curtisa

Shouldn't present a problem. I've reduced a 20" radius to 16" in the past and had no real difficulty compared to radiusing a flat board. Only thing to be aware of is that the smaller radius will mean that the edges of the board will be thinner once the new radius is applied.

The piezo will need a preamp no matter what. The preamp and bridge you link to should work fine together. The 1/8" plug on the bridge looks like it will mate directly with the socket on the preamp circuit board without having to cut/solder anything. There are probably zillions of similar units out there offered as ready-to-go products or build-it-yourself too. The problem will be blending piezo and passive pickups, as the impedances the two pickup systems operate at are quite different. As a somewhat-dubious analogy, it's roughly equivalent to hitching up a Honda Civic and a Ford Mustang side by side to the same trailer, opening the throttle on both cars to 50% and expecting the cars to travel in a straight line. Both vehicles can independently pull the trailer fine, but if both are trying to pull simultaneously the Mustang (passive pickup) is obviously going to dominate the pulling power of the two and swamp the Civic (piezo), and the car/trailer combo will drift in the direction the Mustang is leaning. This means fitting a buffer to the passive pickups and switching/blending after the buffer. Using the above analogy, to equalise the pulling power of the two cars you want the Mustang to be a bit more polite like the Civic, and the Civic to have a bit more oomph to keep up with the 'Stang. The preamps and buffers help achieve this. There appear to be some buffer kits out there expressly designed for interfacing the two systems in one PCB. Another option that may work is to use active pickups and blend them with the preamped-piezo signal, negating the need for the buffer for the passive pickups. Providing you can find some way of getting the piezo to play ball with the regular pickups, the switch you install to select piezo/piezo+pickup/pickup should be exactly the same as a regular Les Paul three way switch. If your guitar already has a three-way for two humbuckers, you're effectively stacking two of these switches one on top of the other. Another option is not to blend on the guitar at all and keep the two signals independent - fit two output jacks to the guitar, one for passive and one for piezo. Both signals can then be sent to two separate amps/channels. The piezo/blend/passive switch on the guitar can then operate as a three-way cut switch that turns off the unwanted output.

All three coils (position 2) appears to be two coils in series plus a third coil in parallel with the series chain, which is notionally the same as humbucker plus separate single. But who knows what the construction of the three "coils" is actually like - for all we know it could be a conventional two-coil humbucker with a stacked single alongside it to minimise hum. Check out this pdf here on page 6. Looks like the author has broken down the original wiring while coming up with a new switching scheme. At around 10:55 while he's gas-bagging about the different sounds and cranking up the gain on the amp you can hear some buzz and hum, but no more than a standard humbucker. Just before he starts playing he's selected the neck pickup (position 5) which appears to have the same amount of hum as the bridge single (pos 3) he was just playing a moment prior. Could be that all the "singles" in the guitar are stacked humbuckers.

Still reckon you've got a grounding issue somewhere between your output jack and bridge. Eliminating the buzz by touching the output jack should be the same thing as touching the strings. Electrically they're meant to be the same point. Does your bridge have a lot of heavy black paint that may not allow a good connection to the bridge grounding wire? Try twisting a piece of wire around the strings and attach the other end of the wire to the shield of the output jack. If the buzz goes away when you touch the strings with this temporary wire installed then your bridge ground wire isn't making proper contact with the bridge/saddles/posts/studs/strings and needs to be checked out.

Not easy to see, but: Braid on cable leaving volume pot to output jack may not be soldered to ground. Check wiring on 3-way switch from neck pickup. Can't see if the braid is touching the centre conductor, or has been wired back-to-front. Wire coming from left lug of tone pot appears to be going to case of volume pot. Should go to right lug of vol pot or centre lug(s) of 3-way switch. Check the wiring on your output jack. Check continuity of ground wire between vol pot case and bridge with a multimeter. Check again between vol pot case and output jack sleeve connection. Eyes don't always tell the truth.

Sounds like you have a grounding issue. Have you run a ground wire from the bridge? Leads to the output jack back-to-front? I assume everything else works as expected - volume, tone, 3-way switch. FWIW, Bil Lawrence 500XL pickup colour codes are Red (hot), Green/White (twist together and insulate), Black/Shield (twist together and ground). SD wiring should pretty much take care of itself if it's only two-wire hookup - one is hot, the other is ground.

9322 seems to be a code used by Alpha. Lots of manufacturers use Alpha pots. Decent quality. There are better quality ones out there, but as you'd expect with a corresponding increase in price.

All specs being equal it shouldn't matter. Quality pots exist in any size. Ibanez, Yamaha, Jackson etc use mini pots in their guitars, and while they do wear out eventually you rarely hear of users complaining that the pots only lasted a few days. Any brand markings on your pots?

Same here. Have one, rarely use it over hand sanding. Only things I can think of are: Too much pressure being applied Favouring one side of the tool Base of the sander is flexible, or the sanding pad has a bit of give in it, and conforms to the edges of the workpiece slightly as it passes over. Grit is too aggressive for the task The problem I experience more with the ROS is when it leaves behind little "swirlies" in the wood, which then have to be hand sanded again to get out. For the extra time I have to spend trying to get rid of these little squiggles I usually find it easier to just hand sand from scratch.

Option 1: http://strandbergguitars.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/IMG_1734.jpg Pros - cheaper to buy than a custom slanted humbucker, more choices available to purchase from, can use readily available routing templates Cons - some people feel if the angle at the bridge is too steep it may impact the output tone of the guitar in a negative way, particulaly the bridge pickup. Effectively you're doing a similar thing to a Fender Strat bridge pickup and rotating the bass-side of the pickup around further towards the neck, which makes the bass strings output of the bridge pickup more like a middle pickup. Option 2 (and 3): http://strandbergguitars.com/46-armand-hindrichs/img_2980/ Pros - as for option 1 Cons - visual aesthetics. Can be circumvented somewhat if you choose pickups with fully-encapsulated bobbins (eg EMG81), or blade-style pole pieces (eg Hot Rails). Some people don't like the look of a rectangular pickup twisted around on an angle. I don't really know if angling the pickup a few degrees with misaligned polepieces has a general effect on the tone. My gut says it would be minor, but I don't think I've seen any real tests by anyone to indicate otherwise. Hacking up a standard pickup is something I've considered myself, but never had the opportunity to try. Other than the mechanical component of doing such a mod, the other important thing to consider is that as the bobbin is rotated around away from perpendicular the pole pieces need to be spaced further apart to maintain their alignment to the strings. This would limit the amount of rotation you could make on a standard pickup before the pole pieces start being too far away from the strings to be effective (or look any good!), particularly on the outside strings.

As a former CAD junkie in previous jobs I'm familiar with AutoCAD blocks and how they can be scaled, but I still think FretFind is an easier way to map out a multiscale layout. For a "normal" 6-string guitar build I can see that blocks could be advantageous, but for something a little more involved (non-standard numbers of strings, variable scale lengths, variable perp fret etc) I think FretFind makes the whole process a lot easier and quicker. Assuming you start with a standard 25" scale frets/nut/bridge block, you'd need to insert it into your drawing, calculate your new scaling factor to go from 25" to 28" and then apply this scaling factor in the X-axis. If you then wanted to convert it to a mutliscale board you'd have to explode the block, thus losing any object grouping that the block inherently had, determine your string spacings at the nut and bridge for the given number of strings you want, draw in your outer strings to determine the boundaries of your scale lengths, calculate a new scaling factor to go from 28" to 25.5" for the treble strings, scale the treble side fret lines to this factor using the treble string as the axis of scale, apply a skew to the frets to accommodate your nominal perpendicular fret, add the fretboard overhang either side of the outer strings...You could have plugged all the necessary data into FretFind and exported the DXF to AutoCAD by now without having to do all the mental juggling to make the block work for you.

Nominal scale length is measured along the trajectory of the string, ignoring the intonation adjustments required to set up the guitar. FretFind 2D uses the same measurement when it draws a fretboard (have a look at the String Endpoints table it prints to the right of the graphical representation). You'll probably find that having the perp at the 12th will make the angle at the nut too steep to be comfortable given the 1.5" fan difference. Perp at the 9th is (roughly) the midpoint of the fretboard, whereas perp at the 12th is the midpoint of the strings' length. Your fretting hand only moves about 2/3 the length of the strings while playing so it makes sense to make the fan equal either side of the fretboards' midpoint. This is probably why most fan fret instruments you see put the perpendicular fret around the 7th-9th frets. I agree with Swedish Luthier - FretFind is probably the easiest way to make a fretboard/instrument template for multiscale and takes all the scaling calculations out of any AutoCAD block insertion system. Unless you have access to a CNC machine to cut the fret slots directly from the CAD file and are making a big run of instruments, most people just take a 1:1 print of the FretFind image, stick it to the fretboard blank and cut the slots by hand following each printed fret line.

Same way you'd measure scale length on a regular guitar. Only difference is that the scale length on the outermost strings will be different to accommodate your chosen fan difference. Largely a question of ergonomics. Perpendicular fret closer to the nut will make lower frets easier to use for chordal work, but make the angle on the upper frets more extreme, which may be uncomfortable/visually off-putting if you play in the upper registers a lot. Perpendicular closer to the body will make upper frets easier to work with, but make chord playing near the nut more difficult as the angle becomes more steep. Perpendicular fret locations around the 5th - 9th frets seem common. Easiest way to plan and visualise the fanned frets is to visit this site and try playing with some of the variables that go into your design. You'll soon get a feel for what looks "right" and is practical to the player. Standard 17" - 18" guitar trussrod will probably work fine for the kinds of scale lengths you're considering. Two rods is probably overkill and would involve more work in building and setting up than it gains in stability. Based on my limited building experience I personally wouldn't worry about graphite reinforcement unless the timber I was making the neck out of risked being unstable (eg, one-piece figured wood), or I was making an unusually thin/long neck. Other more-experienced members may have a better idea about this than me.

Single - pot has one resistive element, your typical single volume or tone pot. Dual - pot has two independent resistive elements. The elements can be controlled by independent shafts (eg, stacked controls), or more commonly a single shaft controlling the two halves simultaneously. Stereo volume controls or pickup blend functions are common.

Welcome aboad! General instrument chat/questions would probably be best suited to the "Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat" sub-forum.

Also working at home. Win 7, Firefox 32.0.3.

Works here in the office. Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8. Can try on Firefox at home later today if you like. Check if you've got your browser security levels cranked up to not accept cookies, perhaps?

Chalk it up to experience. I use small 1mm brad nails for that kind of thing rather than my precious drill bits, which can then be pulled out easily once the glue is dry. Nails are made of plain steel which will tolerate bending without breaking. Dril bits are hardened and brittle, and small ones will break as soon as they are held up in a stiff breeze. Cutting a small "window" in the fret tang to fit over the drill stub should be doable. Provided the cutout is as small as you can make it, I would imagine there should still be enough barbed tang either side to keep the fret seated securely. Scrape out as much excess glue in the slot as you can too.

If you have some scrap MDF lying around you can make up a jig for your router to cut the scarf. Have a look about halfway down the first post of Granted that's for a compound scarf for a multiscale, but the principle is the same for a straight/perpendicular scarf. The router rides on a "ramp" which is cut for your nominated scarf angle. All you need to do is rough cut the scarf (even with a handsaw) and neaten up the faces with the router and jig.

Don't get too far ahead of yourself - you still haven't made the neck yet. You're better off getting the neck made to a point and then locating the bridge. A universal way to locate most bridges without the aid of a calculator or 1/128th ruler is to adjust the treble saddle all the way forward and measure from the nut slot to the saddle break point along the strings' path up the fretboard. Move the bridge until the nut-to-saddle distance along the strings' trajectory is at your scale length and mark the bridge location squarely on the body. However you will need to have the neck built to a stage where the fretboard is attached permanently and the neck able to be fitted to the body temporarily. Pretty sure RestorationAD had a pictorial in one of his S906 build threads of this exact procedure a few years back - have a rummage around the forum.

There's no harm in locking in your final neck blank thickness to some fixed value before carving as long as you leave enough meat at the heel to set your final depth where the neck meets the pocket. In fact it's probably preferable to plane both sides to get both faces co-planar before doing anything else to ensure that everything is square when it comes time to fitting the neck to the pocket, and to assist you in determining the correct depth of the pocket. If you have too many unfinished measurements on the neck before you start some key operations you'll struggle to ensure everything fits and lines up properly. The Graphtech nut slab you linked to is the same one I've used a few times now (and for that 8-string). Don't worry too much about cutting your fretboard length exactly at this stage. Use an over-long blank board to begin with. Get it slotted first and then measure/cut off the excess from both ends once you know exactly where the nut and 24th fret slots fall. Cutting the board to length before slotting is inviting error.

Check your neck relief before going to the extreme of recessing the Tune-o-matic further. If your neck has bowed forward under string tension you may be able to claw a bit of action back by tweaking the trussrod. If your TOM has the screwhead adjusters at the top of the posts you should be able to recess it a bit more and still retain the ability to adjust the height. If not you're obviously going to come to a point where the bridge is recessed so far you'll be unable to get your fingers around the knurled sections of the posts to set the bridge height. Do what you can and chalk it up to experience for build number 2.

Don't take my word for gospel, I've only built 6 or 7 instruments so far - I'm still an amateur at this game! Good luck with your build. We're always keen to see the progress and finished product around these parts.

Thanks folks!

Don't forget that the neck thickness at any point along its length is [neck blank] + [fretboard]. In my case the total thickness at the pocket was 17mm + 7mm = 24mm, just shy of an inch. If you were using a thinner fretboard you'd want to increase the thickness of the blank to maintain the overall thickness. A 3/4" blank (19mm) should be good for 95% of builds. The only situation I can forsee you'd want a thicker blank on a bolt-on guitar to start with is if you were building a neck with a particularly beefy profile or a one piece neck ( eg, Fender Strat all-maple neck with skunk stripe on the back). My only real issue with using the 17mm blank at the time was that it made for a fairly shallow volute once carved, which doesn't look particularly nice. The extra 2mm would have helped here. Single truss rod on my build. Pretty sure it was the standard Allparts 18" double action one. It was just before I switched to the Allied Lutherie rods, but they're all fairly similar. That was on a neck for 26.5" scale length, but I'm fairly sure RestorationAD made an 8 string a few years back using the same single trussrod over a 28" scale length neck without any issues. Build thread is located