Chicago Guitar Builder

[inductorguitars]

hrm were to  start...

Any reason for steel? Steel comes in many different alloys. Not all steels are the same. Copper faceplate would be cool looking.

I wouldn't say that metal around a pickup would make it microphonic. It would require the surrounding metal to mechanically vibrate to induce an electrical field in the pickup. Now it does effect tone, you get more twang. Look at the telecaster alot of it's twang is it's bridge that surrounds the pup. Replace the bridge, the twang lessens.

Not sure how electrical does it, I'll have to look at their site again. But The travis beans have a one piece neck with a pickup cavity that fits into a pocket of the wooden body.




I"m probably missing something that Hemi is trying to say... how is a metal body and or neck any different than having your strings/bridge grounded to the signal ground? (antenna I can see) If you run into faulty wiring you are screwed either way.

In my design the Al is encased in a pocket of wood in the neck and the body (one will have a pickguard covering the Al.)

[justinhedrick]

hrm were to  start...

Any reason for steel? Steel comes in many different alloys. Not all steels are the same. Copper faceplate would be cool looking.

I wouldn't say that metal around a pickup would make it microphonic. It would require the surrounding metal to mechanical vibrate to induce an electrical field in the pickup. Now it does effect tone, you get more twang. Look at the telecaster alot of it's twang is it's bridge that surrounds the pup. Replace the bridge, the twang lessens.

Not sure how electrical does it, I'll have to look at their site again. But The travis beans have a one piece neck with a pickup cavity that fits into a pocket of the wooden body.




I"m probably missing something that Hemi is trying to say... how is a metal body and or neck any different than having your strings/bridge grounded to the signal ground? (antenna I can see) If you run into faulty wiring you are screwed either way.

In my design the Al is encased in a pocket of wood in the neck and the body (one will have a pickguard covering the Al.)

no reason for steel, persay. i thought it would just be easy to get here in the middle of illinois.

[inductorguitars]

no reason for steel, persay. i thought it would just be easy to get here in the middle of illinois.

Steel is heavy compared to copper or aluminum. You could try some copper flashing from the BIG Box store. Though it's only about 1/32" thick.

[dogfood]

Copper will never be gold.

[LogicalFrank]

I believe you can create gold bombarding copper w/ alpha particles. The resultant gold will be strongly radioactive and therefor totally fucking awesome.

[Hemisaurus]

Frank - aren't you thinking of lead. You can duct tape a piece of lead to the front of a CRT that is running (old TV, monitor or scope) and stick it in a fridge. I saw it on TV in the 80's probably on YouTube somewhere, and the bombardment of electrons on the lead (beta particles) accelerated by the CRT forms gold.

Erik, if the entire body is routed out, there will be less support for a metal plate, hence there's bound to be more vibrations that will be picked up, think of banging on the end of a shallow steel drum.

As to the grounding. If you are worried about getting shocked by your strings, you can use a 220K resistor in parallel with a small cap say .001 to .05 or so between the ground of the bridge and signal ground. The cap lets AC noise through, and the resistor lifts the strings above ground enough, that any amp short, phase difference etc. won't kill you. It's a good safety measure.

However if you have the entire top of the guitar metal, all the metal on your guitar is shorted together, your hand is almost always going to be touching a metal part, not just the strings, but the bridge, pots, and because we usually ground to the case of pots, the signal ground is all going to be on the same plane.

You really want to isolate yourself from any accidents that may happen, but as the signal ground is hooked to the bridge via the metal top your options are more limited. Ideas

• Mount the jack on the wood (sidemounted like a normal Tele) add the safety circuit in between the jack ground and the rest of the guitar, this will affect tone.
• Insulate all the hardware from the metal pickguard, or at least the bridge, saddles and strings
• Isolate signal ground from the pickguard, mount a star ground on the wood, connect all grounds to this, don't use the backs of the pots, make sure the jack ground is isolated, connect the star ground to jack ground, and use a safety circuit to ground the metalwork to this ground (220K resistor and cap)
• Transformer isolate the guitar, not quite sure how that would work, basically grab a DI transformer and mount it in the guitar (assuming an isolated jack again) it would be like a balanced signal with a permanent ground lift

these are all just spitball ideas, do your research before relying on any of them.

[inductorguitars]

Erik, if the entire body is routed out, there will be less support for a metal plate, hence there's bound to be more vibrations that will be picked up, think of banging on the end of a shallow steel drum.

Ah I though he just wanted the faceplate to be completely supported, not like a semi hollow body...

Transformer isolate the guitar, not quite sure how that would work, basically grab a DI transformer and mount it in the guitar (assuming an isolated jack again) it would be like a balanced signal with a permanent ground lift

This would give you the best protection and least effect on your tone. IMO.

[LogicalFrank]

Frank - aren't you thinking of lead. You can duct tape a piece of lead to the front of a CRT that is running (old TV, monitor or scope) and stick it in a fridge. I saw it on TV in the 80's probably on YouTube somewhere, and the bombardment of electrons on the lead (beta particles) accelerated by the CRT forms gold.

I was totally just making stuff up.

[Hemisaurus]

Frank - aren't you thinking of lead. You can duct tape a piece of lead to the front of a CRT that is running (old TV, monitor or scope) and stick it in a fridge. I saw it on TV in the 80's probably on YouTube somewhere, and the bombardment of electrons on the lead (beta particles) accelerated by the CRT forms gold.

I was totally just making stuff up.

Well hey you came damn close, just remember alchemy, or the band Lead into Gold

[VOLVO)))]

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