curtisa

I use a slightly different method that gives a different effect, but the router needs to be fitted with a template ring. Drill the hole first for the pot shaft. Take a scrap of MDF with a hole drilled slightly larger than the diameter of the dish required as a template and centre it over the hole that has been drilled in the body. The router bit I use to make the dish is a 1/2" round nose. Plunge the bit into the centre of the template with the template ring installed and gradually spiral your way around the template until the full dish has been cut. The resulting dish actually ends up with a flat bottom instead of a semi-spherical profile. If you spiral around the template in an anti-clockwise direction (ie, a climbing cut) the edges of the dish usually end up pretty smooth and only require a light sand to get rid of any residual "fuzzies".

If all we want to do is lower water surface tension then why not use soap, detergent or fabric softener? Borax is always mentioned in the process but I've never seen a reasonable explanation as to why it's preferred over anything else. At the opposite end of the scale, Turkish Ebru art actually relies on thickening the water so that paints sit on the surface. I suspect that the process used by people like Darren Johansen and Herc Fede doesn't use the same ingredients and methods that are mentioned when DIY swirling guitar bodies. Darren originally got his start by swirling fabrics, and Herc's later work didn't have the erratic quality that Humbrol + Borax seems to always exhibit.

No doubt there's still an abundance of the cheap and nasty stuff, but I think the gap has been gradually closing for a while now. On a purely cosmetic level, the headless bridge and nut on this build isn't going to win any awards. But aside for the tuning gear ratios and the bass-ackwards rotation of the tuning knobs, it's surprisingly decent for $60 plus shipping. I guess only time will tell if it stands up to years of (ab)use. Chances are you get what you pay for, but at this stage I'm surprised exactly what I got for the money. Although I stress-tested each of the rods in the batch I bought, I suppose there's still a possibility that the act of stress testing has weakened the rod, which may fail when used in practice. Another case of suck it and see. I did try and research the use of the Cheap Truss Rods of Dubious Lineage before taking the plunge. It was surprisingly difficult to find anyone saying that they'd used them and had a failure. Lots of people said they wouldn't use them in the first place based on origin alone. A handfull of people said they'd used them and hadn't had an issue. The more common story appears to be that they'd bought a StewMac or LMII rod, had a failure and were adamant that they'd never give those companies their money again.

I've seen some people clamp a couple of guide fences either side of the fret board being sanded, spaced just far enough apart to sit the radius block in between. The rails guide the block up and down while preventing the possibility of accidentally skewing the block to one side.

Good job that, man. Either you have massive armchairs at your house, or that'd be a piccolo bass

Afterimage Guitars - HM6 "Halcyon" Built as an experiment to see how far I could get using as much low cost componentry and hardware store timber as possible, this instrument contains many of the same construction features as its more exotic bigger brothers, such as a carbon fibre reinforced neck and a comfortable, ergonomic body shape. Extensive use of chambering and a thinner body (38mm) has reduced the overall weight of the guitar down to a paltry 2.5kg. While this could possibly be classed as a "Lite" version of the HM series in more ways than one, the result is still a solid player capable of standing out in a crowd. Specs: Scale length - 25" Neck - 3 piece Tasmanian Oak with Jarrah pin stripes between the laminations, carbon fibre reinforcement Fretboard - Merbau Frets - Jumbo nickel silver Body - 3 piece Tasmanian Oak with figured Tasmanian Blackwood top. Headless hardware - Low-cost no name hardware in black Pickups - Iron Gear Hot Slag (bridge), Iron Gear Rolling Mill (neck) Electronics - 1x volume, 1x 3 way toggle switch. Finish - Danish oil Sound sample of the instrument can be downloaded here Build thread located here.

Rosewood has pretty large pores at times. The Merbau I used on Operation Shoestring has pores wide enough to drive a Sherman tank through, but it seems to be holding up fine. I wouldn't worry about it.

Start low (60-80 grit) to get the radius going, work your way up through the grits (120, 180, 240, 320, 400) once the radius is on the board. Go beyond if you're after a super smooth, semi-reflective finish. Use firm, even pressure and take care to not skew the block as you pass it up and down the fret board. It's easy to accidentally change the radius or sand one edge lower than the other if you're not paying attention. Once you're past 400 grit, you can stop using the radius block. Your chances of removing too much timber and altering the radius are pretty slim with the super fine grits, so there's no need for the block.

Only just realised the CAD drawing had comments all over it (duh), and maybe you were after pointers. MHO of course. Take it as you like: Bring the volume and tone pots closer to where the picking hand normally rests. Positioned behind the bridge makes them awkward to reach, particularly if you install a tremolo and have the player reach over the arm to get to them. Keep the selctor switch nearby too. Consider the practicalities of the eliptical cross section through the length of the body. If you make the cross section constant, the edges will be thicker where the width of the body is narrow. If your goal is constant edge thickness, the radius of your eliptical cross section will need to reduce around the narrow part of the body to maintain the edge. Pending your decision on the above, the acrylic sheet will be easier to thermoform to the body if you're only dealing with one curve (constant eliptical cross section). Trying to get the sheet to constantly changing curves may be challenging (constant edge thickness). Blade switches tend to be made with only one target audience (Strats or Teles) and the dimensions will not vary by much. If the carve is too deep to make fitting a blade switch practical your only choices are a different switching method, moving the switch to a thicker area of the body or reducing the aggressiveness of the curve to leave more depth for the switch to fit. Same goes for the jack socket.

Scraper, spokeshave, rasp, angle grinder with 40 grit flap disk, chisels, gouges. All sorts of ways you can do it with varying degrees of danger, speed, mess and effectiveness.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with the diagram. Don't confuse the fact that the switch has wires labelled "mag" and "piezo" which may not actually carry these signals. It looks more like the mag and active signals are being shunted/shorted to ground via the switch when moved to the associated position, thus killing the unwanted signal source rather than selecting the wanted signal. We also have no idea what kind of electronic magic is being performed on the Acousti-phonic PCB that may allow for the switching/blending of the two signals. The block diagram shown at the bottom of the page illustrates what goes on in the PCB at a fairly basic level. The piezo signals get fed to a dedicated buffer and EQ section prior to being fed to a piezo volume pot. The active pickup(s) go direct to the mag pickup volume pot. The output of the piezo and mag volume pots then get blended together before being passed to the output jack.. The "St/Mono DETECT" widget changes the output signal routing based on whether a stereo or mono lead is plugged in, determining whether the output contains a mix of piezo and mag through the one cable, or the piezo and mag signals are sent out through left and right independently. The Quick Switch just does its thing when connected to the two "QSW" terminals as shown. How this is achieved is not known (and presumably we, as mere mortals who just want to rock, don't need to know), but it should work as expected.

This was discussed quite recently, actually: The thread is more about placement of a fixed bridge, but the principle of positioning for optimal intonation is still the same. Note you will probably have to partially dismantle the trem in order to dry fit it to your body. The sustain block will certainly have to come off in order to get accurate placement. I'd also highly recommend doing a practice run with the trem cavity routes before committing to router to body.

That's exactly what I mean. Bling without the Ka-ching.

Can you mix and match the tuner components? What about gold buttons and bushings with black gears and shafts? Edit: or the opposite - black buttons/bushings, gold gears and posts.

A pickup's output is proportional to the number of turns of wire wound on the core. The resistance of the coil is a byproduct of the length of the copper wire used. So assuming the cut-down pickup bobbin has the same height and depth as a full sized one, you should be able to fit the same number of turns on. Same number of turns on a smaller bobbin means less wire used, which on turn means less resistance. Lower resistance with same number of turns won't mean that the pickup has weaker output, but it will probably make the pickup sound different. My gut feel is that it will sound brighter than the equivalent full sized pickup.

Here's some avenues to explore: LR Baggs Control-X preamp allows you to trim the piezo against the mag. Graphtech Acousti-phonic preamp also allows trimming of the piezo pickups. Both options place the mixing of the two pickup systems on board the preamp, rather than at the output jack.

That's only part of the full story. The ability of two outputs to be mixed by simply tying them together will also be a function of (at least) the relative output levels of the two signals and the output impedance of the two signal sources. From memory an EMG has an inherent output impedance of 10K. The piezo pickup preamp is a black box, and unless the manufacturer publishes this information, the output impedance and nominal signal strength is unknown. There is no universal standard specifying output levels of pickups or piezo preamps. You play harder - you'll get more output. You have hotter pickups - you'll get more output. You put the pickup closer to the strings - you'll get more output. The design engineer of the piezo preamp figured you'd need extra grunt because he was feeling generous one morning while slaving over the PCB layout and schematic - you'll get more output. There's no way of easy way of evaluating outputs of EMGs vs random acoustic preamps on paper. They may be closely matched or they may not. They may mix well or they may not. Unless you can get some advice directly from the manufacturers, or you're willing to try rolling your own piezo preamp, you may be stuck with either trial and error, or putting the call out to anyone who may have tried doing this before and can make a recommendation on what works. FWIW, I vaguelly recall that the Graphtech Ghost preamp allowed you to trim the relative outputs of the mag and piezo pickups before mixing. I'm not sure if other companies offer this kind of circuitry.

If the manufacturers aren't willing to provide detail on the piezo preamps you're probably limited to just buying one and trying it out. It's possible that the two can be mixed by simply joining the two outputs together at the output jack, but with one signal source being of unknown lineage you won't know until you try it. You could probably ask the question of the bigger manufacturers to see if they have an answer. Fishman, LR Baggs or Graphtech might be able to tell you straight away if they have something that would work.

It's not crucial, but it takes less shimming to achieve the same amount of change in string height at the bridge by angling the neck downward. Up to you. Not enough to make a significant difference. Only change the nut height if the action at that end of the neck feels too uncomfortable or you're experiencing significant intonation errors in the first few frets due to excessive string height near the nut..

Because you're going to marry a neck and a body that weren't created at the same factory, be prepared for the neck not to fit the pocket properly - too loose, too tight, wrong shape, not deep enough, too deep. It's something that can be fixed, but weigh that up against the effort, tools and skills required to correct it. Any pre-drilled screw holes in the kit body may not line up with screws holes on the donor hardware either.

Have a look at the Ibanez S series. Your elliptical body cross section idea is very similar to theirs.

Sounds like finger-jointed counter top material. Got any pics? If this wood is what I think it is, then bodies - yes. Necks - probably not. I doubt there's enough inherent strength in finger-jointed timber to survive the tensions exerted by the strings., but making a body is a possibility if you're not botherd by the appearance of the wood or are willing to paint it a solid colour.. I think it has been done on Projectguitar.com before, and Brian May hasn't had any issues with his Red Special being made from blockboard. Cutting the timber along the direction of the wood grain, like ripping a sheet of paper into several long strips. Then approach with caution. Water damage may be superficial (stains, grey patches, water marks), or structural (rot, splitting, warping). Cut a piece up and see how it looks. See if it feels spongy. Tap it and see if it sounds solid or dull.

I guess a quick review of some of the cheap components used in this build is probably in order. Can't say anything overly negative about the Chinese trussrods. They've actually changed the design of them in the last few months, so you no longer get a knock-off of the LMII/Allied/Allparts dual action types (two contra-threaded blocks at each end, with the rod being turned by a nut welded at one end). These new ones have the rod welded in place to the far end of the flat bar, and the nut is threaded on to the opposite end of the rod. The nut then sits loosely inside a stainless steel tube which is then welded to the flat section of the rod. Turning the nut clockwise threads the nut onto the rod and causes the two ends of the rod to be drawn towards each other (backbow), same as a single acting rod. Turning the nut anticlockwise forces the nut to come into contact with a lip inside the stainless steel cyclinder, which in response forces the two ends of the rod to try and expand further apart from each other (forward bow). It's actually a pretty neat system that reduces the chances of (what I understand to be) the most common form of failure in the LMII/Allied/Allparts style dual action rod - shearing the welded nut off the end of the rod by over-tightening. With all the moving parts sealed inside the steel cylinder there's also no longer a risk that glue ingress when attaching the fretboard will foul up the adjustment action. The only negative thing I can see is that the stainless steel cyclinder/end cap requires more meat to be removed from the neck to fit it in the channel. The cylinder in these rods is 9mm diameter x 11mm deep, although the rod itself is still 1/4" wide. I bought 8 in one batch, and they all stress-test fine, including the one that's now in the neck of this build. The two Irongear pickups used do sound good for the money, and I'd be willing to take a chance on some different models when the opportunity arises. With the Rolling Mill (neck) and Hot Slag (bridge) being sold as a set I would've preferred that the RM was slightly hotter to match the HS, as I feel like the RM is a bit undercooked in comparison, but that's just my preference. I can see that some people may prefer a neck pickup with a bit less drive for certain styles of music. I note that Irongear do sell a hotter-wound version of the RM, so maybe that would've been a better match for the HS. Mechanically and physically there's nothing bad to say about them. The bridge and headpiece is a bit of mixed bag. On the plus side the nut is fully adjustable and the precut slots are clean and square, so setup at this end of the guitar is a doddle. The bridge is free from any annoying rattles or buzzes and there's bags of adjustment range for action and intonation. Each saddle can be locked down after adjusting so it can't wiggle out of alignment. There's a fair bit of mass in the bridge, and everything being well-coupled to each other means that it sounds quite good and sustains well. The metal casting is a bit rough in places and the black plating is a bit hit and miss. The tuning mechanism seems like a good idea in theory, and could be made better with some redesign, but has a few foibles to deal with in practice. The gearing ratio is a bit too low to allow tuning by hand on the wound strings without the assistance of the included mini allen wrench. Plain strings can be tuned without the aid of the wrench. The tuning thumbscrews are just a hair too large in diameter, each one rubbing against the adjacent ones when turned (some of the black plating is already wearing off a couple of the thumbweels). In order to maintain sufficient downward pressure over the saddles each string needs to be underslung on the tuning spool, meaning that the thumbweels need to be turned anticlockwise for the pitch to be increased. A reverse cut thread on the wormgears would be ideal to maintain lefty loosey/righty tighty rule. Stringing up is a bit fiddly, as there isn't an awful lot of room to get the string wrapped onto the spool, but once they're on there's no issues with tuning drifting other than what you'd expect under normal abuse. The back of the headpiece is pre-shaped with a nominal neck profile, so you're kinda stuck with the shape of the neck at the nut (not in itself a bad thing, as the resultant shape is quite comfortable). And it only comes in black.

I think you've somehow trapped Gimli the Dwarf in the bookmatching

Thanks everyone. what he said do you just whip out a whole tune like this as a demo or you had the backing track done ..? Nah. I cheated. I scratched the bones of that track together several years ago. I just re-recorded all the guitar parts using the new build in the last couple of weeks.