Dugz Ink

Let's see... to spray finish, you need a place that: • Has moisture control • Has temperature control • Has good ventilation • Has good lighting • Has electricity for a compressor, or airlines from a compressor • Is comfortable and fairly non-restrictive • Does not sicken the significant other with fumes If you set up a rig with a swivel and small hook, you can hang your guitar body/neck/etc. from that, and spin it around, as necessary, while shooting. This will allow you to sit on a stool. Add 2 or 3 small spotlights/worklights, and you should be able to shoot a nice finish. So it is possible... but like Wes said, there are other things to work on, too. D~s

My gunsmith mentor always used automotive rubbing compound to make the wood finish feel extremely smooth, then he would wax the gun stock. It feels incredibly nice, and it gives the finish a sweet surface that is some where between high-gloss and semi-gloss finishes. But guitars typically get handled more than gun stocks, so I'm wondering if this trick will work as well on guitar necks. Has anybody used automotive rubbing compound to make their guitar neck silky smooth? D~s

In that case, I wouldn't sweat the V-Amp; it will work fine. However, I would recommend four things: 1) Don't pick songs that require multi-tracking more instruments than you can play at one time. If you do 28 tracks, but you only have a bass, lead guitar, and drums, the club owner may be dissappointed before you start playing... and that can bias their opinion for the rest of the night. 2) Pick songs that have less production and better rifts, to higlight your playing skills. Hit them with simple demos that have impressive shredding. You're selling yourself, so don't bury your skills under a ton of tracks. 3) Mix up your playing styles. If all of your songs sound the same, what's the point? You need to show them that you can do more than "Sad But True"... even if you're a Metallica cover-band. As a local band member pointedly asked a prospective guitar slinger recently: "Can you play in anything other than Drop D?" That was pretty harsh, but it was straight to the point... the point that mattered. 4) Keep it short. A lot of club owners are too busy to sit down and evaluate a 70 minute demo CD by any band, let alone every band that wants to play there. You might consider mixing 5 songs, then editing the best clips out of each song to create a montage. Then you put the montage at the begining of the CD, followed by the 5 complete songs. When you meet a club owner, ask them if they can spare 90 seconds to listen to your demo. If they like what they hear, they can listen to the rest. If not, then you have a definite answer and you're on your way to the next club. BTW: These are just my personal opinons. Other people my have other advice. D~s

I'm not trying to be harsh, But I honestly have no idea what you're trying to demo. The band's ability to mimic Metallica? Your ability to make something that sounds somewhat decent out of an amp simulator and a Soundtrasher card? Forget about production for a moment and think about what this demo says about you and the band. If you're doing demos of your songs (to pitch to big artists) then you can get away with the V-Amp; they're interested in the song, not the production. However, you would need to replace the sound card's sounds with need real drums, or samples of real drums, so you don't risk annoying anybody. If you want to use MIDI triggered samples, go to Soundfonts.it and check out the various "drum kits" they have... or save yourself some time and just download the Tama "Rock Star" drum kit soundfont, which is #3 in the list. If you're doing demos to get a deal for your band, you'll have to do a lot better. I don't know what software you're using, so I can't offer any specific advice... other than upgrading to real amps, decent mics, good mic-pres, and a good audio interface instead of a video gamer's sound card. Or, invest the money in studio time, and get a pro to make you sound absolutely fabulous. It all depends on what you want to get out of your demo. Of course, if you're just having fun putting together your own stuff, ROCK ON! D~s

Here's a coll article I found this afternoon about Understanding Wood Finishes. It's not the end all, and it doesn't specifically address satin finishes, but it does have some simple but helpful information about tung oil. I've had my best success with Gillespie's "tung oil"... which had some hardeners added to it... but nobody seems to carry it anymore. It would soak in a build up, and it really strengthened the wood. I have some incredible looking gunstocks that I finished with that stuff, and you do NOT feel any woodgrain; most of them are smoother than glass. Meanwhile, the Behr "tung oil" that I just bought has too much linseed oil in it, and I can't get the $%^&*#@ stuff to dry; several days later, it's still just a sticky greasy mess. It might be great for building a boat, but I'm not building 25.5" scale boat. (I really hate wasting money!) I've read several articles that recommend Waterlox, another tung oil based product. One article mentioned Gillespie's, and all of the things that I liked about Gillespie's, and then said that Waterlox is even better, so that's what I'm going to try next. If you go with an "oil" finish, I strongly recommend putting on the oil, letting it set up, down sanding the finish, applying another coat of oil, and so on, until you don't feel the grain anymore. Then apply another coat, rub it down with 0000 steel wool, then hit it with some wax. That will give you a satin-like finish that really shows off everything the wood has to offer. However, there's probably a faster/easier way to do it with spray finishes. D~s

I've spent numerous hours working out yield-sheets for a furniture company. Even with nice straight planks, there's waste. And I'm still hauling around some "nice sized" chunks of waste-wood, in hopes that I can use it instead of wasting it. Now that I can see some proportions on this slab, it looks like you would be hard pressed to squeeze 4 tops out of this. So you pick the best layout that will give the best tops, and if that's comes to 3, then you have 3 nice tops... and some "other" wood. Maybe you can work some wings for a V out of the left-overs. Or some other design that doesn't look like anything conventional. But, that's something you can ponder later. Right now, concentrate on those burls. D~s

There are only 2 or 3 bits that I have used on my first project guitar; my narrow-straight, my wide-straight, and a ½" radius bevel... which wasn't as useful as I had hoped. I can see where a few other bits might be useful in certain guitar-related circumstances, but my project didn't require them. However, there are a bunch of bits in my router-arsenal that I doubt I will ever use for guitars. And I'm headed out today to see if I can find a bit that's ¼" longer than the ones I have. I pay more and buy good steel; cheap bits wear out and tear up wood, and that wastes money. D~s

Any other opinions or information? Anybody?

Ummm... that's just a picture of a butt on a guitar. I had always thought the lower part of the Strat looked like a woman's hips, hence the placement of the graphic on my version. Meanwhile, the horns where supposed to have the same effect as the straps on the teddy. That way the body looks more like... well... a body. D~s

Your unidentified bridge looks similar to a Hipshot Hardtail string-thru bridge... but it's hard to be sure from the pix. D~s

That would be my Washburn AB-20 fretless acoustic bass; spruce top, Mahogany body and neck, Rosewood fingerboard and bridge, Piezo bridge pickup, and Equis active preamp. (I call her "Sylvia") I found her in a a pawn shop. I had never played a bass before, but when I picked her up I just HAD to play her. Between the fretless fingerboard and the nylon-wrapped flat-wound strings, it's like gliding on deep ice. PICTURE And she sounds incredible... in spite of my terrible playing. SAMPLE I have yet to find another guitar (of any type) that feels like she does. D~s

I've always wondered about a certain design...now I can finally try out my idea... the Teddycaster! (Oh yeah... this site is going to have a lot of traffic!) D~s

I just found this site, while trying to research graphite necks; BassLab guitars. D~s

American Chestnut was a very popular wood... until "the blight" hit the US. The trees were very straight and wide, and they were very abundant, making them excellent for lumber. It was a relatively dense wood, and so it was fairly heavy. Since I'm just wrapping up my first project guitar, I don't have any experience with Chestnut as a tone wood, but I have worked with a piece that I salvaged from an 200 year old barn timber. (The barn was collapsing and most of the wood was trash.) The piece I have was easier to work than Oak, but harder than Ash. D~s

No, but that reminds me of another quote whose author I can't remember: "Life is just an illusion, dreamed up by an entity who is trying to explain itself." And they rip the reproductive organs off of defensless tomato plants and eat them raw. How totally barbaric! D~s

I like the cut-out down where the lower strap-button would go. However, the lower horn looks out of balance... maybe becuase it sticks out so far when compared to the upper horn. I would teak the size of at least one of the horns. Maybe you can replicate that nice little cut-out (that's at the bottom) instead of the big cut-out that's on the lower side of the lower horn. But that just me. D~s

And now I see part of the source of confusion... in one of the first links that was posted... That would be like taking a pickup coil, flipping it over, and mounting it face down. And since the winding and magnetic polarity are both reversed... the wire re-reverses the phasing if the pickup so that only the wiring is "out" of phase... but I'm still confused because that isn't what Stew-Mac's site describes. Also, I would think that wiring finish-to-finish would make a huge difference, depending on whether the coils were wound the same direction or opposite directions, because that directly affects polarity. Maybe I shoud just make wooden flutes.... (SFSF) D~s

Hmmm... okay... but, on the assembly instructions for the Stew-Mac Humbucker Pickup Kit (Sheet i-5961) I read that... Then, in a series setup, by connecting the "start" wire for each coil to the switch/pot, and connecting the "finish" wires together, one coil is "in" phase while the other is 180° "out"... which creates the noise cancellation... but that would only produce sound if something else was inverting the signal that was generated by the strings moving over the magnetic field(s). That's why I though that the magnetic polarity was changing the phasing, not the direction of the coil winding. EDIT: Here's something that supports my conclusion, from the same instructions... I'm still confused, but at least I don't feel like I'm losing my mind. Well... at least not when it comes to magnetic polarity, but... D~s

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Thanks, but I've read both of those.

I'm trying to sort out everything that I'm reading, but there are a few things that still don't make sense. I'll start with what I think I know, then go on to what I know I don't know. In a side-by-side humbucker pickup, there are two coils; one is North up and the other is South up. When you reverse the wires on the South up coil, this reverses the reverse phasing. When that is mixed with the signal from the North up (in phase) coil, it cancels any noise (plus minus mix) while adding the signal of both coils. If you run your humbucker coils in parallel, then you should also cancel any noise that is picked up by the wires that are running to the control cavity. However, if you run the coils in series, I don't see how it could cancel that noise... so wouldn't parallel wiring be better for noise reduction? I can see how serial versus parallel will affect total output, but not the noise cancellation properties of serial wiring. If you can help, I would appreciate it. D~s

I agree with numerous posts; it's not a guitar I would play, but I think you have an captivating design. And you don't need the word "DEATH" because the guitar already says that. Have you considered making the headstock match the one of the horns? If you make it curve up, it gives the headtsock a scimitar-like feel. If you curve it down, it looks more claw-like. Neither would be symetrical, but neither is your body... and that's part of what makes it look so cool. Look for something that matches the assets of the body. D~s

Okay... I've finally put down the project guitar long enough to spend some time in the studio, and to scan in some pictures. (The song was a Christian Rock tune called "Even Jesus", and I was putting together a rough mix to send to my co-writer, who lives 800 miles away.) Based on what I learned from the Pine test-body, I cut the neck-pocket out of the face, and did some basic shaping in the neck region of the face and the back. As I expected, the flat-sawn Poplar was trying to bend. I had already planned to counter this with a layer of 1/8" Black Walnut heartwood, which would be laminated between the face and the back. But I decided to give it a little more counter force by routing out inside of the face, and adding in more Black Walnut. I glued and clamped the face with its Black Walnut, then did the same to the back with the original Black Walnut. The next day, everything was flat and straight, so I proceeded with cutting the pickup pockets out of the face. I simply pulled out a Forstner bit that matched the profiles, drilled the corners of where the pickups would go, drilled where the mounting tabs would go, then played connect-the-dots with a jigsaw. After that, I pulled out the files and made everything smooth and straight. Then somebody on PG mentioned something about leaving/putting wood in the pickup pockets, to strengthen the guitar body. So I routed out a little wood here and there, and glued yet another piece of Black Walnut inside the face. After that, I looked at my wire routing plans, and decided to expand them into a loop-shaped sound chamber. I don't know how it will affect the sound, but I decided I might as well try it while I had the guitar body open and the router warmed up. I also decided this was a good place to test the stain that I want to use. After all, if it was ugly, it would be hidden after I put it together. Then I cut out the opening for the controls in the face, and routed out some depth in the back. Hmmm... this is not what I had planned, but the evolution has been interesting. The two pieces went into the clamps (Do I really need to insert a picture of 386 clamps?) and let them dry overnight. The next day, I drilled the holes for the neck-screws, and counter-sank the holes for neck mounting ferrules. I decided to add some Acra-Weld (gunsmith's epoxy) to the holes; that way, the ferrules would bond to the wood around them, instead of just pulling against the wood that is under them. In order to keep the ferrules lined up (while the epoxy set up) I sharpened some small dowels and stuck them in the screw holes. While those were setting up, I started forming the control cover. I pulled out some thin aluminum, a small forming hammer, and a tiny anvil, and went to work. I beveled the edges, and even put detents in the surface (for the pots) so the knobs would sit lower. Then I shot a coat of paint, and let it dry. When everything was dry, I flipped the body over, mounted the pots and knobs on my new control cover, and set the assembly on the body. Dude... that thing sticks out like a sore thumb! So, it was back to the drawing... or in this case, the pile of Black Walnut. I pulled out several pieces that were 1/8" thick, and then sorted through for the one that had the "right" character. I found a piece that had a curved grain, and cut it to the same dimensions as the metal cover. I routed out a hole that was almost as big as the cover, then went to work with my old trusty multi-angle scraper. This little tool (the green thing in the next picture) is absolutely wonderful; it shaves off less than a plane, but more than a file, and it will get into places that nothing else can reach. And the new (wooden) cover fits perfectly. Hmmm... a little too perfectly! I finally managed to get it back out (without tearing it up) and started sanding down the edges. Yet another lesson learned. So, there are the latest pictures, ideas, and progress. D~s

For all sorts of info, go to Stewart McDonald's Free Information web page. (They have diagrams of the Strat switches, as well as others.) They also have a 12 page lesson on Understanding Guitar Wiring, which has basic information about every aspect of guitar electronics... including explanations of how pots work, and how they can be used. D~s

Drak: Cool site, but that's a little too fancy for my taste. I was thinking about some fluers in the corners and some tooling around the borders. I like a clean simple look. WWW: Thanks. I tried coming up with something that looked "familiar"... without being identical to everything that everybody is doing. D~s