Muzz

I saw The Church in Sydney a few months ago, one of their songs would fit the criteria you mentioned, have a go at Under The Milky Way.

Wow, that looks terrific

Sexy and sleek. Why is the cavity so big? Room for a 9V?

I like my lucky Cry-Baby wah, tough, bitey and expresive. It's lucky because I once left it at a pub, next day the bartender phones me up and says a customer left his phone number and I should call him, I did and the dude said you forgot your wah, come over and pick it up. I went over with some beers and my prodigal wah was returned, now when I play it, it always reminds me that there are some cool people in the world.

Yeah I know the story would be a million times better if a hot babe had picked up the pedal and opened the door in her bikini

Looking good, did you route the selector switch channel as well as a control cavitiy in the walnut before glueing on the top as per your plan? If so did you take photos?

Yeah, this album is a big step in the right direction, I can't listen to St. Anger, I don't think I am the only one and Death Magnetic is going to help a lot of fans get over that dissapointment and win some new younger fans.

When I was listening to the cool intro on Unforgiven III, I thought heaps of metal acts have a huge range of musical styles that they dip into, I like when metal bands switch between balls to the wall and quiet and melodic, how come it never goes the other way. Just once I would love to be listening to Enya, Michael Buble or John Williams and they break out into detuned distortion

Nevertheless some classical musicians can rock, just listen to the Scorpions with the Berlin Philharmonic on Rock You Like a Hurricane.

It was great to hear what different forum members got out of this album.

If you get a chance check out some of these tracks out for guitar practice,

Redemption/Shadows Fall

Tired of Waiting/ Honeymoon Suite

Last Train Home/ Lost Prophets

Snakes and Foxes/ Epicure

Sleep/ Azure Ray

And All Things Will End/ Avenged Sevenfold

Warriors of Time/ Black Tide

Rain City/ Turin Brakes

Lips Like Morphine/ Kill Hannah

My People/ The Presets

And an all time classic wailing guitar album for those that like to funk it up - Dancing on Coals/ Bang Tango

Very rare for me to go with the consensus but this time I am going to have to, the Dr. Parts neck just sets that guitar off and the whole combination just looks outside the square, cool, classy and balanced

after the dust settles it was guitar building that was the winner on the day..... let's never fight again

Hey that is great, I am glad it worked out for you and everything is back on track.

And because you just used the first bit of Wez's method, he can only send me half a yah boo sucks

Look forward to seeing more pics

I get the power tube points, I can hear a difference as well, but in most of my gigging situations the drummer sits behind the shield, and the house PA is sufficiently good that I don't need a power amp to provide the guitar tone "garage-band style". All I need is a dedicated monitor, just loud enough that I can hear it and still pull in feedback when I need it.

It is a totally different world - you can actually talk to each other during mid-song without having to shout over the stage volume, and it saves on the wear & tear on your eardurms (which is irreversible). And its about 10% the weight of a stereo power amp & speaker cabs I'd need.

Hey Erik, I can sort of see where you are coming from, I don't think I would ever develop the same attitude but life is more fun when you try to look at the world through someone else's eyes every now and again rather than try to make them see through yours all the time. But what is wrong with lifting heavy objects? And I hope with that easy lug in for you, you go and help your drummer with multiple trips to the car park bringing in that shield

Hey blinkknot how are you going with it?

If you read the preceeding discussion, you can see that you have a choice of two fixes,

A. Build up the neck pocket with a tapered shim or shim composite and sink the bridge

or

B. Put an insert in the pocket and reroute an angle with ~ a 2 mm lift

Both are good techniques that will give you a good looking and playing guitar. If you go with plan A, a really simple shim method is use about 3 pieces of thin hardwood veneer in a step arrangement. You can try a step at a time until you get the angle right and you can sand a smooth ramp or even use epoxy to fill in the steps to get good traction between the neck and the pocket.

Sinking your baby grand bridge,

would need some careful planning, check how much clearence you will need to feed in the strings. Good luck with it

There is a great explanation of calculating neck angles here

And a fantastic and easy to use calculator here

My comment about year 5 maths looks bitchy in the light of day, I had just come home from a fantastic night out on the town and my beer goggles stopped me from seeing how it might be interpreted, I am going to take it down.

The neck angle needed on a flat top guitar is less than that needed on a carved top like a Lezo.

The bridge pickup can be a humbucker and mounted in a bridge pick up frame and it will look like every other bridge humbucker.

There are many solutions to every problem.

I think we are a bee's todger away from agreement on the best fix,

because the forward end of the pocket has got to be routed down, and be angled, and the posterior end of the pocket has got to come up, the only way to do it accurately is, as you say a full pocket insert, and then reroute.

You can be Jerry Springer on this one

Wedged is OK, but with a screwed in neck (resist the urge to comment on that) the more contact between the neck and pocket the more stable it is going to be, wouldn't you agree?

You know the great thing about making and modifying guitars Wez, there is no right or wrong, even though I love to do things the wrong way. Maton do a great job on recessed bridges, and you are right that different styles of guitars feel better to different people.

One of the fantastic things about this forum is that everyone is so helpfull, and of course every helpfull poster wants their fix to be the one that saves the guitar in peril, its a good thing, not a bad thing.

The shim idea is good, but the neck pocket at the superior end needs to be deeper.

You have natural talent, your guitars are cool.

Hey Wez, I can see you are posting right now, so we can chat about this in real time

>snip<

PS One I forgot, if you have a 100 watt amp with 4 power tubes take out tubes 1 and 4, (translation for valves 1 and 4) that will lower the wattage to 50 and then you can turn it up to get the remaining two bottles to clip.

Or find an Early 80s Carvin X100B, they have a switch for 25/50/100 watts. I think the new release of it only does 50/100?

MK

I didn't know that, that would be awesome to have a 25/50/100 switch, way easier than pulling the back off the amp

comment deleted

A neck pocket is about 8.5 cm long, so all you have to do is angle it up 2.3 mm at the end of the pocket.

It should look like this on a flat top guitar

If the scale is about 65 cm, there will be 26 cm to the bridge, that is around 3 times the length of the pocket so a total rize of about 0.7 cm. The strings are about 1.0 cm high at the start of the body so that takes you up to 1.7 cm. That will allow you to install a tune o matic bridge with no sinking and lower the action as low as you want to go.

Click here for proof

Have a look at this earlier post you can so see it is angled the wrong way. Tiny mistakes in the pocket angle can stick the wires way up in the air.

PM me and I will send you the file, I have left a space for your brutal solo

Me?I am not much of a lead guitarist at the moment..Lack of practice...but I would be glad to help if you can wait a month or so for me to have more time off work...

Why?the original solo not to yur liking?or do you want the original solo played in a more brutal fashion?I think the latter is probably a better idea...

Cool . I will mix it down tomorrow, and you can muck around with it when ever you like, it's just a bit of fun.

The song has two solos on it, I've put the first one on and the second is free for you. Two solo songs always sound better when two different guitarists play each solo, and yeah having the second sound nice and brutal and very different from the first would be great.

PM me your e-mail address and the track will be on its half way round the globe to you.

or you could stop being a wussie and help me finish off a cover of Bark at the Moon

a fairly competent guitar player cut the original I hear

PM me and I will send you the file, I have left a space for your brutal solo

It would be a massive shame if you were to route your bridge lower and slip and take a chunk out at this stage of the game. I routed a ramp into my neck pocket no problems the first time. Unfortunately the angle was wrong though and had to re route it once the top was curved... that proved to be alot more difficult . In the end it was all sweet though!

Goodluck!

You are 100% correct, there is never a need to angle the neck and sink the bridge, either by itself will do the job. The only reason that the strings are sitting so proud on this guitar is that the neck is angled the wrong way, and is currently leaning towards the bridge. Once the neck pocket is fixed there will be no need to cut into that lovely finish and body .

The neck is already slightly angled ........ the wrong way

I like Wez's idea of the full pocket shim, glue in about 3 mm of wood then angle your neck pocket template and route down until the fretboard at the top end of the body (looking sideways at the guitar, like in your last pic) is sitting flush on the body and the neck is sitting about 1.5 mm higher at the pickup end. In other words the neck at the top of the pocket has got to come down about a mm and at the bottom of the pocket up about a mm. You don't want to recess the bridge you would have to cut into the finish. Good luck with it

Yep using power tube distortion is pretty easy, you can just get a 50 watt Marshall and put both volumes on 10, even in a rehearsal room, but that is pushing the volume envelope. For a 100 watt head you can use Edward's trick and lower the voltage going in with a variac then turn up the volume. I have never tried THD Yellow Jackets but the web site says they allow you to crank a big amp and get a smoother class A sound, anyone tried this?

Or go the other way and make a loud head even louder by connecting up the effects loop and turning the effects volume up. Fun.

PS One I forgot, if you have a 100 watt amp with 4 power tubes take out tubes 1 and 4, (translation for valves 1 and 4) that will lower the wattage to 50 and then you can turn it up to get the remaining two bottles to clip.