Logical Frank

Max is my favorite vocalist ever in any genre. People tell me I'm weird but that's how I feel. That said, Sepultura is leaps and bounds better than Soulfly. Soulfly is a bad rehash of Roots. Beneath the Remains--now there's a record I can get behind whole-heartedly. Also, Fred Durst has never sang on a Sepultura song. Just sayin'...

It shouldn't metter as long as it's something that's in some way connected to the bridge and hence the strings... Still, I would say just get it attatched to the tremelo claw. I had trouble w/ this too when I did mine up. What you want to do is clean a spot on the the claw w/ steel wool (or whatever) as I said. Then you will want to tin the end of the wire w/ a little bit of solder and put a little blob of solder on the claw. Hold the tinned wire to the little blob of solder and apply the soldering iron to make the solder melt together. It just takes practice. You'll get it eventually.

I'm not sure what you mean by the plate on the back of your strat. I grounded mine to the tremelo claw, which is what I thought was standard. I used a fifteen watt soldering iron to do it. You might want to try cleaning up a small area w/ a bit of steel wool until it's nice and shiny. That will help the solder stick.

Yeah. They are loud as a bastard and hardly distort so you'd have to use a pedal. Still--there's something to be said for having a crapton of clean headroom, especially if you're going to be playing clean w/ a band.

I think that top is causing me to hallucinate. It looks like a bunch of cowboys sitting around a campfire w/ a sunset in the background.

Godin--What mods exactly did you do on the Valve Jr.? I've been meaning to do some on mine as it's pretty much just a doorstop since I retubed my Champ w/ an NOS 6V6. Anyway, Bz2, I would recomend trying the Valve Jr. vs. that Peavey. Too me, the differnce in the quality of the clean tone would be easily worth the difference in price.

How loud do you want? If it's just for practice, you can get a couple of those Epiphone Valve Jr's. You can't really get a heavy distortion out of them but they sound great clean--not as good as my Fender Champ but somewhere in the ballpark. You need to get the newer models which fix the noise problems the originals had. Also, the Orange Crush 30 is pretty sweet for only two-hundred bucks. Depends on the amp. For the most part, you can't. I think you'd need a stereo effects loop and stereo speaker outs.

I think that rough texture would look kinda cool. I dunno if I'd like how it feels though.

One strange thing about cabs is that 2x12 seem to cost almost the same as 4x12s a lot of the time. You will probably have a lot easier time finding a 4x12 too. Also, it helps w/ the I-want-this-huge-thing-out-of-my-house factor in getting deals. I did get an Avatar 2x12 a while back for two hundred bucks--probably could have got it for one-fifty but I had the cash and the thing was practically brand new. I really recomend a head/cab setup if you can swing it--more versatile and actually easier to move around as your heavy speakers aren't attatched to your heavy amp. Oh--and you might want to look into Peavey and Music Man amps. There's a couple models that are solid state pre w/ a tube power section. If you crank the master and use the preamp for your volume control they sound pretty great and love pedals. I bet you could find a good deal on something like a Peavey Deuce--maybe less than what you're talking about if you're lucky.

I haven't built the p90 one... yet.... so I don't really know. Didn't mean to imply that I did. Mine is still standard tele-configuration. I'm probably gonna replace the pickups and that's that for this one.

I'm going to get married just so I can leave my wife and run away w/ your spalted top.

I was thinking just a black pickguard... The different paisley might be too busy or maybe awesome, I'm not sure.

Hey--I just finished something really similar. I'm new to this so I went the easy way and just got an MIM Tele body loaded off eBay and stuck a Warmoth neck on it. It sounds great. My first build (which I will get to one of these days, I swear!) is going to be *exactly* what you're talking about--tele body, two p90's and a bari neck (still considering the varitone--not sure I'll use it). I have a question for you though--How exactly do you plan to fit a p90 in a tele bridge? Are you just gonna get one for a humbucker and use a humbucker-sized p90? I figured w/ mine I was just gonna use either a strat-style fixed bridge or, if I can find one, a ASAT Special-style top-loader (thems some nice bridges, I'll tell you what). Anyway, Baritone teles rule this world. I'm gonna go play mine right now. Keep us up on your progress, if you will.

Well I hate to answer for Hooglebug but he used some sort of mirrored acrylic/plexi-glass or something for the top so it's not paint at all. A page or two in he shows how he bent it for the headstock.

Four hundred bucks? You get a totally rad setup for that. I see fifty-watt tube heads all the freakin' time for under three hundo. If you're going cheap, look for something that doesn't say "Fender" or "Marshall" on it--names cost. I saw a sweet Gretsch 50-watt head for two-fifty at a local shop just this week, I'm sure I could have gotten them down to two if I had cash right then. I saw a Traynor head for the same price about a month ago, which was probably the same deal. So right there, yourself a sweet tube head for two-hundred fifty at most. So all you need is a cab. Getting cabs cheap is easy. They are big and awkward to keep around so there's guys out there who just want to get rid of them already. What you do is cruise Craigslist and find someone selling something for, say, three hundred bucks. What you do is tell them "Hey--I will take that off your hands TODAY if you give it to me for two-hundred." And half the time they will take it. The main trick is to have the cash (or credit card too if you're at a shop) and be ready to pay right then. That is the one and only secret to good deals.

Nice. I bet you're the only guy on your block w/ a guitar like that.

If you have a sepereate top, you could rout all the control cavities into the body and just drill holes in the top for the shafts of the controls. Then you'd install the electronics in the top before you put it on almost like you would into a strat pickguard. Of course, you'd have a hell of a time making any changes once it was glued together.

Well--definitely there are advantages to versatility but there's also advantages to simplicity. To each his own, I say.

I actually like the look of the wood a lot. I have such great degrees of brain damage that all of these flamed and burled tops can confuse me. Sometimes, I like it when wood just looks like wood and not some sort of tiger-eye semi-precious gem-stone.

Lookin' good. Love the contours on the back. Is this pretty much a straight copy or did you modify it? I am not much familiar w/ Warwick.

Dang... That is one nice lookin' fiddle.

I had to go w/ Jammy's for its baritone nature and all-around awesomeness. Really hard choice this month.

I can't tell if it's just the rough cut or not but the horn looks a little weird to me. The lines don't quite work.

Looks rad. You should give it one of those bullseye paint jobs to contrast the pointyness.

I would go w/ swamp ash... The only one I'd avoid is mohaganny. I've never played a solid maple guitar so I can't say on that. It might be a good call just because of balance issues. I'd imaging w/ the active pickups you're gonna be straight w/ anything tone-wise.