curtisa

Finally had some time to sit down and run another few willing victims through the meat grinder, Length of the string behind the nut The plank used to test string-thru/top loading has been modified slightly and a new headstock attached with a conventional scarf joint to give a back angle of 14 degrees. This helps make the downward angle behind the nut more or less consistent when switching between the two tuning machines. With the earlier flat/stepdown headstock the string angle and subseqeunt downward pressure at the nut would vary with the string anchor point which may affect the results. The two posts are spaced 30mm and 150mm from the nut respectively, which should give a good spread for covering most situations such as reverse or 3-a-side headstocks. The string has a clear run between nut and post, whichever tuner has the string fitted. Because of the angled headstock I've had to rest the plank on a thick block of wood to raise it up and to stop it touching the table, but the rubber bumpers are positioned between the plank and riser as usual: Stainless steel frets vs nickel silver For this test two short pieces of nickel silver and stainless steel fret wire have been pressed into a short length of rosewood to act as a reversible fretboard. The two drill holes at either end allow the fretboard to be rotated around 180 degrees on the plank so that the closest fret to the bridge always sits at the same position, which is the equivalent of the 5th fret on a standard guitar. The wire used is the same dimensions and profile for each sample (Stewmac jumbo #0150), and were polished up to 2000 grit and buffed on the Dremel before the tests. Crowning was not performed, but shouldn't be necessary in this case as there are no other frets on the 'neck'. Avoiding crowning also helps maintain the shape of the top of the two test fret wires which may help aid consistency. Rather than construct yet another mechanical aid to depress the string to the fret, for simplicity I'm just fretting the string with my finger. The robo-picker does the rest: Two sets of files are attached, plus the same two files passed through a clean amp sim. A fresh set of 46-10 strings was used. For the 'string length behind the nut' tests three paired plucks of a low-E, D and high-E string are performed. The first pluck in each pair is with the string fitted to the post furthest away from the nut, the second is with the string fitted closest. For the 'stainless steel vs nickel silver' tests, three paired plucks of a low-E, D and high-E string are performed with the string fretted at the pseudo-5th fret, giving pitches of A2, G3 and A4. The first pluck in each pair is with the string fretted with stainless steel, the second pluck is the nickel silver. 10 Stainless Steel vs Nickel Silver + Amp.wav 10 Stainless Steel vs Nickel Silver.wav 11 String Length Behind Nut Long vs Short + Amp.wav 11 String Length Behind Nut Long vs Short.wav

Another approach to clamping the scarf if you have plenty of excess to play with (as you appear to have in this case) is to use the wedge-shaped offcut from the end of the neck blank and using that as a clamping caul underneath the neck. The two angled surfaces end up cancelling themselves out and you end up with two parallel surfaces to secure the clamps against without them slipping apart so easily.

Probably a good idea. If you can get your hands on some heatshrink tubing it would be better still, but electrical tape would be good enough. I wouldn't worry too much about the rust unless it's particularly severe, in which case you're probably better off buying a new rod. Maybe put a few turns on the nut to test that the rod is working OK and not likely to fail in use. I'm not personally familiar with horn as a nut material, but I think I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as being used. Maybe do a couple of test slots in each and see how hard they appear to be when filed, or polish up one edge to see how it behaves when sanded at high grits? I wouldn't paint the bone nut black, as over time it will inevitably end up with paint chips on it and will require touching up.

This video might be of use to you. Looks like the BBS20 is one of those three-wheel variants, which are notorious for being able to set up to work reliably. They're also harder on blades as the small wheels and multiple turns the blade has to make as it goes around cause the blade to flex more than on a large two-wheel bandsaw, which can lead to premature stretching and breaking of the blade. Wobbling blade and unable to make straight cuts suggests your primary problem is insufficient blade tension. It also doesn't look like the cutting capacity is very tall, so you might struggle to fit a neck through it to cut a scarf joint.

Hipshot and Technology for Musicians get good reps for their headless tremolo units, but expect to pay premium prices for them. I've used a generic unit from Aliexpress that turned out OK, but I upgraded a number of components in order to maximise its chances of a long, serviceable life. The money expended on it probably would've got me close to buying the T4M unit to begin with, but it works as expected. It's good for Allan Holdsworth-style bar work, but I don't expect it to last long doing Steve Vai-style abuse for days on end.

Have a look at some of twoodfrd's videos on his Youtube channel. He often does headstock crack repairs and uses various simple-to-make jigs and contraptions for clamping difficult surfaces and odd angles together.

Currently in the pipeline: stainless steel frets vs nickle silver string distance behind the nut, long vs short. Back soon...

Years ago a work colleague of mine bought a cheap electric jackhammer from eBay. While the product was sold as new under a German-sounding brandname, it was quite obviously a cheap Chinese knockoff and came with a photocopy of a manual from the Bosch product it was cloning. Oddly enough the jackhammer has actually paid for itself multiple times over and has excavated a workshop area under my colleague's house, been loaned out several times to friends and still works perfectly well. I've currently got it and am using it to gradually demolish an old concrete retaining wall in the garden. Then again, my brother bought for me as a joke gift a 'Rolex' from a street market while on holiday in China. It was quite a smart looking watch, but it lasted less than a year before falling to bits.

The 'strumming space' under Option #4 can be set up such that it would be no different to a typical Strat or Tele. If you're familiar with those kinds of guitars (and their many subsets and variants) you'd just need to decide if that was acceptable to you given your hardware and playing preferences. For a first build and for simplicity I'd be steering towards Option #3. Ease yourself into the building process by setting yourself a target that can be attained on first attempt and crank up the level of difficulty later on once you have some more experience behind you. The Schaller bridge you're proposing to use is actually shallow enough that your build doesn't really warrant recessing the bridge under Option #4, or dealing with potentially complicated angled cuts and the chance of error under Option #2. Personally I'd avoid Option #1 simply because I think you'll regret making and playing a neck that thick, and the extra thick fretboard will look out of place. I believe @Gogzs is also using the Schaller 3D-6 bridge in his current build. Maybe he'll stop by and share his thoughts

Option #1 will either require you to make the neck extra thick or risk having the truss rod dangerously close to poking through the back of the neck, particularly near the nut where you need the most strength. I've used a fretboard up to 8mm thick in the past, but the neck was extra chunky to compensate for the truss rod effectively sitting deeper into the overall bulk of the neck.

You've been buying cheap PPE from China masquerading as serious safety equipment, haven't you? Naughty boy...

The tap size usually refers to the nominal outer diameter of the thread edges on the tap itself, so the hole you need to drill for a 9/16" tap has to be fractionally smaller. Googling 'tap drill diamter' is usually all I do in those situations as I can never remember what size drills are required for each tap without the help of some kind of table or chart. A drill bit of 31/64" diameter is apparently the correct size for a 9/16" tap.

Interesting idea, hadn't considered it myself. It'd have a pretty tidy and unique look, certainly not something I've seen elsewhere. 'Chasing' the thread into the timber might pose some challenges if you're using the jack itself to do it. You'd also need to decide how best to handle the wiring on the jack before you install it. Assuming you pre-solder the wires to it before installation (no access through the f-holes?) the wiring is going to naturally twist up as you screw the jack into the body. Perhaps pre-anti-twist the wiring before insertion to allow it to naturally untwist back to equilibrium as it's screwed in? Are they meant to have a nut on the back as well, or are they designed to directly thread the timber like an oversized wood screw? What about a small rectangular mounting plate with a standard open socket, like PRS or Gibson? The plate itself could really be any shape you like, including the football profile you mention.

Thanks for partaking in the madness, @Andyjr1515 To me it makes the most logical sense that these two resulted in the most obvious differences, as you seem to have experienced as well. They're effectively changing the properties of the strings themselves - tension, downward pressure on the saddles, 'speaking' length of the strings etc. The change in tone due to the other variables tested thus far seem to be a lot more subtle, if even detectable at all. I haven't forgotten about these tests, I've just been snowed under with work and haven't had the time to devote to further experiments. I hope to get back into the swing of things in the near future.

This wasn't meant to turn into a hotly contested argument, and I'm sorry if it's ended up that way. FWIW I'm not saying that an extra half-second of sustain translates into anything meaningful, or even does the opposite and translates into something huge in real life. I'm simply saying I don't know what will happen. At this point I'm more interested in what the unadulterated sound does when incremental changes are made to the rig. The way I'm using the test rig can't really help us predict what will happen when it's plugged in to an amp with a bunch of effects in front, and is well beyond the scope of what I'm trying to explore. I'm also only really offering the '...+Amp' variations of the WAV files as an example of what the untreated output sounds like through some random amp. They're not what I'm personally using as my point of reference - the un-amped versions are. It's impossible to say what a third person would pass that same signal through, as that's more down to artistic usage of the raw output of the guitar, and thus nigh-impossible to make judgements on how it would sound and behave if overdrive/compressor/distortion/eq/speaker/microphone XYZ were used. Sustain vs bloom: I'm perhaps using the technically-incorrect version of 'sustain' (I'm thinking of an old 70s analogue synthesiser and its Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release envelope), and probably lumping the 'DSR' bit of the 'ADSR' in together as one complete thing. Maybe that's right or wrong in this scenario, I dunno? 'Bloom' I would have interpreted as the way the harmonic content evolves as the note decays (or DSR's? ), which again could be an interesting angle to explore with the recordings obtained thus far. But maybe my understanding of the word is different to somebody else's and leaves things open to confusion?

I think unless that's actually tested that's jumping to conclusions based on an apparent small difference in the raw timing of the decays of one note and entirely dependent on whatever you run the signal through. I'm sure I could make some of those earlier 8 second tas oak sustain tests go all the way past the 20 second mark if used enough gain and compression, but that doesn't mean a guitar built from that plank has naturally good sustain because of the material itself. Nor would it mean that 15.5 seconds of sustain compared to 16 seconds (<4% difference) would translate to a sustain that somehow magnifies into a bigger difference. For all we know if you ran both string samples through the same gainy/compressed signal path the <4% difference would still remain as a <4% difference, just stretched over 30 seconds instead of 16, or even just an absolute difference of 0.5 seconds over 30..

Easy Tiger! I didn't say I'd actually do it

The distinction should be made however that adding amps and effects can artificially inflate the sustain of the string. That's all signal processing, not the inherent character of the instrument. Using a zoom lens doesn't make the subject in a photo bigger

The photo was merely a 'serving suggestion'. The rubber bumpers were located in the same positions used for the earlier tests for the actual recordings. You may also notice that the closeup of the saddle for the top-loading bridge has the string quite slack too

That could be the case, but I don't think we should necessarily conclude that's what happened here between the two cuts of tas oak. I changed a lot more than just swapping in another plank of the same species in between the two tests. That's an experiment for another day.

An adjacent cut from the same slab that the first plank came from. Just went through the files that made up the first sustain data table - nothing stands out as incorrect. The sustain appears to be exactly as it was recorded for each piece. Either the piece of tas oak that made up both sets of test planks was wildly different, the sustain differs wildly due to the second plank having different strings installed, or the sustain differences between the two pieces of tas oak are wildly different due to the different hardware and stringing methods. Scenario 1 seems pretty unlikely given the timber used came from the same slab (two planks just ripped up the middle); I'm leaning towards a combination of scenarios 2 and 3. Either way, whether or not this still points to the possibility that the cut of the same species of timber can affect the tonal output, that's not what this particular test was trying to highlight. By necessity I was forced to change too many charateristics and parameters simultaneously that would allow us to make that particular comparison. The comparison to be made in this case is whether or not top-loading and thru-body stringing can make a difference.

I actually have to go back through the earlier sustain table and double-check some of the values I was getting earlier. The sudden change in sustain in the most recent results with tas oak seem unusually large compared to what I was seeing earlier, almost a 2:1 change in decay length on the low-E. It could be that the new strings have made a difference, could be that the different hardware has made a difference, but it makes me suspicious that something isn't quite right in one or both sets of results. They are. The positions of the rubber feet under the planks were chosen by trial and error based on how well I could get the plank to ring when knocked. Their eventual positions were then marked on each plank to help with consistency.

I wouldn't go quite that far. The difference in the low-Es is only half a second over 16. That's not a lot really. 0.6sec difference in the high-Es looks more significant, but it also may fall into the 'easily missed' category in a real life situation.

I think it was @Gogzs who suggested this one: string-through body or top loading. A new plank of tas oak was cut to the same dimensions as before (840mm x 65mm x 25mm) and a headstock of sorts added to one end. Instead of the headless hardware I've thrown on a single tuner from an old Strat copy and a Wilkinson WOF01 convertible bridge at the other end. This type of bridge can be fitted as a top-loader or for string-thru body threading. The old single coil pickup was installed as per usual into a matching rebate cut into the plank and then low-E, D and high-E strings fitted and swapped between top loading and string-thru threading options. Once again the plank rests on rubber feet and the robo-picker is doing its duty: With thru-body threading the string makes a 90-degree turn in two approximately 45-degree angular steps as it passes over the saddle: When configured for top loading the string does a bit of a zig-zag over and under the saddle on its way to the hole drilled in the rear of the bridge plate. My gut instinct is that this reduces the amount of downforce on the saddle which may affect how much pressure the string exerts against the body, perhaps changing the way the string vibrates? Audio files contain the following samples: Low E pluck thru-body, Low E pluck top load, pause Low E pluck thru-body, Low E pluck top load, pause Low E pluck thru-body, Low E pluck top load, pause D pluck thru-body, D pluck top load, pause D pluck thru-body, D pluck top load, pause D pluck thru-body, D pluck top load, pause High E pluck thru-body, High E pluck top load, pause High E pluck thru-body, High E pluck top load, pause High E pluck thru-body, High E pluck top load, end of file Unprocessed and simulated amp versions for you to chose your flavour. Like the scale length variations, I think the differences here tend to be more audible in the plugged-in recordings than the species of timber appear to have been. Also for @Bizman62's benefit, below are the sustain comparisons between the two string threading options. The results here shouldn't be compared to the ones posted earlier comparing the different species of timber. Because the new test plank has a 'headstock' and doesn't use the headless tuners I had to crack open a new set of strings to get some extra length to reach the tuning pegs. The initial peaks of the string strikes are also not the same as the earlier tests: 09 Thru Body vs Top Load + Amp.wav 09 Thru Body vs Top Load.wav

OK, well seeing as we're all rejuvinating... To get back to the thread reviver's point, there's nothing stopping you using neutral cure silicone to avoid the corrosion issue, although I've personally never heard of a truss rod failing due to rust that couldn't be traced back to severe moisture issues across the whole instrument, in which case a bit of corrosion on the rod is probably the least of your worries. There's also no reason to explicitly use silicone products either. Acrylic caulk used in kitchens and bathrooms would also be perfectly acceptable and is non-corrosive. It would also avoid any leeching of oils into the timber that @MiKro is concerned about, although again I've personally not seen that happen where a stain penetrated its way all the way through the walls of the truss rod channel to be visible on the outer surface of the neck. If you're in the habit of using trussrods that come fully wrapped in heatshrink you can probably do away with adding dampening materials in the channel anyway. The plastic outer covering tends to prevent any of the truss rod components from being able to vibrate against themselves or within the channel. Since I started using such rods I've never bothered adding silicone to the channel (or worrying about glue squeezing in for that matter) and have not had issues with rattle or fouled truss rod operation. Ironically the one neck I had issues with rod rattle was where I used silicone to bed in an Allied Lutherie rod, which were meant to be the gold standard for truss rod design. It was made worse by the fact that the neck itself was quite sensitive to seasonal movement, and required frequent rod adjustment. At certain times of the year the rod would be almost competely slack and would rattle like crazy. At other times I'd have to put a couple of turns on it and the rattle would disappear. The general concensus used to be that only a few dabs of silicone along the length of the channel was necessary to prevent the truss rod rattling in the slot. I would think that unless the slot was completely swimming in the stuff, the player's hand gripping the neck would have more of an impact in damping vibrations.