Southpa

In what way? I guess you could do something with the pickups, unless they are just 2-wire pickups (hot and ground). If they are 3-wire or 4-wire pickups then you could do some coil splitting, ie. knock one or both humbuckers into single coils with the aid of additional DPDT switches. If you aren't sure what is available, hence your post on this forum, then I suggest you do some reading here. Look into series/parallel wiring, out of phase, trying different capacitors etc. Or spend some money and change out the stock pickups entirely for something different. No guarantees that you will get what you want. But you have to first know what you want .

13mm dia??!! Thats about 1/2" across! and 1/2" long unless I'm misunderstanding your dimensions. I picked up some roller bearings (8mm dia. X 14mm long) from work a while back that might do for pickup magnets. I still have to look into getting them magnetized.

Nope, not like spankin the chikkin or chokin' the monkey, but I DID get one of my Western maple burls slabbed! One of a couple freebies that were sitting in a friend's yard and not your usual burls either. Some look like cancerous growths, brittle, heavy and hard to handle, these ones are lightweight with concentric, guitar-shaped growth rings. I had the larger ones cut at 2" thick for later resawing into bookmatches and the smaller ones into 3/4" one piece tops.

Its now a good solid neck! More pics here on how I grafted in a new piece of mahogany. My father gave me one of those wood shaper/carver/sander tools, VERY good unit to have for this kind of job. I popped the old fb last night. Next step will be to level the neck face and cut out the truss rod fillet and remainder of the old rod. Then install a new rod and solid rosewood fb. I might reuse the old inlays if I can dig them out intact.

This thread is not dead. Waiting for my ISP to get their s h * t together so I can upload more pics. Just finished a successful backstrap on the broken headstock, should be much stronger than original. Filled a few small holes with thickened West Systems epoxy (the BEST Jerry, the BEST!) and will be stripping off that cheesy laminated, plywood fb and replacing truss rod.

I make my own, single action (all you really need) 3/16" rod (threaded each end), 3/8 brass acorn nut (drilled thru and tapped) 3/8" bolt section for anchor (drilled out and tapped) and one 1/4" ID washer. They cost me about 3 bucks each. Construction pics

Sort of a baby blue voodoo finish. Looks kinda weird with a lefty neck tho.

There is something about those 60's Japanese designs that attracts me... sort of like rubbernecking when driving by a car accident. They were made with the best of intentions and despite some design flaws they can be put to rights with a little effort. I don't post near 10% of the work I actually do at home but this "challenge" warrants your attention and input. Its a Kawai from the mid to late 60's, 4 single coils, rocker switches, part of that extravagant era where you find things like a solid mahogany body and set neck sporting a plywood fretboard. Bits and pieces on the body made of high quality stainless, chrome etc. but those real cheap, lousy plastic tuners on the headstock. Man, I kept a box full of those crappy tuners, don't know why, maybe just a reminder that thats where experience comes from. Here she is in most of her current glory. More pics Lots to do, the guitar worked ie., sound came out of at least one pickup before I reduced it to its components. One major flaw that has to be dealt with, a previous repair on the neck near the headstock had failed miserably. It looked like the kind of break that we wish for so much. The kind where a little flexing puts everything back where it should be, but not this baby. Old glue inside the crack that had set, I don't know maybe they tried to string it up before the glue dried. I hummed and hawed over it for a few days then just grabbed it by the head and snapped it off. I just had to laugh, looks like some of that gorilla glue crap, a couple wood screws and some keyed in plugs made of spruce. So I figure I'll take a stab at making this guitar right, obviously the headstock was off before and the way it was "remedied" didn't take. I figure on replacing the plywood fretboard with a stiffer rosewood and putting in a beefier truss rod, cut out all that snot and remesh, then do some carving and fashion a long backstrap that will straddle over the broken area. I'm always into some insights from the community at large so feel free to make your suggestions and comments. I got a long weekend coming, hope to get some fishing in but mainly spend some time with this guitar.

This one still needs to be resawn. I see a possible carved top LP in there somewhere. And the current one in progress... I just bought a US made Ridgid brand bandsaw w/ riser block so I'm probably going to be busy resawing lots of maple tops in the near future.

Well I scooped a trunkful of this and this today for 80 bucks! The guy has a basementful of western (bigleaf) maple, Garry oak, elm and red maple, stacked to the ceiling in some places, been collecting it for about 10 yrs. Hes going out of business (custom barstools, tables etc.) and wants to unload it all. I live right in the heart of figured maple country and these opportunities can happen often if you are vigilant. I got about 14 pieces in all, with a variety of spalt, burl, quilt, flame and just interesting grain patterns. This piece is going to be fun! A bit of advice, don't be shy when it comes to selecting wood. If I see a choice piece on the bottom, better stand back, because there will be wood flying. Anyway, its been a while, just got a lot of acoustic repairs, setups and one restoration out the door and its time to concentrate on another project. A little inspiration can go a long way.

Been playing the guitar for a while now and I love it! I just bought a new power supply for it as the other was shorted out, prob'ly why the guy sold the guitar. It likes batteries if the power supply is not used. The power supply is actually for the footswitch which can cycle between XLR and regular amp. I like the piezos, no feedback and/or background noise. Coupled with my clean Musicman 210 Sixty-five and this thing you can hear a mouse pissing on a cotton ball when not playing. OK, settings. There are umpteen different guitars and guitar sounds emulated here. I got LP's, teles, 59 strat, Dobro & National resonators, acoustics (Martin, Gibson, Guild, 6 and 12 string), Coral sitar , Gibson Goldtone banjo, Gibson Firebird, Rickenbacker (6 & 12 string), Gibson hollows and semi-hollows. Does it actually sound like all those guitars? I dunno, I'm not an A.N.A.L. purist and I don't care. I CAN recognize some of the guitars, like tele and strat that are programmed in and the sound based on the 1966 Rickenbacker 360-12 DOES sound like the song Turn, Turn, Turn by the Byrds. strat style maple neck and basswood body, very responsive, snappy, good fretwork and everything is straight. Some guys say, "take away the electronics and you got a 200 or 300 dollar guitar", maybe, but as a builder, restorer, repairer and tinkerer, I find it adequate for my needs. I've been seeing lots of passable, affordable guitars out of the Asian theatre due to cheap labor these days. This particular guitar sports decent enough hardware. I still have some reading to do and I spy potential. There is some interfacing with the computer ahead using a program called Workbench where I can program in my own sounds, tunings and patch upgrades. It looks like a new era in guitar technology and it might be the last guitar I'll ever buy for myself.

I used a triangular file, with two edges smoothed down, for years before I bought a crowning file. Its readiliy available at your local hardware store. Its takes a little practice to get the hang of it but its a good substitute.

bought it!

Just fishing for some feedback on these guitars. More trouble than they're worth? Been reading lots of reviews and they range to the extremes of yea or nay. I play in lots of different tunings and use lots of different guitars as well as a bit of banjo. I'd like to try one out, waiting to hear back from a guy who is selling his for $575 Cdn (good price?)

A lot of people have the misconception that "hardwoods" and "softwoods" are so named because of their relative densities and/or physical "hardness". You know what is the softest hardwood? (sure you can google it but its more fun to guess) Hardwoods are generally deciduous or broadleaf trees and softwood is generally conifers, firs, spruce etc. those woods bearing needles. Whats a good wood? Depends on where/how it is used. Most cheap guitars are made of softwood but it can only be employed as laminates (plywood) to make it strong and stable enough to be used as guitar wood. Plywood is good enough for some people and not for others in electric guitars, tone can be so subjective. If we're talking electric guitars you can find a way to pretty much use anything. A wood species might be considered too heavy but you can always chamber your guitar and lighten the load. You can even have extreme density differences within a species. Ash is like that. And I highly prize good swamp ash for a guitar body. I worked on a friend's strat a while ago and it blew me away! The body was a Warmoth swamp ash and the neck was an original '79 maple w/ rosewood. The whole guitar weighed about 5 1/2 lbs! On the other hand another friend built himself an ash tele and it was waaaay over on the other end of the scale, too friggin' heavy and too blocky, the last wood I would have used. When I played the swamp ash strat it literally vibrated the hell out of my guts. Because of its hardness and lightness the energy imparted by the vibrating strings kept going and going back and forth throughout the guitar, sustain was unbelieveable. The other guitar just sucked the energy out of the strings and didn't give it back! So consider those factors which will enhance the tone(s) YOU like out of a guitar. Straightness of grain and distribution of density eg. big growth rings etc. can also be a factor. The list can go on and on, workability, availablity, cost, etc. etc. all for your area. That is the key factor, what is available locally. We got bigleaf maple growing out of our asses where I live and I can get clean maple for next to nothing if I want it, and with a little looking I can find the figured stuff. Hell! some guys I work with are burning it at home! (That reminds me, a friend offered to give me 2 burls, each almost 3' across!) to you folks living outside of western N. America bigleaf must be pretty rare and considered an exotic. Narrowing it down even further, I live in the ONLY place in the world where arbutus aka Pacific madrone is found (southern Vancouver Island). Its on the heavy side and does not grow straight, even most pieces that are cut straight will move, split etc. during the curing time. Good wood can be expensive if it looks good too! http://www.gilmerwood.com/instrument_wood-solid_bodies.htm

You might have seen them before...you might not have! http://visboo.com/awesome-guitars-2.html

One thing to consider at this stage is the proposed length of your neck tenon. It is a good example of what happened to the early Gibson SG's which were notorious for breaking easier that other guitars when pushed the wrong way. After all, the neck joined the body at the 21st fret! which they later moved to the 19th and increased the heel size. At least you have a little extra wood on the upper bout and heel but still consider that to be a weak area. Its good to see the business end of the wood removal process now and then. Thats what rasps do if you've never seen it before, ugly but damn effective.

Scale length, if you wanted to put frets down or position markers, inlays, doodads etc. at fret positions, is measured from the leading edge of the nut to the leading edge of the bridge on the first string. That distance grows longer as you move toward the bass strings to compensate for increasing string diameter. Half the distance between said nut and bridge positions is where the crown of the 12th fret lies. For finding where all the other frets lies would involve using a fret calculator, search in Stewmac.com

Keep stripping until you reach uniform surface texture, then fill, prime and lay down a solid color coat. In a lot of cases binding is just used to hide seams. That hole near the center below (and between) the tailpiece stud holes tells me you've broken thru a veneer or the first layer of plywood.

I'm currently playing a Teisco TB-64, a 6-string 30" scale guitar/bass. I had to special order a couple packs of D'Addario XL156, "Designed specifically for use with the Fender Bass VI". String gauges: .024 , .034, .044, .056, .072, .084. The standard tuning for this set on that scale is EADGBE, all one octave lower than a standard guitar. I'm surprised this setup is not more common! I'm having a lotta fun playing mine and am considering building one. The guitar/bass features are right on the line its certainly both but also neither, hard to fathom. 3 single coils ~ 6Kohm each, 3 lever switches (so I can dial in any combination) and a tremolo arm, cool setup. What should YOU do? Whatever you decide on, you need to balance the string gauge with the scale length. There is definitely a "sweet spot", ie. range of gauges for each scale where your string tension is responsive and comfortable to play. Consider how much playing is done and how often you would need to change strings. I expect these to last a little longer than regular guitar strings but still see added expense and more special orders down the road.

My aim is more towards the building these days so I don't feel too badly about it.

Find some similar looking veneer and fill your gaps with that along with epoxy. If you can get the right looking tone and grain structure you might manage to hide it well.

Why is it high?

I don't know, you haven't revealed exactly why you have buzzing. Go back to frets.com and start reading. If the fret ends have popped out of the wood, (no brainer, look for gaps between the wood and the fret) then the last thing you want to do is start filing.

I'd figure the fret ends have popped up on one or 2 frets. Easiest fix is to pull them out and reradius a little tighter and then reseat, provided your fret slot is still good.