Jump to content

Jolly

GOTM Winner
  • Posts

    69
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    4

Everything posted by Jolly

  1. Had some quality help working an a color scheme/finish plan! I tried out a few different methods for the back finish on scrap and ended up coating it with a thick layer of water based grain filler. The only prep I did was scraping off glue residue and brushing off the dirt. I did this before any machining to help preserve the look/character of the rough 2x4's. After coating the back I flipped the blank over and milled the top of the blank flat. I originally glued the blank with the back side as flat as possible so this step removed all of the irregularity from the original 2x4's and made a gluing surface for the top. While we were at it we flattened the top as well. Again wanting to preserve the layered paint character, all of the machining had to be on the joint side of the blank. To add to the fun, absolutely nothing was flat or square. The front center of the stair tread had a noticeable dip worn into it! We clamped it at the edges as lightly as practical to avoid warping the blank and took very light passes. We contemplated using a plane or thickness sander, but along with the wonky shape this blank still has some nails stuck in it! I cut out the headstock shape on the bandsaw along with some finish shaping with a sander. I didn't keep a great record of the exact schedule, but experimented by feel with a rotating cycle of burnishing, sanding, and coats of linseed oil. I used a 2x4 scrap that I had test coated with linseed oil for most of my burnishing attempts. I think it added a bit of lubrication/coating that worked pretty well. This was my first dive into burnishing wood but I think it will become a regular tool in my finishing kit. I'm still forming my opinion if it does anything to the hardness or feel of the wood, but I certainly think it slowed down the oil absorption. I think this may extend to stain/other finishes as well. This was also my first attempt at an oil finish neck. I'm very drawn to natural finishes, or at least ones with minimal harsh chemicals. Again, still waiting to see the final product but pretty sure this will also become one of my go to finishes. After several coats of oil I moved on to the headstock decal. Waterslide decals are not compatible with oil finished, so I applied several layers of Zinsser shellac. After applying the decal I layered on more shellac. Right now its curing, I'll probably flat sand it after a few more days and maybe do one more oil coat to blend anything that ended up funky. I've also been experimenting with nanoceramic coatings. They don't stick well to oily surfaces but I'm thinking about spraying a layer right after the oil, maybe they'll "sink in" and cure with it? I've been scheming and testing things for the amp alongside the woodwork. I've been trying to balance tonal options with simple controls. For looks, I don't want to add anything to the front that you wouldn't see on a stock Telecaster. I have the power amp pretty well figured out, but I still haven't settled on some controls/features. From a players perspective, anyone have any ideas about the following? Neck Pickup - If I include a neck pickup I have to make compromises on the speaker and it will likely use up the selector switch. That being said, It would offer an additional base sound with no additional electronics, and perhaps make it a slightly more useful "normal" guitar. Overdrive - I think it would be pretty cool to have a built in distortion pedal type function. The last one I build can accomplish this with the selector switch, but its a little clunky. I currently have the power switch on a push pull pot, but that's one option to activate it. Reverb - I've been playing around with a karaoke machine echo chip. I think it adds some "thickness" to an obviously size limited sound, but it will undoubtedly add complexity. I'm also not sure I have the control room to manipulate it?
  2. I've finally made some progress! I glued the 2x4 body blank together with Titebond. This was all from a single reclaimed stud, but its old enough that each section has a different thickness. I aligned the outward faces to be flat as possible to preserve the most character. The neck arrived several months back; the quality/workmanship looks great and is exactly what I ordered but... it was immediately clear that the look was off for my original finish plan. I've been wanting to try roasted maple and Richlite for awhile but it certainly doesn't look "vintage", lesson learned I guess. I feel like sometimes a project will "speak" to you and it was clear almost right away that this was the right wood/color scheme. The top is going to be maple from the same stair tread as the original plan, just the painted side instead of the wood side. I'm going to attempt to leave the wood as rough as practical while still making a comfortable guitar. The painters tape is a rough idea of the headstock shape plan, I think I'm basically going to leave it square. I think it goes along with the rough/industrial look I'm after. The plan for the front hardware is to look like a regular telecaster. I have a few electronic tricks up my sleeve, but for the most part I want the controls to match an off the shelf tele. I'm going to use an oval speaker to leave room for a neck pickup. The back is going to get one large control cavity route. I'm not entirely settled on the electronics going in it yet, but the shape shown overlaps with the pickguard. I'm going to route both out as deep as possible to create open area for the "speaker cab". Speaking of electronics, I've totally reimagined that facet of this build as well. The power amp will still be tube, but I've just ordered a odd assortment of solid state electronics to string together into a pre amp.
  3. That’s the idea! They also have quite a bit more capacity then the drill battery I used in the first build and the particular 18650 cells I ordered have a cool, simple/vintage look to them. I was having a hard time finding a spot to put the drill battery that looked good so this change really opened up some design possibilities. I'm not confident enough in my circuit designing capabilities to charge lithium ion yet. For now I'm going to use this. Speaking of circuit design, I recently gave digital note taking a try and came up with this. It's more notes than a finished layout/schematic but it should give something to go off of to start selecting components and such. My list of "essential" features got a little out of hand, but I think most of the things I've tried to include add some real expanded functionality. I tried to start this design from the user interface I wanted and worked backwards from there. Amp Controls • On/Off/On Toggle Switch (Clean/Off/Overdrive) • Optional Foot Switch (Clean/Overdrive) Output Jacks • Effect Loop (Off = Passive Output) • Foot Switch • Auxiliary Speaker (cuts onboard speaker) • Headphones (cuts onboard speaker, adds resistor between signal and ground) If anyone has any questions or ideas for improvement let me know! I've got plenty of electrical things to figure out while I wait for the neck to ship but all the supplies to finish it have arrived.
  4. Hey Everybody! I've had a change in plans for my next self amplified guitar project. I was going to use high voltage tubes but between a few design setbacks and several safety concerns, I decided to shelf that idea for now. On to the plan for the replacement project. First of all I'm going to consider this instrument the serial number 1 of my building career. It's actually my 5th build but it's going to be the first right handed one so someone other than me can finally play it. Here are my main goals with this build: Solidify a Design/Tooling Showcase Detroit Outstanding Electrical Craftmanship Eco Friendly Finish Here's the inspiration: I'm going to lean into the vintage look and feel but obviously this isn't going to be a replica by any means. I'm going to use as many vintage inspired materials and construction methods as possible for the "feel" but there's a few modern technologies I simply can't avoid. I'm not going to do any "relicing" but I really like the general color and sheen of this particular image. Here's the Tentative Specs: Amp - 12U7 Pre Amp Tube, 12K5 Power Tube, 35mW nominal power output Power Supply - 4X 18650 Rechargeable Lithium ion Batteries, 14.8V at 3000 mAh Electronics - Still working on this one. I'm on the fence between a normal tele neck pickup and a firebird neck pickup… All of the controls will be the same as a standard tele. Body - Reclaimed Pine, Reclaimed Maple Top Neck - Sourced from Sound Guitar Works (It's ordered!) A few changes from above, the fretboard will be Richlite and the frets are stainless The Wood: Here's where its at now. The maple top is from a staircase and the pine core is a 2X4, both from various deconstructed house's around Detroit. The pine is likely pre 1940's based on the dimensions/saw marks. I don't have a way to date the maple other than layers of paint… it's also old. The Design: I've shuffled around where and how to fit all the components many times at this point but I think I've finally settled in on a layout. The detailed design isn't done yet, but I just ordered a bunch of amp and battery components to measure and start test fitting. The top cover is going to protect the tubes. You'll also be able to access the power switch through it. The slots are to vent heat and to get a look at the hot glass The bottom cover is going to be hinged, or magnetic, or something easy to access. It's going to house the battery compartment and many auxiliary amp components. Wish me luck!
  5. That's the direction I was headed from a physical layout/construction angle anyway! I'd like to be able to assemble the guitar and amp separately and connect them as a final assembly step rather than build the amp in permanently. Along with electronically isolating the amp I'm hoping a mechanical separation from the body will help minimize microphonic tubes. Here's roughly the space I have for a "safety box". It's going to have the tube, transformer, power supply, and various passive components mounted on it. I'd like it to look like the front control cavity cover but on the top back side. I'm thinking about Richlite for the insolating box/cover but I haven't really looked into all my options yet. It should also be able to fit the on/off switch and some vent slots so you can see the tube glow. I haven't started doing a detailed plan yet but I think this is the general layout I'm going to try. This layout has the added bonus of generating and containing all of the high voltage in the upper section of the guitar. This puts gravity on the side of keeping mechanical failures away from high voltage.
  6. Lucky! I'm slowly getting the electric side of things figured out but I'm much more mechanically savvy. I don't have a schematic put together yet but I've been scheming about a topology change. I think it's going to use a TL072 op amp for the preamp and the 12AT7 in parallel for the output. The TL072 should act like a "fuse" for a plate to grid short before any power leaves the amp section. Another consideration is 100mA is the max the power supply can produce, the circuit itself should only draw 20-30mA. This may still be dangerous, but we're slowly chipping away at what could go wrong. I had a brief conversation about this with a close friend that is an electrical engineer. He suggested a fuse between the battery and power supply. He also proposed sacrificing a power supply or two by dead shorting it to make sure my fuse blows as intended. With a little test and tune I should be able to get something that runs the amp fine but limits the worst case scenario current significantly.
  7. Safety is certainly a major concern. I know a few individuals that are very knowledgeable about this subject that I can have double-check my final schematics for safety. I believe I have a few things going for me: 1. The voltage is high but there isn't a lot of current (100ma max). That's certainly enough to do some damage to a person, but would likely require a major and total failure 2. I think the battery will somewhat "self contain" my power. The player may be the only direct link to earth ground, but there is no positive side link to ground to compleat the circuit like a typical amp connected to grid power. By all means if anyone has further ideas on this or suggestions for safety measures to put in place let me know!
  8. I'm going to save push-pull for a later project. All of the off the shelf transformers I've found so far are a little too big. The next iteration will certainly be heavily inspired by the Fender reverb driver circuit. I've gotten a little more "wood work" done. I used a chisel to scrape off as much glue as possible from the top of the stair treads. That was followed with a little bit of sanding. Before: After: I'll likely end up doing a little more sanding before its done but this is pretty close to the look I'm going for. I wanted to get them roughly cleaned up and "flat" before cleaning up my glue joint. There's a pretty big difference in thickness between what was the front and back of the stair tread as shown above. There was certainly some variation in my splitting cut but most of that is from wear, these were some well used stairs! I'm going to attempt to get the two top sides (paint side) as flat as possible to each other, then come back and flatten the back relative to that. Hoping to end up with something like this:
  9. The information on that converter was sparse for sure, its worked for the proof of concept though. I've thought about designing my own power supply to get a little more voltage and have control over all the specs but its hard to pass on a plug and play package. I took a trip to visit my parents last weekend and got all of the wood processed into rough blanks. I'm still not 100% on the finished specs yet but here's what I'm thinking as of now. I'm pretty confident in my plan for this one. This board is pine or fir or something similar that's been sitting in my dads garage for ages, I have no idea how exactly how old it is or where it came from but I've been thinking it would make a good guitar for years now. It's going to get a Baltic birch plywood top/back and tweed wrap similar to the last build. I'm thinking it's going to get a p-90 for the neck pickup and a mild to somewhat heavy relic job. I've yet to try and relic anything but I love the look of a beat up tweed amp and I think it will transfer to a guitar well. This one is going to be all wood salvaged from Detroit. The body is going to be a glue up of 2x4's and the top is from the maple stair treads. My experience is somewhat limited but this was the hardest maple I've ever worked with. The end goal for this one is going to be a double bound, 3 tone sunburst finish with a standard tele neck pickup. This one is also going to be all wood salvaged from Detroit. The body is another glue up of 2x4's and the top is also from the maple stair treads. This one is going to be a little more experimental but I'm going to try and keep it a little rougher and really show off the "reclaimed". Ideally I'm going to sand the top and show off all the layers of paint from over the years. There's at least 3 or 4 different colors along with some cool wear, nails holes, etc. The back will be clear coated, possibly even leaving the saw marks and aged wood look. This one will also get a standard telecaster neck pickup. The tweed one is going to be right handed for sure, I'm not sure which of the Detroit ones is going to be the lefty yet.
  10. I've played around with the amp a little bit. It passes sound but it doesn't have as much volume as I'd like and the overdrive is pretty much non existent. The two potentiometers in the picture adjust the cathode resistance of each stage. With that, I've played around with different settings and nothing was close to "it". Even using the built in clean boost from original tele the most I could get was a mild crunch and it was still a little off. My next move is going to be a topology change. I'm going to try to run both stages of the tube in parallel for the power amp and use an op amp or two for the pre amp. The DC-DC converter certainly isn't the most efficient, but I think its power draw is still pretty mild compared to the heaters.
  11. Thanks! The benchtop exciter tests have gone pretty well so I'm optimistic they're going to work out. I didn't really keep track of signal phase in the first build but my hunch is that I can use the mechanical "feedback" in the system similar to negative feedback loops common in amplifier design. I'm going to make this a 2 channel amp: a clean one that has negative mechanical feedback, and a lead one that has an additional gain stage switched in. That should also flip my mechanical feedback to positive, ideally adding sustain and controllable feedback, like you'd get standing in front of a cranked amp. I'm not exactly sure how it does it but this is the power supply I've been playing with. It can convert 12V to ~220V. My test amp is pretty noisy, I don't think its the power supply but I haven't ruled it out yet. https://omnixie.com/products/nch6300hv-nixie-hv-power-module I took a look at some Lipo RC batteries. For now I like the clean packaging and quick swap setup drill batteries allow but I think the Lipo's might be good for some future, more power hungry/space limited projects I have planned. Thanks for the tip!
  12. Hey All! This build thread is going to be a sequel to my last build. I'm going to build three this time, one left handed and two right handed. The last build was mostly a proof of concept; I wanted to see how everything would fit together and where the potential issues were. I didn't know what I didn't know about designing a self-amplified guitar. It turned out pretty decent so it's time to take what was learned from the first build and put together a more refined design. This build is going to focus on using top quality and readily available materials, preferably common to the guitar community. The individual specs aren't all worked out yet, but here's what I've got so far: Amp: I'm going to use a single 12AT7 tube and a Fender reverb transformer for the output. The low voltage tubes sounded great, but I'm a little worried about their availability and they are a little power hungry for the volume you can get from them. I'm shooting for a little more headroom and volume with this build. I've mocked up an amp already but its relatively uninspiring still and needs some major tweaking. https://www.tdpri.com/threads/battery-powered-single-12at7-build.1081567/ Body/Speaker Cab: That might be misleading because I'm going to try and ditch the speaker. It was one of the heaviest components and the large hole in the pickguard is asking for trouble. I've done some preliminary tests with surface transducers and think I'll be able to make that work instead. This setup will also make room for a neck pickup! The open back can be a little annoying and occasionally catches on things. I'm going to move the battery to the edge of the body and generally alter the construction/layout a bit Neck: I'm still going to go with a premade neck to save a little time and setup. I'm going to get it unfinished though to give my own finishing process a go. I've been looking at best guitar parts for this but haven't really started buying parts yet. Progress To Date: Besides lots of planning I've bought some wood already. It was sourced from the Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit, highly recommend walking though if you ever find yourself in the area. These are 2x4's salvaged from a deconstructed home in Detroit, likely pre 1930's based on the dimension of the lumber and surface finish. I don't know the exact species of pine or anything like that, but I rummaged through the pile until I found some exceptionally light examples that had a nice ring. The boards were mostly de-nailed but there were a few stragglers to remove still. I also scored some thick maple stair treads and a bit of mahogany trim for a rainy day. Wish me luck!
  13. The Telebusker Hey Everyone! Up for consideration is my 4th guitar/1st tube amp build. This was mostly built in my basement with a few trips to visit friends and family with a wider selection of tools. Shoutout to ArcticWhite from the TDPRI for the name idea. The inspiration for this build came from mashing together a vintage blackguard esquire and champ amp. I wanted a way to play electric guitar for short bursts that didn't require much setup. I was also chasing that "cranked tube amp" tone at household volume levels. The Specs: Reclaimed Pine Body 1/4" Baltic Birch Plywood Top + Back Fender Standard Series Neck (Maple) Tweed/Shellac Finish Hot Hide Glue McNelly A5 Signature Tele Bridge Pickup 1/4W 12U7 & 12K5 Tube Amp 12V 1.5 Ah Lithium Ion Drill Battery Quam 4" Speaker Build Thread: Demo Video: Pictures:
  14. I have a bad habit of getting a guitar playable and neglecting the last 2 or 3 small details to really finish it. Well, I finally got around to it on this one. I think its officially done. On to the next!
  15. I've been too busy playing to post anything lately, this guitar is really hard to put down! I ran across my original photoshop concept today and figured it was worth showing the side by side.
  16. The only transformer is the output transformer. The amp runs straight off of the 12v battery, plates, heaters, everything. These tubes were designed to be battery powered for car radios back in the day. That being said the plates will handle up to 30v, a CWVM might work to bump the plate voltage and maybe squeeze out a little more headroom. I'm going to build a right handed version of what I already have designed next, but I already have plans to try something like this on the next prototype
  17. I'm still working my way towards a proper demo but in the meantime here's a quick clip of the distortion channel! A few observations from the first month: The battery lasts plenty long. I've played through a few charges start to finish but your ears are usually done by then anyway. I'd say on average I get 3-5 days of mild playing on a charge Speaking of ears, its a great volume. The straight tube channels you can play pretty much indefinitely. With the solid state boost channel you start to feel it in the ears after a bit but nothing compared to even the smallest "regular" tube amps. Nothing like having a fully cranked tube amp you can talk over. It "broke in" really fast. That's something I'd normally associate more with acoustics but the first week or two of playing this really "loosened it up" a bunch. This is speculation but fingers crossed the extra vibrations from the speaker is going to "age" this guitar well beyond its years.
  18. I smoothed out my toothpick fix with a chisel and some light scraping followed by a little paste wax. I also super glued on another layer of grill cloth to the back of the grill guard. I had one taped in there for my last round of testing and didn't notice any adverse effects on the sound. Having two layers hides the speaker much better. Before I started putting parts on I gave the body a round of ceramic coating. You basically mist it on and wipe it off. Not sure how much it helps but figured it couldn't hurt. At this point it was basically assembling a normal tele. And the final weight, including the battery and such, is 8.5 lbs.! Surprisingly its actually a little neck heavy. I still have a few minor details to clean up and haven't done a proper set up yet but once I get all that done I'll post some better pictures and sound clips. in the meantime...
  19. Here it is with some shellac! 6 coats to be exact. Its hand rubbed with a process resembling French polish The rag has a bit of behkol on it wrapped around a shellac soaked cotton round. The finishing schedule was as follows with steel wool between most coats: Coat 1: 1 part shellac to 3 parts behkol by weight Coat 2: Same as first Coat 3: I'm not exactly sure where my cut ended up but I took 1.5 oz. of my original mix and added another 1 oz. of behkol. I also added 2 drops of vintage amber dye. Coat 4: Same as coat 3 plus 2 more drops of dye Coat 5: Original 3:1 cut, no dye Coat 6: Eyeball cut. I was running low on mixed supplies but wasn't happy with coat 5 so I added a little more behkol and a few more shellac flakes.... I'd say it was thinner than the 3:1 but not by too much. A little bit of paste wax for easy clean up and a superglued in toothpick should take your eye off of the extra headstock hole.
  20. Got everything masked off and ready for shellac!
  21. Look closely at the b string, it's got a little extra help staying in place. On the bright side...
  22. I figured it was past time to put the string trees on. Notice anything wrong? It's a bummer of a little mistake to make this late in the build but oh well. Once I fixed it my string break angles all came out pretty consistent so that's a plus. I think the extra hole will disappear pretty well if I fill it but I might just leave it as some "prototype charm". I attached the boost circuit board to the bottom corner underneath the speaker and signed the back. I didn't get any in process pictures but I glued the back on with basically the same steps as the front. The major exception being I used hot hide glue for the back, If anything ever needs to be serviced the back should be relatively easy to remove.
  23. Life has been busy the last little bit but I've finally made some more progress on this. I ran into a strange feedback issues when I wired the solid state boost from the last video into this guitar. After a little to much poking at it, I let the magic smoke out and had to start over. Unfortunately the new circuit had the same feedback. It wasn't too much gain feedback, it was a little more static noise type feedback. After some additional investigative poking around I added some capacitance between the output and ground and it cleared up. This wasn't my first move though so by the time I was done my board got pretty messy. That being said.... oh man is it cool now.
  24. It's currently hotwired in but I got the circuit for the final switch position finished! I used the clean boost schematic linked below with 22uf caps instead of 10uf because its what I had lying around. I also have it on a separate 9v battery currently. Anyone see a reason I couldn't just run this from 12V? Worst case scenario I think I could drop the voltage to it by adjusting a resistor or two. http://effectslayouts.blogspot.com/2014/11/jfet-boost.html The guitar is out of commission right now because I need shorter screws to reattach the bridge. Like I said the boost is just wired in temporarily right now but here's a quick demo of the amp and boost using an auxiliary guitar. I don't want to speculate on how its going to sound as a total package yet but... I think the extra gain is the icing on top this needed! With the boost engaged the single note leads have useful distortion now and the chords/multi note lines have a light lo-fi fuzz sound.
×
×
  • Create New...