henrim

Prime time

As the Red/White build is nearly finished I thought about building yet an other one. I'm calling this one "The Verdict". Because this is my third single cut with the same shape. I'm combining what I think were succesfull features from the two previous builds to this one. From the Red One I'm using a drop-top. From the Black One I will use back mounted pickups (with some changes in the design). And a bolt-on neck. Although the neck will be bolted it will extend almost through the body. So that the bridge will be bolted through the neck. If that makes any sense. I like the modularity with a bolt-on. Separate neck is easier to work on, fix or replace. I'm making an unique piece here but being an industrial designer I can't help myself from thinking production in larger scale. I also like oiled necks. Combining that with a body that has different finnish is not straight forward. In the Red One I finished the whole back side with oil. This time I want a lackquer finish on the body. Not willing to experiment with blending the two together. Could be interesting but not worth it for me right now. Controls will be a combination design that take something from the both previous ones. Here I'm still in planning phase but the aim is to make the design without any cavity covers on the back of the guitar Hardware. I have an extra satin chrome Schaller 455 wraparound bridge that the Red One uses. So that is the most likely candidate. Stock studs will be replaced with a through body bolts. I also have a set of Schaller locking tuners with a matching satin chrome finish. Pickups. I will likely start with a Dimarzio Super distortion and a 36th anniversary PAF since I have an extra pair. Back mounted with custom covers. Birch neck. I already cut a blank which is flat sawn, but from the center of the timber so the grain is going upwards. May be I should split the blank, flip the pieces and laminate together. Dont' know. I have some linden (basswood) blanks for the body but I still may go with swamp ash as I have a nice piece of that too. Depends on how I want to finish this guitar. Quilted maple drop top. I'm not sure I'd want a quilted maple top but I found a bookmatched pair from my storage and sure looks nice. I can't recall when, where or why I got it but since I have it I'm going to try. Fingerboard I want to be black. So propably some sort of ebony or stained rosewood but I'm investigating other options too. Blackwood Tek from Madinter looks interesting. I should get a piece and see if that is an option. Any experiences with that? This one will likely be finished in less time than the previous ones. But who knows. Not me.

Ouch. If you have some leftover pieces of that quilted maple I think it would be worth trying to find a piece that matches the pattern. With that strong irregular quilted figure I guess it could be possible to make a pretty indistinguishable patch. If that doesn't work you still have the option to go on with the stripes.

When I first built this body 30+ years ago I cracked the thin portion behind the tremolo cavity with a blunt chisel and too much force. I did batch it back then but it wasn’t very nicely done. Now it was time to fix it again. Fortunately I never throw anything away so I still had a few leftover pieces of the original wood While I was at it I found a crack in the body. I injected glue in to the crack and reinforced it with a ‘bow tie”. Now I guess it was probably not very good idea to use a different type of wood there, but we’ll see how it holds. This fix also gave me an opportunity to raise the tremolo 2mm.

I got the active pickups, battery and push/pull pots all stuffed in. Like them more. Quite versatile setup with all the single coil options and what not. May be too many options. Also re-fretted the fretboard. Original frets were nice looking and I spent good amount of time filing them. The problem was I chose looks over functionality. I left 0,5 mm margin in the ends because I didn’t think the semi-hemi ends looked good if they went all the way to the edge. On the treble side this affected playing more than I had thought. So I removed the frets, cut the slots all the way and installed new frets. Much better. I should still finish the ends a bit nicer but for now I just want to play some and work on the other guitars.

Sound qualities aside. The hexagonal shape is so strong that I would think it's difficult to combine it with a rounded rectangle. Maybe it isn't. I would make a drawing of the guitar to see or maybe make cardboard mock ups of different shape pickups and try them on the body blank.

That is an option too and could work in this particular case. And to be clear when I say knurling I mean straight knurling. I’m not yet in to diamond and cross types. Although they can be functional in tool handles and such.

Got these knobs turned. Made a couple of variations and these are the ones that go in to this guitar. Unfinished still. One volume and tone. Still need to make a rotary selector knob which will be smaller in size and just aluminum. Maybe knurled. I used to hate knurling but nowadays I need to restrict myself from doing it to every single piece I turn in lathe

Now it has to go from this guitar but I kinda like them. There is some steam engine type loveliness in them. And for some reason I have plenty of them so I will use them in future. Would be best used in a transparent guitar. Hmmm, transparent guitar

Now here’s the all new control cavity sub-assembly. Sans a few screws and the exhaust pipe still needs to be finished at some time. Anyway, I’m happy that I was forced to redo the rig. Because the original was pretty good in its first incarnation but when I had to do changes I didn’t do whole new one but instead butchered the original. I was never happy with how it ended up. I’m changing to smaller rotary switch. The one in picture is just what I had in shelf but it may be too sensitive for guitar. I use those in modular synth builds. Also I may need to change the pots still as those have rather long shafts. But otherwise this one is frozen now!

I have so many unfinished projects lying around that time doesn’t really matter. Some of them are permanently aborted but some I might pick up ten years after and continue working with like it was yesterday I put it aside. But with a kid ten years is a long time. A lot has happened. Like his little sister. Anyway, precious times. The first born has developed an interest in guitars and I thought I would build him one. The small body RR-derivative I have in an other thread was going to him, and may still be, but meanwhile we found a -79 Ibanez Destroyer that he is really fond of

Made a quick mock up out of 0.5mm aluminum sheet. I’ll see if I can find some 0.8mm or 1mm and make a final one.

That’s a solid advice. Though I found the space from the cavity cover. Pot knobs will sit a tad bit higher than they were previously but that is needed for the pull action.

Got the 66/57 set. Battery sits nicely between pickups. Need to make a holder to it. One small problem though. I didn’t quite think that the p/p pots were so high. They are not going to fit in with the current setup. Either I make new brackets or I use different pots. I would rather use the EMG pots since they have all the connectors but then I will need to move the pots more towards the top. That results that the controls will sit higher on the body. Usability would be better but since no one else than me has to suffer from the bad usability I’d rather have them more recessed. As that way they look better. Decisions, decisions.

I like good hand tools as much as anyone but you can’t do much with even the best tool if it isn’t sharp. As a matter of fact you can get away with a lesser tool if you know how to sharpen it properly. And in many cases the lesser ones are made of softer materials and thus easier to sharpen. Obviously you need to sharpen them more often. I’d almost say sharpening is the most important skill with the hand tools. Nice build coming up btw

Out of those you mentioned I have only tried Liberon and it's blue indeed. Today I'm getting a new batch of dyes (Cab coatings Finland) for other uses but there is a bottle of black too so I need to see what shade of grey that gives. The carbon powder is definetely something I need to try. Thanks for that tip!

This. I really like the color on this build. Looks very nice in every other way too. I have been experimenting with many wood species trying to make them pure grey. Staining, bleaching and what not. Lots of weird shades, very little pure grey. In that respect Larch is my favourite wood. Just some water and lots of sunlight. Beautiful grey without a trace of any other color Not necessarily the best method for a guitar top, though.

Yes. Thickness is not the problem. Profile is what I would like to change. Maybe. And hitting the truss rod is not a real concern. Not knowing it’s exact size is more of a mental thing

Exactly. That is one reason I went with oiled neck. Although the bigger reason is that I never liked playing with a painted neck. And I tried for years to like playing with one. The only worry I have with altering the neck is the fact that I did this neck ten years ago, didn’t document anything and I can’t recall the truss rod dimensions exactly. Not that I was going to do dramatic changes but the unknown bothers me. I would like to know the size of the field before I play.

I was thinking 9V but 18V would be something to explore.

So this guitar. Now that I've played it a bit more I think the passive EMG's need to go. The good thing about the design is that it's really easy to change pickups without removing strings I will install EMG 57/66 TW pair to it. Since they are active some rewiring is needed though. At the same time I'll do some refining to the cavity area. And actually I need to take the strings off too to fix the nut. I filed it a bit too low. Before making a new nut I'm going to try putting a 0.1mm shim under it and see if that works better. Other than those fixes it's an ok solid body. (Maybe the neck is going to see some shaving at some point too...) I was going to put some cheap Fleor pickups to my 3-pickup rebuild guitar but now the EMG H4 and H4A will go to that guitar.

My old router table was like this. It had an handheld router fixed under the table and an old car jack acting as a lift. It kinda worked but it was pain to adjust. So I decided to upgrade it a bit. While I was designing a new lift I thought about upgrading the spindle too. I got a Chinese 2,2kw spindle and a VFD. Some linear tracks and a ball screw. Then I figured that since I had some left over stepper motors and control hardware from a previous project it would be fun to have the lift motorised. So I did a proof of concept. Machined the real thing. Made a cabinet for the electronics from the sheet metal that I saved when our water heater died. Made a mount to fix the monstrosity to table. At this time I also upgraded the stepper motor and controller. So the only thing that was left from the previous router table was the 10mm aluminium plate where the previous router was mounted. Decided to use it although it had unnecessary holes in it. I just made the center to accept inserts to minimise the gap with different bits. I was going to use magnets to hold the insert in place but the thought of it coming loose while routing made me decide to fix the insert in place with two M3 bolts. The table top with some tracks and an Incra fence which I'm not actually using anymore as made a new fence with micro adjustment. Spindle is silent compared to regular handheld router. One last thing. A warning about Chinese spindles. I don't remember why I opened the spindle in the first place but I found out that the thing was not grounded at all! Now it is.

I have used DIYLC quite a bit for drawing synth modules and guitar pedals. I hadn’t realized it has guitar wiring functionalities too. Have to try it out! I have reported a few issues/wishes in GitHub and I have to say that it is a privilege to use a tool that when you report an issue you get a personal reply and the issue actually gets taken care of. No such thing with big software companies! Thanks again for such a great tool!

Crwth (sounds like one of those internet abbreviations, or rather looks, I have no idea how that is pronounced) is closely related to Swedish Talharpa and Finnish Jouhikko. At least they are all played with a bow and feature drone strings. Although crwth seems like a more sophisticated instrument than the Scandinavian ones.

Fretted the fretboard with some jumbo size stainless steel wire I had. Not much leveling needed. For dressing I learned a neat trick just a while ago, which everyone else probably knows but I feel stupid I hadn’t thought it before. I ground and polished one edge of a needle file and it’s butter smooth against the fretboard. I could dress the frets without using protecting masking on the board. There wouldn’t be any scratches but I use tape to prevent ebony from burnishing. Anyway the tape doesn’t rip and the file slides soooo smoothly.