Bertbart

Having done plenty of both; cars and guitars...Yes it is the same.

I recently purchased a buffing arbor kit from Stew Mac and today was the first time I got around to using it. Here: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Finishing_supp...fing_Arbor.html I love it and wish I'd bought one sooner. I used to wet buff with a drill press with a lambswool bonnet or an air buffer with a sponge pad. That worked fine but it was so messy because it slings wet compound everywhere. I'd spend as much time cleaning up as I did buffing. The Mezerna dry compound that Stew Mac sends with the kit is awesome. The medium cut will pull 500 grit scratches out in a heartbeat. The fine cut really puts a glassy sheen on the finish. I buffed out a guitar body today in about 15 minutes and I'm sure the next one will take less time because I was learning to use the buffer at the same time. I'm so pleased with the results. After the fine cut I wiped the body all over with Novus II polish and rubbed it off with a micro-fiber cloth and it's amazingly shiny. If you've been thinking about buying the buffer kit and were hesitant about it may I suggest you do yourself a favor and get one. It only took me a few minutes to get the hang of it. The only problem I encountered was the area in the cutaway but I believe I can resolve that by removing one of the 12 inch pads from the arbor so it will be thin enough to reach in there. Stew Mac suggests you put two 12 inch pads on each side so that's how I set it up initially.

First, how long have you been using the blade? If it's old you probably have worn the kerf of the blade down on one side which will make the blade take the path of least resistance. 2nd, Do you have the proper tension on the blade? Too tight is better than too loose. 3rd, the side thingies? You are referring to blade guides and should never be too tight just enough tension to keep the blade on track. I suspect that the blade is worn out. Try this site: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pwguild/i-bndsaw.htm

Yeah yeah, keep talking out of your ass. At one time, I owned 3 strats. One with a 24.75" scale, one with 25" scale and one with a 25.5". I even tried the same pickups in all, and the difference in the scale was quite noticable in the tone between the 3 guitars, but I wasn't even trying to do an experiment with those guitars. I already knew how a *different scale affects the string tension and resonance of a guitar*. If I'm one of the few here that do, then Sheesh, we got a forum chuck full of ignorance. I'm with you and I agree with you. I started playing with guitars in 1969 I started repairing them in late 1970 as an apprentice. I opened my own shop in 1974. I think by now I know that scale length definitely has a huge effect on tone and string tension. Not to mention pick-up placement, pick-up adjustment too, bridges and choice of wood. Fingerboards and neck material make a huge difference as well. None of these things mentioned has more effect on tone than scale length and string gauge. "On pick-up adjustment" especially exposed pole single coil pick-ups to get a clean tone with unaffected true harmonics you must keep the pick-up lowered on the bass side. The string diameters on the bass strings do not require that the pick-up be as close as the treble side. If you don't believe that adjust them as high as possible and try to get a clear reading on a strobe-tuner on the bass strings...it won't happen period. The magnetic field will screw with the motion of the strings and make the guitar sound out of tune as the notes decay if you hit a power chord...clean or distorted.

Really, bad advise eh? You are saying that scale length has nothing to do with the sound or tone? I say you don't know what you're talking about.

Drak, I didn't posess a digital camera in the late '70's and '80's when I built several. It's easy to do just cut the shape of a telly and cut the neck pocket and place a Strat pick-guard on it. Mark the pick-up holes on the body blank, enlarge them and route the control cavity and I would use a Gibson L.P. jack-plate. (Hated those Telly cup jacks...there was no tool available to install the little barbed keeper at the time) I did tremelo and hard-tail versions. I intend to build another in the near future and when I do I'll post a picture. I once built a Telly...solid black with w/b/w/b/w binding with a Gibson L.P. Custom ebony fingerboard...with the large block inlays with a strat looking headstock...also bound like an L.P. Custom for a customer. I had to make a Strat style b/w/b pick-guard because of the bridge placement the stagger on the pick-ups were closer. It was Tele-Strat-L.P. Custom bastard. He was primarily a Gibson player and didn't like the longer scale of Strats and Tellys but wanted something unique and he had the money and I had the time. I ran out to the shop and here are some quick ideas. It's in a photoshow: http://photoshow.comcast.net/watch/QI8PE7kE

Yes you can get a Strat sound on a telly body but you have to install a strat pickguard and lose all of the telly hardware and pick-ups. I have built several. Just lay a strat pick guard on a telly body it will fit and it looks pretty cool. You can't obtain a Gibson sound from a Fender any more than you can get Fender sound from a Gibson. Even exchanging pick-ups because the tone or sound has a lot to do with scale length. Gibsons have a shorter scale length than Fenders. The best compromise I know of is a Paul Red Smith because his guitars have a twenty-five inch scale length which puts it in between a Gibson and a Fender.

Sounds to me like your pick-ups have gone micro-phonic or they are single coils and you have the amp really cranked. Your soldering iron probably isn't getting hot enough as you suspected.

Turn it upside down mark on tape where you want it. Then draw another line inboard of the outline approximately 3/16 of an inch. leave a tad more at either end. You can tell how much more to leave if you mark the screw holes as well. Take an exacto with a #11 blade an follow the inside line. Pull the tape plug off and route withing the confines of the tape you left. You may have to tweak it by routing a little more until the jack plate with the jack drops in.

Same scale length as an L.P.

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Telly's are usually 1 & 3/4"...have seen thicker, say 1 & 7/8"

Incarserating pot users or those poor bastards jailed on trumped up charges for "intent to distribute" because they had a half pound or more when caught is a waste of taxpayer's money. (I pay taxes so they're wasting my money) I wonder just how much court costs, police enforcement costs could have been saved much less the actual cost of keeping someone in jail over the years all to no avail. They have not stopped it's use all they've done is drive the price up to where it's more expensive than other more dangerous drugs there by tempting our youth to purchase harder drugs for recreational use and perhaps getting hooked. Our local and federal law enforcement aren't thinking correctly. The government complains that the prisons are overcrowded...if they let the pot users out they'd have plenty of room to jail real criminals. I used to smoke pot and did for years and never felt out of control or violent. Several times in my life I was out of control and got violent from the few times I used alcohol. I remember a headline from a High Times magazine that still makes me chuckle: "I smoked much of this Marijuana and felt not the slightest desire to steal a Pontiac."

Everybody has an opinion and mine is that the original Gibson pick-ups sounded terrible...like mud farts so I don't think you'd be happy with originals or replicas. I know I wouldn't be. I like decent tone and those don't have any.

Why pray tell are clamps bad?

I would use Tite-bond and a vacuum bag clamp or a piece of multi-laminate plywood to place on top of the veneer with wax paper between so if the glue seeps through the veneer it won't bond to the plywood. Then use as many clamps as you can get on it.

I agree it looks like a brown lima bean to me or a river rock or a throat lozenge. Hemprock????

It appears to me you could just use a standard Telly template and draw the treble side and then flip the template over and draw the bass side using the treble side. Perhaps making it a tad fatter where the neck pocket goes. The guitar looks as though it could or should have been something made by Fender. It looks excellent.

Thanks Vinny. I picked up some Behlens dye tint at the Woodcraft store yesterday that will work with lacquer. I don't understand how you can get a job at Woodcraft and not know your products...three salesmen and the manager told me they were out of the Trans-tint brand and that is the only thing they offer that will work with lacquer. I started reading the fine print on the labels of a myriad of tinting stuff they offer and sure enough I found what I needed in spite of the poor service. They had a sign in the window looking for full and part time help...now I know why. That piece of blue celluloid looks really cool. Be careful when cutting celluloid because if you get it too hot it will ignite almost explosively.

Vinny, Can the powder aniline dyes that say, "mix with warm water " Are the powders compatible with mixing in lacquer thinner? Say if you wanted to tint clear lacquer. I used to buy from Mohawk when they had a branch in Atlanta and if my memory serves me there were two kinds of aniline...one would mix with lacquer and the other would not. Do you know whether this is true?

Corian kitchen counter top. One sink cut out will make a boat load of nuts and saddles. It's dense...easy to work and it's free.

Problem solved Thanks guys...

Darrell, That site is the bomb. Thanks for the tip. I really appreciate it. I will save that site for the future. Mattia, Thank you as well for taking the time to try and help me.

Mattia, I emailed Trev earlier today per your suggestion but have received no reply as yet. I can't seem to find a site for Gotoh. I can find a lot of Gotoh retailers but not the actual site for some reason. There are a few threads left in the broken piece and if I could find a metric allen drive button head bolt that was 4 mm longer I could make it work but I'm having a tough time finding that particular bolt period much less one specifically with 10 mm's of thread. The original has 6 mm's of thread. The thought of finding a machinist job shop to make another scares me price wise because they will charge set up time and a minimum of three hours...Dooh!

I bought a used Fishman Telly Powerbridge last month. It had a broken piece but the price was right. I figured it would be easy to check with Fishman to get the part. WRONG! Fishman no longer sells that particular style of bridge any longer. They still sell a Telly Powerbridge but it has more conventional saddles now. The bridge was originally made by Wilkerson but they sold out to Gotoh. Gotoh changed the design for Fishman. My guess would be that they've had problems with the brass receiver insert snapping off so they came up with a newer improved design. I'm hoping that someone has a trashed old style Powerbridge that they are willing to part out. I need the little brass receiver that lives under the bridge plate that the saddle set screw feeds into to lock the saddle back down after the harmonics or action is set. Can anybody help me out?