biliousfrog

There has been a lot of discussion over the sounds of different woods, there was another thread recently comparing a les paul, explorer & a chipboard guitar. The problem with your experiment is that the guitars are not only made from different woods but also constructed differently. This doesn't mean that they can't be compared but any differences in sound could be caused by body wood, neck wood, chambering vs solid & pickup construction differences.

Thanks I thought about going with a one piece neck/headstock but I would have wasted so much wood & they're not considered as strong. As it is, I managed to get a blank out of it suitable for another neck.

Neck profile is cut after several attempts at working out the neck/carve top angles. I've got enough leftover rosewood to make a bolt-on/standard set neck...the question is, do I make one or sell it?...I guess if I make a neck I'd need to make a body to go with it The wood is great, lovely figure, deep colours & is an absolute dream to plane. It's amazing to watch when working with it, it goes a deep purply-redy-brown when cut or planed & then slowely mellows to a more chocolatey brown over a day or so. I picked up the blank this afternoon to work on it & was amazed at the change in colour. The only problem with it is the dust. It's very nice to plane but when putting it through the bandsaw it left a thick coating of dust everywhere even with extraction fitted. I'm unable to find anywhere in the UK or europe that sells spoke-wheel trussrods so I'll probably go with a normal hex style at the headstock end. It will give me a chance to make a nice matching trussrod cover out of the rosewood.

The bridge isn't screwed down, just the posts. The bridge pivots against the posts on a "knife edge". It's the tension between the springs & the strings that holds the bridge in position, if you remove the strings it is possible on some floyds to pull the bridge away from the posts. If you were to remove the springs also, the bridge would just fall out, that is why Floyds can be such a pain to set up correctly because any change to the strings, action, spring tension has a knock on effect to something else.

read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Rose the string tension pulls the bridge against the posts, the springs at the back keep the bridge level. The easiest thing to do is study a guitar that has one.

I wouldn't want to search for a bad connection on that nice work but I can't help thinking that this is purely an advert

Yes, I think that's probably closer to what I drew full scale than the diagram I knocked up above. On the blue singlecut that I'm working on the top curve actually points further forwards than the neck join HERE so I tried to make sure that the transition from full thickness to binding ended at the furthest forward point. Because of the angled neck join it makes cross section drawings a lot more complicated but I think I have it now. Thanks for all the help.

really? why not? It works on mandolin's & they must have equally close string spacing.

I've kinda got it now I think. I just redrew it full scale using far more reference lines than I would expect & I seem to have something that supports what you've said. Here's an example of how I worked it out (not to scale ) Does that seem right? Because of the neck angle + the carve angle I'm getting an angle of 7 degrees which seems really steep...especially as my last one was only 3.

you won't be able to freehand it...well you might but you'll have a lot of cleaning up to do afterwards & it's very unlikely that you'll get the shape you want. If you can't be bothered to take the time to make a template, give up now. It's much cheaper to make a template with some decent ply or MDF & then scrap it than to make several trial runs on some decent wood.

ooh, that's nice! y'know what...I've been sat in front of my work PC all afternoon with nothing to do, we've been waiting for clients to get back with comments. Unfortunately (well, not for me) we've just been allowed to go home early otherwise I'd knock something up...but the sun's shining, there's a beer in the fridge & I've got a big ol' lump of rosewood that needs planing so sorry, I'm going home

That's a really nice guitar & very well made. The tip about using a sandbag when fretting is a great idea, I press them personally but I know a lot of people hammer them here. The maple's figure might have been enhanced by rubbing back a little & then applying another coat of stain but it looks nice anyway. You might want to get yourself a forstner bit for removing the bulk of wood from cavitys, it looks like a long, slow process with that 10mm bit

I naturally fall into strat with neck+middle pickups & a lightly overdriven sound, think RHCP's & Hendrix's Little Wing sound. I use just enough OD that hard hit chords crunch & ring out but softly played notes sustain cleanly. If I'm jamming with others I go completely the other way & wheel out my 3ft x 18" pedal board, crank up the amp & go all Tom Morello.

Jigsaw's are very useful, I didn't mean to put you off, I just wanted to point out that they're not great for cutting thick bodies. They're very useful for making jigs & templates & for rough cutting but don't expect to cut out a perfect guitar body with just the jigsaw

The only foolproof way of calculating it is to buy the StewMac string spacing rule, it's a great tool & worth the cheap price. It will show you exactly where each slot should go according to your particular nut width & it compensates for the different string guages. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_saddles/...acing_Rule.html

Yeah, I've read that over & over but what I don't get is why or how there's any wood to plane away. As an example, look at Perry's neck angle diagram: There's no extra wood between the neck angle & the bridge that can be removed. The only way that there could be is if the neck is moved forward & that would throw out any calculations for neck angle & scale length. Do you see why this is confusing? As Perry said, if it works on paper then go with that but I like to see how others work & hopefully learn from it. I don't want to just accept what I'm told without understanding why. I wonder how many others have read the neck angle & carve top tutorials & also got confused...maybe nobody.

Sorry to dig up this thread but this seems like a good place to ask this question. I've been going over the carve top tutorial, searching the forums & google, reading through MYOEG & drawing everything out full scale but something is puzzling me. In Setch's tutorial he planes a pickup plane from the neck angle to the bridge. How does that work? I nearly get it then I just get puzzled again. I've drawn out everything full scale & got my neck angle. I plane the angle into the body...now, how can I plane a further angle from there to the bridge without affecting the height & placement of the neck? I'm sorry if I'm being stupid but I can't seem to get it to work on paper. I was going to just leave the pickup plane out but it would be good to understand why & how.

depends what radius they are & what radius you're using on the board. They should ideally be a little tighter than the fingerboard so that when you press them in the barbs on the fret tang go into the slot & then get pushed along the slot a little...that should (unless I have this completely wrong?) help to prevent the fret from lifting up. at the ends.

just remember that cutting a deep body with a jigsaw is likely to cause the blade to bend & although you might think that you've followed the outline, the blade has cut a different path underneath. I speak from experience.

If there's enough demand I might buy several & sell them on to anyone here at minimum cost...or someone else can if they like. It seems strange that the people on here that use them most are from the UK yet they're not available here. BTW, this place sells CF rods: http://www.carbonology.com/shop.asp?PC_ID=...amp;sec_id=2116 , they also have these in the offcuts section.

that's very cool Doug...pretty good way of security tagging guitars too

shaping up nicely, I can't say that I like the shape very much but it's cleanly done. Were did you get the truss rod from?...somewhere in the UK? I can't seem to find the spoke variety anywhere this side of the pond.

For a first build that thing is awesome. Shame about the wavey borders but you've done a pretty good job anyway. It just goes to show that building guitars is 95% about preparation, persperation & common sense. So many people avoid doing anything remotely difficult but as long as you're prepared to put the work in there's no reason why you shouldn't be a little more adventurous. The knobs & pickup surround are a nice touch too. I can't wait to see this finished & to see what you build next.

I was afraid of that, it works out quite a lot when Stew Mac charges about a fiver more for the rods then delivery & then import duties. Maybe I should just go for a headstock adjustment instead. Hopefully someone else will come up trumps.

I bought my last truss rod from a guy on ebay, I can't seem to find the same ones anywhere in the UK. I want a dual action rod with a body end, spoke adjustment...anyone know where I can get one? I've tried the usual suspects but I might have missed somewhere.