Here’s a bolt-on carved top body I made for a friend of mine - it can be done 
No pics of the finished product, I’m afraid…
Totally bitchin’!
So I started reading my April issue of Guitar world last night and sure enough, Eric Johnson made this statement in it. Except he was talking about Mitch Mitchell (Hedrix’s drummer who died in 2008 and played the previous tour with Johnson).
My guess is that the reporter taking notes got it right and the star struck Bubbadog got it wrong. Mr. E.J. was probably restating something he felt strongly about.
In my defense the subject of drummers came up when my friend mentioned Chris Layton (This tour and former Stevie Ray Vaughn Double Trouble stick man).
Since we fight ignorance here I just had to post my correction.
Now I’ll just head over to the guitar build thread and try not to drool on my keyboard any more than usual.
For those who haven’t noticed, I started a build thread here:
Okay. So my low E keeps buzzing when I fret it. It looks like it’s actually hitting other frets. I’ve been told that if I fret 1 and 12, there should be a gap at 6. There isn’t. I need to have my neck adjusted, right? Can I do this myself?
Yup, you’ll need either a screw driver or a socket spanner (what was your guitar again?), just slacken the truss rod a 1/4 of a turn - let the neck settle for a while. If there’s still no gap (relief) try adding another 1/4 turn at a time until there is.
OK it’s a Starcaster, maybe you’ll need an Allen key? BTW you only want a tiny amount of bend in the neck.
I occurs to me you may not know what the truss rod is… Here you go.
Are you handy, E-Sabs? If so, then what **Small Clanger **says is spot on - take a shot. His approach of 1/4 turn, wait for the wood to settle a while (at least an hour or two) then see if it has helped, is good.
However - if you aren’t sure you trust yourself, OR if you tried the above maybe 3 times (e.g., you’ve put about 3/4 of a full turn on the truss rod) - take it in to be looked at.
Remember that a guitar set up is a “system” - neck bend (“neck relief”), bridge height and intonation, overall neck angle (especially if the neck is a bolt-on and the angle can be adjusted), nut height - each piece contributes, a bunch of little issues can add up to a big playability issues, and tweaking one can typically result in the need to tweak another. That is all a way of saying: try a bit of an adjustment - if it works; yay. If it doesn’t, get a proper set up…my $.02…
Doin’ **E-Sabs’ **job for him ;): here’s a thread on guitar straps…
Wait. I thought my neck was too straight. You’re telling me to loosen the rod? I was thinking I might have to tighten it… reading the wiki article… aha! The strings, I neglected to allow for their tension.
Yeah, I knew what it was, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Thanks, guys. Got a con to go to this weekend, but after that, it’s guitar time.
Edit: Thanks, Wordman, for linkin the thread. Hadn’t seen it myself.
Does one need to re-intonate after a neck adjust?
Hm. Local store is having a show.
http://www.rosehillmusic.net/wordpress/?p=250
Maybe there’ll be something decent used.
Hey! Look what I found, when checking what intonation was.
http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/intonate.htm
This is great. I probably won’t get it right, but that’s what the Starcaster is for, making all my mistakes on. It’s a very clear guide on setting up guitars. Truss, intonation, neck, string height, pickups, everything!
Yeah, that’s a good page; I’ve intonated following those instructions, no sweat.
Okay, WOW. Had to turn it a half turn. Got to retune the whole guitar now, but what a difference! The whole guitar feels more responsive. Feels like the neck was just screwed down as hard as possible. Now it’s not buzzing, but more than that, the guitar feels responsive in my hands.
Man, I can imagine all the people who got one of these things and got turned off playing from the frets alone. (The edges were sharp and cut my fingers when I played it at first.)
By the end of this, this starcaster’s going to probably be the equal of a '68. Of course, I’ll have changed the neck twice, the body three times (at least one handmade one), and swapped out all of the electronics as I experiment. But it’ll be the same guitar! Just like my revolutionary war era axe!
… I can feel the tremolo springs as I play now. And the guitar has sustain! I kept trying to figure out how people were getting sustain, cause every note I played died in a second.
Well, hot damn.
Okay, wow. Tried tuning it. My god, it just falls naturally into notes and they stay instead of me trying to catch it at the peak.
Also, it seems my starcaster is better than I thought it was. Anyone want to translate this?
My S/N is CXS 100891183, so I’m guessing I bought the SE pack, as it sure wasn’t the Affinity strat. If CXS means AXL, then did I luck out on the factory?
The machine heads still have flat spots, though. Gonna try to find replacements at the show.
Hee hee hee. My high-E no longer tries to clip over the side of the guitar and get tangled on the frets. This is AWESOME!
This all sounds wonderful. It is why I can’t stress enough: MAKE SURE YOUR GUITAR IS PROPERLY SET UP! Sorry for yelling. 
Little crap like that just throws the whole system off in deceptive ways. And if you adjust your playing enough, you deceive yourself into accepting it or maybe just tweaking the wrong thing for a while. I hate that.
but it is so cool when the guitar system is aligned. Enjoy!
I’m still very happy with my guitar, but all this talk of setup and intonation makes me kind of suspicious. Maybe mine’s not right, and I’m still too new at this to notice. I almost want to screw it up to see what a bad guitar feels like, as a way to find out what a good guitar feels like.
I won’t do that, though. My current plan is to keep practicing until I think I need new strings again, then take it to a luthier and have him check the setup and find out if I’m doing the string change correctly. And I’ll know what string gauge I’ve got, too.
Never hurts to check - and if you give it more than one or two quarter-turns, its a safe bet something shifted a bit…
ETA: oh, and Robot Arm? Sounds like a plan…