DIY Stuff

DIY Stuff

This page is still under construction but I have made it available for viewing. Some information and instruction is not written or described very well at this stage (and some is possibly incorrect). It is partly in note form, partly ok, partly just jotting the first thing down that comes to mind and it really is all just a first draft of the DIY page. 

The information below is aimed entirely toward the amateur builders that are just trying to understand things and get their head around it. The final rendition will be written in the simplest, easiest to understand form that I can possibly produce. It is not intended for the professional builders and luthiers; it is for those that are trying to learn the basics.

General care and cleaning of instruments.

Clean your damn fretboards! Wipe them down and apply a wood conditioner.

There are many products out there, You'll find the one that works for you. Some are bottled and wiped on with a cloth, some are sprays and some are in a wet-wipe form. Either way, just keep the fretboard clean. If your instrument only gets light use, then once a year is enough. If you're gigging every other weekend then maybe two or three times a year. If you're touring, clean it regularly.

Wipe your strings down after playing. They will last longer if you remove the sweat and oils that build up on them from your hands and fingers.

Get the dust out from all the areas under the strings - headstock, pickups, bridge/tailpiece. It looks so much nicer!

Try and keep your instrument in aa case. A hard case is better protection from damage  but a soft case in a safe area works just as well. If you don't have a case, get one! Make an effort to keep your instrument in a steady, or controlled, environment. Variances in temperature and humidity can warp or twist necks over time and sometimes this can happen quickly.

Clean your pots! Blow them out...

Practice on scrap!

Check that your products are compatible with each other!

Scale length is important!

The scale length is the distance between the forward edge of the nut and the point where the strings makes contact with the saddle.

The scale length can also be explained as the distance from the forward edge of the nut to the centre of the top of the 12th fret, and then doubled.

Scale length is usually measured for the highest pitched string only (high e on a six string guitar). Thicker strings naturally prefer a bit of extra length so the distance for each string will usually always be slightly different; none should be shorter than the scale length though.

Common scale lengths are 24.75" (Gibson), 25" (PRS) and 25.5" (Fender) for standard six string guitars.

Seven strings and more will have scale lengths of ...

Barritone guitars have a scale length of ...

Bass guitar scale lengths are usually from ...

NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF THE CENTRE LINE!!

Make sure you have the centre line clearly marked out on the body and the neck BEFORE attaching the neck to the body; before attaching a nice figured top to the body; before attaching a beautifully bookmatched top to the body; before attaching the fretboard to the neck; before routing out pickup cavities; before drilling any holes for bridges or tailpieces. Find the centre line and don't lose sight of it!

Finding it, marking it out and keeping the centre line in sight ensures that the entire guitar is alligned properly right from the start of the build.

The 'break angle' on a neck refers to the angle that the neck sits compared to the body. Some necks will have little or no break angle while others, like the Gibson Les Paul, will have a break angle of around 4 degrees. This is due to the bridge and saddles sitting higher up off the body so, if the neck was set flat, the string action would either be extremely high or the heel of the neck would sit up extra high.

A flat bodied guitar, such as a Fender Stratocaster, will have little or no break angle as the bridge and saddles sit lower on the body and therefore there is no need for the break angle.

Having too much break angle will result in the strings sitting right on the frets causing excessive buzz and/or an unplayable guitar.

Too little break angle will result in the strings sitting too high off the fretboard causing the strings to be pushed down too far when fretting them and the notes will be sharp instead of at proper pitch.

Neck break angle should be figured out prior to starting the building process.

Side view and a straight length to check the neck angle to the saddle height...

Use Titebond Original. It will soften when heated and this will greatly assist if you need to remove a fretboard or reset a set neck.

Hide (Hyde?) glue, fish glue and some others are good however a glue that is permanent (like Titebond III) is not advised as it will not soften and release easily with heat.

A small amount of glue and wood dust collected while sanding can be made into a paste and used to fill in small gaps. Use the wood dust collected from the same piece of wood that needs the gap filling so the colour is similar.

Spraying Techniques

When painting, it is best to grain fill and seal the wood before applying paint. Follow the directions on the grain filler and sealer products. Once the final coat is workable, flat sand the surface so it's nice and evenly smooth all over (320 - 400 grit). Brush with a very fine bristled brush ALL of the sanding wood dust off of the wood and out of all cavities.

Warm spray cans up in the sun or float them in a tub of hot water for 15 to 20 minutes. This will thin the paint as it warms up resulting in a thinner mist of paint while spraying and should help avoid runs.

Hold the spray can upright about 30cm away from the surface and make steady passes across the surface; not too fast, not too slow. Start off the side of the surface so the initial mist spray misses the surface all together and then make the pass across the surface and entirely off the other side. Repeat this side to side with a slight overlap each time. 

Work the front, one side, the back, the other side, top and bottom and then repeat. This allows solvents in the paint to flash off before adding a second coat.

Use fog coats and carefully build those coats up. This will also prevent runs. A fog coat is basically a very thin coat that does not cover the surface much at all. It's a good starting technique until you get the hang of things.

There is absolutely no need to add a dozen full coats of paint. A half dozen fog coats might give you one full coat and, as long as the colour is uniform all over, that's all you need. Flat sanding back a dozen full coats of paint will result in the paint rolling between the other paint layers and the sandpaper (and clogging the paper) and will more than likely cause grooves or scratches in the paint surface.

If you are using a 'thin' colour, like red, apply a base coat of white first (I suggest to do this anyway) to prevent the grain being visible (unless of course you want to see it slightly). If you want a 'candied' colour, apply a coat of metallic gold or silver and then use a transparent paint or tinted lacquer over the top of that, but don't go too heavy with the transparent colour or you'll lose the 'candied' look.

Sometimes you'll get 'orange peel'. Flat sand it away.

Sometimes you'll get clouds in the clear coat. This is caused from either working too quickly and applying too many layers over a short period of time or by moisture becoming trapped between the layers. Direct sunlight can help to remove clouds, a hairdryer on a warm setting might remove them and, if you are using a nitro lacquer, another coat or two can get rid of the clouds as nitro melts into the previous coats and this can push out the clouds. If clouds remain then you will have to sand back until they have been removed and then carefully add more layers of clear.

Staining techniques - PRS and others - Alcohol, water and oil based stains

Flat sand, final sand, sandy sand, whatever you want to call it, just sand the wood so it's nice and evenly smooth all over (320 - 400 grit). Brush with a very fine bristled brush ALL of the sanding wood dust off of the wood and out of all cavities.

When staining wood, you do not need to grain fill or seal the wood prior to applying stain; doing this will just result in the stain basically sitting on top of, or in, the sealer and not penetrating into the wood. The result will be patchy, inconsistent staining.

Dampen the wood with a slightly dampened, lint-free or microfibre cloth just before applying the first coat of stain. This will raise the grain of the wood slightly and will allow the stain to penetrate into the wood just that little bit more. By 'slightly dampened' I mean wet the cloth and then wring the shit out of it basically. You don't want to introduce too much water as this can cause issues with the wood retaining too much moisture.

If applying different based stains, the first stain should be the heaviest in density and then move to the softer stains. By this I mean an alcohol based stain is heavier than a water based stain and a water based stain is heavier than an oil based stain. Alcohol based, then water based and then oil based.

How to apply the stain/s...

Grain filling and/or sealing can be done after the stain/s have been applied and set in, or you can just move on to the finishing.

Finishing Products - Oil, Poly, shellac and Nitro

Nitro will go over pretty much anything.

DO NOT apply poly over nitro as nitro is always curing - or off-gassing - and the poly coat will completly cure, trapping the gasses and this can cause unwanted issues within the poly finish.

Soldering Techniques - Add link to Seymour Duncan

When soldering ground wires to the back of the pots, use a chisel tip on your soldering iron. This will transfer heat to a larger area of the pot Just move the tip back and forth to heat up a small square area of the pot and then hold the ground wire to the pot with the tip of the soldering iron on both the wire and the pot and add the solder. It should liquify and flow nicely. As soon as this happens, remove the soldering iron tip and the length of solder from the pot and you should have a nice, neat connection.

Connecting a wire to a pot lug can be done with a pointed tip and also if you are connecting two wires together. Just get them lined up beside each other (a tool called 'helping hands' is very useful here!) and let the solder flow directly on the pointed tip of the soldering iron. As a 'ball' of solder forms on the tip, run it along the wires to create a connection. It is best to add some heat shrink tubing to the wire before connecting them and then sliding that tubing along the wire and over the join then heating it with a low temp heat gun or hairdryer to secure the connection more. This also aids in preventing a bare wire connection from touching another wire when the cavity cover is replaced, which may cause issues with the operation of the instrument.

Click the buttons below to link to the article from Fralin Pickups. The extracted text version only contains the text and no images. It is more useful to view the full article via the web link button.

In addition to this article there are a couple more answers right here:

Do I need to ground my strap locks/pins/buttons? - No
Do I need to ground my bolt on neck plate and bolts? - No

There is no requirement to ground any metal part that does not contribute to the audio signal/output. Those parts have no impact on unwanted noise whatsoever.

Article - extracted text only web link to full article

Nut material and nut making information.

Plastic, TUSQ, Bone, Horn, Brass, Wood ...

Saddle Styles on Flat Wound and Round Wound Strings.

T-O-M styled bridges and saddles have their benefits but also their own drawbacks. Strings can catch on saddles which can stress the string too much...

A burr on the notch can cause unwanted buzz, or even a 'drone note' that won't go away.

My preference is the proper roller saddles. These reduce the immediate sharpness of the break angle on the strings behind the saddle, they are kinder on the strings and they just look better. But again, this is personal preference.

Locking tuners, classic tuners and stringing.

Locking tuners are not there for 'musicians that cannot string a guitar properly'. I've heard this a heap of times and it's BS! Locking tuners assist musicians in quick string changes as there is no need to leave much excess length in the string, no real need to wrap the string over itself to help secure it and no need to wind and wind and wind the string around the tuner post. Stick it in, tighten the locking screw, stretch and tune the string, cut the excess. That's basically it. Simple!

Locking tuners allow for a quick turn of the button to loosen the string slightly then just loosen the locking mechanism and simply pull the string from the post. It's quick and it's easy and that's an important thing for musicians on stage needing to change a string quickly. Guitar techs that need to have an instrument completely re-strung, stretched and tuned before the next song can greatly benefit from the design of locking tuners.

Classic tuners, standard tuners, non-locking tuners - whichever you want to call them - all pretty much require the string to be cut with excess length of a couple inches. The string is passed through the post hole and wrapped under and then over itself, which helps hold itself in place while the first winds around the post are done. This is the most secure way of stringing but it is more time consuming and, the string can 'slip' while being stretched, so it's important to cut the string after it's on, stretched and tuned to pitch.

Whether you prefer classic or locking tuners, it's your choice. It's personal preference and you use what works for you.

Pilot holes are very important!

Only use the screws that are intended, or supplied, with the part they belong to. Some screws are produced with a certain exact length and using a random screw can result in either the screw not holding as it is too short or pushing out through the front or back of the guitar. Using screws that are too long or short on tuner buttons can result in loose tuner buttons and a guitar that wil not stay in tune.

A bit of wax on the screw thread can help it bite better into the wood.

Use the correct sized screwdriver! Get a good set of flat head and phillips head screwdrivers - sizes 0, 1 and 2 should cover everything.

Place a thin cloth over the screw head so you don't scratch it up while tightening or loosening it.

DO NOT overtighten screws! You can damage them, round off the head or even snap them. Not to mention that you can cause damage to the actual instrument too! Once the screw is in, STOP!

String height is selective to the individual musician. There are 'ideal' heights but anywhere within a certain range works better for intonating than having the action too high. Too high and you can't intonate properly

String height can be adjusted by raising or lowering the bridge and/or saddle height. It can also be adjusted by adjusting the truss rod however this should be approached with care.

Intonating a guitar can be easy; it can be a pain in the neck!

Basically, it's just making sure that the note, or frequency/pitch, produced when fretting a string at the 12th fret is the same as it is when that same string is open; an octave apart, exactly the same note. Many things can impact this.

Simplest thing first - when fretting a string you only need to apply enough pressure for the string to make contact with the fret, NOT the fretboard! Fret strings gently otherwise you'll end up with sharpened notes.

Add the process...