Guitar Building Techniques That Are A Waste Of Time
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2022
- In this video, I will explain a couple of examples of guitar-building processes which may be a waste of time. Are there any processes you think can be avoided or are unnecessary? Post your thoughts below.
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Remember, Lemmings never question why they do what they do. If they did, maybe they'd live longer.
Well, basic physics should tell you that the most string movement is not near the end of the fingerboard, but always dead center between a fretted note and the saddle, so open stringed at the 12th fret and the shorter the whole distance, the less it moves. Falloff is absolutely not required. In all reality the relief can be seen as a complete bow with the 12th fret being the lowest point, meaning it can rise up again from 12th fret to the saddles. Falloff is for acoustic guitars with glued on necks where the soundboard can warp, and the fingerboard end rise up due to string tension and traditional construction methods. The fall off helps to prevent strings fretting out when the fingerboard over the soundboard rises with age. On electrics, the strongest (thickest) part of the neck is the heel, and even on a Les Paul type construction, the body will not rise and push up the part of the fingerboard attached to it. If anything it could tilt it down if it shrinks.
I always make a full proper bowed action first to last fret, more relief for bass strings, less on the treble strings. It's string tension and vibration which dictate how far the strings swing out (A wave with it's apex always at dead center it's length). String gauges, tuning, and playing strength should be considerations in reducing fret buzz, and if the frets do buzz, then with a low action over a precise relief it will be restricted to the initial strike and dissipate too rapidly to be a problem as all frets will have the string hitting them, knocking its swing into submission by absorbing a good amount of it's energy, but with a few high frets or just one, that won't happen, and therefore the one or two frets the string hits will not take enough energy out of the string to reduce its swing to within the relief, and the buzz can persist.
It's not easy putting a great relief in for a criminally low action, as truss rods do not bend necks evenly, for one because they are usually shorter than the whole span of the fingerboard (some only go to around the 18 fret) and also the taper of the neck, including the wood is not homogeneous in strength and flexibility throughout... IOW You cannot rely on those over the top, and expensive fretting jigs and beams alone, you have to take into account how a neck reacts to truss rod adjustments and sculpt the relief to best follow it when adjusted.
4 decades building guitars and a physics/electronics geek to the max. It's all to be found in newtons laws, and mechanical wave theory.
That is totally unfair to lemmings. The idea that lemmings commit mass suicide is a myth. That myth was reinforced in modern times when Disney staged a scene with large numbers of lemmings falling into the water for a so-called nature documentary. But it was just movie-magic. Lemmings don't really do that.
People on the other hand...
@@Arfonfree You are right. And they are cute little critters. I think Micky mouse was just jealous, and drunk again when he ordered them to do that! (
Brilliant assessment!🤣👍
@@Bob-of-Zoid Well said Bob. We must all accept that the means of adjusting guitar necks has always been somewhat inadequate and anything we do to approach perfection will always be some level of a compromise.
BTW are you the same Robert English that lived in Massachusetts in the 80s?
For sanding contours, cutaways, and other curved surfaces I like to use a sticky roller - with a fresh sticky sheet and slapping a piece of sandpaper to it
What I personally find unnecessary are glossy clear coats. Both as a builder and a player, I strongly prefer the look and feel of a nice oil finish. I find that it not only holds up well over time and against the elements, but it's much easier to fix when it gets damaged. Probably better for the environment too.
Technically speaking, all fancy finishes, decorative inlays, binding, etc, are unnecessary. All a guitar needs is a basic finish to protect it from discoloration due to dirt and dust. I've been trying to find the best combo of ease of application (rattle can), cost (brush on poly), and drying time (shellac or lacquer). Almost half the time of building a guitar is waiting for stuff to dry (glue, dyes, stains, oils, clear coats, etc). Of course, you can always start on the next build while stuff is in the "paint shop".
Great video. Totally agree with the falloff. Generally that's not needed.
As for pickups, I like mine potted. It's easy enough and makes a difference when using high gain. When I used to gig, every unpotted pickup I tried allowed every bump of the instrument to go thru the amp. Pot it and it's better. The average home hobby player probably won't be in that situation though. Potting adds very little cost and time, just messy as heck.
Van Halen DID NOT invent wax potting Guitar pickups. Though he tried to take credit for it in interviews. The first to do it as a matter of routine was George Beauchamp, while working at Rickenbacker in the early 40's.
Wax encasing things would have been second nature to any electrical designer, back to the 1910s and '20s. So, the first guy who ever heard a pickup squeal probably immediately thought "Dunk it in wax".
By 1955, Fender was lacquering their pickups to accomplish the same thing. But wax is easier to get out if you ever need to take it apart later. . .
Gibson also used a potting in the 70’s that is commonly referred to as “tar back” pickups. They are my favorite.
@@drprick7432 I remember the interview where Van Halen claimed that he alone invented wax potting of his pickups. Of course as most guitar mechanics know Eddie was a pompous liar and potting has been around decades before Eddie was even born. It surprises me that a luthier would perpetuate this stupid myth in a video.
Anyone building pickups and not potting them , in my opinion is just being lazy. There is a lot more to microphonic noise than feedback squeal.
An unpotted pickup will allow every click, pop or knock the guitar body takes to be unnecessarily amplified and can be quite annoying to anyone, especially recording engineers. Potting has no negative effects on the pickups frequency response and can only have positive effects and improvement by reducing unwanted noise. Pickups are not supposed to act like microphones and some kind of potting is necessary to make sure they only do what they are supposed to do.
@@drprick7432 Those "tarback" Super humbuckers were most commonly put in SGs in the early to mid 70s. They used ceramic magnets that gave them a punchy mid range boost and they were potted with a black epoxy, that gave them their unique appearance ... not really tar. Because of that epoxy potting they are a nightmare if you ever want to split the coils...Some would say it is impossible to split the coils on a Super Humbucker. Though it is more difficult, it can be done.
@@williardbillmore5713 Yeah I have a '73 and '74 SG and a 320 hollowbody that somebody replaced the single coils with those tarbacks. I love the sound. (My other favorites are Lollar P-90s)
@@williardbillmore5713 I have an old Ibanez Firebird copy that Curtis Novak rewound the pickups for me. Talk about microphonic, You can practically talk into one of them. I asked him about that and he said, "That's the way Neil likes his." I mean, who am I to question Mr. Young's taste? lol
Fret fall-off profiles are very common for the top end bass builders. It is only partly due to the reason you talked about. If you work on old basses (10+ years old), then you quickly see why it is so important. It future proofs the neck (to a certain extent) against the very common upward kink near the body. The other way to (more or less) stop this from happening with bass necks is to use carbon fibre reinforcement. (FWIW, if you run the CF through the nut transition and into the headstock, it also helps with the quite common upward kink at the first fret due to headstock rotation.)
As for wax potting, I agree. It is really silly to do it as a matter of course. But I'm not so sure many reputable winders do this. Certain styles of pickups actually have slightly a microphonic character on purpose. Vintage style bass pickups especially, benefit from no potting.
Another reason why fret fall off can be useful is because so many players these days like to down tune their instruments, which makes the strings really wobble over those last 5 or 6 frets.
I'm not sure when microphonic feedback became such an evil thing. It can be a very useful effect in the hands of those who know how to make it work for them.
Always excellent stuff to learn from. Thanks!
Great point! That clarifies things for me!
You definitely earned my subscription!
Awesome channel!
One thing I learned is do not add fancy high end electronics unless it’s what you want. I built a high end bass with so many different types of controls and I ended up not using some of them. KISS! (Keep it simple, Sam)
I definitely love the idea behind this thought experiment. Toooo often we don’t audit ourselves and our habits!
Yes!
I stopped setting up my drill press and shimming my headstocks with double-sided tape (super glue trick) to drill tuner peg holes for my machine heads.
That was painful prep to drill some holes. Perpendicular.
I bought one of those perpendicular drill block jigs with multiple diameter hole/bit sizes and Bam!
All I have to do is clamp the neck to my bench with an appropriate headstock support and use my hand drill.
Beyond the time savings, it’s just flat-out less of a hassle. Less annoying. And I also believe that the more set up for any operation, can introduce error. Especially if you don’t like doing it!
So far, there has always been enough real estate on the head stock to accommodate the drill bit jig.
Thx Chris for your content. Still drinking it up.
Cheers!
Thanks for the video. Thought provoking. Subbed.
Thanks for the sub!
Great video! Actually, wax potting was originally done by Larry DiMarzio, who later switched to a vacuum process, to suck the wax deeper into the coils.
Thank you Chris. The information about the wax potting of pickups, and how it came about, was really interesting. I had to laugh, thinking back to the "garage band" days in the early-mid '70's when everyone having two or three double-stack Marshalls, or Peaveys was "how it was done" (and having to rent extra gear for gigs) - along with the 25' curly cords. Thank heavens that has become part of rock and roll history (Grateful Dead fans may disagree). Putting up all of that gear was a lot easier on the body then than it is now, for some strange reason, LOL. Many thanks for your very good information on checking for high frets - I will definitely try changing the order of those parts of the job. I'm building for myself, or occasionally to make a gift, but anything that streamlines the job sounds like a good idea!
I just found your channel. I subscribed prior to watching. It is time to learn. I need to learn these techniques to assist my Grandson who is starting to play guitar. He learned to play violin first. Thank you.
You're never too old to learn, and your grandson will be inspired by the example you set.
thanks so much chris for your sharing .how about a video on winding pickups with the new yellow tensioner in use and how you set up the tensioner for the tightness of the wire for your pickups
I probably will at some point. However, these tensioners are very touchy and what works for my tensioner may not work for others. That being said, a video might be a good starting point.
I like rolloff - mainly on the lower strings because I never play those and they are the first to start buzzing! so, sometimes it easier to do a mini fret job on that portion of the fingerboard
Brian May wax potted his pickups when he built the "Red Special". I believe it was the first set that he wound himself, and those were ultimately unsuccessful. So he changed them for the Burns Tri-sonics it has in it now. But he was wax potting pickups in the late 60's and it wasn't new then.
Didn't they dip paper capacitors in wax? I wonder if it was done because of the thin foil inside . . . harmonics . . . I think the 'gadgetry' and mad scientist stuff Eddie Van Halen did is worthy of a CZcams episode. Didn't he also create the 'brown' sound?
Brian May actually spotted his pickups using Araldite adhesive.
Very helpful
1 thought about wax-potting pickups: Hundreds of feet metal wire will expand with temperature, thus loosening the coil and contributing to vibration. On stage with hot lighting on hot days could be that recipe for microphonics.
I like microphonic feedback. It's a tool in my music arsenal. I once had a seymour duncan bridge PU installed on one of my guitars which I had difficulty getting to feedback on purpose.
What takes the most time? Doing the fall away whilst you've got the leveling beam out anyway or having to remove the strings & neck, fix problem frets, and then redo the crowning & polishing? Personally (as a hobby builder) I'd rather get to assembling the guitar with the knowledge that the frets are sorted.
The use of a fret leveling beam is is another potential waste of time. I rarely use one on my guitar builds as it is totally unnecessary if the fretboard is precisely shaped and the frets are properly pressed in.
I will add a little Fret fall off usually because of a hump where the neck joins the body.
There is wire available that when heated bonds the windings together while still isolating them from one another
I'll suggest one thing to skip for first time builders; If you are still getting used to building or are building your first guitar, skip the inlay work and fancy embellishments. Seen quite a few first time builds over the years that focused on aesthics instead of functionality. Top grade quilt, cnc precision inlay, and the best hardware in the world. They all mean nothing if you skip over your functionality. Hopefully this was on topic enough. Don't want to see more guitars with improper neck break angles and such shatter someone's moral who sank $1k+ into something that is now wall art.
I’d also say skip the tremolo. It complicates things a fair bit, and might make your first guitar less than it could be.
Seems like wax potting would be a good value added feature to keep in there since it can be going for the most part on it's own while you're doing other things. I agree on the fret fall off tho....don't fix it unless it's broken.
I love your videos. You are a great teacher and sharer of knowledge. Yes EVH waxed his pickups but it was Wayne Charvel who taught Eddie Van Halen how to "wax pot" pickups.
That's why I said "arguably."
@@HighlineGuitars Yeah... I was surprised too when I learned about it.
Actually, one thing I've stopped doing is leveling the frets *before* I put strings on and setup (excl intonation). This is for e.g. part or kit builds. I've had frets test egregiously high but barely present any buzz after stringing up. Conversely, I've leveled and ended up with a *ton* of buzz (possibly from a poorly executed leveling job).
Omg. You are the first. And I mean the very numero, uno to say that about wax potting. I try to let a few know that the 1959 paf sound you love and want and look for in every pickup you buy will not be and can't be found in the newest most recent double dipped wax potted pups.
I've never had to put falloff on a fret job. But most of my builds are 25.5" scale length, 8's, zero relief, and 1.4mm action at the 24th. The strings just don't get sloppy enough to require it.
Oddly enough, I've just switched to wax potted pickups on all my builds - feedback is part of my tone.
#1 waste of time from a profitability point of view: finishing parts of the guitar that won't be seen when fully assembled.
#1 indicator of quality throughout a build: finishing parts of the guitar that won't be seen when fully assembled.
That boils down to the age-old question: Are you in it for the art or for the money?
I'm still at the hobbyist level, so I have the luxury of indulging the artist in me. So I hand finish every last little shim and spacer - even the parts you'll never see.
As motioned elsewhere in the comments, automatically scalloping a fretboard is also a waste of time. Not everyone has "bassist hands" and needs the extra room to get under the strings for bends.
Level crown and polish of new frets is also likely overkill - unless you can't press frets uniformly.
Lately I've taken a less is more approach to fretwork and dressing fret ends - with rolling the fret ends and fretboard edges as the only mandatory step these days.
Semi-spherical ("hot dog") fret ends are pretty but not worth the time. File the fret ends flush with an angle inwards, then round off the sharp corners and edges and call it done. Nobody plays on the mirror-polished hot dog fret ends anyway.
falloff on the fretboard is mostly important when you want to get a really low action..and if you are using 'loose strings'..or dropped tuning. If you are playing with 10s for a real heavy overdrive or crunch then you probably dont need it..but with 9s you might have some problems..by crowning the frets to create falloff you lessen the likelyhood that the guitar player will have to worry about buzz when playing closer to the bridge..wax potting..yes, it is moslty an issue if you are playing loud..guys that want to strum in their living room with headphones will have no problem because that covers most of us, but then..if you are making a guitar for a star..then..not likely because the star will have a contract with a major guitar manufacturer that send him the guitar with the falloff and giving him a nice thank you paycheck along with other goodies on top..
At my normal billing rate I figure I have well over $2000 into my first kit build. I could never make a nickel the way it went. Finishing along was just ridiculous! It gave me gobs of respect for anyone who can take a few blocks of wood and make a living building guitars.
I regularly watch your Channel for the many insightful ways and clever solutions you use in building your guitars. Something came up on your current headless guitar build that is also used on most solid body guitars. It is specifically the neck angle, and whether should it be parallel to the body or angled back. On your current build, you had to create a recess in the top for the bridge to fit the special tuning machines due to the straight neck to body joint. I think that could have been avoided, and in advantageous ways.
In my many years of experience as a player, I've found it much easier to play a guitar with a neck that is angled backwards some, as it is more ergonomic in putting the lower frets closer to my body, and raising the highest frets above the body of the guitar, making them more accessible and easier to play. The difference is particularly striking when I switch between my Strat, and Gibson ES-175. The Gibson plays like butter and the Strat feels uncomfortable and cramp by comparison just because of the neck angle. I know angling the neck backwards on a solid body introduces more chance of braking the headstock off, but it sure makes playing the guitar a lot easier in my experience. Perhaps food for thought. Thanks
All true except I don't like the look or feel of angled necks
I found the steeper the neck angle, the higher the bridge, and thus the higher the strings sat off the body.
It was way easier when strumming and not looking to hit the low estring with way too much hand/pick.
I find if the strings are closer to the body, then it’s easier to judge the strings when your not actively looking .
Just my opinion though.
This was such an education for me, your explanation on the pickups was also very interesting however your explanation of the ‘fret fall-off’ was indeed a learning experience for me. I’m not a luthier although I enjoy putting guitars together and repairing them for friends that play gigs and such. I JUST ran into this issue with a Strat build with a Warmoth neck and it has stainless steel frets which alone are more of a challenge ( at least for me ) to work with as opposed to the standard nickel ones.
Thanks so much for sharing your expertise 🤙
As an acoustic player, I usually like fret falloff with my gigging guitars so that if I change humidity while traveling and the guitar starts to dry up, the hump at the neck joint causes fret buzz.
So having an acoustic fret falloff preemptively removes that problem, especially since most acoustic players never go past the 14th fret.
I remember Dylan talking about metal getting in there and rusting and destroying the continuity of the wiring . Interesting video. I want the machines to do the boring housework and emails and computer work so I can spend time building guitars not the other way around. That is why you won’t catch me with a cnc !
This one is probably controversial, but a full fret level. With the right fret installation process, I've had necks that could achieve the desired relief and string height without need to level the frets-maybe little touch with a file on a few frets was all that was needed.
Exactly what I was going to say. Right on.
Well said
Most new guitars these days could still benefit from having their action and intonation improved by a proper fret n crown job. Doesn’t mean it’s 100% necessary by any means, but in most cases you will be improving the instrument this way
@@TylrVncnt - It's definitely necessary often, but some people act like it's always necessary.
I do it every fret job, but the fretboard is measured and correct. Fret levels are only as good as what they are sitting on. Lumpy fretboard is a waste of time, :ie most Gibsons..
EVH might have been the first to wax pot his pickups but Brian May filled his Trisonic pickups with Araldyte epoxy when he built his guitar in the 60s
Good thoughts. Re fret falloff - besides more work, it raises the action on the upper frets. Just ask how may guitar players would like the option of having higher action on the upper frets. Not too many, I reckon. Re wax potting - it would be nice to have a good test before installing PU into a guitar to see if microphonics is an issue. If you don't need it - woot! But if you do, potting can help immeasurably.
I used to wonder why many players assume awkward postures when playing on stage. Then I realized it was because they knew how to control microphonic feedback by how they stand in front of the speakers. When you eliminate microphonic feedback via wax potting, you eliminate a potentially valuable option to your catalog of sound effects.
My example might rub some the wrong way: Fret levelling! Yes, sometimes you need to file or sand material off your frets, but you very often don't need to. By pressing or hammering (with a soft face hammer) high spots, it is possible to get your frets level a lot of the time without the hassle of levelling. I have a video on this. Try it before you hate it!
Wax potting is a safety measure. If I was a builder I'd do it, not just to insure against the chance of there being some loose winds in there, but also because customers expect it.
Great video, as always. Thanks. I haven’t found it essential to solder humbucker covers when they fit snugly. I would if I got some squeal or noise but I haven’t ever. I have most recently fitted an “open” cover to a bridge humbly to match the look of a P94 I fitted in the neck. It fitted tightly and there is no difference to the sound of the pickup now than when it was uncovered. The same has happened previously with full covers. So I think the automatic advice to solder or use silicone etc. seems overblown.
Do you make and sell guitars to customers? Do they include a warranty against defects like pickup covers falling off?
@@HighlineGuitars no - I’m only working on my own guitars. I can see why manufacturers would probably solder in every case as it isn’t much extra work. However, the “rule” that it has to be done in every case (for personal use) is never challenged.
The pickups on my 1960 Kay are lightly wax potted. I don't think Eddie did it, but I wasn't there so I can't be sure.
Are you the original owner?
@@HighlineGuitars I'm not, but I guess I have a hard time picturing someone going to the effort of potting them on a catalog guitar. I tore it down last year for a refresh and it seemed to me that I was the first person in there. I could absolutely be mistaken. Also the pickups are riveted to the pick guard so I feel that would have been a lot of effort.
I thought of one technique I'm not sure is necessary. Having the neck on a jig to simulate string tension for fretwork. I've read a lot of techs just adjust the neck perfectly straight with a notched straightedge. I'm curious to see how others feel about that.
I've leveled dozens of necks without using a jig. Works perfectly fine. But admittedly, I probably don't fully understand the concept. I mean, to me, if the neck is straight, it's straight. I don't care if there is no string tension or 10x string tension, if it's straight it's straight. Level the frets with the neck perfectly straight, string up and dial in about .008-.010 of relief, set you action and you're good to go.
@@markrup6369 I've never leveled a neck, just a few frets here and there. I read up on it, and re-fretting in particular. I'm just thinking, when there are strings on that neck, and you have some relief, (simulated with jig) would it be better to level the frets like that? Theoretically, wouldn't the frets be a little higher on both ends of the neck when relief is introduced if leveled flat? Just wondering. I'm certainly no expert. Thanks.
Wood is not uniform and even if a neck is perfectly straight when strung up, once you remove the strings it's going to move a little. If there is a weak spot or a part that is stiffer than the rest of the neck those parts will move more or less depending on the other stresses on the neck. It may be insignificant most of the time, but by properly jigging up the neck under string pressure, when the strings are removed you'll know the neck should remain exactly as it was when strung up. If you think about it you would really want to do your fret leveling with strings on and under tension (and there are leveling beams that can be used for that) so the frets end up perfectly flat under tension, which is how they are used. Whether the movement that happens when you install or remove strings makes a noticeable difference depends greatly on the stiffness and consistency of the neck material, whether the truss rod is engaged and whether you have carbon fiber bars or other stiffening installed. On a perfectly, or at least consistently, stiff neck it doesn't matter, but those don't exist. Even a carbon fiber or aluminum neck will move to some small degree after strings are installed. YMMV...
Is a jig necessary? No. Will you end up with a better fret job if it's jigged up properly? Probably. Will it matter enough to make the investment in a neck jig? Debatable...
@@riplead You are right in how you are thinking about it. I think it would be foolish to level frets while the neck is in relief. You want the frets level with respect to the earth, NOT with respect to the (potentially curved) neck. Think about it -- say the neck has a huge amount of relief. If you level the frets under that scenario, the frets near the nut and bridge end will be much lower than the frets in the middle. This would cause buzzing and choking whenever you fret a note, say, below the 7th or 8th fret - all your open chords would buzz. My process is to get the neck perfectly straight (again I'm agnostic to under tension or not -- just get it straight) and level the frets. Works for me every time.
@@alamaralaa I guess I agree in concept, I've just never experienced a problem. Question -- you do agree that the neck needs to be perfectly straight to level the frets though, right? Even if it is under tension?
Agreed. Use fall away to solve a problem. I’d rather have as perfectly leveled frets as I (or the PLEK) can get, and use fall away as a cure if it’s needed. Great video!!
How many fretboard do you correct? How long have you had a Plek?
@@5150TJT corrected countless fretboards. The Plek has been at the shop 8 years
@@pressleycaliforniacustoms9526 cool, have one in Australia, always remove ski jumps or Gibson Rollercoasters 🤣
Subscription is not only free - it’s well deserved.
Great video. Loads of food for thought with regard to wasteful processes.
The one method I always found superfluous was how some manufacturers would use the fretboard binding as a fret end (hope I’m describing it properly) on their necks.
Too much trouble in my opinion.
It may be fine on a one-off guitar (where you’re trying to show off your technique) but for a mass-produced unit? Seems like way too much work to do (particularly with shaping the binding around each fret end) when you can just install the frets on top of the binding normally.
And then there’s the potential of wood shrinking, which could force the frets into the nubs in the binding, causing the binding to crack and even pull away from the rest of the neck.
With modern CNC technology, you can cut fret slots short of the edge of the fretboard thereby eliminating the need for binding. However, binding looks cool and probably isn't going away anytime soon.
Hey bud
The fret levelling one is definitely a usual tip .
The wax potting Eddie van halen invention story is a bit of a myth tho. Although he did it . Fender did it in the mid 1950s over 30 years before Eddie. They used lacquer to start with just the bobbins and twine and later by about 54 redipped in lacquer after winding but the humidity would make the lacquer flake of so by 55 /56 they used lacquer for the bobbins before winding and wax after winding , again running into problems with various players depending on where they where playing as the wax often melted in very hot venues .
I’ve heard the Eddie invented it myth many times and having owned numerous pre cbs fender guitars and basses with original wax potted pickups not rewinds I always knew it was a bit odd. But anyhow it’s fairly common knowledge these days fender used to do this in the pre cbs days which is where Eddie got the idea apparently from a book printed in the late 70s about 50s fender production
For more info on fender pickups check out Ask Zac channel and 5 watt world also Ron Ellis talks about it occasionally too
I will bet it was Donald Brosnac's guitar electronics book.
There are lots of inaccurate stories about Eddie Van Halen. Many started by him! I suspect it's a mark of his impact on the guitar world that they still persist. Eddie famously took a PAF from an ES335 to use in his Frankenstrat. An original PAF would not normally be wax potted so Eddie maybe just explained what he did to it. Fender did wax pot pickups so it was known and it must be assumed that guitar techs would probably know of it to try out on problem pickups.
the more you learn. I thought that pickups were wax potted to try and make the copper coils last much longer against corrosion! Never even considered that it was to stop any kind of vibration.
A comparison of the tone & performance of potted vs. unpotted pickups would be interesting.
They are out there.
Chris, your videos are always food for thought. About waxing the pickups: do you think that using isolating tape can be an alternative to it? Thanks in advance!
If a coil is wound loosely, wax potting will keep the windings from vibrating. Wrapping the coil with any kind of tape (or string like on vintage single coils) might help, but for how long?
@@myob3574 Careful. CA glue's exothermic reaction will destroy the insulation on magnet wire.
I'm not entirely sure you can hear fret buzz under amplification. It can be heard when you aren't plugged in, certainly. But when playing with a band at ear bleed levels, can you hear fret buzz? Also, potting isn't needed for pickups in every case. No microphonics at all with unpotted humbuckers in front of an amp, and they are one of the best sounding pickups. The coil windings are tight and don't vibrate, like you say.
Really depends on what is specifically causing the buzz and just plain how much of it there is! Definitely a little fret buzz acoustically (like the most commonly found buzz) ain’t gonna be heard thru an amp
Cheers
I learned the hard way to never take a torch to your guitar build and try to make a Shou Sugi Ban finish! Thankfully, I am following Chris' instructions for a paint finish with grain filler and sanding sealer. I normally make set neck builds, and I am wondering if it is easier and possible to paint and lacquer the neck and body separately before gluing them together without it being noticeable. Usually, I've glued the neck into the body on past builds, but it's such a pain to apply and sand back lacquer.
@@willrichtor Thanks Will for you advice and positive feedback about my question! I definitely appreciate it after you guessed it, my glue joints opened up. This is absolutely a craft that is both fun and frustrating haha! If we're not messing up we're not learning!
I think outlook and sometimes even inclination is the key. If your outlook is to ask “Why am I doing this thing in this way?” once you get enough experience to have a frame of reference, you start to figure these things out.
“There is more than one way to skin a cat”, as the old timers say.
As a player, i feel like giving fretboard a radius is a waste of time
personally sanded flat all of my fretboards before upgrading frets to stainless steel and i wouldnt go back regardless of music style
also think about how easier building a guitar becomes when you dont have to adjust everything to the radius
I've done a number of builds with flat fretboards. Other than not sanding the radius, about the only other savings is not having to set individual saddle heights. Technically, a radius is nice, not necessary. But it's so nice in so many players' eyes that it almost seems necessary - especially if you want people to buy your guitars.
Technically, frets are levelled by the truss rod. Fretwires are what you are speaking of levelling. The fretwires are obvious in name but the frets are the spaces between the fretwires and the fretboard is obvious as the the name.
Uh, EVH may have popularized potting pickups, but my Fender Bronco from 1968 had a potted pickup. ;)
I have found sanding the raw wood past a 220 grit is a waste of time as long as it is smooth and flat. I have seen many guitar building videos where people sand up to 400 or even 600 grit. All you are doing is polishing the wood and making it less likely to accept stain. This does not apply to the finish. Just the wood before you finish. Having been a woodworker for over 40 years, I can lay down a lacquer finish on wood sanded to 150 grit and you cannot see or feel the difference than wood sanded to 400 grit.
I can see up to 600 grit scratches depending on the species of wood I use.
Great video as always. I wonder if the fall off of the frets is more necessary if someone makes a big jump in string size? You fine tune your neck after stringing it up, but have you ever then put a significantly larger gauge of stings that would possibly need more room to vibrate? I am just a beginner in building,so I am just wondering.
Probably, but that's not the builder's concern. It's the player's. Adding falloff increases the cost of the guitar and in most cases will not be necessary. Why make a customer pay more for what they don't need? Instead, they can add it themselves or hire a luthier to do it for them if they feel it's needed.
Larger string gauges and shorter scale lengths will need more room to flop around. Falloff allows lower action than would otherwise be possible when fretting from about the 12th to 24th fret on a 24 fret neck with falloff staring at the 18th, or when fretting from about the 11th fret to the 22nd fret on a classic fender type neck with falloff starting at the 15th fret. Generally speaking, heavier gauge strings increase fretting effort. More volume and equalization are usually better ways to get a fatter sound without reducing playability.
Nice content! I may be wrong but I’m pretty sure that Leo Fender was using paraffin wax potting on pickups a lot earlier than EVH. Mainly to protect the old style enameled wire and also prevent corrosion.
Fender used wax and lacquer in the early 1950s. Potting electronics was certainly not new even when Leo did it. Early radio transmitters and receivers had potted components decades before the first electric guitar was invented.
@@HighlineGuitars I know, my father repaired and built radio and television equipment(the reason why I had a soldering iron in my hand and knew about circuits at age 5) and there was a whole lotta wax involved, especially on capacitors and cloth covered wires! I like having both potted and raw pickups in my personal guitars for the tonal variety.
Better to put fall off on the fretboard and leave max height on the frets. Noticed Caparison Guitars Japan do this, when they made Charvel / Jackson the fretboards have ski jumps..
On electrics, fall-off can limit how high up you can set the neck pickup. But on acoustics it can eliminate fret buzz.
Keep in mind that acoustic players hit the strings harder to get more volume. When electric players hit the strings hard they are expecting more distortion and you can't hear any fret buzz anyway.
I think pickup height can create its own harmonics, increasing the physical movement of the string. For that very reason, I pushed down the high 'staggered' pole magnet under the G string to get better tuning and decrease buzz.
It's the distance from the pickup to the strings that matters, not the pickup height above the body. Adding falloff doesn't change the pickup to string distance, unless you change the saddle heights. Electrics only distort when played hard if it causes the amp to clip. Tube amps tend to behave this way. Amps with lots of "headroom" do not.
@@leonarddaneman810 A pickup that is too close to the strings can induce magnetic buzz, where the strength and proximity of the pole pieces causes magnetic drag on the vibrating strings, resulting in a Sitar like buzz.
@@normbarrows I'm talking about 'staggered' poles . . . I was having issues with the G string, so that's the only pole I pushed down . . . I think I recall someone saying the high G magnet pole was for old types of strings, the G being wound instead of solid???? Magnetism works on the inverse square, rapidly losing pull as you move away . . .
@@leonarddaneman810 Sounds like you have a vintage pickup and non-vintage strings leading to magnetic buzz on the unwound #3 string. Pushing the slug down is a viable option, as it reduces the strength of the magnetic field. A wound #3 string or a pickup with correct pole staggering for an unwound #3 string are also viable options. A pickup with correct pole stagger might be considered the "correct" fix by more traditionally oriented luthiers. Me personally, I'd probably do what you did, assuming the slugs would move. I've even experimented with removing slugs entirely to change the frequency response curve of a pickup.
Dear Sir, Your colleage (DylanTalksTone) also shared a video regarding the unwax potted and wax potted pickups. Yes they do make microphonics even as good a manufacturer dylan makes his pickups. And down the line the winding do get lossen after a certain period. Wax potting is a process that needs to be done. I have single coils which even after wax potting they squeals like hell (low cost pickups with plastic bobbins offcource)
Scalloped fretboards - a mod which is only useful to players with a specific hand size and shape.
Not exactly a "building" process, but doing all sorts of fancy loops and knots through the tuners in electric and acoustic guitar strings is unnecessary. One wrap over the top and a couple wraps below will hold just fine, and you won't stab yourself untangling it when you change strings.
I just saw you had some plans for guitars. I am looking for one that has a 6 string guitar and a 5 string bass. I think the bass on the bottom and the guitar on top. Would that be something you could put together? There aren't enough of those in the world!
I no longer accept custom commissions. Sorry!
I'm wondering about shielding the pickup cavities, if it's always necessary? I have a few guitars that I shielded and some that aren't, and I don't really notice a difference between them.👍😎🎸🎶
Our sing leader at church had a tele style guitar he played. We had lots of stage lighting, and when he moved around, the hum sounded like two jedis fighting! After I shielded it for him, the fighting stopped.
@@jeffscarff1655 cool!👍😎🎸🎶
Wire the guitar with 4 conductor shieled cable, and you don't have to shield anything, because the wiring harness is shielded. Just connect all the grounds and shields together then wire as usual.
@@normbarrows single coil pickups typically don't come with four conductor wire, hence the need for shielding
@@jeffscarff1655 For some reason I was thinking strictly in terms of humbuckers with shielded leads only. Probably because high output passive quad rails are my preferred pickup to use on a build these days. When used in conjunction with humbuckers with shieled leads, shielded cabling precludes the need for additional shielding such as tape or paint.
Listening to me play would be the process I would recommend avoiding.
One of my pet hates is the fact that even name brand expensive acoustic guitars have the bridge partially resting on the polished surface of the soundboard instead of the area being masked off properly. I have had to reset 2 bridges so far and I am not a luthier so it was a pain in the ass. Surely that area could be masked before polishing on a three thousand dollar guitar.
For that kind of money, the top should have been masked off where the bridge is positioned. We as players and consumers need to demand more when it comes to high-dollar instruments. Until we do, companies that build these instruments will just keep doing things the same way. Sad!
If you think it’s not important to wax pot your pickups, go play a few gigs at high volume.
I can guarantee that you’ll get squealing.
I’ve been making pickuos for over 15 years and playing for 53 years. I pot every pickup I make and I use my own pickups in all of my guitars and basses.
I totally agree. If you gig at high volume, wax potting your pups is essential.
Don't know. If you are pumping out 200+ guitars a day, those shortcuts might be the difference between succsess and bankruptcy but for few guitars a year? I like the approach of "everything worth doing ist worth done right".
Isn't shoddy work you see on factory made guitars not also a reason to consider to build one yourself?
On the other hand, I like Fender not cleaning the paint over the frets on maple necks. If I play it long enough, then I will end up with a much better guitar that has clean frets.
the most things that people do with the guitars are either irrelevant or there's no science behind it. no one has proven that a big block is better or if string through is better, and I'm not sure about nuts unless you play a lot of open strings. certainly we use way too much wood in our guitars to make them heavy which is unnecessary.
then there are those tone and volume controls, pick gards and string trees.
You can never know what the pickup will go through in it's lifetime. Therefore, you got to pot the pickup, no matter how tight you wind it when new, it might get loose over the years. Potting pickups is mandatory...
No it isn’t. The greatest electric guitar music ever recorded was performed on guitars that featured pickups which weren’t potted. High quality, well made pickups don’t need to be potted and they sound much better.
@@HighlineGuitars 100% agree. I stopped waxpotting my pu's long ago. not for the sake of time saving, that's a bonus though.
I play in front of Studio monitors. Most of players do not want the squeals rather because most of the them are high gain theses days.
They were dipping pickups in wax back in the 50s, dude.
I know they were. That's why I said "arguably."
The PAFs in my 1962 ES335TD must have been too loosely wound - they used to squeal badly!
And what do you supposed those pickups would be worth on the market today?
@@HighlineGuitars - good question! Unfortunately I have over the years changed the internal wiring from series to parallel, but his can all be reversed. as far as I'm concerned they are not very good pickups and I will not be using those pickups again in that guitar. I have installed hum bucker fit P90s which I love. When it comes time to sell the guitar I will just bring the pickups back to original wiring and sell them with the guitar.
Hi, I've just started watching and subscribed to your channel - BTW I'm viewing from the UK - loving your work. I have a project that I'm about to start which is re-finishing a Gibson SG 50's tribute model finished in a horrible brown mahogany. I haven't scanned through all of your videos yet so have you done any vids on this type of project? I need to replace the nut and want to satin finish the neck, I want to finish the body in a traditional vintage cherry with a black outer burst high gloss finish, any pointers?? or can you direct me to any of your videos with the answers. Before anyone comments I got the SG cheap second-hand so I'm not too precious if I cock it up a couple of times its also got a couple of dents that need sorting at the sanding stage.😀😃Thanks in advance.
For the neck:
czcams.com/video/YYeenVF_sb0/video.html
czcams.com/video/rlkfUoWLH_o/video.html
For the body:
czcams.com/video/n7CIaTMJZLM/video.html
czcams.com/video/jwmPYgc8jak/video.html
Clear Coats:
czcams.com/video/DvV3kphpskg/video.html
@@HighlineGuitars Many thanks for such a fast reply, I'll check out those links.
I am a guitar hobbyist, not a professional. My background is science and engineering. I have found the guitar world rife with all kinds of superstitions. Mysticism is alive and well within the guitar community. I appreciate those people who are attempting to bring some semblance of reality to building and playing guitar. Thanks for your good work.
Oh, so like tonewood?
Great video but I can see other benefits to waxing your pickups is the sealing of the internal components to outside elements. This would apply to traveling musicians who play nightly under some extreme conditions like humidity and moisture. Average Joe in his living room could more than likely go without the potting. Thoughts?
Was moisture and humidity an issue before wax potting became the norm?
@@HighlineGuitars Just thinking of salty sweat and moisture inside a pickup with copper windings. Even enameled magnet wire could corrode if slightly nicked. Have you ever opened up any pickups from a touring artists guitar?
@@mlb3164 if your copper windings have the insulation nicked you have wayyyy bigger problems than any potential spots where corrosion can happen lol
@@TylrVncnt You are correct.
@@HighlineGuitars What was the reason pickup manufacturers started to wax pot their pickups?
Filling pores on mahogany seems like a waste of time. Lots of people gush about thin finishes that allow the wood to "breathe,", then they pack the pores full of silica ground in an oil or water base. It all sounds self-defeating to me.
When someone complains about me not letting the wood breathe when I fill the pores, I remind them that wood doesn't have a respiratory system. It can't breathe. It can only absorb and expel moisture from the air and that is not a good thing.
Agreed. Wood cannot breathe, it can drown or it can dry and split. That's why I put the word "breathe" in quotation marks. I'm glad to see even some factory guitars with open-pore finishes.
I think the intro music needs more cow bell
I've found tuning more than once un-necessary, at least on my own guitars. Changing strings too. Wait til they break and change em one at a time.
SHIELDING definitely falls into this category. If you look at new guitars on the rack at the store, almost none of them are shielded, and the ones that are, usually it's just the back of the pickguard on a strat type thing. These guitars sound fine and don't pick up interference. On Facebook, you see a lot of people spending hours on shielding with copper tape, on guitars that have never been played! I often wonder if these people also salt their food before tasting it. Furthermore, when I've done shielding on a bass that needed it, I used the paint and it only took a few minutes. So, in my opinion, people are wasting a lot of time with shielding tape, when it most likely doesn't make any difference, and they have no idea if it did.
How often do you play live and in shitty venues?
I'm thinking that shielding on guitars with hum bucker pickups may be redundant!
Humbuckers are only EM resistant in the coils. You can still get EM interference in the rest of the wiring - including unshielded pickup leads.
I pour drops of CA glue on my pickups. Penetrates through the threads of coil and dries in seconds. Krazy Glue or Loctite are excellent types.
CA glue dries by an exothermic reaction which can destroy the fragile insulative coating on coil wire.
@@HighlineGuitars ok, good to know. I must tell you, I've been doing it for few years now and pickups are still working fine. Even used wood glue with good effect too. Thanks.
@@ILLGREEN1 Put a few drops of CA glue on a paper towel and watch it smoke. A very good alternative is Z-Poxy finishing resin thinned with alcohol.
for a ash neck and body guitar what do you think of avoiding grain filling and only finishing in tru oil to save time ?
Go for it.
@@HighlineGuitars ill try it once! then put the moisture metre over the flat parts and see if it just gains too much moisture and if it feels too rough playing it.... Would be a big way to save time and money when building potentially.... here in the UK a decent non toxic low vapour grain filler is pretty dam expensive for a tub
@@ukguitaryogi2888 You can wet sand in Tru Oil and it will fill the grain.
@@HighlineGuitars wow i will try this on scrap wood! thanks alot. even on english white ash or american ash?!
@@HighlineGuitars what grit sand paper and type do you recommend can you do a detailed video demo of this please, i can imagine you must have to be very aware of the sand paper grit not breaking away into the finish ? thanks
I agree with some but not all your points. Falloff, absolutely unless you have a known problem neck. For example, cheaper Jacksons. Do a perfect level, put it back together and string it with 9's. The neck is wicked thin. But it's not the quality of a US Jackson and you get a defined bend where the neck meets the body. Like a flattened V shape. Doing falloff can help some but boy...you're probably talking sanding the fretboard into a falloff first, then installing frets and doing trial and error. Since this happens with cheapo Jacksons (and LTD type ESPs), it's not worth the effort for a guitar that's going to sell for $300 used.
On the potting of pickups, it takes so little time and money, in the very off chance that it's going to give micro feedback, it's a good insurance policy to pot all the things.
What else.....shielding. I always do it and it doesn't have to be rocket science or copper. Aluminum does the job rejecting electric fields. I enclose the pickups as best I can from the back. It'll never be perfect unless you're putting it into the construction of the pickup....which you can do with metal covers. But if it solves a static electric problem, which it can with cheapo plastic strat or tele style pickguards, you avoid the issue where you poke the pickguard and get a psst sound. Nobody wants that.
I do like your strategy of evaluating a step and deciding if it's worth the time or cost. I've only ever done very low volume stuff. Like a dozen guitars a year, so it doesn't matter to me.
Fall-off might be wise for an acoustic with a neck that will eventually move, but for electrics I'm pretty sure it should never be required. Physics says that rather than slope down (which also makes the action worse), the frets should actually spiral up towards the saddles.
Sloping/spiraling up would only make sense if it was an “open string ONLY” guitar (like a suuuuper lame harp or something lol….)
I know how you thought of this (due to the “football” shaped vibration path) but respectfully I think your logic is flawed on this. Think of the very first half of that football shape starting from the side closest to headstock and then move that shape up and up the neck towards the bridge (starting from higher and higher frets). From a physics standpoint, do you see the merit of fall-away now?
@@TylrVncnt Absolutely not. Fall off is a myth, suitable only for poorly made acoustic guitars whose body joint will collapse over time. If you had 1000 frets, such that the last fret was 1mm from the bridge, how far do you think that fret should be below the saddle? Do you think it should be 3mm like you would have with a flat fret plane? Or 10mm like you would have with a fall-off? Or .1mm like you would have if the curve of the finger board spirals up? The answer is .1 - the curve of constant angle is a spiral. It has nothing to do with open strings. Have a play with Mathematica and some clear logic and you'll see.
Being a football is what makes this work, the buzz higher up is strictly less than what you would have with a true constant angle, and it's more important to think about the clearance required to miss the frets just above the fretting point. Now, you could argue that it shouldn't really be a constant angle, but some other layout, based on some quirkiness of the real world physics, but the fact remains that a flat or falling plane is obviously incorrect. All it does is worsen your action for absolutely no benefit.
@@MarkRawling can I ask how many refrets have you done? Fall off is not just for Cheap acoustics, I've had $50000 acoustic to work on by some of the worlds best builders. Its on a guitar for a reason.
@@5150TJT >> 100 refrets mostly electric, but don't ask me, ask PRS, MusicMan, and dozens of other builders who do 10x that every day and don't use fall away - clearly visible on dozens of YT factory tours and the guitars themselves. But let's talk about it logically. What scenario do you think a fall away helps with? Open strings vibrate as much at the 6th fret as they do at the 22nd, but the 6th fret is twice as close, so clearly it's not relevant there. Maybe 10fret notes? For it to matter there would imply that the half way point is an issue - but that means the 12th fret needs fall away for the open strings, clearly it does not. How about 18 fret notes? Well, the strings barely vibrate and it still has the same take off angle anyway so it won't buzz. But that raises another point - for an acoustic guitar those high frets are almost never played anyway, so you can do a fall away there without really hurting playability, but it is pointless - unless the neck moves. But if you think it helps, please explain exactly how? And Ibanez, PRS, Fender et al can all change the way they do frets. A 50000 gtr with a fall away is probably just a nod to traditional/bespoke workmanship. We're all here to learn, so seriously, explain how it helps - what problem is it solving? And as part of the answer pls explain why this matter for the last N frets , but not any other group of N frets. The only way I could see it possibly helping is if some stray overtones cause unnatural level of vibration over those specific frets (maybe related to pickups?). That's just not plausible imho, and even if it happens, it is dwarfed by everything else that is going on that might cause buzz. Also, can I ask you to carefully consider the 1000 fret example I gave and explain how fall away makes sense in light of that. Would you fall away every fret up to the bridge? If not, where should it start and stop, and why? Personally, I am absolutely pedantic about perfect action and perfect intonation, I work with eye loupes to make perfect nuts, etc, I spend hours getting guitars to play like silk, and a fall away would without a shadow of a doubt interfere/ruin all of those things - it would truly decimate intonation by causing the strings to stretch more when played over those frets - intonation is unbelievably sensitive to string stretch.
@@MarkRawling Musicman would be the worse example for a fretboard, every noticed the plastic shims in the neck pocket🤔. Always have ski jumps like a Warmoth neck. PRS, Shur, Deviser guitars you could say 95% of the time have straight fretboards.. I have scanned most guitar brands, when I use fall off you would not see it with your eye. Times I do use it, is normally to do with an action height, string gauge and tunings.
I am pretty sure fender was wax potting in the 1950's for their steel guitars and wax potting itself dares back to the earliest pickups.
No one knows as there is no documented evidence. In the early days, Fender pickups were potted in lacquer, not wax.
Adding binding to guitars always struck me as a bit of a cargo-cult.
Bingo! Binding on an electric guitar is silly unless it's a hollow body and you're trying to cover the seams.
Something I've always wondered about, particularly for electric bass more than guitar, is whether rounding the edges of the fingerboard and filing down the edges of the frets is really necessary, since if a player has good technique (i.e, technique similar to how classical guitarists or double bassists play) then their fingers will never actually come into contact with those edges of fret ends. It begs the question, is obsessing over fret ends a result of generations of guitarists having poor technique?
In the same vain, players often prefer bridges that are comfortable to rest their hand on. Thats poor technique.
Different playing styles require different things. Try full barre power chord punk at 220 bpm on rough frets ends and watch the blood flow!
@@HighlineGuitars Some playing styles such as semi-palm muting require you to rest your hand just below the saddles. In my builds, I now shift the neck, pickups, and bridge about 4 inches to the left with respect to the body (leg cutout and strap attachment points) to accommodate this. This moves the picking area from the middle pickup to the bridge pickup and places your picking hand right over the bridge, compared to traditional builds.
People have been wax potting since before guitars, the first twles were waxed. The"EVH invented everything" thing strikes again ;)
Actually, potting electrical components that are sensitive to vibration goes way back, long before the invention of the electric guitar. Early radios and transmission equipment had components that were potted. If you research the history of potting electrical components, you'll find the information is lacking even today with the internet. I think Eddie's claim was innocent in that he didn't know that others had done it long before he was even born.
Get ready for this one, you may be alarmed. I'm a cigar box guitar builder (hillbilly luthier). My own shocking time-saving dirty-little-secret is that, some time ago, I just plain stopped using a leveling beam on my frets. I now only use a fret rocker. Nothing else. Why, you ask? The reason is, I found that once I get all my frets seated in properly, carefully check them with my fret rocker, focus on any problematic frets, and repeatedly double check the frets up and down the fretboard, I never have any fret buzz. None. In fact, once I stopped leveling frets, I stopped having fret buzz. My cigar box guitars are all 25.5 " scale and they play beautifully, and buzz-free. Fret leveling turned out to be an entirely unnecessary exercise and a useless waste of my time that I was told I had to do if I was going to build a good playing guitar. I like your videos!
I totally agree. Why grind down your frets if it isn't needed. Maybe it's a way to justify the high price of a boutique guitar. Or maybe the big guitar companies do it to avoid warranty claims.
@@HighlineGuitars The more CBG's I build, the more other elements I give closer attention to. My primary goal is always to build a guitar that plays like a dream, sounds amazing, and looks great. Thanks for your response.
I totally agree. People love the taste of snake oil though...
Cavity shielding may be unnecessary since the pole pieces are exposed on many guitars.
It took a while for someone to mention this, but you're right, shielding the cavities is often not necessary.
Pole pieces are not part of the circuit, they can't pickup EM interference.
@@HighlineGuitars I learned that from you :)
If you are making a guitar with 2 humbuckers, then sealing the cavities is probably unnecessary!
Do you mean sealing or shielding. If you mean shielding, it's the signal wires between the pots, switches and jack that are the problem with electrical interference. I like to use single conductor shielded wire for my signal wire as it eliminates the need for shielding.
You attribute potting the pickup to the '80s but Fender was doing it back in the '50s the old man that they outsourced their overflow of pickups they couldn't get done talked about potting pickups he has old new stock of everything that Gibson and Fender used for their pickups for a huge pocket full of money he will build you original paf pickups and it's the same materials the literal materials that they used back in the 50s 60s when he was making pickups for Fender and for Gibson. I can't remember exactly his name but yeah that was not something Van Halen come up with by any means it was done 30 years before he came on the scene. Cuz Leo fender bigsby and Les Paul sat in a living room and came up with the humbucking pickup and they were vertically stacked instead of side by sides Fender has always potted their pickups. Man to be a fly on that wall in that living room in the 30s or 40s when they were inventing the humbucking pickup would have just been amazing. I like your video it's pretty cool there's a lot of stuff that people do with guitars that is absolutely unnecessary if you do a couple of other things differently than most people do like the break angle on your neck that determines whether you're going to have to file those last few frets down or taper it all the way from fret one down to 24 or whatever.
Who thought binding was a good idea and looked good? I know many like it. Many like everything that was done in the 50's and never want to change but I hate binding, especially neck binding.
My idea of a nice guitar is more like a nice violin in that you notice the nice wood, it all goes together well in terms of design and it's "natural" looking. Maybe you could say it looks like nice furniture but I don't get guitars with plastic binding, black headstocks, burst tops, another color for the back and sides, plastic up the fretboard...
I also prefer women with natural parts :) and a natural appearance and not fake bloated lips, green eye makeup, fake hair color, etc.
Look at the Porter Wagner era of country music dress for guys, sequined coats, boots, hats, Dolly Parton is about as unnatural as you can get. No wonder their guitars looked gaudy as well.
My idea of a nice guitar would be a single cut that didn't weigh 12 lbs, with a natural looking top and a natural looking headstock and neck. Fender at least didn't go for binding.
If you need some trim make it out of wood with it closely matching whatever it is "trimming".