KeithHowell

Grounding the back of the pots is not only for a convenient place to solder your ground but also to shield the pots and stop them picking up hum. The thing to watch out for is that you don't have any ground loops. ie more than on wire connecting grounds together. So pick a point which is to be at ground potential and wire in a star from all other bits that will be at ground, including the output jack.

Use screened wire for your "hot" leads as well and make sure only one end of the screen is connected to your "star" ground point.

Keith

I have used the steam out technique successfully many times on barewood, but I think you are correct don't use on finished wood. The finish is there among other things to stop moisture getting in and out of the wood so trying to dampen the wood is not going to work. You could end up melting the finish with a hot iron and making a mess.

Also I think be wary of removing a bit of finish and then steaming, the moisture could get under the finish and cause it to blister.

It would probably be better to fill the ding with some clear filler of some sort. I think Jeremy of LGM is the best for advice in this area.

Keith

Does anybody know of downloadable, preferably free plans for a Gibson F5 Lloyd Loar style mandolin? Mimf has plans for a F4 but no F5!

After years of wondering why I like to build guitars my wife saw an F5 mandolin in one of my guitar books and asked me if I could build one. My reply was an immediate yes, so now she wants one, but not only that it must be inlaid on the headstock with a butterfly. I just hope she learns to play it!

Keith

Keep your work surface clean when sanding. That little tiny wood chip that dents your work (happened to me yesterday) means you have to sand it (the whole surface) right back to the bottom of that dent

If this happens, dab some water on the dent cover it with a peice of wet paper and heat with a soldering iron. The steam will push the dent out. Be careful not to let the wood get dry or you will burn it and then have to sand it out.

A tailstop and tunomatic will work on and ES335 style archtop where you have a central body block, but on a traditional acoustic archtop with X or longitudinal bracing you will need a trapeze tailpiece and an acoustic style (archtop) bridge.

What guitar are you planning to build or modify/repair? Electric,acoustic?

Keith

I think you might find that the correct tap is a metric size, which would be a 10mm tap (3/8" = 9.52mm). I'm not sure what you have in your part of the world but all the stuff around here (South Africa) has metric specs and it all comes from Korea,Taiwan etc.

Read here: Interview with Seth Lover

I bought a Stanley dovetail saw. It has a 0.024" kerf. It is good quality and cost about $10.

Keith

Are both Pots in the circuit of the Preamp or is one (the 500k) across the pickup and the 25k in the preamp circuit? If so you could just go with the gain adjust pot (25k) and make sure your input signal on the preamp is at a suitable level using some resistors to replace the 500k pot so as not to overload the input then do all your adjusting with the gain pot.

Keith

Does anyone know a good site that will define capacitor symbols?

Have a look at:

Beginers Electronics

Keith

So far I have Greensleeves and Romance Anonimo memorized, both from unknown authors, it blows my mind that these songs are so great and we dont know who wrote them

I read somewhere that it is thought that Henry VIII of England wrote Greensleeves. Though with going through six wives I'm surprised he found the time!

Keith

I think a buzzer is designed to run from a DC voltage and produce a specific frequency

The piezo would have to have some electronics attached to it to work as a buzzer with dc applied to it. ie an oscillator to apply a square wave to the piezo bit otherwise it wont vibrate at all with just DC. The "active" bit in all piezo's is the metal plate (usually a disk" with the crystal laminated to it, when a voltage is applied across one plane the crystal will bend in the other plane at 90 degrees to the voltage plane. DC will cause it to bend and stay in that position AC will cause it to vibrate at whatever frequency (within reason) that is applied.

The opposite also applies: if you distort the crystal in one plane a voltage will be generated across the other, which is how the pickup concept works.

Keith

A piezo buzzer is what you want. The bit to use is the metal disk inside with the ceramic material laminated to it and the wires soldered on.

A piezo buzzer is just a cheap piezo speaker. It won't just buzz if you apply audio waveforms to it but it will be a bit limited if you are thinking in hi-fi terms.

Keith

I've always routed a curved slot for my single action truss rods. The principle of the rod is that when tensioning it, it tries to straighten so putting force upward in the middle of the neck,against the curve caused by the string pull.

I have seen some companies use a straight rod (Yamaha I thinkis one) but then the rod is not parallel to the strings! It's installed so that there is a small angle at the nut end. Ie the rod is closer to the strings at the nut and further away at the body. The theory being that it forms the hypotenuse of a triangle and tightening it causes a backward force at the nut which will counteract the string pull.

Keith

I have made necks out of beech. It seems to me to work similar to maple,maple perhaps being a bit harder. Tonally I would say its much the same.

Keith

You should be easily be able to do a side of 3/16" (5mm) which is a bit thick anyway.

I heated my pipe with a gas torch and have bent wood a bit thicker than that.

Keith

I built a tele with a Pirana and mahogany body. Melvyn Hiscock says in his book Pirana is the same density as Alder.

Pirana doesn't have the sap like other pine, it can be a bit knotty but it is very nice to work with.

Keith

Have a look at Geofex R.G.'s got a full set of plans for the VOX AC30 Cabinet.

Keith

Nitro con's:

Toxic and highly flammable.

I recently visited an explosives manufacturing plant which makes propellant for G5 cannons that shoot shells 25 miles! And guess what the main ingredient is? Nitro Cellulose!

Looking at all the safety systems they are using to handle it I think I'll stay away from it for home use.

Keith

6. My top will be carved (if I don't mess it up! <g>) from a 5/8" piece. That's pretty thick... will it be a HUGE headache to use normal-threaded potentiometers, or should I suck it up and pay 3X the price for those long-threaded ones?

Get Pots with long enough shafts and normal threaded. Then mount them on a thin piece (1/16'' 1.5mm) of aluminium which you can secure inside your cavity with a few screws and just the shafts will stick out the top. Earth the metal plate and it will help your sheilding as well.

Keith

Have a look at IntelliCAD. It has a user interface just like AutoCAD and is apparently 100% compatible. Price I think is less than $100 they also have a free demo.

Keith

I generally just draw in the line with any length greater than what you want and use the trim ,snap or edit line length function to get the correct length. I haven't found a polar co-ordinate way of drawing a line yet, but maybe I've not looked hard enough.

Keith

The Gibson 24 3/4" scale length is apparently the compensated length according to Stew-Mac see:Gibson Scale Length

It is based on a true scale length of 24 9/16"

So if you are using any of the fret calculators use 24 9/16" or 623.8 mm for your scale length.

Keith

Hmm, are there any difference in, say, the pots you buy at radio shack and those from fender? Do vintage pots sound the same?

I very much doubt it. Most electronics stuff is made in only a few factories worldwide and labled accordingly. So you will possibly find Fenders are made in the same place as Radio shacks with a different lable and different(higher) price.

The tolererances modern electronic stuff are built with are much smaller than what was acceptable 30 or 40 years back, but two pots of the same resistance (measured not labled) should sound the same. All things else being equal. This of course excludes any capacitive or inductive effects which could be present in old pots (tolerances etc) which will make a difference!

Keith

A quick google showed this site: Schematics

Have a look and post any questions you might have and I'll do my best to answer.

Have a look at GeoFex R.G has some links to beginners sites. (Look under electronics in the left menu frame)

Here's a nice tutorial with a symbol reference:How to and Symbols

Keith