joshhill67

I want to put a pattern on my white tele pickboard. Specifically this type of pattern:

I'm not confident that my free-hand painting skills are good enough to do it justice, or how to paint onto plastic like that?

Does anyone have a creative suggestion or an alternative? I was wondering about finding something with said pattern (a table mat?) and cutting it to shape, but I can't think of what.

Cheers!

God that sounds simpler than building an amp into the body... You, sir, have sold me on this idea.

22 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

The taper looks good

I think not putting a pickup in would be a shame.  However, you could always directly wire a pickup to an output jack if you wanted to leave putting volume / tone in until another time?  For home playing, you can do any tweaking at the amp.

yeah this is also a possibility.

So my original plan was to build a small headphone amp into the body. Which I COULD still do, but carving out a hole for it, and making it line up nicely with the outside just seems like so much work for such a small benefit. So maybe a 1/4 inch output would be a better idea. My concern for that was getting the grounding right so I don't electrocute myself when I plug it into an amp!

I thought it was pretty simple to begin with, then when i started messing around with my leccy I realised that the strings were grounded too - presumably so that if you touch the strings to the pickup the current doesn't take a shortcut through you because the path of least resistance is through the strings?

Anyway - I like messing around with 12v circuits, but I try to leave mains currents well alone

Sorry for the radio silence - the build has been progressing slowly but surely:

I played it today for the first time and... its okay!! It sounds like a guitar should. It still needs work - the neck thinning down, a knee rest adding, and then lots of finishin

My main conundrum at this point, is whether to bother adding electrics? Frankly... I just want the thing finished and playable! And having played it, its plenty loud for me without headphones. I would only need to add electrics to play with distortion (unlikely) or to play to an audience (even less likely, as my playing is awful!)

On 1/23/2019 at 9:23 AM, Andyjr1515 said:

 first of all, make absolutely sure that the strings to the saddles are going to give you the right distance from either side of the fretboard.  If it doesn't, you may need a bridge with different spacing.

Ah good point!

I had assumed the fretboard would be the correct width but you are right, without actually putting the strings on (at least mocking them up seeing as the head is not finished yet) I have no idea!

Guess what I am doing next time I have some free time

On 1/10/2019 at 5:06 PM, mistermikev said:

I have a whole box of shame... circuits I built that didn't work and I couldn't figure out the issue.  95% of the time I can figure things out with an audio probe/multi-meter.  Recently built a dimension c clone and it worked first time (lucky!) but on some builds... you just have to know when your licked... no shame there!  Live to fight another day!

afa thicker strings... you put a set of 12 guage strings on an elec and it will def work out your fingers.  light guage acoustic strings are usually 11s. 

neck thickness between elec and acoustic is not necc dif unless you are talking classical.

I got around to re-soldering the amp board I have. I was wondering, a lot of the parts are duplicated, and my guess that is so that it can output to two chanels?

I only need one chanel output. Do you think I could get away with not soldering the entire board? What do you think?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUX-Mini-DC-3-7-12V-5V-TDA2822M-2-0-CH-Stereo-Audio-Power-Amplifier-Board/173519470063?hash=item286690fdef:g:6N0AAOSwmtJXV-8g:rk:17:pf:0

Thanks!

There is also an option C I suppose... to cut the bridge down and make it so that it fits the existing taper of the fretboard

That would perhaps be the best option, but metalwork is hard, and painting the bridge black again after would be difficult. And I would struggle to fit any sort of pickup if I did that... would need to be less than 65mm wide.

I would really welcome some advice please folks!

I took a little break while waiting for some parts, but am making progress again. I have my bridge, which means I can start working the shape of the body. What I have is this:

I think it looks fairly good, although it is only rough. But I have a slight problem. The taper of the fretboard is not the same as the angle needed to go from the end of the fretboard to the bridge. Which creates a problem. What to do on the left side of the neck here where the body is aysmetrical??

Option A is to cut right up close to the fretboard so that it is no longer asymetrical, but then it would have a strance sort of zig zag shape from the neck, to the non-existent pick guard, to the bridge.

Option B is to leave it as it is or somehow try and eccentuate the asymetry to make a feature of it. Suggestions would be great...

Thanks!

1 minute ago, curtisa said:

The position of the bridge will be governed by the fret spacing on your borrowed fret board, nominally 2x the distance of the nut to the 12th fret plus a bit. The 'bit' extra is your intonation allowance on the saddles, which will typically push the bridge back further than 2x nut-12th fret, so perhaps this is the longer distance you've noted on the bridge when it was installed on the original guitar?

The question of where exactly to position the bridge relative to the theoretical scale length comes up moderately frequently. You can look up some calculators that present some typical values of the the extra 'bit' in the measurements provided you're using certain hardware which takes the thinking component out of the decision (the StewMac fret placement calc comes to mind) . Or do some educated guesstimation to get you in the ballpark that works pretty much every time for any bridge - some discussion on the topic can be found here:

 

That is exactly it - thank you!

Update on the body/neck. I went with a solid 1x4 plank for the though-neck. Its staight and true, and hopefully of sufficient quality to stay that way. Ideally 2x4 would have been better, but it would have been impossible to work with the tools I have access to, but I can double it up where needed. After some careful planing I started cutting into the flexi-ply body and jig sawing the neck:

I also have a question. The fretboard is "borrowed" from another guitar I had. When Measuring it up I realised the guitar had not been constructed according to the correct scale length. That is, the bridge was further back than it should have been. When positioning the bridge, should I put it where it should go in theory, or at the same distance as it was in a previous life? Cheers!

Body is done! It holds its shape. Needs sanding and varnishing to make it pretty, but I may proceed with the rest of the design before finishing anything to a nice standard.

Was looking at scale lengths to see which I prefer - almost certainly going to go with 25 1/2 scale.

Suddenly the decision what to do with the body has become much more urgent!

At the simplest level it is plywood that is flexible What this means in practice is that the grain all runs in the same way, rather than the layers being at 90 degrees to each other. I'm sure there are many types of flexi-ply, but this one is two thin sheets of wood, with a layer of fabric between them, and some sort of flexible adhesive holding it all together. About 5mm thick in all.

On its own it is incredibly flimsy. I have used 3 layers, and I hope that when the glue dries it will provide some structural integrity.... Will let you know when I un-clamp it and find out!!

I am currently trying to decide what size to make the neck and body. I have an old $99 guitar (fender squire?) that I am canabalising for parts, but one of the things I wanted was for this to play like an acousitc - i.e. heavy gague strings and a wider neck / bridge to allow finger-picking. I suppose I just need to buy a wider bridge, but I don't want to spend too much - any suggestions on something that will simulate the string spacing of an acoustic guitar without breaking the bank?

Hello everyone,

I am building myself a silent guitar to practice on. I have shamelessly stolen the design of the Yamaha silent guitars because I absolutely love the look:

 I didn't want to buy one for a few reasons - 1) price 2) they are nylon stringed 3) they are plastic and 4) they fold down. So here is my attempt - a current work in progress.

Today I made the basic shape of the knee rests out of Flexi-Ply. Tomorrow when it is warmer I will glue it and leave it to dry. Then later I will start work on the body and neck - a single piece of wood like on a neck-though guitar (or possibly a single piece made from laminated woods or plywood).

I will update this thread with progress and questions as I go!

My first question I suppose is suggestions for what to construct the body from - less from a practical standpoint and more from aesthetics. I initially had planned to make this knee rest / sides out of a single piece of steam-bent ash, stained a light grey, and have the body match. Now that I have gone with a plywood construction on the outside I'm unsure what to do for the rest of it. Any suggestions would be great!

5 hours ago, mistermikev said:

I have a whole box of shame... circuits I built that didn't work and I couldn't figure out the issue.  95% of the time I can figure things out with an audio probe/multi-meter.  Recently built a dimension c clone and it worked first time (lucky!) but on some builds... you just have to know when your licked... no shame there!  Live to fight another day!

afa thicker strings... you put a set of 12 guage strings on an elec and it will def work out your fingers.  light guage acoustic strings are usually 11s. 

neck thickness between elec and acoustic is not necc dif unless you are talking classical.

Without a probe or multi-meter I wouldn't even be able to troubleshoot problems effectively... plan B would be touching up any bad looking solders, then plan C unsoldering and resoldering the entire board...

22 hours ago, mistermikev said:

not exactly an expert but there are differences for sure.  for the most part the biggest difference is that a guitar preamp will likely have freq shelves at front and after any amplifying stages to ensure that noise is kept down by cutting out freq above/below the guitars range.  Also, in the guitar world we actually like distortion, so hifi has a dif meaning alltogether... but will it work - yes.  the one possible pinch point is what sort of input it is expecting.  it might not sound the greatest... but it should work on some level or another.  when I was young I plugged my guitar into an aux in on a home stereo... worked fine.  that said... you can buy the parts for a ruby for less than 10 bux and you will learn a lot building one... highly recommended.

Well... I built the amp above and as a result... had an amp that didn't work But, Thank you for the suggestion - I will see if I can fix this one, and if I can, might be braver about trying another! If not, I suppose I can canabalise one of those Headphone Guitar Amp things you see on Ebay for £10.

I would like to throw another complication into the mix however... I said in the origional post I wanted a "silent" guitar with the possibility to amplify it, so that I could practice at home without disturbing people, but play through headphones. Well, I COULD have just used an electric guitar not plugged in (seeing as I have an electric guitar). What I should have said is that the reason I am building this instead of using an unplugged elecrtic is because I want the difficulty of playing an acoustic guitar (the thicker, tougher strings, and the wider neck) so that if I ever want to play acoustic, I can.

I know this changes slightly how I will amplify the sound - are there any thicker "acoustic style" strings that work for electric guitar? Will any heavy, thick gague wires work? Or do I need to start messing around with different types of pickup?

Thank you!

On 1/8/2019 at 3:01 PM, mistermikev said:

surprisingly good sounding amp too.  I built one in a keepsafe box as my 'testing amp' with an 8" speaker... pretty darn loud and sounds really good.  you won't be dissapointed.  holla if I can help at all!

Back again - with a rather stupid (perhaps) question - is there any difference between a guitar amp and a regular amp?

I actually have already a small amp - this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUX-Mini-DC-3-7-12V-5V-TDA2822M-2-0-CH-Stereo-Audio-Power-Amplifier-Board/173519470063?hash=item286690fdef:g:6N0AAOSwmtJXV-8g:rk:14:pf:0

Would this work?

(I know this might appear to he a question with a very simple answer - try it and find out. Actually the amp never worked, and because it was more for fun than anything else, I never bothered to find out why. If this will actually be suitable for the project I will try re-soldering it.

Thank you! That looks fairly simple. I will give it a shot and report back!

Hey guys - I am building a silent guitar (steel string) to practice on at home, and don't really need to output anything to an amp. In fact, I would rather not, because I find amps are too loud for small rooms on anything other than the lowest volume setting. Most of the time I would probably play without any sort of amplification, just listening to the natural sound of the strings. Occasionally I might like to listen through headphones. Perhaps, once or twice in a blue moon, I would play something out loud on my Hi-Fi setup.

I was wondering if any of the smart people here can advise me on how I might be able to do this? My understanding of electric guitars is minimal, but I understand speakers and amps a little bit.

As I understand it, speakers require an amp of some description to power them. Headphones however are so efficient that they don't need this - do you think I could go straight from pickup to headphones via 3.5mm headphone jack? Or am I missing something important that the guitar amp does as well as just amplify the sound? As in, convert the signal into something that can be output as sound?

Sorry if this is a stupid question - thanks for the help!

Josh