curtisa

Then I hereby request that you send it back across the ditch, please I think @Bizman62 has largely nailed it. IME you're better off prioritising structural integrity and appearance over any supposed tonal properties when chosing timbers for an electric guitar build, and enjoy the process of building a guitar for what it is - an exploration into what makes a guitar tick, the challenge of pulling together all the components and skills to make one, and the satisfaction of playing the finished instrument and being able to say, 'I made that'.

Been a while since I installed Blackouts, but I think they do. From the Seymour Duncan website: ...which I take to mean 'if you already have EMGs installed you should be good to go'. The only foible I recall is that the EMG soapbar pickup shape is slightly different to the SD soapbar. From memory the SD is slightly larger than the EMG. If you have particularly tight pickup cavities you might find that installing a Blackout into an EMG hole might not fit. Check the dimension drawings for each pickup first, which should be available on each manufacturer's website.

Like I said - backwards compatibility. EMG omit it because their technology can do without it. Doesn't mean you shouldn't plan to install one extra wire in case you need it in the future though. FWIW, Seymour Duncan's Blackout active pickups are shown in the installation literature as requiring the ground wire, but will still be hum-free if you leave it out.

It's likely that the decision for some manufacturers to ground the bridge with their own brand of active pickups is more to do with backwards compatibility with other pickups. Imagine you built a guitar and installed a fresh set of EMGs in it and omitted the bridge ground. If you then decided to replace the EMGs with regular passive pickups you'd also then need to install an extra ground wire to maintain quiet operation. That could be relatively trivial if you had built a Strat with a trem (just solder a wire to the spring claw), but if you built something with a Tune-o-matic tailpiece it's more involved to get the ground wire installed (one of the bushings has to be removed, a small hole drilled from the control cavity such that it penetrates the wall of the bushing hole, the grounding wire stripped and fed into the hole, and the bushing re-installed to create a press-fit connection with the grounding wire). There are also other active pickup technologies out there that don't operate under the same balanced/virtual earth principle that EMGs do, and need the ground wire in order to be hum-free. Fishman's Fluence system is one.

Looks pretty tidy Once you get a scratchplate on it it will disappear even further.

Yep. Totally sounds like a guizouki should, as your prior experience building so many of them should tell you, I'm sure It's certainly a full-sounding instrument, almost like some kind of alto-12 string acoustic (with a 33% VAT on the number of strings, of course). I feel like your next musical calling in life is going to be fronting a reformed 70s folk-rock group with that thing, Andy? Fairport Convention eat your heart out...

It should be possible to ask a reputable auto paint supplier to mix a spraycan for you based on a car manufacturer's paint code, so if you have a particular colour in mind that can be an easy way into the spraying process. Although IME the cans they provide are usually only good for about half the contents of the can due to the mixing/pressurising process they employ, so factor in a couple of spray cans into the budget. A clearcoat is also recommended for added durability and to provide the ability to do a full polish if that look is important to you. Again, the autobody outlet should be able to provide some guidance on what clears are compatible with the coloured paint they offer.

Ummm...I hadn't actually moved it until just now, soooooo the future me says, 'you're welcome' to the past you...? And I think @ScottR missed a trick there - a perfect opportunity to steal my thunder and take the brownie points

No problem Just throwing out another option that keeps things in the 'low cost' bracket. Don't get me wrong through - My main machine is running LinuxCNC (originally via parallel port, but now through ethernet), but I do have a laser engraver here running GRBL too. While I wouldn't waste time downgrading the bigrig to run on GRBL, there's no doubt that the laser engraver was sooooo much easier to get running from scratch. Carry on

You wouldn't consider a more basic electronic backbone such as GRBL? Parallel port control from the PC opens up a lot of flexibiity, but there are good reasons to steer clear of it for an entry-level CNC. It's an antiquated connection that is getting more difficult to find on a new PC let alone a laptop. I'm not familiar with Mach 3 but LinuxCNC is notoriously picky with regards to PCs and parallel ports - just because the PC has one fitted still doesn't mean it will be suitable for motion control, and is the sort of thing you only find out about if you try running the software and/or are willing to spend a lot of time making OS and BIOS tweaks. USB-parallel adaptors won't work with LinuxCNC either, so you're really limited to researching for an exact PC hardware setup that is known to work, or crossing your fingers and hoping that whatever box you have on hand is up to the task. GRBL is platform-independent and runs on an Arduino which can be had for a few bucks each. The GRBL firmware itself is free, as is the development environment that is used to configure it and upload it to the Arduino. The motion software on the host computer (again, there are decent free options) just connects through any USB port and streams the G-code to the Arduino, letting it parse each line by itself. The IO on the Arduino is 5V tolerant, so it's still compatible with just about any step/direction drive out there. Spindle control is available as a PWM output, plus there are inputs for home/limit switches, e-stop and a probe without requiring a breakout board. For a basic system it's actually got a lot of pluses going for it, particularly if the goal is to make something that is more or less plug-and-play with minimal futzing around.

Clearcoat = varnish, lacquer etc. Although if you've just rubbed mineral oil into it you may have just precluded doing so. It's possible that adding mineral oil to exposed timber will create adhesion issues for any subsequent layers of clear.

Sounds like the name of a country band...

I wonder if the pale area of the repaired crack is where the original wood fibres weren't quite flush before you sanded them, and you've just taken off the high areas down to the bare wood. You may find that a little bit of clearcoat is all that it takes to restore the original colour.

What are your plans for the electronics?

Can you back the polepieces all the way out and swap the high-E pole with a different one? Maybe the magnetic strength of the polepiece under the high-E is particularly weak? I note that FeCrCo is mentioned as having similar magnetic properties to AlNiCo5, but there are a number of disadvantages that may reduce magnetic performance including: Source: https://www.eclipsemagnetics.com/na/magnetic-materials-iron-chrome-cobalt-fecrco/

I was going to suggest the colours and demarcation in the red gum walnut looked a bit like the red heart leatherwood (another Tasmanian native) I used on my last build. Crap lighting, but you get the idea: Funny you should mention about the timber samples I brought over - I was just trying to think the other day which ones I gave you. I remember there was the eucalyptus burl that ended up on Matt's Dreadnought, but I had a vague recollection there were one or two others.

For a Gibson style nut, no; it's not necessary to have the nut captured in a channel. A dab of PVA is usually all that is required to get it to stay put, Combined with the wide base of the nut and the permanent downwards pressure of the strings it should be sufficient to keep it in place.

Sounds like an interesting project, Mike. I take it this will be MDF construction (or similar) rather than aluminium/steel? 0.005" is a little over a tenth of a mm. I would think that'd be better accuracy than you could achieve with a hand slotting mitre box and template. Once you factor in dressing/re-crowning the frets, playing style, seasonal movement of the materials etc, it's unlikely that even a base accuracy tolerance of twice that value would cause much concern in practice.

Correct. How much further back from the 25.5" line depends on the string - its gauge, tension/pitch, construction and to a lesser extent the action of that string. There's no guarantee the bridge can be positioned appropriately if you line it up based on the pre-drilled string-thru holes, so be prepared to redrill them or at least 'massage' the alignment between the holes in the bridge plate and the holes in the body.

The OP has mentioned the bridge as being a Hipshot hardtail type with string-thru body. That would indicate that the string-thru drill holes are dictated by whatever holes are cast into the bridge baseplate, which means that the string-thru holes must be drilled after the bridge location is known with regards to nominal scale length.

Not as such, but you're welcome to make a video and send us a link. We can then insert it into an article page that contains the video link. It would then just appear as an embedded Youtube clip.

If there's any possibility you're going to be playing with drop tunings or large string gauges it's better to position the bridge with the saddles nearly as far forward as they will go rather than in the middle. Intonation compensation, if the saddle is placed on the scale length line, will always result in the saddle being moved back away from the nut, even on the high E string which typically doesn't require much extra length to intonate. The wound strings need the most intonation compensation, and if you're going to be stringing up with large strings tuned low you're going to need as much of that 6-7mm of adjustment range as you can get away with. Even if you start with the saddles in the middle of their range, it's possible to run out of adjustment movement on the low-E string, as the spring behind the saddle will compress to its limit and not allow any further movement without having to be removed.

But what are you comparing that doesn't match? The scale length? The fret spacing? The taper/shape? If you've bought a template that is advertised as a 25.5" fret cutting template and it doesn't conform to the mathematically correct fret spacing required for 25.5" scale length that could indicate a fault with the way the template has been constructed. If the template also includes the nominal taper of the whole fretboard and you're comparing that against other finished necks, it's not a valid comparison as there is no specific standard to follow in determining a fretboard's taper. It'd be a bit like comparing the plastic frame surrounding your computer monitor to another monitor from a different manufacturer and using the thickness of that frame to determine whether the picture quality was better or worse.

What specifically are you trying to match? Isn't a fret cutting template only for providing a guide for the positions of the frets themselves? There should be no difference between a 24 fret neck and a 22 fret neck, other than the last two frets being cut off.

Easy fix - Send it to me I'm sure there's an opening somewhere for an ultra-drop tuned re-imagining of Sunn O)))