mistermikev

don't want to quote the backstreet boys but that thing is going to be "wicked awesoooooome".

well... either way you might as well preserve the epiphones. later on, if you decide to sell this guitar you can always load em up, or you can hang on to them for when you come across a guitar w/o pickups, or use them for dummy coils... be a shame to waste them.

looks cool. I would assume you'd want to use these pickups again so you snip them at the controls. It is very hard to put new wires on pickups. so take a pic with your camera first and then snip them - you may have to add wire to them when you put them back depeding on your length.

I know almost nothing so transfering that info to you is going to be easy/fast... clearly that's an active preamp. I can't imagine a passive setup that would take up that much space. also, I'm not sure you would need to epoxy a passive circuit. So with that in mind... looks like the one attached to the jack is your volume(left most in pic). looks like you have two stubs there from former pickups... so that's where the pickups go... looks like a superswitch and it's hard to tell (without a lot of work) what's going on but it is a 5-way so likely some splitting action. the preamp you could figure out what the 3 eq pots are doing by hooking it up and testing... so the only question to answer is where is the 9v in. my guess is it's red... is there a red wire going into the pre block that is left unconnected. Perhaps some more detailed pics and we could zero in on it.

If I'm not mistaken the black ice was just a couple led clippers no? not 100% sure, it may be a transistor or ic w a feedback loop and clippers. either way... the clipping is going to be inside that black box. I think it's epoxy... and the clippers are probably the most likely place to get some variation. assuming you could get to them you could wire in other clippers and swap between. If it IS ic or tranny based you could probably find a gain setting resistor and swap in/out dif resistance. I don't think there would be anything you could do with just the hookup leads.... wiring in a resistor to the in would just lower your overall signal (like a vol). It's a passive device as I recall so you can't limit the power being supplied to it. just some thoughts. honestly... if you are handy with an iron... you could find a layout for an lbp1 online and wire that up in there... would be a lot more fun imo and you could mod it to death.

also in recent news... I literally blew up my computer last night. have had this issue where it didn't like one of the usb devices (wasn't sure which). It wouldn't restart until the device was unplugged. well, I was trying to restart so unplugged the usb device and 'ZAP' and little smoke and no power. Followed the usb cable back to origin - a usb hub I was using to consolidate printers. so last night I ordered a new 750w power supply... hopefully we just blew some over-current protection resistor/diode in the power supply... and not the $350 motherboard (or processor or anything else)! will find out tonight when I get the new power supply... fingers crossed... find out on the next episode of "days of mike v's life"

When I drill these I always use a graduated bit, it results in a much tighter grip in the middle of the neck and almost no grip at the body. You really don't want the same size drill bit for the next side as the body side, because it can prevent the two from coupling well. You want the whole for the body side, about the same size as the threads. When you screw these together the neck will suck the body to it.

Will only you know your skill level and where you want to start. I would say as far as tools the only thing you really need is a router and a jigsaw. As far as Chinese kits probably not a bad place to learn, but I'd try a bolt-on before I'd go for a set neck.

so... I needed another 10spc studio rack... so figured I might as well build one. I had two pieces of walnut but opted for the one with a big hole in it... because it had pretty grain. The grain matches going around the thing... kind of hard to see but... I see it. Working on a second one now. Anywho... would love to hear your impressions of it. What did I do right? what did I do wrong? also..... BARK AT THE TOAST! tuff crowd... nobody likes "bark at the toast"? so I guess better cancel my plans on a series.

extra points for having so many... extra... well... points. v nice work as always. that top/finish (2nd pic) is like looking at a stream rolling over rocks. so much depth there. you picked a sweet piece of wood. also, looks like the guitar is going to have incredible upper fret access. thanks for sharing.

sounds like a good solution. I was thinking that on my next white or cream build I'll buy a throw away garment bag and rig up the guitar inside that. for the blonde, I used a large plastic bin and it worked fairly well. Afterwards (with just one guitar) the inside was caked with nitro and I really don't want that hanging round my house. I was doing this all outside and when the wind would pick up - just couldn't spray. we have a lot of sand in the air here.

fancy white is a standout for me. Have new found respect for that color as it's easy to collect all sorts of debri in the finish.

this is a topic i have stuggled w quite a bit... (pardon the pun) and have respect for those who cut them out manually. lot of work. I hope to have more success on this in the near future using a pattern and 1/8" shank w 1/16" router bit. was a fun watch. nice work.

I hear ya... and that is an interesting point. I think you are saying I should tie a knot in the middle ofmy guitar. (hehe)

ah... I see what you mean. more neck in general would equate to more rigidity. I could see that. you do know they've discovered the element tonearium? it's present in all early 80's lotus guitars. hehe.

not necc scoffing as who the heck knows and I'm guessing most builders have more experience than me so I'll assume I know nothing. I think in that article he was saying that the heel end of the neck joint should actually touch the body... and that would be the source of tone transfer. wait, what? I could see making the point that more contact would increase the coupling, but why specifically would neck end grain contact improve anything? Perhaps he just meant a continuous piece would increase tone transfer. So now I would think it'd be better to cut a 45degree angle on the butt end and really couple them? I find it hard to believe but I would honestly love to know. prs: why in the world would an exposed neck heel increase tone? my mouth, which is connected to my neck, often has an exposed foot... which is connected (in theory) to a heel... ok, yeah I can see that now.

I sense a massive derail in the force. new term I'm adding to my dictionary... butttone. @ScottR's guitar is going to have butttone in spades. (do you think my butttone sounds fat?)

trying to thing of the most random thing I could say... I got nothing. some interesting reading in that mcnaught piece. I wonder how the butt of the neck would transfer tone.

wow, I really like that offset in your f hole. that's gonna look sweet.

well... I HOPE I've covered the "what does it do" in my demo... but def some stuff to dig into there. I'll have to think on that some more... it would be pretty cool to see a time lapse of wiring start to finish. I guess the problem for me is my incredibly short attention span! I bore the hell out of me! sorry for the derail AD. Back to your awesomeness.

honestly... the dog would make a great intro for a series. afa quality -well yer doin' something right! I hear ya on the wife... mine doesn't have much of an appreciate for that either! will have to do up a video when it gets cooler... right now it's reg 120degrees in my garage and I need to get in/out as fast as possible! afa wiring... what would you want to see if I did that? I dunno, I guess from my perspective everything is there in the wiring diagram. after that it's just "paint by numbers". I'd love to show some of that but just am not sure what would be of interest to others. anywho, this is about you not me. nice work on the video... you are def getting better at it - cudos.

that clip of the dog at the front is a really nice touch. are you doing that on every video? not sure if I missed it but def noticed it this time. it's fun to see how differently we all approach things. one the ONE angled headstock I've done... I opted to make the overlay but into the nut so that it would hold it in tight. I hate how gibson nuts are only held on one side. that said... doing it that way had it's own list of challenges. Think I'm seeing an overall improvement in video quality, did you do something there? Think I might try to do a couple videos on my next build (you're inspirational) mostly because I think it would be interesting to ask folks to point out things I do that might be dangerous! Might learn something watching myself. anywho, nice work.

tru dat mike T... tru dat. she is a beauty for sure.

I agree that that is an awesome design. I love it. all the benefits of a neck thru with a nice twist in that it doesn't show a laminated surface. Storing that away under 'great ideas'. I like your voodoo. for the sake of argument... if it goes 2.9999999 inches past where yours stops... still a set neck? hehe. I think it might be a "set neck thru". breaking down barriers with your wood work... cudos.

looking awesome. I'm left wondering... at what point does a neck stop being a set neck and start being a neck thru?