thaumgarrett

Wow, I think you called it. It's totally a Carvin AE 185. In fact to my eyes it looks exactly like this one... (minus the three mini- coil switches, but from what I've seen in the last few hours, those were always inconsistent). Thanks for solving that riddle.

Amazing!! So glad you stuck with this, especially with the finish-related headaches. Worth it.

Actually Splintazert nailed it. The knobs are too close to the bridge so it'll be difficult to play without one's hand or wrist crossing a knob. Ah well, onward and upward - this is what prototyping is for! Also the scale is 25.5"

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but the curiosity is killing me... can anyone identify this guitar? Roughly from top to bottom we have... Unidentifiable (to me) 3x3 headstock Big block inlays T-type semi-hollow body with a very pointy "florentine"-looking cutaway and no pickguard H-H pickups Sort of obscured under the hand but is that... a viking bridge!? Four undersized control knobs and a Gibson-shaped pickup switch ...and what either looks like stereo output jacks or a standard 1/4" plus XLR As I said, I've been trying to puzzle this one out since this morning. Tried a bunch of Google searches based on the characteristics above but didn't turn anything up. So I'm guessing it's either a very unique from-scratch custom job or else I'm looking in totally the wrong places. Either way, insights welcome. At the very least, the quilting is gorgeous and I'm sure it has some great and unique sounds too. Thanks!

Hello all. I've posted I-forget-how-many plans in this forum that never actually came to fruition so I put a moratorium on that until I actually had some wood cut out and some photos to show for it. During that time I spent a few moments thinking about why I'm really doing this and what I hope to accomplish, all of which resulted in a huge re-thinking of the whole design. Behold the Mini-Margaret... MDF top and bottom with a wood "center block" that isn't really a block (I think this might be how Danelectro is making them nowadays, but I'm not 100% sure about that) and a body shape specifically conformed to take advantage the material I most often have on hand. Of course there's already one glaring flaw that's going to make it all but unplayable in a live situation (points if you can spot it...) but I'm determined to see this one through - both for use in my own recordings and because I want to test out the finishing option(s) I currently have running through my head. Cheers.

And thank you again. What threw me is that I (used to) own one factory-made guitar that had foil on the back of the cover but nothing conductive (that I could tell) on the underside of the control cavity, nor any means of grounding that one chunk of foil. But the more I think about it, based on these responses, maybe it was just lousy build quality since it was a $50 budget guitar. Should have mentioned that I bought it for parts and didn't plug it in before disassembly so for all I know the thing buzzed always buzzed like heck.

Thanks!

Apologies if this has been asked before and my search just didn't turn it up, BUT... Those of you who saw my 2nd build know that it had a horrendous amount of buzz. I'm sure the cheap amazon pots were at fault and I'll never use them again, but all the same it sent me searching for advice about shielding. I've seen a few tutorials that recommend grounding the shielding material itself (e.g. lining the control cavity with conductive foil, then soldering a wire from the grounded pot-back straight onto the foil, and then leaving some foil hanging over the lip so that it contacts the foil also on the underside of the cavity cover). And with my very fragmentary knowledge of how these things work, I can sort of see why that would be effective. The thing is, none of the commercially built guitars I own seems to be built that way. There's always a ground wire running from the bridge to the back of a pot where it contacts all the other ground wires, plus conductive foil on the underside of the cavity cover, but never (as far as I can tell) the extensive "grounding" of shielding material that I've just described. So since I trust the fine people on this forum a LOT more than random Google searches, I'm asking right out: do you need to somehow ground the foil you're using for shielding? (and, bonus question: if that's the case, why don't Gibson or Ibanez or the budget manufacturers from whom I've purchased seem to be doing this?) Thanks as always

The green on that strat looks fantastic! Have you shared anything about the products you're using and/or the order of steps to finish it? Having tried so many ways to get that nice grain-free satin look and always come up with something less than desirable, I tend to look at people who do it successfully like magicians dumping a whole litter of live rabbits from a top hat.

Ugh. Horrible story. Wishing you and this gentleman's family the best in recovering from that tragedy. Hope this build becomes a healing experience.

I *hate* the large opaque pickguard on every flying V that has one - so much surface area, so much potential for something interesting, and then so much of it winds up just being covered up. That being said, I'm happy you seem to have found a remedy for this "problem."

Really cool ideas here. Are those flamed/quilted tops I see in the mockups?

I was wondering what happened to this one. Looks really cool - especially the "triangle" plate on the large piece - visually it holds the whole thing together much more effectively than what you had before. I imagine there would also be some acoustic benefit as well since you're spreading the vibration over a larger surface area? I've also been building guitars at work during off hours (though at a wood shop rather than something really cool like a foundry) and it's a fun challenge to see what can be done with the equipment on hand. GOTM/Y in sight, I imagine

Gosh that is beautiful. Don't know what else to say except possibly すごい！

Actually I'm not sure. I used the XGP headstock because I was expecting to use an XGP tele neck (top). But now that you mention it, that shape does look a lot like what they put on some of the Nitro III's (middle). In any event, they're both wrong because I just pulled the actual neck out of the box and it turns out I wasn't correctly remembering what I had on hand - it's GFS not XGP and has this mildly aggressive concave shape to it (bottom). Incidentally mistermikev, when I said "some people" had posted good photoshop mockups, I was thinking specifically of your Delta Cloud. That thread was a joy to follow. Thanks for sharing!