Hotrock

Pete, If you're going the Lace Sensor route then I think www.axesrus.com has some cheap. Welcome to the forum, don't feed the trolls

Since you're not in any rush - By then I should have my pickup winder up and running. Well actually, it is up and unning, I just have to make the faceplate. If you fancy paying for the parts then I can try to whip you up a baby pup if you want. I haven't actually wound any yet but it sounds like when you get started on this then I'll have wound a couple. I understand if you wouldn't want to but the offers there if you need it

Don't forget your duct tape Kaj

Alright dudes, The other night, one of my friends who lives in the village came round. He also makes guitars, resonators to be exact. Anyway, he wants me to do some CAD work for him and offer him some engineering advice regarding a new model that is to be released. I also asked him about a very special idea that I've had and he seems to be very interested. He now makes the guitars full time and the only thing he does better is play it, he is absolutley awesome on any type of axe, especially the resonator. Generally at gigs he plays the LP that he built too. There is going to be a review in either Feb or March guitarist magazine which he isn't too happy about because it missed the christmas rush. Apparently it's a good review but he would have liked it to be out before christmas, obviously. Anyway, have a look at Delta Resonator Guitars To be honest the pictures don't do them justice, they are beautiful in real life. Anyway, tell me an honest answer of what you think, call it market research Cheers guys Kaj

From TRADE SECRETS - VOLUME 43 (Edited by Dan Erlewine) Article talking to Tom Jones www.tvjones.com Jon Paterson [a violin maker - ed] taught me how to prepare maple for finishing by sizing, scraping and burnishing, rather than simply sanding it prior to staining. The technique I use is as follows: 1) Sand the flame maple (or other wood) with 320-grit Stikit andpaper from Stew-Mac. Jon prefers to scrape the wood prior to burnishing for a more reflective surface. 2) Wipe, blow and vacuum away the dust, and then size the wood with Knox unflavored gelatin from the supermarket. Put 1/4 teaspoon of gelatin into a baby food jar and fill it with water. You now have a weak mixture of hide glue! Heat it until it's hot, and then use within 1/2 hour. Wipe or brush it onto the wood and let it dry. 3) Next, after the surface is dry, eliminate the "fluff" on the wood sufrace by sanding with 600-grit Stikit paper. Jon prefes scraping. 4) Burnish he wood with a hard polished object such as a polished stone, ivory, bone or ironwood. 5) Now the surface is ready for the finish. Burnishing the wood makes a more reflective surface when viewed through the finish. A sanded, unburnished bit of wood tends to have a slightly matte finish. I repeat the gelatin process several times if I think the stain might look blotchy, especially at the neck heel. So there you go, what do you think (and no jellycaster jokes)

I'm not too sure myself without the article, but the gelatin makes something like hide glue and he uses that for burnishing I know it sounds funky and you should end up with a burnishing stone stuck on your guitar with gelatin derived hide glue, but there you go. Try not to think about it too much until I can bring the article to work.

I was reading something that I found last night tucked away in my bookcase. It was written by Tom Jones (not the welshman but the luthier - who might actually be welsh, who knows?). I was going to bering it to work and copy it out but I forgot it because I woke up about 10 minutes before I had to come to work Heres the basics though: After sanding the wood, he uses unflavored gelatin, mixes it with some water and something else easy to get hold of (I'm out of the office tomorrow so you might have to wait until Thursday) and rubs it on top of the guitar (he says it essentially makes Hide Glue). Then, and heres the bit that I've not heard of on this board, he gets something very hard, smooth, polished and flat (he uses a type of stone) and rubs all over the guitar quite hard to burnish the wood. Burnishing flattens the grain after sanding and according to Tom Jones makes the guitar waaayy more shiney after the finish has been put on and apparently take a stain better. I can see where he's comming from, but what do you gys rekon? Do you guys burnish? Kaj

I presume that you mean the headstock angle and not the neck angle. I wouldn't have a 13 degree neck angle, that would be bad . If I'm following you right then: You can do it by just getting bigger wood, marking out the angle and cutting it, but then you would be wasting quite a bit of wood. They are generally cut and glued because it saves wood and is therefore cheaper (it's called a scarf joint by the way). One piece though is actually weaker that cutting and gluing as glue is stronger than wood you also keep the grain inline with the strings by doing a scarf joint which again increases the strength a bit. I've only done it once, with very bad tools, but it wasn't very hard to do as long as you take a bit of time (as with most things)

My first thought is that there isn't a link anywhere

Don't blame you, that would be the option I'd go for too Oh, I must have been thinking about another thread because that guitar isn't butt ugly in the slightest, it's really rather nice

Or steel a fume cupboard from a school

Here is my understanding, but be warned, I have been known to understand things completely wrong. Generally, both coils are identical (except for when you have mentioned) but certain companies have and still do some pups where each coils is slightly different (in a number of turns type of way). I also believe that if both coils are identical, you will get a slightly different output from each coil as, for example, the north coil might be closer to an anti-node of the strings vibration (the wobbly bit) and the south coil would be closer to a node (where the wobbly bit changes direction causeing an unwobbly bit). How much of an effect this has I don't know. Like I said, that's just my understanding and could be wrong, but I'm at work and I've enough for the day, so I hough I might as well reply to this .

Failing that, have a look at my last popst in the following link for a very obvious method of making your own scale drawing. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=12176# Good luck dude (even if that guitar is butt ugly ) Kaj

I was thinking more about sucking dust into the booth. And you'd be suprised about how much an exit filter reduces the smell. Honest to god, I was suprised about how much better it was with the exhaust filter. Obviously, you should check if activated carbon is OK for paint. And finally - handy hint number one - If you get he fiter recharged by the filter people it cost's quiet a bit but if you buy a couple of boxes of activated carbon for the filetrs in fish tanks it's WAY cheaper. It does generaly mean that your fiter will need duct taping back together.

Mylar is readily available on big rolls or by the meter from most hydroponic shops (try the nearest garden centre) as it's often used for indoor....errrr.....tomato (cough cough) growing. This is because it reflects something like 98% of light and 95% of heat. It's not the sticky back stuff though Failing that, for all you UK folks, look up Growell hydropnics in the UK (near Birmingham) as I think they do mail order. I'm sure that there will be a few mail order hydroponics in prety much every country so give them a go.

How come acoustics don't have a radiused fretboard and electrics do? I've not actually played that many acoustics but they all had a flat board, so I'm curious. Also does anyone make one with a radiused fretboard? Because if I ever finish some of my other projects (which will be years to come yet) I wouldn't mind making an acoustic with an electric style neck. Cheers dudes Kaj

I haven't got a clue to your actual question, but after stripping the finish off a cheap guitar before, I can only offer this little nugget of advise. 1) Block of wood, sandpaper and brute force was the only way I managed to strip it, the ordital sander was less use than....errrr....a drummer in a pub quiz 2) I stripped it all the way back to the wood and then I thought that it was a stupid idea. Next time I'll just sand the paint off and leave the plasticy sanding sealer on, dunno if this is the best method, but it's gotta be better than what I did last time. 3) The finish is nasty, don't even think about doing it without a suitable mask. 4) Your girlfriend will go up the wall if you do it in the spare bedroom

That's the attitude Good luck

Shinnier than the arse of a policemans trousers Good to see you back Mr EdwardJones

Fill the old holes first

Nice one. I figure that this won't only give me something to do with the body, but will be good practice for a travel guitar that I've been thinking about (one day I'll actually finish a few projects instead of starting them ). Hopefully within the next three years, my girlfriend and I will actually have the money to get married and then it's off to South America for a 6 month honeymoon, just traveling around and chilling out. Well, it's either that or if we can't stump up enough money (about £20,000 we think for the pair of us) which is looking quite likely, I'm going to be retrofitting a transit van with a foldaway bedroom. So hopefully there might be enough room in the rucksack (or definately enough room in the van) for a fold away guitar with an onboard amp and speaker. I've been thinking about how to make a telescopic neck or one in multiple pieces, mmm, must be possible but gonna take a bit of designing

I generally find that this is most of the problem. Go for a walk or something

Could you dip the body in latex, cut and peel the latex off the top and then dip it? Either that or do it with the best tape that gives you a little bleeding, then there would be less paint to remove from the body. Just a thought

Nice one guys, that's exactly what I'm after. Oh and the finish by the way is going to be dribbled rubber/latex with extra care taken so that there are drips running down it.

Well, time to break out some powertools then