Johnny Foreigner

Also to add: have also sprayed centurion’s 2k water based with this system and felt like performance was very similar. 

Edit to add: the issue does seem to be atomization - like the gun is not atomizing the finish into a fine enough mist. That to me suggests not enough air pressure. But eager to hear from those with a better clue. 

Hey all

been using a fuji 2-stage turbine system for about a year and I’m just not totally happy with how it sprays. 

for reference I’m spraying Target’s EM6000 water based 1k. I’m in SoCal so almost always warmer than 70 and pretty low humidity  

I’ve tried different sized air caps/needles, different amounts of thinning, but it always seems to lay down a pretty uneven, sputtery kinda coat. Getawayable with for clear coats but pretty splotchy looking for anything color. 

so I’m wondering if a turbine system is just a wrong choice and should spend the $$ to switch to a decent sized compressor and HVLP gun. Happy to do so if my results improve. 

any advice?

Hey everyone,

Some of you may remember me from around 14 years ago when I was posting builds on this site, or from the last time I was here, to shamelessly promote a documentary I'd made. I still check back in regularly to look at the builds going on and I'm endlessly impressed by everyone's creativity and craftsmanship.

I'm back this time because I'm taking a new twist on life's road and I'm launching a guitar company. I'm not going to be building myself - this is more a large-scale, mass market thing. We are, however, keeping the name I used on this site all those years ago - Johnny Foreigner Guitars.

Me and my co-founders are busily ramping up on planning and chasing investment and what we really really need right now is to have some good conversations with our potential customers - electric guitar players. We'll be doing that through some automated surveys and other mechanisms, but to get that rolling we need people to sign up to our email list.

So here's what we're doing: if you go to our site - johnnyforeignerguitars.com - and sign up for our email list, we'll put you in the system to receive a survey, or we'll reach out individually with questions. Everyone who responds to one of these requests will go into a draw and we'll give away a free guitar when we start shipping - likely June of this year.

We're building something we think is really interesting and game-changing for the way electric guitars are sold and we'd love for as many of you as possible to help us shape that offering to make sure we're building something people really *want*.

So please head on over and sign up - and tell every guitar player you know. We'd love to hear from you.

Cheers

Tom, CEO - Johnny Foreigner Guitars

On 8/10/2017 at 1:33 AM, Zoltar said:

I'm mainly replying here to see if you've checked out any Makerspaces? For those of us living in tiny shared flats with no shed/yard/garden etc. they can be invaluable places to use shared machinery that would otherwise be inaccessible, meet like minded people and even do courses in things like CAD and CAM (courses that are often free).

There's a brilliant one near me in Hackney that has a shared workshop equipped with lots of kit including lathes, mills, a laser cutter and a small CNC. I'm sure there's probably even more in LA - like this one: http://hexlabmakerspace.com/

(I know LA is a big place, but if you search maybe there'll be a Makerspace near to you. They're normally very friendly places, with lots of people itching to help fellow makers)

Time is as much my issue as space/tools, but it's definitely something to consider. The hexlab one looks great, but is more than an hour's drive away. LA is a ridiculously big place and the traffic is next level insane.

I'll look into other options for sure though.

This is very much an initial exploration kind of question, so bear with me.

It's been 6 or 7 years since my last build. Mainly that's because of lack of space to do any building, but also time constraints.

In the last year or so I taught myself how to use fusion 360 and have put together a couple of designs that I'm pretty happy with and I would love to see translated into real guitars at some point if my circumstances change.

Then it occurred to me that I would just about have time, space and tools to be able to handle glue-ups, finish sanding, pore-filling, fretting, electronics, hardware installation and oil finishes.

So my question is this: do any of you who are handy with you CNCs ever take on commissioned work from others. I.E. could I pay someone to machine the basic components of my guitar design from my CAD file? And if so, what would that look like cost-wise and what would I need to deliver on my end, in terms of a file, to make that possible.

Not something I'm looking to do right away, but was curious about what it might look like as a process.

On 4/28/2017 at 2:41 PM, Pariahrob said:

Today was a good one. I got a lovely package from Monty's guitars. This is the set of gt500 pickups for the semi hollow. I've been chatting Matt for a while now and think these will be just right. Not cheap but think they'll be worth it. 

What gorgeous attention to detail. lovely packaging and materials look second to none  

Now to finish the thing so I can hear them!

 

+1 for Monty's!

I've know Matt's missus for knocking on 22 years, and Matt for at least 12 or 13. Lovely bloke, who is really passionate about what he does and really believes in quality craftsmanship. Lovely packaging.

On 3/16/2017 at 4:50 AM, Phaddie said:

if I bought more stuff my wife would kill me

This is basically the official motto of Project Guitar

12 hours ago, Prostheta said:

 

That six k bypasses most of the upgrades and learning curve spent developing and fettling a 2k DIY solution.

As in 6k well spent?

Also late to this conversation, but...

No-one has mentioned the Laguna IQ mills, which seem like excellent value for money: http://lagunatools.com/cnc/iq-series/iq-24-36-cnc/

What am I missing?

Well, okay. It's been a couple of months and I have been having ENORMOUS fun learning Fusion360 and finishing up my first design in the program.

This is actually more of a reverse engineering of the first guitar I built back in 2010, with some slightly modifications and improvements made.

I'm really happy with how this came out, and now I need to start figuring out the CAM side of the software and see how feasible it is for me to generate a complete set of G-code that could, in theory, mean I could build 90% of this guitar on a CNC.

Any feedback on the design gratefully received, and any thoughts/experience on using fusion360 for CAM likewise.

Update a month and a bit in: loving fusion360 and really starting to get the hang of it, which is incredible.

One quick question for those of you more experienced than I am;

I read that material options and appearance options are different because material options is all about mass calculation. Which got me thinking....

If Fusion 360 knows what material you're going to build out of, is there any way to have it calculate how a guitar will hang? Particularly, to calculate if neck-dive will be an issue.

If it can, that would be amazing....

I, for one, would love to see a breakdown on how you made the L for the logo.

Most of us are trying to master woodwork... metal work is another realm entirely.

This looks fun.

Tangentially related: I once shot a piece with the Mouradians about guitar care. Lovely blokes. And Pat Badger from Extreme was hanging around in the shope while we were setting up.

Fusion 360 looks great and I've started dabbling.

Any good tutorials around online for it, particularly covering sketching using splines?

Hey everyone

i'm back on PG after a looong hiatus due to relocation, career change, more relocation, etc

i finished my last guitar build some five years ago and no longer have the time, space or equipment to do anymore building. 

But I'd like to dip my toe back in by doing a little designing in 3D. 

So apologies as I'm sure this has been covered extensively elsewhere on the forum (I just can't find it), but what is the current thinking on inexpensive 3D cad software that is going for guitar design work and has a good onward path to cam and Cnc?

i've used alibre in the past but found its file formats fairly proprietary and difficult to pass to other platforms. I am willing to spend money on software but not crazy money given this is very much an idle hobby at this stage . 

Any thoughts gratefully received. 

Beyond that I would love to get a 5D-II, very jealous of you guys for the video

The 5DmkII turned the world of video on its head. We have 2 and ***love*** them.

Now I need to find me the $15k for one of these: http://www.red.com/store/scarlet/product/scarlet-x-al-canon-mount-package

Wenge.

I'm really more of a primes shooter

We only shoot with primes for our video work. We need the extra speed and it forces us to think about where we need to be to get each shot. Zooms make you lazy.

135L is my new favorite outdoors candid glass; if the 85L is better than that I'll have a tough time resisting if I ever try it.

I've only used the 135 once. I wouldn't say *better* than the 85. But on a par, if you're not concerned about the half stop of speed.

Scott, I approve of your guitars, your bench, your bikes and your choice of camera and glass (still really want that 85L some day...)!

Thanks! I approve of that 85L too. I wish I had one, we've only rented it a few times on special occasions. Hopefully again this summer for Yosemite. I had the 50L for a while but couldn't rationalize having something so expensive sit around a lot of time. I traded down to the 1.4 and haven't looked back. If the 50L was as good as the 85L it would be a different story but it just isn't. The 85 1.2 is magic.

The 85 f/1.2L is beautiful, if ridiculously big. We just got it recently for our wedding films because venues insist on turning the house lights way down low during speeches. Shooting wide open on that lens is insane - it sees more than your own eyes see.

the 35 1.4L is also gorgeous. trying to decide whether to buy that or the 24 1.4L next.

i much prefer this line up of guitars to the winners poll!

+1

I'm going to need some more time to decide if I like Scatterlee's JRDC, RAD's V or Scott brown beauty....

Offset Avenger: technically excellent, but just didn't really float my boat for some reason

Black Beauty: love it - got my vote

factory5150: in my opinion, and to my taste, that's one of the ugliest guitars I've ever seen. Looks like an accomplished build, but everything about the paint job and inlays is at the diametric opposite of what I consider attractive in a guitar.

comicaster: love the ingenuity of the builds but I really loathe and despise everything about comic books, so not one to my taste.

muleskinner: wish I had a second vote - this is aweseome. where do you get the string anchor block thingy?

superstrat: very good looking build, just not a style that gets me excited at all

cicada: your builds looks super high quality, and I know this design has a lot of fans, but I just can't get excited about it for some reason.

Wouldn't be surprised if they've gone out of business. MF still has 'em: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/n-tune-on-board-chromatic-electric-guitar-tuner

They are a little bulky.

I LOVE the n-tune.

so easy to use, pretty unobtrusive and makes tuning really simple. Great little bit of kit.

You'll see it when it's fixed and you can barely notice the cracks.

And not a moment before!