Can't decide if I should leave these lines. Or blend it in for a bit more of a round look? Kinda dig the lines. Hand plane for the win. But it's also a Strat, so maybe the straight lines will look a bit off.

Shipped today.

Walnut box, hvac motor, and random gears and parts from a children’s robotics website 😂

Title says it all. Is this fixable and what might it run me? TIA!

Just getting started on my first Les Paul build. It is, for me, a really complex build. Today I'm just gluing together two halves of a maple top. The person I bought the wood from had previously drawn a Stratocaster shape on there with a sharpie.

Is this salvageable? First time building a guitar and it's been a rough start to say the least. My first mistake was buying one of the cheapest templates I could find on Etsy and only after building my blank and cutting it to the shape of that template did I discover the centerline markings on it were way off. I was too sketched out to continue using it not knowing what else was wrong with it, so I forked over some real cash and picked up a set of the Maximum Guitar Works templates. Thankfully the bad template was like 1/32 of an inch oversized compared to the MGW one, so I managed to salvage the existing body and got to work on the pockets for the pickups. Got through 2/3 of them just fine taking shallow passes with a pattern bit. Unfortunately on the 3rd pickup I fucked up real bad. I was going slow and feeling confident, but the base plate of the router snagged on that little flap of the paper cover you can see around that screw hole. I felt the tiniest bit of resistance and thought it was just working through a knot in the wood or something, but unfortunately disaster struck and the friction on one side caused the router to tip slightly which of course led to chaos.

Sob story - I have a 2.5 year old toddler and a 2 month old infant at home and have been lucky to get maybe an hour or two in the garage per week to work on this. I started a couple of months ago and have only gotten to this point so far, so this kind of hiccup is particularly discouraging. This isn't my first mistake of course, there are some rough spots here and there, but I was particularly proud of having put this thing together from scratch using rough cut lumber. I even re-sawed a walnut panel by hand to get a nice book-matched top.

Anyway, I digress... Is there anything I can do to fix the template and fill in the damage done to the wood? So bummed about this.

I bought a Schecter Omen Elite-6 recently, and I'm struggling with what seems to be extremely poor sustain. Notes fade away after around 3-4 seconds, sometimes less, and I have to pick much harder than on my other guitars to get the response and sound I want. This also makes playing more tiring, and my fingers start hurting relatively quickly.

For comparison, my much cheaper Cort CR-100 and Ibanez AZES31 have noticeably better sustain, with notes lasting around 8–9 seconds under similar conditions. Even increasing the gain on the Schecter doesn't seem to make up for the difference.

I've tried troubleshooting the setup. I added considerably more neck relief than I'm comfortable with and raised the saddles to an excessively high, practically unplayable position to rule out fret contact. Neither made a noticeable difference. I've also removed and inspected the saddles, which look fine, and I don't think the nut is the culprit either.

The guitar has Schecter Heretic pickups, which I've seen praised in reviews, but I'm starting to wonder whether the pickups could be contributing to the problem, or whether something else is going on.

What could cause such a significant difference in sustain and response between guitars? Could this be an electronics or pickup issue, a bridge or string-contact problem, or something else entirely? What tests would you recommend to narrow it down?

I'm open to suggestions and happy to try further tests. I'd really appreciate some help figuring this out.

Hi all, I’m currently prepping some spalted tamarind for use as an electric bass body.

I’ve practiced other forms of fine carpentry (furniture, hand tools, etc) but this’ll be my first time diving into instruments. On top of that, I’ve never worked with spalted tamarind before, and sort of bought it on a whim. Wood moisture is pretty good, around 6-5% on average, but I’m a bit nervous.

Looking for tips on feeds and speeds for the overall roughing of the body.

2nd photo is a design mockup, I’m a bit concerned the upper left horns will be too thin given that they’re right on the spalted area. Just break my heart now so it doesnt break later 😭

Hi, ive wanted to make an 11 string guitar going from F#0 to A4, and I thought thought the multi scale taper might be much too large, would using a rounded fanned fret allow me to comfortably have say a 24”-31” fanned fret length? Worries are more about intonation, potentially staggered frets are a better idea

1991 MIJ Burny Les Paul - Honeyburst. Looks like it’s polyurethane. Has a small chip on the body.

How can I go about touching it up?

Rare Cuban mahogany find in old wood workers shop
Cut 1940s South American stamped
Board weight and end grain checked out.
Thanks everyone
This piece is going to Nashville to a very reputable luthier from Gibson after chatting with him today.
Thanks everyone ! He’s very excited and when he decides to do a project will put it on here for all you guys to pick apart .

Hey everyone!

I’ve always used copper or aluminum foil for shielding guitar cavities. However, applying foil can be pretty time-consuming, especially in tight spaces and complicated cavities.

I’ve been considering switching to conductive shielding paint, and I’d love to hear your opinions and experiences.

How does conductive paint compare to copper or aluminum foil in terms of conductivity and shielding effectiveness? Are there any significant advantages or disadvantages?

Is it just more convenient to apply, or does it perform just as well as foil when properly applied and grounded?

I’d really appreciate hearing from those who have worked with both methods.

I have a DC carvin of unknown year maybe 2000. It’s silver it’s a wonderful guitar. I also always wanted a
Silver burst. I feel it would be possible to sand the poly finish, airbrush a burst with the appropriate paint and then re clear the guitar and buff it into perfection. I have some of the tools at my disposal others I would have to acquire. I have finished base wood guitars in nitro before.

Am I thinking about this correctly?

I just bought this guitar from marketplace for a low price but noticed the nut on the guitar. Is this really what this should look like? Should I bring it to a luthier to fix?

I'm not handy, so I take my stuff to a guy who is. I'm trying not to heap too much on him with this next project because he's always swamped and I always bring him weird requests.

I'm a guitarist who wants to keep a bass around, so I dreamed up a 24 fret PJ Jazz bass (Warmoth neck), ordered the parts, and he assembled one hell of a nice bass for me. But, as a guitarist, I kept reaching for two high strings that weren't there.

So I got a Squier Bass Vi and instantly felt more at home with the layout of the instrument, but it needs a lot of work. The neck is warped, the pickups sound thin, and because I tune down a step, the short scale makes the strings pretty floppy. It straddles the guitar/bass line a little TOO well.

I want a 6 string bass (D to d tuning) that knows it's a bass. Preferably 34" scale with pickups that were designed for a bass, not leftover Jaguar bits. I think modifying my Jazz bass is going to be significantly cheaper and closer to the result I want than modifying the Squier Bass VI or building a custom Warmoth Bass VI.

What approach would you recommend with respect to the headstock and tuning machines? I have the 4 in-line large footprint bass tuners on there now, but I don't think the new strings could be safely redirected to the headstock "wing" without some kind of vertical roller like the String Butler. But, if I can find a way to do this, then I could use guitar strings & locking guitar tuners for the 2 highest strings - guitar strings will juuuust reach that spot.

Even with mini bass tuners, I don't know that I could get 6 in line on a Jazz headstock, but 6-in-line means I'll have to use bass strings, and a matched set of Daddario Chromes doesn't go smaller than 32g. That's a pretty heavy high D.

Maybe a bass tuner for the lowest string (.105) and in-line guitar tuners for the rest?

Anyone got any wisdom that might save my luthier a migraine, and me hundreds of dollars?

Thanks in advance!

Do these scratches suggest that someone was messing around with the truss rod? I’m not sure if it’s just a characteristic of the wood itself, or...?

I'm talking some lessons with a luthier to learn how to do proper setups (and in due time to build my own guitars), and today we began with nut slotting. To my suprise he told me that instead of using some expensive file sets he used a small saw to cut the slot and then a set of welding nozzle cleaners to round them up.

I was in shock, and this guy is not a noob, he's been working as a luthier for decades.

So, what's your opinion? Because I was saving for a decent nut file set, and now I'm not so sure anymore.

Thanks.

I'm an educator not a parent, and I'm thinking about a hard to destroy pvc pipe 2 string instrument... does anyone have any ideas? Is this barking up the wrong tree? Would there be cheaper strings that are more simple for anyone to use that are cheaper?

Any pointing in the right direction would be amazing. Music was gutted eons ago but we are holding on to art because we have teachers with general licensing will to make stuff up with construction paper... would love to see music

The customer is requesting that I make it to where the middle pickup time pot will control both the middle pickup and the neck. Any help would be great.

I've got a cool telecaster neck that I want to fit on a stratocaster body. I know that it doesn't directly fit, but I've been thinking - could I carve out those slopes in the body so the neck would fit?

I need reccomendation for a nice bridge For this, I’d prefer a stationary bridge, but I don’t know if that’s really an option, otherwise a black trem is fine.

Hi all! I have now tried two times to cover a decal under tru oil on my headstock. First time I probably brushed a bit to hard with my cloth and the ink of the decal started to peel off. Sanded it down, build new layers of tru oil, buffed it, and tried again. Second time I put on the tru oil over the decal with my finger, very gently brushing. I brushed on spot twice (I think), runny ink once more.

I hope third time is the charm: do you have any tips on how to proceed?

Photo: sanded off decal, new layer of tru oil. Pprobably will brush on about 8 layers before I try again, so it’s slowing me down!

Howdy y'all.

I'm about to start working with a custom builder in my area and before I pull the trigger I'm just hoping for a littlr advice on what is reasonable practical. My idea is to combine features between two if my favorite guitars: my Schecter E-1 FRS and Ibanez Z540.

I want the explorer style shape but with a thinner body similar to the S series. For now I plan to get a kahler steeler floating bridge. The reason is it has the "auto latch" mechanism that locks the bridge in place when the arm is pointing down, and unlocks to full floating when you move the arm into a usable position. You also don't need to cut off the ball ends of the string. You feed it through the saddle and you're good to go. Instead of a traditional locking nut I plan to use a graphtech un-lock nut (look into them if you aren't familiar. It's an amazing product and I have them on my floyd equipped guitars). To get it working correctly the headstock would have a straight pull from the nut to the tuners much like an ibanez headstock. Then I bought an Ibanez ZPS2 spring assembly with the thumb wheel to manage the springs.

The idea here being that you should be able to set this guitar up with minimal tools needed. Really you'd only need an Allen key to set the intonation. Everything else could be done by hand.

Active EMG bridge pickup with sustaniac neck pickup. Since the body will be relatively thin I'm thinking shallow battery box for the sustainer and perhaps a fishman battery pack for the EMG. Either the universal battery that could potentially be integrated with the cavity compartment cover or the fishman strat style trem cover.

Those are all the main points. I'm just curious anyone here sees some glaring issue I'm not aware of.

Thanks for your time! Cheers.

Hey, this is a last ditch effort on a weird issue that I can't find the answer for. Not sure if this is cool for this sub, but I'm out of ideas.

Project build - BC Rich Warlock (Bronze, early 00's) converted to Baritone using a Warmoth conversion neck.

Upgraded to Gotoh locking tuners, Gotoh wraparound bridge (from the original BC Rich wraparound. This is my first time using one like this, and it's not my first choice.) The scale length ends up as 27.5".

I play in Drop A, using Ernie Ball Baritone (13-72) strings. All of the strings intonate as normal, except for the E string (second lowest, .56), which intonates sharp to an F.

• I've played with the saddles, and no matter how far back I move the E string I can't get it to intonate lower than a F. Initially, with the saddle in the middle position it intonates to a perfect F when the string is tuned to E. I've tried angling the saddle, but any adjustments to the set screw will affect the intonation of the strings around it. So even if I move the set screws so the bridge is as far back as possible I'm not able to intonate it, as the rest of the saddles have to be moved too far forward to compensate.
• Next, I tried chamfering the headstock side of the nut, thinking that was causing issues, and the relief helped a bit. The E string will now intonate just 1-2 cents into the F range. So, while it's better, I'm confident it's not the nut.
• While chamfering it out I ended up changing the strings due to tuning and detuning the same set over and over causing one to break at the post, so I'm confident it's not a bad set of strings.
• Eventually, I lowered the bridge to the point where a straight edge passes just over the saddles and the strings start to bottom out on the 15th fret or so. It will then intonate to a sharp E, however the strings are so low that the guitar is unplayable for obvious reasons.
• There's a tiny bit of neck relief when using the eye test, but using a straight edge shows all of the frets being pretty much the same height throughout. The neck is closer to dead-straight than not.
• I've had the neck for about 3 weeks at this point. It was test fit, painted, and lacquered over the course of a week, and has had strings on it under tension for the last 2 weeks. I'm also in the PNW, so there wasn't a massive climate change for the neck from Warmoth's factory. I dont think this is an issue of the neck settling in.

At this point I'm thinking it's one of three things -

• There might be an issue with the neck angle? I'm only thinking this because the situation improved when I lowered the bridge.
• It's possible it needs more neck relief, I've just never run into one string not intonating before.
• The bridge. There isn't much room for movement in the saddles with this bridge, so I snagged a cheap $15 Guyker one on the outside chance that the longer saddle play lets me adjust through the issue. However, that still feels like there's a larger systemic issue at play.

Any thoughts on where I can chase down possible gremlins? This feels like such a weird issue that I feel like any luthier I take it to is going to pass on the job.