GregP

If you increase the height of the strings you in effect change the lenght of the string from point a to point b thats a fact, it's basic geometry, and therefore there is change in tension on the neck. So use the kit, frankly it's your guitar and not mine. But if you screw up your frets dont blame me. Good Luck woodenspoke Well, as I already said-- the kit itself doesn't seem so great, so I won't be using it. But you already admitted that you don't have a degree in physics, so you are missing some very fundamental points here. Tension is not dependent on length, which is why this is a matter of physics and not of geometry. You can have a distance from point a to point b of 20, and on another object a distance from point x to point y of 40, twice as long. But you can still have a tensionable object (in this case, a guitar string) set to the same tension no matter what the distance is. Furthermore, in this specific case, you can prove that the tension hasn't changed by the very thing you're asked to do-- tune the string. The string MUST be a specific tension across a specific distance in order to ring the right note. The specific distance (from nut to bridge) hasn't really changed. In order for the strings to produce the same note (tuning to pitch), they MUST by the laws of physics, be under the EXACT SAME amount of tension. ;-) Not only that, but the part whose distance has changed (from nut to tuning post) has the same tension, too, because tension gets distributed equally across the string. What DOES change is the amount of 'material' (eg. the physical string itself) across which tension gets distributed. This becomes a factor in string-bending techniques, etc... but in a static model like this one, that's a moot point. Now, the tension MUST get distributed in a slightly different way as the "jack" gets taller because it's load-bearing. Imagine that jack being 2 feet tall... it's not likely going to even stand properly, nevermind cause a neck to have the same amount of bend; however, in the case of this kit, it wouldn't be a factor because it's only what... a centimetre tall? It's not an influence at all. No need to get upset. You had a valid theory. It seems intuitive to many people that things like headstock angle or in this case nut height, are things that affect tension. But they are not. There's nothing wrong with your perfectly reasonable conclusion, but it's the wrong one. I just happen to be the person telling you that it's not the "lifting the strings" idea that makes this kit less than perfect. To me, it's the other things mentioned already-- particularly the way the frets are "crowned" by the little device. It actually seems to just round off the frets and not truly crown them at all. Greg

There's no experiment needed. With the strings at the same pitch, across the same scale length, the tension will be almost identical. It might be "intuitive" to think that this isn't the case, but I assure you that it is. The kinds of changes you're intuiting would take changes in height to an absurd level, one that might not even be possible with the length of commercially-available strings.

+1 I decided to "bite", but even as I was responding, I had this thought.

I agree that it's seemingly a waste. But I thought it only fair to point out that their instructions seem to expect you to tune your strings to pitch after they're jacked up. I've never read the actual leaflet, but one reviewer indicated doing this, and even if it wasn't written on the instructions, I would do it for the very reason you mention.

I can't visualize what you mean-- got any photos? Pots are always on the inside, so I'm a bit confused about why that part's an issue.

2-piece bodies can often look better anyhow. Plus, natural and accurate centre-line for you to use for your measurements.

Dunno, mang. Everything depends on budget. It doesn't seem like you had an infinite budget, but I think it does what it needed to do. Perhaps a bit more of the 'performance' would've been good. The music is great, if a little bit "A New Found Glory".

My on-hold project is a sized-down 335. If I become unemployed, I should finish it before getting a new job.

Very nice! I can see the goat no problem. What's your opinion on the Mighty Mite neck in general, in terms of fretwork, etc.? Also, once it's all assembled and strung up, I'd be curious to see how it holds up with the action all adjusted, etc. Greg

Gotcha! Since it's not for resale and you're willing to settle for a newer (non-'65) body, and it sounds like you're on a budget, you can probably just trust your instinct. If it looks like the real thing, the seller seems legit, and the price seems right, then you're not really losing out. I'm sure you'll spot the truly "different" bodies, and anything else will pass muster... leaving you blissfully ignorant if it's not actually made in the Fender factory. If it's pricey and is being marketed as vintage, I'd find it hard to trust anything but an unbiased third party appraisal. Too easy for knowledgable people to spoof legitimacy, especially when the buyer already knows less. I found a few sites on Google that seemed to have information, but it wasn't itemized as "identifying a Fender Tele body" and so I didn't sort through it. If nobody here turns out to be a Fender expert with a quick tip or two, it might require more research than is warranted under the "trust your gut" policy.

I don't understand why if you can't tell the difference with the naked eye, you truly need it to be an original Fender? After all, the guitar itself isn't going to have any collectible value if it's put together from parts. Myself, I've been curious about the Eden bodies and necks. They seem too inexpensive to be real.

A kill-switch and cocentric pots... one for volume and one for tone. Sure, you still technically have 2 pots, but they only take up the space of one. To me that's a much better system. For what you're describing to work, the potentiometers would have to be hooked up to a digital system (eg. a computer chip!) and be continuous encoders (no start and end points). We might get there someday (the technology itself exists... Behringer uses continuous encoders in their MIDI control surfaces) but we're not there yet. And I'm not sure that I'd really want to bother, when good ol' potentiometers work fine without finicky high-tech circuitry. Greg

Only works if people actually read the rules.

I was definitely thinking of compound radius, but I didn't know that some models have one string even more offset than the others. I just meant that in my own head when picturing any sort of upright (even an electric), I always visualize that really noticable tight compound radius-- almost like playing on a cross-section of a cone.

I can't help but like the -concept- of a more traditional tight-radius fingerboard rather than a flat one. Seems somehow more "upright-bass-ish". But there's no actual reason to prefer the tight radius, and if your hands are already used to an electric bass then the flatter radius might actually be better for ya. Greg

Sure, I understand what you're saying, but I'll have to just as nicely as possible, ask you to read what's being said before passing judgement. There's no need to be elitist... I'm intelligent enough to always point out when I'm "chiming in" on areas that are not my expertise and always take pains to make it abundantly clear that I'm not passing along expert advice in those situations. What it SOUNDED like the poster was originally saying was, "wow, when he put the mixture on, the grain popped." Which is what other people read it as, too... and in that context, my response makes perfect sense. The OP provided no background whatsoever about his experience level, so it is a sensible assumption that maybe he didn't realize that wet figured wood shows its figure much better than a dried piece. Make sense? Right, made sense to me, too. That's why people when taking photos for display purposes wet their wood. Making sense again? Thought so. I think the only thing that happened here is that you didn't read properly. I obviously wasn't giving him advice on the technique as a whole (au contraire, I said "I dunno"), nor suggesting that "if you want to have a 3d look, just get your wood wet! Hyuk!" I thought it was fairly obvious that I was just zeroing in on the "when he put the stuff on..." comment and letting more qualified people talk about the actual solution if/when they came to the thread. Makes a convenient excuse to bump the thread and to let the guy know that someone out there is reading it at least. So, my response was, *exactly* this: "I don't know about the soda or what it'll do in the long term. But for the initial "popping", are you sure you weren't just surprised by being able to see the figure better due to virtue of it being wet?" The fact that the poster ultimately turned out to have more experience than was first indicated, or that he said, "nah, that's not it... it's an effect of the soda, not the wetness" does NOT imply that my original response was off-base. Not only did I immediately disclose my level of knowledge, but suggested a possible reason for what he witnessed. And when it was clear that he was talking about something beyond just wetness, I stepped out, did I not? Was I supposed to write a follow up saying, "Whoops, I'll just step out now, carry on!" Not really any need to actually WRITE that, is there? Saying it might as well have been deleted, or made no sense "-whatsoever-" is just completely wrong and disingenuous. As for the rest of your message, it's off-base. You have no idea the amount of work I've done, the amount of work I WISH I could do, and the amount that I've learned not only from being surrounded by such talented people here, and from reading posts, but from getting my hands dirty whenever possible, too. I am painfully aware that it bugs guys like you and sometimes Wes that I don't build more and yet I'm on here daily and sometimes post advice, but honestly, you'll just have to trust me that I don't have the situation to be able to build more ("more" because I HAVE built... and I'm certainly not slow "as a rule" but as a matter of circumstance). I've NEVER EVER misrepresented myself. Find me a post in which I've claimed to be more of an expert than I am, and I'll PayPal you the money for a case of beer. I suggest instead of getting cranky that sometimes I have enough brains to disagree with you on points (eg. my recent post referring to something you said as "flaky") you give a guy some freakin' credit. And jeeziz... you were so worried about antagonizing me and making your point "against" me that you didn't even respond to the OP. Your post was really ONLY to call me out? Check your head. I mean, I forgive you and all that, and man... it's only a forum. Despite the fact that I have verbal diarhea I'm not really all that upset... but I DO hope you'll some day give me a little credit for NOT being the kind of person you seem to think I am... at least my initial post was MEANT to address the OP. What on earth purpose was YOURS meant to serve? Greg

Yeah, if you want to do some series/parallel trickery AND a split, you'll either need to make some sacrifices (and get a custom wiring scheme put together by someone more knowledgable than I) or add a SECOND push/pull (or mini-switch) for the series/parallel stuff. Sorry I can't be much more help now that I know all your criteria. ;-) That level of switching trickery has always ended up coming down to hoping that someone would have pity on me and come up with a diagram.

Love it, Quarter! That's the kind of MM hardtail bridge I first had in mind as a recommendation-- they're for string-through ONLY, rather than top mount, I believe, but the extra work isn't a dealbreaker. You can see in the photo that it's just 6 holes drilled through, with recessed... er... the word is escaping me... anchors...? Quarter, how is the chambering done? Is each individual "strip" hollow?

huh? "they're the same" usually means you CAN swap them! One of my guitars was wired up with a push-pull tone knob and a regular volume knob. I switched them around so that the volume is the push-pull. (not because I wanted the vol to be push/pull per se, but because I wanted the push/pull and the vol knob both to be within easy reach. ) I suppose in some cases one might use log and one might use audio taper, but it'd be rare. Most manufactured guitars use audio taper for both.

Well, if you build pointy-butt, it'll have less in common with it. Re: vector vs. raster--> I don't know the Adobe products. I only know Paint Shop Pro (for bitmap) and Real-Draw Pro (for vector). Realdraw lets you seamlessly utilize bitmaps as layers or for things like textures, without losing any more detail than you would by resizing in a bitmap editing program. PSP has a few nice tools for me to isolate the parts of the bitmap I need, but then everything else is done in Real-Draw. I've had people say my mockup looks extra-realistic. This is due to the accuracy and features of the vector-based approach, combined with the textures of the bitmap. And all done in Real-Draw Pro, a $30 shareware program. Greg

Nah. I'm pretty sure when you touch the strings, you become part of the shield, not the ground. Guitars that are REALLY well-shielded will present very little difference in hum between when you're touching the strings and not. That's because your body's not really adding much to the equation when the shielding's already kick-butt. As for your bass, dunno. Guitars with active electronics don't have the strings grounded. EMG says not only that it doesn't help, but that it's incorrect to ground the bridge/strings when using their pickups. Dunno exactly why, but I believe them. It's also possible that your bass's pickups are bucking the hum really effectively, so that you're not noticing a difference between when you're touching and not...? But in any event, yes it's considered common practice to always ground the bridge of guitars/basses that feature passive pickups. Greg

Leafs suck. JK! Thanks for the generous posting of this batch of lessons! I'm gonna have a peek tomorrow during my downtime.

Seymour Duncan, Dimarzio, and Guitarelectronics.com (find their Universal diagrams) have several diagrams with Push-Pulls. Or, if you see one with a mini DPDT switch, it's the same thing. The P/p knob is literally just a switch and a pot discretely separate from one another as if they're two totally different things... but smooshed together into one unit. To really find the right diagram or make a recommendation, it'd be handy to confirm the whole set of electronics. You mention a HB, a 5-way, and a P/p. Surely with a 5-way, you have other pickups you haven't mentioned. Is there also a tone knob you haven't mentioned? Not asking to be snotty, just to get a picture of what we're dealing with here. Greg

For maximum hum elimination, you have to ground somewhere continuous with the strings. The bridge is the most convenient, but on strats they often use the trem claw... much easier... the strings touch the saddles, which touch the base, which is connected to the block, which has metal springs running to the trem claw... all metal, all continuous. The "safety" issue is that if you plug into an incorrectly-wired outlet, or your amp has its "reverse" switch flipped the wrong way, you can be on the receiving end of a shock. The solution isn't really to accident-proof your guitar, it's to always carry an outlet-checker in your gig bag, and check outlets before you plug in. Do it in advance so that if it's just one fluke outlet, you can find a way to run your power cord to one that's wired up correctly. If they're ALL screwed up, have a word with the manager to let him know... you might save someone's life. Greg

Hey John! Glad to see you've made it over here. You can use just about anything for a bridge. Someone made a wooden bridge with a metal spike across the top. A wraparound Tune-O-Matic with height-adjustable saddles would work. Even a standard Tune-O-Matic with the saddles notched deeper than standard to eliminate the radius. ...A simple string-through design with a piece of aluminum angle would work, too. You're only limited by resourcefulness. If you REALLY just want the most painless way to do it, you can get a top-loading hardtail strat or non-vintage (6-saddle) tele bridge. You can even "raise" it on some sort of wood platform (just an extra piece of thick wood veneer or something) if you're not getting enough height right away. On my lap steel, since I felt I needed a roller bridge (to go with the EZ-Bender), I was lucky enough to have a generous PG member who found just the saddles from a roller TOM, which I then screwed into a piece of aluminum angle. When I find the time, it will be replaced with one of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/Chrome-TUN-O-MATIC-Sty...1QQcmdZViewItem It's not ready "out of the box" to be a lap steel bridge. You need NO string radius. But, you can see in the picture that the radius is formed by the saddles being screwed DOWN onto some "steps". I had an acquantance mill the steps down so that they're all screwed down onto a flat surface. The rollers themselves are different depths for the different guages of string, so the "flatness" across the top ends up being good enough for rock'n'roll. You could also source the bone part of a single-piece acoustic guitar bridge, and file it down if it's already pre-radiused. The right size of slot cut into a piece of wood (which you could also craft to look schwanky) and then even crazy-glued if you're not happy with the snugness of the fit... there's another option for you! An extra-wide Graphtec nut of some sort, with the grooves filed down so that you have no radius... one of those on either end (one as a "bridge" and one as a "nut")... the possibilities are limitless! Greg