Prostheta

0000 steel wool burnishes out oil finishes nicely. Your new finish looks awesome though!! Great work.

I guess that the same as with most things, your mileage with vary eh Erik? I think CA is probably the better option for quick and fairly clean work, whereas epoxy requires more patience and a little more work to achieve what would be overall, a better result.

I'm a little lazy and like to see immediate results, so CA is probably my best friend until I can master patience in order to see better results :-) Same goes for my detail routing which cSuttle has obviously mastered since gap filling isn't an issue there!

Totally! Well, everyone has a combination which they feel comfortable with and finding your sound is part of the enjoyment of musicianship.

Far Beyond Metal!!

Without finishing, you'll pretty much be leaving your wood open to immediate climate changes which will at best mean regular setting up (hot day, wet day, cold day, seasons....) and at worst warping. Light oiling or waxing and rubbing back with steel wool should protect it, and give it the most natural look if you choose a finish close to the existing colours. Natural patina from usage would do this over time anyway, but I'd err on the side of "save your guitar from potential immediate weather-based wood scurvy"!

I happen to have a Yamaha SHS200 keytar which rules pretty heavily now it's finished in black with diamondplate :-)

I'd recommend it over the smaller versions, but the mid-sized keys are a pain like most of keytars...

Would CA-bound wood dust not shine up as well as pure CA when polishing? I'm sure it would be fairly matt compared to cutting back pure CA filler.

Oh, have to put myself straight on one count! 81s have a higher output than 85s, but given the nature of where people tend to place these pickups, 85s tend to sound louder as there is more long wavelength movement towards the neck and 85s do love to churn bass out :-)

I've heard many bad things said about passive EMGs (probably undeserved) although there are plenty of better passives out there for the price to be honest. Do some A/Bing if you've got opportunity because there's a lot of be heard outside of what you read on the Interwiddle!

In other news, I'm shocked at how EMGs have shot up in price over the last four years. Back then I regularly picked up (no pun intended) EMGs off eBay in prime condition for £20-30 each. Now you're looking at over £60 easily. Crazy.

*shakes fist at Zakk and other premium EMG endorsers*

Dyooohhh!!

60 in the neck position for sure. Much nicer than the 85!! I have two ESP Explorers, one with 81/85 and the other 81/60. The 85 is too bassy, whereas the 60 seems better in positions where bass response is stronger. Also, the output of the 85 is actually higher than the 81....way too much for a neck position pup....

That's a pretty spooky post Al. You could almost reach in and pick up that box!

It's a little small though. I might have to order a larger pack!

Rustin's plastic finish...heard Setch mention this stuff, but not figured out which product this is from the Rustin's website! Any pointers Al? I'm sure Tele neck is begging for a satin finish.

Thanks everyone. I'm a bit panicky about doing something wrong on this one, but it's all coming out nicely. It's a bit late for P90s, but hey - there's always plenty more Tele's in the sea :-)

I'm still malleable on the choice of bridge in that I might still fit a Tele-style bucker bridge as opposed to small Strat-style hardtail.

Any opinions on whether I should go for Schaller mini-locking tuners with ebony pegs? I think it would tie up the headstock nicely.

First of all, I'd like to thank Ronny for supplying the template for this build and Patrick in Hawaii for scoring me some AWESOME Koa for next to nothing.

The build idea behind this Tele is classy wood on a hot bluesy Tele. Two-piece ash body, bookmatched Koa leaves front and back. Headstock veneered with Koa, and with ebony veneer on the rear. All hardware to be gold, specifically a six-saddle Strat-style hardtail, Gotoh M6s, bar string retainer, "side dot" pearl inlays and no pickguards or control plates. Body is bound back and front. Sides finished black with binding scraped back. The neck will be bolt-on for nostalgia :-) Not sure of the pickups as of yet. Open to suggestion.

Apologies for not documenting the build from beginning to end, but I'd a woodworker not a doctor damnit!/bones>

Koa is very soft it seems, and a bugger to take scratches out of, but easy to install new ones! Has anybody got good tips or pointers on the best way to grainfill and clearcoat Koa? Using search is all well and good, but when you have something in front of you that you *really* don't want to screw up by missing some important bit of information, you want to double check....

A few number of these images have been gamma'ed down to highlight the flame figure in the Koa.

PICTURE 1

PICTURE 2

PICTURE 3

PICTURE 4

PICTURE 5

PICTURE 6

PICTURE 7

PICTURE 9

PICTURE 10

PICTURE 11

PICTURE 12

Woohoo!! Looking forward to that one arriving. I'll actually go out of my way to document this build unlike my first four where I forgot due to working too hard.

I've often pondered on how to strengthen tips. Would using CA or epoxy as grain filler prior to finishing impart any significant additional strength to the wood's grain structure?

UPDATE: Original radius templates overwritten with new amended copy. I've also marked out string spacing on each template for some reason.

Paper is always better. As I mentioned, I scribed the ones I use onto acrylic but having something which is quick for reference and repeatable is no bad thing :-)

This post inspired me to fire up TurboCAD and knock out some of the most common radii found on guitars as cutout templates you can "feel" under your strings when setting up. Primarily I did them to help Guitar2005 sort out a custom radius for a Tune-O-Matic by recutting the saddles but if they help other people out, then cool.

[original thread here]

Format is PDF for portability, print to A3 if you have the capability or to 2xA4 sheets. I would recommend mounting the paper on plastic to keep it's form. The templates I use were scribed onto some acrylic using a sharp point and some string. High tech baby :-)

DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE HERE

In the case of recutting your Tune-O-Matic saddles to a 16" radius instead of 12", string up as normal. Insert the correct radiused feeler between the third and fourth strings. It will sit under the first and sixth strings, with the existing smaller radius leaving the other strings higher. Depending on which way you prefer to work, pull the outermost strings which need lowering to the new radius out of the saddle and cut the slot deeper. I won't go into detail on saddle dressing, as I'm not too good at it :-)

After learning how to cut saddle slots, you should now have deeper slots with a string radius of 16". Same applies to smaller radii if you really want to go for that kind of thing. You'll just be cutting the outer strings as the feeler will touch third and fourth instead of the outer strings.

Hope this simple thing helps.

Oh yes, when printing the template make sure that the background gridlines measure one per centimetre. Some printers don't believe that 100% = 1:1.

Ah - apologies!! I will have to re-render the template tomorrow. TurboCAD seems to have faceted the radii very coarsely instead of as smooth curves. The 20" radius has been approximated to 3 straight lines...

Just to let you know, I knocked up some radius templates in TurboCAD which you can use to recut your saddles. I created a new thread HERE for it.

This helps me out a bit too, as we have a local sawmill dealing Sapele. I think I'll give this stuff a whirl on the Thunderbird.

I prefer a nice angle so the tension over the TOM is higher.

I would add at least one laminate to the neck to guarantee yourself more strength although I suspect that it would make a good neck material, as I've been told it's properties are similar to mahogany. Anyone care to confirm this?

In general, laminating your neck is a good idea anyway as it makes for better stability in the long run. All depends if you're hiding or showing the back of the neck in a natural or solid colour :-)

Equally (if you prefer) you can cut down the through neck tenon to make a set neck tenon. Useful if the entire tenon doesn't allow you to pull up an angle over the body, or you prefer to make the body as one complete entity as opposed to stuck on wings ;-)

I was considering doing this with the neck tenon I bought from Stewmac (nasty sidemarkers!) but chickened out. Oopsy!

Indeed. I wish your business the best of takeoffs - the least of which I can offer would be my repeated business of course :-)

I'll make it up to you in future business and the reassurance that this bass (and your bass too) is/are going to be special ;-)

I think as far as time management goes, you can't just suddenly manage it - you see where time has been lost and work around it in future. I'm still kicking myself for there only being 24 hours in the day.

I'm sorely tempted to buy those two bloodwood laminates you've listed, but I think my work depleting the world's stocks of bloodwood are done for this week. Somebody else will most probably get better use out of them whilst I work on this bass.

you could pick random streets in your town and knock on every door till you find someone with what your looking for; to cut down on time only try the houses with big sheds/garages

j/k

Anyone local to me can always pop down and I'll thickness plane and/or joint wood for em :-)