Acousticraft

Use wire the same gauge / colour preferably and join it by soldering and heat shrink or insulate with tape.

Here it is here. A double pole 3 way switch. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...17.html#details

Why Sparrow, does she fly? No just kidding a nice job. Ive got a book matched Cedar top sitting in the loft in my garage with a couple of weights keeping it flat. I must build a nylon string classical one day although I really prefer the richer sound of a steel string personally.

Yes definitely put binding on the "F" hole otherwise they do look a bit unfinished and cheap. It seals the end grain as well.

You need a small file to suit the tooth size and shape and give each tooth a few strokes on the same angle as it was factory sharpened. Clamp the saw blade between a couple of blocks of wood in the vice. Go along the saw sharpening the teeth on one side then go back and do the opposite side. Don't remove any from the sides as you are reducing the "set" and it will jam in the cut. Many cheap saws seem to have a lack of set on the blades nowadays and don't cut smoothly.

Just allow enough so you can easily remove the output jack, flip it over and have enough length to be able to easily get your soldering iron in to make / break the connections. The same goes for the pick guard, have enough length so you can unscrew it lift it and turn it over to work on. It is a real nuisance if the wires are too short and everything is getting stretched in the process trying to get to where you need to be. Temper fray quickly then.

Stew Mac sells mahogany neck blanks. The other option is to try a local timber merchant. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_necks,...Neck_Blank.html

Either go for 11's or or the hybrid 10's with the heavy bass strings.

Hi there and welcome to the forum. I am also an Engineer by trade now teaching metal work at a high school but prefer working with wood. Gibson's 24.75 scale length varies so you need to measure from the nut edge to the 12th fret and double that measurement to get the correct scale length. It is more accurate if you can measure it in millimeters. Once you know what the scale length is go to Stew mac (below) put in the info and it will tell you where to position the tunomatic holes. Take it to the maximum of the dimensions given as you are usually adjusting the saddles rear wards. You may need to glue in a dowel to plug the holes already drilled so you have a new surface to drill into. Drill a smaller pilot hole first then drill it to finished size. http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator With the explorer you will probably need to steam the neck joint to soften the glue so you can pull it free, then clean off all traces of the old glue and reglue. I use an old electric jug that i stick a length of rubber hose in the spout and tape the switch so it want shut off and can direct the steam wherever needed. Have used it to steam dings out of the sound board of my first guitar when i refinished and it worked a treat.

Try cleaning the pot with switch contact cleaner first up. Lay some cloth around where your going to spray, remove the knob and spray down the shaft and work it back and forth. This is what you should do for scratchy pots as well. If after cleaning the problem still persists you may have a bad pot or a bad solder joint. Check with a ohm meter while turning the shaft and it should rise and fall smoothly on the meter.

I wouldn't have the Patience for that. I like to see real progress in a build and spending weeks doing that would not interest me one bit. Just doing block inlays on the fret board is about all the patience I have. It brings to mind 10 cc's song "Art for arts sake". Now I'm really showing my age as I can imagine some younger folk have never heard of them.

Good stuff but shes a heavy beast at nearly 80 lbs. Did you look at the Vox Tonelab before the POD just curious?

I think you need the "E" model switch as the "P" is for four wire humbuckers. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...84.html#details What I do is number the lugs on the pots 1,2,3 with permanent marker from left to right and do the same with the Mega switch lugs. Remember the pot connections are shown from the back (IE. with the control shafts pointing away from you). Then its a matter of connecting the wires to the corresponding numbers. Firstly I would download the full wiring diagram and paste it into word so you can enlarge it and print it out. Then I number the pots and switch wires on the schematic and then you can study it and follow where each wire goes and color code them if needed. This will get it clear in your mind how to read the schematic and make it easier when it comes to soldering. So your hot wire on your humbuckers are green and coil tap red/white with ground black.

I see your from Aus and I use Aussie made Mirotone products in NZ. For all my guitars I use pre-cat Microcat PC3220 laquer which I find is easy to spray and gives a hard durable finish. I mix in the tints 10% max, with the laquer which gives an even coating. On the fingerboard I use Danish oil which rubs on with a cloth and dries quickly and is easy to clean and refinish at a later date.

"Dont fix what aint broken". No seriously if the guitar sounds good why risk damge to change them. The ivorex material may be similar to "Tusq" a plastic type material that is acoustically alive.

Dont forget Gibsons generic 24/34" varies a bit. Measure from the nut edge to the 12th fret and double the measurement. That will give you the correct scale length for your guitar and use Stew Macs fret calculator as above.

There looks to be quite a difference there and you may not enough adjustment on your saddles to correct that. I would clamp the neck down to the bench, put an even thickness block on each side and route off the difference on the heel making sure it is set up true and level to start with. I always set up with a spirit level to make sure everything is true in relation to the bench surface.

They apparently sound amazing with the Alnico blues.

Yes I am partial to that nice clean Fender sound myself. Yes the Celestions are a lot more expensive than the Wharfedales? that I am assuming are fitted.

A real range of classic tube amps. Obviously the guys that care enough to build a guitar are also fussy about the type of sound they want. yeah good stuff. AC 30 custom classic 2x12. Hey Aidlook thats my kind of amp. Does it have the Celestion blue speakers fitted? The classic British sound that changed the world of music.

I thought it might be interesting for all you axe thrashers to tell us what amp you use and what you enjoy about it. I have a Vox AD50VT Valvetronic amp which uses a Valve/ tube and solid state to emulate legendary model valve amps. What I like about the amp is there is heaps (11) of different amp models to choose from so it never gets boring. I use the amp for playing with our music team at church and play everything from hyms to rock. My favourite amp model is AC30 which I use the most because gives that very authentic chimey AC 30 sound. Other models I also use are Fender Bassman and Blackface 2x12. For distortion I use JCM800 mainly. The footpedal allows 2 saved patches and with bypass you have a 3rd option. It is plenty loud enough for live playing especially as I am miked up with an SM57 to the mixing desk. In fact the sound tech often tells me to turn it down as it is overpowering the mix. At present I am just using my 335 semi-hollow I finished recently and am really enjoying it. So my other guitars apart from my acoustic at home are not getting much use of late.

What do you mean by an extra cord exactly? Extra wire? Try http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...27.html#details

On my first electric I soldered a wire to the copper shielding and joined all the earths from pickups, toggle switch, and output jack to it. The pots are earthed from contact when mounted up. Works well although If the case of the pot ever oxidizes after many years it may cause earthing problems, so my builds since then I solder them to the pots as is the norm.

If you have set your truss rod correctly you should have a very slight dip in the middle of your fingerboard when sighting down it from the nut end, with all strings tuned to correct pitch. This is necessary to allow string to have extra clearance to vibrate at the mid point. The nut end action is correct when you fret a string at the 3rd fret and it just clears the first fret. Once the truss rod and nut height is set then you need to raise the action at the bridge saddles until there is no fret buzz at normal strumming. Intonation needs to be done at the same time of course. I dont know what shims you are talking about? it is normal for the strings to be lowest at the first fret and higher at the bridge.

Hi Jofes, What sort of acoustic are you planning, and what woods are you going to use?