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Acousticraft

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Everything posted by Acousticraft

  1. Ive just shielded the cavities of my Strat with Aluminium foil tape and its silent. As long as it is conductive it works fine and ground it to the back of the pots. I used a small screw with a washer and stripped the wire back a little wrapped it around the screw and tightened it down thru the foil. Yes its much cheaper and easier to get than copper tape and good for doing big cavity areas like a Strat.
  2. Looks cool, but you need to cut off the extra strings as they spoil the look.
  3. The secret to quiet guitars is fully shielded cavities lined with copper or aluminium foil tape. The cavity shielding should be grounded as well to the back of the pots. Im assuming you have a Tuneomatic, if so there should be a ground wire going thru a drilled hole from the control cavity and connected to one of the bushes for bridge or tail piece mounting. You could check with a multimeter whether there is continuity between the bridge and pot or not for a start. The inside centre of the jack socket is ground and the clip is hot.
  4. Any of the yellow Aliphatic glues work well in my experience. You dont only need to buy Titebond.
  5. It is important if you want your strings to be even and parallel to the edges of your finger board to draw the position of the two outer E strings accurately. You will need your preferred nut width and string spacing at the nut, the scale length plus slight compensation for the bridge, plus the string spacing 2-3/16" at the bridge. This way the taper on the fingerboard will end up correct in the final reckoning. All my guitars vary at the nut width slightly but I tend to prefer the Gibson 1-7/8" wide nuts so my string spacing is a little wider for my big fingers. I find the Strat width OK once you get use to it but I prefer the wider Gibson.
  6. I buy all my wood from my local specialist timber importer. Although I cant get all the species I want, I can hand pick all the rough sawn wood I need and can sometimes buy short offcuts cheaply. You can make a excellent neck by laminating several pieces together rather than cutting it out of one thick piece. You can then orientate the grain in opposite directions when gluing to make a real strong stable neck. This is my preferred option and the least wasteful way of making a neck without a scarfed neck joint.
  7. I have always built what I have been wanting as far as guitars go. I have only bought one guitar, a cheapo nylon string acoustic for my son. So far I have built two Dreadnoughts, LP, ES335 and Strat and I have a Tele build ready to go sometime soon.
  8. If it has a slight bow in the neck I wouldnt worry as you will be able to correct that with the trussrod once the fingerboard is glued and clamped on. If it has twisted then thats another matter, but I have a strat that has a very slight twist in the neck but doesnt effect its playability at all.
  9. Are you using a tailpiece as your post doesnt say? I dont think you would want less than about 5-6 degrees minimum for your string break angle otherwise the strings may move on the saddles especially if they arent notched. Are you using this setup on a Strat or the like to need to recess the bridge?
  10. Thats what I use on all my guitars and it gives a hard finish. The brand I use is an Australian made product called Mirotone Microcat 1320 and is very easy to spray and get a good finish and is UV resistant. I could use the two pot or the Nitro product they make as well but I stick with the single pack as I know it works for me and any left over can be poured back into the container. I dont know whether that brand is available where you are or not?
  11. Interesting design and beautiful craftmanship. Awesome.
  12. Thanks guys for the comments. The Strat certainly must be the most ergonomically designed guitar as they are so comfortable to play and so versatile for every style of music. It makes you appreciate the brilliance of Leo Fender how he made the neck out of one thin, cheap, easily machinable piece of wood and all the electrics mounted to the pick guard so it it preassembled and wired plus the removable neck. I have come to appreciate all these things as the build has progressed. The Chrome series Valvetronic like my AD50VT is no tube amp but for the price the sound quality is amazing. The blue series AD120VTX is certainly the king of the modelling amps and not far off a full blown tube amp for sound quality.
  13. I just finished my Strat Ive been working on for a little while. It has an Ash body, glued in Maple neck with Rosewood fingerboard and Brass nut with Vintage style tuners. The bridge is a tremelo which I havent come to grips with yet. Pickups are Kent Armstrong STV1 and have that classic Strat sound. I wired it so positions 1&2 use the top tone control, 3 has no tone and 4&5 use the bottom control. The cavities are fully shielded with aluminium foil tape and pickups and wiring loom is wrapped in copper tape. This thing is noiseless just like my other Humbucker guitars so Im really pleased. The sound options are amazing and 3 (centre pickup) gives a rich full sound almost like a Humbucker. Now I know what Strat quack is. The body I built, but the neck, electrics and hardware was given to me in exchange for a re fret on an Ibanez This is the first Strat I have ever built and all my other builds have Humbuckers. I also custom built the case for it as I have done for all my electrics. I always wondered what a single coil guitar would sound like thru my Valvetronic and all I can say is wow. Many of the amp models that I dont like so much with my Bucker guitars all sound good with this baby. http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...03Image0003.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0004-3.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0005-2.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0006-2.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0009-1.jpg
  14. Measure from the front edge of the nut to the twelfth fret and double that. That will give you your scale length. What sort of bridge does it have, Floating or fixed? Then you will need around 5-7mm extra for compensation on the low E string.
  15. I used this jig when I sprayed my ES335 semi-hollow and it worked to perfection for my new Strat project. The strat has a glued in neck as I like my guitars that way plus the sustain improves. The jig lets you turn the body to the required angle for both sanding and spraying. I can lay down a nice wet coat without fear of it running. I just bought the touch up gun with a 200mm cup and it worked perfectly once I tweaked the settings. The finish is Mirotone Microcat 1320 precatalysed lacquer with a 50% gloss and I sanded the body to 400 grit and lightly sanded with 400 between coats. The weather has been wet and damp and I have been waiting for several weeks for a day with low humidity. Today dawned a lovely fine breezy day plus the humidity had dropped way back so I went for it. I also installed a extractor fan into the shed window and it did a great job of sucking the fumes out. Now is the hard part having to wait for a week or so to wet sand and buff, polish etc. Cant wait! http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...Image0005-1.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...03Image0007.jpg http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/One...03Image0003.jpg
  16. Welcome to the forum archtop. If you use some thin cardboard you put it over the F hole and run your finger around the edge of it and it will leave an imprint on the back. The headstock is a little tricky to trace with the tuners fitted but I have done it on an Epi LP.
  17. Hey WezV Is that your mobile effects unit next to the head. Is it a Wow Wow or Me ow.
  18. I do recall seeing a setup like that. Isnt there a picture in Melvyn Hiscocks book of one?
  19. That tail piece will work in conjunction with a Tuneomatic bridge. Pickups are a personal taste but Im sure those would be fine.
  20. I got some brass bar so I will make a nut. If it doesnt suit I can easily change it. The jury seems to be out on compensated nuts.
  21. Anyone used a brass nut on a strat? I thought it would be the ideal setup for a tremolo as they are a slippery material but hope it would be too bright sounding? The other thing I have been looking at is compensated nuts. Are they as good as they are made out to be or plain unnecessary?
  22. I wouldnt put epoxy on the fingerboard as evenutally the string wear will cause it to chip. Use some Danish oil or similar so it feels natural. Are you trying to bind a fingerboard that is glued to the neck and attached to the guitar body?
  23. I have seen special tremolo lube products such as Big Bends Guitar Sauce and Lizard Spit nut lube on the net. Has anyone with a standard strat tremolo setup found a lube that will allow the strings to slide over the nut and saddles freely to return to pitch. I know pencil lead is commonly used for the nut slots. I may make the nut from brass as that is naturally a good bearing material and I have some here anyway. I hope it doesn't make it too bright sounding. I have thought of getting some graphite powder and mixing it with silicone lube. What do you guys use?
  24. I have an inline switch that has 8 terminals and have just wired up my Strat so the middle tone control works in switch position 1 and 2, no tone for 3 and rear tone does 4,5. It is the suggested setup. Check this site. http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/menu.php I used my multi-meter to find out which terminals were conected in each switch position and wrote them down. On my 5 way switch starting from the jack end as number one. Terminals 4&5 are bridged on my switch. Pos 1= 1,4,5,6 Neck Pos 2= 1,2,4,5,6,7 Neck middle Pos 3= 2,4,5,7 Middle Pos 4= 2,3,4,5,7,8 Middle,Bridge Pos 5= 3,4,5,8 Bridge So 1 is neck pickup wire 2 is middle pickup wire 3 is Bridge pickup wire 4-5 is wire to left term. vol pot. 6 is wire to middle term. middle tone pot 7- No wire 8 is wire to left term. rear tone pot. There are other options by bridging 7 and 8 so tone control is on every position. .
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