biliousfrog

let someone buy it that'll play it & enjoy it. I hate it when nice guitars, art or anything that should be enjoyed is prevented from doing what it's designed for.

where are you? I've got about 20 meters of fiber optic communications cable all made up of very fine fibres.

I have already pointed Brian to a topic on the donation procedure but haven't yet had a response so I don't know whether he's read it or not. I firmly believe, & I'm not alone, that the lack of information, hidden shipping charges & inability to contact Brian via PM (Inbox is full) is likely to put people off of donating. It took me a couple of hrs to work out how I donate, then I had several $'s of shipping to pay which I wasn't fore-warned about & then I couldn't PM Brian about the S&H because his inbox was full so I had to search the Universal Jem's site for an email address & then after 2 weeks I got a response & the donated badge. I haven't got a problem with making a donation & I think that the site is such a great source of information that giving the price of a hand tool is a bargain...but, look at the procedure from the point of view of a new member. Is it unreasonable for someone to give up trying to donate & buy a book, wood or a tool instead because it's easier? just my 2cents

there's a tutorial on the main PG site which covers filling a trem cavity.

I bought one from a guy on ebay too, probably the same one. It had a blue plastic "sheath". I contacted him about getting some more but he said that he wouldn't be getting any for a while. The only other rods that I've seen similar in the blue covering where Gotoh ones so I suspect that they might be those? The guy I bought the hex rod from is going to keep an eye out for the spoke ones but I haven't heard anything as yet.

yep full-on indian rosewood neck & yes I am hiding a lot of it. I'm doing a deep set tenon, going right up to the bridge area. I don't like the look of neck throughs but I can appreciate the increased response from having the neck span the entire string length. I tried a deep-set tenon with my last build & I really like the characteristics of it so I thought that I'd do another. It's a lot of work but I think that it has some sonic benefits. The dust is nasty, I've got a fairly decent mask but my vac has broke & the dust goes everywhere...great to plane though

I've uploaded a pic here: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...st&p=336129

Tiny update but I thought that I'd post these pics here & then link to them from my thread about ugly scarf joints. The grain from the heastock piece & the neck didn't quite match which left me with a very obvious join when making a volute. The solution, which I hadn't even considered, was to cover it with a veneer or two...or back-strap it. I considered using the same sycamore veneer that I used on the front & fingerboard but for some random reason I cut a slightly thicker piece from the same wood as the carve top to see what it looked like & I preferred it. I followed the steps in Setch's backstrapping blog article & all went surprisingly smoothly. Here's the result: I still need to clean it up a bit but I'm very pleased with the results so far

My last volute was just a little past the nut but I find that it still gets in the way when playing an F or Bb chord as my thumb is round the back of the neck. This one is a little further into the headstock. I have strapped the back of the headstock & will post a pic as soon as I get a chance. I found the rosewood to be a complete PITA to bend. It would curl up with the grain easily but getting it flexible enough to bend across it was very tricky. I tried to wetting & wrapping in foil & then heating but it would become almost rigid again by the time I had unwrapped it, put it into position & clamped it. I found the easiest method was to boil a kettle with the lid open & hold the wood over the steam. I could then transfer it to the neck much faster.

I'm using drivers from KX Project: http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/ The interface is a bit funky but once you've got things setup it works a treat. Read through the help pages & allow a little time to get things working right. My card is basically the same as the normal soundblaster live's but it also has an additional front panel box for extra optical & digital ins/outs. By using the KX driver & Cubase I can potentially record through all 16 inputs at once, mapping each one to a seperate channel. The driver has a built in patch bay which you can use to re-route the inputs & outputs making it a very complex piece of software. There are other drivers also available, some people have had problems with the KX one, it all depends on other hardware but I know of two others that also use them with no problems.

Marbling has been done for hundreds of years without the aid of machines although it would still be quite a time consuming & expensive thing to commission. How to: http://www.mikemacneil.com/faux%20finish%20techniques.shtml Also search for "faux marble" in google

Funny that you should post an EVH style the same time as another...both have different neck types to the original but yours doesn't seem to work for me. I think that the possible reason why is that the body curves upwards & the headstock slopes downwards. The more I look at it the more it grows on me but it still doesn't seem to flow quite right. The 4x2 would probably work better but I don't know how feasible that would be. Y'know what I'm actually starting to like it as-is now [EDIT] LOL...I didn't realise that you did the other one too

Frets are a pain to file flush, those few extra mm will take a fair bit of effort to file down & if you start to get impatient you could damage the neck, fingerboard or frets. flush cutters aren't unique to luthiery despite what some people would have you believe but The price of the Stew Mac ones isn't overly expensive, especially as they are quite heavy duty. These are very cheap but I don't know whether they'd be strong enough to cut fret wire: http://wire-sculpture.com/items/G2_16.php http://wire-sculpture.com/items/G2_59.php

Yeah it was a part of neck building that I had completely overlooked but now that I've looked into it a bit more I'm keen to get "Strapping"! I can't do the volute that I'd hoped...I was going to do an almost crescent shaped one but the scarf join would look just plain ugly, maybe if I ever you a one-piece neck. So how was the smooth curve done Setch? Was it a drum sander & fence, Belt sander or something more fancy?

I've got a pair of nippers which I ground down many years ago on a belt sander (obviously not made from the hardest metal)...I did it originally to pull out broken off nails from reclaimed timbers & they also work for fret ends. They're not great for cutting through a full fret but they work well for tang-less frets when using binding. For cutting rough lengths, a Dremel works well but be careful because the fret wire will get very hot!

SM's edges are .0015" over a foot so not too much difference.

doesn't Gibson use fibreboard for it's headstocks? Maybe try that?

check out some of his previous work first, I've had a "cheap" neck made before by a suposedly reputable luthier & it nearly ended in court because of how poorly it was made...cheap & good aren't often used together in luthier terms. 300 bucks, whether it's US dollars or GB pounds isn't much for the materials & labour involved, bear that in mind.

they also sell very similar straight edges for far less: http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.asp?pf_...le=1&jump=0 As always, shop around. It seems like Stew Mac just buys stuff from hardware stores, adds "luthier" to the name & sells them as specialist tools. Some of their stuff is reasonably priced but the majority of it is far from specialist & can be bought for less elsewhere.

excellent posts guys

Pod Pro -> Soundblaster Live Platinum (with front panel connections) -> Cubase 5 -> Decent audio drivers for inaudible latency (the most important part). Haven't done any serious studio recording for about 10yrs & my home office can't take too much recording gear so the Pod & cubase work fine for what I need. Groove agent is also a great asset for knocking up some decent drums fast. I had a digital 8-track for a few months but I found the computer to be much easier to use. The trickiest part about recording on a computer is latency. Even with dual-core processors & gigabytes of RAM you'll need decent audio drivers to get low latency. Search the net for good ASIO drivers for your card & don't go straight for the ones from the manufacturer. My card is several years old but thanks to support from 3rd party drivers it still performs just as well as the more recent models.

Doug does nice necks: http://www.soulmateguitars.com/ Saga does a set neck guitar kit, the various parts often turn up on ebay. Where are you? Axesrus in the UK has maple set neck's for £52: http://www.axesrus.com/axenecks.htm

only you can decide on what you like. Look at magazines, websites, cars, posters, other guitars, paintings....you could even buy some paints & experiment!

The penny's dropped, I just had a look at one of ACG's basses & know what you meant by back strapping (I think). Rather than veneering the back of the headstock before glue-up, do it after the voute is shaped & cover that as well...Yes? If so, I'm cool with that. I've got a sycamore veneer stripe on the front edge of the headstock so a matching one on the back would work well. I've searched the boards for info on back strapping but couldn't unearth anything. Is there anything that I need to know specifically about conforming the rosewood to the headstock & volute? Can/should I steam it to get it to bend, will the added moisture effect the glue-up process, should I clamp & let settle before glue-up etc. Cheers. [EDIT] Setch to the rescue yet again: http://www.setchellguitars.co.uk/ant/blog/

I have! Set necks tastes better. I heard that Bob Marley preferred them wi' jam in