Tony Balls

this may not be the right board for it, but i'll give it a shot.... A buddy of mine in Western Massachusetts has a house that is too small to hold all of his amps, and so he's considering constructing a separate practice space/storage space for them. It'd be a barn-like/garage-like structure. What he's curious about is if the cold weather will be damaging to the amps, or if he would have to keep the room at a regular temperature. I'm tempted to say that it won't matter much, and if anything you might see a shortness of life from the tubes. Anyone agree? Have any input??

So......i'm gonna be putting together a new bass. Jazz bass style, nothing fancy, from Warmoth parts. And i'm considering body woods. My first thought is to go with an Ash body. I've owned plenty of 70's Fender basses, and I like Ash a good deal. Heavy, sounds nice. But i've heard a good deal about the tonal properties of Walnut, and so i'm considering it also. My concern, however, is that it might not be bright enough when I want it to be. I often like a smooth, warm bass tone, but at times I need to go with something sharp and mid-ranged (Think Chris Squire or David William Sims). So, what are your opinions on Walnut bodies compared to Ash?

ahhhh.......thanks for the description. I kept thinking it was standard neck maple, and I was thinking that would be afwully bright for a bass.

This is kind of the second part to my first question regarding the quality and fit of Warmoth's neck's to their bodies. check it here: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...topic=20163&hl= Okay, so first, in general how are Mighty Mite's products? I'm looking for a bass body and neck. Do they have a good reputation for making poroducts that fit together snuggly as purchased, or should I expect extra work? How are they compared to Warmoth, which people on here seem to regard as high quality? Additionally, why are all of Mighty Mite's replacement bass bodies made out of Maple?? This seems really weird to me, that they would offer ONLY maple, and not Ash or Alder or anything. Anyone else agree? Is there something i'm missing? Do Maple-body basses kick serious ass that I am unaware of? thanks

Thinking about buying a jazz bass body and neck for a new project. Nothing fancy, just basically putting them together, finishing it, and adding hardware. Question is: Should I expect the actual assembly to be very complicated? Do warmoth products tend to fit together snuggly, or do some have problems? I'm wondering how much work i'm gonna get into just adding neck to body and placing the bridge.

anyone??? bueller???

Is this a definite "NO, don't ever do that", or can it be done so long as you exercise caution?? thinking about stripping the poly finish off my 62' Tele Custom reissue, and refining with nitro.

Bear with me here.... So, i've been playing music lately where i'm tuned down to C. On a Precision bass. Problem is that the string tension, of course, just goes to hell, and i'm thinking of ways to fix it. So i'm thinking about just basically stringing the bass up with the lower four strings from five-string bass set. I'd try to get a lighter set, obviously, so the tune-up wouldnt add too much tension. Of course this would involve making a new nut, but that's easy. Anyway, does anyone foresee any OTHER problems with this that i'm not thinking of?

from a friend: "i found this old walnut guitar body. the thing is it hasn't been cleaned in years. it has a regular finish like an sg or firebird (clear coat as oppossed to paint). there must be an eighth of an inch of sweat, grime and grossness on it. how do i remove this?" anyone got suggestions?

depends how thick you want it. I used two cans of an equivalent on my last project. Some people would probably tell you to use 4 cans, but I didnt want a super-thick glossy finish.

I recently stripped a newer epiphone that had that horribly thick poly finish on it. I tried to sand most of it, which took FOREVER since most of it couldnt be sanded with a parm sander, and I couldnt even get all of it off by hand in the hard to get places. So I bought a $20 heat gun at the hardware store. I was amazed at how well it worked. I had been hesitant due to people's stories about hot paint flakes flying off the guitar, but it was nothing like that. After a short time under the gun, the finish started popping like jiffy-pop and got little pock marks all over it. The you just quickly scrape the area off with a scraper. Worked great, and all I had to sand after that was a little residual that didnt come up.

yeah, that's what I fugured the answer was. crap. I havent applied too much laquer (i'm not really into the ultra-gloss finish) but I bet it still needs a week. My first day I did a "coat" or a "once-over" every half hour until it had four of these applications. It used about a can of Deft aerosol laquer. I let that dry for a day, steel wooled the texture out, and then repeated the process. And that's pretty much all I plan to do.

so question, then...... how long do you guys USUALLY wait between final coat of laquer and assembly? and do you do this before you treat the guitar like it's "done"? I just applied my final coat of deft laquer yesterday, and I was thinking about putting the guitar together tonight (mostly because i'm anxious like crazy). It's my first refinish, so I really don't know the ropes. But it sounds like that's probably a bad thing to do.

So.......i'm finishing a Gibson. I masked the edge of the fretboard from staining, but for clear coat, i'm assuming i should re-mask so that the edge of the fretboard get's clear coated as well. Does anybody have any experience with this?

Okay......so I think i'm going with Deft laquer and sanding sealer for a guitar i'm finishing, but I'm trying to figure whether I want to use a brushable liquid or a rattlecan. I suppose what I want to know is, are there any major disadvantages of using a brushable liquid? Background info: I live in Brooklyn, NY and have limited space. Using any kind of aerosol spray finish means working on my roof and is somewhat of a hassle, especially during the hours with which the finish needs to dry. Using a brushable would mean, theoretically, less mess and so I could do it inside in a well vetilated room. So.....gimme your thoughts!

it's an old picture. everything is off of the guitar for stripping.

Good, thought, but the center portion is already sanded.

So, i'm stripping the finish off a project Firebird and i'm coming up on the most difficult part. As many of you are aware, Gibson Firebirds (the reverse kind) are of neck-through construction and have a slight thickness difference between the neck stock going through the body, and the wing pieces attached to it. It winds up leaving about a 1/8" step there. I've very crudely referenced the area in this pic: Anyway.......the difficult part is going to be sanding this area out clean while still preserving the edge of the wood there. I've been sanding the rest of the guitar by hand (a *bit* of random orbital on the flat spots). Do you think there's any good way to sand the finish out of this area?? One thought i had was to use a nice, long, squared off sanding block as to not jump the edge and sand it down. The other thought in my head was that maybe it would be a good idea to consider stripping that area with heat. I had been resistant to go the heat route for the entire guitar because i've been doing the work on my roof (BROOKLYN!) and didnt want hot paint flakes flying everywhere. But at this point there's so little to strip that i'm not as worried. The finish i'm removing is that nasty poly candy-coating that they keep putting on new guitars nowadays, if it matters. Any thoughts?? Thanks.

Thank you sir! Mine are already started, I just need to widen em up a little bit, so i'll probably just use the file.

I've looked for tutorials on this and havent really been able to find anything. Is there much of anything to this? Any reccomendation on file sizes and/or techniques??? Also, does anyone reccomend specific files like you would get at stewmac, or for saddles will regular hardware store files do a good enough job?

On closer inspection, I figured that the difference was slight (about 1/16") and not too important because I could soak it up in the tolerance on the bridge. And sure enough I just mounted the bridge and intonated it and it plays like a champ! Now i'm midway through my celebratory six-pack.

So, i'm trying to install a tune-o-matic bridge on a Gibson Firebird and am having problems when I measure out the scale length. When I run a straigt edge along the top and bottom edges of the neck and measure the scale, my measurement marks arent coming out exactly even on the body. The treble-side measurement, while at the same length from the nut, looks shorter on the body (i.e. the treble side of the bridge would slightly closer to the neck). Now, I know that bridges on Gibsons normally slant this way, but what i'm curious about is whether, by measureing right, I caught the bridge angle on my own, or if there is a problem with the guitar that created this angle. Does anyone have any advice? Anyone have a Gibson they want to do a quick scale measurement on for me???

I'm installing a tune-o-matic on a flat top and lloking for a tutorial on how to properly measure and draw the centerline of the guitar, and place the bridge for scale length. I've seen the tune-o-matic schematic, and know how the bridge screws and tailpiece need to be placed relative to each other, but it's getting to that point that I need help with. Anyone have suggetsions???

You mean a linear taper volume and an audio taper tone??

I've been interested in trying this out instead of the standard 500k ohm pots. Anybody got any stories or opinions to share? Also, if you wire up in standard Les Paul style configuration, do you use 1Meg pots for both the voluume AND the tone control??