Bizman62

I was thinking about history when I woke up this morning. I guess the various engineers in the English language are called such because the early ones really were mech engineers. George Stephenson and his son Robert and other fathers of 'modern' railroads back in the early 1800's were engineers who both built and drove their trains. Same goes for the first cars, aeroplanes and whatever. There's a painting of automobile engineers in long white coats examining a car, IIRC in the Fiat premises in Turin, Italy. Another thought from this morning: Engineers are people who know why and how something works and can calculate the most cost effective way to create that something, using the optimal amount of materials. Experienced builders can build without those calculations but without them they'd build too strong and heavy just in case.

There's aids for both. Before teaching my younger one to drive a car a friend had a pupil who needed both elevated pedals and a pillow on the seat.

By doing I meant physical work, actually building something rather than designing it. That's what I mean. I'm not saying planning and designing is not 'doing" but it requires different skills than hammering or driving or whatever. An engineer knows what type of concrete has to be used, he can calculate the amount needed for a certain strength. But he may not know what it's like to throw the cement and sand and water into a blender, sack by sack, day after day. The Finnish engineers are Bachelors or Masters of Science (Technology). While the term basically means the same in both our languages, our version isn't as wide. We have other names for many of your engineers. Your railroad engineers actually drive a train, our train drivers aren't engineers. My dad as an agricultural engineer could have been a farmer, actually he was offered a job as a farm manager (?) or steward (?) in Sweden but as I had just started at school my parents decided not to. The 'Clever engineer' thing is from an old joke: A dumb engineer, a clever engineer, Superman and Santa are present when a ball bounces in. Who catches it? -The dumb engineer, since the other three are mythical creatures. Or: Who's cleverer than a B.Sc. (Tech)? A M.Sc. (Tech), of course. And who is cleverer than a M.Sc. (Tech)? -A German Shepherd.

My dad is an 'agricultural engineer' trained in Bavaria, Germany. There's no such word in the Finnish language. Our engineers deal with technology and construction, including infrastructure and electronics among a dozen or more subcategories which all are related to some sort of technology. Another thing is that they don't actually do things like driving a train, they either plan or design things or check that things get done as planned. They're bosses, in one word.

Oh, the word "engineer" seems to be used differently in dif countries. But you got the idea

I wonder if you could have saved yourself from some of that work by using a piece of tube within that blu-tac?

Hmmm... Being a full time builder might be nice as long as you don't have to make the ends meet. Guitar builders who actually make a living on it are as real as Santa Claus, Batman or a clever engineer.

That thing is... ...HOT!

Just as a reminder: Predrill the holes (you most likely do) and apply wax on the screws (you didn't, did you?)

By that logic they used to sell OEM versions of Windows to anyone who could assemble a pc. The OEM price was a quarter of the Retail version, then again rumour says that the big manufacturers paid less than a quarter of the OEM price. So although selling OEM versions to anyone wasn't exactly according to the agreement, Microsoft didn't really care as their main income was from mass licenses.

I'm not against plastic either. Things like plastic bags are actually quite environmentally friendly to manufacture as very little raw material and energy is needed. The biggest issue with plastic seems to be related to waste as it takes forever and a day week until it has totally vanished from nature. Then again, many plastics are easily recyclable and the rest can be burned in district heating plants, or used as filler in construction. And plastic can be made out of almost any material, not only oil. BTW here's a pretty condensed (pre)history of plastic: http://www.bakelitmuseum.de/home/home1024e.htm

Either they're not too concentrated or the bottles are pretty big for such. I've got some Crimson Stunning Stains Shots that come in 10 ml bottles and pipettes. Some fellow builders at the course had some other brands in roughly similarly sized bottles. A few drops have been enough for one layer. For comparison the ready-to-use Stunning Stains come in 150 ml bottles. Thanks for the info about the finish. In that case mixing directly to the finish is probably best.

I'm using headphones. They're pretty good but not stellar, aimed for gaming bought from Lidl.

Looks like you're going to become a guitar manufacturer!

Yummy!

You don't mean equal amounts, I guess, as the bottles I found are only 50 ml. You're using these, aren't you? http://www.ubeaut.com.au/dye.html Being water based intended for bare wood may be one issue. They don't tell about diluting them to any other solvent than water, then again they say that it can be used with even a 1000 times of water. What does the wipe-on recommend for cleaning brushes? Water or some other solvent? If other than water, then you might want to try mixing the dye to said solvent and then mix that with the wipe-on finish.

There's lots of materials available as flat thin pieces. The question is, are they suitable for pickguards by their properties. The other question is, do they look good. And the third question is, do they fall into the aforementioned category of "plastic". I've seen fabric, napkins and drawings molded into clear epoxy, but isn't that plastic as well? There's nothing wrong with plastic, after metals it's the most tolerant material against pick scratches. You mentioned Masonite which is basically cardboard. Laminate used for tabletops and floors is printed paper and some sort of epoxy flattened under high pressure which makes it very wear resistant. Any wood based material like chipboard or plywood would sooner or later wear out without a tough finish (=plastic). Stone based boards are heavy and very brittle especially in the required thickness so plasterboard or fibre cement are out of the question. I guess ceramic would fall into that category. Glass comes in sheets and can be shaped, doesn't scratch easily but is not shock resistant. Zirconia used for knives would be hard and thin but where could you find it and how would you shape it? Same goes for carbon ceramic used in brake disks. -For what I could quickly learn it seems that ceramic would make a very cool pickguard. The biggest issue with it (outside pottery) is that it can't be made at home. Natural materials other than wood might be interesting. Leather was already mentioned. Turtle shell would look nice and even have some guitar related history as picks but it's not environmentally sound. But how about cow horn? It's hollow so there's lots of surface when rolled flat. And it's tough, buffs shiny etc. The only problem with that is to find instructions about preparing the horns so that they won't roll back or split. There used to be a comb maker in an outdoor museum when I was a kid but when I took my kids there they told that the skill died with the old master.

Whaddayaknow! I found the comic in question in the Finnish Donald Duck digital archives (I've been a subscriber for DD since 1987) and after finding out the original name I found this gem: https://youtu.be/RLJeCyTqA6o

A high frequency peak, you say? That might explain some, I don't hear anything past some 12000 Hz.

I'd use concentrate. Basically if both your products are water based they should mix in theory. The question is if you really can add water to the finish to make it thinner? Most likely not. Use a dye that works with the recommended thinner for the finish you're using. Also, wipe-on products can act different to sprayed ones as there's some rub involved which potentially can blend with the previous layers causing unwanted effects. A burst looking like the back and fading to natural (or something else in your palette), might puzzle the viewer for a while to find out how you've blended two woods! Try some other colours over the sanded back flecks to see if you find something that you like!

There's a classic Donald Duck comic where the nephews' pet squirrel is inside Donald's acoustic guitar, plucking the strings while Donald is unconscious. I didn't know of any other until I googled for some and lo and behold, there's some! https://youtu.be/fB1N7VjYIbM

After listening all the samples I dare say that neither the pickup mounting nor the scale length really matters, the sound is mostly in the fingers of the player! Back when I was at school they had some recordings to support the music book. On one of the tapes they cut the attack off of the sound samples. You couldn't tell if the sound came from a guitar or a piano without hearing the very start. This is similar, the sounds are very similar and the only difference I imagine hearing is during the first nano-second. Yet another thing to test is to move the picking location from neck pickup (1/4 of the scale length from the bridge), mid and bridge in the locations where one of the harmonies get eliminated due to counteracting waves - along the maths described here: https://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/sound/u11l4d.cfm I'm suggesting this as I've learned that an essential part of the sound of the bridge pickup is just because the second harmonic gets muted on that spot. How much might picking at the third harmonic at 1/6 scale length from bridge change the sound? And then the pickup location at the harmonic muting spots... I feel like I'm losing the focus!

I've been criticized for my map reading skills: I could easily find our location, telling which way to go is something I struggle with. Which way to turn in the next three-way crossing? Umm... Let's see... If we're now driving this way to this direction - let me turn the map to match the road and direction - err... this hand is left so the other must be right... For side dot's real numbers might work best for me. Even better if they'd flash beforehand to tell where to move my hand next. And even better if the flashing would change and finally blink "Press this fret NOW, you idiot!" in the best ChittyChittyBangBand manner!

Depending on material, the sub-base doesn't have to be thicker than the original base plate which it replaces.

That really is awesome! Building amps is way beyond my skills so I can't evaluate that. As a guitar it's enviably neatly built!