mushy the shroom

Wow, very professional looking, and the shape definitely works for me. But why a two-piece maple cap as if it were bookmatched when it's not (unless I'm blind)? I would have just gone one-piece.

I must have had one of their guitars from before the company got good, a G210. It generally played better than most Squiers and what have you, but one of the bridge posts started tearing out of the wood because it was placed too close to the edge of a route and it just splintered all the wood around it. And I didn't even use the trem often. Maybe I had it set up wrong, but some wood glue fixed that right up. Some of their guitars look pretty unique, which is interesting from a Korean company, and I've heard good things about their hollowbody line (or maybe that was Ibanez).

Wait a minute.. I think I have it figured out. I suppose I would have to use multiple poles, right? I'm pretty sure I can manage it now, I just have to wrap my brain around it so that I don't accidentaly wire it all together so that all of the combinations are parallel.

Hey guys, I feel kind of stupid asking this, as it's probably really obvious, but I can't find the solution anywhere. Plus I took a class in electronics last year. But here goes: I am planning on wiring a two-humbucker guitar, with one master volume, one master tone, and a five position rotary switch. It's this kind of switch, only with fewer poles (actually only two, as it will simultaneously control fret marker colors). I want a rotary switch so I can put a knob on it and it will look uniform with the tone and volume.. shouldn't be much more trouble to turn it. I want the positions to map as follows (from left to right positions, or vice-versa, doesn't really matter): Kill Switch (I guess, just wire to ground, easy enough?) Neck Humbucker Only Both Humbuckers in Parallel Bridge Humbucker Only Kill Switch (why not?) Now ordinarily I would know how to wire it with a Les Paul type switch, like this, but with a rotary switch, I have no idea how to get the two in parallel for the middle position (the Les Paul switch appears to work differently, like with leaf type internals). Anyone help? Am I a complete dolt or is this really easy?

Man that thing is killer. Glad to see you got the neck working. I kind of wish you had some higher-res photos of it.. if there's a problem with Photoshop, we could easily host them on Drastic-Creations (Static-Line's old host). And.. for your GOTM entry it seems that a few of the images don't display.

UPDATE: I just got back from the vacation, and the daily journal was a hit! I had a lot of fun updating it, and thank all of you for your support. Keep looking for more (normal) updates in the future!

Pete, thanks for the feedback. Actually, the idea of stranger's pockets is incredible. I might just do that every once in a while. Still lookin' forward to that negative.. Ryan

Hey all, Thanks for all the feedback on TWIRP (although I truly wish more of it were negative). I am almost done with my vacation, and as promised, have been updating daily from my Pocket PC on random stolen WiFi. So I thought I'd check in from Bozeman, Montana, where I have set up my own network off of the hotel's in-room wired ethernet using some dated access point I purchased for a song in Oregon. Fun times. Cheers, all

I suppose they might be useful for recording or whatnot if you have a really dynamic volume or tone knob, just so you can keep settings consistant. But in my opinion, they're just more metal to cover your quilted maple

Hey all, announcing the rebirth of TWIRP - This Week In Ryan's Pockets, my blog. Recently I converted it to CSS so I could update the layout easier, as well as create skins (the skin selector is at the bottom of the "Links" section (red), or you can just click the header image to try a random skin). The best way to access it is through: www.twirp.tk although going through that domain messes up the skin selector in Internet Explorer (by the way, it is best viewed in anything but IE, because IE doesn't support CSS standards.. and just kinda sucks ) So I'm looking for some feedback, layout-wise (even content-wise), and you guys seem to be pretty critical of websites, so I'm looking forward to it. As a side note, all the graphics (except some header graphics that I bummed off Digital Blasphemy) and layout sheets/scripts are original. Some background info: I launched TWIRP a little over half a year ago, as a comedy blog based off the idea that the contents of my pockets might reflect events in the news, or.. just be funny to talk about. The result of some complications, I failed to update it for over four months (and even before that the updates were few and far apart). But I plan to change that with the re-release. In fact, I'm going on vacation next week and am planning to keep a daily diary with photos of my trip on TWIRP. So any feedback, positive or negative would help quite a bit. Thanks!

Here's the thing.. the link you're trying to display as an image using the forum's IMG tags isn't really an image. It's a web page with an image embedded (kind of like what you're trying to do here).. even though it ends in .jpg (if you access it though your album), that's just part of the script used to sort your albums. Yahoo may do that so the only bandwidth you consume is through there site (not with simply an image displayed on another site as you're trying to do).. So you have several options.. you could either hunt for the actual image file (named 1654scd.jpg) in wherever Yahoo actually stores it (although direct access might be restricted), and just link there.. it would work if there are no ? marks or = signs (indicating it's not part of a script). Actually, I just tried this by linking to http://f3.yahoofs.com/users/41a88ad9z7bb81...sr_/1654scd.jpg , which should make sense, but.. surprise! forbidden. So in short, Ben's solution is the best.. new account with photobucket, and of course you can transfer your old photos.

Hey Hey! Not at all bad.. although it looks a little template-ish (which is fine, but geeks like me like more of a self-built thing).. I would change the font up, it gets quite hard to read, and "welcome" on the first page is spelled wrong (wellcome). Other than that, I'd generally refrain from the clipart and random pictures on the "about the guitars" page, as it is a tad unprofessional. You know, other than that, if this is the first time you've made a website, it's quite impressive! Cheers!

Hey, it looks nice, but it's not really my thing (or many others' apparently) to finish other guitars. If I were you, I would keep it for a while, you never know if you're going to want a project in the future (I'm a bit starved for work nowadays and wish I had something to work on). So, if no one is immediately interested, don't push it and keep lowering your price.. I'd hold on to it.

I don't pretend to know The Presence very well, but he sure was a nice guy online. Very helpful to everyone, had a very even temper. It's a shame he had to leave us now, he will be missed. Thank you for all your help, Bluespresence.

I like seeing the finished guitar FIRST, then if it intrigues me, the progress pics and forum discussion leading up to it. For this reason, I would enjoy two seperate sections, "In Progress Work" and "Finished Work", where people could post progress pics and get feedback on concepts then once (if) they finish, they could post an entry similar to the ones in GOTM threads in the "Finished Work" section (someone brought it up that the same finished ones are featured in the GOTM, and I guess this sort of invalidates my point, although not everybody who finishes a guitar enters it..). Also, a lot of the stuff in our current In Progress and Finished section never gets started (mostly sketches of guitar shapes), and could fare just as well in the normal "Solid Body" or "Acoustic" sections. But.. it's not my choice

Very professional guitars this month, but my personal preference was Wez's. Neocon's paint job is quite intricate, but not really my style. The cigar box looked absolutely professional, but... I like more normal guitars. The shape on Zendrix's was very well done, but the wood didn't do it for me. It's a great piece, but the grain doesn't really work for me. Lee's was a close second, but for all the knobs, knobs, knobs. I really like the shape as far as pointy guitars go, but again, I would have chosen different wood. Great guitars this month, and congrats all!

Hey, it was certainly a good effort.. and website building is fun, which, as stated was partly the reason. Chris, don't expect most people to compliment repeatedly the cool sections, more likely most will try to help by pointing out the sections that need work (and, more often than not, this is done in a bit of a PG manner, slightly condescending). Now my input: Flash can be nice for these kind of sites that should reflect a luthier's creativity and artistic talents, but in all honesty (and I've had quite a bit of experience with both) you can achieve a great effect with plain HTML. Not to say you should dump your flash version, but you might want to completely rework bits of it based off the demographic you expect to be visiting it (mainly PG, right?). If so, I would make your front page a bit less artistic. This might entail adding am automatic text explanation to the "mystery-meat" buttons. Most web designers regard the idea of having to roll a mouse over a hidden link to try to figure out its contents as bad practice. I would have a nice picture of your guitar alongside some simple text menue items. I think the site is so big because you cache EVERYTHING in the beginning right? Also are you sure the file is one meg? I tend to think it's less because it loaded reasonably fast on my conncection. You might want to seperate the slideshows into a different flash file so you don't have to load the big photos at the beginning. If you are bent on having an interactive model of the guitar on the main page, I would render it digitally in either Photoshop or Flash, which has a great drawing engine. The photo isn't necessarily poor quality, but it is a bit bland (maybe something cool from an angle with lighting and shadows next time). Render all the media you have in flash! I don't really want to download a .doc file that could be viewed easier in my browser on the same page. Same goes for music (you can find simple flash players to embed in your site). I was going to say more, but I'm crashing tonight. If you want specific help or photo/html editing, don't hesitate to PM me, I'd be happy to help (as I said, I have had some experience). It's good that you're getting into web publication, but I rarely publish my first work, especially in a new media (this is the first time you've tried flash?). For example, my first published html site had midis in the background, then text following the cursor.. then I gave up on it because I hate Frontpage. My first Flash page was a disaster, I pirated 16 random images that had very little to do with anything to serve as links. So now I'm embarrased that people actuallly got to see those.. anyway, good effort, and keep developing those skills. If that was your first, you're way ahead of where I was.

Never too early to start a kid! I started at four with those mini-classical guitars.. make sure you don't push him too hard. The main thing you learn before you get to be six or seven is only the feel of playing a guitar.. it might sound bad, but they are learning. That guitar looks excellent, I really like the wood on the back of the headstock. That thing will be a blast to play even when he outgrows it.

Hey, enjoy the spokeshaveage.. when I used mine for the neck joint, it was one of the most pleasurable experiences about building my guitar. Just worked so well, very easy even for artistically challenged folks as myself (I regard most hand-shaping to be an artistic matter). Anyway, the maple looks excellent, great figure on the edges, and I like the ridges in the figure around where the bridge would be. Good luck with the shaping!

"Unimaginable Gibson Les Paul Model Guitar Now Sell" Haha.. gotta love it

Your clamping job looks remarkably similar to mine for the guitar I built a year ago, the Nebula. Here's the pic: Same type of cauls and all.. If you were wondering, the glue job turned out perfectly, as yours should. Good luck!

Very nice looking, the gold hardware/pickups on the strat are quite unique. I like the finish on both, especially the Kamikaze, as it is a bit different than other "Urban Camo" paints, and has a W on it (perhaps your initial?). Did you build these from kits or buy the body and neck? Nonetheless, they both look wonderful.

You know, if you are to be making the fretboard/neck as well, you could rout that out a bit further and straighter, and add a bit to the side of the neck, perhaps with a little rounding from the fretboard on down (if you were to make the fretboard). I bet you could make it quite nice looking if you were to extend it out 1/4" to 1/2".. maybe even add a signature engraving if you have the patience . Heck, you could even do this with a block (although it would be more difficult) if you aren't building the fretboard. Maybe this helps? And Guitar Guy, maybe you could explain why you think the advice is bad (admittedly, it's a bit of a half-assed fix, but maybe it's what he is looking for). No need to be brash, although it's good to point out ideas that might not work so well.

The guitar I built a while back (The Nebula) was 1 and 1/8" thick all the way through.. and I haven't had any problems with strength yet (it is chambered as well). I would watch the neck joint for strength most, it is bound to fail if the wood under the pocket is too thin. Unless of course you are planning to use a neck-through (which I highly recommend for a thin guitar). Good luck on this!