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hahahaha...let's hijack the thread! See...I set some design parameters and tried to get a form that worked...no cost, able to fit under the drivers seat and not stick out the window to play it...and no costs...so I had to come up with ways of tuning it, make it acoustic to avoid an amp...even the frets are coat hanger wires, the finish is shoe polish!...does it sound any good...nope! However, as a design exercise it was a success for what it was intended to do. Quite what the corvus was intended to do is anyone's guess! At least mine is crow like black! B) PS: I know John loves the attention! Pete

No...I wasn't being sarcastic...I'm Australian, everything comes out that way! The cutaway accommodating a wheelchair only makes it so much better! But...johns been away for a bit... More Corvus curses? I'm only writing these things because I care...I imagine if confined to the "virtual world" there's little harm to be had...we all have our dirty little secrets! I even like the aesthetics of some things that put form over function...but I don't think that was the motive for the corvus design. I quite like fins on cars, art deco touches, gargoyles on the rain pipes...I even appreciate irony and especially playfulness in an object. Last night I dreamed about what kind of 'form' would be more pointless in a guitar...I kept coming back to something that looked like a bicycle wheel with a neck attached with "tuned" spokes and the advantage of wheeling it away...or riding it home unicycle style from a gig! But I'm sure the members of PG will be able to match the corvus one way or another. Here's my attempt to "think outside the box" and built almost entirely as design exercise...a tiny mandolin sized practice instrument for the car with no cost... pete... I wonder if I should use a different font to indicate sarcasim....heheehe

Sounds like the shielding is connecting to hot some how, a multimeter connected from the hot jack to the shielding would help to see that. Likely this is being connected when you squeeze everything back in. Pics might help. For the switching, you have "lifted" the pickups (disconnected the hot) but a better way would be to have the pickups when off shorted to ground. This means changing your switching about so the pickup goes to the middle connection, the hot off one side, and the ground to the other. Tele's can be a challenge, I chose not to shield the cavity on mine as there wasn't a lot of benefit and a lot of potential problems. With bare shielding cable as on some vintage pickups (like my FWRHB) I solder a wire to the shield and then cover it all up with PVC tape so it can't short on anything. It may well be worth covering the internal shielding with such tape to stop electrical connection with wires or switch contacts when pushing things into the cavity. But it's very tricky to know what is going on or how this is going together (such as if it is a typical tele cavity with a metal top control cover)... pete

Oh...how beautiful...let me count the ways... Seriously, there are a lot of really neat and aesthetically beautiful in what you have done here. Although the rear lower scooped half is a little tricky to see here, it could be seen as not only "different" aesthetically but might also could serve a number of purposes. (jack socket placement, right leg support cutaway for a more classical posture, etc) but it doesn't "detract" from it and brings about some asymmetrical lines that is echoed by the 6 in line head. The maple neck and fingerboard is echoed in the "racing stripes" of the body build and makes a feature of a multi part body blank without a lot of fancy timber grain...and the smooth sexy comfy rounded over contours makes a refreshing change that makes you want to hold it, yet dispenses with fussy and costly binding and such. The only thing that I personally would change, but just a personal thing, would be to add a third master control knob near the bridge pickup where I can reach it...but that's me, others would like this kind of thing out of the way of the strumming hand, so not a criticism but a preference. It's a great example of marrying a typical fender element of the 6 in line headstock which suggests forward momentum (while retaining advantages like straight string pool, timber economy, etc) but not ignoring this 'movement' in the adjustment of a vaguely familiar LP shape that is chronically symmetrical by adjusting this too! Fender also had such an eye for design in their general asymmetrical shapes combined with this type of headstock. ... On the corvus several fender elements were used but without the eye! Fender introduced the idea of having almost all the electronics on a strat being done separately and installed onto the body to ease manufacturing and costs. However, he used his eye to make the scratchplate flow with the design and contours, and made a metal separate jack cup acknowledging that people will step on their guitar leads (which would snap instantly this pickguard assembly) and to prevent a couple of inches of straight lead sticking out the face of the guitar interfering with it's function in performance. Not on this design however...gibson just seems to have ignored such things, or just didn't care for the sake of even easier component manufacture. Let's see, what else is wrong with this...ummm...the lower body is reasonably large, yet the upper body is cut back to provide little right arm support (that could have at least helped to aid in the neck heavy nature of the design)...but let's look at the...ummm..."player" as presented by gibson... HAHAHA... 'I'm just an oiled up actor with a tight perm, but even I can't look, I'll try concentrating on my bicep. God it's a strain holding this up, I can see why they wanted someone with muscles, are these wires supposed to bend like this, I have to do this to stop it nose diving into the ground'..."no, I can't get my right arm any lower to hide how the guitar strap is twisting...this isn't all oil you know, I'm actually starting to sweat...are you sure that this lighting will hide my face!" If there is one design feature that this playing pic that shows off a 'feature' is that those players with a bit more of a belly than a fender could accommodate in their back carve...this design allows your belly to be supported and hang over the upper body swoop...but so far, that appears to be the only functional comment on this that I've read so far. SO...there, I'm not just negative...I just found something functional in the thing! pete

You are only making it worse...did I mention the pickguard cracking position of the output jack, no it is so hard to put forward all the faults... What it should be called is the "Vomica" which is of course latin for cursed! Generally true of modern design, however fans of the baroque era may disagree. However, there are no redeeming factors to this thing. So...has anyone got any actual good features of the thing (other than it is still vaguely playable in the privacy of your own home with a paper bag over your head and you hide it well, destroy it before your death and never tell anyone)? Perhaps it's purpose here is to define a good functioning guitar by it's polar opposite...but I think that is a stretching it a little, after all a melting icecream cone would suffice to proclaim in dadaesque style...this is not a guitar! pete (and it's not politics, it's just common sense!...hehee)

Ah..well, while John reconsiders his options and the northern winter begs this creation towards the fires...let's go back to one of the most influential moments in history...for a moment...1066 Yes...that's right...more curses! ... Hmmm...lets see, could have been a battle axe, could have had bristles attached for a broom, could have been a comedy oversized cooking utensil...but really, should it ever have been? I think not! It was a monumental failure, a guitar that was never desired by, nor had any features of public value. Gibson were already sitting on some monumental designs...the V and Explorer for instance that suited some of the metal hair bands of the mid eighties and could have been modernized with trems and such to compete with the super strats...but also the Les Paul that would soon reclaim the thrown of the stadium rockers (but only when they decided to go back to making them like they used to in the first place) Ask yourself...who and what were they designing this for. What music did they see emanating from it, what kind of musician did they see appearing on MTV with one of these. Advertisements of the time showed a rocker in rolled up T...looking the other way while playing it and using the left had to hold the guitar up with no support from the strap hanging loosely from his shoulder! There are plenty of design faults, just an excuse to be "different" without a purpose market or the slightest consideration of what it was intended to do. It completely misses the compactness of a steinberger (its hollow carbon headless neck allowing balance) if that's what was in their mind...instead they put on an ugly 6 in line and bolt on neck (on one model 3 single coils and a fender selector...why didn't they just make a strat copy and be done with it becuase nothing was going to get a mark knophler to play it(dire straits being a major influence for fender guitars at the time). Balance, compounding the neck heavy nature and poor centre of gravity by inexplicably cutting out a chunk in the rear, only making it so much worse (you'd want more weight back there surely to compensate for the lack of forward body)...why, well presumably some drug addled gibson design exec thought it looked like a crow! More like a crock of **** if you ask me! Lack of lower body makes it sit low on the knee, a fault found in the almost (yet less design faults) of the Moderne...but then back in '58 gibson still had some wits about them and never put the thing into production for that reason...but lo, they released the modern at the same time as this monstrosity in the mid-80's...need I go on...perhaps I do have a need, if you are being swayed by this...thing! Well there are some important lessons to be learned here...the first one is not to start with fundamentally flawed design and try and "fix it"...take good functional principles and work from them. "Different" (but not ugly) is all very well, but the trick of good design is to make differences while still maintaining function...and doing so in something that is "desirable" by the market, your peers, or just not butt ugly and an insult to the function... But am I alone...let's see what some experts have to say.... Gibson had been suffering from more that a decade of 'fender-envy' and poor quality conrol when they came up with this thing ~ here's a quote from the book "totally guitar" (tony bacon/dave hunter) (p434)... There see...utterly pointless...and a shocking cynical attempt to create something in utter disrespect to their customers, musicians, guitar fans and the whole of mankind...a scourge on the soul of all decent folk...appearing only in GH as a joke...it should never be allowed to see the light of day...judgment day is coming and the Corvus will be used in evidence against us all... ... Other than that it is a fine piece of lutherie! I bet if you worked real hard, you could morph it into some vaguely strat or LP shape to correct it...but that's hardly the point...the point is that it's pointless and goes beyond bad taste into heretical territory...a curse upon the Corvus. Why does this thread keep coming forward without any progress! I'm going to need help I see to tramp the earth down on the grave of this one, I can see that! pete

There are a bunch of problems with this wiring diagram...and a few of the procedures. A little late for me tonight to explain it all and more in my typical problem. In the meantime...it may be that you have wired the jack back to front...easy to do...so if you could check that or reverse this and see what happens that might help (although it may not be the explanation...checking the ground to hot with a multimeter is a better way). The other problems relate to the switching...this is a very noisy implementation of lifting the pickup instead of shorting them, and you have the switching power...but it means a complete rewire of them...but I'll be back later... pete

The dangers of "performance Modding"... pete

hahahha...that's a great pic! Ok...I specialize in such things... My main guitar...follow the link in the signature for details to the thread. Features FWRHB and SCn pickups, LSR nut and locking tuners, Khaler hybrid tremolo, custom wiring with phase switch and DIY sustainer, paint...original guitar squier 25th anniversary tele! Here's my nightmare strat in the works (still)...LINK... Unfortunately, the wiring has got the better of me...for the moment... This is a squier contemporary strat bought new (at half price because of the discolouration of one strip of mahogany). The control system was designed and built by me and features what the GuitraNuts2 forum dubbed "uber-switches" ... Each pot is a push pull dpdt switch and a 4pdt rotary (similar to an S-1)...so significant switching power...plus a 4p5t super switch for good measure. Pickups are SD JB HB and fender Noiselsess JB pickups. Stealth ultra thin sustainer coil in the neck pickup. Also, piezo element in the neck joint. The pickup ring and the secret battery compartment in the back is lined in Emu leather and tortoiseshell elements and all the screws have been replaced with 3mm allen key bolts. Roller string trees and locking tuners! Clearly the most over capitalized Squiers in existence! I have done quite a few over the years...I literally wore this one out... I just kept hacking away at it over the years. Features an extensively hollowed out body so it is ultra light, first pickup/driver sustainer, extensive switching mods...special tweaks to the tremolo like DIY staggered tuners using plumbing supplies! $50 no name guitar from a pawn shop...blockboard and ply body stained and painted by me...includes letraset motifs! pete

You may need to search around for sites that give some more basic details about wiring and soldering basics. If you are new to soldering...do some practice. For pots, sand an area to get some bare metal to solder to. Basically the ground to the back of the pot is there to connect any and all ground wires too. On a two wire pickup...the shielded part is ground...but if just normal wires, one will be ground the other hot...as long as you are consistent between pickups it doesn't matter much which is which. A four way switch is very unusual...generally things are three way on such a scheme...N, N+B and B pickup selections. All switches are different and really without more details and possibly pics of what you wnat to do and the types of components you seek to use...there is little I can advise on at this stage. pete

This might get you into the ball park. Your switch may be different as you give no details, this is for a three way telecaster. pete

I am a complete loss to understand how the head can drop off, not once but twice...if the neck is supported so the head is touching nothing, what supernatural forces were working on it. It seems like a lot of work to put into a $50 guitar that already had major problems (you say the truss rod was busted?) If you thought the neck was soft and now completely replacing it...what do you think the veneered body is made out of? Since the back of this is ruined finish wise, are you sure that even this is really worth keeping? But then, that begs the question...with all that new hardware, there's virtually nothing left of the $50 guitar anyway I'm really into and support the tinkering of cheap guitars, but you need a reasonably good thing to start and that doesn't require a lot of investment to make it worth while...you know the saying about making a silk purse? pete

Hmmm....design student. Well there is taste, and then there is function. Don't they teach in design school function...I mean, you can make a bad coffee cup, but anyone who designs a leaking kettle or a coffee cup that dribles down your shirt front every time you take a sip will either soon be calling themselves and "performance artist", unemployed, or both! (although, maybe you'd be snapped up by the gibson guitar team for their new innovative desings for the new century!). ... Cursed...

Col's approach is a good strategy and well explained. I'd be interested in a dual battery set up, I think even from a LM386 you would get a lot better clean headroom and it would last longer. However, I have had no guitar (unless I built a special "sustainer guitar") that could easily accomodate two batteries. Some of the early commercial models did seem to require a dual battery supply. One of the strategies Sustainiac seems to have adopted has been D-class amps that have a lot better efficiency. ... Comments like this make me wonder if the potential "phase issues" in this project have completely come to terms with. I know I sound like a bore and have my own biases...but a coil does have it's own lags and capacitence as well as inductance (that varies with frequency) and the measurable resistance. It is these issues, especially at higher frequencies (compounded by the low mass, tension and magnetic qualities of the higher strings) can come to play. There may be phase issues also as the space along the string between the pickup and the driver is quite large and varies with fretting. While it may be true that you want to cut back phase issues in the circuit design, it is not known what phase issues are built into a particular driver. You will see that early on in the thread I looked at many if not all the patents I could come across, and with few exceptions (ebow for instance, but that is a different case as it is mobile along a string and only one string at a time and...self contained) had to address phase problems. With the encouragement of LK, I sought to find a driver design that would work regardless. He had a feeling that a suitable driver that was not too far off would drag a string into phase...but I am not entirely sure about that. Others have postulated that the thing driver concept works because it has a very low inductance variance and operates much at a value of the resistance...I'm not sure of the reason, it was developed by trial and a lot of errors! However, if you were to assume (wrongly) that the driver was a neutral component in all this, circuit phase would be a major concern. But I think it would be wrong to make that assumption. I feel that the emphasis on phase in the patents may be a factor of the type of drivers, the specs and many more turns within them...frequency dependent phase correction seems to be the order of the day here. But than, LK had some doubts about that and he owned a sustainiac or fernandes! Anyway...one wonders whether phase in the circuit might not be beneficial if it makes the driver work. I quite like the "sound" and response of my LM386 circuits with a 100uF output cap. I did try some other circuit types and an interesting push pull dual lm386 thing that did not require output caps and it was far from satisfactory. Obviously I have no way of testing these ideas, maybe that was a bad design for this...but it is conceivable that any "phase issues" built into my circuits have been of a corrective nature to the kind of drivers I use...I honestly don't know. But it is an aspect to consider...the drivers internal phase issues and the potential issues raised by the pickup sampling the string at one location and driving at another. LK was a pretty perceptive guy, and more and more I get the feeling that he was right in that what I ended up with was simply pulling the string into the phase of the system...or was "close enough" to work. ... As for circuit design, I think the less components the better...but remember not to panic every time you see a capacitor. Not all are in the signal path..many are power conditioners and some may be filters above the audio range for stability purposes. To keep the LM386 happy, I tend to use a 100uF cap from + to - and a 10uF from pin 7 to ground and another 10uF between pins 1 and 8...I don't think these create phase issues and certainly the amp is happier for them at high gains. These mods though are simply the kind of thing prescribed by the data sheet...for less demanding applications like a practice amp, perhaps they are not required. So...my perspective was that there was only so much I was capable of doing, phase correction circuitry was perhaps beyond me...so I worked on the driver side of things as that was something I seem to be a lot better at...and hoped for the best! Until someone works out a way of testing these drivers and nuts out any issues in this application (if that could even be done except by a case by case diagnosis) I suppose that's all we can do. ... To give Hank some encouragement...it may not seem obvious...but the "thin driver" idea came directly from my work with the hex things. I had been making these things increasingly smaller and I had a feeling that some of the beneficial qualities may not have been from my tricky designs...but that they were simply a smaller profile and perhaps limiting the amount of EMI and other issues. I also felt that a thin driver held promise for my other "criteria" and it was of some surprise to me that after trying a few wire gauges it worked as well as it did. There were quite a few problems with the hex things, perhaps you will have better luck...but I can confirm that they worked...they were just so much harder to do and in the end, the more conventional coils worked better. There's a year of R&D down the drain...oh well, you live and learn...or at least for now we live... Sustain on! pete PS...I have been writing a lot of tunes and getting into an almost surf sound...very clean. The sustainer works for this pretty well, it would be cool if someone were to make it even cleaner...but on lower drive settings it's not sounding too bad at all. The tele has turned out to be a really versatile guitar!

Well...south bound really summed it up already... And Tim37 with this... Personally...I am a little concerned about the idea of going to far out with high priced parts...it depends on the guitar in many ways. However, sounds like you want this kind of machine and not the SSS strat that you have got. So, I would get a suitable HB to put in the thing...I have a feeling that the HB eddie used was not that hight powered...but whatever you can afford. You may even be able to get a suitable scratchplte of one HB or make your own. I wouldn't worry about changing nuts or anything like that, and not worry about changing parts (floyds and stuff may even have a different string spread that will make things difficult at this stage. So...if you are going to do it...make a bit of a plan (what HB, scratchplate) and then get out the screwdriver and take the whole thing apart making sure you know how to put it back together again. Lots of threads about painting, preparing (get ready for sanding) and the EVH style...or be original and make your own variation. Then, put it back together again. You won't know what you have till you take it apart, but a scratchplate covers all sins so I wouldn't be concerned about what's under there...hack out some woood if necessary, but you may well find you don't need to. Take pics so questions can be answered and you have a before and after for yourself. When you put it all back together, then you can try and tweak the set up a bit. There are some tricks to geting a trem on a strat (even a copy) to work really well (even with a plastic nut) and eddies set up is even easier because the tremolo only works down (it's not "floating") and this is the reasn for the hammered in coin. Personally, I'd be looking to take from EVH's style (note, he doesn't play these guitars anymore) and do something like that ethic, but make it your own...people will still see where you are coming from! Lot's of threads on painting with rattle cans and stuff, but preparation is important for a good effect. You don't want to end up with a thick soft finish or one that peals off because the guitar wasn't prepared properly to take the paint. Squiers can be great little guitars...most of them are solid wood, but even plywood things can be fine anyway. Generally, squiers are made of multiple strips of timber, but who cares with all that paint on it! Your problem may be if you start wanting to get into changing parts designed for legit fenders...there are size differences that may prhibit say a floyd and d-tunas and such. Same with necks or bodies. My advice is to go to town on this, make it as best it can be and learn heaps along the way and have fun. Then you will know if guitar building is for you or you want to really stick with the 20 years back evh look or workout something for yourself. If you wanted to get all fancy with the d-tuna's and such...I'd suggest you might upgrade to modding out an OLP musicman copy or something...some of those are great guitars whether you're and eddie fan or not! anyway...I hope that helps...time to take that sucker apart! pete

I loved the single cut tele-esque version of this design. I'll be keen to see how this one works out...hopefull the finish won't be quite so dark as the last worked out. I like the pickup covers...I actually tried to make something similar with "flywires screens, but beyond my ability...these look great. Will it have the same JohnH electronics? I'm interested in the way you have constructed this...the neck blank seems in inordinately wide. Nice to see a trem on it...great stuff! pete

Nice nylon there Billm90 (unfortunately can't post pic directly) Obviously you can add piezos to magnetic pickups and piezos, especially bridge mounted piezos work primarily from the vibrations at the bridge for the strings directly...so a solid body is not a problem. The guitar might have more "sustain" than a lot of hoolow bodies that you are used to hear an acoustic guitar from. You routinely find solid body electric violins and many electrics have piezos and mags of various sorts (peavy, parker, ghost saddles, etc) and many have made their own. I had some interesting success with putting a piezo in the neck pocket of a strat for instance. However, there is not and "easy out" piezo's and magnetic pickups are completely different beasts. There are massive impedance mismatches and this needs to be corrected electronically with a preamp or buffer on the piezo at least. There is also a different range of sounds from a raw piezo and it generally requires quite a bit of tone shaping...that's why you generally see a fair amount of EQ's in piezo systems. You can make your own preamp, or mixer type circuits...there are a few about. As for "new"...not a lot new really. There are lots of little improvements perhaps that people can make but it is hard to be "new" unless you are prepared to step right out of conventional technologies and have a particular goal in mind...IMHO. Also, you may need to travel a long frustrating road (look at the sustainer thread!) However...I like the idea of a guitar like the parker that integrates the acoustic and electric elements. There is a particularly nice combination of piezo (giving a sharp percussive attack) and electric (smoother, rounder tone) that this kind of hybrid instrument can produce. I have a project on hold that is an LP with a khaler tremolo and a piezo fitted to the wood under this to give some of this effect. So, it is worth pursuing. My jazzstrat project is a similar thing I guess...a mash up of a hollowbody and strat but including a full on EQ'd acoustic pickup inside it as well (see link in sig). pete

Captain Picard plays a chapman stick incorporating and rotating speaker and golden horn!

It's not looking good for this project, but it's not to late...save yourselves!

Cursed I tell you!

No...the guitar Organ is real...behold the splendor!~ An entire old school vox organ (heavy) inside a guitar! Each fret is segmented into pieces one for each string...so a bar chord would give you the exact same notes as the chord of the guitar...but you had better be in tune...hahahha...and standard tuning...hehehhe...and the rest of the band tuned to you...hohohoho A wiring nightmare...it does actually work (but if you bend notes off it's fret segment it might get ugly) and there are those that use them...synth guitars have pretty much replaced this kind of thing of course!

You got big guys in suspenders in open public! The USA is more open minded than they let on... Ok...how about a suitable cavity, take a little blue pill and hold your guitar up for a good four hours (not recommended for people with high blood pressure, always seek medical advice before gigging)

Maybe metal thimbles...or, chop the top off and replace the finder tips Tony Iommi style! As a teenager I had an idea of adding a small casio keyboard type thing below the picking part of the strings as a "surf guitar" so I could play the cheesy organ parts in the middle 8's. Of course, you could do something like the GuitarOrgan and segment and wire each fret to trigger an internal organ! pete

Don't worry about it...it's a good idea (and food scraps slide right off it!)...but not even teflon coating would help this thing... Now here's an original idea...velco backed guitar. That's right...no more balance problems regardless of the shape, just wear a woolly jumper and stick it on (no strap required)...perfect for you winter. Call it the strapless!