Gabe Nickelson

I want to go   We need to have it in texas!

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I have room in my truck if you need a ride to Florida! It would be great to have company.

Gabe

Hey people! Check the Jemfest.com site. Confirmed artists:

Rob Balducci

Course of Evolution

Fernando Pareta

More will be announced this week!

Hey everyone. Jemfest is right around the corner and we have some cool bands lined up to play. We'll soon make that announcement later. I can assure you we'll have at least one Favored Nations artist and several Ibanez endorsers 8). Anyway, here are the details on this years Jemfest:

Date/Time:

Friday, May 21st - Doors open at 5PM

Saturday, May 22nd - Doors open at 5PM

Event Cost:

FREE!!!! We do ask for donations though. Afterall putting an event on like this costs thousands of dollars - that's the only way we can make this happen every year!

Location/Hotel Info:

Orlando, Florida - Holiday Inn at International Drive (Close to the parks)

http://www.hicentralflorida.com/idrive.html

Every year we have a blast. There's so much to do in Orlando and they treat us nice at the Holiday Inn. Plus every night we party with guitars and booze in the hotel room suite! Rooms with 2 queen beds are a discounted $72 a night. We're able to work deals out with the Hotels because of the nature of our event, amount of business we/you bring them, and because Kevan is awesome at working out good deals. We only have a limited amount of rooms for that price, so when we announce the groupcode you better jump on it fast to get the discount.

Jemfest is a non-profit organization who donates all proceeds to Steve Vai's Make a Noise Foundation. All the artists who pay are not compensated for their performance. They do it all in the name of a good cause! How cool is that?

In short, we're putting on a kick-ass concert over 2 days with amazingly talented musicians. Many who you know, and many who you don't know... yet. So far we've had 34 different musicians from all over the world play at Jemfest in the last 5 years at our US, UK, and Germany Jemfests. Oh, bring your guitar (Doesn't have to be a Jem!) because you'll get an opportunity to jam on stage with the big boys! Plus we have wonderful raffles and tons of free stuff to give out! Everyone will get something! I promise!

Bring your guitars! We'll have tables setup to show off your prized beauty.

Oh, and lastly, here's our website. Go check it out. Right now!

http://www.jemfest.com

Gabe

P.S. - Times are subject to change.

Hey everyone. Brian - I hope this is the right place to post this. We have on eBay right now 2 cool items Steve sent to us to raffle away at Jemfest 2003 US and Germany. They never made the raffle due to time constraints, but now we're offering them to everyone.

#1 - Steve Vai Fire Garden Honey + Jemfest guitar pick and sticker

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=2377311568

#2 - Hand signed Ballerina 12/24 music sheet

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=3701575526

Absoultely 100% of all money will go to Make a Noise Foundation. I will pay the eBay fees.

Hope you enjoy the auction and thanks for reading. See you at Jemfest 2004!

I just unlocked the nut on the low end of the E and A strings and tuned the low E to a low A and started doing some chuggy things with it. String was a bit limp - I should switch to 10's. All my other strings stayed in tune. Just for shits and grins, I tuned my low E to a B and tuned up my A to a B. Interesting. I might try to unlock all the nuts and tune open E and do some slide guitar.

Still loving the tremol-no!

Yeppers, I have one and never want to part with it. It's an incredible thing - thanks Kevan. I'm going to really be putting it to the test tonight at band practice.

Yeah, it's a Historic Re-issue, but in excellent condition. New, pay $2300+. Buy a slightly used one (mine) for $1800. Very little wear, but there is a slight ding by the pickup selector. Yeah, it's a Black Beauty. Guitar comes with the original Historic Re-issue case in excellent condition with certificate from Gibson. Nice yellowing on the binding. I need money for taxes for 2004 - that's the only reason I'm selling this guitar. Initially it was intended for my backup/tunedown guitar to support my 57 LP, but I have to unload it. My Epiphone will have to suit my needs...

If you want pics e-mail me: gabe@jemfest.com

Thanks!

Update: Pics here: http://www.jemfest.com/misc/Gabe/54_LP/

Great work, as always! Just curious what the engraving reads on the truss rod cover... "Dedicated to ...."

why do you soak it in water?

My guess would be the clear material is attached to a thicker sheet to allow processing in the printer without jamming. Then, you submurge it in water to separate the sheets and in the process in creates a sticky adhesive.

Gabe

Hey guys,

I got my veneer yesterday! The hunt is over! I talked to the guy at Flamingo Veneer (his name is Brian too ) and he was more than helpful. He was excited that people were using this for instruments and assured me over the phone that the veneer would be quality. Well... it WAS! Plus he threw in some extra goodies too. I have 16' x 7" of veneer.

So once I finish remodeling my dining room, I'll try to finish up the guitar! I'm so excited about it! Woo Hoo!

Gabe

I think it's fair to say that Ed Roman has been caught, uh, exaggerating about things before.  I'm not going to call him a bold-faced liar or anything, I'm just saying that  I wouldn't believe him before getting a second opinion.

OK I'll step up to the plate to call him a bold-faced liar, because that's what he is. Never trust this man.

ahh, i see...

then of course they have a video as well...

you would also have to pay to ship the guitar out to them as well. BTW, does their installation iprice

nclude the route where applicable???

They'll do minor routing. If anything spectacular has to be done they'll charge all right. Plus, you must pay shipping both ways. It might be cheaper to find a local guitar tech to wire it up, I suppose...

Gabe

Someone posted a question about wiring diagrams. If sustainiac does the wiring (like I previously posted) then perhaps they might have them. If someone doesn't feel comfortable using a wiring diagram (like me), then I was simply suggesting that they can do the work for you.

Gabe

I know Sustainiac installs them for $100. $125 for more complex wiring. I'm going to let them handle my wiring on my guitar. Mainly because of the way I have my custom wiring laid out. Just too much room for mistakes and I'm not an expert on soldering.

Gabe

This has been nagging me a little since I first saw this.

Over at Warmoth they said that they can't (or maybe just won't) bind a guitar with a forearm contour.  How big of a pain in the butt is this really?

Damn good point. I don't have to worry about this because the dumb sh!t that built the body didn't countour the body. So therefore, binding will be quite easy. I CAN imagine there would be difficulty doing this. Routing that out might require a special tool or special proceedure because of the contour. Anyone?

Oh, here's another idea I had:

Gabe

Have you tried Dallas? I mean, it's a 3 hour drive, but that's really just a day trip.

Dude, you're insane! My V10 truck get's 11 MPG. That would be out of the question!

Gabe

No! I like the 'vintage' sound, but P-90's have no ballz! I would consider an alternative for a soapbar style pickup. Check out Seymour Duncan. I have never personally tried their soapbar pickups, but it has to be better than the P-90's.

BTW - I have 1954 LP Custom Historic Re-issue with a P-90 in the bridge... I NEVER use that pickup!

Gabe

I bought some Titebond at Lowes. Just look around - it's there.

Gabe

OK guys and gals, as you know I've been HUNTING in the city of Houston for some figured veneer. I have this itch that I must see it before I buy. Today I leave work at 11:30am to get everything done. I decided to go checkout Houston Hardwoods. HUGE place but no figured veneer. OK... so then I go to Woodcrafters to get some router bits and I tell the guy working there about my problem. He mentioned a place in Houston that does have figured veneer. OK. So here I am and it's already 12:30pm - my lunch break should be over and I'm still about 20 minutes away from work. I figure 'hell, I'm already going to be late, so why not make it REALLY late!'. I go out there and it's in downtown Houston (well, the heights which is about 3 miles from the city center). Work is at least 40 minutes away at this point. I get in there and the guy takes me to the warehouse. Woo Hoo! TONS of veneers! We start going through them sheet by sheet. Nothing really pleasent, but of about 30 sheets one could be turned into a decent flame. The sheet was about 3'x4'. So I would have some extra leftover for another project! At this point, I'm getting excited about finishing my project. So we leave the warehouse and he looks up the price... $124.99!!!!!!!!!!! HUH? ***!? :o I started to break out in a sweat and I just couldn't say anything to the guy as he was looking at me. I was in FREAKING SHOCK! No way IN HELL am I going to pay that kind of money for an 'ok' piece of veneer when I can buy like 50 square feet of it on eBay for $75! THIS IS HOUSTON DAMMIT! IT'S A HUGE HUGE HUGE PLACE AND NO ONE HAS VENEER AT A GOOD PRICE?!!!!!

So, I went back to work, 2 1/2 hours later, dissappointed.

Gabe

Either way you go I would recommend inserting a plastic straw between the pickup cavitys and adding fill to the center coil if your planning on making it go away like in your mockup.

You don't really have to do the straw thing but it does make it easy to wire compaired to re-drilling down through the neck pocket    And the fill will hold it in place.

That way the veneer cap won't be weak in that area.

Well the body isn't routed with a single coil - just 2 humbuckers. But I like your idea Brian! The switches control the Sustainiac pickup.

3rd Pot - Sustainer Drive Control

Mini-switch #1 - Sustainer On/Off

Mini-switch #2 - 3-way toggle - Sustainer mode selector

Plus you'll see I have decided to ditch the 5-way and go to the 3-way switch just under the neck pickup. I never used positions 2, 3, and 4 on my 5-way anyway. This means I never used my single coils which is true - the reason I don't have one on this guitar. It just got in the way.

Thanks for your suggestions. Anyone have a suggestion for the Abalam binding question?

Dude, where did you get your veneer at? Did you get a chance to see a picture of it before you bought it? Veneer is the only thing holding up my project and no one in Houston carries figured maple in stock.

Gabe

Hey guys I have one more thing to ask... I plan to do the binding in abalam strips. Do you think I should order some curved pieces as well as straight? I heard the stuff breaks easy and I assume if it's already curved it might be easier to bend...

Gabe

OK, here's my mockup of what I plan to accomplish...

OPINIONS PLEASE!!!!!!!!! I have the paint, stain, and clearcoating on the way, but I'm at a loss for the Maple veneer top. I simply MUST see before I buy...

Gabe

Hey everyone,

Sorry if the picture isn't working but the server is undergoing maintenence and should be up within an hour.

Hmmm... Testing this Signature thing... then I guess it's OK to have Jemfest.com in my sig?