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mistermikev

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Posts posted by mistermikev

  1. until I saw the model on the bosch I thought you were eluding to "piece of fudge".  I have no idea what's going on in here... but now there is documented proof I read it.  

    also... you must seriously abuse your router?  perhaps you hold it with grip of death (like we all should).

  2. necrobump (that's what the kids call it right?)... lamenting right now that I can't have a da sander.  my compressor isn't big enough.  when I was 17/18/19 I worked as a sander at a cab shop.  they pretty much only used dynabrade air sanders.  I used one to remove the finish on my sg90 (neck break) and it was the greatest thing ever.  never had issues sanding flat or sanding the profiles using that sander.  idk if the dyna brade is just better, or if they use a better pad... but it was the absolute perfect tool for sanding detail work, and it could remove material in a heartbeat with a heavier grit - just an absolute pleasure to sand a guitar with (and I hate sanding).  

    with that in mind... my electric sander is "ok".  just a black and decker - bought it because it was low profile and thought that would be the closest to a da sander.  I know they make electric da sanders that are like $300... but if I was gonna go that route I'd just buy a 80gal air tank and a da sander.  

    the decker just isn't good at sanding profiles.  on a da sander... the little edge that sticks out is flexible... making it ideal.  I want something like that in an electric sander.  Is it a unicorn?  hopeless?  

    what sander do you use, do you like it, and why?

  3. 30 minutes ago, chrisdebo said:

    The popping sound was the glue breaking; the wood is intact. I was surprised at how little glue I had applied, though. I think it was a combination of that and the weather /season and the time lapse. This is my first kit with mahogany body and neck. For some reason I thought the dense wood would be less prone to issues.

    Thanks again. There is no one around here who likes to luthier., so it was good chatting.

    this lends further credence to the idea of the issue being the glue join.  if glue is properly joined... then the wood is going to crack vs the glue.  a good glue join is stronger than the wood around it.  so your problem was not just not-enough-glue... but more an issue of solid meeting of wood on wood after being glued.

  4. here's my honest feedback... 

    folks start playing classical (as opposed to anything else) for two reasons: the cheapest guitar in almost any music store (or at least in my experience working at music stores) is a classical.  reason two: the strings are pretty easy on the fingers.

    further... I don't think kids want to play classical... in general - they want to play something cool.  I think if you can trick them into classical - that'd be a huge win.  

    I learned adelita ages ago... along with bouree and a few other classical pieces... but only because I first learned 'dee' by randy rhodes.  but I digress.... 

    honest feedback - you do a nice job covering basic things very thoroughly... and perhaps it's just because I've been playing for 36 years... but I would think the single biggest improvement you could make is to make it more exciting.  esp if you are going to teach kids (undoubtedly most beginners are kids).  very easy to understand, and very calm - so good for you.  also, when you cut in with the backing music - very nice.  that is exciting.  you were hitting on all cylindars there.  good for you.

    also, not sure this place is the place for your audience - not telling you you aren't welcome (in fact to the contrary - welcome!) just most folks here are well beyond this stage.

    hope something there was useful and uplifting!

    • Like 1
  5. 3 hours ago, curtisa said:

    Thanks! I fully expect this to potentially open a can of worms, but I am genuinely curious about how some of this stuff could be measured and assessed, and I think as builders without ties to a larger company interest we should all be curious about it as well. I've been guilty in the past of saying that something is so because I think it should be, but with this experimental base I'm more interested now in finding out if there could be any basis to such claims, whether they point one way or the other. I'm trying to approach this with an open mind.

    I think it's also important that if anyone wants to add their own opinions and ideas to the matter they should feel free to do so, whether in this thread or elsewhere. As long things remain civil, of course :)

    I nominate you my official r&d department... you don't have a budget... but you don't have a mandate either!! 

    I am genuinely interested in whatever you find whether it supports my own bias or not... in fact I'll prob learn more if not - seldom pleasant but always healthy.

  6. in my humble o... it's art.  can't be right or wrong you can only like it or not. 

    I think lacquer checking is beautiful.  Have often thought of doing it, then filling with a contrasting bright color (red) and then preserving it but glossing over and bring to a full shine... to get a brand new mirror finish with checking below.  

    like anything else... there are one's that look amazing and one's that look lame.  The amazing one's don't even have to be 'accurate' for me... my one requirement is 'pleasing to the eye'.  

    guess that makes me a yay.

    • Like 1
  7. no expert but it sounds a lot like what happens when you build with wood that hasn't had enough time to actually dry.  wood doesn't just shrink over time... it expands and contracts to a degree that gets less and less once the wood if fully dry and I'm told it can hit a low percentage at one point but still not be ready (ie seasoned).  It has to get down to low moisture content and stay there consistently to be really considered workable.  

    That said, it is entirely possible the neck pocket was just so tight when the neck was put in... that once it swelled a little bit it cracked.  Keep in mind that wood glue itself will expand the wood via moisture... however, I've done my neck joints tight enough to lift a 5lb body with just a friction fit on the tenon... and have not had issues with it cracking so I would guestimate this is not the case here. 

    to completely bust a glue join... I would have to assume it wasn't a great glue join to begin with - not throwing stones at all and please don't take offense.  I've seen wood crack from expansion, but never seen anything even close to a neck popping completely out.

     

    just one simpletons' observations so... mix it with others and find the center.

  8. 7 minutes ago, Lumberjack said:

    Thanks man!  I know this circuit is a little more involved than the ideal starter, e.g. a champ or tweed clone, but the instructions and support from Trinity (and their community forum) looked great, so I pulled the trigger.  Also, at the end of the day I'm a gainy sort of player (grew up on 70s/80s rock and heavy metal) and I wanted to build something I would actually use in more than a novelty sort of way.

    right on, I could see that, I guess if it's worth risking a lightening ride then you might as well build something decent!  I'm sure with the docs they have it should make things pretty safe/do-able.  I have played a couple amp kit builds and they sounded great so looking fwd to sound clips!!

  9. looking at the blade site... these are supposed to be hum cancelling pickups.  as such... my guess is there are two coils in there.  looking at some gutshots from a few blade texas guitars... it looks like they use a fairly std wiring.  looks like red and white go together to make the series link... black goes to live... green (and bare if there is one) go to ground.  wire it up like this, and put your red/positive lead from a multimeter to the black... and black/negative lead to green/bare.  I'm guessing you'll get in the 7-12k reading range using the ohm setting on your multimeter.  (ohm setting should have a little picture that kid of looks like an "a" or a girls hair with curls if you will).

    now... assuming that works out... then clip the red/white wires to ground along with the green/bare wires and test again - should get about half of what you had before (this is if I have any idea what I'm doing... which seems unlikely).

  10. my fav - allied lutherie.  they have a new single action low profile that is really small and light - haven't tried it yet but have plans to use it in a wizard style neck at some point.  

    afa neck/heel adjust... pretty much any rod (as mentioned) will do either but the direction to tighten flips to opposite depending.  

     

    yes - the widened bit at the headstock.  you may consider how it's going to fit in there and poke thru to let you adjust.  I like to try to preserve that little bit above the rod at the end there... and instead of routing from the top I would drill into the hole to open it up.  this is pretty common procedure for headstock adjust but then everyone does it dif.

    • Like 2
  11. a freq issue is when the output jack itself is making contact with the cavity shielding.  this can happen from the jack spinning into a dif position.  if it's already broken... no harm in taking the jack out and inspecting it.  could just be a cruddy connection... could be that the prong on the jack just needs to be bent to make better connection with the cable - all easy things to diagnose yourself.  if you take the jack out of the guitar... and play it while it's out... still have problem?  if not, likely making contact with the side and grounding the input.

  12. 2 hours ago, curtisa said:

    Who doesn't like flogging the dead horse? ;)

    Something that this discussion triggered in the back of my dim mind was a study performed a couple of years ago. I thought I'd lost the link to the original paper, but I've just managed to locate it again. You can read it here if you're really looking for some time to kill.

    The crux of the experiment was to take six identically-made acoustic guitars, but use different materials for the back and sides and test to see if players could make any judgements on the instruments based on the sounds emitted as a result of the different materials used. After a not-insignificant amount of work they concluded that different species of back and side woods made no statistically significant difference to the perceived sound of the instrument.

    The main content of the paper centred around asking the players to rate the guitars based on a number of different qualities. I suspect that this particular component of the experiment was fundamentally flawed, as the questions being asked of the players (how do you rate the brightness? How warm does the guitar sound? How defined is the guitar sound? etc) could mean different things to different people, leading to randomised results. There also appears to have been no control guitar used in the study to verify that the testing methodology was sound. You could also argue that the six guitars were...well, six different guitars and even if the back and sides were made from the same material in all six there'd be enough variance in them to make them all subtly different anyway.

    However.

    There was a less-publicised component of their experiment that perhaps offers more interesting and useful data, whereby a group of the same players underwent an ABX test. Each player was offered one guitar from a bank of three different instruments with varying back and side materials and allowed to play it blind for a period of time (guitar A). They were then offered a second guitar from the same batch of three to play it blind for a period (guitar B). They were then offered one of the two guitars they had just played and asked to identify if it was guitar A or B they were now playing (guitar X). The results again indicate that no-one could reliably identify guitar A or B any better than a coin toss.

    While the study was primarily concerned about acoustic guitars, it does beg the question that if the data suggested that reliable identification of just two acoustic instruments (arguably where wood choice plays a larger role in the sound produced) played back-to-back was nearly non-existent, how much credence should we put in to identifying sonic characteristics of the wood used in a solid body electric guitar?

    keeping in mind that right now I am mad from several days of cold medicine and awaiting covid testing results... ie I cannot be held responsible for anything I say/do... I remember that study and was under the impression that while the back and side didn't matter - the tops did.  

    that's all... back to bed.

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