Acousticraft

Boy thats handy with a sander disc as well. Does it have enough power for heavy sanding without slowing or stalling the motor? Its important not to over-tighten the blade as it puts excess load on the bearings and blade. 1/4" free play is probably correct. The manual should give this detail anyway. Check the guide rollers are set as per the manual as well.

What others have said about having the machine set up so the guide rollers are all adjusted properly and blade tensioned correctly so the blade tracks correctly is essential. The other point to note is to only have the throat opening just greater than the thickest part of the cut so the blade has the least amount of flex. To get a accurate cut on a band saw free hand requires practise, patience and good co-ordination. When I cut out a neck blank or body I mark the outline with a black permanent marker pen, then stay a mm or so outside my line. With that and the thickness of the line it leaves enough to clean up on a shop sander or jointer. I dont know what the band saw blade in my school shop is, but it has been on for about 5yrs now and still cuts well. I dont let my students cut out any guitar parts as I know in most cases they will go inside the line and stuff things up as they dont have the experience or feel of machines. That comes with practise.

Yes I agree about the pickups. For the price they are, one would expect a lot better pickup. There is also bit of noise when you take your hand off the strings as well even though the bridge is earthed and the cavities plus covers have copper shielding. The tenon is the length of the finger board and upper fret access isn't too bad considering 24 frets. The neck actually seemed quite flexible for some reason but the double acting Hotrod keeps it straight. I have used them on the last couple of builds and now wouldn't use anything else. They really are amazing and necessary to pull the neck straight after fretting to be able to level the frets properly. The selector switch wiring hole was drilled from the neck pickup cavity to the switch cavity. It was a matter of marking a pencil centre line for a guide and eye balling the angle and hoping for the best and it worked out OK.

One of the students Ive had building guitars from last year decided he had lost interest in his guitar project. He asked me if i would finish it for him, so with a small financial incentive I have finished and assembled it. He now has the task of stripping it and prepping the body and painting it. The plan for the body I drew up with some known measurements and scaled it off a pic. I must say it is quite a comfortable guitar to play, as I contoured the back but a pig to try and stand up. It is quite heavy as well as it is Sapelle. I made up the cavity covers from kitchen benchtop laminate. He has all gold hardware with Gotoh tuners and EMG HZ4/HZ4A pickups. Im not overly impressed with the pickups. The neck pickup is quite dark and muddy sounding and the bridge nothing special either. He had a few oops here and there with power tools so the body needs a bit of wood filler here and there plus grain filling to make it decent. http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0001-6.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0003-4.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0006-5.jpg

The capacitor may be wired incorrectly or faulty. That is a symtom of capacitor failure when the tone control acts as a volume control.

I have generally use cheap no name tuners and a few builds back decided to go with Grover rotomatics. They are probably the worst sloppiest tuners I have used so far. I do like the vintage tuners where the string end goes down into the middle of the post. Keeps everything nice and neat and professional looking.

Remove the strings and use a vacuum cleaner with brush to remove dust and gunk inside the body. On the outside use a clean cotton cloth with a guitar/cleaner polish like the type Martin make which I use myself and find is excellent. The tuners and frets if tarnished can brought to life with some metal polish cream. On the fret board if gunked up, I would use 0000 steel wool to clean it well and then bring it back to life with lemon oil or one of the finger board coatings that are available. I use Danish oil myself which works well for me but there are lots of options available.

I would seal the crack inside the sound board with masking tape and use clear slow cure epoxy glue to fill the crack. It will slowly seep down and fill the crack so it needs to be sealed so it doesn't leak out inside. Set the instrument up so the sound board sits level. You would also want to mask either side of the crack on the outside so you dont get epoxy on the finish. Use a tooth pick to drip the epoxy into the crack until filled level. The trick is then to remove the tape on the outside and inside just as the epoxy starts to set up so the tape will pull away cleanly and not be bonded to the glue.

I repaired a friends Ovation celebrity a while back as the neck had let go. I noticed the glue they use for the sound board braces looks like epoxy, not sure if it is or not. The string pull is directly on the bridge as the strings feed thru the back and aren't anchored in the sound board like most acoustics. So I would say yes they are needed, as they wouldn't have put bolts in if they weren't needed.

Awesome. Certainly a different shape to the normal basses. The whammy bar on a bass isn't a run of the mill thing to have. I know Roger Glover from Deep purple uses one.

One of the most important tools to have is a quality Vernier Caliper for precision measuring. I use mine all the time when building guitars. Ideal for checking thicknesses and measuring hole centres etc. Im making all my electric guitar nuts from brass now, so a hacksaw, coping saw and 4" mini files are all I need. I recently modified some needle files to cut the nut slots on my bass, as well as the tip cleaners I have always used and they worked well. I would recommend if you get a belt sander preferably 4", get one with the rigid flat bass. I got an old 4" Hitachi that Ive had for about 25 years that has the flexible sprung base and needs care when using otherwise you can easily sand a hollow in your work. Belt sanders are versatile as you can use them by hand or mount them on their side for edge sanding and shaping guitar braces etc. Get one that will sit perfectly square when on its side.

I use my 600mm long spirit level with 3m gold 320 grit paper glued to the edge. I use paper glue stick to stick it on and it is easy to remove for replacement. Works a treat and is perfectly straight.

I know the 5 way PCB switch has different wiring connections compared to a standard Strat switch because I changed mine to a stock strat from a PCB type when it gave problems. I sat down with my multimeter and worked out which contacts had continuity in each position. Try this link for a range of diagrams http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/stockstrat.php http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...28.html#details

They need gluing as they stretch and come off when they get older. Glue them on with contact cement. I have a bandsaw at school that 2 of the bands have come off and it still runs fine without them in place as I havent had time to glue them, but they are designed to help self center the blade on the curve of the band.

Recently I made up a radiused sanding bobbin to go in my drill press. I turned it out of a 60mm steel bar on a lathe but I cant see why a piece of hardwood wouldnt work just as well with a bolt for a shank thru the centre. I used an off cut from a Stew mac 12" radius fretboard for a pattern to machine and file it to. I glued some 80 grit paper on and set up a back guide and push it thru on a slow speed with lots of light cuts until I have a full radius. Works great and a couple of swipes with the 12" radius block with some fine sandpaper smooths it out nicely. I will never need to buy any more fingerboards now which saves money on a build.

I have the Stew Mac double edged fret file and the edges nearest the fingerboard are smooth so it doesnt mark it. Once the frets tops are levelled use a permanent marker on the frets. Then file the top moving it on a radius as you file across the top of the fret, until it just leaves a pencil thin line showing. Keep the file square and upright. Sit the fret wire in the radius that best matches the file and use that edge. Its good practice to mask either side of the frets so when final sanding and polishing of frets are done you keep the fingerboard clean and protect from the odd slip here and there during the filing stage.

A good pair of cut all craft scissors cuts it real easy. It also gives a smooth edge as well.

I use a 7-1/4" radius block and bend the fret wire over it with a pair of pliers holding the tang so it cant twist and work it thru bit by bit. Once it springs back it pretty close to 12" radius. It is always better to overbend slightly than underbend so the fret ends seat well.

A thicknesser is mainly used for machining wood from rough sawn stock easily and can take several millimeters off in one pass depending on what size and quality machine you have. A drum sander is more for finishing work and gives that final perfectly sanded surface. Again the better drum sanders have 2 or more heads with a range of sanding grits so it removes material fairly quickly if needed but not as much as a thicknesser is capable of. A drum sander also has the advantage of nicely finishing difficult woods such as Sapelle Mahogany that almost alway suffers from tearout no matter which way it is fed thru a thicknesser.

G&L make the ASAT bass which uses a Telecaster body. Fender must never have produced a factory version.

Years ago I bought some white 1/4" plastic knitting needles and cut them into little pieces for face markers. I still have enough to last for a long long time yet. On recent builds I have used the sparkley silver 1/4"mm self adhesive sequins that you can buy from a craft shop, drill a shallow hole and set them in resin. They look really cool and sparkle as they catch the light. I have also found very small plastic crotchet needles that I have used for side markers as well. When I'm looking for ornamental stuff for guitars a craft shop is the first place I look at.

The balance isnt too bad considering it has no strat like horn and also a heavy neck as I built like a Warmoth neck with two steel reinforcing rods 13x3mm on edge set in resin to give it strength. The hotrod truss rod which I also built myself has very little tension on it because of the stiffness of the neck. I havent a bass amp to play thru and my guitar amp doesnt like the E string and distorts badly but played acoustically sounds very even across all strings for each fret. It has a glued in set neck. I did the setup exactly as per Fenders setup guide from their website and it plays like a dream. Well done Fender! Northern Ash is a very easy wood to work and machines easily and has such a gorgeous grain running thru it, I couldnt bear to colour it at all. The control plate I designed and made out of a stainless steel offcut from the school I work at. I didnt want to use the standard Tele control plate but based it on the P bass scratch plate shape. Handy having free acess to lathes, milling machines, and jointers and thicknessers when making guitars. Did Fender ever produce a Bass with a normal Tele body as one of the intinerant music teachers that comes to the school thought they had, but Im not so shure about that? http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0001-5.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0004-4.jpg

I finished building and setting up my first bass on the weekend and have had a cool time playing it. I have found I can have just as much fun playing a bass as my guitars. Playing chords, scales and arpeggios plus bending notes is lots of fun and much more exciting than normal bass plunk, plunk is. I was amazed how quickly I felt at home playing it as the fret spacings and neck length feel huge compared to a Strat. I will get some pics taken and posted soon. The specs are: Northern Ash Telecaster guitar body, 34" scale Hard Maple neck with 12" radius Purple Heart fingerboard and brass nut, Allparts Fender style vintage tuners, Allparts bridge which is way better than a standard pressed Fender one. Genuine Fender split P bass pickup and controls that I bought second hand off our local auction site. The body, neck, nut, and fingerboard I made myself. Also pictured my Strat built out of the same piece of Ash. http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0006-4.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0003-3.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0009-2.jpg

Nothing wrong with modelling. I can get some nice chimey AC30 sounds out of my amp which my favourite amp sound. With 11 amp models I never get bored, I just use another model.

Ive just made a bass with a purpleheart fingerboard. Looks awsesome against a Maple neck. Ive got enough left over for another bass and guitar.