Recent content by tangent

You don't even need to dye or stain the wood to replicate that look.  You can just use any matte black paint and a matte poly topcoat with no grain filler, or maybe with a minimal amount of black grain filler.  If you want to use black stain though, minwax waterbased black stain works well and...

I'd recommend procion mx dyes (water based, although I usually add solvent to them to increase penetration).. I just posted some info on them in this thread For natural masked binding thinned shellac is a good option, as greywolf mentioned.  You want to make sure the shellac mixture is very...

I'd recommend using procion mx dyes.. they work well and are super cheap so no worry about wasting dye while mixing test batches of color. With a really light wood like maple the color you get will be pretty similar to what you see on the staining pad (assuming you're using white cotton...

I already had an image of a standard pickguard over the warmoth rear route controls so I made this mockup real quick that shows what I'm talking about in the previous post. First image is the original image, on the second one I  drew black dots to indicate the position of the warmoth rear route...

I've done this myself, and everything VinceClortho says above is accurate. However, he is speaking in the context of using a clear acrylic pickguard.  If you are using an opaque pickguard and don't mind modifying the body a little bit, you can use a standard size pickguard with the standard...

Ah cool, was wondering how you did the white parts.  Prismacolor premier markers are great, I also love these adirondack refillable markers.. fill them with procion mx dye and ~60% ethanol, saves me from spending a fortune on prismacolor/copic markers =)

When you say aerograph you are talking about an airbrush right? If so, then yes that is an acceptable way to do it, assuming you have experience using an airbrush. That said, you will be better off using standard airbrush (acrylic) paint rather than shooting dye through the airbrush because it...

Very nice indeed, you did a really good job of working the shape of the body into the design.  I especially like how the phoenix wing mirrors the cutaway. You're going to have to build a rotating display case or something for this thing  :icon_thumright:

That is my experience also, my Am. std strat neck feels just slightly thicker than a warmoth standard thin profile.  I have long thin fingers and find warmoth standard thin with 1.75 nut most comfortable.  Guitars with 1.625  nut are uncomfortable for me unless they have a thicker profile (and...

Yeah for $1600 you'd think he could at least take a better picture of the neck.. maybe one has decent lighting/color and one that shows the fretboard.  Not to mention list some specs like what the nut width is, rather than just rambling on about how 'personal' it is and how crappy the tuners are.

Schaller claims the hannes bridge has increased sustain up to 15% over steel or 25% over brass fixed bridge designs, due to the extreme low mass of the graphite saddles.  (There is no metal under the strings, only TUSQ) That seems like an arbritrary statistic that they pulled out of their ass...

yeah the wiring for that can get hairy pretty quick.. much easier to wire it as a master tone with a switch to disable it or use a 5 way super switch and do 1-Neck bypass tone 2-Neck w/ tone 3-N+B w/ tone 4-Bridge w/ tone 5-Bridge bypass tone

Rio grande twangbucker would be a good choice, since it is meant to be used in that configuration.. the coils are offset slightly so that the pole pieces still line up under both strings http://www.riograndepickups.com/scart/ProductPage.asp?ImageLink=VTTWBB&ProductName=For+Tele If you contact...

Here's a page with lots of info on the fender fotoflame series of the mid-90's http://xhefriguitars.com/page7.html Friend of mine had one of those back then, the finish is pretty convincing except that it lacks the 3 dimensional chatoyance effect of real figured maple

While the frets take the finger largely out of the equation, you still have to consider factors like vibrato technique, fretting pressure, picking style and technique..  those kind of details are what really differentiate the best players from the rest, IMO I'm not the most amazing player but I...