GregP

You don't ground anything "to" the bridge, even in a passive setup. The bridge gets grounded along with other components to the "ground" lug of the output jack. The problem being that you CAN get a shock if your amp has its polarity (?) switch reversed, or if you plug it into a reversed power outlet. You should always check outlets before using them anyhow. So, the EMG instructions basically say that you do not NEED this extra "shielding" (your body being added to the shielding material!) with EMG actives, so you should simply not connect the bridge to ground, thereby removing any shock hazards related to having a grounded bridge. I suspect they also feel you're less likely to screw things up and introduce a ground loop into your circuit. Greg

That EG-SE is dead sexy. And with a pickup upgrade, too! But alas, I can't justify it to my fiancee.

Just wanted to say: awesome dog.

Is it going to be solid or transparent? Here's the "antigua" fade I was referring to: http://warmoth.com/paint/paint.cfm?fuseaction=burst_antigua

Tis a Silvertone if I'm not mistaken. Made by Danelectro for... Sears?

It's great. I need to take that to heart... I'm not "perfectionist" by any stretch, but I DO get stalled when I become uncertain if I'm going to be able to execute a technique. And when I finally 'give in' and say "it's only wood..." the results are usually OK anyhow. Greg

I can't imagine a grey burst would look very good with anything other than white or black. Grey + any other colour usually = mud. In theory, it could work. There's no reason for gray to not "grade" properly into another colour. But in practice, I can't imagine many people getting anything that looked particularly good. I've just tried messing about in a draw program, and although it's not terrible, it's not all that appealing. And it'd have to be solid colours to even stand a chance. I picture something like Warmoth's "antigua" finish, but with gray and wine rather than ivory and black... and I don't think it would look absolutely "terrible"... but nor do I think it would look compelling.

Ah, OK. As you suspected, I didn't understand the difference between a simple "offset" tolerance (inventing terms is fun! ) and the stepping tolerance. Cheers. No matter how you cut it (no pun intended), until you can enter actual CAD/CAM or other standard files, its usefulness is severely crippled. Greg

I haven't cut a lot. But I've cut enough to know that you're still gaining usefulness. Dare to compare: hand-cut pearl, traced on to wood, and then hand-cut cavities. How can that be more accurate than hand-cut pearl, followed by actual cut pearl transfered to a 'program' (or whatever the terminology is), and then cut into the fretboard automatically, based on that scan? You're likely going to get more accurate results with the machine, and if not "more" accurate, you'll still be in the same ballpark while saving yourself some aggravation and fiddly work (by comparison, praying that your chisel or Dremel doesn't slip). .005"-0.010" isn't precise enough for some fretwork, but it's plenty accurate for all but the most intricate inlay. Let's put that into plain english: "five-thousandths (one-two-hundredth) of an inch to one-hundredth of an inch". That's a barely-visible line, which I would be enormously pleased to achieve with hand-tools. More commonly, there will be even larger gaps than this, and the CA or epoxy will fill it in, leaving the appearance of invisibility. The crap-assed amateur inlay I've done had far, far larger gaps which still ended up looking "meh... acceptable". But that's a different story... because if you can achieve 0.010" accuracy, you're well beyond the "acceptable" range and well into the "sweet"! All that said, it still hasn't even been assessed that the thing won't cut pearl. It well may. Though, I can't imagine it'll cut it without a godawful "burnt hair" stench and lots of harmful dust.

Yowza. Yeah, it would have to be pretty cheap... if the only thing to use it for is bridges and inlay work. Though, I disagree with your assessment of usefulness for inlay. Being able to cut the cavities is still a huge time-saver even without being able to cut the pearl. Alternatively, you could cut the pearl first and then make your inlay program based on the shapes.

neat. Currently won't import CAD formats... but if you have a neck profile that you like, it'll do its own "surface scan". Nifty.

METALSUSTAIN: the tricky part is finding plain no-holes single-coil covers. The humbucker covers are plentiful. SL: Nah, you're thinking too much. The covers are non-magnetic and won't interfere with the operation of the pickup. You can have them a few millimetres away from the polepieces if you want (though, mine were only a millimetre, if that). And they're usually a tight fit. To avoid microphonics, you just need to make sure that they're not scratching against the polepieces-- no need to wax pot them. A little cloth barrier (I used an old t-shirt that was in my "to become a rag" pile) will work fine. The covers 'vibrating' (if they even can--like I said, they're a pretty tight fit) won't cause microphonic feedback without direct friction on the polepieces. Indeed, unless you're good at re-potting pickups and have more patience than me, I'd recommend against it-- the coils on "exposed" humbuckers are still generally already wax-potted and there's no point messing with the factory potting job. Greg

Hrm. The diagram supplied, "my Texas special schematics" shows single-coils, though. Confused. That said, I just had another look at the thread title and it said HSS after all... so it's just the wrong diagram. A strat with Pearly Gates... that's not a bad combo, I'm thinking!

I don't understand. You want to have a "normal" tone when the knob is down (pushed) but a TBX tone when it's up (pulled)? Can't do that. And there would be no point-- one direction from the detent acts as a normal tone control anyhow (the treble cut), and the other direction acts as a bass cut. All this "1 inductance" stuff is also confusing me. Same with this talk of humbuckers... if you have a Texas Special wiring scheme, you have only single-coils. Perhaps another attempt at explaining what you mean might be helpful. I understand that it's difficult to use a language that's not your first language, but give it another try. We're generally friendly here.

Dude. Brutal. On a whim, I'm going to recommend typing "3-way guitar switch" into Google and pressing the "I feel lucky" button. I bet it'll be a blade switch. I haven't tried it myself. If that doesn't get you a blade switch, there WILL be one within the first set of hits at least, I guarantee it. You suck at the internet. Lowest score, evar.

<grumble> Way to ruin my fun. The corresponding diagrams are available directly from EMG's product pages for either of those pickup sets, too... it took me about 5 seconds to find them.

Neat idea in general, but I'm not sure you could use it to practically make a radius block. A table-saw disc is usually 8 or 10 inches in diameter itself, meaning that if you approached it completely perpendicularly, you'd get a 4 or 5 inch radius block. Approaching at an angle like the Rockler sheet will produce an even tighter curve that will not have a consistent circular radius. Still, neat that people come up with this stuff... thinking outside the box rules.

Nope. The only option is for both neck and bridge pickups to be 'always on' and not selectable. Then you fill the hole or slot left by your former switch with putty.

IF you found acceptable single-coil covers (no holes) you could still get the job done. Take the $10 charge for the covers off by getting exposed coils instead, and then buy the hole-less 'bucker covers to go with the hole-less single-coil covers. I got mine from Brian at Universal Jems, I believe. But... that's IF you found the single-coil covers. I haven't seen any, myself. Only if you bought actual Lace Music Chrome-Domes. Incidentally, found a UK supplier that has the ones with-holes: http://www.axesrus.com/axepupcovs.htm Greg

A compound radius is just a cross-section of a cone. You can make them by hand with a flat beam instead of a radius beam-- instead of running it parallel to the 'virtual' centre-line, you run it at "fanned" angles radiating from the imaginary 'tip' of the cone. I don't know how difficult this is, but I've seen the technique described elsewhere... the Koch book maybe? This very forum also has a few links to jigs for doing the job. One jig moves the router over the fingerboard in the set radius, and another jig moves the fretboard against a belt sander at the set radius... yet another one uses the "belt sander" approach, but in conjunction with the router. Lots of ways to skin the cat. The edge of the fretboard should be the same level, though. The middles of the nut-end frets (the tighter radius) should be raised higher. If you have the same height of middle but with lower edges, you will fret out. A quick Google should give you lots of info... this one doesn't tell you how to "do" it, but it has some useful illustrations. Noting especially that what we call "compound radius" is more accurately described as "conical radius" http://ratcliffe.co.za/articles/radius.shtml Pinned within this very forum (the "search" tool is your friend, too): http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...compound+radius

If you could find a set of singles and the bucker with no polepiece holes, that would look sweet. I like the no-polepiece look.

I like the white pickguard, though I wouldn't have bothered trying to "antique" it. Veneer-related issues are all that come to mind.

Some very vague questions that you can definitely answer yourself! Do red pickups look dorky? Not if your design uses them in a cool way. Does it matter if anyone else thinks they look dorky? Prolly not, if you yourself think they look good. Start planning, having learned from your first project. Get some ideas together. Present your conclusions, and THEN ask if anyone notices any problems with the plan. You'll get a lot more constructive feedback that way. You're not showing enough planning time yet. First "red" and then "telecasterized RG" isn't really saying much. If you're any good with computer apps, you can even mock it up to see if you think you'll like the way it looks. Greg

Two words: Cabo Wabo.

Buying directly from Warmoth is one of the most expensive ways to get a strat together. But the quality will be awesome.