Lucius Paisley

The guitar came back earlier this week, but not before I had a chance to decorate.

Before/After, clearly.

2 minutes ago, MiKro said:

Not sure why you would waste the time on that? It would be quicker to make a new body the correct way since you plan to make that many adjustments to the original body. Just remove the neck and reuse it on the new body.

Just my 0.02 cents.

MK

To prove a point.

How would it be quicker to make a new so-called "correct" body than to use the body I have AT THIS VERY MOMENT?

"that many adjustments" - all that's left is route a new cavity, drill holes for potentiometers and output, apply nut, swap over the electronics, restring then retune and intonate.

Five things.

Versus remove neck, source a new body, do some of those things I mentioned above, then go through all the bulls**t involved shaping the pocket of a left-handed body to fit a RIGHT-HANDED neck and glue that in place, fit bushings, route cavity for the pickup, and so on.

And that's "quicker"?

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

Why bother doing anything? Just get another black plastic cover, contrast and symmetry always look nice. Use magnets so you can open it with ease and store some plectrums in there.

I will most likely just leave it. It's not like anybody will see me with it.

2 hours ago, henrim said:

The nut shouldn’t be hard to remove. Personally I don’t usually use any glue but I guess many people use a drop or two to initially hold the nut in place. It should come off with lightly tapping with a mallet. Or rather a small piece of wood. If the nut was installed prior to painting/clear coating you better score around it with a x-acto knife to prevent damaging the finish.

The nut appears to have been glued right into place. I had to tap from the front to get it loose. The tiniest sliver off the top of the headstock came with it. The other nut, while cut to the same string distances, is slightly wider. I guess I can either have the guitar guy file it to the same size. Or I can check the size of another spare. It's a black Tusq nut, but if the string distances work out to be the same, we're back in business.

Let's jump right in. These are the changes I need to make to reverse this guitar entirely.

Why the tuners? I've already swapped the originals for locking tuners, for no real reason other than I just wanted to. I had them from a previous guitar (R.I.P) so YAY, money-saver. I also have a left-handed nut from the same previous guitar (R.I.P), but removing the current nut looks like a very delicate job, so I'll be leaving that in the capable hands of anybody else. It's not like I can put my foot through the neck joint and have it pop out like the last one.

The above two photos are the points of reference for routing locations and their relative positions to everything else. I could have just used dots, but I felt lines were more precise. I have no idea why. It makes me look like I know what I'm doing? Pfft. Sure. Think what you want.

And finally.

This is the simplest of all my "diagrams" and is basically, the end product. Which brings me to an important issue. That brown splotch. The cavity under the cover isn't that large, so leaving it as is doesn't seem like it would be a big deal. If I were to fill it, I'm guessing resin would be my best bet. Anyway, resin or not, plans have always included covering the damn thing with stickers - Tasteful, not glue-sniffer "HOLY S**T! THERE'S STILL SOME YELLOW SHOWING!" level - so most of the imperfections will be covered. ("It will still be left-handed." Shut up.)

So, there's that. I'll keep you posted.

7 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Polyurethane bubbles when heated and can stick back when cooling so the top layer at least acted like poly.

Thanks. That's what the guitar brand people also (eventually) told me.

It's also probably why the "gold top" isn't really gold, too many layers.

Maybe?

Finished the first step in paint removal tonight and I'm wondering if anybody could tell me what exactly it was I was dealing with here? I read polyurethane, which I don't think this was.

As I was applying heat, the top layers would bubble and if I removed the heat source would cool almost instantly. If I kept a lower temperature over those areas, I could happily scrape away.
 and finally...

I mean I guess it's moot now the lacquer(?) is completely off, but I'm sure I can put some other purchasers of this guitar's minds at ease knowing what I was dealing with.
My next step is to remove the remaining paint and reveal the natural finish underneath. It's a basswood top and hopefully the rest of it is as light as what has been already revealed.

Fingers crossed.

2 hours ago, ProjectGuitar.com said:

You're quite right! The oversight has been corrected

Now @Bizman62 is in with a chance! 

Not to speak out of turn, but shouldn't the Ovie and 8020 guitars get a separate voting choice?

36 minutes ago, curtisa said:

There was a thread over at the Gear Page forums a few weeks ago where a reasonably well-known purveyor of guitar electronic components was busted for selling premium quality paper-in-oil capacitors at $27 each, which turned out to be nothing more than a $1 film capacitor with a special heatshrink wrap applied.

Caveat emptor

Damn.

There goes that plan 

40 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

There's also those who claim that there's no real tonal difference between different types of caps... And I'm not talking about some contrarian youtuber hunting for views, this seems to be a common opinion among the electronically savvy luthiers and techs. Quality matters, there's no two words against it. But if the electric values are true to the originals, the materials used aren't audible until aging changes the properties.

I just rewatched a video I saw a month ago about differences between caps and as you said - values are true to the originals, aging changes the properties.
A good point made by the video was that the parts they put in guitars in the '50s were based on availability and not some "magic" quality.

So it's going to be orange drops for me because nobody is going to sell me their aged parts at a reasonable price.

49 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

"Aluminum Gibson End Pins" are most likely tonally of equal importance... Or the "Gold Top Hats with Sliver Inserts and Dial Pointers". That said, the lightweight aluminum stoptail might actually do something that other metals won't. Same with the bridge, the ABR-1 might act differently compared to other TOM variations.

As I said in the original post, I will definitely go for the cosmetic similarity - even if the parts I buy will be new and not aged, I could age them myself, but I can just let the passage of time do that.

35 minutes ago, henrim said:

I keep my eyes open to find a bagful of NOS caps from a drift store but there hasn’t been much luck.

If you ever find them, play safe and try not to wrap your guitar around a tree.

Thanks for talking me down, guys. 

1 hour ago, Bizman62 said:

How much difference is there actually? As I didn't know the story behind, I googled and found this: https://www.guitarworld.com/news/more-feeling-gibsons-tom-scholz-replica-les-paul-looks-sounds-and-feels

I went digging and found the following pages.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140126000548/http://www2.gibson.com/Products/Electric-Guitars/Les-Paul/Gibson-Custom/Collectors-Choice-10-Tom-Scholz-1968-Les-Paul/Specs.aspx
https://www.creamcitymusic.com/2013-gibson-custom-shop-collectors-choice-10-tom-scholz-1968-les-paul-electric-guitar-natural-finish/

The wiring calls for bumblebee caps (I think they're .022, but not 100%) and these look kind of pricey.

I'm hoping to take this guitar...

... and even if the removal of the paint doesn't quite have the same result, make it into this guitar. A copy of the Tom Scholz Les Paul.

While there are some similarities, as you can imagine the differences are quite a world apart. Cosmetically, I could go near enough = good enough. It's not going to sound at all like the same guitar, certainly not with a price difference of over $10K, so one would think purchasing the same (or at the very least, similar) electronic components would not be "worth it".

But I have an artist's pride and a stubborn streak a mile wide (I didn't intend for that to rhyme), which I'm sure is common among all of us here, so I guess what I'm looking for here is a push in some direction. It would already be unique as the only left-handed Scholz lookalike in existence... okay, I'm not that delusional, there are a LOT of guitar players, so somebody must have done something remotely similar before now... and in the world of guitar parts, cheaper components must have been created to emulate 50-year-old components, so maybe near enough is good enough after all.

Do I reach for authenticity, or do I settle for facsimile?

Thoughts? Opinions? Reprimands?

5 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

I had to check what stacked P90's are... Interesting!

Also had to check Guitar Wolf and to be honest that didn't sound too bad for a fifies rockabilly fan...

And I seem to like P90's, on my builds there's one with the soap bars and two with HB sized ones.

If you don't bother with brand names, stacked P90's can be found for a few tenners at Amazon or Ebay. Not too expensive to bring at least some of the original glory back!

One unsuppressed urge to say "screw it" and two snips of my beard scissors - I don't even have a beard, why do I own these? Because they work better than my damn wire cutters seems to be the answer to that question - later and the "extra" noise is gone.

There's still a little, but no more or less than your standard P90 hum, which is why we buy P90s to begin with.

And how great is the Orange Crush Mini? Guitar tuner and perfectly portable guitar "cabinet" in one. Perfect for testing my flights of fancy.
 

Good news, it's back.

Crisis averted, they managed to remove the screws using a small flathead screwdriver and a hammer - as in hammer the sharp end of the screwdriver into the screw until it gains purchase, not just chip away at the guitar hoping for the best, just to be clear.

Total price of the setup was around $150 including parts and strings.

I was charged $23. I am very happy about that.

Having now got to play it, I have to say it's quite an awesome instrument.

The above guitar arrived yesterday, a purchase of a guitar that had been returned due to neck pickup not working and sold at a large discount to me.
After it arrived, I tested it out, the neck pickup didn't work, but due to the stacked P90's the bridge pickup could go from normal P90 to humbucker tones thanks to a push/pull pot. After playing it for a little while I basically went to town on it, disconnecting tone pots, the neck volume pot, and the neck pickup.

I then made an attempt at creating a dummy coil from the neck pickup, long story short, that pickup will definitely never work again. The external wiring from which is now completely removed along with the poles and inner magnets. I then shoved the remains back into the cover and put it back in place - I think it looks good.

Now what I have found is this guitar is VERY noisy - big surprise, right? considering what I did to it - the humbucker tones / normal P90 switch still works, and as you can probably guess the normal P90 position is almost Guitar Wolf style noisy (look them up if you don't know Guitar Wolf, you'll hear immediately what I mean).

All the disconnected wiring is still inside the guitar, I haven't touched the wiring on the bridge pickup or bridge pot. When I switch to either the middle or top position, the guitar is completely silent, since there's nothing for those positions to connect to (Sorry. Obvious, I know). However, it is still connected to the neck volume push/pull, which I figured since that is not connected to anything, I should be fine. But I can't get it out of my head that it's not fine and that's precisely why I'm having the noise issue I'm having and I should disconnect that completely.

Am I (sorry for the novel, but I feel I should go through exactly what's been changed in order to discount the possibility of another unthought of problem) right?

Found a few things here concerning damage control when a screw breaks off, but not anything regarding the aftermath.

If dowel is employed as the remedy (i.e. remove wood around screw, fill with dowel, insert new unbroken screw), will this have any detrimental effect at all, even minor?

What's worse is this happened twice. Not by me, I had the local store do some work and this is part of the result.

Thankfully, I'm getting a substantial discount on the cost of the work.

23 minutes ago, henrim said:

I like the texture. Reminds me of some pieces of jewellery I did long ago. I used wallpaper paste and newspaper which I then ripped to random look. Actually coverer a guitar body with newspaper too. For a while until it got refinished with something else. Poor guitar has seen so many finishes over the years that I can't remember them all. 

Anyway, as you already have a jack what's the plan with output jack routing?

I had no idea how the finish was going to go once I started ripping the tape off. I guess after letting it sit wrapped up for four years, it just took care of itself. Thankfully rubbing over the entire body with a kitchen scourer didn't scratch the rest to shreds so I was left with some kind of "pattern".

I'll remove the plate, drill into the side of the body just large enough for wiring, then make a route for the output to sit under a new side plate. For which I'll either shop around, or I'll find something sitting around I can then hammer into shape.

Look at me now!
 

Yes, it's still on the simple side, but I like what's going on so far. 
Still to come; side output jack routing. That's going to be fun.

Anyway, hope everybody's well. Haven't been here for an eon.

Recently acquired an Ibanez Les Paul Custom which came with a Bigsby attached. I'm not all that familiar with this setup, so I'm just wondering if I'm "wasting" it being there if I have no plans to use it and if it'd be better to change it back to a standard hard tail, or keep it as an affectation to the guitar. I mean, it does look pretty cool.

The Bigsby is attached with a Vibramate so there's no cosmetic problems with removing it.

I guess another concern is if it is worth it to keep it otherwise "stock" or if there's any upgrade I should consider. I think it works and sounds fine as is, but I guess there's an age consideration despite how well it's been looked after.

All suggestions welcome and considered.

It was more for my own curiosity than anything else, because the wires to me look exactly how they should be. My only guess might be that somehow they've been joined under the solder and are causing some kind of parallel circuit thing.

I plan to take these out of the Samick Artist (right handed) and put it into a slightly older Samick Les Paul (left handed, which I am), I was hoping I wouldn't need to undo everything before doing that so it could be a clean swap, but I might as well redo the wiring while I'm thinking of it. Especially if they're "wrong" at the moment.

Thanks for the reply.

When checking the electronics for my Samick Artist, I noticed that the pots are configured in a way I'm pretty sure isn't right...

(As you look at the guitar)

Neck Volume / Bridge Tone
Bridge Volume / Neck Tone

I took a couple of pictures of the wiring...

I am wondering if anybody can tell from the images attached what may be responsible for my tone pots being the "wrong" way around.

I don't remember the last time I was here (checking my attachments didn't help), but a few guitars later (some sold, some stolen...) I figured I'd show what  I've done in the meantime...

Ibanez GIO GRX50 flipped with a left handed RX20 neck. The neck needed some light sanding in order to fit into the pocket, and I think it was due to its age, it needed some serious shimming in order to sit straight enough to put strings on. I must have taken the damn thing off fifteen times to get it right. However...

... that guitar soon gave way to this ES335 style guitar, which is now home for all the Ibanez electronics, along with the original toggle and kill switch.

And recently, I bought this...

... a somewhat low-end HSS configured strat, which in typical fashion wasn't quite what I was looking for in a left hander, so I improvised.

I had the tape laying around, so why not? But to do this properly, I had to take the whole thing apart. It took FOREVER.

I just finished wiring it all back up again tonight and I have to say it's pretty damn solid for a $169 guitar, I just don't know why the hell the people building these things wire the pots anticlockwise. Makes no sense at all.

So, that's me caught up.

3 hours ago, bileshake said:

I feel like the toughest part of learning guitar from scratch is the fret hand. I'm right handed and I had to train my left hand to do spectacular things. (haha) So a southpaw should catch on sooner from scratch give the same amount of exposure to the instrument no? Just a crazy idea I have.

Maybe. My right hand has no problem finding chords once I know them and the same is true for my left. However, my right hand is practically dead when it comes to picking or strumming. It's like when you pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time and if you don't concentrate eventually both hands will try to copy each other.

I guess I *could* concentrate in order to play right handed, but sometimes you've got to let yourself do what comes naturally in order to enjoy it. At least, that's how I feel.