thaumgarrett

On 5/2/2019 at 7:01 PM, Bjorn.LaSanche said:

Carvin?

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.

On 4/22/2019 at 10:28 AM, mistermikev said:

for the record my hamer had ground wire running to the pot and to all cavities from the factory... I think if you look at ten mfg you'd likely find ten dif methods of shielding... all varying degrees of 'fine'.

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.

3 hours ago, curtisa said:

That is generally all you should need to do...

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！

14 hours ago, mistermikev said:

interesting build.  afa pickguard... possibilities are endless: something that matches the headstock is nice.  I def see a 1980's peavey influence in the headstock no?  aka nitro series?  Anywho, reminds me of that.  Looks like fun.

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!

10 hours ago, ScottR said:

And why is leaving the pickguard off not an option?

SR

Because it's there to hide a routed wire channel.

That first picture literally made my heart race.

Others are good too!

"Thing of beauty" doesn't even begin to describe this.

Hi all...

I've never really bothered with sketching a design in photoshop before building something but enough people here have done so (with excellent results) that I decided to have a go. Here's the next project on my agenda, whom I've already decided will be named Margaret...

Similar shape to the Office-Furniture-Caster from my last post, though slightly stretched at the rear and with an extra horn on the bottom cutaway because I decided I didn't like the straight line.

Rosewood tele neck with maple headstock (though I might just re-use the neck from aforementioned DeskCaster if it looks like it will work aesthetically).

Dual GFS lipbuckers in SG-style wiring,

All black hardware and controls (except for gold saddles on the bridge, said bridge is hanging on a hook above my monitor right now and looks excellent)

Even though it took more time than I was expecting, I'm glad I did this... first because I've been neglecting knob placement in favor of concentrating on how I want the pots to fit (with the result that I played around with this orientation until it looked acceptable from the top and bottom) and also because it made me realize I have no idea what I want to do with that pickguard. Leaving it off isn't an option and painting it black just looks unsightly with that carrera (sp?) marble finish I'm going to attempt. Right now i'm just thinking I'll use a thin piece of birch tinted to match the headstock, but if anyone else has any ideas, I'm all ears. 

The body blank is sitting next to my chair (douglas fir because there's no way I'm using "real" tone wood at this stage of innocence and experience) and hopefully we'll cut and rout it next week. 

Cheers.

Looks slick!

I think you could get away with the lack of neck/headstock binding with an inlaid fretboard.... or get away without fretboard inlays if there were binding carried through the neck/headstock. But I do agree with those who have said it looks a little bare with neither. 

Looking forward to seeing this one.

Thanks! It didn't bend so much as flex. If I'd put any kind of finish on it, it probably would have cracked at the neck almost immediately.

Good news: Finished.

Bad news: Sounds awful.  

Actually between the pickups and MDF construction it sounds excellent - those GFS "crunch" pickups have a very rich and flexible sound.

BUT... it doesn't stay in tune (I'm guessing because of the very flimsy neck tenon I was forced to use due to the thickness of the material) and has a LOT of hum. I'd ordinarily attribute it to the lack of shielding, except my music-box guitar from the previous post is even less shielded and almost noiseless. Instead I'll just blame the pots.... first because I bought cheap Chinese ones on Amazon instead of the usual Korean ones from GFS and second because when I flip the blow switch and bypass the pots, 90% of the noise disappears.

Lessons learned from this failure...

1" MDF is a great material sonically, less so structurally

EZ-Lock tuners won't help you if the neck won't stay straight

GFS pickups sound a LOT better than their price suggests

Cheap pots can ruin your sound

Poster frame plexiglass is a terrible thing to use for a pickguard.

Sketchup can't do curves very well no matter how many segments you use

Hi again!

That CNC project I posted renderings of a few months back is still in the works. But in the meantime our office just got rid of several 63/64" MDF desks and on a whim I threw one of them onto the ShopBot...

The shape was inspired by some of the exotic designs that came out of budget Japanese manufacturers in the 60's and true to those influences, I'm going to load it with a ton of extra dials and switches. Going to set the neck and mount the pickups and bridge tonight. Woohoo!

Incidentally I know MDF has more disadvantages than advantages but I never realized how easy it was to work. Cuts like butter!

I was going to ask where the cutaway is.... then I figured it out.

Anyhow, looking good!

Awesome project!