Prostheta

TBH, I've always considered Alembic to be pretty much perfectionists, so why does something like THIS slip through the net? Admittedly, it's a PITC to do matched grain backplates but surely router bite and non-linear lines should be factored out of "perfect" top-of-the-line custom work? Check the pics on the backplate and control cavity. What's with the crappy hardware store bargain basement trampy cardboard box and zinfandel grape style screws?

I would CA it, but take extra care when feathering in the edges to the surrounding finish. In that respect, it IS a hell of a job to attempt as opposed to living with it.

Have you got any disposable varnished furniture you can practice on? :-D

It's a good deal compared to the equivalent tools from Stewmac, yes.

All I see is a dinosaur on wheels man.

Perhaps the pot track or wiper is dirty, causing resistance between the signal and earth. Turn the volume pot all the way down and check the resistance between earth and the centre tag on your pot. I bet it's not zero....

I speak Swedish, (English), and German (although it's been a while and it's quite rusty)...I'm also able to read and communicate in other nordic languages (except finnish). And I'm now also quite sufficient in translating Australian into English

Aidlook, surely you know the loudest Finnish words like vittu and jumalauta?

That's a total racial stereotype Luke. If you'd ever been to Sweden, you'd find that women are in general as normal and bland as anywhere else in the world.

My wife is Finnish and can speak Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, German and English. Ad you say Aidlook, it's part of the general curriculum as opposed to Nina being a superhuman :-D

Translation is funny (apologies in advance to Finnish speakers) especially swearwords like perkele and jumalauta! No direct translation but extremely powerful words in their own language and context.

Ideally they should all be as flat as each other for consistency in brightness and apparent viewing angle.

Usually, you can sand the rounded part flat without getting near the cathode/anode encased inside. The downside is that you will reduce the viewing angle somewhat. Super/ultrabright LEDs look pretty good if you leave the flattened area slightly rough (say, 600-800 grit) so it diffuses light better. Lower output LEDs will show the scratches more.

I've been considering using rectangular LEDs in a fretboard for a while. Bit of a PITA for mounting non-side facing items though.

Can't see why not. You'll need to take it through to some stupid high grit though, so you might want to consider some masking of the surrounding fretboard else you'll end up with some very shiny bits, potentially lower than the rest of the board.

How much was you taking at a time using the template bit? I bandsaw my bodies to within 5mm and even then take about only about 5-10mm depth each router pass to be safe.

Was that area weakened in some way? That's some hell mighty tearout...

I went back through to the start of this thread and realised I replied to it ages ago when it was new! In that time I've learned to trust my routers and template followers much more than "soft" tools like spindle sanders which are a pain to produce anything but curves on :-D

How time flies (like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana etc.)

Turd polish? Ohhh. You mean BEER.

That stuff makes anything look passable after a few polishes.

Yeah, I get that as well. I really have to get a respirator. Padauk bogies are pretty gross.

Burrito.

Oh man - I forgot how much I loved the Tone Zone in my ESP Custom Mirage.

</drool>

I wouldn't be so hurried to write a tutorial if you're having problems perfecting the method man! Still, if you achieve it as a fully functional build as opposed to a board on the floor then cool.

I personally would have used side-facing LEDs and popped some frosted perspex in as rounded inlays as lenses. Anyway. Do go on.

Spit n' sawdust.

I had my own little lesson in tear-out last night:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/rick...rat_tearout.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/rick...t_rough_cut.jpg

(Second pic is back view, before I attacked it with the router.)

Eek... I'm thinking about cutting out the damaged area and inlaying a 2" wide flamed maple stripe parallel to the neck, and pretending like I designed it that way.

And I'm buying a Robo-sander before I work with mahogany again.

First post, btw... hi everyone!

How much was you taking at a time using the template bit? I bandsaw my bodies to within 5mm and even then take about only about 5-10mm depth each router pass to be safe.

Was that area weakened in some way? That's some hell mighty tearout...

Put two 100 Ohm resistors in series (in a chain) to make a 200 Ohm resistor :-D

I would recommend low-current LEDs myself, as you'll drain a battery pretty sharpish at that current!!

Wood shifts around too much for chroming or any film finish. You could possibly vac-form a plastic substrate to the top, then a film of chrome or mirrored vinyl, and then perhaps some protective cover. I'm not 100% if you can vac-form Perspex although you can do pretty much anything else with it....

Right now I have my hands full with the five-string bass I have on the go, but soon that baby will be ready to be finished and left to cure. The next projects are two four-string Thunderbird basses made pretty much to the exact same spec as the production model. One will be a stage dog in a solid finish over much the same build specs as the production model, the other will be a combination of woods which differ to the original build for home and studio use. The beaut!

Let me break down the Gibson Thunderbird piece by piece.

- nine laminate neck-through with scarf jointed headstock

- (out to in) mahogany/walnut pin/mahogany/walnut pin/mahogany core

- 20 fret rosewood fingerboard over a 34" scale (looks like ebony in most photos though!)

- two side wings joined to the body with a V joint

- three way adjustable bridge

- (currently) two ceramic magnet humbuckers

- vol/vol/tone

THE BEAUT

The laminates of walnut aren't spectacularly thick (around 1.0-1.5mm) so I presume they don't affect the tone hugely. The wing/body join is a "V" joint with the V protruding into the neck tenon at it's widest point (4"/10cm). I'll probably abandon this idea in favour of a straight planed join as I can't seem to source cutters to do this cheaply.

Now, the ideas I have for modifying this slightly are to use the two wenge laminates Will (Soundat11) sent me between three pieces of (hopefully) quartered mahogany (if I can buy any in the UK!). Either side of the laminates, I intend to pinstripe oak and wenge veneer making it a MwoWowMwoWowM (!!) neck. Lower case denotes veneer as opposed to stock. Fingerboardwise, I like the idea of Ziricote (damn you Simo!) or perhaps Cocobolo if I feel particularly masochistic that week. The wings will comes from my flatsawn stock. The pickups will be a straight out pair of EMG-45DCs with an EMG-BTS tone system.

I would prefer to maintain the sound of a Thunderbird through the build of The Beaut but changing the pickups to active ceramics, and the fingerboard wood will alter the tone. Question here: how would the wood changes affect the tone in opposition to rosewood? I love the rolling growly mid-sound of Thunderbirds, so I could dial back the sound somewhat with the EQ. Anyway.

THE STAGE DOG

We're not talking beauty here. I intend to solid-finish the neck and body black, at the most a blackburst over the mahogany. Neck laminates aren't crucial to the looks - merely the stability and tone. Pickups will be the same EMG combo. I'm open to discussion on what would make good practical laminates for the neck (three piece mahogany?). I'll probably go ebony on the fingerboard (which I know will change the sound a lot).

This will teach me a hell of a lot over the side-by-side builds as A/Bing the instruments will be awesome at the end of the line.

What I'm interested in discussing (usually to the Nth degree as is traditional) is:

- how wood choices will affect the overall sound of the instrument, and why the production instrument sounds like it does (apart from the quirky midrange!).

- alternative pickup choices (I've always played EMG and actives so I'm blinkered)

Phew. Hopefully this will turn into a nice epic venture.

Build is slated to start January, depending on the winter here and how the five-string progresses.

Oh yes - before anybody mentions it: I'm familiar with the basic characteristic wood sounds, but am interested in combinations and how you can use woods to sculpt your tone to a degree. I blame Wes' maple on this bit. :-D

Hear hear Simo!!

Any more of that lovely Ziricote going around?

Interesting take there Wes...

Okay, we'll use Ohm's Law here.

R=V/I

R is resistance, in kilohms.

V is voltage is volts.

I is current in milliamps.

Take you supply voltage and subtract your forward voltage in your specs.

V=9-3.3

V=5.7v

Therefore you have:

R=5.7/I

...where I is you maximum forward current...

R=5.7/30

R=0.19

This means to allow 30mA through your LED with 5.7v across it, you need a 0.19k resistor (190 Ohms). Given that you might not get a 190 Ohm resistor, take the next higher value (which will allow a little less current through, not more!) and you win.

Your closest E12 series resistor is 220 Ohms (allowing 25.9mA to flow), and your closest E24 series is 200 Ohms (allowing 28.5mA to flow).

Learn your math on this one and you'll be surprised how much you can start designing.

This is pretty good reference:

http://www.doctronics.co.uk/resistor.htm

150 ohm is a quite low resistance and will let a lot of current flow through it. 60mA if I'm not mistaken. Given that you're dropping 3.3v, leaves 38mA. Hella loads! Can you post a link to the specs of the LEDs if you bought them online?

Do you know what resistors do, or how to use Google to find out what values they are? Trust me - that cable you have will be fine for small current applications. Unless that bronze stuff is toffee or something. Grab Google or Wikipedia and read up on how LEDs work, and why you need a resistor in series with them.