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Acousticraft

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    Northland, New Zealand

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  1. What is the purpose, strength or sound? Seems like a lot of work for a first build. I would stick to a proven traditional design and experiment once you are a few guitars down the track.
  2. I have heaps of corian cut for guitar nuts but I really dont like it for two reasons. The strings stick badly in the nut when it sits for a while. It is also very soft and wears quickly but is easy to work. I dont believe the sound transfer is as good as other alternatives either. For my electrics I am making my nuts from brass as they sound more alive but is a little slower to cut the string slots. I find the strings dont stick either in the slots when tuning. For acoustics Ive tended to use Tuskq for both nuts and saddles as it seems to be really efficient for sound transfer and very easy to file and slot although also a bit soft. I havent used bone as yet so cant comment on the comparison with Tuskq but would be harder wearing no doubt.
  3. I like the finishing when you spray clear laquer on a body and the grain jumps out and that lump of shapen wood suddenly looks beautiful. Every finish job i think I am improving on as well. I havent quite got grain filling 100 percent licked yet but am very close.
  4. Try one of the new Vox VT30 or 50 watt valvetronixs. They can save 8 patches that can be changed with the floor switch and have heaps of great moddelled tones with built in attenuator. I have an older model AD50VT and with the wattage attenuator you can crank it hard out at low volumes at home and get a good tone. I use it for church worship and love it as it has volume if needed and not too heavy to move in and out of cars etc. If I went to all valve AC15 it would probably be another 20 pounds heavier as the transformers are so heavy. The other option is one of the older model Vox AD60VTX which can be used with the VC4 or VC12 floor boards. A friend of mine who has played in lots of bands tells me the low wattage tube amps get lost in the mix and you need probably 15 watts min.
  5. Ive used clear epoxy and sawdust mixed for filling and it way is better than normal white glue and sawdust that shows with a clear finish.
  6. I found some plans from www.benolt-de-bretogne.com thanks to a link from a post which has fairly detailed french plans all in metric of course. I drew up a half body template, then the side view showing the neck angle and back contour then using the side view developed the side templates. The drawing part is easy as I teach graphics at a high school. The flash for the pics I took make the modelling cardboard I used look a strange colour but Im well on the way to be able to start. I need to draw out a full size body template so I can mark out the braces etc. I like to have detailed drawings for all the guitars I build so everything is correct before I start work and all details can be taken straight of the plans. http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0001-8.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0002-8.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0005-4.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0008-3.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0012-2.jpg
  7. Thanks for the replies. Ok so Spruce is not a neck wood but I presume it could be used for the neck block, tail block and kerfings. Yes I asked him to look out for some Mahogany, or Rosewood which Ive seen some piano cases made from.
  8. A friend of mine who is a piano tuner and strips old pianos for scrap metal, gave me three upright piano soundboards. The sound boards are in strips in varying widths that would probably require a three piece join for an acoustic soundboard. Two are spruce an the other is Cedar I have enough spruce with the 3"x 3" framing to last me a lifetime for braces etc. The tone bars on their own will give lots of resawing. These are really old pianos and the one I haven't stripped yet looks to have a bit of borer so will pick what is good out of it. There will quite be a bit of firewood left over. The sound boards are all quarter sawn and no doubt a high grade would have been chosen for a piano. The down side is they have screw holes where the tone bars were fastened but i thought I could fill them or hide those with an inlay. I am fired up to build a Gibson style jumbo acoustic now I have this wood. My next task will be to build a mould. I thought about making the neck out of spruce as well as it is very strong and I have heaps of it. Has anyone done this successfully?
  9. I did the mod to my strat so the tone controls only work on the front and rear pickups. I leave the neck pickup tone on full and dial back the bridge to about 7 to take some of the brightness/sharpness out of it. Otherwise I think they are locked at 10 on most peoples guitars.
  10. They can be tight to get off if they havent been removed for years. I have used thin bits of wood or hard plastic to protect the finish and use a couple of wood chisels to wriggle and pry them off. Hammering tight knobs on can drive the shaft down out of the pot as well damaging them. I had the same thing happen when I tried to fit the knobs on a P bass and the shaft moved down and popped the cover off the pot but I managed to fix it OK luckily.
  11. Check out the bottom of the page where the Tele mods are. http://deaf-eddie.net/drawings/drawings.html
  12. I must say I dont like the series sound for distortion as they are too muddy sounding, still prefer the bridge single coil for that cutting tone but for clean or slight overdrive they sound cool. I love the neck and middle in series for blues.
  13. A pretty common problem the thicker strings being sharp at the first few frets. I read just recently of some Luthiers that tune at the 5th fret and intonate at the 17th to even out the tuning errors over the fret board. I havent tried it but will give it a go next time I do a string change. I guess Capo the 5th and tune to A-D-G-C-E-A and set intonation at 17th. That the reason they brought out Earvana nuts that are supposed to help correct those intonation problems. A guitar is a tempered scale and never plays exactly in tune over the whole finger board.
  14. I needed to replace a scratchy volume pot and faulty selector switch so changed the volume pot, selector switch and put a push/pull pot for the bottom tone pot. I was originally just going to make the bridge and neck switch in with the pot pulled up. I found this cool wiring schematic mod which works perfectly and puts the p/ups in series for a fat humbucker tone in many of the selector positions. There are two different diagrams which are very similar but give slightly different results. I used the first and it gives a fat sound and I love the bridge and neck in series very Les Paulish sounding. I gues this is similar to what the S-1 switching does on a Strat but a lot cheaper and probably more reliable from what i have read. http://www.deaf-eddie.net/pushpull/pushpull.html http://deaf-eddie.net/drawings/strat-series-2.jpg http://deaf-eddie.net/drawings/strat-all-series.jpg
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