What are YOU up to, DIY/projectwise? Ask for help?

[renfield]

it's like watching someone perform open heart surgery

[sleestak]

But the person lives.

[James1214]

In the process of gathering materials and making templates to make an electric mandocello, a la Rick Nielsen. Definitely gonna be an explorer shape, which is my jam, but in black with a pickguard so as to match my other explorers.

words

[Pissy]

That'll be quite an accomplishment.  Keep us posted. 

So getting to cutting the nut, i use a depth gauge, a fine tooth saw and the calipers.  Equalize the space of the low E and high E from the edges and set the calipers to step off 6 spots so they land directly on the mark after walking them across the nut.  Takes a few tries and adjustments in very small increments.  Once i get the right setting, i press the tip of the calipers into the bone material to establish a point. 




Then I set the depth gauge to the distance for the point I'm focusing on.  Always working from the same edge as a reference. 



Use the depth gauge as a guide for the saw. 



Do that for each slot



Need to be careful about screwing up the polish job I put on the frets when working the saw.  I managed to mar one.  Quick cleanup though with sandpaper, steel wool and polishing compound. 

[Pissy]

Gonna work on the neck seat next before I finalize the nut. 

[RAGER]

Could you also loosely string the guitar and somehow mark that way. Wouldn't help with depth obviously but. Just curious.

[Pissy]

If I were to try that, I probably would use the old nut to group the strings together with a rubber band or something.  It would keep then spaced out.   I suppose it could work.  More than one way to do it, for sure. 

[RAGER]

Not sure if I've replaced a nut or not but I'm sure your method will work just fine. Technical stuff is in your wheelhouse so...

[Pissy]

Cutting bone with power tools smells like getting your teeth drilled.  You'd probably remember that.  Not sure about other materials. 


On to the neck.

Pocket is probably fine.  I could fill in the voids to get maximum contact with the neck.  Probably leave it though. 




But the neck is not fine.  Who knows how these holes ended up this way. 




I show you feex!

[Pissy]

On the left is a plug cutter.  It makes plugs similar to dowels, but dowels always have grain like a tree branch.  So a screw would need to bore into end grain.  Plugs can be cut with face grain like a neck actually shows. 

On the right is a forstner bit. I used 1/2" plugs. Pics are of 3/8". 















I messed up cutting off the plugs. Won't be able to see it hidden in the neck pocket. 

[Pissy]

Fucked up the nut.  Cut the high E too deep.  Have to re-cut it.

Dammit. 

[James1214]

Cutting bone is only slightly more pleasant than cutting antler. Antler smells like burning hair and burning rubber gangbanged the liquid at the bottom of a Los Angeles dumpster.

words

[neighbor664]

Getting this parts-caster to be a good playable guitar has semi-literately been polishing a turd.

The results are far better than the sum of its parts. 





Here's a pic of the body from the last year.

[RAGER]

Ooooo. Speed knobs on a strat! 

[Pissy]

That's really cool.  Looks like you replaced a ton of stuff.  I like the paint. 

[Lumpy]

That strat does look like fun. Is that a mute switch on an arcade button?

[neighbor664]

12MM momentary/kill switch. I'd thought about a larger, arcade style button, but this is small enough to still be reversible.

[renfield]

The kill switch is so fucking cool. The whole thing is darth vader. I'd love to see it in action

[neighbor664]

Thanks. I'm finding it hard to get pics that do the stained grain justice. It ain't bad for such a hodgepodge of shit cuts of wood.
The body is from an early 90's Squire that I'd bought used. It started out life light blue and weighed a ton. Before selling it the original owner had thrown it from an apartment balcony at his wife's car as she drove away. The only damage was a scuff and a bent tuner.
When I got it in '94 I'd stripped the paint with Jasco. I'd planned to go down to bare wood, but soon found the reason for all that weight was what must be the thickest layer of sanding sealer ever used on a guitar body. I'd buffed out the sealer as best I could and just left it natural for 25 years. I've beat the shit out of every incarnation of guitar this has been on. The body has a few hairline cracks. The neck had to be reattached a few times. The original neck is now on a guitar I'd given my nephew. I'm not sure he still has it.

Recently I'd decided I'd finally get it down to bare wood and also replace the vintage style trem with a modern two point style. Unfortunately that didn't work out well. What I'd discovered is the differences in quality of the wood used for the three laminated body pieces was more than cosmetic. One post was firm in a dense piece while the other was in a much softer piece. I decided WTF, this thing is shit, what if I cut it up for the cheapest Floyd Rose Copy I can buy? What do I have to loose? I ended up reinforcing the post area with an epoxy. I also filed out a nice recessed area to give the trem space to pull up a whole 5th.
Not visible in the picture is a reverse spring/shock to stabilize the whammy.

My objective was to scratch the itch I was having for a "shredder" guitar. My initial inspirations where Ed's Frankie and more so Vai's Greeny. I'd  thought about staining it green, but settled on doing black on black. I may put an EVH D-tuna on it.
It sure is fun to play, but has not stopped me from wanting to just buy a Charvel anyway.

[James1214]

Daaaaaasng Eric, that strat looks awesome.

words

[Pissy]

Awesome story.  I have a basketcase story of a 1984 flying V designer series that I'll share when I get around to working on that one. 

Finally got the nut right.  Used graphite in the slots, why it's all dirty looking. 






Waiting for the electronics now.  Ordered a set pre-wired from RS Guitarworks.  Dude is pretty backed up, and I was #16 in line as of Friday morning. 

So in the meantime I'm working on my gold top Hagstrom swede.

The binding has separated at the top of the neck on both sides. New nut on this thing is a given as the stick plastic one has been underwhelming since I bought it at Capital City Guitars in Olympia WA in 2006.   Overall I'd say this guitar has been a bit of a disappointment in terms of how well it's held up, compared to other Korean made 2nd/3rd tier guitars.  Glue was all that was necessary to keep the binding from separating.  They failed at glue. 



For now, all I'm going to work on with this one is the string/neck area, maybe dive in to the guts in the future. 

[Pissy]

Didn't exactly do a great job with re-glueing the binding.  Or removing the old janky plastic nut.  Got the new nut in, but still need to file the depth of the slots. 







Funny thing is though, that even with the barked up area at the nut the whole guitar felt night and day more comfortable than it used to.  That binding separation on the back side of the neck was so noticeable.  And i see I need to scrape and reglue the top side again.  Three steps forward, one back it seems. 

[Pissy]

I figured I'd use an ebow as a signal generator then hook the guitar up to my o scope to try and find the biggest signal from the pickups. 

Neither my mom and pop shop nor GC had one at the store.  Mom and pop guy said rona supply chain problems has the ebow people slow to fulfill.  Not sure how true that is or if that's just the standard answer for now.

Interestingly while at GC, I stepped in to the acoustics room.  Their high dollar guitars are locked in their hangers.  So much for "We love when you touch the stuff". 

[Danny G]

Spent most of yesterday rewiring my 79 Iceman.

Needed a new toggle switch as it was having trouble staying locked in the down position.

Have been apprehensive about redoing the electronics as it's been my main guitar for 17 years and I'm used to the way it sounds.

But opening it up I realized the electronics are almost as old as I am so probably time to swap them out.

Made a nice wiring harness. Used tropical fish caps cause they look cool (can go back to the orange drop if I didn't like it).

Go to install only to realize the old holes will not fit the new pots. Shit.

So I could either drill out the holes, or just clean up the old guts and put em right back in.

Opted for the latter. Had to use the original input jack too as none of my spares had a long enough shaft (ha!) to accommodate. Did replace the tap switches at least.

I'm guessing had I drilled it out for the new pots the original stock knobs would not fit them.

Before



After




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[Muffin Man]

Nice clean iron work! What solder did you use there?