another doug

D'oh! I have always assumed that that's how fanned frets were done! Another missed chance to make my millions. Don't see how it warrants a patent though.

I'm pretty sure that compensated nuts and intonation don't actually alter the scale length. A low E on a strat may longer than 25.5. but it's still considered a 25.5 scale length. The frets are the same distance apart for the high E as they are for the low E. My understanding of fanned frets is that each string has a different scale length, with the distances between frets being different for each string. I think they may still benefit from compensated nuts, and the low strings would still be longer than the scale length suggested by the fret distances. That said, the idea of fanned frets is hardly rocket science, and I agree that it is part of the natural progression of guitar technology. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if someone did it hundreds of years ago and we just didn't hear about it. As far as the patent is concerned, it seems silly that they would have had a patent on such a simple idea. But then again, when I come up with my simple and cheap idea, I still want to make my millions Doug

I'm not implying you got the wrong rod. As long as it's long enough it will work for an electric. This is similar to the one I have. If it's what you have, you may be good to go. It shows a square channel and is installed open side down:martin-style truss rod I think you should double check with the people you got it from, just to be sure. Just because it looks like mine doesn't necessarily mean it is like mine (and most of my experience is with the hot rod too). Doug

It looks a lot like the one that came with my Martin acoustic kit. That neck has a flat channel. The rod came with the open side covered by tape, and the instructions, such as they were, said to install it tape side down. If I'm mistaken, I'm sure I'll be corrected soon. I'd wait for confirmation if I were you. 2 other points: 1. You want to make sure not to get glue on any of the moving parts of the truss rod (hence the tape). 2. Don't put yourself on a timeline, and don't be in a hurry (with either your project or this forum). You'll regret it. I've made too many of those mistakes. Good luck Doug

I don't know if it's common knowledge or not, but they are married.

Arsehattery is my new favorite word.

If you had the blues, you would be making that face too! Also if you had gas

+1 on the carve. Very nice.

According to Musician's Friend: "The Bullet features a slightly slimmer laminated body..." If a Bullet is a glue-up, I'd be surprised if they use plywood for any of their guitars. That said, it's probably a lot of laminations and may be pretty ugly. However, I stripped down my old Japanese Fender back in the day and slapped on some stain. It was at least 5 pieces of wood, but I like how it looks.

Regarding the engineering/design conversation: I believe that a design is no more than a pretty picture without a practical, workable application. It's certainly true that many engineers don't understand aesthetics, but there are also many designers don't know how to make their pretty pictures work in a practical sense. Real genius is when someone can meld those two aspects to create something that is both artistic and functional. In some ways, I think it is more creative to work with practical restraints than it is to work from a blank slate. Guitar building is a really good example of this; we're all looking for an aesthetically pleasing end result, but they still need to be playable. It is difficult to come up with a truly original design, so when that happens it is (to me, anyway) more impressive than the most impressive painting. But then again, I may be biased because I like guitars more than paintings in the first place. I also agree with Russ that the simplest solution is often the most elegant (assuming that I didn't misinterpret his post). Back to the subject of age: I am 32. Edit: I am neither a designer or an engineer professionally, if it matters.

Everyone else would be me . Point taken. Also, the kinkos idea sounds like a good one.

As far as your trouble blowing up a pic, you just have to make sure you blow up both axes the same amount, and you are trying to get the distance from the bridge side of the nut to the middle of the 12th fret to be half the scale length (if you're looking for total accuracy, tiger is a 25.5" scale length, so the dimension should be 12.75"). When I did it I used paint, but you should be able to do it in any number of graphics or photo programs. It took me several tries and a bit of math to blow it up to the right size, but it worked in the end. I usually try to avoid the contentious threads, but... Roadblocks and arguments? Seriously? Just because no one has the exact thing you need does not mean that the alternatives offered are not helpful. In fact, if no one has a template (and it looks like no one does so far) then blowing up a picture is your only option short of shelling out 400+ for a Warmoth to trace. If you don't want to use the advice given, then don't, but no one is trying to stop your daughter from making a guitar. As far as the template/sanding/etc. discussion, it's slightly off-topic (arguably), but was clearly not aimed at you and isn't obstructing your goal; you just had to read a couple more paragraphs. I really don't intend to be rude, but if you go back and read your posts (as you have asked us to do with ours) you will hopefully see how ungrateful you are coming across to people who are only trying to offer help, and understand why we would take offense (I'm not meaning to put words into either Mick or Wes' mouths, but that's the vibe I'm getting). Edit: edited to remove an arguably unconstructive comment.

Also, be careful about the switch. I have had some 5-way switches that may not fit in a body that thin (I may be wrong, since I don't have one on me), but others have a much slimmer profile.

I made a guitar based on "Tiger," which is probably the most famous of the Doug Irwin guitars (my version is in my avatar; it's actually made with padauk instead of cocobolo and I modified the body shape to fit through a 12 1/2 inch surface planer). I took a pic from this page (which has tons of info), and blew it up: Tiger website The pic at the top of the page is actually a ton of small pics if I remember correctly, so you may be better off with a screen capture. The same site has some info on Jerry's other guitars, including Wolf, but not as detailed as the tiger page. Also, the Warmoth WGD shape is very close, and Alembic have a model based on the same shape, so you aren't short of options in finding a pic to blow up. Good luck!

Ah. I wasn't taking into account that the fretboard section of the neck was raised to account for the bridge height. I think I get it now. Of the two options you gave above, I would have the fretboard end at the body (the pic on the right). That really doesn't look all that different from normal, whereas having no frets on an otherwise playable portion of the neck would look like you made a mistake (you did, but there's no reason why it should look like you did ). Good luck with whatever you decide!

Correct me if I'm missing something important, but I don't get why you had to shorten the fingerboard at all. If it's possible to put it together like the picture on the left, then there's room for the frets you removed. If you put it together like the picture on the right, it will work as long as the bridge is moved to insure the proper scale length. I'm assuming you haven't drilled the holes yet? It would look better this way with the fretboard you have, but IMO you should get a new fretboard and assemble the guitar like the picture on the left, with the "extra" frets covering the red boxed area. Also, I would think that you would want the fingerboard to cover the neck/body "joint" for the added stiffness (seems like having no fretboard there would make an already weak part of the guitar even weaker, but probably not as big a deal with the laminated neck). That's just based on my gut feeling though, no science to back it up. Just my 2 cents.

Lots of nice work! I like to see more experimental shapes, and there's a lot of that this month. I usually lean toward beginner builds, and I'm a big fan of the Digthemlows bass, but that Skelf bass is absolutely incredible (I'm a guitar guy, but the basses really struck me this month). So my vote (somewhat reluctantly) goes to Skelf. Two other thoughts I had on this month's voting: 1- I'm not a big fan of mismatched wood cavity covers, but every instrument with the rear cavity visible in the GOTM thread had one (even the skelf). 2- It was cool to see an acoustic in there, and the fretboard on that thing is out of this world cool.

If it's an unfretted, un-inlayed 25.5" scale fretboard, and you haven't built the neck yet, cutting it off at the first fret should work fine if the nut is placed right where the crown of that fret would have been. The only question would be if the scale length is too short. Using the Stewmac fret calculator, 25.5(total scale length)-1.431(distance to first fret from nut)=24.069. IMO too short unless you tune up or use heavy guage strings. Probably better off finding a 24.75" or 25" fretboard, but it's up to you. Edit: My brain must have blocked out the part where said you bought a neck! By misreading, It looks like I accidentally understood what you were talking about!

I doubt you'll be able to retire off it. Harmony made tons of guitars, particularly in the '60s, so they are not exactly rare. They were the kind of thing kids would order out of the Sears catalog, so they're not exactly Martins either. Yours is a higher end model than some, though. By the way H1203 is the model number. Here's a site I found when I was researching my Stella (also a freebie): Harmony Guitar Page There's a link to a price guide about 3/4 of the way down.

That's the exact same reaction I had ... Well, obviously it's nicer than plywood, and the grain is darker, but If you get a sheet of plywood that happens to have a flatsawn ply on the face, it can look similar to that. I'll admit that I haven't had a sheet that pretty, though. I'm not trying to knock the bass, but that is what it reminds me of.

You have already received good advice above. I just wanted to point out that you could always try to drill from the screw hole to the cavity rather than the other way around (less "hit and miss"). In that case, though, the wire would be coming out right under the bridge anyway, so you may as well just drill a separate hole as mentioned above.

That flatsawn Zebrawood looks a little too much like plywood for my taste!

Here's my zebrawood fingerboard. If you ignore the lapses in workmanship ( ) you'll get some idea how sharp it can look: PS I hate to say it, but the 9000 member count probably has more to do with spammers than guitar lovers. I am 7158 and only joined about 4 months ago.

Wow. All look good, but #2 and #4 really strike me as very cool and original designs. Very cool idea on the tuning for the 12-string, although I'd be a little concerned about those angles behind the tailpiece. Also, I would be scared of slitting my wrists playing number 4! Now a barrage of questions: How much of the work do you do yourself? Did you do the necks and fretboards? How are the electronics on the double neck set up?

My most recent guitar has a cherry neck with a tung oil finish. I made it about 2 years ago. It's a little thicker than normal, but it's holding up very well, and has been strung with 11s for the last 6 months. PS- LEF, in the first post he says he has enough for a neck blank.