Ace

Only now I see that on the rosewood telecaster, it looks as if you had actually added very small pieces of inlay as "splish" drops flying from the fish body...is that really or do me eyes betray me here? so long ace

this posting has been deleted due to incorrect information so long ace

Harley Benton guitars are the "house" brand of Thomann. Although I have read some rather positive reviews of them, I don't think I would want one as my main (only) guitar. Seriously, I wouldn't sell a guitar that I've modded myself to get an absolutely low-end guitar from another brand. That axe is under 200 squid with shipping and all, so if you can wait till christmas, I'd strongly advise you not to sell your strat and save for the Benton. You can also keep your eyes on German ebay for Harley Benton guitars, there are always a few on sale, and if the seller doesn't ship to Ireland, contact me and I'll see if I can rig up the deal and get the thing shipped to ya. so long ace

My cheap chinese (Johnson) tele is a bit neck-heavy and as a strat-dude from day one I've got accustomed to bady shapings. Then again, a tele looks cool in a different way than a strat and there are many teles with shapings and better balance than mine so I'm a bit in a stretch between the both of 'em. One guitar I definitely want to build is the "teleshred", 24-27 frets, AANJ, reversed headstock and thinline with f-hole, finished in either seafoam green or kramer style nuclear yellow, for good measure so long ace

Or if available, your wife. On the original topic: dang, that looks old, and I men that in a very positive way so long ace

So you wanna show off "hey, I'm good enough to play without fretboard markers. I could even play all of this with my eyes closed" J/K Serisously though, build a new neck and don't mark the fretboard. IN that case you don't wind up destroying an otherwise perfectly good neck if you mess up removing the inlays. so long ace

Okay folks, here's the dealio: While looking for schematics, I've come across the fact that wiring a ground connection to the bridge can be a possibly lethal danger many times. I've also noticed that some people were trying to alleviate those problems by adding capacitors to their schematic, which do offer a protection, but at the same time render the whole concept of bridge grounding for noise reduction useless. Thinking about the problem, an idea entered my mind that seemed so obvious to me that it led me to the following train of thought: a: This problem has been around for a long time B: The solution seems obvious to me c: I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed conclusion: There must be something wrong with my idea, or else somebody would have come up with it many years ago. Enough beating around the bush, my idea is simply to install a small fuse between the jack and the bridge ground which will blow in case of a power surge from the amp. estimating the body resistance from hand to foot at about 1.2 kOhms and keeping it safe estimating the minimum power surge at 100 vols, the current would equal 83.3 milliamps, which shall be rounded down to 80 milliamps for the fuse. My questions are now: 1) would it change the sound to have a fuse in the signal chain? 2) are 80 mA fuses that act quick enough readily available? 3) how high is the nominal signal current in the guitar? (read: would I blow the fuse during playing?) hoping for some profound answers here, so long ace

Dang, I wanted to be the one to revive the diso ball idea...oh well, at least now I have some cool template ides. Mine, if I ever decide to make one will have a different placing of the mirror tiles though, I plan on making them into concentric circles, to have even more of a disco "ball" effect. so long ace

That is so good, it just isn't funny anymore. Seriously, that is about the best inlaywork I've ever seen. That may not mean much coming from a guy like me, but those pics just made my day. Especially that living sea guitar had me drooling al over my keyboard and mousepad...that "carriburst" on the back of the neck looks so tasty, I wanna take a plunge in it. And the whole guitar's concept is awesome. When it comes to art, I may not be able to tell Van Gogh from Von Dutch, but I know when I see a masterpiece, period. One question though, the initial pics you posted showed the inlays in the wood before it is stained. Do you tape the inlays off before staining, or will the dye wipe off the inlays? I mean, you'd have to cut pretty exact maskings in order to not leave any blank spaces on the guitar body. Keep up the good work and do a few tutorials man. so long ace

For whoever is confused with what GEJ just said, picture the neck when you look at it from the body (or the headstock, doesn't matter that much but since we're talking the higher frets, it makes sense to consider it from the body side), with the fretboard pointing to the sky. Than you'd have something like this: ^ | thick/thin <-wide/narrow -> |thick/thin v umm...okay, thinking about it...I hope that's not even more confusing. What I mean to say is, that thick/thin refers to the distance between the fretboard and the back of the neck and wide/narrow refers to the size of the fretboard from the edge that points towards your nose when you play and the one that points toward the ground. so long ace

Are both of your schizophrenic or is it only of of you two, ultra? so long ace

Yep, spot on. That, my dear Aaron is no HM Strat. so long ace

Okay, since I'm kind of a starter, I'll be doing an "ocean after oil tanker crash" finish...which is blackburst on black. Okay now, that was neither politically correct, nor was it of any use, nor was I intending to join the competition, but I'd have one request to make: I would like to see monthly or at least quarterly pictures of your progresses, if that's not asking too much. Go for it guys so long ace

Indeed it is, Saber. Perhaps we should compile a soldering FAQ or FGA (Frequently Given Advice) and have it in a sticky thread for this board, like the painting tuts and faqs in the finishing section? so long ace

need I say more? so long ace

umm...dunno, the one that came with my soldering pen...I'll check when I'm back at home, which will take a while... so long ace

especially with that PRS-Styled headstock. Very neat twist, even if the resemblance was not intended, it just had me thinking "PRS" the second I saw it so long ace

That's good advice Saber. Actually that's what the little book that came with my soldering pen said, too but I find it rather hard at times, let's say when I'm solderin a wire to a pot for grounding (base of the pot, none of those little connection holes). But like I said, I'm still a bloody newb at that and I'll try and get some better soldering technique down so long ace

Yup, afaik the HM srats body is a bit smaller overall and has "slimmer" cutaways for a look that is a little more pointy so long ace

A single action truss rod can only be tightened in one direction, counteracting the necks tendency for an up-bow due to string tension. So if you tighten it, you increase the back-bow on the neck. That's what you have, and you wrote that you loosened it all up. A Dual Action Trussrod can be adjusted in the other direction, too, which is what you would need to counteract your backbow by using the truss, but obviously yours can only be tightened in the other direction (or can it? I don't know but I think you'd have noticed it) so long ace

You mean, the black crackle is not the original finish and it's supposed to be piano black ? so long ace btw, I have heard only the best things about the original 80s HM strats, but they're absolutely rare on German eBay...

I kinda wanted to start out with a few Strat pickups, but I also wanted to make High-Gain Humbuckers. I'm the Fat-Strat-Kid, you know so long ace

pics please? I have no idea what you're talking about so long ace

It's available in Germany, so I don't think you should have problems getting it over in the Nederlande If all else fails, I'll send you some cans for the retail price plus shipping from Germany. so long ace P.S.: come to think of it, do you think anyone at KIWI knows that their shoe polish has become a hot secret tip among guitar customizers?

Thanks saber, but apart from the fact that this was NOT my question I have been sorely reminded that I'm in Germany when looking for Allparts over here today. There IS a distribution but the distributor will only sell to resellers, so I'm gonna have to order the parts through MY music dealer again and I figure that I can just buy a new pickup for that price... so long ace btw bobbin is a very stupid word...I mean the phonetics...still it gives a possibility for a comic spoof "Ratman and Bobbin"