Galaga_Mike

Hey guys, Thanks for the encouragment, LK! I think that finding a preamp that works and posting those results is pretty important. I know that if I found this thread and it said "Here is a schematic and board layout and all you have to do is solder the circuit and wrap a coil to get a sustainer" then I would jump all over it. In short, I think that a standardized preamp-amp schematic would really take the fear out of a lot of people that want to try this out. psw, I looked again and my wire is actually 30 gauge, which is 0.25mm diameter, so it sounds like I'm alright in that respect. I tried turning the TS (tubescreamer) on and off and playing with the gain for quite a while, and that made a difference, but my 386 "power" amp was set to max gain, so maybe the preamp and the 200x amp are combining to make the squeal. I'll put a gain pot on the 386 and play with that soon, hopefully. I've given this stuff a lot of thought, about compression and squarewaves and magnetic field responses, but I still tend to flip-flop on whether or not the TS is a good preamp choice. I should be able to add more to this discussion (I'm actually getting a PhD in electromagnetics in the next couple of months), but I don't have any revalations other than to say that everyone should experiment so we can standardize this thing. And as I said, I think a preamp/amp schematic and layout would be a giant step in that direction. Anyway, I'm building another driver, and I'll keep you guys updated. Mike. PS....What is it about this thread that makes posts so long? I don't think I've ever posted anything this long before.

Quick update: I did some tests yesterday. My setup was a strat running through a homemade Tubescreamer for preamp and then into the 386-based Ruby circuit (without the buffer section). I wrapped some 28-gauge wire around the bobbin of a horrible old pickup from a Kay guitar. I got up to 7.1 Ohms before I ran out of room. I put wood glue on it as I wrapped to pot it. The bobbin was nice because it's short and the magnet just sits in the middle. So no pole pieces to align. Anyway, I got some horrible squeals some of the time, and some nice harmonic feedback-type infinite sustain other times. The best is the low E string. It sounds like a low level perfect feedback sustain on the string and you can just slide around the notes. I love it. The B and high E strings don't even budge, but the A, D, and G can be coaxed into vibrating. I need to wind a new driver and pot it better, assuming that this is the reason for the squealing. But for only an hour of setup time and circuit breadboarding, an hour of coil wrapping, and not even having to take the pickguard off the guitar, I was really pleased with the results. I highly recommend experimenting with this stuff, it's really fun! I'll keep everyone updated when I get more time to play. I think that getting a nice sustainer up and running really is a fairly simple thing, much simpler than I had imagined. Thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread! Mike

Hey Guys, I've been keeping up with this thread for quite a while and I finally went out and got some wrapping wire to try my hand at a driver. Hopefully I'll get some experimenting done this weekend and have something to add to the conversation. I just wanted to chime in and say to keep it up and that this thread is really interesting. Thanks! Mike

Hey, Thanks for the comments, everyone! It is a really large guitar (about 16.5" wide at the widest). I like the size more than I thought I would; It feels like you're kind of strapped in when you're playing it. And the hollowed body still makes the weight tolerable. Having said that, in a perfect world I would go back and make it a little smaller. And my next build will definitely be smaller. I'm not crazy about the walnut truss rod cover, either. I'm sure that's something I'll change soon. As I said, lots of mistakes, lots of learning. The wiring is one jack that has a selection of either pickup and another jack which is always the neck pickup. So with two amps I usually play with the neck and bridge pickups going to different amps. Thanks again to everyone on this site for the inspiration and all the help. Hopefully I'll have a new one to show soon! Mike.

Hello, I've been reading this forum for about 9-10 months now and I love it. You guys gave me the confidence and the knowledge to try my hand at making a guitar. I've made one other guitar before, but I only cut the body from a slab of maple and attached a neck, nothing to write home about. This one is a neck-through design with all maple body, top, fingerboard, and walnut fret markers and truss rod cover. The scale length is 26.5" because I'd never played a large scale guitar and I wanted to try it. I really like it, and the intonation is amazing. The electronics are two GF Rickenbacker-type pickups with stereo wiring. Each pickup has volume, tone, kill switch, and single/humbucker/single selector switch. The finish is Stew-Mac orange dye and Deft from a spray can. The finish turned out really nice, you can actually see your reflection, which is more than I expected. Many mistakes, as are expected on a first build, but overall it ended in having a lot of fun and getting a really nice guitar in the end. Let me know what you think! Thanks! Mike More pictures at: This Page

Just an idea, maybe a bad one: Playing off of Mr Alex's idea of running the neck all the way to the bridge, if you did that you would have the sustain of a neck through (strings are attached to the same piece of wood at both ends). But more fun than that, the outer "shell" could be changed without even taking off the strings (assuming that the weak parts at the pickup routes don't collapse). This means if you worked everthing out, including how the pots and wires detach, then you could have an SG shape, then unbolt it, pop in a new body and be playing an explorer in just a few minutes. Sick of that? Pop on a tele body. Might be stupid, might be cool. Hope that made some sense. Mike

Hey, I am about two days from finishing a 26.5" scale length guitar, and I had all these tension and string length worries, too. I use 10-46 string sets and the tension was a little more than a "standard" scale guitar, but not as drastic a change as I thought it would be (which is a good thing if you ever want to bend a string). In regards to the string length, just make sure you check it before you build. I didn't, and by the time my D string goes from the ferrules, through the body, over the TOM, down 26.5", over the nut, and to the tuner, i don't have any string to spare. In fact, if this were a 27" scale I don't think my strings would fit it. Then again, different string manufacturers might have different lengths. Hope that helps. Mike

I'm contemplating building a 30" scale bass as my next project, kind of like the Hofner violin basses but hopefully with an original body shape. Anyway, I played an Epiphone violin bass yesterday, and it looked to me like there was no radius on the fingerboard. I'm mostly a guitar player, and I understand that a fingerboard radius makes chords more comfortable, but I see basses on this site with radiused fingerboards and I'm not sure if that is considered a "better" way to make a bass. Obviously my fingerboard will be narrow (less than 2"), so does a radius matter that much? Opinions, anyone? Thanks for the help! Mike

I would say go for it, especially if it is a thin neck. I've been thinking about making a Hofner-esque 30 inch bass next and after reading a lot I've decided that graphite rods are the way to go. What truss rod are you going to use? I haven't done the measurements to see if a 24" hot rod (stewmac) would fit in a 30" scale neck, but that seems too long in my mind. I would guess that you're gonna cut one to length?

Peghead side. As you said, if the angle started on the fretboard side the nut would lean away from the edge of the fretboard and that would kill your intonation (unless you account for this when fret slotting, which would just be strange way to do things)

I don't know how big of a piece you need, but the Woodcraft store around here sells strips, large blocks, and smaller leftover blocks of hardwoods. You can also buy wood by the boardfoot. That might be good place to start if you have a local wood store like that. To answer your other question, I don't see how mixing woods is any different than a laminated neck, so I would imagine there are no problems. Hope that helps. Mike

I just saw this for the first time and had the same initial reaction about the string paths on the headstock. But then I thought it might be fun (and incredibly confusing to tune) if you made the indention curve on the side more drastic and ran the A and B strings from the top tuners and the D and G strings from the center tuners. This means that starting at the nut and moving clockwise the tuners would control the following strings: E D A B G E Like I said, really confusing to tune, and probably a stupid idea as a whole, but I thought I would throw it out since it came to mind. Great design, though, it looks great! Mike

I made a miter box out of 1x4's. The slot is just wide enough to get the fret saw with the depth adjuster in there. It only took about an hour to make the box, and the fret slots look great. I should say that I still haven't put the frets in, but the slots look very clean and perpendicular. No regrets there.

Hey, From what I've seen on the forum, people fill tearouts with epoxy mixed with sawdust to match the color. Although just plain epoxy should work fine for this case since it looks like you're going to sunburst the top and I assume the sides will be black. I've never done this myself, so someone may want to verify this. I'm working on my first project (a semi-hollowbody, too) and so I've been following along. Great work! Keep it up! Mike

Looking good! What did you use to carve out that input jack plate recess? And are you gonna put a jack plate in there or just leave the wood like it is?

That makes me cringe just looking at it. That can't be good for even the strongest neck.

Hey Marek, That looks great. Quick question: did you remedy the too-deep truss rod channel and if so, how? I'm also curious how well it adjusts the neck if you didn't fix it. Great job!

Excellent! Thanks so much! I'll order that right away and then be on to more luthier challenges.

Hi, I've just started my first guitar from scratch and this site has been the inspiration that got me building. I feel like I'm at a critical point right now and I don't want to mess it up. The Hot Rod truss rods from Stew Mac claim to need a 7/32" channel. I have 1/4" router bits, but I do not have a 7/32" bit nor can I find them at the local hardware stores. I know that Stew Mac also sells a special router bit for this purpose but I'm trying to keep the cost down on my first build. A google search told me that a few people just use a 1/4" channel and "pad" the rod to prevent rattle. Can someone verify that this is OK to do? And if so, what should I use to pad the rod (Silicon?)? Any help would be greatly appreciated.