GregP

Eric Johnson is a talented guy, but he's known for being kind of a git when it comes to his tone. He'll agonize over his tone for hours (right down to the battery in his stomp box) and in the end, it's not even always that great. I find he has real hit-or-miss tone, and he'd be better served by getting rid of his effects rig. Excellent model of using wide intervals to make a melody more lively, though! I'm quite impressed by him, but even after buying Ah Via Musicom, I could never really "warm up" to him in terms of just enjoying listening to him. Will the screws matter to tone? Not a chance in hell. Greg

Probably, but Hyunsu is from Korea. Hyunsu, I'm also looking forward to updates for the PRS guitar. That Les Paul's Ebony top is STUNNING!! I never would have thought of using Ebony, and I always forget that much ebony has interesting light colours, too. I always just think of it as black, but that's not always true. Greg

I get the StewMac catalogue, and I don't recall ever hearing of a Foredom. What the heck? Greg

Ahh... the girls in the back row.... Always the naughtiest ones.

Man... A lot of people like Metal. I find most Death Metal insanely contrived. Although, I suppose thankfully so. If those guys really believed in a rain of blood and sacrificing themselves to demons, it would be even scarier. I like certain Metal, though... the ol' Metallica, Testament, Megadeth, Anthrax thing was great for a while. Nowadays, I'll take Louis Armstrong, Chet Atkins, Norah Jones, or Neil Finn over any of them. Greg

guitarbuildingtemplates.com could probably hook you up. They generally sell the whole kit and kaboodle, but I bet you could ask for just a neck. Greg

Welcome, Alex. My sister's travelling in New Zealand right now. Her boyfriend went Zorbing. You are a weird lot over there. Greg

How about a third option-- Make something new, but not this one. Greg

It's really difficult re-stringing a guitar with the same set of strings. They're already 'coiled up' from where they used to be wound around the post. I like the above advice, but at some point in time you'll need to learn to do it yourself. So, when you're being 'taught', here are a few things to watch out for as he's doing it. (he may not have the foresight to show you every little detail) 1. Turn the empty post before trying to put the string in, so that the string will enter it at a comfortable angle. 2. The tuners are turned counter-clockwise (when you're looking directly at them from the side) to tighten them. 3. Only practice will allow you to determine how much 'slack' to leave on your strings in order to give yourself 2 full wraps around the post. It's easier to 'correct' yourself if you've given yourself too much slack then too little, though. If you have to release more slack, you introduce an ugly and weak 'kink' into the string. 4. Regarding the clipping of strings: don't clip them at first. Wind them and THEN clip them to size, bending a little "loop" into the end of them so that you don't have a sharp point sticking out. 5. Those little buggers will want to un-coil right over the top of the post unless you use some tricky control methods. It's hard to describe what I personally do, but it's basically that I keep a finger down on the string about an inch away from the tuning post, so that there's a bit of "pull" from the post to my finger, meaning that you're not generating a buch of slack coily things that want to unwind. 6. Some people make sure there's a full wrap above AND below the hole in the post. I've traditionally just made sure that I have even, non-overlapping wraps below the hole. I'm sure there's more, but I gotta run. All I can say is that it takes practice. Nobody's going to do a great job of it first time out, but you have to be willing to take that risk... allow yourself to think, "Bah, it's only strings" and have at it!! Greg

So... I drew up the rough for my headstock shape. It's a fairly compact headstock-- somewhere in-between a PRS and a 90's Guild acoustic (which was the basis for the scale). This is my second attempt, as the first one is lost somewhere in limbo. When I first drew the headstock up, I used those measurements to determine the size of the headstock on my neck blank. However, the new drawing is a bit too long for the amount of wood I left myself. So, I was left with 2 options: 1. Try to build up the headstock. Normally end-grain gluing is something to be religiously avoided, but this will be in a non-structural spot AND it will have an ebony headplate over it to add extra support. In other words, even without gluing the end-grain, it'd pretty much 'stay put' just by being glued to the headplate. 2. Revise the headstock drawing. THis is what I did, destructively... so there's no copy of the original "too big" one anymore. The picture below is 1/3 actual size, for anyone who cares to print it out and see it in scale. (don't worry, I wouldn't expect anyone to do so, I just mention it because you never know) As you can see, it's not "finished" (on the right are just faint lines to give a quick visual reference), because the plan is to use surrogate templates again. Once I have a "half headstock" temporary template, I will use it to rout the main template in MDF. Why do this extra step? To ensure absolute symmetry. I trust this method much more than I trust my ability to hand-shape the whole thing and have it come out symmetrical. The logo's not a done deal yet, either... that's just something I whipped up. Not even sure I'm going to HAVE a logo, as I suck at designing such things. I was thinking of calling my imaginary company "Bearclaw Guitars", with a claw/paw print logo, but at the end of the day it seemed a bit 'typical'. Greg

Off Topic-- Glad I got to see it before the 'edit' if you're forced to do one... I hate clickity-clicking through links. Godin, Are you absolutely sure that PG bandwidth is affected? I'm 90% sure that the bbcode just instructs your browser to download the image from the site that's hosting the image. Therefore, PG never actually downloads and re-uploads the image... that's all handled independently..... The main reason for the rule was for clean organization of topics and out of consideration for low-bandwidth users (who, in this case, were warned by the thread's title). Ironically, since nobody ever labels their links properly anyhow, a low-bandwidth user will STILL click all those links to see the pictures anyhow, which will make the whole process take even LONGER than just letting the browser display them all at once. Back On Topic - that's some sweet work you've got going on there!!! Too bad about the swimming pool pickup cavity, but that issue aside, this refinish has all the makings of a kick-ass strat.

Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Might just be one of those threads that got lost along the way... I usually see'em all, but I missed it, that's for sure! Sorry, though-- no answers here. I don't know nussink about RR guitars. Greg

If you contact a smaller company like USACG, they'll probably be able to custom-make one for you. I'm confused about the fingerboard issue-- you say you want no fingerboard at all, but I suspect you just mean you don't want it inlayed? Greg

Those Wayne Guitar videos are cool. If you can set up a jig like his radial arm saw fretboard cutting jig, it should make fretting a snap. Heck, I'd imagine you can even canibalize the 'templates' for the StewMac mitre saw box and rig it up that way for maximum accuracy. Greg

Generally, you should feed the wood AGAINST the spin. This is the first time I've read that feeding it with the spin can be effective, but if a lot of woodworkers recommend it for when you're down to a wee bit left, then it's worth considering at least. Another thing is to not try to use the whole depth of your bit at once. Not sure if you tried this, but I found I had to make passes of about 3 different depths when I was doing my body. Haven't done my neck yet. Greg

My recommendation is to pick a guitar that has a very basic shape and no frills. Like a non-specialized telecaster. For my first project, I came up with something that will have binding, special wiring, headstock angle, neck angle (though I'm going to recess the bridge instead), inlay, carved top, the whole works. It's a real pain in the ass because you have to teach yourself EVERYTHING, and you can just get frustrated and quit for long periods of time (not everyone would, but I did. ). I'd rather have made a copy of my Godin LG to start with. Greg

I never thought back-routing would be very effective, but if it's a recommended technique, I should give it another go. I have to say, even though I have very little experience, it sounds an awful lot like either your router bit wasn't aligned in the collet properly, or the bit itself wasn't as sharp as it first appeared. Greg

I read about someone who used a glass slide, filled with lead shot. You could always fill a slide with something that has some weight to it... even sand would help a bit. The only problem was that theirs was custom-made if I remember right, by an actual glass-blower; so, they may have been able to shape a bullet-nose to it. A glass slide with sand that's stoppered on either end won't have a bullet nose, obviously. Greg

Wow, what a project! While everyone's out trying to make curvy guitars with sexy lines, you pull this one right out of left field! And I meant that in a good way... it takes a very particular kind of person to go ahead and do a copy of such a guitar-- the kind of person I have to admire! Glad to hear my trials and tribulations have been helpful to someone. Really, honesty is easier for me than trying to make it seem like I have a clue. I'd rather say, "whoops, screwed that one up" and be able to keep an accurate record of how it went. It'll mean more to me some day. I like the honesty in THIS thread! It made it read like an interesting story. It was funny how you went from Mistake #X to Mistake #Y. HOWEVER, judging by what I see here, you could have easily also narrated it by going from Success #X to Success #Y. Good work, and a hell of an interesting project so far. Greg

I can't remember, but I got a sheet that was about that size, and I remember thinking, "Jayzuz!" I believe it's 1/2", too. Something like $20 CDN if I'm remembering right. Greg

I don't know where you guys are getting your MDF. Yes, it makes awesome templates, but I wouldn't call it "cheap". Not so cheap that you can just waste a tonne of it. Greg

Good one! Since nut height is almost always a wee bit adjustable, even if your measurements are off by a millimetre or two, this'll get you right into the ballpark. Probably better to either measure certain things a bit off (ie. say that your bridge is a smidgen taller than it really is) or just add a fraction of a degree to the final calculation. If your angle ends up that you need to raise the bridge action a bit, that's usually possible whereas lowering it is not. Greg

I wasn't sure about the spinsaw before I got it-- I figured, for $99 CDN (it was on sale), worst case scenario I can use it for more mundane tasks as well as using its grinder attachment. Boy was I wrong-- my 'shop' only has amateur-level tools in it anyhow, so I have nothing to compare it to, but: 1. The flex-shaft attachment turns it into a better rotary tool than my branded (ie. not just a generic) Dremel 2. It's a better router than the full-sized router I was using near the beginning of this thread 3. It comes with circle-cutting attachments which will be handy for something some day. 4. It comes with an angle grinder attachment, which I'm not sure yet if I'll ever use it for carving, but as mentioned in a different thread, the right disc can turn it into a beauty carving tool. So, $99 turned out to be the bargain of the century. I haven't used it for ages yet, so I can't attest to the durability or life expectancy, but I'll keep you posted. Greg

I'm sure there's more than one/ But the one I'm thinking of is one of the very common ones... basswood, ash, alder, or poplar. Greg

Isn't alder the one that gets 'fuzzy' when sanding? Or was that poplar... I haven't used either. Greg