MIMF

I've made top-mounted floating tailpieces, for various reasons abandoned and replaced with traditional. Most down to poor planning and execution on my part. What I found was that I couldn't get the axis of the tail piece (the point the string load goes directly through, and that determines the break...

I've only ever used titebond, based on the Benedetto book advice. Never had the first issue.

With respect to the oft-quoted "rules" that downward pressure and large surface areas in a bridge footprint are required to "drive the top" and "transfer all the string energy", I say bunk. Physics does not agree. Simply take the example of a tuning fork. A tuning fork terminates with a round sphere...

I did the experiment that Allan alludes to, varying the break angle over an archtop bridge. I went from around 22 degrees, which developed between 50 and 60 lbs of pressure on the top and really killed the sound, down to 12 degrees, which develops around 30 - 35 lbs of down pressure, and freed up th...

You might need to dewax the fresh shellac as you prepare it. Personally I'd use the Zinsser spray shellac, it's dewaxed quite well. In any case, dewaxed shellac is great as a seal coat.

My necks are designed such that I can cut the channel on my table saw. That is a nice jig.

I use a scale length calculator (this one: https://www.liutaiomottola.com/formulae/compensation.htm ) to determine exactly where I want each saddle for the scale length and string gauges I plan to use (unless I already know because I've done it before and wrote it down). I set the saddles in the bri...

I desperately hate using routers, to me they are a tool of the devil. I calm them down by using jigs or a router table wherever possible. I use them to cut neck joint mortices, to shape headstocks, to cut binding channels, to trim top and back to fit sides after glue up, to round over sides of elect...

Nice discussion. My adds will be kind of simplistic, because I use plastic binding and do relatively simple takes on archtops. The tailpiece of an archtop kind of negates a need to do a superb job of matching at the tail, because the tailpiece mount covers that area. I use the Stewmac binding gluer ...

Thanks guys. You'll note that in my original post I stated the tension from the strings I selected, so I really wasn't asking a tension question. I was more asking a bending stress question from the effect of the tension acting on the neck - the farther away from the center of the neck the strings a...

I have recently decided to play my round neck Gold Tone PBR-CA - quite a modern resonator designed by Paul Beard and made by Gold Tone - as a lap style instrument. I know that the tension of a typical resonator string set tuned to high G tuning (GBDGBD) is fully not recommended for a round neck inst...

Use the tin top of the box, just put some posts or a cross brace under the bridge. I've seen them at flea markets, sound fine. People use one or three strings and play them bottleneck style. Very fun

Michael, I always assumed it was nitro-cellulose, but I don't actually know. I'll ask on the pre-NY epiphone facebook page. The colour is in the finish, not a stain, fwiw.

Is the inside/outside mold in the fifth picture a drying/cooling press? All of the forms need to be exact versions of each other, I imagine.

Nice to have you back, Gordon, and my sympathies for your loss.

Brian from Tatamagouche.

It's European market only, and you need to document the testing, and you may need to engage a lab to do the testing. I did find this; https://f2labs.com/technotes/2019/01/11/rohs-2011-65-eu-and-a-tale-of-three-guitars/ which I believe is by a firm that consults in eu CE testing. It said that electri...

I don't mind if you don't use the neck I made. After this time, I might not be satisfied with it either, I kind of screwed up the binding on the headstock. It was an approach I experimented with, maple and walnut I think, jatoba fretboard, to make a grid pattern on the heel. The joint is 100% Benede...

That part of the tailpiece is not reproduced (not to that pattern, anyway), and can be easily repaired by a jeweler - mine was decades ago. The two bails that hold the strings are quite available.

7 courses, 13 strings. Which string is not doubled, and why? You have me very curious!

My 1946 Epi's frequensator cracked there and was brazed/soldered, and has stood the test of time since. It's a sunburst, they did sunbursts on most guitars up to the advent of TV and the desire to be a bit more stand-out, I think. Sunbursts sometimes get accused of covering up less desirable wood ch...