Dub's Wacky Project Guitars Thread--we're baaaaaack

[dubkitty]

started working on the Jetstar last night. i’m always nervous around power tools, but drilling out the holes for the new anchors went about as well as i could expect. the largest drill bit i own was just the right size to be able to seat the anchors by gently tapping them in with a hammer. i took care when tightening the bolts not to over-tighten them and pull the anchors out. the flat orientation above the body surface is correct; there’s a rubber pad under the bridge plate that keeps it from rattling against the body which dictates the distance.

the next thing is the 2d fret. i taped off the area last night before i went to bed, but i’m not feeling precise enough to fuck with it until i have some coffee. you can see that it's uneven and taller than the other frets just by looking.

[dubkitty]

the finishing supplies arrived today. i haven’t gotten into them yet.

[dubkitty]

i finally managed to crank up my courage and do the fret sanding. i think it turned out well—my small ruler as a straightedge says the tops are even across frets 1 to 3—but i don’t want to put the strings back on yet because i have to do the bridge/neck pickup swap which entails pulling them and the pickguard and resoldering the connections. it needs a little more detailing, but i'm not up for that right now. i'll get it before restringing as part of double-checking everything i can think of. it’s funny how i’m having to do everything i always worry about fucking up on this guitar…fret work, rewiring, drilling great big holes, and fussy finishing work. i console myself by looking at the work i’ve done on the other projects and reminding myself that i actually can do this because i’ve done it in the past.

i have a feeling this guitar is going to be dangerous once i get the pickups sorted and have it set up. i’m going to do that before i get into the ding and finish repairs so i get to see the improvements and go back over that fret if necessary. i’m happy that there’s no more power tool usage required for this one, other than the soldering iron.

[dubkitty]

finished projects update:

i did more pickup adjustments on the Hopf and got it about as loud as it’s gonna get. this is one of those guitars where the high E polepiece has to be within 1-2 mm of the string for best results. with that it’s still a bit quiet compared to my standard output level, but not terribly so. i have a clean boost on the FEB and a boost/OD on the Normie Board i can use to bump it up a bit if necessary.

the tricky part is the 4-position tone switch. i had to look up the circuit diagram to figure out which of the center 2 positions was bypass. that’s labeled T+B+ for inscrutable Bavarian reasons. T+B- is less a bass cut than a notch filter that bumps up the midrange, but may come in very handy as a quick boost when kicking into a solo. T- and B- are self-explanatory treble and bass cuts. all of the settings are useful, unlike the Pentatone in the Kondor. that range of voices should be really good layering lo-fi stuff through the FEB. the pickups are a bit less aggressive than i was expecting, still in the snappy larger singles ballpark but not as in-your-face as a P-90 or Dynasonic. that's OK, though because it's a voice that fills a gap in my single-coil group.

boffin bonus!: the Schaller tone switch cap and resistor values are:
position 1 (T-): 1nF cap
position 2 (T+B-) 1nF cap + 470k resistor
position 3: (T+B+): BYP
position 4 (B-): 22uF resistor

the neck is wider than i’d spec, but the broad C/D profile and fairly flat radius makes it incredibly comfortable to play. i gather that the body is probably pine (i’ve seen it alleged that the multi-layer marzipan of a neck is also pine, which i’m less sure of) so it’s one of the lightest guitars i own, up (or perhaps down) there with the Aristocrat and Duo Sonic. the comfort factor makes it more fun to play.

i would have liked things to work in a less Heath Robinson fashion. i don’t love the stacked shims which were the only way to get the strings over the fretboard, but i’ve seen far worse hacks. if the bridge could be adjusted higher i wouldn’t have had to put a bloody platform under the bridge. but when the rubber hits the road it works.

the Kondor is doing great. the second set of pickup adjustments found the sweet spot between Too Close and Too Far that brings out the pickups’ subtle sounds but also lets them slap when you dig in. eventually i’ll rewire it so the Pentatone is right after the pickup selector and before the volume knob…when i took out the tone knob it brought the Pentatone out more, and i suspect that the low-output pickups (2.6-3.2 kOhm) need as little as possible draining tiny but necessary bits of signal. if that’s not enough it’s Tonestyler time. i'm super happy at how it's working after the long, slow process of development. it really doesn't sound like any other guitar i've ever heard, and it's already been wonderful on loops. everything on this loop is the Kondor, run through the stuff on the FEB as well as the Soft Focus, Shallow Water, and So High So Low. this was recorded before adjustments and rewiring.


https://soundcloud.com/dubkitteh-1/a-hi ... al_sharing


i haven’t forgotten the Double Jet and Galaxiemaster at all…i’ve just been pushing since February to get guitars i can work through that have been waiting around done. i’m a little surprised at how much i worked. but there are good reasons to push them back. since i got the White Falcon which also has Filtertrons, i feel less urgency about finishing a second guitar with similar (but slightly hotter) pickups. and there’s so much to do on the Galaxiemaster that it’s going to be a long, long time (h/t Elton John) before it’s anywhere near ready. the body finish needs a whole lotta smoothing, the neck needs grain on the fretboard filled, i have to finalize the proposed pickguard layout, which requires examples of everything i can measure for Pickguardian so he has correct directions. i’ll have to get a digital caliper thingy so it’s very exact. if it's done this year i'll be happy. and surprised.

[dubkitty]

i swapped the bridge and neck pickups because Guild fucked up…when they were designing the reissue LB-1 (formerly HB-2) they bought a vintage set to use as a model. unfortunately that set had an anomalously low-output bridge pickup so all the new sets are ~7.0 in the neck and ~5.3 in the bridge, which as my father would have said is “ass-backwards.” the boobs on the Guild forum said “swapping them won’t work because the polepieces won’t line up.” if they’d actually looked at a guitar with LB-1s it would have been apparent that the bridge and neck pole spacing are identical. schmucks. if i cared a whole lot i’d have the wimpy one rewound, but i don’t unless it doesn’t sound good. this is “Project Guitars,” not “Perfect Guitars.” i tested before reassembly and both pickups send signal to the amp. i’m chilling for a bit before i restring it and set it up, but i might leave the fine tuning till tomorrow. once it’s working properly i’ll tackle the finish problems and damage.

[dubkitty]

i still need to do the intonation and diddle around with the truss rod and bridge to improve that action if possible, but all the functional repairs are done and everything works. i should polish the second fret a little more, but it's no longer messing everything up on the first fret. i'm particularly happy that worked. the former neck pickup that's over 7 kΩ is nice and snappy in the bridge position, and the 5.2kΩ pickup that's now at the neck keeps up with it just fine. i'll work on the tiny adjustments later today, but probably won't get into the finishing stuff for a couple of days because i have stuff to attend out of town. Stetsbar sells a "vintage style" handle i'm going to order because it looks like it'll be more comfortable in my hand than the oddly twisty "modern" handle that's standard and goes better with the Jetstar's modern-yet-ancient vibe.

vintage handle.jpg (27.08 KiB) Viewed 1083 times

bless Character Map for letting me use the "Ω" sign. i absolutely hate writing "kOhms." clunky!

[dubkitty]

here’s a group shot of everything i worked on since February.

Kondor: body repairs, removed tone control, headstock sticker

Jazzmaster: restrung for C tuning to experiment with baritone

SG: replaced bridge, tuner buttons, vibrola, knobs

Jetstar: redrilled tailpiece anchors, sanded 2d fret, swapped bridge and neck pickups, body fixes to come

Hopf: assembled from Hopf parts from multiple sources, sanded fingerboard, replaced pickups with Jupiter 62 pickups.

Aristocrat: adjusted pickups.

also adjusted pickups on the White Falcon, not shown.

[dubkitty]

i tried working on the Galaxiemaster body with polishing compound and though it wasn’t enough to fix things, three or four passes over the entire body might be enough to make it acceptable. that would be nice.

[dubkitty]

ordered the replacement handle for the Stetsbar. if all goes well it should be here around when i get done with the body and neck damage.