Dylan

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not concerned about the guitar's value. This guitar is gonna stay in my family. I'm more focused on making it play and sound good and customizing it to my liking than keeping its value. -Dylan-

I'm retrofitting my '72 Gibson SG with some new locking tuners, and I'd like to sell the original Gibson Deluxe tuners (probably on ebay). They're in perfect working and aesthetic condition, except for a little tarnish which I can clean off pretty easily. What would be an acceptable price (or "reserve" if I'm selling on ebay) to ask for these tuners? Thanks, Dylan

Yeah, I know. It's 22.5" now, and I would build have to a special neck to accomodate it without moving the bridge. How do I do that??

Here's a link to me playing a shortened Over the Hills and Far Away with both the magnetic and piezo on and a little bit of chorus: Nowhere Radio It's run from the guitar to my Marshall acoustic amp to my iMac. Lemme know what you think. @ signguy- Hell yeah, I've heard Timmy! I've never heard the VH1 Storytellers, but I own Live at Luther College which is just Dave and Tim doing acoustic stuff... it's awesome.

Wow, thanks. As far as the feel of the guitar goes, its very easy to play because the action is nice and low and the neck is pretty fast, but I feel like the short scale neck is a bit restricting because I'm so used to a regular scale neck... I needed a neck quickly and that one was available to me for cheap, but someday soon I'll build a full scale neck for it. Probably before I get out of high school so I can get more credit. Regarding sound, the piezo is great, especially through an acoustic amp or PA. It's very realistically acoustic-sounding. The humbucker is a little to bass-heavy when its clean, probably because its too close to the neck and the warmer, middle-section of the string scale. With distortion its good, but it gets a little muddy if you play too sloppy. If found that if I play clean with a bit of chorus on, the muddiness goes away and I get a much fuller sound. I'm gonna record something with it and post a link to the sound clip later tonight. Thanks again for the comments.

It looks funny in the picture... but its probably because my hair is huge and it makes the hat puff out. But that's ok cause I have a cool guitar!

silvertonessuckbutigotone- Yeah, I'm in the US, Maine specifically... I don't know if your school has independent or directed study programs, but I just talked to my school counselor and she set me up. However, I did need to pay for it ($400 worth of parts and wood) and find an "outside mentor" (my brother) who was able to watch me through the whole thing to make sure I didn't screw up too bad. I was basically given about a semester or so to do it and just presented it to the guy in charge of independent studies the other day. If you want to get credit, ask your school counselor or whoever you talk to to see if that kind of program is available. TeiscosRock- Cool, are you working with someone? It goes a lot smoother with a knowlegeble carpenter around to show you how to fix it when your router jumps and takes a chunk out of your instrument... that happened, by the way. Southpa- Thanks. The bending and playability in general is real easy, partially because of that longer string length you mentioned, partially because it was a good Fender neck that I used. Compared to my Gibson SG, for example... this thing plays like butter, though it doesnt sound as good. My only big regret is that it's so easy to play that you've got to be careful not to play too hard, so really your attack is limited to fairly light, which is fine for fingerpicking but annoying for flatpicking. Thanks for the comments, guys. -Dylan-

The bridge is that far back because otherwise it would be right over the inlay... which wouldn't have been horrible to cover a little of it up, but this way is different and unique. Here's the back... in some ways it actually has nicer grain than the top, but I like the wavy grain on the top and the semi-straight stuff on the back. This picture shows another couple of unconventional things... the pickup cavity is rear routed to keep more of the topwood showing, and it looks cool. Also, the electronics cavity is pretty big. The benefit of that is that the wiring was nice and spread out, nothing like trying to wire a Tele cavity.

Hi everyone, A while back I posted a few questions about wiring this guitar in the Electronics forum and its finally done... about a month and a half ago, actually. I just forgot to post the pics. A little background info: I'm a sophomore in high school, and I made this for an independent study... I got school credit for it! Seven months in the making, but totally worth it. Feedback is welcome. Specs: Body Wood: 2-piece Cherry w/Sapwood (Solid) "Rosette" Inlay Around Bridge: Wenge Neck Pickup: Gibson 490R Bridge Pickup: None Other Pickup: Fishman Powerbridge w/ Powerchip preamp Controls: Magnetic Volume, Piezo Volume, 3-Way (Mag/Both/Piezo) Switch Neck: Fender Duosonic 22.5" Scale (Tuned One Whole Step Up: F#,B,E,A,C#,F#) Neck + Fingerboard Wood: Maple Tuners: Gotoh Mini Schaller Style Nut Width: 1.625" EDIT: It needs a name... all I could think of is Cygnus, a cool constellation. Does that sound good? Suggestions?

Alright guys, I tested the continuity with the multitester today... no continuity between the strings and the common ground. That was the problem, so I just ran another standard common ground wire from the grounds in the cavity to the bridge, and it worked. I shouldn't have assumed that the shield from the piezo was the common ground. I don't think the pad it was soldered to on the bridge end was even attached to anything, but I couldn't really look under it to see. Ah, well. It was a simpler problem than I thought it was. Thanks for all your help! I'll post some pictures of the newly finished guitar (101 and a half hours in the making) in the In Progress and Finished Work when I get the chance. -Dylan-

Yeah, the thing still buzzes when it's just connected to the jack alone. I tried this current jack and another extra stereo jack, so it can't be the jack; it must be the bridge. A stereo or mono cord (I've tried a few) makes no difference. MUST be the bridge. I had a ski meet today that I forgot about so I didn't get a chance to get my hands on a multitester, but I will try tomorrow. It's hard when you don't have your license. -Dylan-

Haha, sorry. I'm not the best photoshop artist on short notice. No, the humbucker sounds great. Actually, it is almost silent as far as buzz and unwanted noise go, which was a surprise to me because it's a lot less noisey than my other electric guitar, a Gibson SG. I'm getting a multitester tomorrow. I'll post the information that I get with that tomorrow night and hopefully you'll all be able to help me interpret it, right? Thanks, Dylan

It came with all the wiring at the bridge factory done, such as the piezo saddles being summed to one hot wire and the ground/sheild being soldered a pad. I need to figure out what that pad is actually connected to, but I can't the chip off the underside of the bridge. How does that Schaller bridge sound? Could I have a link to the one you have? Mine came with a 1/4" stereo jack... which seems a lot more useful than that 1/8" jack, eh? -Dylan-

I guess this is a very hard problem to diagnose because the wiring isn't standard for a normal electric guitar. First of all, thanks very much for your immediate help. However, this wiring diagram is exactly how Fishman says to wire it in their manual: The volume pot (which does only adjust the mag), the way the switches are connected to the jack (which, though wired oddly, does give me signals), the Powerbridge being directly connected to the jack without a buffer, even the switch being spdt. I don't think I've done anything differenly from how they told me. If you're interested, the pdf manual is right here: Installation Guide Yeah, I'm using a stereo cable. One thing I just tried was, like you said, just connecting the Powerbridge to the jack alone, and I still have the problem. That means it's a problem with the bridge itself or the wiring of the piezos in the little chip underneath the bridge... I guess I can't go very much further without a multitester anyway. Thanks again, Dylan

Ok, here's the schematic... let me know if it doesn't make sense: Unfortunately, I don't have a multimeter... I've gotta go to Radioshack soon. EDIT: By the way, I only have one mag p/u and there is no volume pot for the powerbridge because I simplified the wiring to the most basic thing for testing purposes. Also, the humbucker works great. Thanks, Dylan

Yeah I can draw up a wiring schematic... it'll take a minute. The output is just one hot wire summed from all six saddles and a grounded shield around this hot wire. Supposedly, the shield is the common bridge ground as well, but I'm starting to think that may not be the case. Ill draw up that schematic. Thanks, Dylan

Hi everyone, I really, really need help. I'm 15 and I'm building a solid body electric guitar for school. I'm almost done, but I've been frustrated at this same place for about a week. My problem is this guitar has a Fishman Powerbridge that I can't get to sound right. The bridge piezos won't stop buzzing. When I am not touching the strings or other grounding metal, the buzz is rather loud, louder than a bad ground buzz, and no other sound is coming out of the guitar. When I touch the strings, the buzzing gets louder, like touching the tip of a guitar chord that's plugged in. Still no other sound though. When I touch the strings and the body of a volume pot in the wiring cavity (where all the grounds are tied to), the buzzing goes away slightly (still mostly present), and the actual sound of the strings can be heard how it should be, only still with a little bit of buzzing. I have had quite a bit of experience in guitar wiring in the past two years, but I've never encountered a problem like this. I just don't understand how or why this is happening. I've redone the wiring twice myself and had my brother (who has more guitar wiring experience than I) rewire it once. IT STILL BUZZES! ARG! What can I do? There are no liscenced guitar techs in the area and I have to have this guitar finished by the end of the semester, coming up soon. Please, have any of you ever heard of this problem or have any wisdom as to what I can do? Thanks so much, Dylan