GregP

I dunno, dude... the blotchy bit gives it character. If it just continued with exactly the same "pattern" as the rest of the swirl, I'd find it a bit boring. Then again, I'm the guy who never got braces because I like my semi-crooked front teeth. Greg

I think people must be over-thinking. They just squeeze stuff together, ya know? That said, spool clamps just won't go very 'deep', depending on how thick your slab of laminates ends up. You don't want pressure only along the edges. If you don't have a whole rafter of C-clamps, though, I suspect that a combination of the c-clamps that you DO own, along with some spool clamps, should still do the trick. What the heck do I know, though... I'm only going by common sense, not by experience, and common sense is telling me that as long as you are applying firm and even pressure throughout the entire length and width of your lamination, it shouldn't really matter how it's achieved. Greg

Also, if you're just wanting the neck, the quality of the Saga kit necks can't be all that different from that of a Squier neck, and you'll only have to pay for the neck itself. Come to think of it, you could even buy the whole kit just to get your feet wet, and then if you didn't like the end product of the kit, you could still steal the neck, pickguard, and bridge, and just buy new pickups and tuning machines for your new build. You can find them on eBay by searching for Saga kits, or have peace of mind that the kit has been at least looked over before shipped by ordering from Universal Jems: Click me For Store. Actually, a quick poke around shows me that the P-Bass kits are on pre-order, and that the individual necks aren't listed, though I bet they're available. Contact Brian via the website or PM him here (Brian is the username, too) with specific questions-- otherwise, there are other places online including the 'Bay but also other vendors. Greg

Awesome.

I would strongly strongly encourage you to do something very basic like a telecaster instead. My current guitar is for all intents and purposes very much like a chamered DC Les Paul. It's a pain in the arse to do it right as a first-timer. I'm going slower than molasses and I wish that I had done something simpler so that by now I'd at least have a guitar to show for my work. Going back in time, I would have done either a tele or a Musicman Axis type guitar. I'm learning lots as I go, and I know that you probably have all the optimism, confidence, and even patience to bite off a major project. Other people encouraged me to do something more simple and I didn't listen. I strongly urge you not to make the same mistake I did. Regarding the truss rod-- the channel you will rout in your neck is the rod's own anchor. It won't go any further back than the end of the channel, after all. It looks to be adjusted by an Allen key. When you buy the rod, you won't need additional hardware to install it, if that's what you're asking. Greg

Nothing yet. It is still awaiting sentencing. I may use it for some bizarre experimentation but it is not tonally interesting so I might not. Any ideas? ← I could think of a few. Some of them fun, some of them not so fun. At the end of the day, though, you could always keep it on display in one form or another. I guess you wouldn't want to explain to clients that it sucked, though. Greg

Right, but it seems to me that somewhere along the way in their manufacturing process, it couldn't have been a difficult step to just choose slightly longer tubing or a slightly deeper slot. Just one of those 'attention to detail' things and not a show-stopper. I love my LG. Search function schmearch function. If that's all we ever did, there would never be any new threads to read. Greg

The flamed Myrtle tele sure looked awesome. The figured woods you choose (even the maples) are always atypical, which I really like. Greg

Look great, Frank! I'm thinking of rolling mine together before my other project, since it should in theory be easier to do. Haven't decided what to do for a nut yet. Since I hope to do some pitch-bending shenanigans (haven't ordered the EZ-bender yet, mind, but I can always use a stop tailpiece while I'm waiting, since it gets mounted to a stop) I'm still thinking of Graph-tech. Perhaps a bass nut will have enough width for the wider-at-the-nut taper of the steel. Any ergonomic considerations for holding it on the old lap? I was thinking of giving it fold-down flaps that become almost like 'table legs' (except flat and straight across, not just 4 posts) in order to raise it up on my lap a bit, or even making a folding table to go with it. I've never played lap steel, but I keep imagining that I'll want it higher than my lap proper. Greg

I prefer a V, but that's just me. I like that you're doing something different! What makes a Moser active circuit unique? I don't ask in a sarcastic tone but with genuine curiousity because I didn't even know that he DID active circuits. Greg

Gotta be a V! Jackson or modified Gibson style?

A&M specialty woods is in Cambridge, just off the 401, as well. They were very helpful when I called them, and I ordered a 2-piece blank made from Limba for my first project. I have no basis of comparison, but I've heard Limba being rated quite highly (slightly more prized than Mahogany by some) and its similarity to Mahogany (tone-wise, that is) is what convinced me. Apparently it's a bit lighter than mahogany, but not likely enough that the weight should be the deciding factor necessarily. Anyhow, just thought I'd give you a heads-up to Ontario wood/parts source: A&M Wood Greg

I have the LG and I'm looking at it right now. It does, indeed, seem to use tubing and not ferrules. It's set a little bit below the surface of the wood, though, so the strings actually dig a bit into the wood. Wonder why they didn't just make it flush? Greg

Seems like a strange retailer to be limiting yourself to for parts orders.

Well that's bad news, as that photo shows about the same amount of wood that's going to surround and support the neck on my project. It looks like mine has more because it's a double-cutaway; however, that actual amount of wood contacting the neck looks pretty similar. Greg

or recess the TOM into the new hunk of wood that will occupy the former trem cavity. What is MF and why is it imperative that you buy from them? A regional issue? Greg

Plus, many maple fingerboards (if not all commercially produced ones) have a finish on them, which will drastically alter the feel, for sure. I'm not a big fan, preferring good ol' rosewood or ebony. Greg

All right, so no pics to accompany the work, but: -Finished cleaning up the neck taper. Somewhere along the way it had aquired a few minor flaws, but nothing that 2 minutes with a sanding block didn't clear up -Thinned out the headstock. Ideally, this should be done before doing the scarf joint, I would think. But, first-timer that I am, I blew the mission. The solution: 1. figured out how thin I needed it, including ebony faceplate, to accomodate the tuners. Marked the depth on both sides with a pencil. 2. Used a plunge router, set to the correct depth, to hog away as much wood as possible from the back of the headstock before the lack of a surface meant that using the router wasn't possible anymore 3. Tried a few power tools before settling on a good old manual tool-- in this case, my microplane rasp-- to get rid of the remaining wood with brute force and elbow grease. The previously drawn lines, along with the already-flat surface served as guides for when to stop rasping. 4. Cleaned the whole thing up with an orbital sander and some 100-grit sandpaper. A coarser grit would've been more effective initially, but in the time that it would have taken to change papers, I just worked the sander instead. I left a little bit of wood for a volute of some sort, but due to space constraints on my compact-ish headstock, there's not going to be much of one. If it ends up being TOO dinky as far as volutes go, I might just get rid of it altogether. At least by leaving some wood, though, I have the option. Next steps: gluing the faceplate and fretboard. However, it's been advised that I inlay these first, so that means the real next step is inlaying the faceplate and fretboard, something I've never done before. Before I can get to that, I need to research some inlaying techniques, and I would like to construct a makeshift router base for my SpinSaw's flex-shaft. I like the one in the tutorial section of the main site, but I have some plans in my head on how I want to modify it. So, that should take up the next week of free time, if I'm lucky. When you have a dog, work, friends, and a girlfriend, it's pretty slow-going. I also found flap-discs for the angle grinder, though I didn't purchase one yet. Turns out that Canadian Tire stocks a pretty good selection of them. Wal-Mart had a very limited tool area. American Wal-Marts are clearly more all-encompassing than ours. I'll pick one up and when I'm sick of working on inlay, I'll practice on some scrap wood to see if it's a technique that I could make use of for carving the top. Greg

Pretty badass, IMO. I always assumed he had an endorsement from Gibson, though. Guess it was non-exclusive! Greg

If you're not making the neck, wait for the neck to arrive and then rout the pocket based on your neck. There's no good way to rout the pocket otherwise, unless you have an accurate template and know for sure what kind of neck you're getting. There ARE standard dimensions for things like Fender Precision necks-- but simply knowing the numbers for the dimensions, I wouldn't trust as a way of doing the pocket. I'd wait until the neck arrives. Greg

Isn't the Martin style truss-rod too short? By Martin, I'm assuming acoustic guitar, though I suppose there could be an electric guitar truss-rod described as "Martin style" because of the engineering. If it IS for acoustics, I'd reconsider and go with something longer, designed for electric. Greg

Definitely better, but I'm not convinced it's quite there yet.

P90s are known for having a lot of mid-range bite, but they're pretty toppy, too, in my opinion. Not sure that the ears could survive the marriage of a P90 to a maple guitar. Greg

I found them in my guitar. <laff> Mine are Seymour Duncans that came with the Godin LG. Greg

I like the angularity of it, but the other comments so far ring true. As Godin pointed out, there's something off about the balance between the upper and lower halves. Then the bout with the toggle switch on it doesn't seem to have quite enough beef. Greg