gripper

Those are a lot better quality pots than I am used to seeing. Are those CTS? I only have one guitar with duals and they look like cheap crud. You are going to do volume/tone and volume/tone on the two pots? Won't that take a pot that has two differant values and make it impossible to pick which knob is tone and which one is volume? Of course I don't know what pickups you are using but I am always getting messed up on the differant values of tone and volume pots. Practice rocking!

That is not a stupid idea at all but it isnot as easy as you might think. I tried to make a pedal with two volume/tone settings that I could get by just hitting the switch. First problem was the tone control worked all the time on both channels. The capacitor/pot to ground was always in the circuit regardless of if it was wired on the switched input or the output. Double-pole switch took care of that but then I had the volumes wired where the one set lowest was the one that set the volume. Basically made a pair of volume/tone circuits just like in my guitar and tried switching the ground to them instead of the signal lead and got a situation in between both problems. The only thing I ever got to work well was the volume control switched between my clean and OD channel. I gave up on the tone part of the pedal. That does not stop me from rockin

I think you should be waiting a lot longer before you sand or spray again. I wait at least a week (but I hate to) before I do anything else to a repair or a refinish. It just seems that time heals SOME wounds. Don't forget to spend that wait time rockin'

Drak got me back to the original question that I totally forgot about. The finish my uncle is using is that KTM-9 water stuff thinned with alcohol to about water. He shoots the back and sides with like 5 coats and the top with two and quits. He has a LOT more patience than me. I think he has shot it like three times in the last month and I am like lets finish it and put it together. My time in this town where he lives is limited because all my job interviews will take me to the west coast, if I get the job, and I want to see it done before I leave. I think he is doing it just to make me stay here a while longer and sweep the floors in his shop and change oil in his trucks. Rock without him!

Before you put the caps on the design phase of this (it's looking good) consider putting one or two of your less-used controls back there with your output jack. An uncluttered front is always good and the wiring paths would be shorter. Can you see how much your design has changed over the past few days? It is a good thing! Always rock

Man, I would so not cover the cocobola! I don't know what flavor guitar you are building but my uncle is building a coco topped Tele with black binding that is just amazing! The contrast of those browns with the black is just AWESOME! He does not use pickgaurds so the whole thing shows through. His matching of the two top pieces looked pretty lame until it was flipped and put the bridge right at the center of the eyeball looking part. I am trying to talk him into a black neck but he hates solid colors. Maybe you are more modern than him. Rock, rock and also rock!

My uncle bought the pews out of an old Prespe church in Michigan and made us knock them apart. He said most of them were pine and cherry but some of them he said were pine and ash or all pine. We would set our radio on them and you could tell which ones were all pine because the radio was about twice as rich sounding. Once they were knocked apart, I could not tell the differance but some of it cracked in about a week. He said that was the pine and we could throw that in the burn pile. All that sound gone.

Scott, that is what I didn't/don't understand. These Furmans are not just a big surge-suppressor? They can actually solve a low voltage thing say from a refrig turning on or a crappy old wiring job in the building? I thought you needed a huge UPS kind of thing for that. Would my pedal wall-warts make less noise around flouresent lights if I powered them with say a Furman? That noise is probably making it through my cables. What I really should do instead of bothering you guys with a bunch of newbie questions is borrow one from my cousin and try it. He has a few Furmans, but they are probably 5 years old, and a pair of 50 pound Sola transformers that have to be 30 years old. He showed me yesterday how the lines in his video monitors go away when he plugs in through what he calls his CLEAN power in the truck. I guess if it can get through his video equipment it can get through my audio equipment(the noise). Always rock!

I am a little confused because you said you resprayed. Do you mean you sprayed over your drop fill and the bubbles showed up? I tried to fill a very small glue line on a body wing that would just keep taking laquer like a sponge and bubbling like air was coming up through the seam. I got tired of it and left it for a month and tried it again. Worked like a charm. Just like the tuts said it would. Are you waiting long enough before respraying and is your spray compatable with your drop-fill material? It's probably the same stuff, isn't it? Boog your brains out!

I totally agree with idtch. I built one of Brian's SAGA kits and it was kind of scary because I wasn't sure what was going to work and what was not going to work. Came out well, though. At the same time I was stripping and modding a cheap used beater and I did a lot of things to it I would not have done if I was not even sure it was going to work when I put it back together. As a mechanic, I am a lot more comfortable tricking-out a '76 Impala than building a car from scratch. Happy Halloween! Carbondale was NUTS last night! (SIU)

How about an index for newbies that has links to previous threads on the same subject. It could incorporate the common term stuff at the same time and give extended options, kind of like the (I wish it weren't true) Windows help index. I wouldn't call it a true FAQ. More of a reference index. HAHAHAHA!!!!! I got it!! The Dewey Decibal System!!! I am so sorry for that as this is a cool subject. Proceed

Dang, dang, dang! There was a thread about this about two years ago and I can not FIND it. I think the thread was like about a TRANSFORMER guitar that you could switch around the setup by changing universal parts. I thought that when you needed more variety, you added more pickups and switches. Ever seen Bootsie's guitar?

I didn't give all that much thought to the adherance to perfect guitar building form when I voted. I saw the work and detail in the WOMD and saw it as really differant and noticable. I probably shouldn't have even voted because I have no real deserved "clout" as a newbie but that paint job showed a lot of creative effort in a differant direction so that is where I went. I can just see me having to pull all those screws to access a panel-hidden PCB that makes the Bradley aim its camera. Rock wil not kill ya

Hi lightstorm. You have quite a few advantanges over me as you have chosen to redo an existing guitar, which is the best way to go for us newbies, and you already know the lingo. Way cool. You have done your homework which I did not do! Adding a top has me a little confused because if you mean putting a veneer on it you are already way beyond me and should wait for one of the masters to respond. Good to see another "not afraif to try" newbies. These guys are Awe$some! pLEASE BE PATIENT WITH THEM BECAUSE i HAVE FOUND IT TAKES A FEW DAYS TO GET A QUALITY RESPONSE. I hate caps-lock.

I have a reaction to ALL Ibanez guitars. What is your reaction like? I just get spots where I thouch them but you might be getting"wheezes" which is differant than mine. I think the finish is the source.

I don't use rack stuff outside of practice/jam situations but the rack I have is full with a preamp, a maximizer and the amp itself. I don't think I understand where a power strip like a Furman is going to be of any benefit. I DID all the search stuff and they are just mentioned as a matter-of-fact kind of thing; like, of course, I have a power conditioner. The way I see it, all my rack stuff already has a regulated DC power supply built in that can handle some severe voltage swings and the tube stuff, who cares? Let those big transformers sort it out. Right there is where I am going to get into trouble. I just know it! I just don't see anything that needs all that severe protection. My cousin runs a AV production business and I can see where some of his stuff needs to be buffered from high-voltage spikes but, for what I run, a $200.00 Furman strip seems to be "selling the blue money" as we are taught in the automotive sales lingo. Gotta love it!

The wires on them should even be the same color. Can't get mauch easier but it depends on where the original pickup wires ended up at. At the selector switch, be real careful not to overheat the little tab that comes off the switch. At a back-of-pot connection, just the opposite. My borrowing rights to a really good soldering iron were suspended when I left on on overnight. It was a 30 year old adjustable Heathkit with a tip that worked everywhere. Made by GE. So I had to go to Radio Shtick and get one of those 20 watt red jobs and it does quite well as long as you plug it in 15 minute before you use it. Buy a little roll of that very fine rosin core solder while you are there. The small stuff doesn't get in your way so much. You are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE that pickup. Rock till you puke

My first completed build is a Saga SG (you gotta start somewhere) and there was some yellow glue on the neck scarf joint that was from heck. I could not get rid of the darn stuff. That neck is now solid black and I think it was always supposed to be. I scraped, sanded and fine-filed and the stuff was still there. Can't complain much except for the wasted time. The black neck drove me to a pseudo-binding look that I used on the body and it came out much better than I had any right to expect. That stuff might be yellow epoxy filler, the way it acted. Water over the dam. Always rock!

When the choices are limited to just these amps you gotta go with the Mesa or the VOX. Open it up to ANY amp/combo and you might be very surprised what people would take if it was free. Personally I would take an Olson Twin with a sister cab!

Now that luvcraft chimed in, I am really interested in this volume switch. Is there a Mega or Super switch that you could send the output of the 3 or five pickup selections to a differant pot (or maybe trimmer as you said) and be able to preset your voloume for each and not mess with it much while you gig? Seems that each combination whould have to have its own output terminal on the switch and it sounds involved. Rock to the very end

Oh, no, no, no! No Ebay stuff when money and quality counts. I have been burnt and seen too many other burn jobs. Not to say Gibson Custom Shop can't burn you but at least you got burnt by a serious namebrand outfit. Ebay is OK in its place but the stuff that really counts needs to be done face-to-face.

spacepl, as a newbie myself, I have lived off the tutorials on this forum for about 2 years before I became registered. I have never found any bad information but I have found a lot of info that I wish I had found before I screwed up. Pick one of the tuts that makes sense to you, that you understand at least half-way decent and go with it. When you have a problem just be patient and post a question about the problem. A day or three and you will have your guitar setup. Just don't do like me. Go a little and test. It is very easy to mess up if you try to get it done too fast or in one attempt unless you are one of the masters on this forum. Rock till it hurts! Then rock some more!

Saber, that is kind of what I was thinking. A push-pull to select two differant volume pots. I played an ESP (sorry) that had a LP-style switch up on the horn that switched between two volume pots and it was kind of sweet. It took me quite a while to figure out that was what it did but once I figured it out, it was nice. I don't see it as a bad way to go. I can't say if that is what this particular person had in mind but it is something I am going to consider if I get time to finish the stuff I already started. Proceed to rock .

Sorry to throw this in on a speaker thread but luvcraft's comment about the minivan needed a response. I get so much crap about driving a 1991 Mazda MPV until a big stack of crap needs to be moved. THEN I am cool. It has a class 3 trailer hitch on it and has been know to pull a 2-axle stage equipment trailer 200 miles when the big pickup trucks were in for their fix-or-repair-daily routine. Not pretty, not fast but can get it there like a FedEx truck. I am not old enough to be called a soccer-mom yet but I can see it coming.

I am afraid you are right. That will raise the total price to about $2800.00! For a Gibson I have never played. Very scary stuff and just in time for halloween!