Doing Things Wrong

Enough Cyber-Luthiery

Well, it's that time of year again, time to renew the web hosting. And for those of you that don't know, that has become a lot more expensive than it used to be. Fifty dollars a year is now several hundred. Not to mention the price of domain names has gone up ten-fold.

And I just found out that the nice folks at PayPal disabled all my Support buttons, and I never got a notice (although that may be my fault.) In any case, it is all working again now, so if you would like to make a small donation to help defray these costs, it would be greatly appreciated.

It's time to get back to work in the real world. Here is a Mosrite body, almost completely recovered from its brush with water-based polyurethane. Stick with oil-based, water-based is junk.


There are two components to intonation. The first is simple - locating the bridge at the right spot. You'd think that would be obvious, you'd be surprised how often it is gotten wrong. Like my Rickenbacker. The second part is the additional length or 'compensation' needed for each string beyond the scale length. That derives from the string's mechanical resistance to bending, or its stiffness, which is proportional to its diameter. That's why the low fat strings need more compensation than the thinner ones - shortening the string increases its relative stiffness, or the ratio of diameter to length, and causes it to go sharp as you go up the neck. I have never seen a negative compensation, I think theoretically it should not exist.

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