ToddW

Was it my leaving out the "a" in temperaments, or do you simply not believe there's anything usefull besides "equal temperament"? (Dr. Owen Jorgensen's book: Tuning: containing The Perfection of Eighteenth-Century Temperament, The Lost Art of Nineteenth century Temperament, and The Science of Equal Temperament, complete with instructions for Aural and Electronic Tuners) My point was, you can stretch each note on a piano when you tune it, and nobody would consider not doing so. Clearly some piano tuners are better than others, and some will will even tune for specific performance. Bach's work for the well tempered clavier comes to mind. I don't believe he worked on a piano with "equal temperament", and the pieces sound different if the piano tuner is able to do a historic temperament. You can't tune each note on a guitar, but you can try to compensate for the inherent shortcomings in it's design. That's what Feiten is trying to do. I think the alternative, if you're playing with a piano, is to try and work out a tuning on your guitar that works for a given piece of music based on the key and the particular piano. Bill Bremmer can do that, I can't. But saying that what Feiten worked out is "snake oil" . . . is sort of like saying there's only one way to tune a piano. Best, Todd

I think I finally understand the question. Didn't get it until KP mentioned using the sanding sealer to compensate for the decal. So ignore what i wrote above. Sanding sealer is designed to seal problems in the wood. It's usually a varnish with some zinc stearate in it so you can sand it back easier. The plain varnish would seal as well, but is harder to sand back. The downside is that in some cases, those mineral soaps actually decrease adhesion of the next coat, and they do act as a flattening agent like KP said. I didn't realize they yellowed. If your clear coat is compatible with your paint, adding an extra layer in between them seems counterproductive! Whether or not it's worth putting on sanding sealer so you can make the decal flush is something I have no experience with. Sorry if I gave you bad info before. I thought you were trying to seal the wood, not smooth out the decal contour. Todd

Seems like you only have a couple of 1/4" wide pieces of wood holding up the elipse between the to partial F holes on each side. Seems pretty fragile? ? ?

You ever read any articles by Bill Bremmer? He has come up with at least one temperment for playing a certain program with a piano. Todd Quick google search and . . . "the guitar tuning I used is like the Vallotti temperament. There was a lot of discussion about it which you should be able to find in the archives. The American Society of Luthiers has a website which has a document forbidding anyone to tune the guitar in any way but ET. But just like with the piano, what happens in reality very often is different from theory. What I did was set the guitar's pitch to A440, then carefully tempered the strings by ear. I rounded the results off and created a program in my SAT. The following is the exact program of the way the guitar was tuned for The Man of La Mancha in 1992. All values are read on Octave 4 E2: -4.0 A2: 0.0 D3: 2.0 G3: 4.0 B3: -2.0 E4: 0.0 You can also use half these values and get a "Victorianized" version of it. E2: -2.0 A2: 0.0 D3: 1.0 G3: 2.0 B3: -1.0 E4: 0.0 Once, I saw a classical guitarist from New York tune this very same way. He took a lot of time on stage between numbers getting it exactly right. I wouldn't hesitate to use either one of the above on any guitar. These are, however, the ONLY two sets of deviations possible except if your tuning skills and ETD are capable of halving the figures again." From something Bill posted on piano tuners guilde. http://users.adelphia.net/~cygnusx_1/equal_temperament.html And I think this is the document he refers too. It basically says, don't temper your guitar to a specific piece, just suck it up. Wonder what they think of compensated nuts

I sure don't know about the Feiten nut. If that's the case, and it's not compensated, I'd rather have a compensated nut made Don't think I'm good enough to do it myself, but it'd be nice for playing with a piano.

It really depends on your ear. Dugg says he's a piano tech who doesn't like the Feiten system, but I'll bet if he's a half decent tuner he tempers the pianos he works on. Am I right, Dugg, or do you not tune pianos also. My tech is also an exceptional tuner and can do any temperment I want. Thinking about trying equal beating. On a guitar you can't temper each note, so Feiten, Earvana, and others compensate as best they can at the nut and the bridge. I think Perry does. Bottom line is some people like the Feiten system. Some like a compensated nut. Some like a zero fret. . . and some/most are fine with the straight old non-compensated nut. I don't think the Feiten system is worth the price, but if you've got a guitar that's got the Buzz Feiten set up already, it seems very silly to give up on it because of a trashed nut, and my guess is you can duplicate your old nut fairly easily using a graphite blank Todd

Bzzzzzzt Should have said: If you want to play like SRV, you need to , and then practice even more." It'll help a lot more than a set of new pickups. Of course, to quote Steven Wright, "Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now. " So I'm gonna to go change my pickups . . . Just pokin fun.

NICE! Your daughter is cute and the guitar looks great. I built a 17" scale guitar for my son which is now at my buddy's house and getting abused by his 4 year old (Eli is sticking with Piano). Once I finish my current project I'm going to be working on a 22.7" scale tele-shaped guitar for my daughter. Got the Mahogany and Wenge neck and body blanks all glued up, a single piece of quilted maple for the top, an LSR roller nut, a bubinga board from Erik, and a P-rail for the bridge position so far. Plannng is fun. Building is fun. But planning and building something for your kids is priceless!

Why would you worry about tung oil on rosewood? I'd wipe with acetone or mineral spirits before doing it, but it doesn't intuitively seem like it would cause problems. Did you have a bad result doing it?

The Fretboard is bubinga, so it's not too light, but the advice on the paper and aluminum dust is excellent either way. Wouldn't have thought of that. If I go with your design, I may use some Argentium Silver tubing . Given how little I'll need, it'd only be $10 or so for a 1' piece. Stick a dowl in it, cut it . . . Could probably do 4 guitars with that single tube, and then I could say the inlays are silver and paua. Way off topic now. Sorry.

I don't think you'll have a problem with adhesion in the short term, but it looks like you have end grain glued to side grain. I'f I'm correct, that's a big no no! The woods will expand/contract at different rates and by different amounts with changes in heat and humidity, and eventually your joint is probably going to fail. It's not something you can test, unfortunately. It'll be rock solid until mother nature goes at it for a while. I'm with Wez, I'd do something to reinforce it now, because it'll be a real bummer if it pulls off in a year and you have to go through the process of refinishing it! It's a cool looking idea! Best regards, Todd

Could be the nut is still too high, but it seems likely the nut position is off by a little. If the action is reasonable now at the first fret, I'd bet on that. Which is still OK, because you can still fix it. You just have to figure out if that's the case, and which way it needs to go it it is.

That kit's a waste of your money. You already have most of the parts on your strat now All you need is a $8 pot with a Push-Pull DPDT switch on it. Caps are under a buck at your local radio shack. Other than that all you need is a soldering iron and a schematic. However, before you try that schematic, go over to the board at guitarnuts2. ChrisK or Sumgai will be able to evaluate it, and someone else may even have experience with it. Have fun! Todd http://guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi

Hi Raven, Nice of you to try and avoid starting a new thread, but no need to revive this one. Your links won't work for me, sorry. They get me to a main page that asks for a zip code. Todd

Learn to use a cabinet scaper. (Hopefully better than me )

Yeah, go look at the thread on that build. I'm in love with his position markers. In fact, Quarter, do you mind if I copy them for my daughter's tele project? Todd http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...mp;#entry373247 edited to add the link to go gawk at the guitar.

Sanding sealer is an insurance policy in my opinion, that you don't want to use unless you have to. According to Bob Flexner, it contains mineral soap which can weaken the bond of the next coat. Basically, you get a first coat of varnish or lacquer with zinc stearate in it, which is easier to sand flat than plain varnish or lacquer. Me, I like shellac because it's pretty non-toxic, easy to use, almost anything will go on top of it (why it's used as a sealer), and it's a great vapor barrier. If you do this, make sure it's de-waxed shellac. Pore filling does just what is sounds like. If you're using a thin finish, then it will take a lot of coats before it builds up to where the pores don't texture it. Pore filling with something thick then sanding it flat solves that. But if your pore fill isn't compatible with your top coat . . . then you have to seal it Tru oil is a polymerized oil. Basically, an oil cooked in an inter gas so the molocules link. So unlike tung oil, it cures reasonable fast and can build up some coat thickness. That's why it can be glossy. Another less toxic finish Varnish, including your polyurethane, is an oil cooked with an added resin (polyurethane). Since the two combine, it's not an oil anymore. Varnish cures fast and hard, and would probably be glossiest (sp) if done well. Big caveat there unless you have the right equipment and experience. A wiping varnish is just a regular varnish thinned down enough with mineral spirits so you can wipe or paint it on. A lot of the stuff sold as "tung oil" is actually a wiping varnish, although I think some are oil varnish blends. Sam Malloof's (sp) finish might be this, and I think the Watco Danish Oil finish. Adding the oil makes it easier to apply, but you get a softer finish, so less gloss and protection . . . trade offs. Most of that ^ I learned from Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner. Awsome book. http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-F...2700&sr=8-1 Buy it! for the 20 -25 dollars it'll cost you delivered, you'll probably save money by avoiding costly mistakes. Think about it, one can of lacquer is $7 . . . Best, Todd

Is a strat control cavity deep enough for a push/pull pot in the lead tone control position? If it is, why not just wire it up like a normal strat, but instead of the bridge pickup leads going to the 5-way switch, the two leads off the push/pull switch would take their place? Or, there's this: http://www.guitar-mod.com/rg_dialatap_11.html which looks interesting. Todd

So the air pickups do have a lower field strength, but don't use weaker magnets. That is clever. . . and efficient from a supply line point of view. You know, if you could weaken the magnets enough by wacking on them, DiMarzio could throw some in a rock tumbler for a while, and then sell "rocked" pickups.

To prep it. Sandpaper, a dust mask, and lots of patience. You may want to pore fill the walnut if you are really shooting for ultra smooth and high gloss. That's not my favorite finish, but some people love it. Walnut is used a lot on gun stocks, and they often use Tru-oil. Run a search here with +walnut and +tru-oil. Might find what you need. Looking forward to pics, Todd

+1 on what Peter said. Resistance doesn't matter much by itself, impedance does, some, your ears do the most. To add to the confusion, turns count is important, like Peter said, but so so are the magnets. It looks like the airtone airzone air whatnots are using weaker magnets, after all, they're claiming less string pull . . . so given more resistance, I assumed they're making up for it with wire turns. Might be they changed the field shape, but who knows. I wasn't being too scientific, I figured you're planning to match the HB to two fairly low impedance SCs. Right? I also figured the HB with the lower inductance would probably have a higher resonance frequency. It's not as simple as I'm making it, but we don't know a lot of the variables, so I'm guessing. I know mixing the middle SC sounds good with the bridge SC, so I figure you want a HB tone, but you also want it to sound good with your middle SC . . . so maybe avoiding a HB with a very high inductance would be safer. Like Peter says, the only right way to do this is to try to listen. I said that a few times above. But since it seems like you don't have that option, I'm trying to guess. Maybe Peter will comment on my guesswork. I think I saw in another thread that he rolls (winds) his own. Best, Todd

That's what I kinda suspected, thank you! Hmm, it's possible yes. So, if that was the case, I'd just have to unsolder the pot, source a suitable replacement and fit it? DJ Yes. How many of the pots leads are being used? 2 or all 3? Guessing all three and that the wiper isn't making contact until it touches one of the end contacts. But with solid state amps, things sometimes get funny after a power spike. There might be more wrong than just the pot. After all, something made the fuse blow . . .

If he's only concerned about the tone being too shrill, then a tiny cap to ground or even an RC filter could be wired at the jack. That's easy and there'd be not reason to start adding a pot in as a resitor. Still, I think a hidden volume control adds a huge amount of versatility to the guitar. Todd

http://www.grizzly.com/catalog/2008/Main/117 I may go with the floor model when I have more space. Todd

If you plan to buy without playing the PUP through your amp, then : I think its a moderately hot pickup compared to most blues and classic rock stuff, and the resistance is pretty high to put in line with a SC. When I went to Dimarzio's site I thought the Mo'jo looked like a better PUP for A HSS guitar because of it's lower resistance. From curiosity, I went to Harmony Central, (home to some of the worst advice in the world since to many people love what they spent their money on . . . ), but the first reviewer of the Mo'jo uses it in a strat, and his comments were in line with what I would have guessed. Seems like a neat PUP for your purposes. Best, Todd