mistermikev

5 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

To do the thicker looking natural binding I think you're gonna have to tape off the inside of the top and seal the edge before staining. If I remember correctly, that's what @Lumberjack was doing for his natural binding. I can't be bothered with all that, I just stain the top being careful at the edges, seal it and roll over the edges with 120, praying that the end grain is going to be merciful. with the f hole on mine, I sealed it by brushing on slightly thinned sealer (few coats) on all the edges prior to glue up and that works well for me.

thanks for the reply AD.

idk about thicker, but the plan all along was to do some kind of tape at the edge... then tru oil, then lacquer(when I say lacquer I mean seal coat then lacquer coats).  I think I'll shoot for a hair more reveal than I have on the f holes but not much. 

I've actually seen some threads where they only use tru oil and then dye for nat binding... but lacquer seems a safer option since the whole guitar will get lacquer anyway.  

well prior to glue up was not an option here as the dimensions distort as you bend over the radius.  Would be a good idea to hang on to for a flat top so I'll store that.  

7 hours ago, Drak said:

For some reason I can't picture in my head taking a vinyl decal, submersing it in lacquer thinner, and it dissolving.

I would think you're safe with that.

Awesome work on the cutout, I would never have the patience to do that, they'd be pulling parts of me off the walls.

 

I haven't seen a Young Ones episode in probably over 20 years, used to watch that shit all the time.

thanks for the reply drak.  young ones... hehe, that show was hilarious.  not sure why that just popped in my head.

i guess what I should do is test some lacquer on a piece of vinyl just to see.  my gut says it should be fine too.

thanks again for weighing in.

"guys.... I've got like this great idea" - neal * young ones

so had an epiphony thinking about how I'd do natural binding around the f holes.  this part I thought would be really challenging to get consistent results with tape, and they'd be much more noticeable if off. 

So was thinking... I have lots of experience with waterslide... and along the way have encountered vinyl decal stock.  Now I've read of people using lacquer thinner to clean vinyl upholstery... I am not 100% sure nitro lacquer won't melt vinyl decal stock... but I would think light coats should be fine. 

would love your thoughts if you happen to have experience with vinyl and spray lacquer.  I know for the waterslide stock I/we/they tend to use acrylic clear base coat and lacquer over that is no prob... so I COULD do some acrylic... but am not sure.  Am planning to brush on tru oil first and perhaps tru oil will protect the vinyl enough.

printed out the design 1/8" bigger first time... had to massage the design a bit due to deformation on the radius... made some changes and bought a good detail scissors...I guarantee this is a lot better than I would have done with tape. 

I'm half tempted to do the binding the sm way... but I suspect it will be harder since the design won't guide me to the edge... perhaps tape is just best there.  but this saved an awful lot of trouble doing the f holes with tape... and both sides should be easy to get very consistent.

incidentally, having thoughts about a clear waterslide w black line accent using sm pattern.  at the least would be a nice fallback point if my line isn't crisp enough.  

is he gonna... plywood top?  awe yes he did.  looks pretty good almost like binding at the edge.  coming right along.

1 hour ago, Woltz said:

Haha.  All going well I hope to be able to get the dadoes cut in the back legs this weekend and then I'll be able to do a mock up with all 4 legs.

noice.  for me things always speed up a bit once I start to 'see' the object.  probably I get excited and then have to slow myself to prevent mistakes.  looking fwd to seeing some more.

right on.  starting to see it.  keep rocking!  (pun intended)

you know idk why but a pink guitar has been on my list and looked really good pink.  def more depth and complexity with the pink/purple tho.  really looking great.

nice work

the most important part of a bandsaw is how the blade rides the wheel.  could not get mine to cut straight even w a 1/2 blade until I learned that the kerf should ride the apex of the wheel/tire.  once I got that set... easy peasy.  that said... a smaller tabletop bandsaw is only going to cut straight on maybe 1" material.  at least that was my experience. 

get the tension right, get the blade riding the wheel right, get the bearings just right... should have no prob going straight with most (sharp!) blades thru most thinner materials.  

20 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That's a nice clean cut, so obviously your tools are sharp. Much less stitches needed! Did you use super glue on that?

hehe, was just a razor so... yes, was very sharp!  confirmed!  i should be embarrased and have my nose rubbed in it.  stupid stupid stupid.  was thinking "well this is a bad i... doh".  just needed a sliver of a piece to patch a 1cm chip in the ctrl cavity magnet hole... cut towards myself on an edge of ash.  

doesn't look it but pretty deep.  I just compressed it with paper towel I bled thru a few times... lots of peroxide... then got it to stop bleeding and compressed it with a band aid.  feels fine as long as I don't touch it.  even now typing w it!!  can straighten/bend it so didn't hit the tendon.  

programming with 7 finger typing method was interesting!

tru oil takes about 9 thousand coats to get to gloss depending on the wood.  i suspect some areas have enough, while others don't.  you can just keep doing tru oil on the top.  idk what sheen and conditioner will leave behind so you might make sure you get rid of that first.

telll me more of this (how do you say it?) sayf T?

4 hours ago, Drak said:

Is that Memory Man one you made? If so, well done on the graphics job.

The enclosure doesn't look like an EHX, tho I'm not an expert on them.

 

 Those are all ones that I did, the memory man and the dimension C and the clone theory were all PCB boards that I bought but all the rest of them I did the PCB and everything myself ridding myself

6 hours ago, Drak said:

You didn't say whether that was a Levinson Blade pre-amp or not, I'm curious since I had one.

I never got into building pedals, but building pedalboards, whole different story, spent years doing that.

Currently have 4 and I refuse to build another one, tho I have the excess pedals to make another.

Tho, I'm completely, totally  satisfied with where all that sits and haven't bought a pedal in years.

They're exactly where I want them, they do what I want, don't want or need anything else I don't already have.

 

Shielding...total hornet's nest and I stay as far away as possible from all those guitar forum debates.

I do what I do, I've never changed the recipe, and my guitars always sound clean and quiet, that's my barometer.

And I let everyone else do as they please as it makes them happy, no problem.

 

-based on a popular schematic/reverse of the blade vsc.

some nice looking boards there.  

as you may have guessed... I am an analog nut.  love anything with mn3005, mn3007 bbd.  on your board there... there are a number of old DOD.  those are real sleepers IMO.  Not all that attractive, not all that popular or valuable... but really great stuff.  I had a collection of a number of them.  I was really keen on the DOD performer series.  18v "high end" version of the dod stuff.  I would put the performer chorus and delay up against a ce2 or dm2... possibly even better as the higher voltage in theory would allow for higher headroom.  

On my boards I had a bunch of old stuff... ross flanger, h&k rotosphere, dm2, memory man, ce2 silver screw, orig japan ds1... anything I could find with a bbd, but at some point I sold all the valuable stuff and just kept my homemade stuff.  board is in a pretty sad state right now... not even wired up... and covered in a thick layer of dust:

19 minutes ago, Drak said:

Yeah, I've been fully aware of that for a long time, and I build all my own pedalboards too and an occasional rack rig.

I dig the fact that you can bypass your circuit, but I learned my own tricks to get around that issue when I needed to, but I get it.

I'm a pedal nut... or at least was for a minute.  build my own dimension c, electric mistriss, ce2, memory man... all with original bucket brigade chips.  at one point had about 50 pedals wired up on two boards.  bunch of loop management boxes designed to swap order and all.  like anything else i get the bug and then go away from it for a while.  right now I'm really into the axe fx... but sooner or later the bug will bite again and I'll be back building fuzz's with obscure germanium transistors!

26 minutes ago, Drak said:

You wouldn't be referring to Gary Levinson and his Blade guitars, would you?

Many years ago I owned one of his Tele's with the built-in pre-amp in it, f'ing loved that guitar.

I couldn't believe the value and playability of that guitar, it smoked any Fender into the dust.

That was probably the very last guitar I actually bought off-the-shelf, $500.00 American.

What a deal, and what an awesome guitar that was.

 

I will tell you a thing about my building ethic.

As I mentioned, my first builds were all active, and active circuits tend to pick up and amplify Any stray noise.

Especially (some) single coils, and I really detest noisy guitars, can't stand 'em.

So from my earliest days, I've been a 100% full-shielding fanatic.

I've fully shielded every guitar I've ever built, and that comes from building with active circuits from the beginning.

Its just a habit that stayed with me, whether they're active or not, I still do a 100% shield job on everything I build.

AAMOF, I was just shielding Angkor Wat and the Dead Machine earlier this evening.

well... shielding is one of those things... if you shield a pickup too much... the shielding can act like a capacitor bleeding off highs... shield it not enough and you get noise. 

That said, I still shield all my guitars fairly well.  

with any preamp... like a pedal... there are things that can keep them quiet beyond shielding... like keeping power lines away from the signal path on the pcb, and keeping them away from the signal path in the cavity as well, keeping the paths to the gain knob very short, as well as all paths really. 

Clean wiring is def best.  Easy when you've got just to pickups and a toggle... but with great functionality comes great responsibility.  

3 hours ago, Drak said:

I decided to read through the whole thread.

Unless I missed it (did I?), I didn't see any mention of pickups or electronics.

Yet, I see what looks pretty clearly like a battery housing in the back.

I started out building active systems, all my first builds all have front-end passive pickups from my favorite winders with back-end EMG active electronics.

So just curious about that end of things.

Also, I've sprayed many Tele bridges in the past, usually black, but I've sprayed all kinds of hardware all kinds of colors over the years.

So on some of my builds where you see a black Tele bridge, its usually a Glendale bridge, sprayed black.

They've all held up fine, no problems, all lacquer, usually airbrushed to keep it thin.

I leave a spot on the bottom bare so I can get a ground connection going and the saddles dig into the metal to complete the ground path.

Anytime I saw a Glendale bridge for sale used, I'd snap those bastids up, so I got a lot of them for easy money years ago.

Just letting you know, your options are only limited by your imagination.

thanks for the reply drak!

awe snap... you are gonna get me started!  I like to roll my own.  There are really two builds that are going to come out of this and one is going to get a "switchBLADE" preamp based on a schem from a popular german preamp from the 90s, the other - I'm not sure yet but probably another pictured below.  I built the pcb to mount on a push pull so I can truly bypass the active electronics - not just switch to a buffer like the emg and other popular preamps do.  the prob with the buffer vs true bypass... if you use a fuzz/wah... it prevents the interaction between the pickups and the front end of the fuzz/wah.  With tru bypass... I'm back to a hardwired complete bypass of the circuit ie straight passive wiring.  The preamp itself... I wire up to the push pull as a master gain, and generally put a master vol on a trimmer pot so it can be dialed to suit.  

the actual wireup is below... the guitar for kevin is going to utilize seymour stacked tele.  I use a rotary switch to change how the 3-way toggle works.  The rotary has 5 modes... essentially pos 1 will be a stock single coil tele via the 3-way with just the top coil from each stack. pos2 with be each top coil matched with the opposite bottom coil ie neck top with bridge bottom and visa versa.  This will give slightly higher output as the secondary coil won't be canceling freq as much since they are separated... slightly more hum.  pos 3 with be each stack wired in parallel = bridge vs neck, pos4 will be just like pos2 but in series, and pos5 just like pos3 but in series.  

then simply a master volume with a treble bleed.  the mid booster can then be used as a hi/low cut by cranking it up... but lowering the vol.   

afa hardware... well might be a bit boring there but all gold is the theme on kevin's build - evo gold frets, etc.  all pickups will have matching wood/turquoise covers.  

my test build... think I'm going to do an all birdseye neck... all nickel hardware... similar matching pickup covers.

btw - sorry for belated response - that big fire in phoenix... yeah, that was the building next to my work.  been a crazy day!!

6 hours ago, ScottR said:

That's sexy!

SR

Ty sir!  

31 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Well it definitely wasn't perfect. If you look at the top edges of the bridge pickup route there are two really dark spots and there was another really nasty one that was cut out of the f-hole so I had to position the blank to hide those and I actually lost some nice figure that was just above the horns in order to hide all the blemishes, just gotta work with what natures gives us! Still, this bit of maple was a freebie and by far the nicest top I've worked with. Just wish it was less of a PITA to carve, but you can't have em all.

welp... there's def something to be said for turning a 3/4 into a 4/5.  I think you learn more finishing tops with some minor flaws... every one I've done has had something to work around. 

2 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Ha, I can't afford to avoid pieces with imperfections. I'm trying to perfect the art of working around them

Don't be fooled, everything has been shoved to one side. I really need some more storage. I'm thinking some wall hanging kitchen cabinets would be a good idea, potentially some workshop space over floor cupboards 

well, right... when you are talking about such minor imperfections... I think most of us can't afford to work with the "most expensive tops money can buy".  I mean, we probably could, but like anything else there are diminishing returns the more you spend.  for the record wasn't saying your top is anything less than stellar.

it indeed does.  I'm coining the common term to sell uber high priced "rainbow ebony"!  I'll be the first customer please!!

so a week w/o the wife has come to an end tonight and I look around at what I accomplished and yup... it was not at all what I figured.  Thought because she would be gone I would get a lot of work done but then when you figure in how much more often I had to clean and feed the cats and clean after the cats and feed myself... just really appreciating her right now!

anywho... @scottr - sanded this up to 2k as you advised and indeed... w/o any finish I can def see figure a lot better.  it will be interesting to see if there is any difference putting tru oil on after sanding up that high.  really kind of want it to absorb less cause I want to bring out the figure... but don't want to turn this wood dark.  it's so pretty and light.

got the neck all fretted... 

body still needs some clean up but back is sanded up, neck heel carved.

if you don't look at my end grain... and just focus on the center of the back... pretty hard to find the join.  endgrain gives it away as usual... but pretty pleased with that join.

my sanding... figured I'd everything that doesn't come into direct contact with that hands as sharp as possible.  had to transition to a more 'soft' approach around the heel.

top is only sanded to 22o for now... going to raise the grain a few times and stay at 220 so it will soak in dye really deep.

24 minutes ago, ADFinlayson said:

Those streaks you mentioned on your other post, I didn't comment on because I don't know what they are, but this top is rife with them. I'm going for something purpley so I doubt they will be particularly visible when it's all done

well no expert either... I see a few dark one's there that look similar.  the majority i see there are lighter and appear to be fleck.  i imagine there are many who avoid that sort of thing in a top but for me it just adds to it.  lets you know it's not a photo-quilt!

looking good brutha!

that is some interesting stuff.  i looked up some pics of the carelian, beautiful stuff.  as a full tree it's strange.  in wisconsin we have birch everywhere... entire forests of just straight trees.  have never seen a crooked one!