jnewman

You can get the equivalent to the tremstopper for any tremelo. It's called the "tremel-no" www.tremolno.com

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As good as the tremol-no is... and as bad as I want one... it doesn't work on every trem .

The problem isn't so much specialization as it is price pointing - since everybody "knows" that a 100watt amp is twice as expensive as a 50watt (or pretty close anyway), and manufacturers have been pricing that way for years, they'd find it almost impossible to sell a low watt amp at a profit. Who'd be willing to spend the price of a JCM800 for a 2 watt amp, even though it would probably cost more to produce?  You all know the attitude - "Dude, a 30 watt amp? Isn't that a practice amp?"

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Heh. I love it when that happens.

I imagine with the right marketing and spokespeople it could be done, though - there's just never been a point because most amp makers' low powered amps are just cut down (and thus cheaper to produce) versions of their high power amps, or vice versa, so there was never any reason to market the low-powered amps and no reason for them to be as expensive as their higher-powered bretheren.

Or you could sell the 2-5 watt version for $2000 and a 50 watt version for $5000 . (Or $5000 and $10000, or whatever).

There's a saying in hifi audio equipment - if you price it high enough, people will buy it. Heh. Even if they didn't buy the high-power version, it would give them a price-reference for the low-power version.

Yep, check your gum/pills/whatever, odds are they've got shellac in/on em. Shellac's affected by pouring alcohol on it, sure, but less and less as it ages (and gets progressively harder), but it's not as fragile as many people seem to think it is. On the body of an electric, it may not be ideal, but oil's not going to provide more protection, really. Once it's cured, shellac is as unaffected by water/humidity as any laquer is; you get those 'wet' while spraying, and you'll get plenty of blushing. I have pretty corrosive sweat (not the worst ever, but pretty bad; eat through strings pretty quickly), and I use shellac on my necks. Feels great, works perfectly, doesn't get eaten away by anything, and I've never heard of people having problems with it that way.

It's about keeping the wood looking nice, and making it easier to clean/preventing dirt getting in there (no finishes really prevent moisture/humidity from affecting wood, unless that's specifically what it's designed to do).

Also, still wear gloves, even is using 'regular' alcohol; denatured is really bad, but regular 'ol alcohol remains a poison.

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Huh... that's just what I've picked up from furniture makers who use shellac guessing about how it'd work on high-wear spots like guitar necks, but if you use it and it works, I may have to try it. My next guitar's going to have a rosewood neck with ebony fretboard, so it's getting at most some lemon oil, but I may try it on the limba and wenge body. It'd probably help bring out the slight flame to the limba better than tru-oil would - things really seem to glow under shellac finishes.

Shellac's pretty delicate, though... it tends to get messed up pretty easily by sweat/hand oils, or alcohol, or free water. It is totally safe, though - the only reason you'd need gloves for it is if you used denatured alcohol. Shellac is actually approved by the FDA for use as a pill coating.

One thing to consider... redwood is a pretty fragile wood, and will dent REALLY easily. It is awfully pretty, though .

I guess you could call it specialized... but it's only really specialized in that it's not loud enough to gig without micing. In terms of sound, it'd be the most unspecialized amp in the history of the electric guitar .

When stopping over at the local wood supply the other day, I noticed some nice big Mahogany body blank. These blanks must have been 2-3" high and big enough for complete body - a nice one piece blank so to say.

Now I'm no expert on mahogany - and I haven't browsed the search function yet....cause I know there are different types of mahogany and not all are used when building bodies.

My question now.....if I wanted to go about building a Maxxas type body. Meaning....building body in clam-shelve fashion. Hollowing out top and bottom - except neck/pup/bridge area.......what would be best way to create the two halves like that.

I have to rip the body blank in half....length wise.

Normally I have dealt with two piece body blank......side to side.....this would be two piece body blank top to bottom.

I'm thinking finding giant a bandsaw.........or is there a more cleaver solution????

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That's exactly the way to do it - if you go to a really big wood shop (the place you went may have one), they'll have what's called a "resaw bandsaw" which has about a 1" wide blade whose open cutting area is horizonal above a raisable/lowerable conveyor belt. It's for ripping stock into thinner pieces. I recently had this done on a limba blank I'm going to make a hollowbody out of.

One note: go ahead and get the wood surfaced, or the roughsawn side will absorb/release moisture much more quickly than the already surfaced side and the wood will warp quickly and pretty badly.

I haven't personally used Tru-oil, but I've seen some stuff finished with it that looks really good. I think the general concensus is to thin it with naphtha and put the coats on as thin as they'll go on, and give it a little while between coats.

www.tubeampparts.com has a MUCH better selection of tolex/amp coverings than stewmac... but they're not in Australia either. Fender used to use normal old tweed cloth that was lacquered after being glued down for its amps and casees.

So I should be able to just replace the plug? I was thinking I was going to have to install a hole new power cord (of which I can find none rated above 13amps). I dont plan on doing it myself, unless it is outlined in the manual 100% clearly. My EE friend will most likely get the nod here. I just wanted to have everything ready for him.

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You can just put a 110 plug on rather than replacing the power cord - but if the motor is still set for 220 input you will absolutely need to rewire the the inside as well (if you open it up, there ought to be lugs for 110 next to where the cable is currently hooked up). Sorry for the red, but that can't be emphasized enough and I didn't want you to skip over it and end up plugging a 220 motor into a 110 socket . I don't think it'd actually hurt it, but it wouldn't work right.

There are two problems here - that you have a plug that won't plug into 110 power and that the motor isn't set up to take 110 power, and you need to fix both of 'em before you use it. Anybody can replace the plug, and anyone can do the rewire, too (they just don't know it). I'm not sure exactly what it looks like on the inside, but if you pop the cover off and take a picture of the area where the cable terminates someone here should be able to help.

Actually, tru-oil is a pretty hard-drying (if you do it right) polymerized other-stuff-added business - you can actually build up a gloss film with it if you try. It's not just linseed oil, and having used a few polymerized oil or polymerized oil/phenolic resin varnishes lately, tru-oil does come out differently.

The actual brand is Birchwood Casey (which makes a variety of firearms/shooting accessories and products), while the product is Tru-Oil, marketed (and used for a long time) as a gunstock finish.

Here's the site of the finish itself: http://www.birchwoodcasey.com/sport/index.html

Interestingly, they seem to have an aerosol version - I've never seen that before.

It seems to be a LOT cheaper from their website than from Walmart or your friendly neighborhood gun store.

They sell it in 3oz bottles (all you'll EVER find in Walmart or gun stores), 8oz bottles... and gallon bottles. I bet a lot of people here wish they'd known they didn't have to use a bunch of tiny bottles of the stuff . Plus, a gallon's $50 - 3oz bottles are not quite $6. You'd save something like 75%.

Any of the equipment you'd end up buying from a hardware store should be rated in terms of amps - if you replace actual electrical cable, make sure it's rated at least 15 amps (although most of it should be). I think pretty much every actual plug out there should be rated at least 15 amps - I think you'd have a hard time finding one that isn't.

You want something like this:

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=prod...RN-L&lpage=none

All the electrical wire listed on Lowe's site is rated for at least 600V/15A, so you'd be fine.

If you're just replacing the plug, make sure to get one with screw terminals. And make SURE it's a three-prong .

I'm about to build a Trainwreck Climax from a kit... I've already paid for it, and they're putting it together and will be shipping it soon (from Kendrick, who made the original). It comes with the chassis (the metal bit that holds the electronics) with all the components mounted on a Garolite board but nothing wired up.

It's NOT CHEAP - but it's A LOT less expensive than the original, assembled version that was $4000. Plus, you get Kendrick's absolutely top-notch transformers, which are one thing a lot of kits don't include at all.

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I didn't see that one...they had another kit up though ---$995 with no speakers, tubes, or cabinet!

For that price, I'd just buy myself an AC-15 and live happily ever after

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That's the one... keep in mind that the original was a limited run of only 100 amps (which is why they changed the name for the kit) with a price tag of $4000 each . Also, the original speakers were two 10" Fane Alnico speakers - at $225 a pop. Speakers like that don't get included in kits .

I got the chance to play on one about a year ago, and out of all the amps I've ever played it's my favorite. I was afraid they were going to stop making the kits, so I went ahead and bought one before I'd be stuck looking for one of the VERY limited run (they've sold about 250 of the Joy Zee kits in addition to the 100 complete Climax amps).

It also comes with a three-ring binder full of step-by-step photographs and descriptions of the wiring of the amp as well as schematics and photographs of the completed wiring. Gerald Weber is in charge over there these days, I think, or at least he's the guy I spoke to about it, and he was really helpful - the original amp only had reverb on the "American" channel, and after I asked about it, Gerald offered to draw up mod plans for me and toss in the extra required parts to use reverb on both channels.

When all is said and done, I'll still have paid less than half of the original sticker price of an amp that I love and might never get a chance to purchase - so to me, it's a good deal. If I could just go out and buy one, I would - but the last (and only) one I've seen for sale was tagged at about $3500 and at the time I couldn't afford it (I still wouldn't be able to justify it, but the kit with all the hardware is running about what I was going to pay for my next amp anyway).

That may or may not make sense... but it's this specific amp that I've been after for a long time, and this is the only good way to get one now.

I've just had to do it before... I have a 220v Marshall my friend used in England for a long time, and a transformer he used in England that'll go 220->110 or the other way. He was using it 220-110, so it had a British plug to go into the wall and an amercian socket. I needed both plugs to be American 110 - Cut off both plugs, replace with hardware store variety, voila!

By the way, by "screw terminals" I mean that rather than a lug you solder the wires to there are screws that you screw in to clamp the wires down - works just as well and requires less equipment (large guage wires can be hard to solder).

Any hardware store should be able to sell you a new 110V plug that has screw terminals as opposed to solder terminals - cut the 220 plug off and wire up the new plug .

Where can I get a new cord to replace the 220v one???

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I'm about to build a Trainwreck Climax from a kit... I've already paid for it, and they're putting it together and will be shipping it soon (from Kendrick, who made the original). It comes with the chassis (the metal bit that holds the electronics) with all the components mounted on a Garolite board but nothing wired up.

It's NOT CHEAP - but it's A LOT less expensive than the original, assembled version that was $4000. Plus, you get Kendrick's absolutely top-notch transformers, which are one thing a lot of kits don't include at all.

Have you looked under the pickups and in the control cavity? There very well may be a label hiding somewhere...

whomever made jerry garcia's guitar that bridge looks kinda like the one I remember at least the style of it.

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That'd be Alembic, wouldn't it? It looks a lot like a rougher Alembic bridge/tailpiece, but they don't usually do all that crazy inlay....

It looks pretty good, except for a few things:

1. It looks like you need to make the top waist (the narrow part) a little sharper.

2. It looks like, although the body outline is pretty much correct, you don't have the centerline right - it looks to be at the right spot at the endpin area, but angles to far down towards the lower cutaway towards the neck.

3. Your neck pocket is too long/your neck pickup is too far towards the bridge. The bridge side edge of the neck pickup should be on the line through the narrowest part of the guitar, while you have the neck side edge on that line.

4. Your bridge pickup is too far towards the endpin end of the guitar.

That's just the way it looks to me. If you figure out where the neck joins the body (which fret) on the 24 you want to copy, and mark your end-of-fretboard and bridge positions from that, you'll get the bridge and pickups placed much more accurately.

And to give some attention to the centerline - it really does look like it wanders to me.

Two thousands of an inch? If you can drill a hole that accurately, you'd know that two thousands of an inch couldn't possibly have an effect on it. Your bridge isn't made to an accuracy even close to that.

Basically, no. Saying 25 1/16 of an inch is fine. You'll have a lot more error in your drilling than that tiny difference in length.

I *THINK* I voted for Mesa... I can't actually remember. I did actually want something else... and I'm about to get it . I have a Trainwreck Climax kit and two Fane alnico 10's on the way from Kendrick Amplifiers as we speak. They're calling it the "New Joy Zee Kit" now since the Climax was a limited run, but it's the same electronically.

Aren't planes great?

As I recall, Gibson has used two or three different "24 3/4" scales...

The pictures on Fender.com are perfect straight on pictures . Unfortunately, Gibson doesn't do the same thing. Hmph.