KeithHowell

It will probably be easier to take a flat board, stick a few sheets of sandpaper on it and lay the body on top and sand like that. You will probably work up a bit of a sweat but the body will be flat enough to attach your maple top.

Keith

Absolutely nothing or very soft? Absolutely nothing would indicate a disconnect between guitar and amp.

What type of plugs and sockets are you using? An MP3 player would give stereo out on a stereo jack plug which is probably why you are hearing one channel into your amp. Have you used a mono or stereo plug into your amp?

Keith

Get one of those sanding drums,with a diameter a little less than the body curve, which you can put in your drill press or radial arm saw.

You can make a sanding drum quite easily as well: Cut two disks with a hole saw, the type that gives you a centre hole, and fit them into the ends of a short piece of PVC pipe. Stick a metal rod through the middle and glue some sandpaper on the pipe. Mount it vertically in your drill press and away you go.

Keith

and can you eventually make guitars that are better than stock guitars?

Absolutely! But you need to practice, practice, practice your wood working skills.

I always say I've been lucky enough to have had a 47 year apprenticeship in the use of tools, under my father (He's a retired Blacksmith) which is still going on.

Keith

Route the truss rod slot while the neck blank is still all square. That way you have accurate references:

1) Make sure your blank is square.

2) Mark out your neck and rod position using one side as a reference.

3) Route the slot suitable for the design of rod using your reference edge as a guide for your router.

4) bandsaw out your neck fit rod and fret board etc.

Melvyn Hiscock explains it well in his book, both Fender style skunk type types and Gibson style separate fret board types.

Keith

Have a look here: Rotary switches

The pdf has the wiring schematics.

Keith

Why dont you use a rotary selector switch. You can wire the three pickups onto three of the inputs and select each onto the output. If it has to be like a toggle switch turn the whole thing through 90 degrees and have a lever sticking out which you can move like a toggle.

Keith

Silicon diodes will conduct at about 0.7Volt and Germanium at about 0.3 volt so your pickup needs to give more than this output if you want distortion. Physics is against you if your output is less than 0.3v, I don't know of any semiconducter that has a lower forward voltage bias, you will have to add an op-amp to boost the signal then allow the diodes to clip. You might as well then build a Blues-Breaker distortion unit which uses diodes and op-amps in a similar fashion but with a lot more control of gain etc.

The problem is that the clipping turns on hard as soon as you exceed the voltage threshhold as stated above and off as soon as you go below it. Fiddling around with op-amps you can have the onset of the distortion happen much softer. (Vacuum tubes tend to do this when overdriven hence their "nicer" sound)

Have a look at General Guitar Gadgets for the Blues Breaker schematic.

Keith

Always loved Entwhistle's playing and Jack Bruce's in Cream.

I read in the local newspaper a while back that Ginger Baker now lives in South Africa and breeds horses and plays polo for petes sake!

Keith

Happy birthday!

Hooray for OZ and you play CRICKET! You give us a right stuffing every chance you get!

Keith

Great! Thanks Lex. Any tips on making the blades?

Brian: Can we pin this or move it into the tutorial section?

Keith

It depends on the wood. Maple for example doesn't need filling but mahogany does. Its purpose is to fill the gaps in the grain to give a smooth surface so that your finish coats are smooth. Jeremy from LGM will definitely be able to give you a far better explanation.

Keith

Great thanks Lex. I have as much fun building my own tools as building guitars. I'm busy getting some bits and pieces together to build a belt and thicknessing sander.

Keith

The best way to control this sort of thing is digitally. ie stick all your effects in a properly shielded, earthed and powered box and then run a digital communications link from your foot pedal to your box of tricks. This will cut out hum pickup, a big fat cable, lots of switches etc.

You would have to do a full on design and have to write some software as well to make it work properly.

This is bordering on what I do for a living. (Factory plant control software) so I don't think I would like to get involved in this, I build guitars to give myself a break from that sort of thing. (I might have to start charging professional fees to motivate myself. HaHa)

But seriously, if I've learned one thing in engineering it is: KEEP IT SIMPLE also known as the KISS principle. Get a few simple effects working first before trying a bigbang type project.

Keith

Interference is always a problem if you don't screen and earth things properly. Have a look at Geofex for all things guitar effects based.

R.G. really knows what he is talking about. He is probably the most knowledgable reference on guitar orientated electronics.

Keith

Lex

How about a drawing and brief tutorial on making one?

Keith

Madeira, which means wood in portuguese

Really? That would explain why the cake called Madeira that you can buy around these parts tastes like soggy sawdust!

Make sure you have a guitar amplifier design. Solid state amplifiers are generally designed to accurately reproduce the input signal without any distortion,not what we generally want for guitars except maybe jazz. Guitar amplifiers are biased into what is called the non-linear area. ie what comes out is a distortion of what is put in. Tubes more so than solid state but tubes react differently and sound pleasing.

Much has been written on the tube vs ss issues. Just google around on the web and you will find lots of articles.

As stated above in this thread: You need to work with mains voltage to build amps. Even solid state as you need a decent power supply from the mains to give you between 12 and 100v depending on the design. Tubes of course need about a 350 volt supply!

SO BE CAREFUL. IF YOU ARE NOT SURE OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING FIND SOMEBODY WHO DOES!!!!!

Yes I am happy with the results.

How easy was it? Well thats probably a matter of opinion. As I said in a previous thread on building amps, they are probably the simplest electronic circuits around. Electronics 101 day one (Well almost it was at the first practicle class) was how to bias transistors and valves(tubes) in a single stage amplifier.

If you have a circuit diagram and a printed circuit layout it is pretty simple. Print and etch the PC board, drill it and place the components. The rest is putting it into a housing which is a mechanical problem. You also need to know a bit about simple power supplies and shielding, grounding etc otherwise you will get an amp with a lot of noise. Especially when you use high impedance devices like tubes and FETs.

The two amps I built recently used the Mini-tubes preamp I mentioned earlier in the thread and the TDA2005 module for a power stage. It cost me roughly around R700 (about $100 (USD)) The electronics components are cheap about $10 worth. It is the mechanical items like the pots , transformer and speakers that make up most of the cost.

Having an audio generator and oscilloscope available for fault finding is also useful. There are some very nice software ones which use a PC sound card.

Goodluck

Keith

Thanks for the vote on confidence Hotrock. Guitars were the reason I originally started studying electronics (I wanted amps and effects pedals but couldn't afford them as a teenager) which lead me to software and my current career: Software Engineering

Keith

Which Gibson do you have? It could also be the switch which is not making properly in the rhythm position. Try cleaning it. Gibson use those open leaf switches which allow you to service them but can also have the contacts bent if your'e not carefull.

Keith

I use TurboCAD. They have a full learning addition on their site for free. It is pretty easy to use as well if you have a bit of drafting knowledge.

Keith

Have a look at the minitubes preamp at Geofex It uses FET's and gives a great sound. I,ve built two of them now and I can honestly say the give the best solid state version of tube sound.

Keith

What type of tail piece are you using? A stud type needs about 3 1/2 inch block but if you are using a trapeze you can make it narrower. But don't forget the less mass in the block the less sustain.

Keith

Well the plans are to 1:1 scale so print them out and take the measurements from there.

Keith