OT: any forum about guitar building/maintenance?

[barret77]

hello all

I have an OT question;
does anyone know a forum as good as this one but about guitar building/maintenance? I've seen a few but not as good as this community. (by the way, this place is so great)

thanks

by the way: I'm looking for a forum like this to ask about a acoustic guitar nut; I have to buy a new one, and cut the string slots. my question is about the best off the shelf tool for this job...

[WorkBench]

project guitar and guitarnuts, but they are not as active as this forum!
Chris

[O]

Reranch.com has a forum, and it's really active. There are a lot of builders there, so the help is amazing.

[Karmasound]

I'm starting to get into lutherie, but I haven't found a great forum like this one for it.

[Clipped]

The BEST thing to use would be a set of nut files from places such as
http://www.stewmac.com This is a pretty expensive option if this is the only guitar you'll do it to. These files are specially made with the proper taper for the string gauge and have a rounded bottom. Get ready to be surprise how expensive they are though.

Dan Erlwine (Stewart MacDonald) has some videos on Acoustic building and and one specific to making nuts. (About 40 bucks though). I got the "Assemble a solid body electric" for 19.95 and it had some great info on cutting nuts which would transfer to the acoustic for the most part.

I know this isn't free internet advice, but the tape was well worth the 20 bucks.

You MAY be able to make due with some jeweler files, but the high e, etc are a pretty thin slot. There are many fine points of correctly making the slot, such as taper of the slot, depth, good string "Break" in and out of the nut, blah, blah, blah.

You may save yourself the money in ruined nuts and aggrevation by biting the bullet and making a Video/Book purchase.

Have fun,
Ron

[Fret Wire]

Here's a good building/repair forum. Tightly moderated, no spaming or product advertising. Still usefull.
http://www.mimf.com/cgi-bin/WebX

While not a forum, Project Guitar has many good photo-essay tutorials.
http://www.projectguitar.com/

Basically deals with Les Pauls, but on the Les Paul Forum, there is Dan Erlewine's repair section.
http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/index.php?s=b6cebdb2d0f5319badea088eb89458be

For tools and supply's, there is Stewart McDonalds.
http://www.stewmac.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi/hzpi/u/HzSt0117161716131515160U0n0m130n12110m131010/hazel.cgi?action=HOME&LOC=NB

[barret77]

yeah, but I found this guitar in the dumpster... some neighbors moved out and left the guitar there. It's my 2nd dumpster guitar this year!

I don't want to spend more than 5 bucks fixing it... it's just not worth it. It's an old "Carlos" pretty beaten up, I want to leave it playable only - to play in the park this summer...

[barret77]

nice links! thanks

Here's a good building/repair forum. Tightly moderated, no spaming or product advertising. Still usefull.
http://www.mimf.com/cgi-bin/WebX

While not a forum, Project Guitar has many good photo-essay tutorials.
http://www.projectguitar.com/

Basically deals with Les Pauls, but on the Les Paul Forum, there is Dan Erlewine's repair section.
http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/index.php?s=b6cebdb2d0f5319badea088eb89458be

For tools and supply's, there is Stewart McDonalds.
http://www.stewmac.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi/hzpi/u/HzSt0117161716131515160U0n0m130n12110m131010/hazel.cgi?action=HOME&LOC=NB

[petemoore]

I've been building them.
 I LIKE Factory NEcks...did some DIY necks...alotta Work...Lotta work...definitely better/easier to start with factory neck...unless you know another way...takes tooling most of us dont have.
 Double insulated LP Double Cutaway I have is Awesome !!
 I threw a blemscrap, brand new, excellent neck [of course I redressed the frets...'lightly' is all it too] plays perfectly, the way I...I like !!!
 Having Dan E.'s book around 'Guitar Repair Method'...GOOD Thing to have if you dont'...
 My LP has recieved 2 fret redressings, the Washburn 1...so far...
 Having axes that are 'railed out' [I like to call it]...either with slightly higher action [like I like for 'chunk' on the LP...a bit more chunk on the Special]...and super low on the Washburn...GREAT ThinG !!!
 A little taping the board [and pickups to keep steel fibers from getting into the magnets/windings] and steel woolling the frets between fret redressings...Nice...
 Nothing like a freshly setup, harmonically set, freshly strung, redressed guitar...only goes downhill from there....with nice pickups...the Best Guitar You've ever played is waiting to be played...after attention to ALL the details.
 It takes practice...the nut will have to be shimmed or scrapped for instance if you take too much off...
 Dan made it very easy [for me at least] with that marker method he uses, to get perfectly aligned frets...or whatever kind of relief or S shape...I always try to leave the most fret I can on the lower frets...I wear these down quickly compared to higher ones...and I 'get rid' of some of the higher frets height...my brother uses sandpaper on a 3' level...gets 'flat' for abcertain...I prefer the relief theory.
 I recommend Dan's method ... sure fire as any, if that guitar don't play certain notes, or action is high....it CAN be worked with...if...[         , and     ] you have enough fret height to start with and it's not 'unworkable' or twisted.
  Enough typing...