curtisa

Looks like it's evolved to become the HighTide-o-Caster

No video to see?

Moved to The Design Bar forum area. Carry on

Yeah, not sure I'd recommend doing something like that to such an instrument. They may have been entry-level archtops for their time, but...y'know...it's a vintage Gibson! FWIW, here's a page showing some pics of an ES125 undergoing a truss rod replacement. Looks like a standard Gibson design. The truss rod sits in a curved channel wedged in by a wooden cap along the length of the channel. The point at which the truss rod is closest to the back of the neck would be in the middle rather than the nut: http://www.mumfordguitars.com.au/3.html http://s45.photobucket.com/user/shakarocks/media/Trussrodcurveillustration.jpg.html

I think the real issue is that you won't know that you've gone too far until it's too late. As @ScottR suggests, you may have better luck re-tapering the sides rather than making the neck slimmer overall. Loosening the truss rod is probably a good idea, if only to minimise any movement that may occur as material is removed, which could lead to inadvertent over-carving as you work more material from the neck. I guess just go slowly and carefully would be my only suggestion. Re-shaping a neck is something that can't be undone. What kind of guitar are you hoping to do this to? Is the neck a bolt-on? Maybe you can buy a pre-made neck to swap out?

I've done it once, but only on an old beater (an experiment to see what a trapezoidal neck profile felt like). Unless you know exactly what kind of truss rod was installed and how deep the truss rod channel was set into the neck there's a very real risk that you'll either weaken the neck at some point along its length or punch straight through the back into the truss rod cavity. On the one I did I ended up going quite close to the truss rod slot behind the nut. At a guess I might have reduced the thickness at that point by 3mm. If I tapped on the back of the neck behind the nut it gave off a 'papery' sound, which was a sure indication I had come close to going straight through. It held up OK to string tension, but I doubt it would have been very stable or resilient to knocks and general abuse. Much later on I used that same neck to practise removing a fret board. Once I had it off I could measure how close I'd come to going through the back - it was less than 2mm.

Forstner bits for that kind of drilling. Spade bit is way too rough.

Diagram is correct. Tone pot not working - check you have connected the cap/tone pot case to ground. Middle position on switch not working - check you've installed the bridges on the upper-left pair of lugs and the lower-right pair of lugs on the switch as per your diagram.

Is there a real reason why you think the frets might need gluing? Are they gradually working their way out of the slots by themselves? I wouldn't glue in frets unless there was an underlying problem to begin with - frets springing out of slots, slots too wide for the fret wire, fretboard material too weak to hold them etc. There's every possibility that removing the frets to refit them again may result in the existing slots being widened to the point where you'll be forced to glue them in so that they'll stay put. If it ain't broke don't fix it...yet :)

Remove the neck and check to see if you've trapped some debris under the back of the pocket that may be stopping the neck being pulled down flush. Check also that the holes in the neck have been drilled deep enough to accept the two back bolts - maybe they're bottoming out inside the neck before they've had a chance to seat the neck properly? Neck pocket looks like it is routed with an uneven floor. There's a slight downward step where the pocket meets the body. Check the floor of the neck pocket to make sure it's not making the neck sit with a slight falling angle.

All things being equal, no. A single trussrod will be sufficient at the scale lengths you're looking at. If you use unstable woods in your neck (heavily figured timber, spalted timber, timber with low inherent strength) or are going for something really thin then consider adding reinforcement. No rules, just whatever suits the application of the completed instrument, be that playing style, client requests or comfort/feel. I personally wouldn't exceed more than about 1.5" fan difference from top to bottom, as I feel that extreme fans must make certain hand positions quite uncomfortable and negate the benefits of multiscale construction. Not sure what black nickel looks like. Is that anything like Gotoh's Cosmo Black? Multiscale builds already require the use esoteric components, so choice of finish will be limited even further beyond black, chrome or gold. Technology for Musicians make individual saddles, but only in the three standard finishes. I've seen some people use Wilkinson saddles on a custom baseplate to make up mutiscale bridge assemblies. Fanned Fret Innovations make individual saddles, but only in chrome and black. Rondo Music occasionally sell their individual saddle assemblies as spare parts. Quality may be questionable at the prices they charge. No idea. I've only ever done a slanted nut. Visually I think it looks better than a straight nut behind a slanted zero fret, but again that's down to personal aesthetics.