Drak Build: The De-Constructed Eddie (VH)

[Drak]

I took that as a meditational path to higher consciousness.

Your 'boogity boogity shoop' going all 'bomp bah bomp' is your lower mental plane of desires which must be brought under control.

Then discarded, once discipline has been brought into awareness.

Discipline

[Prostheta]

Oh yes, absolutely.

[Drak]

Much progress.

I dyed and lacquered the patch, then glued it in, then re-routed the pickup cavity. Can't barely tell the difference now.

Blacked out the Floyd cavities.

Scuff-sanded the body and neck w/ a 320 Abralon pad.

I mixed up a burst batch of Nutmeg Brown, Blood Red, and a little bit of Black pigment.

The original body was bursted to end in a Caramel Brown, which looked great and I liked it for what it was at the time.

But since it now is going to have gold hardware, and is now a Rock machine, I wanted to darken the edges up to blow up the contrast against the gold.

So that's all done now and looking great. And functionally right where I want it.

It's humid as hell around here lately.

So I can shoot paper-thin bursted edges and get away with it.

But no thick clearcoats, that's totally out of the question until the weather settles down a bit.

 

[Drak]

So I actually added some retarder and crossed my fingers.

Worked.

We go from this 2-3 days ago:

To this today, slightly darker edged version, w/ Floyd:

[Prostheta]

And you've delivered again. Maybe I should be considering getting you do my dream burst. I've never had finishing chops. Well done, that man. Again. 

[Drak]

59 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I've never had finishing chops.

Well, I certainly don't have the greatest build chops in the world, most people here can easily clean my clock.

I mean, I'm perfectly happy and content with what I do, but I'm no D'Angelico.

But finishing, really, was the whole reason I started building, that's where my attention and primary enjoyment has always been.

[Bizman62]

4 hours ago, Drak said:

and crossed my fingers.

Worked.

I've been told that it really helps. You just confirmed it. Great job!

 

[ScottR]

The pickup move was very nicely done, and the new burst certainly adds some pop.

It's like a lady goes into her closet and comes out dressed for a nice afternoon garden party in the the before shots, and then returns to the closet and comes out in a LBD and stiletto gladiator wrapped heels for a night in dark clubs in the after shots.

I can't wait to see her with all her bling.

SR

[Drak]

I was rummaging around in my EMG box to see if I had all the required pieces (the AfterBurner, EXG, & SPC pots)

The last three builds I've done were all hybrid passive-active, oddly enough, the two Garcias and the Super-Satchurator.

I robbed the EMG harnesses off of older Tele builds that I had cut up and tossed away...those EMG pots aren't exactly cheap.

Amazingly enough I had exactly one left of everything I needed, new in boxes in the EMG drawer.

'Oh, look at that, an Afterburner, the last one'. 'Oh look at that, an SPC, the last one'.

I didn't have any EXG's, but I did have two RPC's, which is kind of close to an EXG.

An EXG is like a happy face EQ curve, it boosts highs and lows and cuts mids at the same time.

The RPC boosts highs, but not lows, and doesn't cut mids so, close enough. It's basically a treble booster.

Especially in a 2-HB guitar where boosting lows isn't really necessary, that will work fine.

This will probably be the last hybrid EMG active build then, I don't have any more bodies drilled for it and don't really feel like buying any more of them.

But it was nice and surprising to find exactly one left of everything I needed to fill this out.

[Bizman62]

Now that was a story that brought a warm smile on my face! Sauna and three beers had no effect...

[Drak]

So I still had some Nutmeg/Blood Red/Black mix in the burst gun, hadn't cleaned it out yet.

I decided to do the back of the neck too, which was just a light brown color.

I had bursted the front/back of the headstock, but not the whole neck, so I decided to do that.

I ran the gun down both side edges, then ran it from bottom to middle, and the top I stopped around the headstock area.

So, its a burst of a sort.

The finishing portion is done now, got 5 clearcoats on both body and neck.

It now totally matches the body in shade and color.

 

[Bizman62]

That's the way to do it! If you do a burst on the body and headstock, you just have to blend it into the neck. If you don't, you're a lazy ass bastard.

[Muzz]

On 7/14/2021 at 1:21 AM, Drak said:

 

 

 

 

Looking good and that technique is genius, Dan Erlewine is the man.

 

16 hours ago, Drak said:

 

 

and this matches. I wonder how many people around the world are dealing with the loss of Eddie by helping build his legacy.

[Drak]

I ordered the Gotoh GE-1996-T (Floyd) trem kit and locking nut yesterday (gold), it's been highly recommended in some circles.

I've read the studs are reasonably larger than an OFR and the string locking screws are a bit longer than a OFR.

So I'll just have to wait until it gets here to see if the route needs to be modified in any way before install, hopefully not.

And I have to route the neck for the locking nut shelf now.

Better to get that out of the way before I retire the guns in case there's any touchup needed there.

Probably should have made the shelf first, but whatever...

Mock-Up body and neck

 

 

[Drak]

The (gold) Gotoh GE-1996-T Floyd came in yesterday, I'm really impressed with it, ...and I don't impress easily.

I thought the Schaller OFR was the gold standard for Floyds, but apparently things have changed.

This thing is Amazing. I ordered everything I needed to finish this up.

The trem, locking nut, tuners, retainer bar, its all here now.

Still have to cut the locking nut shelf and re-drill for the larger trem studs and this thing is on the way to finished.

[Gogzs]

Oh, nice to hear you're happy with the Gotoh GE-1996... I had it only once under my palm, and remember it leaving a solid impression, but not as good as the Ibanez Low Pro Edge. I'm torn between those two for my trem build. Gotoh is half the price of the Ibanez, and if it convinced a seasoned veteran like you, I wouldn't hesitate to go for it as well  

[Prostheta]

I adore the Lo Pro Edge. In fact, I'm hoping to bang one of those into my next build. The sheer lack of presence under your palm make it everything, even if you block it off like I've done for the last twenty years on my #1 guitar. Yipes. That I've owned a primary guitar for that long is crazy. I'd be hard pushed to find better though.

The colour on the back of the neck is sublime. I usually think that painted necks just look poorly done, like the paint was an afterthought than an inclusive part of a greater whole. The subtlety is what makes it.

[Drak]

5 hours ago, Gogzs said:

Oh, nice to hear you're happy with the Gotoh GE-1996... 

if it convinced a seasoned veteran like you, I wouldn't hesitate to go for it as well

I wouldn't listen to a damn thing I say about Floyds, I'm kinda dusty on that topic.

I navigated to the Schaller OFR's (for my builds) a long time ago and just kind of stayed put there, I haven't played many others TBH.

It's not on the guitar yet, so that was my observation just from a parts quality/build standpoint.

And I bought it from a recommendation from someone who's 'in that game' a lot more than I am lately.

That was actually part of my thought process in building these, to get my Floyd techniques dusted off and spit-shined up a bit.

 

I did reconfigure one of my boards for the Floyds last week, it should cover everything from VH to Satch, Vai, Timmons, Dimebag, Stoner, etc.

Both the Triskellion and the Polymoon will take an expression pedal, I have it hooked to the Triskellion right now, but that could change.

Triskellion w/ Expression Pedal

A funny note about the Tight Metal, I bought that used from someone on a forum many years ago.

It actually is the prototype for the Tight Metal Pro which came out after he (I guess) perfected the mods on this one, with additions that now come stock on the TMP.

You can't see them from this angle but this is basically a TMP in a smallbox, and signed/dated on the bottom by James Brown himself

[Prostheta]

Very cool. Lots of old school 80s-90s pedals in there. How do you rate them with the benefit of 30 years on them?

[Crusader]

Looking at the pictures of your guitars I am in awe, all you guys are leaps and bounds ahead of me!

[Drak]

18 minutes ago, Crusader said:

Looking at the pictures of your guitars I am in awe, all you guys are leaps and bounds ahead of me!

Oh, compared to most people here, I rate as a reasonably good shoe shiner most days, but Thank You, I admire your builds as well.

[Drak]

1 hour ago, Prostheta said:

Very cool. Lots of old school 80s-90s pedals in there. How do you rate them with the benefit of 30 years on them?

Thanks.

If they're on a board, that means I fully adore them and they're very useful and up to the task. I don't keep anything I don't like or doesn't work.

I have 4 specifically targeted running boards at the moment and refuse to build any more, enough is enough.

(I might be reaching that point with guitars too, I'm pretty well satiated with the herd at this point.)

I have a Gilmour board, an Ambient board, a Trower/Khruangbin board, and this one, the 'heavy hitter', which started out as a The War on Drugs' board.

The lower row (and the end of the upper row) is still pretty much intact as a leftover from Granduciel's TWOD board, which is why its so large.

The (white) Mooer delay is my 'Eddie Echoplex' set to one repeat, the Crunchbox is the 'Marshall', and the Tight Metal is the '5150'.

I have a reasonable amount of pedals doing benchwarming, not on boards, some of which are highly rated by the masses.

So if you see something on my boards, it beat out something else that's benchwarming.

And I'm done with pedals, have been for a few years now, I have everything I could possibly want/need and am satisfied with them all.

The years I wasn't here, I had stopped building guitars to an extent and was very caught up in making pedalboards and a rack system, but they're done and that's over now.

It's always good to be able to bring things to a conclusion and just use the stuff.

[komodo]

I've been eyeballing that TWA for awhile now. There's a new version 3 that's smaller.

[Prostheta]

Khruangbin! One of the most chill bands in my regular plays. Do you use an amp or spring verb sim? That wet spring sound has so much cool to it.

[Drak]

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Khruangbin! One of the most chill bands in my regular plays.

Do you use an amp or spring verb sim? That wet spring sound has so much cool to it.

My Khruangbin board.

I use a Neunaber WET verb where he uses an EHX Holy Grail.

The padded 'footie' knobs idea on the WET (and the Gila) I got from him (Mark).

The Obscura has a 'hold repeat' function that simulates the way he uses his Strymon El Cap.

I got turned on to Khun Narin through Mark (Speer), and I use the Gilamondo's 'hold' function to dial in and replicate that heavily midranged overhead horns sound. The 'hold' function 'stops and parks' the phaser wave wherever you want it along the dial and works dead perfect to replicate that overhead PA sound.

Sticking the vibe and the OD in there doubles the board for Trower.

Khun Narin (Live at Party)

Mark Speer Rig Rundown