MIMF

I’ve built several thinner than 3”. There are so many factors it is hard to say what exactly the tonal difference. I can say that a 2” archtop 18” long and 15” at the lower bout is my most comfortable to play. I think the thickness and carve of the top plate is much more influential on tone. A thin ...

I do actually contour my neck block to match the taper and even swoop a little into the cutaway (by sanding it a little against a form). But it never seems to line up perfectly anyway :( so I live with a little mismatch and finesse the fingerboard and extension a little. The results are usually fine...

I’m not 100% sure I understand your question. The head and tail blocks don’t necessarily have to be in any tight alignment. You generally cut your neck dovetail after the box is closed up. Assuming you’ve used two pieces of wood for your top, the seam will define your center line. The mortise would ...

There is a guy on YouTube that did an exhaustive test of different materials and exciter/dampener placement. It is impossible to know what they sound like from a YouTube video, but the whole thing was less than $50. Worth the experiment. A crossover and a subwoofer would fix any low end issues. Ther...

As you must already know, the use of frequency histograms to tune a top was completely unknown to all the previous master builders. From Benedetto to D'Angelico, none ever saw a histogram. To the best of my knowledge, the principal architect of using a histogram to tune a top is Trevor Gore. His boo...

Ahh the Auriou... I usually make do with cheaper tools, but this is the jewel in my arsenal. Although they seem to have doubled in price since I last bought one. Still worth it.

I would love to see a travel guitar challenge. I'm going on a trip and have been wondering what I would do if I was to whip up a guitar for the road.

The problem I have with CA is that I open a bottle, use it, close it tightly, set it aside for a month or so until next use, open it again, throw it out, open a new bottle... So I find myself using the single use bottles and the GlueBoost Accelerator. Is the Locktite better (or Satellite City, or Gl...

I've played without a pick for thirty years. I do think some guitars are better suited tonally. Generally I avoid guitars with boomy lows and sparkling highs and look for something more balanced. As a result I rarely pick up a dread or jumbo. But you can't really make anything more that vague genera...

I believe CC pickups are single coil, so do you mean a tap to split the winding? So like after 5,000 windings you insert a switch and then do 5,000 more windings? I've never heard of that, but the best CC pickups I've ever used are from Pete Biltoff at Vintage Vibe Guitars. He sends them to you with...

You're trying to REMOVE them? Geeesh. Some people don't appreciate class.

You can buy plans from Robbie O'Brien to make the exact same one as LMI sells. It is not too hard to build, but I understand that some people love building jigs and others not so much. Of course you can buy it from LMI for $200. While that is an outrage for a few sheets of MDF and some bolts it's a ...

Thank you Freeman. 1/8” of arch is surprisingly little. On a couple of plans I found online, 1/2” seems more common. In any case, I have my answer. All the dimensions that make up the neck geometry are tweaked and not standard to Gibson arch top guitars despite some visual similarity. I’ve spent som...

Thanks Bill. That was helpful. I've cross reference a couple of plans to try to get all the dimensions. Looking carefully I see that all the dimensions are cheated to make up for the missing .5". The arch rises above the rims .5, instead of .75, giving you half of the difference. The other half...

Well according to one Gibson fan site the ES 335 (in fact the entire thinline ES line) specs 4° to the body. According to Stew Mac, and ABR-1 bridge is roughly half an inch thick and has roughly half an inch of travel. If both are true, the only thing left that can give is the height of the arch. Is...

I am interested in making for myself a semi- hollow archtop guitar guitar. Unfortunately I don't have one myself to study, so I'm having some issues understanding the neck geometry. On a traditional full hollow archtop, like an L5, the neck comes to the body at 4-5° and is elevated off the body abou...

Nice. Very elegant looking.

The usual path, if you are not already an industrial designer, is to hire someone who is and pay them to develop a CAD file to your specs. The probe generally is to help you measure existing plates to get those specs. People don’t generally rely on probes to generate a finalized surface. There was a...

This is a question that comes up a lot at Palomar College where I help teach a guitar building class. The whole woodworking program has a massive bullseye on it because the administrators judge everything on salary and wages. "What is the state's outlook for 'saw operator' jobs and what is the ...

Thank you Barry. I'm definitely leaning toward doing the center block in three pieces even if I have the capacity to do it in one. I can't get over the idea of a difficult glue up. It seems much easier to glue the center to the plates first, create a flat mating surface, and then glue that to a flat...