MartinP

Some humbuckers (at least those of Seymour Duncan) have three holes per "ear", with only the middle one being threaded for height adjustment screw. Once I direct-mounted a JB (Trembucker) like follows: bored the 2 outer holes a bit bigger, put woodscrews through them and a short metalscrew through the center one. Turning and tightening wood- and metalscrews counteract and let you set the pickup's position perfectly. If someone is concerned abt. possible microphonic problems, we never had any. If there's a difference in sound, I really don't know as we never tried to mount the pickup on a ring or foam etc.. It worked very well so it was left as it was.

Exactly what I was about to suggest! Heavy gauge aluminium wire makes sweet sidedots (esp. in an ebony fretboard).

Sry, I've posted it before somewhere, yet believe it might come handy this time http://www.provide.net/~cfh/fenderc.html

Just use 2 different products instead (if needed of course): a clear (glossy) laquer (from spraycan) for sealing and a spray adhesive for glueing the damn decal to headstock. Btw: Jehle's method works fine, but has it's own tricks . First: it was a bitch to get the colour nice and uniform. Second: you'll want to get the decal as thin as possible with no "sharp" edges. Jep, if you use a lot of laquer you'll get it all leveled, but the decal edges migth still be visible. So, for a start sand the decal down "as far as you dare" before glueing to the headstock. After it's done, you can carefully sand even more. I used a lot of slow-cureing superglue (yes, indeed:)) instead of the contact adhesive, pressed it out beneath the decal so that all the decal edges were nicely covered with s.glue (s.glue "melts" the decal material a bit). Beware! you can't just put the decal flat on the headstock, you have to "bend" it on and press all the air out by going. Let it dry overnight. Sanded the edges smooth / removed most of the pressed out glue. What was left formed quite a smooth transition from decal-to-headstock already before clearcoating. And Jimbo - if you have any specific questions abt. "where to get stuff if you're living on the dark side of the Moon", just check my profile

Warmoth Their (ebony) fingerboards are of very high quality, friendly and quick service + I've never missed even a single screw, everything is packed perfectly.

A bit OT, but still, here's a very indepth story about vintage Fender finishes / techniques: http://www.provide.net/~cfh/fenderc.html

What's the difference between front and back ones? Or am I just plain stupid...

Cheers! It's kinda interesting this topic popped up right now - I'm just planning to build a 8-stringer for one guy and was playing with the idea of using EMG's Extended Series bass pu's for that. Those EMG's all have blade polepieces, but different inner structures (some are J- some P-bass alikes, some have parallel coils and that's what I'll go with), so there shouldn't be any problems with the string spacing etc. What's interesting though is, that bass pickups seem to have a much higher resonant peak than guitar pu's. I'm aware it's not the single nor most critical measurement, but should give an overall indication of pu's nature, though. I mean, usually singlecoils have higher resonant peak than humbuckers, and we all know the sound difference between those two types. Would be highly interesting to hear some comments from people who have actually tried bass pu's on guitar.

Are there any (audible) sonic differencies between epoxy / aliphatic / hide glue joints, say, when glueing a fretboard or laminating a neck?

Might not be what you want exactly, but still: http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~dgb/index_e.htm scroll the right menu down to "Electronics Circuit" http://www.albertkreuzer.com/start.htm "Electronics" + "Preamps"

This topic came just right! My boss decided our company needs a CNC-router! Guess who's going to play around with it on weekends...

No problemo! I'll try to explain. By "between the pickups" I meant indeed "the distance between the inner sides of the pickups" and not between the pickup mounting rings. I just thought I underline "not between pu routes" because that's something that may vary, ok. Dist. between the outer sides would be: 128 mm.

If the holes for bushings in your Dean are OK, I'd go with Schaller Mini Locking Tuners from www.warmoth.com So far I've got 2 sets of them, black and gold, and the quality is top notch!

My measurements for a Gibson scale SG are from a printed out CAD file - the result seemed ok for me with known measurements like distance between frets etc. falling in place. BUT, pls wait for a second opinion Distance between pickups (not between pu routes!) - 52,0 mm Distance between the centres of pickups - 90,0 mm Hope it helps.

Wouldn't it be easier to route all pickup and control cavities + neck pocket before cutting the body out? I mean, fixing the templates and stuff. That's the way I do it - so it MUST be right ?