effluoDeus

I just noticed the article this morning. That was great! I wish they'd have mentioned the forums and maybe showed one from one of our members instead of James Larson.(dont get me wrong I love Girl Brand, even enough to model my first with some of his design elements but it woulda been cooler to see one of Drak's or Lgm's pieces featured down at the bottom.) Congrats Brian!

great guitar, I love the horns and the look of the face. I'm curious about the sound as well, perhaps you could post a clip. Aluminum may be plentiful but it is very very difficult and expensive to refine into a useable form. It has to do with the geologic make up of the areas that it is found in. Hence, the big drive to recycle the stuff.

Very Nice work. I like the neck woods a lot, certainly hope mine comes out that good.

Perry is right about the circuit in the R&D Guitar. The thing was a piece of crap. My father has one of those guitars and has sent it in to be repaired half a dozen times over the years. You really would be better off following his advice.

I'm not terribly familiar with Bass wiring but the principles should be roughly the same. Once you identify the wires coming from your pickup I.E. North Start, North Finish, South Start, South Finish you should be able to follow the wiring diagram from the previous website mentioned to complete the wiring. If the wiring is anything like the humbucker I just tore apart and rewired, your north start will come from the upper left side of the upper coil relative to the humbucker being in position in the guitar. The North finish should be right side of upper coil. The South Start will be on the right side of the Lower Coil and the south finish will be on the left side of the lower coil. If you cant track down the manufacturer of the pickup to get their color coding information you may have to trace the wires back to the pickup to determine which is which based on their position. If the Bass has one volume and one tone pot then the north finish and south start will need to be connected and taped off. The north start will run to your pots and the south finish will run to ground. From there you can wire the Pots using this diagram. Diagram If there is a Second Tone Pot you might connect it in the same fashion as the first one is connected. You'll want a second opinion on that but thats how I would do it anyway. However before you do anything with the wiring look to make sure all grounds are connected to one another and then to your bridge. I can't emphasize this enough. I've had at least three friends come to me asking me why their wiring didn't work only to find they hadn't grounded everything properly and the signal was going to ground. This may well be the problem with his dad's wiring. I hope that helps some I'm not an expert by a longshot so you'll definitely want to get a second opinion from one of the other more knowledgable guys around here. Just thought I would try to help you out because I have been working on similar things the past week or so and its fairly fresh in my brain.

GuitarElectronics Here Check the site above out for wiring diagrams for various set ups. The second link is a sticky thread with links to how to interpret the diagrams and various other electronics based info. If you want more help you'll need to supply the brand name of the bass and/or the pickups. You haven't really given enough info for anyone to draw you up a wiring diagram specific to your bass.

It might be a little expensive, but you may be able to get one of those flat panel speakers that they're using for pc speakers and flat screen televisions to work in that application. The big problem would probably be giving it a suitable power source but it could work out pretty damn cool. Just an idea though, I'm not skilled enough with electronics yet to build something like that from scratch so it may well just be wishful thinking.

The first thing you want to check is your grounds, If everything that needs grounded isn't ground to the bridge or other suitable location you will have issues and all the grounds should be connected to one another as well(meaning you dont want two different ground locations). Also check to see if the pickups are grounding out somewhere(exposed wire or something shorting the circuit.) This may very likely be the problem. I put new pots in an old epiphone a couple months ago and I missed a ground connection and ended up stumped for a day or two until I found my error. I'm sure some of the more knowledgable folks could suggest other possible causes for your pickups not working, but your grounding is a good place to start the search. Justin

Alright I have a couple of spdt switches and I originally intended to use one of them to do a coil split on my neck position humbucker. However, I have also been very tempted lately to add a Phase switch. I am curious if it is possible to do a phase switch and the coil split with the pair of spdt switches in my possession or will i require a dpdt switch. This work is being done on a telecaster with a neck position humbucker and a single coil bridge with 1 volume, 1 tone, and the standard fender three way selector switch. The switches I have are on/off/on spdt. Any info would be incredibly helpful. Thanks, Justin

I bookmarked it, that looks very handy, thank you. As an aside, I've been trying to do some research on wood expansion characteristics to see whether I can make a neck out of Mahogany and Walnut. I was curious if anyone could perhaps offer a link that would have some rough numbers on this. The Walnut as I said was cut well over a hundred years ago( it was pulled out of an old farmhouse by my Grandfather prior to it's demolition, it was used as molding on the second floor). However the Mahogany is much newer (it was quartersawn and air-dried for five years if the fellow at the lumber place is to be believed). Any advice or information on this topic would be much appreciated. Thanks Again P.S. What kind of guitar is that in your Avatar, Perry? I've been seeing that thing for months and I'll be damned if I can place it.

My first guitar was a 1965 Epiphone Riviera archtop. Belonged to my dad's friend who was killed by a hitchhiker just after they graduated. I recently replaced the pots and cleaned all the electronics up. It sounds gorgeous. My dad gave my his old Musicman HD-210 amp to play through. I have since bought for myself in no particular order, a Squier Telecaster, an Epiphone Les Paul Custom, and a mid 1930's Harmony Patrician. I also have access to (they aren't mine yet but when dad goes) a 1962 Gibson Melody Maker, a mid 90's American Strat, a late 70's Gibson R&D Artist, an Ibanez Joe Satriani sig, and a handful of older classical guitars(my dad has this nasty habit of impulse buying even the shadiest 3/4 size classicals he finds, I suppose its his idea of bringing home strays)

Awsome, thanks for the info, thats pretty much what I was looking for. I did some more forum searches and I found a good thread on scarf-jointing. I'm not stuck with my wood choices mostly they were just aesthetic choices based on the look I wanted and I've only spent about 20 bucks so far for the Mahogany(which can be used for something else if it turns out inappropriate for this project). I'm glad I asked because you've certainly given me some things to consider and look into.

I knew it sounded familiar. Good ole Syd Barrett Floyd. I still wonder what Floyd would have done if Syd hadn't went all batty on them. Judging from his two solo outings it might have been pretty cool, though I'm not sure I would have traded it for what Floyd did without him. In any event great name for a guitar.

I am currently working on my first guitar and intend to build myself a neck as well. I am looking to build a 25' scale guitar. However, I haven't routed the neck pocket or set a position for the bridge so I am basically still very flexible in terms of options for making the neck. My questions are these(bear with me here, I have done some topic searches and read through the tutorials on the main page, but I haven't found what I was looking for): 1. I am curious about my options for the angle of the scarf joint. 2. Does a Laminate of Mahogony with a half inch of Walnut sandwiched inbetween and an all walnut headstock sound stable enough. 3. Has anyone ever used Walnut for a fretboard with any degree of success? As you may have figured out I have a bit of a love of Walnut. The reason behind this is that I have come into a good deal of walnut that is well over 100 years old and has been air drying in my grandfather's house. It is unbowed and sturdy. Thanks for your time. P.S. for those curious about this project, I am working on something very similiar to this Speedboat Girl. The body shape is different and Im going to use p-90's with some built in effects circuits. The body is walnut with a Chris-craft style top of mahogony with walnut pinstriping. It will be chambered to cut down on weight and the circuit for the effects and controls will be simplified as much as possible with push pull pots and switches to keep the crowding to a minimum on the face of the guitar(If you've ever seen the dash console of one of these boats you'll understand why simplicity is such a plus).

"set controls for the heart of the sun" The name alone has my mouth watering. I can't wait to see them.