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Southpa

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Posts posted by Southpa

  1. http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Te.../buzzintro.html

    Great place to start and narrow things down. With buzzing in those areas I would suspect loose fret(s) somewhere and not worn frets as the guitar is an acoustic. A couple of straight edges (3" & 12") are useful. My motto is "when in doubt, throw it out" That said, if I find frets are too weird and too many to manage individually, I adjust the truss rod as flat as possible and level / crown all of it. That way you can't miss! :D

  2. Epoxies are becoming part of big business nowadays. West Systems epoxies are the best I've used so far. Base to hardener is a 5 : 1 ratio and you can use their 404 additive to thicken. The 404 is a fine clay powder which does not affect the epoxies bonding properties. A lot of autobody shops are using epoxies for patches and panels instead of welding. Its simple as hell. Say you wanted to fix a hole, just glue a backing patch in behind and then run a bondo skim coat to flush things up. You won't be able to hide your scarf joint entirely unless you go with solid paint. A little wider glue joint? thats up to how a n a l you are about your work. Its liekly just as strong as its going to be otherwise.

  3. I also tried Stewmac's clear, waterbased filler and had no success. Sand back and then the fingernail still digs into some pores. I usually have a knack for making things work. I was talking to a painter at work and suggested maybe he would have some results as he is interested in using environmentally friendly materials as per specs issued by our respective government regulations. He knows that epoxy and CA works fine but simply doesn't have the time. So he ordered a couple cans of the waterbased filler and later told me it sucks. The guy is a pro and works with an assortment of mahogany type woods every day but cannot use kid gloves while sanding, for example, everything has to be done with palm sanders etc, no hand sanding. Otherwise he would be backed up for weeks and nothing would get done! So maybe Stewmac will clue in and take the crap off the market. The first time I open a can I remarked, "Huh, looks like a can of sperm!"....maybe IT IS! :D

  4. May as well throw in my hand here. The whole reason for brass nuts is so you won't have to pull the fb, brass strips before steel. If you can post a picture of the truss rod nut you might get a better answer from me. Brass is relatively soft and I'll bet you can reshape some sort of screw type with a dremel or just cut it up and get it out in pieces and then replace with a similar brass nut. I really hate it when people who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground try to fix guitars. I don't mean you I mean the stupid putz who tried to stabilize a stripped, brass truss rod nut with gorilla glue.... :D

  5. I picked this Teisco up about 6 mos. ago. The guy advertised it as a baritone guitar but its actually a 6 string bass, scale length 30".

    Teisco.jpg

    Its really really fun to play. I was always a little awkward playing 4-string bass, couldn't get used to having a G as the 1st string. This one is just a guitar but an octave lower. Can get any pickup combo and it even has a whammy that doesn't put it out of tune! Funny, this guitar was built around 1965. It has two features that were incorporated into later guitars. Ibanez thought they were the guys who invented the monkey grip, Musicman does the 4+2 tuner arrangement. Teisco did it first. As far as design and function goes these guys were ahead of their time.

  6. I took my friend's son's guitar home for setup and adjustment. I kept it for a week so in the mean time I loaned him my '67 Hagstrom III. he was reluctant to give it up because the neck fit his 12 yr old hands perfectly. Personally, i couldn't care about the neck size, each to his own and I have a whole range of neck sizes to play. But the 'hag" has the slimmest conventional neck only because of the unique truss rod construction.

    And I've tried a few of the new Martin acoustics, basically a lam neck in 1/8" increments, almost looks like Doug. fir. The bodies are molded sawdust mixed w/ composite and your choice of mahogany, spruce etc. veneers. I don't know how they hold together over the long run, I can remember fixing a loose fret on a friend's martin only after a few months. I guess they would sound exactly the same after 20 years, is that good or bad? :D

  7. I've been through a couple of the kind with one coarse side and one fine side. They don't last long and have to be periodically checked. I now prefer to use a medium bastard file with the rattail curled up for easy gripping. And I ALWAYS check my file with a straightedge before touching another fretboard.

  8. The roundover in your pic looks like about 3/8". But it does not look like a full corner as you can see the upper sharp edge. I figure anything over 1/2" is getting into toilet seat country. I prefer 3/8", a little big for a tele, but makes a good balance for your average guitar thickness. For a bolt on neck I will do the whole body in 3/8" and then switch to 1/4" for the approaches to the neck joint.

  9. If the guitar intonates ok at nut to 12th fret then move on. You mentioned high action, but combine that with heavy strings, high frets and pressing too hard, then you got a problem with notes sounding sharp. Analyze each of those potential problems and work from there. You say its still sharp with the old nut installed. Both nuts could still be too high. Do some reading at frets.com

  10. Its been mentioned but a great part of the added expense revolves around using harder to find woods in harder to find dimensions. Taking it to the extreme, if you want one-piece, clean Honduras mahogany with a 1/4 to 1/2" quilted maple, bookmatched droptop then you are going to pay big bucks. The cheap option is small scrap blocks glued together (or plywood) with a figured maple veneer. What do you think sounds or plays better? Now, let us adjourn to that other thread discussing the merits of tonewoods used in solid body guitars. :D

  11. The edges are no problem. Don't sweat it, you were just filing in the wrong direction! :D The American Std. strats (well, MY AM. Std. anyway) features what is called "rolled" fingerboard edges. Basically the corners are rounded and radiused for a more comfortable feel. So you can remove the marks without sacrificing too much fb width just make sure its done uniformly and in the right direction.

  12. One of the most important aspects of ANY work done on a guitar is to monitor your progress. To do this you need various tools and other items that represent levels of precision. Where it comes to fretwork some of the most important items are straightedges of various lengths. I use a small steel block that spans over 3 frets, a 6" steel ruler, a 1 ft. steel ruler and a full 2' straight edge which helps me see the forest thru the trees. There are also items for measuring thicknesses and gaps, ie. thickness gauges and digital calipers. If you are doing things to specs then you need to be able to measure.

    The next thing you need is a good idea of what you are doing. If you have any doubts then you must not begin work until you are darn sure, get your head right. You must play guitar or you would not be working on a guitar. Then again, I can't believe that my supervisor at work built himself a tele, (w/ some help) and he doesn't even know how to play the damn thing...go figure. Anyway, if you play guitar then you should have a good idea of how they work and what is right or wrong. If you only realized that the fretjob is no good ... after 9 frets... then you are obviously not monitoring your progress.

    My advice? Heat the frets and pull them. Fret wire is relatively inexpensive. If the slots are too big then fill them all with native fb dust and glue mixture and recut to the proper size. Get rid of that screw press or practice with it on scrap. Make sure you have a level playing field, ie. truss rod should be adjusted so neck / fb surface is flat. I prefer to use a small brass hammer and "tap" the prebent frets in while making sure thay are uniform with the aid of a straightedge. Keep checking your work as you progress. All you have to do is get that first fret in right and remember how you did it...then repeat the process about 21 more times :D.

    Just letting you know that its no big deal. I have my way of doing things and have had good success over MANY fretjobs. How do you get good? practice on lots of junk. Believe it or not the skill level required to fix an expensive guitar is about the same needed to fix a cheap piece of crap! For that matter, the cheap piece of crap is usually a bigger source of frustration than the guitar that is built to do what its supposed to do when turning the truss rod. :D

  13. I'm just not sure. I'd like to ask some of the guys on the Gibson forum but I can't relocate my password in time, got it written down somewhere...dayum.

    A guy in town is advertizing a 1975 Gibson Flying V made of korina, gold hardware, in mint condition..for $1500 Cdn. Unfortunately, he posted no pictures. I look in the 2010 Vintage Guitar Buyer's Guide and all V's from 1975 should be made of mahogany. So I phone him up and ask for the serial number so I can do a little research, now it gets a little weird. The SN begins w/ 99050xxx. OK, it might indicate that the guitar is actually a 1990, but that doesn't quite jive. 1st and 5th indicate the year but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th denote days of the year by the Julian calender, so it can't be more that 365. However, 1975 was the first production year for the Gibson Nashville plant and all guitars built in that year DO in fact have serial numbers beginning with 99. But there is still the korina / mahogany dilemma.

    The reason why I'm looking into this is because the price offered for a mint 1975 V is pretty damn low. The 1975 mahogany is listed at $3100 to $3600. There is also the Flying V '58 (Historic/Custom shop)which lists at $4500 to $5100, this guitar fits the description of the guitar in question to a tee. But they were made from 1991 to 2005. Too good to be true? Does anyone smell a rat? They guy seemed pretty honest on the phone, he'd only owned the guitar for a year and paid $1400, but does not have the original case.

    I just need a bit of help on establishing this guitar's pedigree. The price is pretty good for this guitar if its authentic but its still a large chunk of change regardless. I will be calling him again later this morning about the nature of the SN. The 1975 was ink stamped or stickered and said "Made in USA" on the back of the headstock. Where the Custom shop models' SN was stamped right into the wood. If anyone knows that there were korina V's produced in 1975 that aren't listed in my book then I'll bite.

  14. A lot of the guys I talk to at work, these are real painters and detailers with formal training and 25+ years experience at painting anything and everything including cars, boats, motorcycle tanks, helmets, fenders etc and yes... guitars, say faint orange peel may be unavoidable to some extent but can still be minimized. They say you shouldn't have to use sandpaper to begin the polishing stages and I agree. I've managed a few guitars myself this way with poly, rattlecan and catalyzed Imron. I'm sure they have had bad days where a few swipes with some fine grit is necessary to get back on track but there is no sidestepping. For that matter, if you had to final wetsand everything in a production shop you would'nt be employed very long. It takes a lot of practice and good equipment to attain this level of skill but is still attainable

  15. If you can lay your lacquer down clean enough, ie. no orange peel, drips, runs, sags etc. then wetsanding should not be necessary. Thats how the pros do it. However, if your clearcoat consists of polyurethane then you need to sand between coats to establish a mechanical bond.

    IMO, if you need to sand your lacquer then you screwed up either your prep or your actual painting.

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