Esquire-esque

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Originally Posted by fender3x

Just looked at the measurements... I do them in SAE measurements so I had to convert them to mm... Yours look pretty good. If the action feels good to you, I'd be tempted to declare victory. With the exception of guitars set up exclusively for slide, I think about any E string can be made to buzz if you hit it hard enough.

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SAE - is that what you call "imperial" (feet and inches)? What does it stand for (i'm guessing "Standard American ....something".

Yes I was very happy to get this working - of course, in my haste, the neck is on crooked (it's about 1 mm off!) the screws must have "gone in " on bad angles (just plain atrocious workmanship!)


I'll have to take it off, put dowels in and then try again.

But at least I know that kind of fret levelling will solve the problem.


the shieding tape wrapped around the tuners did help too.

SAE is Standard American English and it is a complete and utter stupid system. Started my apprenticeship in Imperial and became a tradesman in Metric. Can use both but metric is much easier as everything in is base 10. 12 inches to the foot, 3 feet to the yard, 22 yards to the chain....completely stupid. The excuse was cost which Australia went through in the 80's and we are now over 40 years and it's still the same excuse.

We don't use the term "Imperial" in the US for two reasons. There's the obvious reason that we left the Empire somewhat acrimoniously. The other is that some of our measurements are different than their conjugate Imperial measurements. I grew up on the Canadian boarder, so the one that always used to confuse me was the gallon. It was 4.6l in British Columbia, and 3.8l in Washington. So you had to convert dollars AND gallons to figure out gas prices.

I agree that SAE is a stupid, confusing system. To make the point it would actually make more sense if SAE did stand for "Standard American English." It actually stands for "Society of Automotive Engineers" from back in the early part of the 20th century when it developed standards for the US auto industry. SAE is now an international organization, and has used primarily metric units (SI) since the 1960s like everyone else. We still use the term SAE even though the measuring units are now more properly called United States Customary Units.

We were also told back when the US "rejected" the metric system in the 1970s that it was to save cost. Specifically the cost of retooling American car factories. It meant that every one who wanted to work on cars had to get two sets of tools, SAE and Metric. So, it certainly did not save *me* any money.

Dumbest of all is that we hang on to this stupid system although we have *not* actually rejected the metric system. All scientific measurements are metric. My metric tools sometime fit the nuts on my Dodge better than my SAE tools...which might be because it was made in Canada.

All that said, Fender, Gibson and a lot of YT continue to use inch-based measures...and as a result I use an analog ruler to do setup measures down to 64ths of an inch...which results in the need to do my conversions to mm with a calculator, hence my delay.

Glad that the shielding tape worked! It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize how much easier that would be than dowelling and re-drilling.

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Originally Posted by EsquireEsque

...- of course, in my haste, the neck is on crooked (it's about 1 mm off!) the screws must have "gone in " on bad angles (just plain atrocious workmanship!)


I'll have to take it off, put dowels in and then try again.

But at least I know that kind of fret levelling will solve the problem.


the shieding tape wrapped around the tuners did help too.

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I'm not sure if 1mm off is that bad! If the neck is slightly crooked, you may be able move it a bit by loosening the screws and applying a force to the neck/body in the needed direction and then retighten the screws. I would try this before redowelling.

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

I'm not sure if 1mm off is that bad! If the neck is slightly crooked, you may be able move it a bit by loosening the screws and applying a force to the neck/body in the needed direction and then retighten the screws. I would try this before redowelling.

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The first "dot" is noticeably 1 mm "out" to the right and the 9th "dot" is noticeably 1 mm out to the left......
It also means that the "e" strings are both a bit too close to the edge of the fretboard ....

I've tried the Re-screw" option and did get it a bit better - but that was to the current situation (it was worse before!)

As they say in the classics.... if you screw something up - screw it up properly!
I seem to be "good" on the "classics".....

It's annoying - the first try (guitar) has the neck on just about perfectly! I don't think I have an option other than to dowell and re-drill. The best case scenario might be that I can identify one screw that pulls rthe rest out and only have to fix that one....

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Originally Posted by fender3x

We don't use the term "Imperial" in the US for two reasons. There's the obvious reason that we left the Empire somewhat acrimoniously. The other is that some of our measurements are different than their conjugate Imperial measurements. I grew up on the Canadian boarder, so the one that always used to confuse me was the gallon. It was 4.6l in British Columbia, and 3.8l in Washington. So you had to convert dollars AND gallons to figure out gas prices.

I agree that SAE is a stupid, confusing system. To make the point it would actually make more sense if SAE did stand for "Standard American English." It actually stands for "Society of Automotive Engineers" from back in the early part of the 20th century when it developed standards for the US auto industry. SAE is now an international organization, and has used primarily metric units (SI) since the 1960s like everyone else. We still use the term SAE even though the measuring units are now more properly called United States Customary Units.

We were also told back when the US "rejected" the metric system in the 1970s that it was to save cost. Specifically the cost of retooling American car factories. It meant that every one who wanted to work on cars had to get two sets of tools, SAE and Metric. So, it certainly did not save *me* any money.

Dumbest of all is that we hang on to this stupid system although we have *not* actually rejected the metric system. All scientific measurements are metric. My metric tools sometime fit the nuts on my Dodge better than my SAE tools...which might be because it was made in Canada.

All that said, Fender, Gibson and a lot of YT continue to use inch-based measures...and as a result I use an analog ruler to do setup measures down to 64ths of an inch...which results in the need to do my conversions to mm with a calculator, hence my delay.

Glad that the shielding tape worked! It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize how much easier that would be than dowelling and re-drilling.

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I see - quite a mess.... What is "YT"?

I thought the car industries had been pretty much standardised along manufacturing conglomerate lines - well, not related to guitars but anything learned is a good thing.

The shilding tape doesn't ensure a "perfect fit" but it does stop the movement substantially (before the screw is put in).

YT=Youtube.

Perfect fit isn't necessary with the tuners that use a nut (as opposed to push-in ferules), IMHO ;-)

Well this build (there are now two unfinished guitars - which I view as the "one build" given that one "progresses" to the other in lessons learned) has reached another milestone... the second iteration is now "working" acoustically.

Attachment 45731
[the blue represents where the pickup will be]

It turns out the bridge is 1mm out of line. It's hard to see in the photo but a move 1 mm "up" makes it "perfect". I'll fix that next week.

Attachment 45732

I've put "rev. willy's 7s" on it and these take a bit of getting used to (they are SO "slinky") but it plays really well. The only issue is the aforementioned slight misalignment - which affects the partial muting I do with my thumb.

Still not entirely happy with the upper bout.... but it so nearly "fits" when i try to play (I want to get to the stage where,when seated, my fretting hand does not need to hold the neck in place - this is almost there).

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Originally Posted by EsquireEsque

Still not entirely happy with the upper bout.... but it so nearly "fits" when i try to play (I want to get to the stage where,when seated, my fretting hand does not need to hold the neck in place - this is almost there).

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Comfort when you play it is so important. I made a P-bass with a Pit Bull custom Jazz bass width neck and a paulownia body. I am very reluctant to change anything on it because when I play it, it's just "viceless." The body is comfortable. The neck feels great. The action is just right, controls are simple and easy. It almost feels like it disappears when I play it. So I am VERY reluctant to change anything on it. It may not be my most interesting looking creation, but it gets played more than any other.

Over time, I am guessing that you'll care less about the upper bout (which looks pretty good to me, BTW) as long as you just like the feel of it when you play.

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Originally Posted by fender3x

Comfort when you play it is so important. I made a P-bass with a Pit Bull custom Jazz bass width neck and a paulownia body. I am very reluctant to change anything on it because when I play it, it's just "viceless." The body is comfortable. The neck feels great. The action is just right, controls are simple and easy. It almost feels like it disappears when I play it. So I am VERY reluctant to change anything on it. It may not be my most interesting looking creation, but it gets played more than any other.

Over time, I am guessing that you'll care less about the upper bout (which looks pretty good to me, BTW) as long as you just like the feel of it when you play.

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I understand completely. Comfort matters and makes it 'payabie" (I just need to be able to play!).
I think it's nearly "tailored to me" - I'll keep assessing it but I think the top "curve" could be a adjusted with the top bout a little wider (towards the middle of the guitar.) That means it'll "sit" in position and more or less hold itself in place. I've done a lot of work with the contouring over the first two bodies and I think this'd be the last adjustment to that end.

I might tape something a few mm thick on to see it it makes the difference I think it will.