pan_kara

Hey Carl, thanks! Its good to be back, hopefully for longer Yes, the screws in front are not the best idea, I agree. Anyway, I spend a long evening yesterday on this, basically the spectrogram shows that in the higher harmonics the string produces a few notes close to the actual harmonic note, causing some weird interference pulsing (like tuning two strings to each other but with only one string playing) and general sustain issues. I found one stupid mistake of mine also - it turns out that the bridge was a little loose since the screws holding it down to the body blocked not because I pressed it down hard enough, but because I screwed them in as deep as they'd go into the bridge. For some reason I hadn't noticed this earlier. I cut the screws today in the morning and reinstalled a few strings .. seems to be better now, though I'm not sure it's completely fine. But if the effect is still there, at least it's less obvious. I'll look again in the evening.

I'm pretty sure you'd hear it Scott. It really sounds weird. Problem is I can't see anything wrong with my bridge, it looks more like a design flaw or some strange mistake in my build. Though I remember I was having doubts about this bridge already when I tried it in the test where I tried to "measure" the impact of bridge on "tone". That never converged since I coudn't see any pattern in the data that I had, its possible that the weird properties of this hannes are the cause. I just never found the time to do another set of measurements with different hardware (or different guitar). So anyway - while writing the earlier post I realized that I can still try the spectral analysis route. Maybe that will tell me something.

Hi everybody, and Happy New Year! Long time no see... I'm trying to ramp up a new batch of builds but I want to finally finish Etna first. see this: well I thought she was all done, even played a show with it, but when I wanted to do final proper setup I ran back into something that was bothering me earlier on: the Hannes bridge sounds weird. Especially the higher strings have a weird "dead" sound, kind of like when the string has a "kink" close to the bridge. There's also a tone to the strings like as if they were attached to a match box, for lack of a better explanation. If you know what I mean. I tried to track this issue down but I'm running out of ideas: I need help. Here's what I have figured out so far: - the issue seems to be coming from some sort of "looseness" in the saddles. I can feel them vibrate when I pluck the strings - I tried lowering the saddles and raising them as high as possible. I originally though it's something about the saddle edge that's not right and changing the angle by raising the saddles up should cure (=diagnose) it. It doesn't. - I tried tuning the strings to higher pitch to have more force pushing down on the saddles. Maybe there is a slight improvement, but it's very small. - Supporting the string with something hard between the bridge and the bridge pickup makes the guitar sound normal (->the problem IS in the bridge) - I took all the strings off and put three G or B strings in different places. They seem to all suffer from the same problem (->it's neither the saddle nor the position that's causing this) - Finally I just clamped a saddle down with a clamp, this appears to improve the situation to a point when the tone becomes acceptable. I have yet to try to do spectral analysis of the sound, maybe that will show me what's going on there. Has anybody had similar problems with this bridge (or others?)? Any ideas on what this could be?

I'd do blue. I did transparent blue to a burl poplar veneer top once and I'm planning another one like that. First coats end up green and then go through different shades of seawater blue as you keep adding them.

well its true that after paint it doesn't really look like lava that much I'm actually thinking whether I should try to go for a matte look by wetsanding it back or something .. I'll see about that. I'm also wondering if the light will channel a little bit in the cracks.. I actually had an idea at some point during the build to have an epoxy layer under the black veneer - routing a "pool" in the padouk that I'd then fill with epoxy and then glue the veneer on top of that and then (before?) do the cracks .. in the end I decided that this is too much fuss, and when I changed my mind about the top not being flat but angled the concept no longer would work so I dropped it. The hannes .. it is a bit weird, I think the saddles were not shaped 100% correct since I was getting some strange sound on the highest strings and I couldn't figure out what was causing it. Now I think that the edge of the saddle was too "flat" causing the end of the string to be stretched over this flat spot, so to say. So single notes sounded a little out-of-tune just by themselves. I did some filing and I think its better now. Ah, the pickups - these are lace alumitones. Wanted to experiment with this one.

All right, finishing. I got some 2k clear in a can in automobile paint section of a hardware store, decided to give it a shot. Sprayed: The paint actually flowed out pretty nicely, to the extent that I decided not to touch it except for the front (top). The pore fill is of course not 100% good so I have a little pores showing but I like that. The top got a light wetsand and polish, resulting in this: At this point I assembled the guitar and did the basic setup and electronics connections: Which leaves me with the thing that I always end up leaving for the very end - cavity covers. And the truss rod access cover. I made the cavity covers from some 2mm thick alder pieces laminated with padouk, they end up warping on me every time I do something to them - first when I was putting shielding paint on the back, I managed to press them back into shape, but now as I'm spraying paint on the padouk side they're doing it again. I'll fight with this later - meanwhile a shot before painting: The truss rod cover is four veneer layers laminated together: padouk-wenge-wenge-padouk. As expected - much more solid. Here is another before-paint shot: The setup is done, and I'm currently spraying clear on the three last parts. There is one more bit of electronics that I need to make and install and I will be able to declare this one as finished

whoa I've been off the forum for a few days or weeks and I come back to check out how this guitar is moving along and I'm suddenly hit with this insane carve-fest! This is beyond awesome. I just love all the original things going on here. wow

Thanks psikoT, that's an interesting build in itself I have to say. About the scarf, here I'm actually in a similar position to that guy, I'll be gluing on a random piece of wood as the headstock. I forgot that when writing my post, the problem that I have is with another neck - I'm trying to build a multiscale bass in parallel and there I'm trying to do the scarf the usual way: cut neck blank - invert one piece - glue back on. Of course the cut surface is no longer parallel to the blank surface after flipping over, and I have to work out whether I have enough wood in the blank to accommodate the headstock dimensions (length mainly). We'll see. @Scott thanks, I'm not sure there's a lot on Leo there even now, but it will be funny if I manage to basically keep almost ONLY the basic outline

I tried to wait with starting another batch of builds until the previous ones were all done, but this is taking too long I CAN'T RESIST. Besides, Etna is really almost done, just waiting for a break in the rain so that I can clearcoat the body. So I have already glued up a bunch of laminate necks and did scarf joints on most of them, plus a few body blank glue-ups. But the project I want to share here is this: its the remains of a strat body that used to be black. My youngest brother bought it for almost nothing some time ago, and I have been swapping out parts of that guitar since then. Right now the only part left from the original is the neck and I'm building a new one right now. The body originally had a very quick&dirty conversion to hardtail and black spray job, and after I replaced it with a new one I started removing both the paint and the wood glued in the trem cavity and in the end decided that the whole center section was in such a bad state (falling apart) that I basically just cut it out. revealing a table-top-like laminate construction of the body. Most of the paint went off after heatgun treatment, the rest will probably be sanded off or I'll spray primer over it, I'm not sure yet. Meanwhile I had some ovangkol cut-offs from a neck-thru section of a guitar that will someday become "The Angry Druid" (a 2.0 version of " "). The size of these is enough for them to fill in the empyt space in the center of the strat body, making basically a "half neck-thru" construction. Since this is a scrap build and I'll be keeping the guitar for myself I decided to put all of the crazy ideas I had or wanted to try out into this build. It will retain the strat body outline, but apart from that it will be completely messed up. At the moment here are some of the features planned: 7-string multiscale (I already got the ABM single bridges for it) 3x single coils wired like Brian May's Red Special (in series with phase switching options) swirl paint job on the body its gonna be fun. (for now I need to work out the non-perpendicular scarf joint and its messing with my brain)

Nice one! Welcome and congrats on the first build! Too bad the string angle after the nut went off for the high two strings, I guess that's the headstock size error you mention - a small detail. Cool idea with the pickguard on the other hand. What are those neck attachment bolts? As for Tru oil - having done two necks with it I think I'll be doing all my necks this way. For bodies it depends .. nitro is of course harder but much more painful to get right (depends also on the set up, I spray of brush on nitro on my balcony usually...)

wow nice progress! Loving the build, Scott. One thought I had on the headstock faceplate glue-up: if you placed the cutoff block _below_ the rest of the neck and just some flat piece of scrap on top of the faceplate - that would make clamping pressure perpendicular to the glue surface. Not sure how important that is, you had it held down anyway.

very nice. I always liked wooden cavity covers, but for some reason mine always warp on me. Now I try to laminate cross-grain two 2mm pieces (with epoxy since the water in titebond seems to encourage warping) and I get a reasonably stable 4mm piece. How thick are these?

thanks guys, yes thats the lava look I've been going after. You've seen the volcano in the flesh Swedish? Nice, gotta do that some day! I hope the led will look cool. I did a test on scrap but that led was too weak so it wasnt really what I wanted. Actuall I could test this one now hmm ..

ok I decided to stop the once-in-a-few-months updates until I have something really new to show so here it is. The body is finally ready for paint, I'm just waiting for the weather to be a bit warmer with that. Meanwhile: I started filling the little crater hole in the middle with epoxy, after installing a strong LED at the bottom. (the LED is accessed from the back). I used the epoxy lefotvers to pore fill the front and sides. Some of it is going into the cracks, I don't want to get them completely flush with the surface - after paint and polish I want the texture to still show, but the epoxy will smoothe it out a little. After the first layer I suspended in the hole a piece of the Etna volcano that my friends brought over from Sicyly for me. The idea is to have it floating there in the transparent epoxy without touching the walls. After putting in two more layers and letting the stuff settle properly I sanded the whole thing down to P320, so the wenge is back to the old dull unfinished look. Waiting for paint now.

Yea this heel design is really something special. I was thinking that going in this direction without redesigning the heel I'd be left with just 2 screws in the end .. I have to look into this more as I actually prefer the idea of having the neck detachable so I mostly build bolt-ons

The inlays were done by hand, really? The one in the first post (runes) too? These are fantastic, I love the idea of the planets with the wood texture creating the "surface" texture of the planet. One more thing that I like in these guitars is the bolt-on heel thats carved with a seemless transition from neck to body. For some reason I never saw that done before (though I must have missed it..), but to me this is how it should be done and I am myself gravitating in a similar direction. Or maybe its not really possible without shifting two bolts to be under the neck pickup? Thats another thing I like about the heel solution, I hadn't noticed it at first.

yes, there is a crater there. Thats another experiment I'll be doing with the top. Coming soon, I hope

The work on the cracks is nearly done, I put on the hardware temporarily to check ergonomics. The edge is still eating into my arm so I think I'll add a slight bevel over the upper section, plus I'll bevel the cutaways a bit.

There is always the option of the graphtech ghost stuff - they have a preamp that has this type of thing built in (switching between piezo and magnetics). I imagine you don't need to run their piezo saddles with this, should work with any piezo system.

hmm this looks more like the "color in pores" that some people do (Mayones also finish their guitars like that, I think the "gothic" series plus some others). I'm not sure what combination of torching - staining - tinted oil might have been used here, havent had time to try myself yes, but it is there on my todo list for future projects.

wow, turned out quite a beast! Come on, put finish on it already! does it balance ok?

not having tried this myself, I wouldn't expect the amount of noise with the added humbucker to be less than without. Considering just the noise (no sound from strings) adding a signal with no (little) noise [the humbucker] to a signal with some noise [the SC] you will have no (little) change.. (HB is adding noise to noise but out-of-phase so (noise - noise) = zero. Here it is as you said: noise + (noise - noise) = noise) I have a strat where I replaced one of the tone controls with a blend control that adds the middle pup in or out of phase (in the middle position its silent). And the 5-way is giving different combinations of the bridge and neck. Maybe just put a sc in middle and add in in/out with a 3-way switch?

Thanks Scott. I like experimenting the rug.. a lot of my pics have it as the background, all my friends make fun of me keeping posting guitar pics on facebook, they just comment "nice rug" on them

I know.. but padouk is the best I managed to come up with. I'll see how it goes. There will always we the texture. Plus I have some more weird things to be done to that top .. Slowly progressing ..

Well this is going to take time ...