hey hey hey!

i think for inlays they drill holes in the fretboard and glue the little inlays in. it would be cool to be able to put in your own. then you could customize your guitar. engraving would be cool to. i think they put the inlays in at the factory and i bet they wont come out.

makes sense. i wonder if i could just buy a neck from PRS somehow :) complete with the birds they do, they make great ones.

Basic inlay is cutting out the shape of your inlay material, then etching the outline of that piece on to the fretboard, removing wood from the inside the outline, and gluing in the inlay, Stew-Mac has some good books on this subject. Incidents if you really are interested in doing inlay work and are willing to put in the time to get good at it, and build a reputation, you'd have more work than you could ever keep up with, not a whole lot of people do inlays, and their are always people looking for some one to do repairs and custom work, are you much of an artist?

Originally posted by PonyOne
Japanese strats are better sounding than AmStrats, just for the record.

i have a japanese strat, and it sounds like a pile of ****. plus that statement is 100% raw opinion.

Originally posted by pstring
Basic inlay is cutting out the shape of your inlay material, then etching the outline of that piece on to the fretboard, removing wood from the inside the outline, and gluing in the inlay, Stew-Mac has some good books on this subject. Incidents if you really are interested in doing inlay work and are willing to put in the time to get good at it, and build a reputation, you'd have more work than you could ever keep up with, not a whole lot of people do inlays, and their are always people looking for some one to do repairs and custom work, are you much of an artist?

i could be, but haven't really gotten into it too much yet.
like you said, take some time to get good at it, im sure i could do that. im assuming it would cost a decent sum of money on 'practice inlays' and etc, but im loaded and it would be worth it.

the inlay thing will likely only be for myself though, it will not likely be a profession , as i am and always will be a better guitar player than artist (it comes easier to me, i like it more, curiousity, etc), but it is valuable to know how to do it, i think.

im probably not going to get into the inlay work until i get a new electric guitar and have a nice sum of money to work with, to buy inlay books, a few guitar necks from warmoth (cheap ones, wont get the real expensive ones til i get good at it). Time is on my side too, being only 14. life is great:)

i just wanted to tell you guys to keep going! us newbies are learning alot just from reading your posts.

Larry, Hey Man we were trying to keep this a secret, but now that we know other people are reading this stuff, we will be forced to stop immediately,,,,, Just Kidding, Hey Incidents, practice could be really cheap, junker guitar necks, and some stuff called "Ablam", which is a fake plastic abalone substitute, if you like inlayed fretboards, check out some Baker guitars, they do some cool stuff......

StewMac of course.

And don't forget Lee Valley Tools

Good luck,
L.

yeah, but you know, if i buy a bunch of books on inlay, it can't be so hard that nobody here could do it (and i encourage everybody to give it a try). probably just takes some time, thats all...

oh, here's another one to bump this thread along-

if you use too much abalone on your fretboard, can it deteriorate the sound? Im assuming the answer is yeah, but i'll need confirmation on that.

i like how this thread has morphed, like from AmStrats to Custom Guitars, to the woods on the custom guitars, to pricing on customs, to inlays, if we keep up we just might write the book of life (as guitar players see it:)). perhaps that is why i put "hey hey hey!!!" as a title, instead of "custom...etc"

Deteriorate sound quality, I don't think so, inlay materials are extremely thin, you are not going to remove much wood, look at a Les Paul fretboard, they may be kind of plain, design wise, but thats alot of inlay, alot of ultra high-end accoustics have are really overboard with inlay, if it affected sound quality, I don't think you would see it used much....... of course some people swear they can hear all kinds of stuff, I'd like to administer some blindfolded tests before I start believing some of their claims.....Hmmm, sounds like a pink tele, with a gold plated bridge, Ernie Ball strings, .009-.042, changed 3 days ago, the guitarist is wearing green socks.........

Originally posted by PonyOne
Incidents,

Every statement on tone, or what guitar is good is 100% raw opinion. I hate PRS's, I find their tone to be bland. Japanese strats are no longer shipped to the US because guitarists figued out that for a much smaller price, they could get a guitar that had the name and used better woods and electronics. Have you taken it into a guitar tech and had it just tuned up? I noticed in another thread you menion you used 12's, and since you haven't been playing long and they haven't been shipping since '98, I assume that it was bought used. It may need to reintoned to handle the strings. If you like the feel of it, them just buy some better pickups, from Seymour Duncan, etc. Or just get some real, genuine Fender American p/u's.

I have a Japanese 50th anniversary tele '52RI that has drool-worthy tone, way nicer than at least 90% of the guitars out there, and it's toally stock (it's a session guitar; I'm a lefty, it's a righty, I use it to record bluesy riffs and such). But then I find strats to be lackluster in terms of tone, which goes against mainstream wisdom, so who am I to talk?

oh ha sorry i just checked, "Crafted in Indonesia" i knew it was somewhere out on the pacific islands, just assumed japan. but anyways the one that was crafted in indonesia sucks balls, very hollow sound.

we have more in common that we thought, i am starting to agree, the fender guitar tone sounds a bit hollow, not too filling for me. I played an Epi LP and that had some cool grooves. Perhaps i'll just buy a top end Epi LP...

bump!

Does anybody play a nice Epi LP like a Custom, or a Custom Flametop, or a Black Beauty?

what do you guys think of those?