Liquorice

1 hour ago, MTalbs90 said:

Photo of the body being glued together. My joint looked good to start but now I notice a small gap in the middle on the back. I need to plane off a good bit so hoping that will seal up. 

 

Could you flip over your body blank so you the gap would be hidden against your maple top?

Two stories I read on other forums some time ago had hand damage involved.

One was about accidentally dropping a powered on router, and in a flash of a second one thought came up in mind to save the router. While grabbing the router in mid air spinning bit dug in to his hand. There sure is potential for huge damage in this scenario.

Other was about belt sander. While sanding a piece of wood it caught the belt and flew away, and once again one thought came up. It was "save the wood" and while trying to grab the flying wood in mid air fingertip touched the belt. Saw a picture about that and it looked like soft parts were gone from that fingertip. Same thing happened to me also but it was only surface scratch.

Can´t be 100% sure about the stories but I guess the lesson to be learned here is the most important thing. In a flash of a second there is room for only one thought. Know beforehand that the idea in your mind is not to save the money. So if something ever happens let that precious wood or your new router tip bite the concrete, just let them go. You can always get more wood or new bits but not new fingers. Just make sure that the one idea you have for case of emergency is about protecting yourself.

5 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

What a great forum ProjectGuitar.com is.

And what great folks make up the membership.

Wow what an great story, thanks for sharing ! Nothing but my greatest respect to you guys all.

7 hours ago, Norris said:

The key is to shield the signal wires somehow, and that can be achieved two ways. Either shield the cavity with copper tape / graphite paint, or use shielded wires. Using shielded cables is more of a faff for wiring up, which is why most people shield the cavity. Cavity shielding can give more coverage, but I certainly wouldn't fret about the exposed ends of shielded cables. As long as you keep the shielding braid as long as practical*, and connect it to ground, it should keep the hum down

* i.e. leave as little exposed signal wire as possible

Ok thanks, maybe I´ll give both wires a go. Two guitars wired differently with different pots and I´ll then decide which one works better for me.

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

all rules are meant to be broken but if you were playing in bars a lot, or recording in a room with a computer... I think you'd find zero shielding would result in problems.  Humbuckers are generally shielded better... emgs are really defended well against noise - sort of a built in noise cancellation.  They don't require a ground to the strings... but I digress. 

Oh I see, No gigs on my schedule for now I have emgs on my guitar and have wondered about that shielding and lack of grounding, but it all seems to work great.

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

One solution: you could use fine wire mesh on the clear backplate.  I would think door screen would work pretty good.  If you grounded it you wouldn't need shielded wire other than on the pickups.  Obviously shield the rest of the cavity too.  sand some leds flat and glue em to the covers too???!???? eh???

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

You want to really kill it you could use liquid tape to cover all connections, then use shielding paint over the liquid tape.

Great idea, I´ll see what happens. I don´t want to overdo it either

On 1/21/2019 at 9:32 PM, Andyjr1515 said:

It's never any bother.  Probably @curtisa is a better one to comment, but in my view, you certainly shouldn't need 4 conductor wire. 

Personally, where I have a long cable run, I use screened wire (inner 'hot' wire, surrounded by a fine wire mesh that you then ground) but most of the time I use standard single wire.  I do line and ground the control chamber in sticky backed copper foil to minimise mains hum.

Anyone else?

These bodies won´t have long cables, mainly control cavity, pickups, jack cavity and trem grounding. Or atleast I think these won´t count as long ones?

On 1/22/2019 at 4:25 AM, mistermikev said:

not that yer asking me but... assuming you shield your cavity, I don't believe there is much benefit to additional shielding via shielded wire.  the exception to that would be on (for instance) a les paul where you are going to have some long runs through channels that inevitably can't be shielded.  In that case I actually have used 4 conductor as it covers live, each pickup, and a secondary ground that I would only connect on one end.  I have read a few arguments that suggest shielded wire should be avoided when not necc as it can bleed highs... but lets not go down that rabbit hole.

 now, the real hot toppic: stranded or solid core?  me, I'm a solid core man, always have been.  I hate stranded (unless you get up to bigger gauges, then solid core sux).

I´m asking anyone who reads this and is willing to share the time and knowledge, maybe @Andyjr1515   was also? Actually I was kinda dreaming to have clear covers on electronics cavities, so it wouldn´t be possible to completely shield that. Maybe there´s a good reason why most covers are not transparent . I thought that you don´t need to shield your cavities if you use shielded wires, saw some video about that. At this point I´m not interested in tone at all, as long as I have eq on amps and such I´m fine.

On 1/22/2019 at 5:39 AM, curtisa said:

Go single conductor unless you need shielded due to susceptibility to hum (long wire runs between different cavities, or from single coil pickups would be the only real ones to worry about). If your control cavity is screened/shielded and your wires are only being run within that cavity, just use single conductor - the addition of screened wiring inside the cavity serves no real purpose other than to make the wiring more difficult to execute cleanly.

Stranded wire is better for longevity in situations where vibration is a problem due to the inability of solid core wire to flex repeatedly without breaking, but unless you're in the habit of diving into the moshpit every 15 minutes at a gig while playing the guitar you're unlikely to encounter issues with solid vs stranded wiring.

Does it beat the purpose of shielded wire if you have ends exposed, where the solder joints are? Or is it adequate if you have majority of the wire covered? Even before any installing experience I was thinking how to actually use that wire succesfully, in a clean and easy way. What part of the interference does this shielding remove? Is it the constant humming/buzzing, or that and the contact humming when you touch pickups? Or is the contact humming a grounding issue?

After reading your comments I have no idea what to buy 

I know I promised not to bother you guys untill I get the project going again, but I´m in a pickle here. I have to order those pots and I´ll get various types of CTS or Alpha and not anything cheap, that´s settled. 

But if I have 4-conductor pickups do I need 4-conductor wire for anything or should I just order single conductor wire for everything connected in my circuit? Trying to make a list of things to order on the same package.

2 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Open type are best - and go for Switchcraft ones...they should outlive the guitar.  For passive pickups without a powered EQ then a mono jack is fine.  The barrel jacks are notoriously unreliable.  Again, Switchcraft are better than most but they will not last anywhere near as long as a standard Switchcraft open type. 

If anything needs a battery, then a stereo jack allows the power to only switch on when the jack is plugged in.

With my last build, the owner asked for a stereo plug (even though it's wired as mono) because he believes they are less likely to pull out.  I'm unconvinced it makes a big difference.

Switchcraft ones are VERY unlikely to 'open up'.  This is why they are better - it's proper spring steel on the contacts.

Nice, thanks alot. I have one guitar with tone control and one without it. I´ve noticed that I never use the tone knob, It´s always on full. Maybe I´ll just buy a bunch of everything and try those on, since it looks like that electric parts are pretty cheap compared to other guitar parts.

Then there is the whole art of soldering and what goes to where, but I´ll get back to that when I have that task at hand. 

Thank you both andy and curtisa, I really appreciate the time you have taken to answer my questions. Very informative and helpful. I tried to put your forum names as highlighted links, but something broke and couldn´t do anything to text after that. Had to close browser and relog for new reply.

Thickness on my bodies is around 44-45mm so I think there is plenty of room for electric components.

One thing I forgot to ask was about jacks for plugs, two types that I remember on top of my head (barrel and open type). I actually don´t even know what type my own guitars have. Never had a problem with those so never had to look under the hood.

• Witch ones to look for? I´ve understood that you can more easily tighten the open jack in case of loosened contact.
• What about stereo jacks? Active pickups like emgs might come with a stereo jack? In my own setup (guitar->pedal->amp) I don´t think I need stereo jack, but in what case would I or someone else need one?

No progress on guitars in recent two months sadly. First month was furious christmas gift crafting and second month family/rest/flu related.

But I have been wondering about guitar electronics, because I have zero experience on guitar electronics. Never had to do any modding or pickup switching, I´ve just played those things. Atleast I know what I would like to have and what I don´t need.

• I would like to have two humbuckers with coil splitting.

having two humbuckers with 5-way switch is not enough if you want combination of neck,bridge,both with and without coil splitting. So do I need a push/pull pot for this plan and a 3-way switch ? I don´t need the best components, but then again I don´t want to cheap out on this and redo my pots anytime soon.

Is there anything else to look for on electrics? I´ve understood that with short shaft pot you can still have about 1/4" inch material on the guitar between knob and pot? Because I need one for pickguarded guitar and one without. And the type of shaft also apparently matters if you wan´t to install premade knobs, but I was planning to make wooden knobs so maybe solid shaft is best for that ?

I´m such a noob :)

Finally got around to do some drilling, locking nut holes and tuner holes. Also I shaped the back a little but had to leave a flat part to shape the fretboard. If I shape the neck last after fretting I´m afraid that neck might twist or bend in some weird way, maybe I could shape the neck now and do fretwork with some kind of supports on the rounded side.

Like I said earlier I have to take one for the team and drill next to a wide trussrod head and see what the results would be, It turned out great. It sure did poke out the sides of trussrod cavity, but the holes are so small that you can´t see much light coming from the holes.

I´ll just leave some kind of volute on the back side so hopefully it won´t fail on me on the long run.

I made two step holes for the tuners, I hope they line up close enough. Hard to drill accurately with wobbly bits and such an off balanced object, flat strat neck would be a piece of cake.

3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Looking nice.  Threaded inserts are the way to go

3 hours ago, Mr Natural said:

looking good dude- keep it up

Thanks a lot. No inlays, radius or frets on the fretboards yet. And still no final shape of the headstocks but I don´t stress about that anymore. I´ll shape them with handtools so the end up being one of a kind anyways. I would like to shape those headstocks this week and drill holes for tuners, locking nut and tremolo posts. New pics then maybe

Finally these are remotely resembling guitars, I´m happy but there is still a lot of work ahead. 6 string on the left and 7 string on the right. Still no working pictures and I think unless something dramatically changes on my working environment there wont be either.

These necks have been bolted with larger bolts than usually so those inserts might look big. I also installed threaded inserts inside.

3 hours ago, mistermikev said:

i don't mean to derail but you can't just drop a pick like that and not expect a guy to be like "MORE PLEASE".  that looks really cool!  I hearby petition you to do a thread showing me more!

You can derail all you want, any input is welcomed warmly. And if you derail me I hope that all those tools and pieces of wood on the floors, kitchen table, livingroom and basically everywhere reminds me what I was doing

12 hours ago, ScottR said:

Oh, yours was not only called actual beetroot, but was actually made from beetroot? I did not realize that. Mine is Transtint dye and had gone through several stages of dying and sanding back to get to that stage. That's why it is darker. 

Yes it´s all natural vegan dye, looks really dark on the kettle but surprisingly light on the wood. I quess like all dyes and stains do. It´s hard to sand back so small objects, I need bigger or flatter test piece.

12 hours ago, ScottR said:

I remember mulberries staining like a bastard when I was a kid and prone to getting into mulberry chucking wars with my brothers. They might be a good source of color.

We don´t have mulberries here at least that I know of. Lots of blueberries though. On the long run I have no idea if these kind of organic colors fade more or quicker than factory stuff.

4 hours ago, ScottR said:

Down at the bottom of this page is one I did. (pg 5)

Oh yeah now I remember, I was surprised how light the color was on my piece. Yours seems a bit darker, mine was just the water from boiling some beetroots. Blueberries could be nice also? I might have actual guitar pics later this week

I call this color "actual beetroot", anyone tried something similar with other than kitchen table or counter top? I let this dry on top of my jar of color so it picked up some extra moisture hence the round blotch.

I have one general woodworking question puzzling me. This time of year is quite humid and I have blanks that have been in cold garage. If I make tenons on those pieces and join them together Will there be any problems when I bring them inside? They are in same humidity level and will shrink same amount in same time, but still it made me think will it crack or show gaps when in dry indoor air? Grain orientaition Will be parallel.

15 hours ago, curtisa said:

There isn't enough thread area to tap a thread into wood for a standard metal thread bolt. You might get the bolt in to the wood, but it will have no strength. In all likelihood the nut will pull out the first time you do a divebomb on the bar. You either need to use woodthread screws and attach from the front or use the bolts and secure the nut from behind, as Ibanez do.

I was planning to install it in a normal way, with washers and countersunk holes for the bolt heads. What I meant was to try to install those bolts in a tight hole because of the wide trussrod head cavity.

I made a bunch of spool clamps, hope they will do a decent job. As always I made also this the hard way, I think it would be strong enough with a 6mm bolt and one sheet of thin plywood. These are 8 mm bolts with a plywood and birch wood discs.

No string changes yet so no waxing on guitar parts.

I confirmed to myself that 7-string locking nut indeed has wider mounting hole spacing so there´s no problems at all with trussrod cavity. Has anyone tried to put threads in the wood itself ? Those mounting bolts are 4mm in diameter, what if I drill 3mm holes and use a thread cutting tool on the wood so the holes won´t poke out in trussrod cavity ? Is this idea doomed under any situation ?

10 hours ago, Guitar Goomba said:

I would go with a nano-ceramic coating instead of wax, it's harder, more durable, and lasts longer.  Here is a link to the Adams brand coating.  https://amzn.to/2Irw9MW

Nice looking product, would last for a life time considering it´s meant to cover cars. Too pricey for my tastes (wallet) though.

Has anyone used car wax on guitar parts, metal parts mainly ? To protect those nice golden parts from wear and swetty acid rain ? For example golden tuner buttons might show some wear particularly on edges and I think it looks horrible. Saddles and tremolo base plates can wear also particularly from the bass side. Ofcourse you´d have to use wax without any abrasive particles.

Next string change maybe I´ll give it a go.

1 hour ago, curtisa said:

Is there anything stopping you substituting regular woodthread screws and mounting from the top, rather than using threaded bolts mounted from the rear? Original Floyd Rose Nuts, for example, usually ship with both types of screws to allow for mounting in either fashion. 

I have gotoh parts, they come with either threads for the bolts and flat bottom or with countersink bottom for the wood screws and no threads. Those bolts would not interfere with the trussrod in anyway. Perhaps you could see those bolts if you look straight in to trussrod cavity, but they would not touch truss rod. I might have to take this one for the team and see what happens with bad decisions piling up. (Like I don´t already know)

There is also the possibility to put instead zero fret and regular nut on the locking nut shelf.

Had a busy summer but now I´m back patching mistakes.

On 1/19/2018 at 8:00 AM, Liquorice said:

Then I thought that if I trim my necks in final width with a router, how big is the risk to damage fretboards sides ? Are fretboards sides normally prone to chipping easily ? 

Tried both methods, gluead a preshaped fretboard on the neck and trimmed full width blanks. Both worked fine, no notable chipping. Still there are risks for both methods I quess.

I´m really bad at taking pictures and it get´s even worse while working. Here is one of my current mistakes. Oh boy have I made a lot of mistakes while building. Trussrod I chose has a 9mm head and it sits in a 10mm wide cavity. I checked from pictures that locking nut has mounting hole spacing of 14mm. So 14mm > 10mm all good right, but now I have realised that screw holes will narrow that space down to zero. In other words locking nut screws will poke out the truss rod cavity. My locking nuts have through neck mounting. Another thing is that I will propably need longer screws for mounting the locking nut because the trussrod cavity is 11 mm deep and those screws are poking out max 10mm.

So the question would be is it all good if I just make a volute on the neck and put longer screws in the neck ? I dont like thin necks luckily and there are carbon rods all the way the neck to give some support.

18 hours ago, CDH said:

Thanks for the comments. I see a little bit what you mean about the abalone. Though, I was happy how the inlay turned out on the ebony truss rod cap on the 7-string and the LP headstock. I guess the abalone needs a sharp contrast to work better.

Yeah inlay work looked great, only letters that are made out of abalone look a little busy.

18 hours ago, CDH said:

I actually saw a similar brass headpiece that another builder bought for his headless 7-string project. I tried to find one to buy, but had no luck. So, I had no choice but to fabricate my own. Much more rewarding in the end.

There are all kinds of "bell brass" and such, did you just get "brass" for your material ? I have always wondered that why there are no "bomb-proof" guitar parts, with decent material thickness and reinforced threads ? There is the weight side ofcourse, but then there is the durability.

Are your single bridgesystems those abm-3801 parts ? I recently have started to like how headless guitars look.