truerussian558

Pre mixed (its a 3 pound, but I dillute it to a 2 pound) @andir, As far as I remember it is in the same place (I'm not 100% sure), but the thing is that it is the only place that is going matte, out of all the places that got stuck to the paper.

yeah, bought it new for this project

My Fretless Bass is currently in finishing stage, And I've been doing it entirely by hand with shelac ( basically my variation of french polishing). But Ive run into some troubles. The whole Guitar is covered in a decent layer of shelac, So I've started wet sanding it, thats where the trouble starts, for some reason once I start sanding, the very center part of the back of the guitar becomes very diffuse (i.e. not glossy), while the sorrounding areas are fairly glossy. If I keep sanding the satin blob becomes bigger (about half the size of the palm of my hand), But in order to cover it again, I have to put a lot of shelac to cover that one spot. And once I start sanding, the texture changes and the small spot (that then grows huge) reappears The textrue of the spot, is rougher then the sorrounding area, and if you start rubbing it with a cloth soaked in alcohol (or hard with your fingiers) you get some crud that comes up (resembles the stuff that is on your paper after you use an eraser) The only other problems I had with the finishing is that early on I had some paper towels that the guitar was resting on fuse with the finish, and leave a huge imprint, when I neglected some overflow over the side of the guitar when I was applying the initial coat with a brush, I sanded it out flat (didnt need to sand through to the wood) and covered it again

No, its neckthrough, I dont really have the money to buy another bridge, so, I guess recessing is the answer

In the Planing of my bass I made a little overlook, I assumed the bridge would work with did not need a neck angle, so long story short, even at the lowest position ithe strings still sit too high over the fretboard, if it was fretted it would have been bearable, but since it is a fretless the distance is too large, I'm not home right now to give an exact measurement, but its 1-2 (4th) string diameters (so .1 to .2) inches over the fb around the 20th fret. I thought of several things, one is to file down the sadles, or to route a slight cavity for the bridge (as thick as the bridge base plate), but I decided to check with you guys So what are my options? -Andrey P.S. what is a decent 20th fret action?

try googling the url and checking the cache, or using the internet archive

Thats the "mood" I got from that video, the urge to go as fast as possible, putting no care in the instruments in order to gain that speed advantage. But you still got to admit, the tools where awesome

I used a scroll saw to cut my first guitar body (the second was done by rough cutting the shape, and then using a router and a template to get it to size), turned out ok, needed a bit of sanding though. You might need to do some manuvering to get it to fit in the neck (why the hell cant they make a scroll saw that lets you put the blade sideways) of the scrollsaw, but this is only a big problem with neckthrough necks. and as long as you go slow. you should be fine as far as blades go (they're cheap anyways). If your school has scroll saws, I'm sure there is a bandsaw. Just ask the shop teacher to cut it, on a bandsaw it will take at most 20 minutes to cut the body shape, on a scroll saw, it will take 1-2 hours. Also while your there, check if they have a belt sander and a spindle sander. Those will help you alot later on (like when your evening out those cuts from the scroll saw). If I had those tools I would have saved myself days of work, since my darn school has no woodshop class (no metal shop and autoshop either)

I guess not to many people really like my bass... Still I want to keep my project up to date I've (since the last post) : Finished carving the neck to body joint Cut out the headstock (still needs a lot of work though) Evened out the stump at the edge of the neckthrough blank (at the end of the body) Done a whole ton of sanding to get rid of the majority of Scratches Once I again, I present... Pictures The front of the guitar, with some miniral spirits wiped on to get rid of the dust, and to see how it will look finished (thus get rid of any blemishes) It looks a lot better in person (compared to the previous photos) than the picture shows The back of the guitar, the Spirits are starting to dry though, I'm fairly happy with how this is going, I have a few more things left, mainly Finalize the headstock (and sand it flat), and buy the hardware(for a test fit), before giving it a final sanding and I'm off to finish it, which By the way, I'm planing to give it a french polish, It gives lets me use my hands more, and take care of every little detail perfectly (otherwise I would have to use spray cans) A quick question though, Is spray on shelac a decent grain filler? It says so on the can, but I wanted to make sure

Some updates. Over the past week I did some work, I got my order from LMI, so my guitar progressed forward I've: Installed the truss rod Atatched the fretboard Installed the veneer frets Roughly Radiused the fretboard (still some more sanding to do to bring it to final shape) Rough carved the neck Started carving the neck to body join area So some more pictures The Guitar from the front, showing the Fretboard, some frets are darker because of the sanding i've done (i radiused the fretboard), so theres some dust thats discoloring them The neck to body join area, showing what I've gotten done on the carving, I've only worked on it today, so theres not that much, you can also see part of the neck countour SO once again, All question and comments are welcome

So after a long drawn out (almost 1 year) finish of my first guitar (a strat), it was a pretty bad failure, THe finish job is a POS, the pickup routes are extremely sloppy, the pickguard barely fits, the nut is improperly cut, the neck is too high, and there is some electronics problem (i dont want to take it apart to fix, it as it is a pain to put back together), There are one or two high frets, BUT at least it plays. At least at par with my Cheap strat knockoff. But, considering it was not only my first attempt at a guitar, but also my first (precision) wood working experience, and I decided to do everything myself. The fact that it is playable is a surprise Anyway, with all my new earned wisdom I'm giving it another shot, This is (its about 40-50% complete) a 35" fretless four string bass. It is neckthrough contruction, the neck is maple(1")-mahoganny(.75")-maple(1") and the wings are mahoganny. here is a picture of the blank wood, prior to cutting Since then, I, Cut and glued the neck Cut the wings Routed the wings flush to the template(I use a scroll saw, so no precision cuts in 1.5" wood) Glued Wings to Neck Blank Rounded the edges Routed control cavity routed truss rod cavity Routed pickup cavity Tapered the neck (again, because I have a scroll saw, I used a router and a piece of wood as a guide to taper the neck So now for some recent pictures Front of guitar, no pickup holes routed yet, and the neck isnt tapered Front of guitar with pickup routes (neck is tapered at this point) Back of guitar , with the control cavity visible, I've yet to route the slight indent for the cavity cover(and I'm contemplating whether I should) The (very rough cut) headstock, I'm still working out the design, so it isnt fully cut yet (I had a very awesome design that I've gone and lost), This is the part of the guitar I've spent almost no time on (besides gluing the extra strips of maple) so its pretty rough right now So, now that you see that, Comments will be appreciated, and questions welcomed BUT, First, for some of my questions. I've had a slight kink, in the routes of my two pickup cavities. On the neck pickup (I forget if its called Jazz, or precision), One of the connecting walls (sepperating the two pickups) got torn off during routing, Since thats probably a horrible explanation a picture is in order. So my question is what I should do with it, my idea is to straighten that part out, and make it similiar on the other side of the route. And I totally messed up on bridge route, The story behind this is that when I was routing with a template, I decided to do a couple of shallow cuts, but when I started routing I completely forgot it was shallow, so I wnet straight for the template (with the ball bearing being about an inch higher than it) the result I'm sure you can imagine. Its not too bad, since I caught myself early, and it was pretty shallow, but I still need some advice as to how I should fix the slip up So that, folks, is my project. Once Again I welcome all questions, and await your comments

get friendly with This site. Great selection, especially with solid state stuff. and the prices are pretty good, if you buy in larger quantities of the stuff then they're even better and it would be cheaper to buy yours and your friends parts at the same time (especially if its the same amp)

here's a lot of fender amp schems, some are tube but more are solid state, just look around.

---2 ---4 ---4 ---5 ---- ---- Unless you havent guessed, its the last chord in the pink panther theme

i found out an interesting little tidbit. Ground switches have been illegal (to manufacture and sell new devices with them) for 7 years, so your best bet is what lovekraft said to install a 3 prong cord, and drive the green wire (usually it is green) to the chasis ground point. and deactivate the ground switch

if your ground doesnt work the volume pot will still work, like a rheostat (variable resistor) the resistance between the signal and the amp will increase and thus more of a voltage drop, so the guitar would drive the amp with a lower level signal when the volume is turned down and a higher level signal when the volume is turned up, (though if the lug is still atached to ground (but not grounded to earth) it will probably buzz like crazy) When you use a 3 prong to 2 prong adapter nothing happens to the ground it just ends up hanging in the air (which could be potentially dangerous), in reality your supposed to take a single wire and drive it to the ground prong of a 3 pronged outlet (instead of a long extension cord for the whole plug), or grounding it directly to a rod in the ground ( like when you are usuing an outdoor generator), or sometimes efven grounding to a pipe in the vicinity will work, (though it might be nasty if the wire suddenly goes live) In effect that is all that grounding in the guitar does. it shunts all the unneeded voltages (like emi emmited by computer monitors) and shunting them to neutral voltage source (ground), so that they cannot bleed into the circuit, or interfere with the signal.

I beleive its when one component (ment to go to ground) is grounded across several paths, instead of one. (for instance across a wire and the chasis/shield)

Correct me if i'm wrong, but dont diodes only start alowing current through once it reaches .7 volts or so, which quite a bit bigger then what the pickups output.

the center tap usually does go to ground, this way the circuit only requires 2 diodes to rectify the current (as apposed to a 4 diode rec bridge) and it always goes to ground with aps with a rectifier tube (as it is just 2 vacuum diodes in the same case) its possible that your known working tube amp has solid state rectification

post a link the picture instead, or use photobucket

check the ratings on your switch, at 80 watts the voltage would be about 26 volts rms (36.75 v peak) into 8 ohms v=sqrt(p*r) and the amperage should be in the 3-4 amp range (into 8 ohms), if you check the ratings on your switch (usually something like 3amps into 120 v) if the ratings are in the range then it should work fine.

he probably meant estimated.

Its a real Bid, but probably a publicity stunt. The winner is golden palace casino, An online casino known to buy wierd things on ebay (like the grilled cheese sandwich shaped like the virgin mary) their website is here on the thinger near the bottom with some of the other wierd crap they have bought on ebay.

Photos?... Oh and Sound Clips would be nice pretty please!

The Saga kits, Brian Stocks them in universal Jems http://www.universaljems.com/cart/kitun.htm but the common oppinion is that they are not too good, though it isnt horrible for a first kit. mainly, people say that the electronics leaves something to be desired so i'd recomend to upgrade the electronics, but i havent bought it so maybe people that have bought it could help you more.