MIMF

Nice work. Beautiful guitar.

I don't know how much of PRS' claims are true or not. I have seen a lot of his videos, and some make sense (gluing on the nut, making sure the neck joint is nice ant tight) but other things make me wonder. When people claim to have secrets that they don't reveal, I get suspicious. For example, the m...

Paul Reed Smith thinks the tuning machines do have an affect on the tone. He thinks that a lot of the new tuning machines have a lot of plastic in them, which sucks tone. The PRS tuning machines supposedly don't have that much plastic in them, and he thinks that improves tone.

I have sprayed with a HVLP turbine gun and gotten a decent finish. My problem is that I just don't have room for a dedicated spray booth, and it takes a lot of time to tarp off an area in my garage, and then it is not heated or cooled or protected from dust. I sort of have decided to switch to Frenc...

Always use a sanding block. This alone will eliminate most high and low spots. After that, use a raking light to check and double check. Sometimes a bit of mineral spirits or a sealer coat will bring out some imperfections and then you can try to finesse the leveling by taking down the area around t...

Well now I feel a lot better. I was kicking myself for not drilling that output jack hole before I routed the pickup cavities, but I forgot all about the binding router bit. Now I am glad I forgot.

I think using fish glue would be similar to using HHG. Some builders prefer to use epoxy to glue on the fretboard, to avoid introducing water (which is in both fish glue and HHG) onto the fretboard and neck. Now, as far as the fret ends, my feeling (and this is only my opinion) is that Gibson's meth...

When I bought my mahogany body blanks, I asked the seller to sell me slightly thicker blanks, and then he cut a slice off the back. Since this is pretty straight grained mahogany, the grain on the thin slice should match pretty well. I think you technique should work well too. By the time you put fi...

Thanks for that information. My question really was two questions. 1. Could you use a drop top on an already carved body (so you would get an extra thick body, carve the appropriate shape into the body and then laminate it with a drop top)? 2. If one would not work, because the drop top was too thic...

Thanks, Eric. I also found some other videos on YouTube, where they show the process. I now see what you mean about the center seam.

Beautiful work! Lots of nice details. About your tailpiece, do you find that providing more afterlength for the high strings makes them feel looser? Normally the low side of the tailpiece is shorter, to give more afterlength to those strings. In my mind, if the whole afterlength principal works, you...

Eric, I took a look at that video. Very cool. Can you please give me some more detailed information. How thick was the piece you glued on? Was it an actual veneer or something thicker? How thick? Also you mentioned a frame around the body. Was that just so that the top would not get bent over the bo...

I have noticed that the availability of wood for drop tops is much greater (and a lot less expensive) than wood for carve top electric guitars. I am wondering if it would be possible to carve the top of a body blank like a regular carve top (Les Paul type, for example) and then use a drop top cap or...

I recently purchased a vacuum press setup to glue the top caps on carved top solid body electrics. I have not used it yet, but will in the next week or two. I did a bunch of research and talked to several vendors, and luthiers who use vacuum setups. My take on it was that the vacuum pressure will be...

Greek bouzoukis have the dot on the 10th fret. The Greek bouzouki is tuned CFAD (low - high) so the 10th fret is C.

Thanks!

I decided to go with the Lace Hemi pickups rather than the Darkmoon Overkills. Lace has a lot of great reviews and from what I heard and read, I liked the sound.

I have built several Greek bouzoukis, which are basically a bowl back mandolin with a longer neck. I built my first one in 1980, with the help of a local lute maker. There are a few things you need to adjust. On a lute, the bowl is basically a semicircle in cross section. On a mandolin, the bowl is ...

Anybody ever use Darkmoon pickups. They make several humbucker versions which I am considering for a set neck electric guitar build. I am looking at the Aurora from their Vintage series and the Overkill from their Dark Arts series.

I am working on two set neck electrics right now. They are not chambered, but they are weight relieved. I came up with my own weight relief routing pattern, cut it out of 1/2 inch MDF, and used it to route cavities in the body.