mistermikev

welp... some on rall guitars that are 500k but the forum logic is catching it- keep getting 'forbidden'. just do a google search for "flat potentiometer" or "thumbwheel potentiometer". I actually have a couple at home, not even sure why I bought them. you could simply cut a nice 5 way switch opening in a guitar and mount this on an l bracket or something. that'd be pretty hidden. doh, wasn't logged in... here we are:

I don't know if any plating is better than any other... other than gold tends to tarnish easier than anything else. afa classical tuners... they generally have a different mechanism ie require slots with holes for the turning shaft... so prob not going to work w/o modification and are generally not as good. i'd look at gotoh, wilkinson, hipshot, grover, tone pros, kluson... sperzel actually is a different (dull) finish that fairs very well against time but not quite as attractive imo.

denatured alcohol (aka lighter fluid), mineral spirits... and if that don't do it acetone will.

you can certainly wire straight to the jack... and in fact it will have a small benefit to your full vol. but I'd suggest you at least add a kill switch... because on stage you do not want to unplug your guitar at stage volume. even if you don't care about your amp... you are likely mic'd by the house and I bet they will not appreciate the sound of you unplugging at full volume going through the house setup. you could have one of those planet waves disconnect cables and that will accomplish the sm. if this was the task for me... I'd probably try and get more creative about it. Honestly a volume control is a useful item to have so I'd wire one up and hide it. page had some cool flat potentiometers under his lp pickguard on a guitar... that's a idea. or you can just have them hidden in back. 2 cents

welcome back. purpleheart all the way!

thank you sir, that means a lot. looking fwd to my fav part today... putting on some color. thank you for taking the time!

thanks komodo. I needed that today!

It appears you have made it through the storms and the sun is coming out. nicely done.

welp... you can use a piezo with no preamp but IMO it'll sound a lot better with one. also low impedance so depending on what you send it too, may sound like dog poo. On top of that, for me, it's going to be combined with magnetics so mixing it without any pre is going to suck tone from the mags.

OK so lets actually troubleshoot. I assume you have a multimeter. so... take the black lead and clip it to the black lead on the neck pickup. take the red lead and clip it to white. set your multimeter to ohms/resistance. you should read somewhere in the 8-10k range (not sure on these pickups but should be in there somewhere. assuming that goes well... clip black to ground lug of output jack. red lead to the red wire for neck pickup. change multimeter to voltage reading. are you reading 8-9.5v? then repeat for bridge. this will tell us if we have working pickups and if they are getting juice from the battery. if you aren't sure of how to get votage/resistance on your multimeter post a pic or tell the brand/model. cheers

yes dr freud... it says 'aftermarriage'. some nice stuff there. I like the inlay pattern.

welp... I did say "cheap chinese" not necc all chinese. some chinese stuff is great. i digress. I'm comfy building something like that from scratch and I enjoy it... but the focus of my thread is less about finding something to use and more about what is going to work well in the context of a thinline style build without spending $500 on ghost saddles given I'll probably use it every now and then.

was thinking you were going to say something really light. once you've ruled out all the things that make sense... just have to start trying things that don't make sense!

terribly interesting read. I know nothing but my first instinct (they might be stinky intincts) was that the guitar just really resonates to the freq range encompassed by the lower strings. what if you put tape all over the body to dampen it or clamp another piece of wood to it? just a shot in the dark. what type of wood is the body just out of curiosity? is it light? (I know you mentioned neck but didn't see body so sorry if you did mention) perhaps you've created some tesla freq summing death ray guitar! (I'm copy-writing that name!)

I like your mockup and your moxy. have oft thought of using epoxy for inlay... and adding luminescence to it, but for me (no cnc) it's really hard to get an inlay hole cut with precision... so I have oft thought of just making a backing sheet full of epoxy inlay blank material... or perhaps adding some cookie cutter shapes... but I digress. have not done it... but I know there is all types of powder you can add to epoxy to make lovely colors and if you can cut the inlay shapes well... the rest is easy. Have sanded epoxy and it's a hair harder than reg wood so would just be some more wear on your bits. afa tone bypass... could be easily done. you could just run the wire that goes to to the cap from the middle lug on a tone pot (see second drawing below) to your switch... then have the switch choose one or the other caps going back to ground on the pot (just one way). lots of other things you could do there like have one side be a tone bypass, or have one side be a bass cut, etc. you could accomplish this right on the pot with a push pull too... but with switches you could use an on/on/on or even on/off/on and get three possibilities. guitar wiring is pretty straight fwd once you learn some basics... but certainly different than the typical electrician is going to encounter. I would suggest you check out a good book to get you a better grounding (pun hehe). like craig andertons elec proj for musicians. think you can find it free online. once you get your footing I'm sure you'll be schooling us all. this is a good book... great read: https://www.paia.com/proddetail.asp?prod=PFG also free one from anderton: https://msu.edu/~dougl126/Electronic Projects for Musicians.pdf

I have the schem for a 1970s ovation preamp that I will likely etch/build using metal film resistors and quality electrolytics.. I have used/tested cheap chinese stuff like that before and what you are going to get is a whole lotta noise. plus the issue of two gargantuan boxes... just doesn't appeal to me but I appreciate the suggestion. the issue with piezo disks is that they have a very small proximity. I've got a lot of experience using them to build electronic drum kits and my intuition says that on a thinline style build... there probably is going to be issues getting sufficient level. That means building a booster and boosting levels... but that adds noise and soon you are looking at adding filters. Perhaps if I put them right under the bridge... but then this is going to sound very treble strong. going to have to try some experiments. perhaps a combo of piezo ribbon/rope/disks and a condenser mic capsule... but then the electronics are getting more complicated and that's ok... but it will soak batteries fast and that's not ok.

thank you sir!

So... back b4 finishing the broadchaser I had realized I bought a 24.75sl fretboard instead of a 25.5 (for the tuxedo). well I got this far on it before I realized... did a gold mop logo for the les flawes and white mop for the tuxedo... test mounting my neck for the les flawes Just a hair of a gap at the outter edge of the corners on the back edges here - the side joints are solid right up to the last 3/16 and I think I'm going to be removing most of that with rounding up that area... so pretty satisfied with the join. 571.88 kB · 0 downloads made a fun video about the neck join... mock up w the fretboard did you spot it yet? (below)

hehe, lots of folks uisng UV to get lighter areas on under pickguards on strats and stuff for relics... working hard for that!

I'm a big fan of Gotoh. Everything I have used of theirs just feels solid and performs well. I like that they are so innovative and enjoy supporting them knowing that... auto locking vintage tuners, wheel lock vintage tuners, side adjust truss rods, height adjusting tuners, locking tremolo studs... the list goes on and on. also, meant to say... I vote to leave the finish on that as is. IMO it's got a cool vibe going there... something you can't walk in and buy. If you do anything... fill with clear epoxy or ca. Other than that... I'd try to maintain that vibe as much as possible. cheers

hard to tell from any of those pics if it is plywood or not... you'd have look close at a sideview of the routes. looks like orig tuners were those inexpensive fender type with the cap that has offset screws on either side... going to be tough to match those but you might look at 3x3 gotoh traditional as they may cover the holes (or not).

the official term is "smoker's tooth yellow" wow, what a blast from the past. hondo generally was plywood... and bolt neck... which makes me think this might be really early for them and it looks like solid wood? pretty cool. looks like a cut above typical hondo. afa trem/tuners... looks like std strat but hard to say for sure on hole alignment. sm w tuners. gotoh has really good spec sheets and you might just be able to scale one up, print it out, and see if it aligns with the holes for bridge and/or tuners. If you can open in gimp or photoshop... then measure the lines that are on the spec sheet (ie it might say 74mm and you scale up till the measurement = 74mm). then print and overlay it on the holes.

well not sure how those translate to color, but that does seem to match up with what is happening on the switch. push pull engages voice 2, left side bottom selector is engaging SCO/NCO in pos 2, right side bottom is engaging single coil mode in pos 2 and 4.

yes, I don't know what the 3 right side wires on each fluence are... I would assume perhaps it's a live, a neg and a series connection between the two coils? if so... in pos 2 they are being connected together ie a single coild from one goes into a single coil from the other... and y ou are only grounding your variable resistors in pos 3 (could just run them straight to ground as they can be grounded when not in use) seems legit. again, if you have documentation of what the fluence wires are... that'd help but it looks like everything is in order.

looking at that again... apparently the commons are rev on the other side. so... x and r which are connected. so... that part looks right.