means lots of wasted strings!

I guess if it is that easy to stack two pots then you could easily make all kinds of wacky coil tone tap volume things by combining log and lin tracks!

You might need to get your kid to show you how to resize them also as they're a little big for posting at the moment :-D

Currently 800x600 - should be 640x480 or less if possible.

I've always managed to score comparatively well on fLeBay.

Japanese ESP Explorer EMG81/60 NNC for £450

LTD Explorer EMG81/60 GC for £250

Ibanez RG1670FM with full SD pickup upgrades NNC for £550

Peavey 5150 Mk1 head GC for £300

Marshall JCM800 2203 100w head for £220

Marshall JCM800 2203 100w head with 1960A 4x12 for £280

Jackson neck-thru Rhoads NNC for £180

Various non-HZ EMG pickups for less than 1/2 retail

Being scared with doing a mod or real invasive work is sometimes a good sign. Figuring out how to be 100% confident in what you are doing, why you are doing it and near enough guaranteeing that it will work is all part of the game :-D

Personally I wouldn't mill into the neck pocket unless you have plenty of depth of wood under the pocket (1/4" can be a lot of removal!) I'd go for the neck seating face option. I would personally try planing it to remove a little wood at a time, although planing through to 1/4" of adjustment is a lot, and easy to go off the parallel.

Perhaps removing 1/8" in the pocket and planing 1/8" off the neck seating face?

See what other people recommend first Wonko before putting hammer to wood - there are plenty of people who can suggest alternative courses of action which may surprise you :-D

The taper would be incorrect though Da Free Runner - IIRC blend pots are two stacked and opposed logarithmic tapers, not linear or two parallel logarithmic tracks.