jnewman

Are you saying that the amp is actually louder with the 1x10" built in speaker than with the 2x12 cabinet? That's odd. The Jensens in the cab must be the super-inefficient ones. Are you sure the cab is the right impedance for your amp's output jack? Into a given load, i.e. using an 8 ohm speaker or cab on the 8 ohm jack, your amp will be putting out the same amount of electrical watts period. The sonic volume, however, depends a LOT on the speakers you're using, how efficient they are, and how many there are.

I think the new cabinet with 2 12's will make a big difference in how loud your amp is. I like Jensen speakers - which ones are in the cabinet? On the subject of small amps, I finished the chassis and electronics of my 5E3 narrow panel tweed Deluxe build tonight, and I think I'm in heaven. I like little amps . I still haven't figured out exactly its wattage rating, I've read between 12 and 18 watts. Coincidentally, I should have a Jensen P12Q for the little Deluxe come in on Thursday. The Vox tone is pretty cool too! AC15's are nifty.

No it isn't. Unless you create a mechanically strong joint you will have a very weak connection, which relies purely on the mechanical strength of the glue you use. Do you really think it's impossible to get a good end-grain glue joint? That has not been my experience. Joints involving end grain can be weak because of their shape, but I've still been able to get good joins that don't come apart. It's also possible to get bad joints with endgrain - it's also possible to get bad joints with the grain, it's just easier to get bad joins on endgrain. That's been my experience, and the experience some of my friends have had, carefully preparing the surfaces and using good glue. It's possible that I just haven't had bad luck yet, and I know I don't have as much experience on some of the people on this board. (Including you, which I freely admit )

If you're not using a router, you can use a drill and bits to get most of the way then use chisels to clean up. You can even just use chisels, it just takes a long time. You'd be surprised how nice a hole you can make with a sharp chisel . Curved things like control cavities you might need some carving gouges. Incidentally, one of my friends took a 1x4, cut it in two, sanded the ends a bit, and glued it together. He waited a few days, then broke it. It did not break on the glue line. Glue not working on end grain is a myth, so long as you prepare the surface and use decent glue. 90 degree butt joints are a little different, but it's primarily because of the mechanical strength of the shape itself, not the glue joint. A 90 degree butt join is weak because the NON end grain piece will split along the grain and let the end grain piece pull away a small part of it.

Interesting... in something as soft as fretwire, that's a pretty big difference. As far as I know, most stainless alloys respond pretty well to cold-working, but I could be wrong.

Interesting... I don't see why it wouldn't work, I was just curious if you'd measured how much difference it makes since it's a little different from the "industrial" processes.

I have two 60 watt EL34 amps at home. One is a 1x12" and the other is a 2x10". Both are combos. They both get ear-bleeding loud pretty easily, as in, hard to be in the same room with. I'm about to start building a Fender 5E3 tweed Deluxe clone and a modified Marshall 18 Watt clone. Both are 15-20 watts. I don't think I'll have any problems getting plenty loud enough. I'm rebuilding the 2x10" as a head and cab, and will be able to add the 2x10" cab to either small amp if I really need extra volume. I can't imagine that I will, though. If I could find a 5 watt amp with a tone I really liked and enough versatility, I'd be there in an instant .

Just curious, but have you actually tested whether or not you're really making the fretwire any harder? That's not really the normal method for work hardening.

10% is "dry", so you don't have to wait super long for it to dry out... a lot of folks recommend letting the wood sit for a few weeks to let it acclimatize to your local environment.

I can't tell you what kind of FX to like, but if you drop by www.tonepad.com they have quite a few schematics/layouts. They even sell boards for some of them. They have copies of some big name ones and some diy designs. A lot of people like the Big Muff or the Tube Screamer, and they have both of those listed, as well as some Boss and MXR pedals and a bunch of others.

www.seymourduncan.com has a PILE of pickup wiring diagrams, although the color codes for the pickups may be different. Some humbuckers can't be coil tapped - the ones you want to use must have at least three wires (ground, half, full), many tappable pups have four (first coil ground, first coil hot, second coil ground, second coil hot) which also allows you to put the individual coils in parallel if you want. You can also follow one of your other guitars if you want. That works fine. I'm not sure the details of the individual switches you'll be using, so I can't tell you exactly how to hook them up. You can do the soldering with a soldering iron between 15-50 watts, just don't use one of the 135 watt solder gun pipe soldering tools . I use a variable-temperature 35W iron.

I'm not sure what you mean by 7 1/4 deg fret board. Old Fender fretboards were a radius of 7 1/4" or so, meaning that the bent fretwire would make an arc along the circumference of a circle of 7 1/4" radius. Maybe that's what you mean? It's not degrees though. 7 1/4" radius is actually the tightest radius I know of anyone using, most these days are 9 1/2", 10", 12", or even 16" (or a compound radius). From what I've seen, people usually just cut a slot for one of the bearings to be bolted in to, so that they can adjust the bending amount. I have not made a fretwire bender myself, but I think if you just make a vertical slot and look at it for a while, you should be able to figure out how long the slot needs to be to get the full range of bending. Classical fretboards tend to be flat (infinite radius) or nearly flat and you likely wouldn't need a bender.

I'll be the first to say it... I'm pretty confused by this one.

Sounds good... hope you get some pics up soon. I like what you've done with the explorer shape.

I'm sorry to hear about that! I know it's a huge pain, but maybe there's a silver lining. If you're starting to think you don't like the red, you might've decided you hate it a few months down the road. That would REALLY suck.

I had no trouble doing it with a #4 plane, but a very good one with some minor skill in its use. I had literally invisible glue lines both in a neck through neck blank and then gluing the wings on to the neck blank.

Uh oh... what happened?

I do agree that the duplicator parts are maybe not the most useful from a tutorial point of view, and the bit selection could've been better . If I had a pile of money to send StewMac and LMI, though, there are sure some things I'd like to have! (not necessarily what is used in the mentioned tutorial)

The drill bit thing is actually very common. It saves wear on router bits and lets you take light passes around the edge to keep tearout to a minimum.

I've read a fair bit about finishing in a few books. Some of the woodworking-specific books mention that shellac will stick to pretty much anything and can often be used between layers of incompatible finishes to make them stick. I don't know whether or not it would work in this case, but it's something to at least think about and maybe try on a test piece if you can't come up with any other options.

That's why you buy a 9V DC wallwart . Purely from a power supply point of view, the wallwart type power supply supplies a fixed voltage at any current up to its limit. Based on this voltage, a device will draw a certain amount of current. If the current is below the power supply's rating, good. If it's above the power supply's rating, this causes a voltage drop to compensate, then the device will "brown out" or even shut down completely because of the decreased supply voltage. With a cheap power supply, you may also damage the power supply by overloading it.

Thanks, unklmickey. I have built one tube guitar amp and am getting started on two more soon and have made several solid-state audio amplifiers, but never a solid-state guitar amp . The tube guitar amp I previously built had the output jack grounded to the chassis, and all the audio amps I have made have as well. The only exception that I know of in audio amps is when you're using an audio amp that actually drives the ground signal as a channel instead of holding at 0V. Some higher-end audio amps do this.

I have one concern with this (not sure if it is a problem). A normal metal jack socket has its ground connection in contact with whatever chassis it is mounted on. The output from the amp may be to two ends of a transformer, and not intended to be grounded? If this is a concern - use a plastic jack socket, as on Marshalls. John From what I know, it shouldn't be a problem. I could be wrong. Might be good to get another opinion besides mine, though .

Does it have a plug for the interior speaker, or is it just wired directly into the chassis? If it has a plug for the internal speaker, you can just unplug the internal speaker and plug in a cab. You should make sure the cab has the same impedance as the internal speaker (probably 8ohms but you never know). This is particularly important with tube amps. You can often get away with using different-impedance speakers with solid state amps, but I'm not going to tell you to do it with yours because I don't know your amp. So long as you do the mod correctly and use the correct impedance cabs, it should be no different from playing your amp normally and should not affect the life of the amp. I'm not recommending that you do this and there are ways to mess it up that can damage the amp. Additionally, if your amp is a tube-based amp, it has voltages inside that are plenty to kill you! If you have a tube amp and do not know how to work on high voltage circuits, don't work on your amp!. All that said, here is how you would do it if there is no plug for the interior speaker: Mount a 1/4" mono jack somewhere convenient on the chassis (the metal part with the wires inside). You will plug the internal speaker into this jack and, to use an external speaker, unplug the internal speaker and plug in the external speaker. Locate the wires that go to the interior speaker. Locate where said wires enter the amp chassis (the metal part with the electronics inside). Cut the wires, leaving enough for the wires inside the chassis to reach the solder tabs on the jack. Solder the wires to the tip and sleeve of the jack. At this point the guts are ready to go but the internal speaker isn't. There possibly won't be enough wire left to reach the jack, so get some speaker wire, solder it to the tabs on the speaker, solder a 1/4" mono jack on the end, plug it in, and you're done. Again, there are ways to mess this up. I can't promise you won't hurt anything. Do this at your own risk.

It's actually more the modulus of elasticity (how much flex for a given force) and ultimate strength (how much force it takes to break, although you'd have to use some seriously weak wood for this to be a problem) that are important for a neck, not the hardness. Either way, padauk and purpleheart are still way plenty.