billm90

haha.. I have installed piezos in several guitars in more places than you can shale a stick at. I have done the head stock on a flying V, which had a large brass plate truss cover. this gave some good tone. Also under the nut, I tried wedged in a tuner peg. the neck pocket bottom. the neck pocket side. Between neck brace plate and body In the spring block, behind the spring block, in front of the spring block. between the block and the plate, under the saddles, on the saddles, on the trem claw. On a TOM bridge. Under a TOM bridge, in the wood under a TOM bridge. on each saddle of the TOM bridge. In front/behind, and in the middle of acoustic bridges. On top of a arch top bridge. Inside an arch top bridge. Glued to acoustic guitar bodies all over the place. I also found almost every guitar gives out different results. The absolute best result is a piezo in contact with the string, or slighlty seperated by epoxy. Next under the saddles.... The rest is dependent on how the piezo is in contact. this creates mid range tones etc to change all over the place. it created an airy sound if half was kind of loose, such as half wedged under a bridge. if it was say epoxied in it gave a punchier tone, but not the same as a desired air tone. Hard to explain when I am not real savy with the freq speak. But I know what I am looking for in tone. I have 6 piezos sitting in a strat with 13 guage strings right now. The piezos are all over the guitar. 2 in the neck pocket, 2 on the bridge, under the saddles, the rest I am forgetting. I can turn on which ever piezo whenever. it is fun to see which ones actually suck when you can just go right through all locations and compare. however each one adds something different to the tone. I only mix them in with mag pickups. usually have the mag pickups turned down a lot to just add back filler. I dont use preamps on these set ups. I do on the acoutic bridges. Another thing I found was turning on 2 piezos at once sometimes made the piezo sound cut output further. However I wired 5 under a wood bridge and filled them with epoxy and they all work great together, very strange. also cutting the piezos per string frustrated me as I had issues getting all strings output balanced. If you cut one in half and ran the 2 haves on say an acoustic bridge, it usually sounded pretty good just first try. Individual ones made me stop doing it. I purchased 500 piezos disks. I am almost out.

Decided that the cherry blossoms would be fine without them. idunow The top is 1/4" thick, but the pattern is pretty tight. As the base is walnut as well, the holes will be pretty dark. They should just show up as black. You can always backlight it with an LED or something if it gets lost.

can you get the piezos between the roller saddles and the metal base plate? You might find the best sound around this area... given you dont short out the piezo, crush it, and end up with raised string action, or just unrealiable in this position. I have spent weeks in actual attempts at getting these things to work. a little frustrating to think of even now... but I will hang in here and see what you get going. I know you can get it to work, and sound good... I have many different ways. Just not the whole package yet.

I liked the titebond I also removed the same fret board 3 times. Had Led issues. If locking it down for good, epoxy would work fine as well.

I picked some up for some other wood projects I was working on, fish tank canopy and stand, as well as a subwoofer/amp box for my car. I dont know what type was, if I saw a bottle of it I could identify it. Just saw it at home depot and picked it up. I would not put that stuff anywhere near a guitar. The stuff I had would expand a bit and try to push apart what ever I was glueing. If it could not push it apart, it would seep out the seams and leave a mess. If you have used expandable foam in a can, it is almost just like that. expands, super sticky and messy. I have used titebond on a few guitars as recomended here, and that is all I buy now.

some of those you posted might get the look of the Teisco's across pretty good.

Are you looking for ideas to get away from the long flowing flower vines and dragons? Is there anything that you are into?

Saw these lighting F-holes some time back I found interesting

Correct, I have not built an acoustic guitar the real way. I have cheated and made them semi acoustic electric guitars with thicker tops. They sounded better then I thought acoustic, but far from right. decent enough when plugged in. Been thinking about a few real acoustic builds I would like to try. The lack of some tools made me think of alternate ideas with the ones I do have. Not that I have a CNC or anything. It was just a what if. I did not even think about the grain. Good call.

I am sure I am not the originator of this idea, but it crossed my mind long ago. recently I got to thinking about it more, and I wonder if it would defeat the purpose of the sound board. I gather no one here actually would know what would happen, since I am sure no one has done it, but speculation is what I am looking for. Say one had a solid piece of wood, say 1" thick and just cnc'd the top and all the bracing into this one piece. I gather this would alter the vibrations, and thus the tone. Any thoughts?

Depends on ho wthey come out. I have pulled frets out, that came right out. Usually due to a dried up fret board, and the fret board would chip around the fret grooves. Most the frets I have pulled were destroyed when pulled. bent beyond useable. So I would say dont count on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBjqvLTOXvY you tube has one

Peavey I tried building one (tremelo) out of a classic guitar that was in ruins. I removed the bridge I cut a hole out under the bridge that was about the size of the strings wide x the width of the bridge. Maybe 3"x 1" I put a wood block on the bottom of the bridge just like a strat bridge. I put a block of wood in the body of the guitar to screw the springs into. I screwed the springs into the block of wood on the bottom of the bridge. I used mini hinges and attached the bridge back onto the guitar on the leading edge so you could only drop the pitch. the result. it sucked. When I tremed it down the strings would come off the bridge. It worked to a degree, maybe a little more then a bigsby. I also had the nylon string type bridge, so I am sure a peg bridge might do better. As far as tone changes... who knows. I had this acoustic so chopped up at that point, it was no where near what it once was.

Thanks for all the info. I have a few different guitars I am working on. I actually built a semi hollow body acoustic (10 string, and my first build), and I am building the bridge. It would be the same as building a solid body guitar, routing out the entire inside of the guitar, and adding a top and bottom. not much acoustics I gather because of the 1.5 thickness and solid edges, and a thicker top like a danelectro. I built up a bridge for it and made my own pickups for it out of piezo's under the bridge. did a test on an electric with it just sitting there and it sounds ok. we'll see what happens once in place. I get a different tone with it not sitting flat, it sounds air-y, and pushing it down flat give good response, solid tone, but lack of open tone. I also have a project arch top. and old harmony, maybe 50-60's era. I bought it smashed and kind of put it back together. The neck recently fell off. looking at this as well for putting into use. I also have 3 acoustic classicals that need some work. one needs a bridge, the other 2 will probably get some out there mods. Thanks again.

Thanks for the input. makes sense I guess, kind of the reverse of electric guitars. the last couple of acousitics I took apart had very light bridges, I figured they were cheap. lol. now, if we change this up a little and go towards a semi hollow, or chambered body, with a piezo pickup, do you think the classical style bridge will offer a good tone still, or is it a non issue once electronics are involved?

I am building a classical bridge for my first build guitar. I started to wonder why the bridge saddle is so narrow on a classical guitar, I thought why not go 1/4 wide? Would this transfer more string vibration to the top? has it always been this way? Just one of those things that makes you wonder. Has the classical bridge as a whole always been the same shape.... while other steel string acoustics have artistic bridges made for them almost daily?

im done

I have been all over the net for guitar stuff, I cam across this on the bartolex.com guitar web page

im done

im done

did you have to cut slots in the fret board and install frets in this kit?

I dont imagine it would be too hard to do if we just knew exactly what was in it.

Wow.. prices have gone up! I got a lefty 500 model for about $300 a while back. Musicians Friend was blowing them out. yeah, I was thinking of getting the cheap $300.00 model and gutting it. I cant even find that one anywhere.

variax on average for the base model is around 800new I think I might of paid that for my vg-88 and pickup since it is a bit older. looking around I see it has been replaced with the vg99 at a higher price I guess it is almost a toss up.

Then yes, the roland vg-88 can do it. it is done by synth technology. Just like a variax. so you can install the gk-2 pickup on your guitar, and with a foot switch you can change presets, and the string tunnings by electronics. 2 bass strings, 4 guitar strings... and whatever else along with other sets of effects. I dont know if digitech or boss has this technology out there yet. The cheapest way is probably a variax guitar. Some guys get the cheap model and put the guts in a good guitar.