curtisa

Microswitches or prox probes?

Thank @Crusader. He did all the legwork

Headstock is a slightly different shape too. Here's another one that looks like a complete match to yours. I guess Teisco must've done several versions of it (trussrod adjust at nut/at heel, string trees on/off, badge on/off, headstock shape changes). Edit: zero fret too!

They're very well regarded. I've used them for years on most of my builds.

I'll admit I was a bit 'uh-oh' when I saw the first coat of bleach applied, with the wenge grain completely blacked out, but after it's dried it now looks the part. The darker streaks don't appear to react to the bleach much, but the paler streaks get lightened quite a bit, which amplifies the contrast in the grain patterns. Keep your scrap offcuts of the wenge to test your finishes with. From what I've seen, wenge tends to become a dark, murky mess under the wrong finishes. It'd be a real kicker if whatever finish you applied to that top undid the work the bleach has done.

The Jane-ocaster lives! Do want! Any chance you could just pop it in an envelope and send it this way? Doesn't weigh much, so postage would be cheap. ...No? ...Was worth asking

Tramming is something I've yet to do on mine. All I've done so far is just set/confirm square on all three axes. I haven't made any deep cuts or used large diameter bits yet that might illustrate I have any superfine adjustments that need to be made.

As much as anything, I added the dust shoe to mine to minimise chip and dust buildup on the rails. Also saved me trying to devise a way to add concertina bellows to all the rails and the subsequent loss of travel in any direction when the bellows collapse down.

Dust shoe's looking like a good idea now?

I need to get my bearings a bit - Is that Strat-style jack socket mounted behind the heel pointing towards the headstock?

If you go down the latter path, just be sure that you've got enough meat underneath the top so that you don't accidentally punch through the bottom edge of the control cavity where the top has been carved down to meet the edge of the body. The last thing you want to do is have an unintentional ventilation slot in the front of the wenge underneath the controls.

Meranti (aka Lauan/Luan or Phillipine Mahogany) looks like it might be sold in this part of the world as a plantation timber for door and window frames. I've never heard of it being used as a guitar neck. There seem to be all sorts of varieties living under the 'Meranti' title. That said, Dark Red Meranti seems to have similar properties to Queensland Maple (not actually a maple), which does get used quite regularly on Australian production guitars like Cole Clark and Maton. White Meranti might also work well. Light Red Meranti looks to be a bit more softer and flexible, so maybe not so good. I have some doors in the house that are possibly made from Meranti (maybe the light stuff) and it is definitely soft stuff to work with. Unless you can work out which particular version you've got it might be a bit hit and miss. But if it's cheap and you don't mind taking a risk..? Who knows - maybe you can be a trailblazer in Meranti necks?

Hipshot will sell you whatever left and right combinations/finishes/buttons you like direct off their website. Schaller look like they're starting to set up an online store on their website. It's possibe that they'll also offer their tuners as individually selectable items. Hipshot 3+4 sets turn up regularly in Ebay. Seller 'HDcustomguitarsupply' used to do them. Seller 'sporthitech' has oddball combinations up for sale too. Sperzel tuners are reversible, so if you can get a set of 7 you can partially dismantle them to swap the posts over to make them left handed.

I've never used the neck jig, but it does look like the sort of thing you'd invest in if you were doing loads of fret levelling jobs and time and accuracy were of the utmost importance. For a one-off build it's hard to justify that amount of cash when you could achieve perfectly acceptable results with some wet & dry paper and a levelling beam.

Have you got any plans for dust control? I've just added a dust shoe to the spindle and it's made a massive difference to the amount of mess. The added bonus is that I don't have to babysit the machine and follow it around all the time holding a vacuum cleaner nozzle.

You sure the string is buzzing at the 2nd with the first depressed? It could also be buzzing at the maximum string displacement when plucked, which would be somewhere around the 13th/14th. I guess you could use the fret rocker across the 1st/2nd/3rd frets, press it towards the 3rd fret side and see if you can get some feeler guages between the fret rocker and the 1st, and then repeat at the 2nd/3rd/4th to see if the same gap exists at the 2nd position? Buzzing exclusively at the 1st is not something I've experienced. Getting the neck to buzz all over the place, however, is one of my specialties

Yep. The forum supports embedding Youtube videos into posts.

You've got my interest up, Noz. I've got a 70s-era Yamaha FG260 12 string that I've debated making a project out of due to its horrendously high action and warped top (amongst other sins). Nice sounding guitar for a plywood-topped strummer, but damn near impossible to play. I saw the first pic and assumed it was an Ovation, but 'Clarissa' it is... Not the most rock 'n roll name out there, but stranger things have hapenned.

The final taper and straightness of the neck is rarely obtained straight off the bandsaw. Usual practice for most folks would be to rough cut the neck using whatever means you have available (handsaw, jigsaw, bandsaw etc) and then finalise the rough edge perfectly straight using a router following a straightedge of some sort or handplanes. Depending on your construction method and assembly order, you can use the fretboard you attach to the neck blank as the straightedge template for the router to follow when trimming the neck edges to the final taper and straightness.

A quick research on the topic of the finger tailpiece on the HR Fusion III suggests that the idea was borrowed from banjos, which have used the same finger fine tuner mechanism for a lot longer than the Fusion III was in production. Interestingly there is no mention that these changed the tension or feel of the string; rather they were used to adjust the tonal balance across the strings. My thinking is that tension would not change, as the flexible length of the string is not changing as the fingers are cranked up and down. Sound may change though, as the break angle behind the saddle increases and decreases, resulting in a corresponding change in downward pressure on the saddle and body. I'm just one guy who tried it out. I don't play anywhere nearly as regularly as I did 20 years ago, so there's every possibility other more seasoned players could easily feel the difference between locknut on vs off. As you say, the Floyd experiment probably isn't the best example of it either, as the whole system is designed to move and balance under countering forces and changing one factor results in other parts of the system moving to compensate.

Looks right to my eyes

I reckon you'll be more than happy with Irongear. For the price of a dinner at your local they're hard to beat. That's hardly cheating. You've still got to chop all the woody bits to the right shape and do that joiny-gluey thing to stick them together properly. I hope you asked his permission first

Well, just tried doing a locknut open vs locknut closed comparison and I can't feel the difference. There obviously is some stretching occuring behind then nut because if I bend a string, clamp the nut while holding the string bent and then release the string the resting pitch of the string is marginally flatter than when it started. If I then release the locknut, that pre-bent string then returns sharper to the correct pitch. I made some measurements to see if there was a difference in distance it took to bend a string up with the lock nut engaged or disengaged. The 3rd string was fretted at the 9th position (E) and bent a full step up to F#. For each E and F# I used a Peterson strobe tuner to make sure I was nailing the pitch for both static and bent strings. Calipers were utilised to measure the deflection of the string using the edge of the fretboard as a reference: Static distance of 3rd string from treble edge of fretboard at 9th position = 21.11mm Distance from treble edge of fretboard, bending up to F#, locknut off = 34.27mm (deflection = 13.16mm) Distance from treble edge of fretboard, bending up to F#, locknut on = 33.26mm (deflection = 12.15mm) 1mm difference is about 8% change in deflection required to raise the string pitch a full step, but in practice I personally can't tell the difference; It just gets absorbed into the mechanics of my playing. The deflection difference may be more pronounced if the Floyd wasn't fully floating and was blocked off.

I do wonder if the perceived difference in bending strings on a Floyd-equipped guitar, lock nut undone vs done up, would be negated by the virtue that any 'stiffness excess' would be soaked up in the trem springs. I shall have to try it out...

Don't even go there. Occupational Health and Safety would have a field day if you used this instrument for a cliff-top shoot in a music video.