billm90

I bet you guys figured I said forget it. well now I am so far in, there is no choice but for it to work. lol I did some work on it this weekend. I didn't get nearly as far as I had hoped. First time using a router, so it is pretty sloppy, but I think it will end up covered once painted. waiting on some wood filler to dry as I type. Got the plate cover cut. once it is all set up, I can get the holigram on it, cut the led holes and move on to the electronics. Still need to route for batteries and circuit boards. will do once I have it running. guitar before cutting http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9dc03b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ Tore into it with a router. http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9dc03b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9dc03b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ Cover plate. http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9dc03b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ I'll get some more up when I can get them together and you can see some definition in the picture.

I make video games (level designer and technical designer) and have made some 3d stuff in 3dmax for some projects. I have never thought about putting a guitar through the program though. tried templating out some out there ideas I had but never saved them. Probably would end up in a post under ugliest guitar... lol I dont think I could stand going through the whole 3d modeling process for a guitar unless I was being paid, or had some ground breaking design. I give you props for your work. I do know what goes into it. I got my GF and A in some business presentaion class for making a 1 off liquid soap bottle and giving her shots from all angles, appearing as a rotating conatiner. I guess it blew the teachers mind as well.

I have a flying V copy that has a covered hole in it where the bridge used to be. It is covered with a piece of wood about 1/4 inch thick at the most. I guess it had a strat type tremelo on it at one point. I see six small screw holes in the deck. it still has the trem claw/spring area open. Original specs on this guitar were a solid mounted strat type bridge (non tremelo) with strings running through the body. I would like to convert it to a tune-o-matic bridge. How does one go about doing this? Should I route the holes out to a perfect square and glue a block(s) of wood into it to fill? I have a trem claw area to fill, and the obvious hole in the top of the guitar that has a 1/4 piece of wood covering it. Some more info. I have a bigsby trem going on it, and the tune-o-matic bridge has piezos built into it. Going for the Lonnie mack V clone How would you guys fix it, and how much will this screw up the tone?

You could give it a shot. Good luck though. I have one that did something similar. with all the string tuned up it is pretty much impossible to move the bridge. all you can really do is push down on it and see if it makes better contact. In reality, if you want to get to the bottom of it, I would loosen the string pretty loose and see if you can get it all aligned before you actually have to resort to pulling the strings off.

taking a shot in the dark, I would agree with the posts about the piezo strip. if it has one??? It might have just shifted over a bit. I guess you could try and loosen the strings a lot and try to get the bridge lined up. only other thing I can figure, pull the strings, pull up the saddle and see if you can get it lined up right, or see the problem. The strip needs to be right under the saddle. It might just be in there at an angle. did you remove every string when you changed them, or did you do it 1 at a time.

here is the LP http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7cc39b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7cc39b3...3D550/ry%3D400/

I put an artec into a cheaper reworked nylon I have. I will say I am fairly happy with it. it was the piezo with mic blender system. the mic is worthless. I built my own piezo per string, and I use that in place of the mic input. so I can blend 2 piezos... I also feel the artec piezo is very responsive and equal in output. they did something right for a cheap price. I have a factory nylon guitar with a shadow system, and I like the artec better. I may end up swapping it over to and artec. I have a fender steel string acoustic with fender electronics. this cant really be compared equally due to different guitars.... but I like it a lot more. Bottom line, the artec is like 50ish bucks... if you buy one to try out, dont cut the hole for the preamp... just try it and see if you like it obviosly. I have not tried any of the higher end stuff... so i cant say if that stuff is really any better. I just remembered, I also took an f'd les paul copy (flat top) and glued a new top on it and made it a solid nylon electric guitar. I put the artec piezo with the 1/4" jack with preamp built in the jack. this has no controls for volume or EQ, but it has worked out pretty good too. I will be trying to find something to control volume and maybe tone. I dont want knobs on the face of the guitar.

I ripped a nut with a dremel and a mini carbide in like 1 minute. then finished it with a set of mini files. you can get needle files here for dirt cheap http://search.harborfreight.com/cpisearch/...do?keyword=file

I decided on the sand when my buddy and me got into guitar and bass. we both wanted something different. I was poor, there was sand, and I had a thing of glue. so they became one. bad idea though... maybe if I didn't put it in the arm rest (strat style body) I was actually amazed it stayed on the guitar. The foil was glued on with wood glue as well. lol. If I were to do it again, and I wouldn't... lol. I would use the can of 3M spray adhesive. often used for glueing headliner back into a car. however I dont know how well that would work on foil. I have a F'd acoustic too that I am making a 7 or 8 string, b and g bender, and 3 electric pickups. I am thinking thing sheet metal top, or the clear plastic flourecent light covers (diamond design) and shoving a ton of lights in it. I am getting lazy with my projects and trying to not spend a day cutting metal for pickups and bridges.

http://search.eastwoodco.com/search?p=Q&am...amp;isort=score this is the only kind of stuff that pops into my head about this kind of thing.

What kind of guitar are you trying this on? I have done this many ways. just depends what you have. I have mounted one on the headstock under a huge brass truss rod cover plate. it sounded ok at that end of the guitar. I have mounted one under the neck in the neck slot in the body/ also the neck bolt plate. this was a bit off tunning to get it to sound decent-ish I have expoxied them into a tremelo block on a strat. this one was not a solid block that the stings go through. it was open, So I placed 2 buzzers in there. added some straws to guide the strings, and taped it up, and filled the whole thing with epoxy to make a solid block. this worked well. I took it apart one day and have been looking for this bridge ever since. I have a new bridge and I am putting this guitar back together. This one has a solid block so I am going to try and add 2 buzzers epoxied to the block, similar to the one posted in the link. I have made single piezos for each string. this is a serious test of patience, as it is hard to get them balanced. I must of built 5 bridges before I got a good result. Yes that means I wasted 30+ buzzers... I have cut 3 buzzers to fit under a tune-o-matic bridge. expoxied these to the bottom. it did ok.... I tried removing the crystal material in one piezo and attaching it to the tune-o-matic saddle them selves. this was hard... and not very consistant. but I have found the liquid solder in a tube and will try again. The ideal way to go, for the best tone I have got out of a buzzer.... get them embeded into an acoustic saddle. I have done popsicle sticks and epoxy.... placed them (2 or 3 buzzers) inside. grinded the bridge and tried them on the leading and trailing edge. Or the individual piezo per string. Which I also tried on a wood arch top bridge. this one actually sounds good, but they are breaking off because I did it so shotty. no way would these survive horse play. I cut strips and put them right on top of the bridge. half of the length of the piezo was hanging off. these sounded great, but break off easily. I am going to try a new method once I get settled.... this would allow me to make one per string and if it is out of balance (one is lower in volume from the others) I can simply replace it by building a new single one, instead of trashing the whole thing. Another things I noticed is size. I was thinking if I could get the whole buzzer into a acoustic bridge, it might sound better then the cut-to-fit version as for working with piezos (soldeing/cutting/ having them fall apart)... if you need tips on that, just ask. they can be a PITA and you will destroy a few before you figure out how to deal with them.

I finally found one piece of silver holographic card/sticker. it is the only one they had, and not enough to do the hole face of the guitar. I will be looking for more of that in a bit. I picked up the guitar to route to death since it has the correct bridge tailpeace combo for this. It does not sound too bad. the frets need to be polished though. Ordered 2 types of led flashing sequencers. Just waiting for parts to show up now.

I picked up the peg board. got 2 pieces so I can over lap and drill the holes staggered. so it will look right. I went hunting for hologram paper, or anything alike. this is going to be hard. Micheals= strange tissue paper. bought it anyways it is pretty lame Joanns = strange blue cards, picked that up too. takes 4 to cover the guitar. but it is blue. scrapbook store = none went to a few shops like riteaid looking for even wrapping paper, none. Went back online. looks like the only option will end up being contacting these people and see if I can get it from china or india. I will comb over ebay again.

this is great news. Guess I will start cutting.

I thought about the LED christmas lights when I looked at them, but 200 individual leds were only $17.00, and I wont have to deal with any cutting on the christmas lights. And I was too lazy to figure out if those christamas LED's have anything going on inside of them to run off AC power. Maybe it would of been a better purchase, I havent seen then since the day after christmas so... I guess I will do it the hard way. I figure I will mount the leds in the board, then I can wire them fairly quick by wrapping the wire around each lead, then I can go back and solder it in one shot, then trim back the left over. I was contacted this morning by the hobby electronics guy and he says he thinks he can set me up, I just have to define exactly what I want the pattern to do, and the timming. Yahoo'd a michaels an off ramp over from my work, so I will be going there after work. I just moved into the san diego area, so it is like an adventure trying to find everything. I guess I have about 2 weeks to practice making a guitar since all the parts wont be together untill then. I am getting pretty excited.

I ordered up 200 white 5mm leds. I have 1/4 thick acrylic for the top. Looked at peg board for even spacing of leds... not sure how I feel about it. I should probably just get it to start mocking it up. Broke my led light flasher toy trying to make it do things I new it could not. it only threw out .5v to the leds. it would not run 2 leds per segment. I tried a 9v and the leds popped of course. oh well. kind of puts the relay idea out the window all together. Holographic film/paper whatever. saw some pics on the net that might work? could not find it for sale. Need to find the crafts store. I have one LP neck left over, it is needs to be rebuilt totally (truss rod and fretboard). I have been wondering if I should use it and build the body myself, since buying a cheap LP copy and routing it to death seems like a big risk for something I am not too sure how it will end up. this way I could build it up in layers correctly. I will have to think about that a bit more. I also had some stupid ides for the fret board as well. more leds. what is more important is the leds flashing. I am talking via email with a hobby store that has a 5 led light sequencer that has upgrades that I dont understand, but say things like drive more lights and bi sequencing. so I presented the idea to him and I am waiting to see what he thinks. also saw something on ebay that controlls leds for $40.00 I could make the guitar "night rider" basically. just need somewhere between $350-$1200 for the light bar, and a car battery. which brings me to the ace video I posted in the first post. Not that this is very important because mine will end up however it ends up. 2/3/4/5/6 sections flashing or just broken. lol. but did anyone count the light sequences on his guitar? I count 5 sections flashing, but feel like I might be missing one it looks like they flash over each other a hair? it looks like the second to last light sequence is kind of broken, it almost seems like it stays off a split second before flashing the last section. I find that one interesting.

That is all it takes? that is considered strong enough?

Looking at pics here and the guitars I have, all necks and headstocks are cut out of a single piece of wood, or at least what I have seen. The issue is, I can make a neck out of a single piece of wood that is 3/4 thick pretty easy (as far as sawing wood). but the head stock swept back angle is an issue for me. I dont have a bandsaw that is capable (read: wide enough) of cutting the back angle of a headstock from a single piece of wood wide enough to do this. Can this be done by glueing the head stock to the neck in some fashion? Basically is there a way to build the neck and headstock out of 2 seperate pieces of wood and bonding them in a fashion that wont break? Any pics of a build, or an existing guitar built this way would be a huge help in visualizing if this process is even used. thanks

Here is a link to a good shot of it, the best one I've seen so far: http://flickr.com/photos/jazminmillion/2308983555/sizes/o/ Wow, That thing actually looks cooler the closer you get. excellent picture!!!!!

What are your thoughts on the look of the top and background? I am still baffled.

I see your point about the coils now... I am digging around on the net http://www.quasarelectronics.com/light-effects.htm I guess I have to figure out how to get a goofey kit to light more leds. I have maybe 75 white leds right now. I need to order more. guess I have to figure out how many will look about right. then how much power that will take. and then what to do with the circuit

Thanks pete. yes I am really going to do it. I have done led fret markers in 4 guitars now. first one looks rough. lol. I have my eye on a LP maestro guitar thing sold at best buy. it is a flat top with only a bridge pickup. I have a few gift cards so it can easily be purchased in this great economy (sarcasm) we are having. If I get this it will be guitar #50 for me. I already had the perfect LP copy for this, but I made a new top (no pickup) and it is now an electric nylon. http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7cc39b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7cc39b3...3D550/ry%3D400/ I guess the true test is to get the led's going and get it on the guitar to see if any noise would come about. I read up on a few posts. I guess high risk of the 555 chip doing the clock tick. dont want that. I think I am going to try to get that led flasher toy to fire some relays, which will be hooked up to the major power source (undecided) and see if it will work that way. it will offer a few patterns. I have thought about c batterys, 7.2v nicads. 9.6v remote control battery back. I will have a few choices in my electronic toy collection. I guess just what works best. maybe a power adpater will be ideal. lol.

I guess this one is the "ufo", and the other one I posted is the "flasher" I have never seen this "ufo" one with the halogen bulbs in action. That is a pretty cool picture there.

that guitar is not so bad. get a thing of super glue and get it back in shape. I would probably pull that 0 fret and move the nut there. I hate 0 frets. I would build my own bridge. That tailpiece is not going to cut it. 2x4 inside will change everything. you can mount a pickup in there easier... the 2x4 might help with cutting out the uncontrollable feedback you will get with distortion on an acoustic. you could also drill a hole on either side of the sound holes. find a piece of flat thin wood and drill it the same. mount the pickup to the wood and install bolts/nuts and springs to raise or lower the pickup. maybe 4 bolts/nuts with a humbucker. can of paint can fix the looks. I once glued sand all over a guitar. that thing hurt my arm. so I removed it and wrapped it in aluminum foil. looked kind of cool with a black pickguard.

what ever you end up doing, I would like to see the final out come. Keep us posted.