JPL

I had a kid offer to build me a large cnc router for cost as a school project. While it reportedly would have cost me less than $1000 without software I decided that the copycarver would be much better suited for my style of building. In the time it would take for my old analog brain to program a guitar and get it into production I could have carved several design templates for the copycarver. That doesn't even take into consideration the learning curve just to get started. Granted, I'm an old fart who is hopelessly stuck in his own ways and have little desire to make building guitars into a job but with the time investment to get one guitar designed you had better be in major production to make it worth your while. Even PRS used a duplicarver until they got too huge to keep up. I understand your ambition but it might be a better to follow the path of countless other industry giants and only expand your tools as demand warrants. The copycarver will take you a very long way if you want to go into business with a very small investment. On the other hand, if you have the time and money and just like the idea of playing with a really cool tool, go for it.

Soapbar, you can check IJS for nickel sheet. They carry either 12 by 12, 4 by 36 or 6 by 36 anywhere from 10 guage to 30. It sells for $6 to $10 a pound. They also have round, half round, square and triangular wire, some as thick as 2 ga. Here is the nickel page of the catalog.

http://www.copycarver.com/Dust_collector.htm

Wow! You just made the world a little brighter. Thanks.

I've been wondering that myself. One or two of the proposed changes might fall slightly into the pain in the butt catagory but I see nothing worth turning tail and running over. Ya gotta pick your battles. Maybe the changes would go smoother if we skipped the shouting stage and went right to the calm discusion stage. Brian has given us the chance to help shape the future of this forum but I'm sure it's hard to take someone's input seriously when it's laced with threats and insults. Calmly have your say then move on. If your suggestion isn't taken and it is so important to you that this place becomes unbearable then I'll wish you well and leave a light on for you Sorry for the rant, I'll go back to my corner now.

Wow. I've been gone for a week and come back to all this. Interestingly enough, I was on a marine base for my sweety's, son's graduation from boot camp. I didn't quite fit in. One thing I try to keep in mind when reading posts is that everyone here are musicians and artists and therefore prone to being emotional and often have a bit more than a healthy ego. Not a slam at all, you have to have ego to perform or create and show your art, it would be a sad world without it. Change scares people. I've seen it happen on other forums before, rules would change and some valuable folks would get upset and leave with a wake of hurt feelings and predictions of doom behind them. Guess what? These people were missed but the forum thrived without them. A forum has to evolve to survive. People come and go and are missed... or not. Brian has a vision of what he would like this forum to be and has given us the power to help him achieve it. Let's give him the respect he deserves by playing nice.

It might be a bit primative but I just wire the pup to a cable and hold it over the strings of a guitar.

This may be a stupid idea but I'll throw it out anyway. As new folks go to sign up they come to the page with the forum rules that they must agree to. Face it, few read them. After that page have another page with an extra big headline stating "I agree to use the search function" and have a few simple hints on how to use it effectively. This won't stop the endless "how do I" threads but it might reduce them a bit. If it's put in their faces at the door there might be a better chance that some will be aware of the info available. An FAQ page with most of the basic newbie questions answered might not be too bad an idea but that means more work for the already overloaded mods.

Add me to the "thank you very much" crowd.

I like it but would a small mouth bass have better tone?

This is my own shot in the dark (and blindfolded to boot) but it sure sounds to me like it's just the pores. They run from one growth ring to the next, as you sand one out another one pops up and they are perpendicular to the grain. This is really a bad picture but does it look anything like the pores in this koa?

Thanks Brian.

No. The only place you can buy real Bill Lawrence pickups is at http://www.billlawrence.com/ Edit: This link will explain the confusion between the fakes and the real thing. This link explains a bit more of the story.

The only site that has real Bill Lawrence is http://www.billlawrence.com/. You can sometimes find some on ebay but the price never seems to be as good as Bill's. I really recomend buying from Bill. There are fake BL's from that fake Bill Lawrence company that used to sell through stewmac so it can be hard to tell what you are getting. Call up Bill and Becky and they will find out what you want and recomend the perfect pup. They're great people who seem to care about their customers.

I did a search on the Carvin forum and the M-bridge is recessed slightly. However they do not sell the M-bridge as a seperate part. The TM6 that is available is a Gotoh that has the bottom milled down for the lower profile and use without a neck angle or route. It does sound like it was designed with some pretty tight tolerances so slight differences in fretboard thickness etc might make it sit a little high so I would test fit it before finishing. You may have to sand or plane the top down very slightly.

Very odd indeed. The mods on the Carvin forum have said many times that their TOMs are not recessed.

I can't see the recess on that carved top Carvin but I've never seen one up close to know for sure. That model has only been out a few months. Carvin has been using that low rider TOM for some time to avoid neck angles and routing. Feel free to call Carvin and ask them to confirm it for you.

Carvin sells a low profile TOM that doesn't need a neck angle.

From what I've seen of your work I have faith that you can pull this off Boggs. You seem to think things through and take them step by step. It will be a challenge but you're up to it. It's a great project. I love Gianninis and it will be great to see this well loved axe brought back to life. Lots of pictures please.

I've used my router table for jointing. While it works well I'm thinking it's not ideal. It would probably be great if you used the table to rough it out and then follow up with a good plane to get it perfect. Even being carefull I had some very minor tear out and a bit of a glue line. This was on highly figured wood though. I made my fence out of a single board with veneer glued to the out feed side and a hole cut for the bit. I'm pleased with the way it works but I plan to get a good plane anyway.

I bet it smells pretty in the middle of that hot lick.

It is - it just costs twice as much and smells prettier. Candle wax is mostly parafin. There are a lot of formulas for candle wax and few are pure parafin. Bee's wax, soy wax, additives, coloring or fragrences are in virtually every candle on the market. I have no idea if any of this would be a problem. The good thing is parafin is dead cheap. A couple of bucks worth and you'll have enough to pot pups for the rest of your life.

Damn I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels that way. I read all the rules and tried really hard to live up to them but next thing you know i'd get slammed by the post nazi. It got to the point that I was afraid to ask anything so I would just lurk. And now I rarely check out the site at all. It's a shame, it's a great group of talent but... To be fair I think they are doing it with the right intentions, they want a clean, professional site and many of the rules have to do with the very old software they are using. I have no hard feelings for them and wish them the best of luck, they provide a great service. Many thanks to Brian and the mods for keeping us kids in line without taking all the fun out of it.

Bill has been selling cables for less than a year.

I believe cables can make some difference but there is more hype than perfomance with most cables. If you want good cables at a good price check out these. I haven't tried them yet but those with better ears than me say they're great.