GregP

Pretty sure it can be done. I shall at least give it a try!

Ayup.

They CAN solve intonation problems, sure. I don't know that it's necessarily a "one size fits all" solution, though, and I don't imagine you could just throw a pre-slotted one on there with a truly satisfactory result. Do they sell them unslotted so that you can do it yourself? My amateur experience (I'm no pro by any stretch-- don't let the post count fool you, I'm a total beginner) has been that a properly-slotted nut or a zero fret will minimize the problems to the extent that you may not need/want a compensated nut. If you've never made a nut, a zero fret also gives you the advantage of not having to agonize over whether you're doing it right or not. Greg

If you just look at the electronics, it's all very self-evident. What borge described should work perfectly. If it's just that the screws came out, you'll probably even find the old springs just sitting in the pickup cavity. Greg

mark: I tip jar for services rendered? Wouldn't make much. lovekraft: I guess I'll make lemonade. Maybe some day when you're less bashful, we'll see a shot of that closet o' badness! idch: not a bad idea with the fix job for the fretboard. I can't see myself routing it square, but I might be able to sandpaper a few pieces to fit in there. Got me thinking, at any rate. As for the inlay gap, I couldn't imagine coming up with a sliver thin enough to fill it in. The problem with the gap is that the inlay is still a pretty tight fit. It's the angle of the cut that makes the gap large. I used the chisel improperly is what it comes down to. The other ones are rather more well done, so I wouldn't want to ruin them just to get a consistent "border". Now that I've decided to keep it for sure, the next questions would be: - clear or black CA for gluing in the inlays? I have both. I prefer knowing that the edges of the MOP won't be seen if I use black, but it WILL make gaps more obvious. - to fretboard dye or not? I know manufacturers do it, so it can't be THAT horrible of an idea. I just don't want it to look 'plasticky' because of a consistent black. Will some of the grain pattern still be barely detectible, giving it a more realistic look? Greg

Too expensive. Can't afford it. Greg

Saber? Wasn't it me? Saber's just better at explaining it than me. GregP, glory-pig.

I can't believe that never even occurred to me. <laff> Yes, it's a bolt-on. OK, that pretty much sells me, then. I'll finish it up which will be at least good practice. Cheers for reminding me that it's really that simple. The photos don't do justice to the mess. The most recent one was fine, but the others... well, not so good. Also, I haven't glued the MOP yet or sanded it to the fingerboard's radius, so that'll be another potential area for mistakes. Yeah, I'm quite skint right now, too. I'll definitely post pics as I go and everyone will see the whole finished project, whether it's actually WOD-class crap or not. Greg

Right. That's what I was getting at.

Due to our current pic rules, the following post will be a pain in the butt. Take my word for it, most of the photos aren't worth opening; however, since it was requested, here's some shots, plus explanations of the process I tried since the last block. Some of the photos look like crap because I had to gamma-correct the heck out of them to get certain things visible. NOTE: UNDERLINED words/phrases are links to pics! First, the errors: 1. Fret markers 1 and 3 On the left is the first inlay (between the nut and fret 1). Not horrible, but you can see a small gap on the 'right' side (closest to fret 1). Next you see the 'fret 3' (I hate calling it that because it's not the fret that's inlayed) inlay mortise. It's white because some MOP dust settled on it while it was still tacky. Looks like complete crap, but it's not quite as bad as it seems. Finally, you can see little gaps/gouges on the bottom left of BOTH those inlays. 2. Nasty Gouge To the right of the inlay mortise, and right in the fret area. Not sure how to 'fix' it without buggering up the stability of the fret. It's not quite as deep as it looks (gamma correction and shadows are playing tricks) so sanding the entire board down will almost eliminate it, but not quite. 3. Various scratches can be seen here and there on those 2 pics. Some of what seem like scratches are actually light pencil marks, though. Next, the process in its current stage of refinement: 1. put tape on the fretboard where the inlay will go. Glue your inlay to this tape. Use an Xacto to scribe around the inlay. Do it a few times. Take off the inlay (leaving the surrounding tape attached still) and score some more. The existing lines should be enough to guide your blade without the inlay being there. For complex shapes, do NOT remove the inlay for additional scribing. Sorry, no pic of this stage. Setch had a good pic. 2. I set up a "channel" for my fretboard, upon which my router base will rest to ensure a flat and level bottom for my inlays despite having a pre-radiused fretboard: 3. Precautions In Place: I put masking tape around my already-scribed inlay area. Following a suggestion in this very thread, I threw some thin scrap material over the rest of the fretboard. The 70's called and want their fake wood panelling back! 4. Pre-Routing Dremel Work: Since my 1/8" router bit is NOT meant for plunging, I used the Dremel to quickly bore out a "starting point" to help preserve the life of my router bit. You could use a drill or whatever else. A Dremel was right at hand so I used it. 5. Used a Router to hog out the mortise, using the highly visible masking tape as a visual reference for how close I was to the scribed lines. As Setch explained to me, you want to get close to the scribed line, but not right up to it. You'll see why in a second. Here's the routed cavity. 6. The reason you don't want to go right to the scribed line is because it will serve as a guide for your chisel. Using just a router, you'll have to hope for a steady hand. But with the chisel, you can pop it into the scribed line, push down hard, and Voila! the remaining wood comes out fairly cleanly, straight, and at the exact right spot. If I had a larger chisel, I'd have given it a try, but I only had this wee one. Actually, I have others, but they're not sharp like this one. 7. No matter how hard I try, the cavity always seems to be just a bit too small. If you've already done a fairly clean job, why screw it up by trying to chisel at it? Nope, instead, use some sandpaper to bring your inlay down to size. 8. Go back and forth between the fretboard and your sandpaper until she fits! This one came out well, but after I popped the inlay in there, I realized that it wasn't perfectly centred. Still, this one went the most smoothly of them all which shows that practice helps. Greg

They do for a Canadian, or it'd be a non-issue. If it was just the cost of the fretboard, I'd buy a new one in a second. However, adding the cost of shipping (most suppliers have a minimum $15 charge, which is more than the cost of the fretboard) and then the duty, and you've almost tripled the cost. Canada really needs its own StewMac or LMII location. If I lived in the States, I would have already saved literally hundreds of dollars off the cost of this project. You guys don't know how lucky you have it. Greg

Cheers for the feedback so far: idch: I'm leaning that way. Curtis: It's not a replica, but a tip of the hat to the Gibson Lucille. The fretboard needs to be dark, so maple's out of the question. Rosewood is an option if I can find a dark enough rosewood. Jason: it's already pre-slotted and pre-radiused. However, it's still tall enough that I know for sure the mistakes would be reduced by sanding it down. Problem being, a radiused sanding block plus paper would cost more than a whole new fretboard, so I'd have to make one if it's a cost issue (which it partially is). I DO have the area masked off, but not heavily. I should have tripled-up on the tape, and exposed ONLY the part that's being worked on. That's a lesson to carry through as the project continues. I'll throw a pic up later on. Greg

Well, despite having practiced first and feeling that the block inlays would be a super-easy job, I've gone and goofed up my fretboard a bit. The problems: - one mortise was too deep. I had to build it up a bit with some CA. Nobody else will likely ever know but me, but it still annoys me - one mortise got accidentally enlarged too much. Not an insane amount, but it will need to have the gap filled in with black CA or with CA/sawdust - the worst offender: a fairly large gouge. Lesson learned: be even more patient than you think you need to be. I had finished hogging out a mortise, turned off the power on the router, but didn't wait for the bit to completely stop spinning. As I lifted the tool out of the cavity, it slipped out of my hand a bit and dropped onto the fretboard, taking a small circular bit of wood with it. It will need to be filled, and it's large enough that it won't just "blend" with the grain. - various small scratches from when I was scribing The good side: - I'm learning as I go and I'm getting there! - The blocks haven't been glued down yet, so they're salvagable The possible solutions: - Keep going, fill it in, and treat the mistakes as character and as "scars" for my first ever project, wearing them as proudly as possible. - Keep going, fill it in, sand down about a half millimetre to minimise the appearance of the scratches and flaws. This requires a radiused sanding block which I don't own and would have to order or make. - Keep going, fill it in using black CA and dust, and then use fretboard dye to even out the appearance of the grain and make the tone of the fretboard more like the tone of the repaired areas, which will minimize the attention drawn to them. I'm worried that the dye will make the fretboard look like crap; but on the other hand, it may end up looking fine. - Trashcan the fretboard (well, save it for scrap) and order a new one, possibly with Rosewood instead of ebony so that it won't be so damned difficult to work when I re-do it. The problem with this is that I don't have the money at the moment and it would put the whole project further on hold (not that I'm in a rush), PLUS the fact that I can't predict that the second effort will not become the victim of accidents, either. -------- As an aside, one thing I've learned is that whan you're "this close" to having your block fit into the mortise, you're better off using a true surface and some sandpaper to shape the inlay down a bit than you are trying to enlarge the mortise. -------- Now, opinions on whether to scrap it or not are welcome, but I'm also curious to find out which of the "keeper" options seems the best? Ie. even if everyone says to trash it, I might have to keep it, so as a backup plan I'd like information and perspectives on which of my "fix it" options would work. Thanks, Greg

If you look at an EQ curve, certain frequencies will be "louder" than the others. Let's say that the peak of one pickup is at 600Hz and the other guitar's peak is at 100 Hz. It seems to me that some of it will depend on what frequencies audibly drive the amp more easily. Of course, I could be talking complete bollocks. Greg

Ah, the Junior has dog-ear.... Hrm... Not sure about this one; my knowledge has run out. The humbucker P90 retrofits I've seen are for soapbar, though I'm sure you can find dogear somewhere. Greg

P90 pickups have a fairly sharp attack, but I rather like the sound of them. I can't say for sure that you'll like them, though, because it's so subjective. They ARE still single-coils, though, so they won't sound like a humbucker at all. Depending on how much you like the look of this and how much you're willing to spend, Dimarzio and Seymour Duncan (among others, likely), make P90-sized humbuckers that are direct replacements without the need for modifying your guitar. So, in theory, as long as you don't mind accepting that you *may* need to spend another $100, you could get this guitar, and then if you hate the P90, you could swap it out. You can probably sell the P90 out of it for $40 on eBay, thereby making your actual upgrage cost only $60 instead. Greg

I've always maintained and will continue to maintain that upper-fret access is probably the most overrated feature that manufacturers tend to advertise. There's no reason to compromise upper-fret access when you have a choice (ie. building from scratch with a plan that accomodates such a thing), but I personally wouldn't go through the hassle of modifying a perfectly good strat just for a minor amount of improvement in upper-fret access. I swear, some companies make it sound like their guitars are better simply because of the outstanding access. Bollocks, I say. Greg

Holy moly. I only just jumped into this thread, but if the argument is about the health risk of Mary J, you just gotta use a bit of logic-- You are inhaling a foreign substance, period. That can't be good for your lungs. That doesn't change my vote, though-- I said that it SHOULD be legalized. Provided the government uses the tax money for something other than funding wars creating paranoia and fear. If they use it to subsidize housing and so forth, I'm for it. It may seem like I'm joking, but seriously-- to me it's more important to consider the corporations that will start marketing it (tobacco companies will jump in, and they're very much in bed with munitions companies, sometimes being owned by the same people) and the governments that will be collecting the tax on it than it is to worry about whether Johnny's feeling a little less than motivated because he's stoned all the time. Greg

$1,000 should *just* cover the cost of a bad-ass bass. Save $20 to buy yourself a 24 of your favourite beer, and it's a done deal. Any design ideas yet? Depending on how many strings it's going to be, I've noticed that some of our builders and some other custom builders reinforce the heck out of the neck, using dual truss rods and/or graphite (or is it carbon fibre?) rods. Greg

Metallica, another band with non-fat tone. You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm thinking that by my personal definition of "fat", my earlier statement that I prefer the character of vintage-output pickups translates into an even more general statement of: mid-output pickups = fat. I find a strat neck pickup to be fairly fat going through the right amp, even. Again, just personal perspective. One man's "fat" might be another man's "stocky". Greg

Usually I use a file, and I shave them into freezer bags. So far I only have "ebony", "limba", "birch", "maple", and "pao ferro". I'm hoping to add more as time goes on.

1. Reducing the weight will impact the tone. Will it make it brighter? I don't know about that. 2. Chambering will impact the tone as well, but what's being debated is the extent to which tone is changed. To someone like David, even the smallest changes are noticeable; and when they're noticeable, they're significant. To someone like me, I might not notice a dramatic difference. One thing I wish people (not you, just people in general) would keep in mind is that you have to have a sense of logic and perspective when approaching such problems. People (including myself) throw around words like, "brighter", "snap", "bloom", "dark" or whatever they're using to describe the tonal qualities of woods and techniques. But you need to realize that everything's relative. Will chambering change your tone compared to not chambering? I have no doubt that it will. But to what extent? Moving your tone control from 9 to 10 will have a more noticeable effect on tone, you know what I mean? These changes are all relative. A mahogany body with a maple top, chambered to reduce weight (ie. not creating super-thin walls like on a semihollowbody) compared to a mahogany body, not chambered... with the same neck, same pickups, same hardware.... We're talking about Apple X and Apple Y, not apples and oranges, IMO. You're placing far too much importance on what will turn out to be very minor things. And since either way, you won't have an identical replica to compare to, why worry so much? Or the short version: A chambered solidbody is just that. It is not a semi-hollowbody. Greg

Ah, but EMGs are a whole different beast. Many people find them clinical-sounding, which may translate into "thin" for some people's personal perspectives. I haven't played a pair personally, so I couldn't tell ya. I don't find Zakk Wylde's tone to be particularly 'fat', so that's the only thing I can go by. The only other guitarist I know intimately who uses EMGs is Martin Tielli of the Rheostatics, and I don't find his tone "fat", either, so you may be on to something there. I personally like the character of vintage-output pickups. Greg

Curious bloke that I am, I had a quick (ie. not exhaustive) peek around, and here's what I discovered: I was thinking of a "mountain dulcimer" when I said that I didn't think they had sympathetic strings. A mountain dulcimer is almost like a wee guitar played on your lap by plucking with your fingers or a plectrum. You may have been thinking of a hammered dulcimer, which seems to be referred to as a "Biblical dulcimer" by some people, though clearly that can't be its real name, but is rather the context through which some people know the instrument. The hammered dulcimer often features 2 bridges/2 sets of strings, but these are for playing different notes altogether, not for sympathetic vibration. Also, the strings are 'doubled up' like on a mandolin; however, they are both physically hit with the hammer at the same time, meaning that they're not exactly reproducing sympathetic vibration, either-- the energy is generated by the hammer, not by one string's vibration causing the other string to vibrate in sympathy. Now, that's just an aside to the issue, and I thought I'd share it just because I'd poked around, not because I'm disagreeing with any one particular point. LOTR was a great set of movies-- I don't remember the dulcimer, so I'll have something new to look for next time I watch it. Greg

Shouldn't be, but it'll depend on how you approach amplification and tone. The word "fat" is pretty subjective, and it can be claimed that really high-output pickups lack a bit of character as a trade-off for their output. However, driving an amp is easier with a high-output pickup for obvious reasons. Pretty tricky question to answer without knowing your requirements for tone, but at the most basic level, I don't think I've ever heard anyone claiming that high output = thin tone. Greg