octafish

I've built a couple of those "mint box buffer" single JFET devices , but I am thinking with a dual op-amp I could have an inverting buffer and then an inverting amplifier to give me a modest amount of gain.

Soldering is a handy skill to have. Buy yourself a cheap little electronic kit from a electronics shop and have your dad give you a hand building it . You'll then know the basics to doing your own wiring. See if you can find a LM386 based amplifier kit. Then you've got a 1/2 watt practice amp, and soldering skills. Re: potting, don't do it if you aren't getting microphonic feedback, there is mojo in unpotted pups.

I've used piezo-electric pickups in a few applications (ukelele, cigar box, a percussion bicycle) but I have always used an off board buffer and EQ. I am finishing off some half-done and half-baked projects before I get started on a proper guitar project. One of these is a cigar box guitar with a piezo and on board tone and volume controls. I realize I'd be pushing it uphill trying to keep it passive so I'll be using an onboard buffer (jfet or opamp, I haven't decided yet). The question is: After the buffer what sort of tone control should I use? I was hoping to use a simple cap to ground tone and voltage divider volume arangement as in an electric guitar. Any recomendations for pot and cap values? After a buffer I should be able to use a low value for volume like 100K yes? Thanks in advance for your advice. edited for spelling

Aha, no I didn't dig deep enough. Thanks.

I recently bought a trashed cheap guitar in bad repair. I figured it was a good idea to learn by restoring/modding a guitar that already fit together. The basics are: solid plywood body only 1 1/16 inch thick, 24 5/8 scale w zero fret, the neck needs refretting but is straight when not under tension, two floating single pups (bridge & neck) vibrato(tremolo) tailpiece with a rout (a write off) It came unstrung and the bridge was missing. The vibrato(tremolo) tailpiece was a twisted piece of metal. The last owner had stripped all the screw heads trying to remove the tailpiece (an assumtion) and then had drilled out the screws leaving the shafts in the body. Nasty. Then they had taped it back on!? The bridge looks to have been a TOM knockoff. There are two threaded posts but rather than going into the body they are attatched to a bar that is held to the body with two screws. The trem had a rout that I am planing to fill after I have stripped the finish. The questions. My priority is to get this thing strung and check out the pups and neck, so I need to sort out a bridge. How deep do TOM anchors/posts go into the body? If the body is not too thin for a proper TOM mount, that gives me the options of TOM and string through, TOM and tailpiece, and LP Jnr. Is this correct? Thanks guys, and please go easy on a Newb. PS I did try to find this info on Stew Mac and using this site search engine... no dice