Some questions regarding/Wood/Bridges/finishes etc etc

[Swirly]

Hi there, ive got a few qeustions that i need some help with guys.
Im making a body (RG style) and im buying the wood in the next couple of days, my questions are:

1)I popped down to a wood merchants today and they had some Ash (ordering me some larger bits). The grain was quite nice, yet it was as rough as hell. The guy said once the its come up he can plane the depth off for me as it dosnt come in 45mm which i want. Do you recon he would clean it all off as well,like straighen up the sides and make sure it dont look like some piece of drift wood.

2)Pretty much everywhere around here dosnt do much in the way of mahogany so i thought if i can get some Ash (hopefully with nice enough grain) for about £20 he said then it should be ok- Any opininons on ash would be nice : e.g. What its like to work with, how it comes up with oils etc

3)Im probably going to stick a simple hardtail on the guitar but i have a few questions regarding it. Firstly, can anyone recomend any good , simple hard tails. Somthing similar to Pauls 301 and his non floating guitars, just somthing simple.The guitars going to be a string through design so no top-loading bridges obviously.

4)As im going to be making this relativly soon can anyone offer any tips for me whilst making the body. The main thing im worried ill mess up is the neck joint, ive decided that ill just rout out one cavity at the back for the input and controls, and two humber cavities on the front,im not to worrid about them as i figure ill leave the guitar a rear routed design and do a natural finish like say Pauls Ash PGM, and if i mess the front cavities up ill jsut wack a pickguard over it all. But if i mess the neck up im shagged, so any suggestions on routing a neck pocket without making a bulls up of it would be great.

5)Lastly, im unsure as to how deep and to what dimensions i should cut the two pickup cavities, as im not going to put a pickguard on (unless things f*ck up), and i wont be using mounting rings how exactly do the pickups sit in place and can anyone offer any measurements on the humbucker sizes ,i have an RG450dx body sitting here naked with the pickguard off so i could get a ruff idea of the size from that but there no doubt lsightly differnt than you would get on say somthing like this http://www.ibanezregister.com/images...gm/pgm_ir2.jpg as the pickgaurd holds the pups in place.

(Oh btw, that bridge on that PGM ^^ is what im after, somthing very similar)

Bit of a long post there guys, sorry It would probably be easier if you get time to reply, by anwsering each question individually if ya get me.

Cheers for your time

[Swirly]

Dudes......:/

[Jeroenn]

1. Prepare.... make sure you've got your messurements all right and drawn on the wood perfectly.
2. route slowly. Don't use a freehand router but rather something that won't jerk around and is stable.
3. Practice on scrapwood until you're confident.

AFAIK, there is no diffrence between the routedepth for pickups with bodymounted or pickguard mounted.

You get clean wood by sanding. When you get to the last stage, make it a touch wet, the fibers will swell a bit and stand up, sand 'm down and it 'll be smooth.

IMHO ash looks great without any finish, ie: bad h, Neville.

[Swirly]

Cheers man.

How exactly do the pickups mount to the wood without either a Pickgaurd or mouting rings, obviously they dont just sit in losely.
Cherers

[wemedge]

Originally Posted by Swirly

Cheers man.

How exactly do the pickups mount to the wood without either a Pickgaurd or mouting rings, obviously they dont just sit in losely.
Cherers

Screw them in (but watch your depth so your screw doesn't shoot out the other side!)

wemedge

[Swirly]

This is gunno sound maybe "newb-ish" but here gos.

I just drilled a small hole on my RG450 body inside the cavitiy and tried screwing a humber in and i was confused by somthing.

All i had was a normal humbucker with the metal plate on the bottom with two threaded holes on each end in order for the screws. Thats normal enough, but when i put a screw into the humber and began screwing into the wood each time i turned the screw into the wood, because of the thread on the humber, the pickup would rise a tiny bit. Therefore whenever i wanted to lft the pickup up a bit i had to keep turning into the wood, and there isnt much wood there :/. I see how it works with the pickgaurd, the idea where the screw goes straight through the unthreaded hole on the gaurd , then into the humbucker (with the spring inbetween). Yet for some reason without mounting rings or a pickgaurd im not quite seeing how exaclty it screws in so that you can easierly adjust the height etc.


Anyone with a guitar with direct mounted pups with no gaurd or rings would be of great hlp if they could maybe have a look as to how exactly it screws in to allow similar movement to a normall mounted pickup.


Sounds stupid no doubt but hey, its midnight, maybe im going crazy

[hexa-db]

My rg620 has no pickup rings and a strip of foamy stuff on the back of the pickup which acts as a sort of spring. There's a thread here somewhere about where to buy it and someone suggested weather stripping stuff from a DIY store. I think it screws in the wood at the bottom of the pickup rout.

The pickups in the rg470 are mounted with pickup rings, which I guess work in similar way to scratchplate mounted pickup, with springs.


Hope that helps.

[Jeroenn]

You could drill out the screwhole in the hum. Then, a little ballpoint spring between the wood and the hum, with the screw going thru the spring (just like pickguard mounted) would do the trick.Some foam underneath and around the pickup would stop the possible resonating of parts.

[Swirly]

Yeah thats what i thought i would have to do. I just didnt really want to dril out the screw hole on the pickups as i may use them on another guitar and need the threaded hole. Oh well, looks like ill have to buy some new pups specially for it

[darren wilson]

Why not just use a slightly smaller diameter wood screw so you don't have to drill out the holes?

[Swirly]

Aaah, didnt think of that. Cheers darren.

[Swirly]

Dudes , can anyone recomend any fixed bridges for me. I love the look of the one on the link above to the PGM, but im not sure what it is, or what similar birdges are avaible. Basically anything i can use that will be fixed (string through, simple, yet attractive)

[Jem7RB MK]

StewMac :-) or All Parts,Also dude,do a search on Projectguitar,most of what you asking not only has been answered a few times,but most have pics to guide you too

Rob

[Swirly]

lo guys.

Ive began working on my body at school and its taken me hours and hours to get the neck pocket right, even with most of the work routed (didnt the carefull stuff with a chisel). And even with the great accuracy taken becuase i didnt want to **** somthing up, the lines where the neck fits in arnt 100% perfect. It sits in snug, yet theres some play.

Anyway i was going to ask...As im trying to do this rear routed so that ive just got two humbuckers on the front and everything else on the back, i looked a picture of a PGM for comparison and noticed just where the neck slots in theres a small piece of wood about half a centimetre thick between the heal of the neck, and the pickup.
Now ive done this to, yet the lines are off a bit and it dosnt line up on the back amazingl weel, so what i thought was just routing out the small piece, so that in theory its just almost one long channel from the neck pocket to the pickup cavity if you get me, i know its this way with ring mounted pup guitars, and pickguard/front routed guitars yet i wanted to ask,a)Does this effect anything structually, i wouldnt of thought so but still and b)Will it look ****? ie a gap between the heal of the neck and te pickup.


Cheers

[Jeroenn]

I don't think it would matter much for structural integrity....

Hey, I sound like Geordi LaForge...

If it looks bad, you've just invited yourself to build a 25 fret axe..


Shields up!