KeithHowell

Really nice job! May I suggest that you add the schematic diagrams to your wiring pictorials. I always find it easier to find problems from the schematic rather than the pictorial view. Keith

I have two ones a Stanley, it's a flat sole plane, the other is very old over a 100 years I reckon I don't know what make it is. It's wood handles with a metal sole (rounded sole). Of the two the older one works the best. Keith

Yes it's "Won't get Fooled Again". The song doesn't start with the "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" though, that comes about half way through. Keith

Tuners are designed, as far as I am aware to be installed so that the post is on the fingerboard side of the wormgear, this is so that the moment produced by the pull of the string pushes the gear towards the worm. If installed the other way around the string pull will pull the gear away from the worm causing slop ( how much will depend on the quality of the tuner) and tuning hassles. Some types of tuners can be dis-assembled and the worm installed the other way I've done this myself on several occasions. Keith

Have a look on Geofex as well R.G.Keen knows plenty about tubes amps. Keith

Just solder to the ends of your coil. Keith

Attach your sheilded cable to your coil before potting. You can use the cable to hold it when you hang it into your wax. Make sure the ends of the coil are firmly made off so as you don't put strain on the coil windings. One way of doing this is to solder a much thicker piece of wire to either end of the coil and wind it round the coil a few times then attach your sheilded cable to these two ends. Keith

Only trouble I ever had was making a decent mechanical link from the foot pedal to the pot. Otherwise the electronics is very simple. Keith

You can do a junction test on your transistor by checking with your multimeter(use analogue one) set to ohms between the base and the emitter and the base and the collecter. You should get conduction one way and not the other ie like two diodes. This will generally tell you if the transistor is OK. Keith

You could make a bass cut filter, which would cut the bass wrt the treble but you still don't have a boost with a passive circuit you are only cutting the part you don't want ie bass or treble. Keith

ES335 style or Gibson archtop acoustic style with pickups (ES150)? Keith

Have a look here: Saddle placement William Cumpiano gives an excellent explanation on how to position your bridge saddle. Keith

Download a copy of TurboCAD Learning Edition, its free and very easy to learn if you have a basic drafting knowledge. I did basic drafting back in 1975 at university , so I'm a crankier older guy than Rhoads-and Rhonson, but I find using a CAD to be much more efficient and accurate. I print out the bits I want, paste then onto my template material and then cut out the templates. I still have all my drawing equipment which I find extremely useful. I suppose being able to use both methods is first prize but I guess it's what works for you that's the best method. Keith

Have a look here for some background: Karoo Guitar Blues No Sound Clips unfortunately. Keith

The Afri-Can guitars are made here in Cape Town. I spoke to the designer a while ago. Inside the can is a machined frame which the neck is fixed to. He designed and manufactures the pickups as well. The inspiration comes from the local rural home made guitars and fiddles that have been using oil cans for bodies since cans became available and replaced the calabash for the sound chamber. There's been a series of concerts over the last few years that have featured some of the musicians still playing some of these instruments. David Kramer, the producer/song writer/performer plays one of the Afri-Can guitars and has toured the country looking for musicians, to try record and preserve some of the music. The music definitely has a link back to Europe and ties with blues, some sounds very Cajun. The old blues story about meeting the Devil at the cross roads to sell your soul for music is still very alive in the rural communities. I bought a CD at the concert I attended. If anybody is interested perhaps I can find out if I can post a few clips, without infringing any copyright, as proceeds of the CD sales were all going to the musicians, some of which are extremely poor. Keith

Have a look here: Oil Can Guitar They have a surprisingly good tone. Keith

Using book matched pieces also gives a symmetrical effect on your body. Keith

What no Keith Richards and Pete Townsend! (Also showing my age Brian) Keith

Open the drawing in a CAD package eg AutoCAD or TurboCAD and use the measuring tool to find the critical dimensions you require. Make sure first that the drawing is at a scale of 1:1. If not you can scale it to size by using a known size like the scale length (usually 24.75 inches for Gibson) Keith

Yes, use a small router with a point edge guide. This depends on what the purfling is made of. I have used cyano successfully to glue plastic purfling and bindings. It would also work for wood of course. Try some on a scrap piece. I find dampening the wood slightly first works well with cyano. Keith

Electronics is broadly grouped into two areas: Analogue and digital. Analogue is the area that guitar effects and amplifiers fall into, it deals with continuously varying waveforms like a guitar signal. Digital electronics deals with two signal levels: 0 and 1 as in computers, this is mapped on to the electronics as voltage levels, one common standard being 0 volt for a 0 and -5 volt for a one. Logic is a discipline in mathematics which deals with combining of the 0 and 1 in terms of operators like AND, OR, NOT etc ie Boolean algebra which is what computers use to make the decisions they do (when programmed properly) Digital electronics therefore is the design of electronic circuits to implement boolean logic. To design a microprocessor you need to know digital electronic logic. Hope that clarifies things, "digital logic" probably wasn't the correct term to use digital electronics and Boolean algebra, or logic for short, is a better description. Keith

Learning basic electronics will most definitely help you do guitar work. Guitars are very simple electrically. Electronics gets more complicated when you get into the higher frequency stuff, microwave communications etc where it becomes more of an art than a science in my opinion. Make sure you take a course in digital logic as well. Guitars by the way are how I got first into electronics which then lead me to software. Good luck with your studies. Keith

Keep the blade very sharp. A finer cut is far better. Always go with the grain. I have my grandfathers spoke shave which is now probably over 100 years old. It works perfectly. He used it for making wagon wheel spokes. Keith

Weezerboy You probably would have puked from laughter if you had been there. He had just finished singing that stupid "Devil Woman" when this all happened. Guess thats what set her off. Nearly set me off as well. Don't no why I went in the first place other than I think some friends had already bought tickets. Keith

Best: ZZTop. Helped my brother-in-law run the bar before the show. We sold over US$7000 worth of beer in less that 3 hours. Worst: Cliff Richard. What a w----r. Boring in the extreme. Only exciting bit was when a derranged fan (or perhaps critic) tried to drag him away from the mike screaming "You're killing God" Keith