unclej

nice work indeed. it's easier to go to my website to see all that i make out of wood than it would be for me to tell you. by the way, none of the items there are still available and i'm in the process of changing the entire site to an advertising type site instead of a point of purchase site. i just flat out don't have time to maintain and update it...anyway, the whole point of that was to assure everyone that this isn't spam....just responding to the question of what i make out of wood. uncle johnnys woodshop

if it didn't have a compensated bridge to begin with then i'd just glue it back where it was. i just glued the top and back on my first uke yesterday and while researching the building of ukes i didn't see any mention of slanting the bridge. a real short scale and the fact that most cords are played in the first few frets may be why it's not needed. good luck

i think the first logical step would be to clean the pots and see if that fixes it. while you're in there check the wiring against the factory schematic and make sure that someone hasn't changed it. after that if it still doesn't work you'll have to ask someone smarter than me.

i see that this thread has been resurected so i'll add that i used the minwax hardener on the above project and have used it a couple of times since on some art projects and was very satisfied with it. easy to use, great shelf life and dried very clear. the only suggestion that i'll make is get plenty of sand paper. the minwax loads up fairly quickly at first an if you over use the same piece, especially on a random orbital, the minwax that has loaded up will harden on the paper and actually create fairly deep swirls in the wood that are tough to get out. good luck.

just measure from the middle of the neck pup cavity to the middle of the bridge pup cavity then divide by two. whatever the resulting number is place the middle pup there. other than cosmetics it won't matter too much if you're off a mm or two. as for protecting the surface cover the whole front with masking tape then mark your cavity and route away. good luck.

my first and only semi-hollow bodied build was a walnut back with a zebra wood top and a single sound hole on the upper bout. i installed a gibson t-bucker in the neck position and an overwound dimarzio single coil in the bridge. simple three way switch with tone and volume controls. it was the jazziest, bluseiest sounding guitar i've ever heard. couldn't get a country twang out of it if you tried. it had great sustain and sold fairly quickly. all in all it was a very satisfying build and a great sounding guitar.

well..that didn't turn out to be nearly as challenging as i thought it would be. when i disassembled the four prong male connector that attaches to the mic i discovered that it was only a three wire cable so it was hooked up as a regular mic. all i had to do was attach it to a regular cable.. ending up with two three prong male ends and the mic worked fine. thought i had a real brain teaser. thanks again for all the input and next time i'll try for something a little more challenging.

thanks steve..i'll try that this morning when i go in and post results.

allright...i forgot my camera but it doesn't matter. these guys were very accomodating. the mic is an old electro-voice model 664 and unk seems to have nailed it. stamped on one side is the following: "impedence changes are made on the cord plug. plug shell and no. 1 contact are ground. contact no. 2 hi-z. contacts no. 3 and 4 160 ohm. now, armed with that info can anyone tell me which of the 4 wires on the original cord can be attached to which three wires on a three prong cord to make it work in a modern PA? the female plug end that attaches to the mic is labeled 1 thru 4 so it will be easy to trace the wires. i guess part of what i need to know is what the three wires on a modern mic cord are for and if it will work as a low-z mic. if so it would seem logical that i could atach ground to ground and then the two remaining wires to #'s 3 and 4. thanks

thanks unk..i'll post a pic and the name in the morning when i go in. at this point i don't know if i can help him or not but i'd like to if i can. he's been a good guitar setup/repair customer. just for the heck of it i just googled "microphone forums" and sure enough there seem to be a lot of them so once i post the specifics of this mic i may be able to find what i need there if no one here knows the answer. MidnightLamp..thanks for your input as well.

i really don't have any more info at this time. i've been off since it came in. he brought the mic in with one cord that had a four hole female connector on one end and the connector cut off on the other. he also provided a standard three prong cord. in the morning i'm going to cut off the male end of the three prong cord, bare the wires, plug it into my PA, bare the wires on the four wire cord and with three jumpers see if there's a combination that will work. i don't know what the mic went to originally but i know it's probably out of the 50's. i'll post my results sometime tomorrow.

sunday afternoon one of my regular customers dropped off an old mic that had a four prong receptacle for the cord. he left the cord that came with it years ago and a standard cord with three prongs connectors and wanted to have the mic converted so that he could use it in his PA. i had a store full of people and didn't really have time to talk with him and after he left i started wondering if it can be done. can anyone tell me what the fourth wire on an old mic was for..will it work with just three wires and if so how do i determine which one can be eliminated. i'm assuming that if it can be done that i can just splice the three prong female connector onto the end of his four wire cord leaving the four prong male connector on the other end to fit into the mic. thanks

that's a very nice, clean job...congrats

if you do a lot of string bending at the 12th fret or higher you'll find that the compound radius that wes mentioned will reduce the chances of fretting out while bending. strats with rounder radii are nortorious for this.

i tried this once with good success...instead of using a cloth get a piece of paper and use a household iron set to medium so you don't burn the wood. lay the paper over the spot then heat. the glue will most likely stick to the paper when you lift it off. it did for me anyway. good luck