I'm now into the thralls of finishing the body. The back, besides, and the top have their first coat of truoil. I can't believe that off the shelf water-based stain was able to get this awesome black! Truly happy with where this is all going.

This bass guitar is part of my open source guitar project called the Venus de Milo. If anyone's interested I can link you the GitHub.

My friend with small hands asked me if I could make a bass with guitar scale, so he could play it much more easier and comfier. And this is what I made. (First image is the "before modding".)

I bought a $60 guitar, swapped the machines heads, filed the saddles and nut slot to fit bass strings. The gauge I used was 24-32-44-56-70-85 (from Ernie Ball 12-56 guitar strings and 50-105 bass strings set). The sound was surprisingly good, and the 6th string is not as floppy as I expected.

I've also route for a battery case and a 3-band EQ, swapped the pickups with Humbucker neck and P90 bridge (to emulate the PJ style, and it did well.)

Edit: I added a link of the sound demo, linked to YouTube.
(Sorry for my skill and the audio might be bad as I was recording on a $60 multi-effect.)

Modding a Les Paul into a Bass VI

I recently came across some curly mahogany (enough to do 5 book matches like the one above). I've never seen anything like it, and I can't find anything like it on the net.

I need help. How do I even price something like this for a top on one of my guitars? I know I'm never going to see anything like this again.

Thanks everyone!

I have this stratocaster neck that's been kicking about my house for years and I honestly can't even remember where I got it. it's always look suspicious to me, the way the 2 is kind of damaged.

anyway I was wondering if one of you fine folk might be able to give me a definite answer on if it's fake or not.

I've tried looking up the serial number but it doesn't return anything. there's nothing on the heel. there's no "original contoured body" stamp. oh and I put those tuners on myself so you can discount those completely.

thanks for your time!

Maple fret board, maple neck, swamp ash body, dot inlay…

Gonna finish with polymerized tung oil.
Parts will be Gotoh relic bridge and tuners, with self reliced control(dom knobs)
+ ivory pickup cover.

Any recommandations of flowers to paint on at the horn??(i thinking daisy)

Can see some light orange peel in my clear coat. On a video/in person it’s not really visible but i can obviously see it in this photo. Is it worth fixing? If so, would wet sanding with some 1000-3000 then throwing another coat on be the fix? I don’t want it to turn out murky and the last time I tried to cut and buff polish it turned out horrifically

Hello. I just bought a Harley Benton TE-52 and am having difficulties setting it up.

There's significant fret buzz on all strings, worst in first position (fretting 1st, string contacts 2nd). Clean on a very light pluck, but buzzes when picking with any force, bad enough to hear through an amp. Can't pick anywhere near as hard as on my Strat or Les Paul, both of which have lower action. The frets are completely level up to about the 13th, but that's not where the buzz is. It's always on the adjacent fret (I can hear this clearly).

Strings are 10-46 (supposedly D'Addario, sound new), tuned to Eb. E is same thing.

Measurements, low E:

Action at 12th: tried 1.25-2mm. Worse at 1.25 but still bad at 2mm. (Video was 2mm)

Relief (capo 1st, fretting 17th, measuring 8th): tried 0.1-0.3mm. No significant difference.

Fretting 3rd, gap over 4th: just over 0.13mm. Fretting 7th, gap over 8th: about 0.2mm.

Nut is a quite high (0.75mm at 1st fret open), but I don't see how that causes this.

For comparison, my Strat is a hair over 0.1mm fretting 3rd over 4th, about 0.15mm fretting 7th over 8th, 0.1mm relief, 1.25mm action at the 12th, and doesn't buzz in first position. So the Tele has more clearance and more relief everywhere and still buzzes far worse.

The Tele's action is almost flat from 12th to last fret, where as the Strat goes 1.25 to 1.75. But my Les Paul is also nearly flat and plays fine.

What causes buzz when it's got more clearance than a guitar that doesn't buzz, and level frets?

Thanks for any ideas.

Need to swap the neck pickup’s base plate for a shorter one and wire it up still… Extremely mix matched colors; various test parts fitted together. But I think the overall combination still looks pretty nice.

I’d like the final prototype, and hopefully the first production batch, to be mostly natural aluminum color, dark grey fretboard, and the rest of the accents dark grey/ black. I think I’ll keep the yellow switch cap as well, or maybe find a more orange one.

7.4lbs right now, I plan on removing more material from the inside of the neck to get that even lower next time around.

Hey guys. Just bought this Gibson SG Faded Cherry. I reely like the finish, but this neck is filthy. I don't care it looks worn but the dirty look bothers me a lot. It is possible to see how dirty it is by the difference in the color from the neck to the worned down part on the back of the body. Does anyone know how I can clean it up without removing the finish completely?

I made this one in honor of my mom (Lyndiera is just a fancy spin on Linda). She doesn't play, but she's one of the biggest reasons why I got to where I am, and why I'm able to make things I love making

A couple years ago, I started getting into making instruments. Started with 3d printing a snare drum, then 3d printed guitars, then moved on to making them out of wood

This build is incredibly compact. There is a theme of family throughout: each dove represents an immediate family member, and the one in the headstock represents my mom. The fretboard inlay (gold epoxy resin) is meant to be a family "vine"

Body, top, and neck are all locally sourced walnut, and the fretboard is Bolivian rosewood

Feedback welcome! I'm actually a lifelong drummer who absolutely fell in love with the craft. This was guitar build #5 of 6 (so far), so still new to this and welcome to any constructive criticism from the pros!

Hey there, was hoping to get a hand at a wiring diagram. I'm redoing my strat altogether with 2 Jaguar pickups and a burstbucker. I want to do a bold wiring scheme, think Red Special meets Mustang

I want to use

-master volume and tone

-3 Mustang slider switches, one for each pickup (on-off-on, to be able to get every pickup combo + out of phase sounds)

-master series/parallel switch

I may add try to add a push/pull pot for splitting the humbucker later, but that's simple enough to test and figure out

I've found a diagram for master tone and 3 mustang sliders here. The series/parallel switch is what's stumping me. I've done it in a 2 pickup guitar with a standard switch and it's simple enough, but having a master series/parallel while still retaining the individual on/off/oop for each pickup seems tricky. I wondered if anyone had previously tackled this before I sit down and try to figure it out myself. Cheers!

Hi all. I’m doing a little refurbishing of my years-old, reliable Peavey Milestone II bass. Volume and tone pots are gone which I’m replacing. But it got me to wondering what some of you may do with an electric bass to upgrade, improve sound, electronics, etc…. This is really the first time in years I’ve done anything to it other than change strings or adjust action. Thanks for any input.

We just got in this guitar from my band teacher. Apparently, a kid left it in the band storage room after a talent show and never came back to claim it. After sitting for several years, it’s in a fairly decrepit state. The intonation’s all messed up and it can’t hold its tuning, but as far as I know that can be done with a little bit of effort at home and some tutorials. Ideally, I’d need to clean it, figure out how to adjust saddles, and replace its tuners/strings. If you know any other dangers of a guitar that’s been sitting for years, please share! Maybe some tips/tricks for restoring older guitars? Thanks for the help.

Im looking to buy this takamine GLD12E, it has this bang on the bottom, is it something to worry about or its just superficial?

Hello,

I picked up this archtop by Vintage and the strings are being muted/hitting the pickup surround.

The pickup surround cannot be lowered any more. It could be sanded, keeping the correct angles but this would only bring a minimum clearance, plus the neck pup is still there, likely causing the same issue.

I thought of a new adjustable bridge to raise the height but this could lead to too high action on the fretboard. I'll post a pic from a top down/playing position soon. Only issue with this is there is a piezo pup in the bridge so not straight forward. Though an upgraded bridge to help fine tune the internation (when I get there) would mean a better guitar overall.

Other than that, adjusting the truss won't help as the issue is not related.

Currently thinking;

1. Remove the neck pup, which I don't want to do as I think it will sound awesome blended with the piezo.

2. Get a new piezo bridge and see where it gets me.

3. Try and reset the neck to a better angle allowing all current hardware and pups to stay. Never tried it but why should that stop anyone?

I think I'll go for 2 and see for now. Any help appreciated.

Thank you

Hello! I have a vintage non reverse firebird where the pickups are mounted in the pickguard. I do not have the original pickups but i have bought replacements.

It seems that the pickups end up a bit too far from the strings, 5 and 6 mm and the screws are screwed in all the way. I would like to get the pickups nearer to the strings, do any of you have experience with this?

Hi I’ve been modifying a Harley Benton R-458FFB as a sorta Frankenstein project, and I’ve got it set up such that the low 4 strings are 80 gauge flatwounds bass strings and the high 4 are standard guitar strings, but the string spacing is too small to use bass strings pickups, but I’d rather have bass pickups than guitar strings, will have two jacks for my guitar, and then not sure best way to go about a pickup for the higher end either; I’ve never made my own pickups but maybe it’s an idea?

One of the bands I play in gives me both guitar and mandolin responsibilities, and I got tired of switching instruments on stage all the time so I made this in my basement.

I call it MandoTar. It is based on an obscure late 1950s Gibson EMS-1235 that I saw in an auction and couldn’t afford, but also couldn’t stop thinking about. Full-time luthier and full-time musician here, YMMV etc.

Bass I am making for myself.

Somewhere in between my initial design/modelling and staring construction, I decided to do a laminated neck. And because I hadn't modelled the laminations I didn't anticipate how visible they would be, particularly with the fluting I'm planning for the edge (see second photo) as this will make it visible from the front.

If I were to address it, I think the only viable option is cutting that top edge back and adding a full length piece of the main neck material.

What do you think? Should I just live with it?

Hey, just wanted to share with y’all some pictures from my first build (WIP), really happy with how the bookmatched body came together perfectly. Wood used is redwood, with sap running down the middle. Any recommendations for finishing? Since its a very soft wood, prone to chips and dings, i would like to protect it as much as possible. Aesthetics wise, will be aiming for a glossy look.

Hello all!

I’ve seen the rechargeable battery packs for certain active pickups and was curious if you got the right kind of switch if you could also have a backup 9v that wouldn’t get drained just by being hooked up to it. I kind of assume if any switch was in the battery pack position it wouldn’t draw power from the 9v even while plugged in but you know what assuming makes ya by now.

Also not sure it’s been done so I thought I’d go ahead and further complicate all our lives again by adding more wiring to the quest for a perfect guitar. LOL

Thx everyone.

Hi all,
I bought this 90s Gibson Les Paul Special awhile ago. Cool guitar but the finish is obviously trashed! It’s clearly had some stickers on the back and the nitro around the stickers (and on the sides) looks like it’s dissolved. The neck seems to be the only part in decent condition (except for the poorly fixed nicks), and there’s some nice checking on the headstock. I recently tried to sell it but didn’t get any bites and I didn’t want to sell it for next to nothing - so I figured I’d try to fix it up.

Basically my question is what can I do to fix the finish? I feel like it needs to be completely redone. Looking for tips - what tools I’ll need, what type of paint, the full process of refinishing etc. I’m open to different kinds of finishes that may be easier for a first timer to acheive.

Haven’t done anything like this before (other than a bit of woodwork in Highschool) but I’m willing to give it a crack - pretty sure I can’t make it worse but also don’t want to completely f the guitar by doing something silly and uneducated.

Thanks!

So im a cello player without a luthier. Like the closest one is states away. Also a broke college student. Also a fiber artist and woodworker. To date i have mastered macrame, knitting, crochet, lashing, splicing, hek even lacemaking. Also, 99% of the furniture in my house is made by my family. Putting all this together, im training myself in this artform. Half out of necessity, half out of interest. So far I've restrung my cello a couple times, fixed the slippery pegs, and placed the bridge comfortably a few times as well. On my bow ive replaced the bow-grip a couple times too. On my guitars I've done the basic restring and conditioning process. Along with fixing the tuning machines on my ukulele. So im not... as clueless as I could be... if yk what I mean.

I need a second bow but I really dont want to dish out the 75 bucks for it if i dont have to. Id rather spend 10 on a couple hanks of hair from my favorite cheep bow company to see if its possible to rehair my cheap dead backup bow myself first. If its not possible, I'll just buy the second bow. If it is, well then yay!

I have LOW expectations. Lower than hell. If it fails, this bow is both cheap and dead anyway. Oh well. That being said, theres a chance (small as it may be) I could succeed. And have a second bow. For cheap cheap. (Again. Stressing the low expectations.)

I know about the wedges and shaping them. I know about measuring the amount of hair. I know about the superglue, the various clamping, the various measuring, the combing, even the heating of the hairs at the end to finish.

My question is, what's everyone's experience? Little things you learn by doing, not by studying. Is it easier to start at the tip or at the frog? So far I've only seen starting at the tip so that's my plan. What kind of string/thread do you use to tie the end of the hair? Id assume something cotton... but would pearl cotton size 3 work? (I have that) are there special chiseles or would fine woodworking chisels do the job provided theyre sharp?

Any advice is welcome... so long as it's not "it's not worth it". I know this is not an easy project, it seems like most of the hard parts involve making sure the hair is in order and treated and measured properly. I feel like my history of fiber arts and instrument work can be applied here. Also, this would be an extremely useful skill to have. Again. I have no luthier. Im thinking if I train hard enough i could become a very small luthier of this area (that would be one helluva dream tbh). I really want to give it a shot. Assistance would be appreciated!! 💖