Prostheta

I have most of these components on hand! The complete electronics component BOM for the Bad Horsie 2 is as follows:

R1    4k7
R2    47k
R3    6k8
R4    15k
R5    4k7
R6    15k
R7    6k8
R8    1M
R9    1M
R10    1k
R11    1M
R13    1k5
R14    100k
R15    33k
R16    47R
R17    470k
R18    1k5
R19    22k
R20    220R
R21    470k
R22    1k
R23    10k
R24    100k
R25    10k
R26    10k
R27    1k
R28    1M
R29    470k
R30    470k
R31    470k
R32    470k
R33    1k
R34    10k
R35    100k
R36    82k
R37    1M
R38    1M2
R39    1M2
R40    470k
R41    1k
R42    33k
R43    6k8

C1    220u    16v elec.
C2    4u7    50v elec.
C3    47n    mylar
C4    47n    mylar
C5    10n    mylar
C6    30n    mylar
C7    10n    mylar
C8    4u7    50v elec.
C9    10n    mylar
C10    220n    mylar
C11    220n    mylar
(C12 missing?)
C13    1u    50v elec.
C14    10n    mylar
C15    47n    mylar
C16    47n    mylar
C17    100n    mylar
C18    100n    ceramic
C19    1n    mylar
C20    4n7    mylar
C21    1u    50v elec.
C22    5p    ceramic
C23    2n2    mylar
C24    2n2    mylar
C25    1u    50v elec.

D1    1N4003    http://www.banzaimusic.com/1N4003.html
D2    1N4148    http://www.banzaimusic.com/1N4148.html
D3    1N4148    
D4    1N4148    
        
        
T1    2N4401    https://www.banzaimusic.com/2N4401.html
T2    2N4401    
T3    2N3904    https://www.banzaimusic.com/2N3904.html
T4    2N3904    
        
F1    2N5484    http://www.banzaimusic.com/2N5484.html
F2    2N5484    
        
TP1    1M    vertical preset resistor    http://www.banzaimusic.com/PT10-vertical-1M.html
        
P1    B50k    http://www.banzaimusic.com/Alpha-16mm-split-shaft-50k-lin.html (need to check threaded section length)
P2    B100k    http://www.banzaimusic.com/Alpha-16mm-split-shaft-100k-lin.html (need to check threaded section length)

U1    CD4069   http://www.banzaimusic.com/CD4069.html (ICs will be socketed)
U2    TL064CN   http://www.banzaimusic.com/TL064CN.html

After disassembling the pedal, I couldn't find any sort of "detent" at the front end of the travel. It seemed a bit weird to me anyway, so it must have been some sort of stickiness in the mechanism that I accidently fixed through disassembly. I'm not too bothered about adding a spring to the mix at this stage, however the option will always be there to retrofit one.

Conundrum #1

Reading chatter around the Interwebs about Morley repairs, it seems that the LDRs are a sought-after part that only seem to come from Morley. In this instance I'm good for the LDR2/L2 pair which comprise an optocoupler for the wah sweep. What I'm needing is LDR1 and L1 which are for the switchless aspect of the pedal. Since there is no specific sweep for this, I think I can get away with a lot more.

Looking at the schematic, LDR1 is labelled as having a "value" of 150-200. In circuit it comprised half of a simple resistive voltage divider into the input of a CD4069UBE CMOS hex inverter. These are pretty simple logic devices, in that each inverter outputs the opposite of the input....pull the input high (9v) and the output sinks to 0v and vice versa. LDR1 and R1 act exactly the same way as a potentiometer, with the same mathematics behind them;

Vout=Vin.(LDR2/(R1+LDR2))

The values of 150-200 may represent the resistance of the photocell when excited by photons from L2, otherwise the resistance may be in the high kOhms or MOhms. So really, any LDR with an excited resistance of less than the value of R1 should produce the desired response. So maybe not as much of a conundrum as you might expect.

Conundrum #2

Ah, that old school wah user thing. The Power Wah is set up so that the pedal has a "home detent" at the front of the pedal's travel rather than the back, so users can pivot their foot and stomp on the switch with their heel. That's cool too, but not what I want, and interferes with both the switchless operation and the switch is for the contour mode anyway. I haven't disassembled the pedal mechanism yet, however I am guessing that there is some sort of way to reconfigured that detent and bring it to the front so the pedal "detents" at the back of the range, or remove it entirely. That's how I set up the expression pedal on my Helix wah models anyway, and the optocoupler curtain is configured to switch off the wah with the pedal rocked to the back. The "real" Bad Horsie 2 is sprung to bring the pedal back, so I may experiment to see how I like this and whether either mode bites me better.

A bit of a different mini-project for me at the moment. As of writing, I have two guitars awaiting paint and out of project sanity I shouldn't take on any new instruments. Too many projects around the house (skirtings, covings, window frames....) plus studies and financial concerns mean that I absolutely need to focus on my endeavours!

Long story:

So back in the UK when Nina was a manager of a music store, I somehow accidentally maybe managed to become the owner of a Morley Power Wah. I only recently started to become comfortable with wah on my Helix, and in fact really like the vocal tone and ability to focus on specific frequencies to induce long sustain/feedback. The pedal on my Helix is great, but the mechanism seems to have developed a weird click....so I figured that I'd dig out that old Morley pedal and see if I could repurpose it into an external controller for the Helix, but then I remembered that it was optical rather than driven by a potentiometer. Oh well.

Cut to the present day:

I don't care what other people think, but Morley are just cool from my perspective and opinion. Optical pedals might be a bit difficult to dial in and hell, I've seen some YouTube hacks brutally messing up the optical curtain as a "hack" in the truest sense of the word. The build is great, and I like the width, low centre of gravity and general form factor. Add into this that Morley designs their PCBs to be common across a number of pedals and you've got yourself a project.

These are the guts of the Power Wah.

In spite of my terribly focused phone camera, you can see that this is a very sparsely-populated board produced after the Bad Horsie 2 wah design; this PCB can be converted into the circuit for the Bad Horsie 2 simply by populating it fully, adding in a few pots and drilling out the case. Damn right.

My reference for this project is going to be from a number of sources. The Bad Horsie 2 schematic is easy to find, plus a guy called Keith repaired a Bad Horsie 2 and documented this on his blog. This provides excellent photo reference in addition to the PCB being fully documented as it stands. Awesome!

I haven't yet done a full inventory of the parts needed, however everything looks very standard and easy to acquire other than the Morley LDR. These seem out of stock everywhere I've looked so far, and I even came across a comment about them not being allowed in the EU (RoHS non-compliant?) but have nothing else backing that up. Physically, the enclosure matches other than the switch having been moved from one side of the body to the other. I don't yet know whether I will block this hole up and move it across or not. For the moment I will likely retain the position and figure out in future whether I like the ergonomics of it or not.

Beyond this mini project being not much more than a case of sourcing components and populating the board, I don't see much room for improvement or modification at this stage. I'm sure that I will though. Initially I think that the battery connector could do with basic strain relief, so drilling two holes in the PCB to thread the cables through will be a must. It may be good practice to do this for the switch as well, however the ground plane interferes somewhat. Depending on what I have on hand, I may also swap out all of the carbon comp resistors for metal film. It all looks good though!

Wow, well I don't see any peach or amber tone in that pink or any greening in the blue, so go for it! I can see a little in the grain where the oil has probably built up.

Tru-Oil will definitely add a very yellow cast to any clearcoat, more amber if anything.

What sort of lacquer is going over the dye? If it's nitro then I would think that there would be a very slight contribution of yellow to the dyed colour, making the pink slightly warmer, but certainly not peach (maybe in 20-30yrs!). Also, where are you sourcing your nitro? Here or elsewhere in the EU?

That method might work well for starting slots, that's for sure. If the razor saw can define a very specific location and lead-off angle, great. I wouldn't trust it to produce an accurate slot by malforming the cutting action outside of the tools designed purpose. Pressure on saw plates that thin quickly start deforming them, making them harder to work with when producing straight cuts in future!

I think it would be a good time to consider that there are significant fundamental issues here that cannot be addressed without significant work. At the very least, identify them and take that forward to your next build so you are always improving.

What I'd say about wood that you suspect has internal tensions, is that it should not be used for a neck. Wood will always move how it wants to move in spite of what you do against that, so using good stable wood is the bare minimum. If you're thinking of making any more builds going forwards, consider designs that are bolt-on. That way you can replace the neck the more you get a feel for what is working an what isn't, rather than a wavy pretzel torpedo'ing your entire instrument!

You mentioned making the neck "as thin as possible". The best starting point for a thin-feeling neck is to make the fingerboard as thin as it needs to be. A mm of excess on the fingerboard means you'll take another mm off the neck. I aim for no more than 6mm or 1/4" otherwise things can get a bit limited in where you can take the neck profile.

You can always use wound guitar strings as files. Tension a string up and use epoxy to glue it to the side of a popsicle stick or something like that. Perfect profile and width.

That's a massive issue. Why is it that uneven?

It's an interesting look, and it seems consistent. Testing on your workpiece is a bit crazy though!

Depending on the end result, I would consider something like a finishing epoxy like the ZAP stuff I used to seal the Sapele on my Mirage bodies. It's very penetrative, and as long as it doesn't remobilise the staining in the wood it should help build a smooth layer. I used rubber squeegees to lay on epoxy and then remove as much as was physically possible. There's a few demonstrations on YouTube, the one that springs to mind is a ukelele, or maybe an acoustic. I put together something like 4g per session, so a super accurate scale is necessary.

I'm glad that you've not had any issues, but that's definitely not guarantee other people won't. It's a hobbyist tool, and one that you'd never get away with using in a professional context. I could never recommend it beyond a super heavy thick layer of caveat'ing. It's the same as drill press drum sanding, however with those you can have a bearing on the end that seats in the table to prevent excessive lateral force loosening the chuck taper.

I'm 100% certain than I'm not the only person to have raised this. To the average person, this issue may not seem obvious until is absolutely sharp chompy spinning death-ily does.

Even if it wasn't an issue with the taper, the bearings in drill presses aren't built for that type of force either. Not that this will chew bearings in the short term, but will progressively increase play and uncertainty in centring for actual drilling.

Wagner Safe-t-planers still exist? Careful because the tapers in most drill presses are terrible once lateral forces and vibration are a factor. Then the safe bit becomes a bit less certain.

80085 RPM?

12 hours ago, henrim said:

Then I turned the stock in mini (metal) lathe to chosen diameter and sanded to 240.

How metal your lathe is was not lost on me.

I'm a secret Stranglers fan.

The best property of Osmo oils is their relative colourlessness. Danish oil will yellow the black.

"Golden black, texture like Ash."

I don't know the specific oils Osmo use, however Safflower is the lightest colour drying oil that I am aware of. It may be part of their secret. Whaddayaknow. Thanks Google.

"sunflower, soybean and thistle oil"

A large visible glueline can be a sign of a poor joint. Do you have better photos of that?

@Andyjr1515 is absolutely the man for this sort of approach.

The reviews look pretty lethal. Not seen it myself.

Single direction can help some people, but it really depends on how you internalise the technique. Single direction may help with waste removal. I brush and vacuum my sandpaper as I work before it builds. Try, test and evaluate.

I haven't yet, no. The bass is functionally complete and plays really nicely. I haven't posted finished pics yet as I need to locate some set screws of the correct length for the custom control knobs, plus the brass rear cavity covers need brushing and sealing with shellac or lacquer. The electronics are complete other than the rotary varitone, which is proving a conundrum as usual. The objective with that is to neatly stack the components around the switch body so that it is both aesthetically pleasing, neat and well-made. The originals in the Aria Pro II basses were good, if a little precarious. The modern reissue SB-1000 basses have varitones that are less than ideal in many respects, so I really wanted to priorities making everything as good as it could ever have been.

I will follow up, as I want to GOTM this bass.

Man, I had this same problem with my glow-in-the-dark epoxy inlays. The broken grains are obviously porous and started hanging onto Ebony dust.