mistermikev

1 minute ago, JGTay said:

Congrats on GOTM. Very nice build.

thank you sir!  very much appreciate the support!

27 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Congrats for the GOTM, and I see another serious competitor coming up nicely!

thank you Biz.  Yes, lot of potential in the opposition build.  Its def an honor for me.

I don't use a big wheel, but use dremel and polish wheels when polishing my frets and I'll confirm what biz said - he's spot on.  I use macguiars and when buffing the body it all is fine and white but polishing the frets I have it all taped off because that compound turns grey and gets in every nook and cranny.  Once you get it on the fretboard and under the frets it is almost impossible to get off altho a damp rag will remove most of it.  

it's good to have goals right?!  with that in mind I think a lot about my own build bucket list... helps me see in the short term what is important in the long term.  Basically a list of things I haven't done that I'd ultimately like to achieve.  Would love to see your list!

build bucket list:

1. study the masters: I've built a dano, tele, strat, p-bass... but in my mind there are a number of instruments that represent the "storyline" of building over the last 70 years (or more) and I want to learn by building them as close as possible to the original with some obvious deviations of my own.  for example... I really want to build a 59 burst.  other milestones -rick 4001, spector ns2, gibson les paul custom, gibson sg, gibson 335, flying v, explorer, gretsch white falcon or country gentleman, ibanez jem, alvarez scoop, guild jumbo, headless
2. build a semi hollow bass
3. build a 'one piece' neck with skunk stripe on back
4. build a guitar using a compression style truss rod
5. build a neck thru guitar
6. build a 335 center block style hollow body
7. build a "no center block" ie "true" hollow body
8. build an acoustic
9. build an entire guitar out of one piece of wood
10. build as much of the guitar as possible: diy tuning machines, frets and pots aren't practical... but I could see myself build my own truss rod, I could build my own bridge, pickups, pickguard/pickup-rings, knobs, nut, 

electronics bucket list:

- build my own pickups

other:

- build my own guitar stand

2 hours ago, avengers63 said:

https://www.richlite.com/fretboards

https://www.richlite.com/partialsheets

 

wow, they are offering all sorts of variety for sheets.  cool beans.

2 hours ago, JGTay said:

Thanks Mike. Had aimed for around the 6.5 lbs mark at the start, so the final weigh in surprised me.

I'm sure your back is thankful!!

wow, somehow missed this thread but has a look of cool going on.  where does one even buy richlite for tops?  I've seen the cool fretboard carves on them with the crazy patterns... def on my todo list... would be cool to do a 5/8 carved top out of it.  

anywho, headless looks great.  s/b a killer look with all that flat black.

nice job.  very light - that's never easy for me.  love the pickup cover and overall style.

Damn... look at you son... built your own cnc and making cool stuffs right off the bat.  Impressive.  Looking fwd to you breaking a champaign bottle over your first cnc build!!  "you go boy"

5 hours ago, Asdrael said:

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply. Judging from the small "entry stains" on the end grain, it's extremely likely that this tree had at some point during its growth a bit of a change in its water composition supply.

I am actually going to call it a birthmark. My first born has a small one, so it's only fitting my first build has one (now let's hope it won't end up as firewood... yes I'm talking about the guitar). Hey, the guitar will be called birthmark. Thanks for the idea

as mentioned, mineral stains.  nothing going to take that out other than possibly creative carving.  I would cut a template out of paper and draw your guitar on both sides and see what it will actually look like and how you can minimize it. 

Better yet, go buy a cool tamo ash veneer from b and b... 2 * $11.  You won't even see the transition on the sides if you blend them right and it will look amazing.

https://www.dyed-veneer.com/product-p/7424g.htm

On 3/16/2023 at 10:56 AM, woodfab said:

Brazilian Rosewood fingerboard all-heart VG $99 ea.

Honduran Mahogany,  1-Piece body blank and neck $180

I guess it's that the last time I bought wood for guitars was 45 years ago.

I paid about $39 for all three pieces.

 

where was that brazilian?  that's actually fairly reasonable for brazilian.

mahog... I am certain you can find stuff locally a lot cheaper than that assuming you can work it from rough.  I know my local spot sells genuine mahog, and their price for 8/4 kayha is only $8/bd ft.  

all this said... yes prices have gone out the roof in the last year.  

from allenguitar, you can get an indian rosewood fretboard for $17, but you can get a radius'd and slotted one for about $25.  their stuff is top notch and they haven't raised their price.

On 3/26/2023 at 5:19 AM, Charlie H 72 said:

Now for question 1

I started in on mine yesterday - The sapele was free (thanks to my own mistake at work ) and I’m not into the ribbon figure. How would you go about finishing it to reduce the figure as much as possible? I still want a clear finish. Maybe stewmac’s mahogany tinted lacquer? Or a dark amber lacquer? Or should I just go and buy a different species of mahogany? 

if you want to reduce the grain... one thing you might try is a grainfiller that is as close a match to the wood color as possible.  You say you want a clear finish... but you might consider mohawk color tone.  It's typically an opaque finish.  You'll def still see the grain but it will mute it a lot - think "mary k finish".  The more layers you do with it the more muted the grain becomes, so you could essentially just start spraying and decide where you want to stop.  It comes in cans and sprays very easy.  It IS nitro so you will want to do it outside (fire hazzard) and use a respirator (toxic).  They have hundreds of colors, you could def find something close to what gibson would have used on their 'tv yellow' finishes as those are just nitro lacquer with some opaque white and yellow mixed in... or you can look for a darker mahog match for the mahog.  just a thought.  

https://www.mohawkproducts.com/MohawkTone-Finish-Toner-Trend-Colors-p/m115.htm?psafe_param=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwoIqhBhAGEiwArXT7K2etgHN7onQvMVTjBa90RQrJgk3lwWABAa_eqHsycX7b6mx4t8WfeBoCaZMQAvD_BwE

tele below was their butterscoth over ash (relic'd after)

and the strat here was their 'frost' which is very similar to mary k... over flamed maple.  I put it on fairly thick and had used a dark brown dye and sand back on the flame.

4 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Peanut, kidney, whatever...

Now that you mentioned it, I figure I've rarely done a square cover. The exceptions are a square for the Strat spring cavity and a diamond for the LP type. Actually the latter tells the philosophy: The design of cavities is based on potentiometres which are round. Thus it's all about round holes with the stuff in between removed. That also leaves natural places for screws.

throw in a few switches, push pulls, maybe a pcb... you are right back to square lol.  

good to see you overcame your cavity issue and right back on the horse.

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

You have gotten good enough that you don't need my encouragement....but you certainly deserve my appreciation!

SR

Not true... it is the encouragement of you and others on this forum that makes it all worthwhile.  I also very much appreciate your appreciation!!

1 hour ago, curtisa said:

Is that still the case with Lace Sensors? All the sound demos I can find for the pickups do the in-between Strat thing as you'd expect any in-between Strat, and no-one mentions the poor noise performance in those positions.

OP mentions preferring SRV, Hendrix or Meyer. Certainly Jimi would've pre-dated the age of hot-hodding with aftermarket pickups, and SRV was known to use stock Strats (or at least, Strats with stock parts pulled together from various sources and eras). If you're chasing that sound maybe focus on pickups that advertise their close affinity with pickups of the period they're trying to emulate - from the 50s and 60s.

A lot of the info about Meyer's guitars seem to indicate that the specs for his signature Black Strat was based heavily on the Fender SRV model from 1996, which came with Texas Specials. Again, these were based on stock (overwound) Fender singles from the 50s/60s. Whether Meyer copied the choice of pickups into his own model..? It probably wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that would be the case.

I specifically mentioned that mine were from the 90s because I'm not sure.  That said, even in the 90s... nobody but me seemed to care about that fact.  Reading through the modern literature... there is no "unlike lace sensors of the past... blah blah blah" so I suspect they are the sm but can't confirm.  It's not like you'll hear a lot of noise when you combine them... they are in fact a quieter pickup... but ime when you combined mine they aren't "totally quiet" like two std single coils are.  

SRV - op also said: "I have a bunch of vintage spec Strat single coil guitars already...I want to try something new" so I was going off of that.

lot of folks have analyzed the srv strats and like anything else you find all sorts of mojo sauce there.  I've read a lot of differing views.  I've read that he had selected 3 singles from several vintage sets and they were .2 overwound, that he had the original pickups re-wound to a slight overwind, and that they were stock with a neck pu overwound but the bridge/middle were 5.95k spec.  Fender did this "#1 autopsy" on his guitar but failed to release the actual measurements... reminds me of hiraldo rivera and the al capone vault.

Tex specials are 6.7, 6.5, and 6.2.  Funny that they are marketed as "SRV Like" but that different.  I have a set in a guitar but just can't like them, altho it might have a lot to do with the heavy stagger and the fact that the guitar they are in is not a 7.25 radius.  John Mayer sure makes them sound good.

I have some lace sensors... from the 90s.  they really are good pickups but I'll tell you the skinny on them from my perspective... a single lace sensor has less hum than a typical single coil pickup... but when you combine two lace sensors or a lace sensor with a std single... they don't cancel hum at all... so they have MORE hum than typical single.  They also don't have the "magic" that comes when you combine two std singles.  for that reason... they've sat in a box.  

so... if you want some things that are "different"... here's some favs of mine...

dimarzio red velvet.  this is a great bridge strat pickup... one of my favs.  it has a brass plate on the bottom that reflects the magnetic field upward and gives it some extra growl.  It ends up somewhere between a strat and a tele pickup.  

rio grande tallboy - this is a super overwound single.  again... lots of mid bite.

for something different... you might try some of the seymour single sized humbuckers.  for me... SL59 is just a great pickup.  lower output for a humbucker but just a great sound for the bridge or neck in a strat.  similar to lace... when you split these and combine with the middle/neck... they aren't great.  I prefer combining a bridge with a std single neck and middle at the sm time.  great sound.  or you can wire up the entire guitar with single sized humbuckers.  a jb in the bridge, seth lover in the middle and 59 in the neck?  guaranteed great combo.  when you split and combine these mini hums together... since you are combining one thin coil with another similar thin coil... they sound great.  so you might go with a super switch and do split/combined in position 2/4 for a more strat like sound... and full humbuckers in 1/3/5 for more 'humbucker' sounds.  

you could go all active emgs... emgs have a sound all their own... and I'd say they aren't as good for cleans but mark knopfler sure makes them sound good.  you can see a live vid of him doing 'brother in arms' with all emg singles and it's about as good as it gets.  

just some ideas.

greatly enjoyable thread. 

Quite a while ago... I had built what I'm calling the "automawah".  It had a switchable boost, freq rotary, switchable in and out buffer, switchable auto-wah, and a switch that would turn it back into a volume pedal.  I also did an led plexiglass base... and swirl painted the thing.  So many controls on it... I could never keep it straight what was what!

I've had a morley and they are really great.  they have a feel that is all their own and it's quite nice.   I look fwd to seeing how this turns out (demo?).

oof... that top crack is something to be worried about.  that does not look superficial.  Looking in the sound hole does it appear all the way through?  get a little dentist mirror and put it inside and see how bad it is.  

the neck... that really just looks like a flex stress crack that is only in the lackquer/binding.  Hard to tell from a pic and It could go deeper thank I see but I sort of doubt it.

Either way... unless you are prepared to fix it yourself I don't imagine there's a lot we can do to help you on this one.  

41 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

All of those phrases belong in 80's Peckham with Derek Trotter and Gordon Bennet. 

The kids mostly say ting, blud, literally like and absolute touch mate now, and that's why I mostly stay at home.

lol, that is terrible insight.  kids here annoy me with "epic"... once everything is epic then nothing is epic anymore.

Just now, Bizman62 said:

You only need to know the american language, you don't need anything else.

that's right... in merica we speak merican.  first time I ever heard someone say "bangers and mash" I was all "WTF could that possibly be"?  I oft wonder if folks in the UK take as much amusement in odd things we say in the US.  

22 hours ago, Professor Woozle said:

Yes, "Father Ted" was an absolute classic comedy, and such a shame Dermot Morgan's untimely death made sure there never would be any more. It's my intention to turn into Father Jack in my old age, spend my days propped up in a chair with a plentiful supply of whisky, swearing loudly at inappropriate times!

hehe it's good to have goals!  

you bleedin' bloody blood bleeders and your misuse of the english language... blimey.  (secretly storing that for later "half-cut"... since in the current climate using "lubricated" gets mixed looks)

we luthiers are the stewards of the forrest in many respects... I admire any/all efforts to waste not/want not when it comes to wood.

"ooooh, dats fanscy"!  nice work.

16 hours ago, Professor Woozle said:

Sometimes, you just want to channel your inner Father Jack and shout rude words very loudly... I've just realised I put the wrong strip of rosewood in the centre of the back and it's too narrow! Guess I'll have to take it apart again and redo with the correct, slightly wider strip but at least I know the string and wedge approach gives a decent joint.

I have however dealt with the wormholes, a little filing dust and glue has gone in and hopefully won't be too obvious.

"father jack"... oh feck.  gonna have to watch some of his stuff.