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eljib

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Everything posted by eljib

  1. Wow! Nice build Brian. We've got some hive-mind action going on here...i made some sketches a few months back of a new body design based on paisley patterns that is nearly IDENTICAL to that gorgeous guit! I know you came up with the design years ago, but perhaps your bringing it into the material world sent java vibes across the ocean and into my dreaming mind. Really digging the bigsby, not least because it was perhaps the only option i didn't even bother considering (for fear of it not working with the overall visual motif). I'm pleased to learn that i shouldn't always concede to the pessimist in me. It's always nice to see some original work, and i really like the thoughtfulness you put into the name. keep it up, Aaron
  2. i like the mock-up as is (with pickguard) but i would love to see the color scheme expanded to the beautifully flamed neck and fingerboard. i haven't seen it done before and i think that it would really make the most of your concept. Also, i really like orgmorg's idea of the somewhat disguised 2-ply pickguard. it would be very pretty to imply the iconic shape of the strat PG with a pinstripe of black. Perhaps if you cut it with the grain going a different direction so it would be able to stand out as it's own design element, without distracting too much from the overall impression. great job on your stratelecaster, btw. You see lots of people slap strat guards on tele bodies, but they always look shitty because of the the difference in lower bout shaping. It's nice to see someone else appreciates a perfect reveal. I've made a few custom bodies with tele upper/strat lower bouts and they've become my favorite shape due to the way the upper tele bout curves perfectly into the strat lower horn. i find the continuity of the lines more pleasing than in either of the original models. keep it up!
  3. that tear-out could be cut off and a new piece attached and shaped. it's under no stress whatsoever from the strings, and would barely be noticeable with good grain matching. I've done it several times.
  4. Since it's obvious you have a router , you could try this technique i read about here a while ago. I can't remember any keywords the thread might have contained, so i can't redirect you to it, and the technique was offered as a way to make perfect joins with a router for bodies and tops, but it should work here as well. First, rip the neck in half (using the jigsaw would probably be fine), and then clamp the new spacer piece of wood (contrasting color would be cool) between the outside lams you just created. After that, you should be able to route freehand along the joint without the worry of keeping straight lines, because the straight bit will be making mirror image cuts on either side. Repeat the process on the other joint and when you're finished you'll be able to put the three piece neck together like a jigsaw puzzle. The only problem i see is that this would need to be done in one pass, so if you're worried about wear on your router and bit i suppose you could widen the gap between the pieces to lessen the amount of wood you're try to hog out. Good luck with the build and the repair.
  5. sorry about the confusing question...I'm not at my best when it comes to getting my point across effectively. Basically the problem is that: - I want to use surface mount pickups (3/8" N & 5/8" , - on a flat topped guitar, - with a wrap-around bridge (probably recessed), - and still have the strings stay fairly close to the body like on regular fenders (because my playing style relies on being able to rest my right wrist on the body near the bridge, and I find it very hard to play on archtops or LP's with angled necks) The only method I can think of that allows me to achieve all these things is to recess the pickups into the body, but it's already hollow so there's nothing to mount them to. I'll figure something out, I'm sure. This is mostly just a fun little project that I wanted to try because I can neither find nor afford a real telesonic, and because I already had a lot of suitable parts just lying around. However, I thought I'd ask the question here first to see if anybody had a brilliant idea, or had done something similar before. Hope that makes better sense. And thanks in advance for your suggestions. -Aaron
  6. Hey gang, it's been ages since I last posted anything here, though I've stopped in frequently to read up on things. Using the information I gathered here I've built some really great original designs, but now I need to ask for some advice on mounting some less-than-traditional pickups. I'm building a telesonic replica using some extra parts I had lying around from previous builds. The original telesonic has Dearmond 2k pickups that seem to mount differently than 2ks in other guitars, in that they sit very close to the top of the body rather than highly elevated like ric pups or something along those lines. The closest thing I could get my hands on was a pair GFS NYIII humbuckers which are surface mounted pups of the exact same footprint as ricky toaster tops, but are each different heights, and thus require a neck angle. While the original telesonic is similar to a gibson in many ways (24 3/4 scale, wrap-around bridge, 2Vol/2Tone controls) I don't think it has any neck angle. Can anybody think of a way to cleanly mount these pickups and still have the strings somewhat close to the body at the bridge like on normal fender guitars? I hollowed out the body before glueing on the cap, so I was thinking I could jimmy the pups in the openings and use a custom mounting ring. Just looking for opinions. Thanks
  7. Suprised no one has mentioned this yet. Scott French guitar shapes are beautiful. He used to post here, but I haven't seen anything from him in a while. His website also seems to need updating; I hope he hasn't quit the game. I can't post pics from my cpu at work, but you can find them easily enough.
  8. How thick is your veneer? Sounds like you need a some kind of clamping caul. Tough to do with a carved top. If the bubbles are large then I would iron them down and use a huge sandbag (or anything else you can think of that's heavy and conforms to curves) to keep them from popping back up. If that didn't work, then I would go after each quarter panel individually, or maybe even each bubble, one by one (though you might run the risk of heating up the glue from the bubbles you just fixed, and having them pop up later as well) I'd love to see how you managed the contours with the four sheet approach. Do you have any pictures?
  9. Then I'd ditch the neckplate and see if I could expose more free-reign art with some individual ferrule things...(someone help me with the name of those) looks cool.
  10. I'm not sure how white you would get it with some proper wood bleach, but I bet it would be enough to get a cool snakeskin green. Step 1: Get wood bleach Step 2: Get green aniline dye (pre-mixed or powdered) Step 3: Apply in the order obtained Step 4: Feel genuinely satisfied that you took the extra time to make your guitar exactly the way you wanted it from the beginning.
  11. torn between the kelvinator and the less tall. I love the subtle tweaks that pinefd made to the most recognizable badging in the guitar world. Brilliant. Unfortunately for him I like the creative usage of knick knacks and salvaged lumber on the kelvinator even more. Both amazing though. They're unique without being either over-the-top or kitschy.
  12. What do you mean by "hump at the heel"? I'm not aware of this phenomenon, and although it sounds self explanatory I'd like to hear a more in-depth description, if possible. Also, are you suggesting that re-oiling the neck every year or two wards off "the hump" from plaguing your bolt-on guitar?
  13. i'll bet that you won't find any new builds that use a shim, but I think you could use it to great effect in your case. It's easy to fabricate, and can be easily adjusted or removed should there be any problems with it. Just make sure that it completely covers the footprint of the heel within the pocket (or beyond). I'm sure someone else might chime in with an opinion against them for tonal-exchange/vibration-loss reason, but I doubt you'd be able to tell the difference if it were properly fitted. I have used decorative shims on both of my fender-ish builds, and the guitars still sound beautiful and have excellent sustain. be sure to take into account any angle adjustment that would need to be made on the back of the heel (if your guitar has one). You would have to remove the same angle that you added as your shim. But if you remove wood past where the @ is in my crude diagram you will begin to shorten the scale and have intonation issues (theoretically) although they may arise anyway as a result of the shimming. I say just try it out, it's either gonna get better or stay the same. ----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----j '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''']''''''' _____....side view of neck.......] -----,------------ @------------------' ------.\...........--! ..........\............! ............\..........! <--- back of heel ..............\........!
  14. looking good so far. I think it would have been cool to do a "reverse" neck, using a one-piece walnut neck with a figured maple skunk stripe.
  15. looks great! I'm wondering how your bridge will fit without covering the image, though.
  16. Then maybe you should forgo any tools at all and just use your teeth (If you do go "all-handtools" please post a tutorial. I'm interested to see how this stuff was done back in the day.) good luck
  17. taken one at a time, jehle's offerings this month don't really stand a chance against all these other incredible entries. That said, I do like seeing different stuff every once in a while, and if I could I would have voted for the jehle stuff as a collection. I love it when someone finds a way to (attractively) use cheap, accessible, every-day items to replace the not cheap, only-can-get-it-from-a-guitar-shop hardware that we all feel obliged to use out of tradition (even though all of it started off much the same way) Amazing, incredible entries by everyone else, but I voted for frugal ingenuity this time around.
  18. +1 I wanted to make a ric for the longest but I couldn't find plans so I just looked for pictures. I was able to find some great straight-on shots of the stuff people were selling on e-bay. I eventually scrapped the project when I realized the hardware was going to be near impossible to get my hands on without spending many hundreds of dollars. Can't wait to see how yours turns out, though. Maybe I'll be inspired to dust mine off.
  19. I had the same problem initially, but then realized that if all I wanted to do was "tweak" existing designs then the only thing I would need is an outline or technical drawing of the original (readily available) and a simple drawing program like MS Paint. For me, this was more than sufficient to come up with an original take on our cherished classics, although it sounds like I may be more artistically inclined than you. However, the ability to cut, paste, drag, draw re-curves, etc. should help anyone trying to tweak something for their own usage. FWIW, I have photoshop, but opted for MS Paint, because I was only making a simple, centered outline so I could print it out at full-scale and transfer it to MDF for templates. -Good luck on your search and I hope to see some cool designs.
  20. I can't help with what you "should" do, but I'll tell you what I did... I started wetsanding the Rosewood board with 320 and some tru-oil (that's the wet part). Dont use very much, just a couple drops. This made a sawdust goo that started to fill in the pores in the wood. let this dry for a couple hours, and repeat. Mine filled up all the pores after 3 applications. Then I applied two more coats of tru-oil -very-very- thin (remember to let dry in between) and then sanded with some 600 grit I had lying around and then finished with some 0000 wool. I'm not a pro but I think it turned out great. This is definitely not traditional.
  21. So, it might be a dumb question, but I need to know if I can remove the bullet truss rod adjuster off the end of the rod so I can refinish the headstock. I figure the answer will be to go for it, but I can't find any info with the search feature (and I spend several hours a day reading up on stuff here). This is not a fender bullet neck, but it was definitely made with theirs in mind, so I think that what holds true for fenders would hold true for mine. In a separate but related item, I would like to change the fretboard from maple to either rosewood or ebony (or anything darker than maple that I can oil). However, this neck has the frets pressed right into the neck, with no separate fretboard, and it is far too thin (contour-wise) for me to play comfortably. I have decided to remove the frets and then laminate a >1/8" fretboard to the top of the neck (possibly without having to radius) by vacuum bagging the new board so that it conforms to the current radius. So the question becomes "what woods are suitable to this type of procedure, and where can I find a piece long enough to pull it off?" (In anticipation of responses urging me to level sand and put on a new, full-thickness fretboard: I would have chosen to do this but the neck is so thin that I'm afraid the outside edges of the fretboard dip below the truss rod, thereby making it impossible to get a flat surface across the face of the board. Also, I just want to do it this way. If it doesn't work then I'll have to go back and do it the other way, or take the neck apart and salvage the truss rod for another project...But if it DOES work, then I could possibly add a new solution/tutorial to the site) Thank for your interest and expert advice
  22. Thanks. What do you mean by "how the pickups behave?" I think I just want the bridge and neck to have separate signals going to separate amps.
  23. thanks for the input. I've got 12 individually adjustable saddles for this build, but maybe i'll go with just six on the next one. Any ideas on how to best complete the wiring?
  24. dude, I just stumbled across this while doing a search for "stereo" Not really what I was looking for at all, but I really dig it. Where did you get that ultra long switch? This is a super cool project...I just wish I had some input on homemade piezo's for you.
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