MichiganBoySB

I never looked at it how an open string when played could be louder than a fretted string! I mainly thought the importance of nut material is longevity... pretty neat. This luthier who's got my guitar right now says he's using the material that bowling balls are made out of ... is it corian? Ken

Thought I posted pic of my gear... here it is: I'm totally into the heaviness of a man who goes by the name of Buckethead, incredible shiznit!

Well not the standard ones, just these Kent Armstrongs that were thrown in there from this guitar shop. I'm just going to go with these for the time being. But my local luthier and I agreed to go with one volume for each pickup and the TBX control cuz I don't necessarily want to part with the 3 way selector switch. Oh and also I played the hell out of this thing years ago... I do have a frame of reference, basically was always whining about needing more treble! Alright I'll let you know my opinion about it in a few days. Ken

Well alright I placed an order for (2) 1meg volume pots, (1) TBX pot and (1) blender. I'll find out for myself I guess.

Pic of the guitar is here -----v http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/Cr...tarVpics013.jpg I recently refinished this guitar... came out nice. It standarly comes with (2) 500k volumes; one for each pickup and one tone control for both pickups. Now I'm considering going with 1meg volume pots to brighten it up a bit along with a blender pot for the tone control. I never used the tone control before because it didnt seem to have enough treble even when dialed to 10. Whatcha thing guys? Ken

Ended up using 4 coats of Casey's Tru Oil... turned out good have a looksy http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/Cr...tarVpics013.jpg Its not completely put together yet. I need to decide on what nut material to go with along with a new bridge. The original is a gotoh bridge but am wondering if there's something better that locks in with setscrews or something. Also am wondering if at this time I should change out the pots. Whatcha think? Ken

Wow that two stage sounds difficult, wouldn't know where to begin. Buddy of mine told me to Tung oil it which will bring out the grain quite nicely. But even with this there must be a process involved... anyone have experience in this by chance? I'm trying to find out exactly where that guitar is displayed, its called the "coop" guitar since he was raised by chickens in a chicken coop. thanks for responding, Ken

Hey Project Guitar, Pic here with paint fully stripped: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/Cr...tarVpics005.jpg What I'm leaning towards at this time is something like this: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/Cr...FlyingVandc.jpg I have some sanding to do now and really its still up in the air whether to stain it like this : http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q131/Cr...headsguitar.jpg or simply put some clear on it. But sure would appreciate any other creative ideas. I probably should've just left it candyapple red but its too late for that now. I actually am considering making a wooden pickguard... have you ever seen them before? Hope to hear back from you guys... again much appreciative of your input. Ken

Hmm interesting viewpoints, Its a reissue... bought it during Desert Storm in Dubai. Was the only american made guitar in the store's street display case with flood lights on it etc... lol. I needed something to play while at sea so I picked it up for a thousand. Its just this luthier friend of mine showed me his natural wood V and thought it was nice. He told me to put a heatgun it otherwise the stripper may discolor it in some way. Anyways thanks for your responses. Ken

Hi Gentleman, I decided to strip this red paint finish on this Gibson V of mine http://www.wideopenwest.com/~kpasque/publi...pictures/V3.jpg Using stripper on it won't harm it or anything? Can someone recommend a good product to use? Also any polyurethane advice would be helpful. appreciate it, Ken

How else am I to title this problem, If its even a problem at all. Could it just be technique or some electrical problem that makes the pickups pickup any scraping or sliding of the fingers etc...? I understand there will be some but with this guitar of mine it almost sounds like any hitting of my hand on the strings causes my sound to be unclear. Ken thanks

Must all guitar necks be angled? I took my neck off yesterday and placed a thin piece of cardboard to see if it improved the playability at all. I didn't give it much of a pitch at all and couldn't really make out any huge difference. But my guess is that neck pitch aids more in the playability of a guitar rather than sustain or anything else huh? I got this beef with my guitar with how brief its sustain is and I've been trying to handle it for the longest time! Ken

Yeah, I was going to point that out too --looks like it's high enough to be a toaster pickup. Didn't someone already say that rotating the pup won't change much--or maybe he was just talking about the tone? BTW I use 10-46 DR's and the sound I admire would be of a man who goes by the name of "Buckethead". Now the earlier poster mentioned how he had asked Dimarzio if turning the pickups around makes any diff and they said it doesn't. I beg to differ cuz I had rotated the bridge p/u and was late going back to work cuz I couldn't stop jamming for 45 minutes. What was obvious is that the guitar cleaned up a whole lot. Besides the problem being mainly lack of sustain I had this other extremely unplayable kind of behaviour going on. And that was any "hand-swipage" or palm muting would clutter up the sound. Any rubbing, swiping, scraping etc... on the strings would just about be as loud as the ringing strings, know what I mean? Now you'll say "well thats cuz of your messy technique". But now its not a matter of it being a hinderance but rather an asset to the sound. Tonight I'll rotate the neck pickup and see what it does. Guess I'll leave you with this question... how do you think rotating these pickups could have changed my sound for the better? CYA, Ken ps: I ought to go the extra mile and post a video of my playing on Youtube for a further understanding.

Ok modified my post thx. No matter if they are new strings or old the "fence wire sustain" is still there. I'll try rotating my pickups 180 degrees to see what that'll do. That ugly button is a stutter/kill switch... I like Ken

Apologize for the delay in getting these up... http://www.wideopenwest.com/~kpasque/guitar1.jpg http://www.wideopenwest.com/~kpasque/guitar2.jpg http://www.wideopenwest.com/~kpasque/guitar3.jpg I'm making plans to send this off to Mark Arnquist (luthier in Seattle). I really took a hit with this purchase. I want to thankyou for taking the time to respond, always appreciate your input. Ken

I thought it was my amps as well thats why I'd change out the tubes or send them to a repair tech etc.... But each display this lack luster sustain. One more thing I haven't really paid too much attention to is my guitar cable, just a thought. I'm currently playing through my Budda Superdrive II along with a line6 delay pedal ... that's it. I have the Boss NS-2 but don't use it right now till I get this issue handled. It seems that with music there can be so many elements that try and prevent you from being creative such as extraneous noise issues, or a guitar that won't stay in tune, muddiness or no controllable feedback etc.... I've been slowly but surely handling these issues over the past few years. I'll be honest with ya I was going to quit playing guitar just cuz my G.A.S was costing me a fortune and I wasn't satisfied with the gear. Friend of mine insisted I start fresh with a custom guitar and go from there. Ugh the QUicksiLver. BTW with regard to having too hot of a pickup magnet pulling on the strings, thought that might be it as well that's why I recently changed out my Dimarzio X2N and neck Tonezone with the air zone and air norton medium p/u's. Pictures will be posted tomorrow ... just by inspecting my guitar maybe you all will see some sort of gross error. How about my question about the poles direction? Does it matter or no? Later, Ken ps: ty for being very responsive

I took pictures tonight but my camera's computer cable is at work... I'll get it tomorrow. I'm keeping the guitar and not dealing with Ed Roman again. Eventually I'd like to build my own les paul from Warmoth parts. The neck has never been taken off and again I never paid attention to the lack of sustain cuz as I said I was focused more on how well it stayed in tune etc.... My gibson V needs to get operational again... it was very fluid, I should be working on it instead of this really lol. The usual trussrod setting is at about .007 7th fret you know. Bridge pickup about a 16th while depressing the 19th fret. Neck about n 1/8. Now I worked and tweaked these adjustments like crazy to get a first hand look at how they affect the sound. Nothing seems to increase the note longevity. The playability may get better and tone but the sustaining note seems to lose its life at about 6 seconds. I should kinda clarify this lack of sustain furter; it sustains but loses its life or volume rather rapidly as far as I think. Let me ask you about this... you know the adjustment poles in the p/u's? Well should the screws be, lets say, facing the front on the bridge p/u and facing the back on the neck p/u? Or it doesn't matter? Also this lack of note luster is really all over the neck... but notice it much more in the upper neck region. Thankyou, Ken

Its a "bolt-in" neck... I'll provide some detailed pictures for you today so maybe someone can notice any gross errors. Ken

Didn't realize its lack of sustain till long after I bought it. The most important thing to me at the time was to finally have a guitar that stayed in tune up and down the neck so I had him include the buzz feiten. That would suck if the pickups were in a non-optimum position cuz I can't really correct that. And I'd be taking more of a hit if I sold this thing for a quarter of what I got into it. I wanted to put a new neck on it from Warmoth but turns out I just can't simply throw one of their necks in a quicksilver. I got to keep awn keeping awn with this "repair"... I'm in too deep. My next move shall be to throw a new tone pros on it and a new nut even though I can see how it may not be the nut from what the earlier posted wrote. I'll keep you posted of course. Ken Oh and yea I did try modifying the amp tubes with a "my fav" tube package from Euro tubes. half EL34's and 6L6's with a different rectifier tube set on EL34. I'll prolly end up sending this thing to Mark Arnquist (luthier), have him do his thing then go with a legit guitar like Les Paul.

Yea the neck and bridge pickup both are lifeless and I'm a tweaker of all tweakers, playing with the p/u height, tone pros and tail piece height. The nut being taken out of the equation is an interesting look at it. Lets see I changed out pretty much everything but the neck, nut and tone pros... oh ya and the tuners but doubt that they prevent sustain. It isn't THAT old of a custom-made guitar, bout a year... can't believe its the frets but could be. Guess my next move can be replacing the nut and tone pros for shits and giggles. I hate sending my guitar away to some legendary luthier since none around here have a clue! But I just might have to do that if I cannot fix it myself. There are such things as the sustaniac as you know and the ebo but don't think they are necessary, I want to get to the bottom of this. Directions, directions ... whatcha think my next move can be? Thankyou, Ken

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~kpasque/mygear.jpg Quicksilver on the left, it was made for me. I changed out the p/u's three times, had the wiring gone over by a tech and all the rest I mentioned. Flamed maple with korina body, ebony fretboard, maple neck, Dimarzio air norton for neck and air zone for bridge. Sperzel tuners, tone pro with ghs strings. I've been learning about setups and all and feel comfortable with setting it up myself and having it in tune etc.... But the one thing I seem to have trouble in improving on is the darn sustain. I'm thinking either my frets are already flat or it could be the nut or saddles, I dunno. Hope I clarified this for you some more. Ken

This guitar of yours is an electric with 13's-53 and 1-4 strings are wound? Ok well unless I'm mistaken you are to have your guitar in a players position and tuned up to pitch. Now turning your trussrod clockwise (to the right) will straighten out the neck if you have too much relief. To check your relief depress the highest fret with your right hand and the second fret with your left hand and you want anywhere between .007-.015 thousandths of an inch between the bottom of the string and the 7th fret. Now I use this other way but it's kinda hard to explain, this should get you in the ballpark though. gl, Ken

Jeez it seems like years that I've been trying to repair this "custom" guitar of mine. I changed out my tubes, strings, pickups, amps, cabinets and speakers and had my electrical redone. Had it "setup" about 3 times and it still seems "stoppy" or "blocky" to me rather than fluid. Know what I'm trying to say? For the longest time I struggled with not just the lack of sustain but lack of controllable feedback but recently fixed that with a good setup. So that's not a problem anymore but if I can just get the single notes to sustain longer I'll be golden. And as of recently I've been learning about how to perform a setup on a guitar and noticed that my nut string notches are cut too low where when I depress between the 2nd and 3rd fret then my 3rd,4th and 5th string touch the 1st fret. I'm about to either have the nut redone at a shop or attempt to do it myself and hope this finally fixes the problem cuz I'm getting tired of this. Tell me more ... appreciate it guys. Ken