mistermikev

I know it sold... but honestly I've seen so many of these ovations like this... I think it's fair to say it's a design flaw and that it would require an entire bridge replacement to truly fix it... and possibly some surgery to alter it to the post/peg style to prevent in the future. that area should at least have been reinforced with metal inserts or something. I had an ovation that did this from brand new in about 6 months back in the 90s. I worked at a music shop back then and I couldn't even count the number that came in with this exact issue. They were also prone to pull the entire bridge up there instead of splitting the thing... the pressure just isn't distributed well. anywho, you probably dodged a bullet in terms of the amount of work/headache potential!

found a little birthmark... but eh, adds character! I think my string holes are going to take out a good amount of it but we'll see. All things considered I think I'm coming out pretty decent for a "first cnc build"... lots to learn yet and lots of thanks for all the "leg ups" I've been given around here - special thanks to @curtisa and @MiKro couldn't have made it this far without your generosity and patience! anticipating a little bit of potential to split that little nipple I made for the bridge on the left there when I sink the studs into it... there is such a differential in the top there that I didn't want a big chunk of stud/screw sticking up so... taking a chance. If anyone as ideas on how to avoid an issue there I'm all ears.

the second option here - I like that. would be a bit of micro surgery but that would satisfy all my conditions. thank you for the suggestion. all the spans are pretty close... between 1 and 2 inches apart. Keeping the the unshielded runs as short as possible is def key. def not looking fwd to the pull through as it is always a pita. thanks again for the suggestion.

so... this is a (gulp) rewire of a 339. previous adventures have made me keenly aware of the need for shielding of these wires. dragging said wire through a 339 cavity is going to become very difficult if you tried to use all 2/4 conductor to keep it shielded. really, it'd be a much better plan to use a 4p4t as it would not only give better options, but it would keep all the pickup wires in one spot... sadly 4p4t are very hard to come buy in the size that will fit through an f hole. I have one alpha one left... and for now I'm hanging on to it as the source dried up. So we are getting the most we can out of a 2p4t... and this is going to make shielding the wires complicated. one strategy... is to use 2 conductor for two sets of bridge wires... this works out ok. one two conductor wire will take care of the neck-most wire set for the neck bucker. then it becomes next to impossible to make pairs and using single conductor shielded wire will make this harness into a gorilla. (I know what you are thinking... it IS a gorilla already - fair enough). so... I could rip the shield from some push back wire... and pass perhaps 4 wires through it... not a great option. What I'd really like is something I can wrap around groups of wire after it's wired up (as opposed to passing through). So... could take copper foil and wrap it... then ground the foil at one side... not going to be very flexible after wrapped. Just wondering... any interesting/creative ideas for shielding the wires and remaining felxible?

thank you sir. ran the back side yesterday... and we had another little controller hiccup... but not too bad. def going to build a new controller stat.

well thank you... I'm chalking it up as a win then!! I imagine that if I add any dye to this top it's going to make it much more obvious. that said... in order to hide my burn through on the top... think in the end I'm going to try ebonizing this. should be fun either way!!

i could see it going a lot of dif directions... chess piece inlays, makaray chess board top, rope binding, horseshoe burn in... horseshoe inlays sounds cool. looking fwd to it.

hehe, well.... yeeeaaaah, hhhright... that is true the oak is joined at center. the big reveal... the stock after the at the top there gives it away pretty good here... but also the little corner is not quite hidden... w photoshop line... after cutting the pocket...

all right folks - it's time to play "where's the splice" again. I believe last time bizman found it first... so the gauntlet has been dropped. if you've followed me at all you might know I had some issues with a bad drive board and as a result my neck pocket was cut a hair 'off'. In the process I technically screwed up both sides - the right side of it (as pictured below) wasn't deep enough to be permanent, but the left side... well I spliced in a piece... see if you can spot it here and I'll post a bigger pic where it makes it obvious sometime tomorrow. I know you guys have great eyes for this so if it takes you any amount of time I'm gonna call it a success. The one spot where you can really tell is the corner - but I spent so much time getting the edge right I didn't want to screw it up by redoing the corner so... with no further delay - splice on the left - can you spot it?

love the idea... hopefully you continue the horse or chess motif through the rest of the guitar. "all right, all right, all right"

looking fwd to it. that guitar has styling that kind of remind me of a guitar I was always kind of fond of - the old westone

what is gitarrebassbau ?

wow, that wood combo with the thick veneer... ooh la laaa!

lovely

well... see that's yer prob right there... it isn't certified TONE NOISE!! hehe haha hoho! wouldn't running your rig on a battery backup isolate you from the house ground issues? I've never tried this because I've got a pretty good handle on clean power at my house but I've read about it and often wondered how well it works.

right... yeah actives or even passives with a preamp don't sound anything like the original passives imo. I always put in a tb push/pull for that reason. esp if you are going to a germanium fuzz or wah pedal - you loose that slight loading effect on the pickups that is half the reason to use either. that said... active preamps/pickups certainly have their place - esp for slapp-a-da-bass or drive-a-the-jcm800. u r right about it ruining a paf... or from another perspective changing it to something totally dif. I suspect the dif in magnets would def be drowned out by any active circuit. further - differential - I have this theory that what most of us really like about the single coils IS the noise. at least it's there entwined in the noise. it's like the noise from vinyl somehow makes a recording better. just watched an srv video in the studio and sounded amazing... when he stopped playing I literally could not believe how much noise was there! long story long: me + noise = srv

for the record "welp" is my thing... I've copyrighted it... so you owe me. also, you can't call it a complete guitar until you do a video of you playing it (I don't make the rules... I just ignore them). welcome to the club of club makers (in the shape of guitars).

well if I HAD to answer this at face value... I think it would depend on how you are doing it and what you are doing. mahog seems to me to be the easiest to work so that'd get my vote... ash seems to be the most difficult (if we're talking about hand carving). Ultimately I think you probably learn more by stumbling anyway so I wouldn't let that dictate my choice.

hehe, I like how he sets out sounding like he'll disprove it but then says "yep, they were pretty much right" hehe. so... your a2 pickups would be single coils each... then into a differential preamp... similar to what emg does... but they ruin the idea with super low wind coils. I have often thought about getting some lower wound coils and building the emg pre on a sep board... I bet it would sound pretty good with some filtertrons... but it'd be nice to be able to turn it off for just passive once in a while. anywho, sorry for the derail!

you'll have to let us know how it goes... but I'm a nut for A2. I've replaced mags on some p90s... and a few humbuckers and I've really loved it every time... not so much with a5/a8. you might find this (not authorative) interesting... https://bedlamguitars.wordpress.com/technical-info/pickup-magnet-swapping/

right on, for me... it is really hard to beat seymour because they have done the research and generally have zeroed in on right dcr/freq response/wire/magnet combos in most cases, and do a good job (for the most part) of potting w/o overdoing it. I feel like I can reliably anticipate what I'll get. On the other hand I've been really blown away by some relatively inexpensive and decent pickups. I still believe the 'greatest pickups ever' can still sound bad in the wrong context, but you just have to go with your gut. my motto has become "if you think it sounds amazing don't touch it... but if it sounds ok experimentation will almost always improve"! recently read a thread dedicated to disproving that magnets matter... and the conclusion was: magnets matter. starting out to disprove but finding your conclusion wrong adds a lot of credibility for me! While I think you can't just blindly swap mags... I think you can def improve the sound of 'that pickup' in 'that guitar' with a little experimentation. def keep us posted on how your swaps go!! pedals... I miss, but also loath that insanity! love me some fuzz... specially those russian ge transistors! they are the 'franks red hot' of transistors!!

lots of room for improvement, but I cut the carve on my prototype body today... the finish pass for some reason went 1/4" deeper than I expected despite not changing my z... so will have to revisit the design on that. The edges are going to need some massage in a few areas... will have to make my cut areas bigger in my design to fix that. Learned a lot... can probably still turn this into something nice with a little work and glad I didn't learn all that on my purpleheart!!

well now... do tell... gear upgrades sounds nice! sorry to hear of health/family/work issues... I've been blessed with pretty steady work and family... but health is more and more a big part of my life. I guess they call this getting old. Gotta really capitalize when I get a string of good days, but then gotta remember to slow down and not do anything stupid!

just saw yer pick up on the home page so... congratulations!

I see a lot of guys using their machine to make a new machine... apparently the spindle I have is capable of doing aluminum and other light metals. I imagine eventually I'm going to have to learn more about replacing/upgrading the mechanical structure so... if you do and upgrade and are so inclined... would love to see pics.