Southpa

LOL, I'm bound and determined to make this EKO look nice so I decided to strip it down again and start over with a few lessons learned. No problem on the staining front but I applied the clear poly a bit too heavily. Instead of spraying I opted to lay it down with one of those foam applicators. It might work well for a flat top but things tend to slide around and drip on the curved archtops. Anyway, I was sanding these "anomalies" down and accidentally touched into my stainjob in a few spots, ouch! So everything is coming off, right down to bare wood again. Then I'll restain and try an automotive clear laquer instead. Its darn good practice anyway! How many botched finishes have you had and how did you deal with them?

The only remedy I can think of for rusted hardware, screws etc. is just replacement. Some used chrome plated, some nickel/stainless but most are just plain steel. You can buy stainless screws and cover with a thin film of petroleum jelly which will provide some protection from the elements. But already rusted screws are hard to get back to their original shiny look without taking material away. You could take them out and have a go with a wire wheel, or a very light sanding with emery cloth.

OK, to set a few minds at rest. The guitar I'm using this stuff on is an old EKO archtop, so no great loss there if things go wrong. I like the dye itself because its really easy to apply, non-toxic, dries really fast and seems to enhance the woodgrain nicely. Once the dye is rubbed on it will leave surface crystals as it dries. When totally dry, about 10 min. later, just wipe off the crystals and reapply as needed or clearcoat. I chose two colors, Madonna blue for the neck and Kingfisher blue for the front and back. The sides are Madonna overlaid with a couple coats of Kingfisher to get a darker Kingfisher look which will tie in with the dark neck. I'm using polyurethane clearcoat and it seems to be covering well, no funky things going on. The guitar looks awesome right now. I still have to coat the back and then begin wetsanding and polishing. Will get pics taken later on.

I was looking around for something to stain a guitar without having to worry about fume protection etc. Basically, doing all this in my living/computer/studio room and its winter outside. I also want this guitar to be blue. I wandered into a place called Fanny's Fabrics, lol, lots of little old ladies buying knitting and sewing materials. I certainly didn't fit in. I enquired about any sorts of stains they might have which could be used to color wood. She brings me over to a display of tiny cans. Its basically, powdered fabric dye, very potent medicine. Add a little water and rub on with a rag and you get perfect coverage and dries fast. The wood grain shows thru nicely and its ready for clearcoat. Its amazing what you can use in place of the more expensive alternatives. This stuff comes in a ton of colors and only cost me 3 bucks Cdn. per unit. You could easily cover 2 guitars with one can.

Either way, it looks like it would make great wall art when not playing! Heres some wild looking acoustics made by Linda Manzer. Go to "Custom Designs". Check out the inlay section too. My favorite is The Bridge.

They are real easy to make, you just have to get an assembly line going. I have about 30, cost was about a buck apiece.

I'd have to say The Pubic Hair Song by McLean & McLean. Little Martha by Duane Allman is fun on acoustic. And I like playing Hotrod Lincoln on electric at shredding speed.

OK, so this buddy gives me a 60's EKO model 100 archtop acoustic a few years ago. I assume this is one of those mass produced cheapo guitars that were churned out when EKO had their glory days. Bolt on neck with zero fret, neck was chunky and had a slight backbow. No amount of pressure on the truss rod, clamping etc. could straighten it. The guitar was in pieces and missing the bridge. I put it back together and found a cast aluminum compensated bridge for it and played it as a slide guitar for a few years. Being a thinline style with f-holes it had that tinpanny bluesy sound and was perfect because of the naturally high action . I call it the "poor man's Dobro". Anyway, the finish on the guitar is/was a sh!ty chocolate/yellow brown sunburst and it had a real heavy coat of checked, chipped, cracked and yellowed varnish overtop. I hand sanded the neck down and found the stuff to be hard as nails, but finally got it there. I decided to use a spray on furniture stripper called Circa 1850 for the body. It took about 6 spraying and scraping sessions before I got down to bare wood. Lo and behold ! I find a 1 piece plywood spruce top with the most interesting grain pattern I've seen in a long time! I think this guitar should have skipped the paint and gone straight to the varnish. It may be only a 3 ply top but all wood has grain. I guess when you punch them out like that there is little time to appreciate anything. I'll try to borrow a friend's digital camera, its high time I got my own. I was thinking of staining the body blue and then laquer clearcoat but I'm open to any suggestions, experimental procedures, whatever you can dream up so long as you can still see the grain showing thru.

Heres the rundown on Vaccuum Infusion Molding, where ever it says "boat" just substitute the word "guitar". http://www.parkislemarine.com/pdf/infusion.pdf

Welcome to the forum Tommy! Good choice in careers, btw. I wish I went that route 20 yrs ago. Your reference to "vaccuum bagging" struck a note. Would the process be the same as Vaccuum Infusion Molding? I've seen it done on parts for fibreglass yachts, hull sections etc. on a large scale. They layer the material down in a mold and then seal it all up with heavy plastic and suck the air out keeping up a negative pressure. The epoxy or whatever degasses easier and cures more thoroughly and evenly, not to mention getting even "clamping" pressure everywhere. It sounds like the perfect way for attaching a curved top.

Sorry, I don't know what Blackmore style is either, interested in finding out too. I heard scalloping can be a bit more difficult to control. The big problem is how hard you press on the strings. You have to learn to lighten things up to avoid notes sounding sharp. But I can see great potential in doing long sustain vibratos, etc.

Funny you should ask. I was browsing thru my favories and found this.

Drill a small hole from your control (vol and tone pots) cavity to the nearest bridge stud hole. Push a ground wire into the hole you drilled until you can see the bare end when looking into the stud hole. Hook it up and lay it along the wall of the stud hole then push your stud in.

Everything should be grounded. There are a few ways you can ground your bridge, it depends on what kind of guitar you are wiring up. If your guitar has a flush mounted pickguard you can poke the wire into one of the bridge mounting holes and push the stud in on top of it. Then run the wire to your pickup cavity and feed it into your control cavity, along with the pickup wires. Once the pickguard is laid down it should cover the wire. If you are using a thick wire you might have to cut a shallow channel in the body so your pickguard lies flat. Another way for a TOM bridge (LP style guitars w/ raised pickguard) is to drill directly from your control cavity to the post hole, poke the wire in and push the stud in. I've also seen a ground wire soldered to the trem claw in the back of a stratocaster style guitar. I guess this effectively grounds the bridge as the claw is connected via springs to the trem block to the bridge, all metal pieces in contact with each other.

Eddie and family, I'm really sorry to hear about your loss, and our loss as well, on this forum. 2003 was a bad year with too much bad news. Lots of people in the music and entertainment field passed on as well. Those people influenced and inspired us throughout our lives and they're passing left some awful big holes. Lee was no exception. Take care.

My previous guitar was a neckthrough. I guess its pretty fundamental when building a straight neck, but things get a little hairy with an angled neck. I started with a 2"X2"X40" block of mahogany. I cut my 3 neck angles (top and both sides) with the Skilsaw in my back yard allowing for a little room for shaping and sanding. You can pretty much get an idea that those faces weren't perfect cuts so I borrowed the use of the large belt sander where I used to work and rendered those faces perfectly flat and true. I didn't bother with an angled headstock. Instead I opted for the Strat headstock side profile and carved that out with rasps. The rest of the neck was shaped and formed with handsaw, spokeshave, rasps and sandpaper.

First, see if the old screws fit the new pickup. If they don't work then you can cut the screws so long as it won't interfere too much with adjusting height range. You could also drill the body a little bit deeper under the screws. I said a LITTLE bit.

This should help sort which wires go where. http://www.hotrodguitars.com/WireCode.htm And is this the schematic you are referring to? The black will be your hot output. Red and white gives you the option to split your HB into single coils. Hooking them together will just complete the series, pickups end to end, without the single coil option. http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/suppo...ay-w-split.html

Here are a few circuits that my father built and designed/modified. Click on "Projects" tab and then Guitar effects. Circuits come with detailed descriptions and instructions. http://members.shaw.ca/roma/ He even modified my Rockman X100 with a footswitch, works great!

I bought a bone blank and shaped a 9.5" radius saddle for my Newporter acoustic . From now on plastic saddles go in the garbage and will be replaced with bone on any acoustic I own in the future. Next one will be the Gemini II. The blank cost me 7 bucks but the improvement was well worth it. The guitar sounds crisper and is definitely louder.

Yes, tie-dye on cotton. My friend's wife does them, made me a nice T-shirt too. The silverface on the amp had a big stain so I just covered it over. His Fender bass amp has one too.

Just a pic of my '67 Hagstrom III and Teisco all tube amp. I just sold the amp (regret it now) so I could buy a balljoint for the truck. Funny how you liquidate something and then it solidifies somewhere else. I realize now that I should have kept the amp, very rare. But it was taking up space and I hardly used it. I still have the guitar and it plays like a dream, definitely NOT for sale.

The two lower holes in the pic are the mounting posts for the thing that the strings go thru and the upper holes are the mounting posts for the thing the strings go over... !

Welcome, sure wish I had a shop. Sure wish I had a basement! or even a garage. All my building happens in my backyard when the weather is nice or in my living room. I keep a vaccuum handy, .

Thanks Jehle, unfortunately, that guitar was stolen from my truck on Christmas Day while visiting my mother. I started a thread on it in the Player's Corner section with the same description and link to pics as this thread. As far as other guitar builder's forums go, lets let this thread die. I wasn't impressed with the way sysops attempted to publicly humiliate one of their "paying" members. If they wanted to bitch about his comments/conduct they could have followed their own rules and kept it on a private level. Nuff said...case closed.