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 2223 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.

[dubkitty]

getting started on the body/neck repairs. i decided to do the smallest, least obvious place to start which is the headstock. as previously noted, i think the neck got broken when the guitar fell off a holder high up on a wall. the damage consists of 3 areas: the back of the neck where the break was provisionally repaired, a large ding on the side of the left lower bout, and the headstock. i'll be using tinted medium-consistency cyanoacrylate from StewMac; i aim to fill the black part first, building it up till it's level. after that i'll do the white part.

i taped off the white edge to keep the black glue from getting into it, making it that much harder to cover.

the glue is pretty thick, and seems like it'll fill in space with not too many applications. i'm deliberately making the glue higher than the face of the headstock so i have room to sand and polish.

[dubkitty]

the first coat came out lumpier than ideal. second coat is better, but still not as smooth as i'd like. i'm letting each coat dry for several hours, so i won't do the third coat till tomorrow. this is playing hell with my impatience, which i always battle when doing this stuff. i doubt i'll start sanding/polishing until Wednesday at least. i want to finish the black face of the peghead before i start on the white so the outside edge is established. you can also see how the division between the black face and the white sides of the headstock has to be established. i deliberately didn't go past that dividing line when taping, even though i might have done better at building up depth if i'd made a sort of dam at the edge. trying to figure out as i go what's the best way to deal with these problems.

you can see how i'm adding extra height to the crushed area so i have room to sand everything down to smooth. i'll probably extend the glue out to the scratched area just outside the glue line in hopes of saving having to sand/fill that area as well.

i'm going to order some cyanoacrylate (hereafter, "CA") accelerator to force the glue to dry faster before i start on the white stuff. i want to get the smoothest coats possible on those areas, and you can see how the thickest area towards the tip of the headstock is raised and irregular because it was deepest and dried last. i really want to get this and the Double Jet done soon because they've been hanging over my head for awhile. hope they don't emulate the guitar and fall down while hanging over me head.

[dubkitty]

i will be a happy kitty when i don't have to deal with any more finish repairs. there's a Dremel ding near the switches on the left upper horn of the Double Jet that also needs to be fixed though it's kind of minor, but this guitar is the acid test for my DIY finish repair shit. it's requiring a lot of stuff that the Kondor and Hopf bodies didn't need. to fix up the finish cracks around the neck repair will require, erm, learning new skills. i'm still going to have to try to make the Galaxiemaster body look good which will be more effort than it's really worth, but i'm trying not to do completely wasteful spending like chucking the GFS body and ordering a Fender/Squier body with a decent finish that won't require days of work. the fact that the Kondor came out well helps to assure me that this can work.

since the Hopf has that big upper horn that's too long for a standard Strat/Tele case, i moved it into the black flat case the Kondor was living in and ordered a cheapazoid case off eBay for $60 that's brown. i'm trying to color-code cases to the guitars now, e.g. the white Wandré has a grey/white Les Paul case, so i wanted brown to match the Kondor. it's not the greatest case, but it only needs to keep dirt off and prevent guitars getting fucked up rattling around in the back of the car. i wouldn't fly with it, and might hesitate at doing 2 months on the road with it, but for my tiny sphere of influence it's adequate. so now the Hopf, having its own case, is officially on the roster. i'll need to get a case for the Jetstar, but i'm not certain i can get another white-ish case for it.

the "vintage-style" handle for the Stetsbar is supposed to arrive Thursday, when i'll be in New York to see Underworld. i'm hoping to have the headstock sorted by then.

[dubkitty]

i just did the 3d coat of black CA on the headstock. as you can see i moved the perimeter of the glue area outward to cover some of the deep scratches. it looks like the edge is now thick enough to be worked on, though it may be different when the glue dries. i might get to work on the finish tomorrow, but it's more likely to push back to Friday or later because i'm going to see Underworld in New York on Thursday and have an optomologist appointment Friday at 3 to be evaluated for cataract surgery. the present-day composer refuses to go blind!

[dubkitty]

according to USPS the package with the Stetsbar vintage handle will arrive tomorrow, a day ahead of schedule.

[dubkitty]

the handle’s in. it’s appropriately peculiar enough to be a Stetsbar accessory. it feels much better than the original heavy tube handle, but the contour leaves the part your hand rests on a good 4” above the guitar top. it’s actually convenient to hang my hand on when fingerpicking, but it feels weird and isn’t going to help the guitar fit in its eventual case. there’s no way to aim the handle that won’t require holding the lid of the case closed to latch it. now, if i had a garage full of tools i’d slap it into a vise and make the bends shallower. for now i’m going to leave it because there are other fish to fry. but its very exaggerated profile gives it the vibe of a 60s Japanese trem and makes the futuristic bits look a bit retro.

the third coat of black CA has the same crusty character in the thickest bits which dried last as the preceding 2 coats. i’ll start on the headstock by using the sanding block to level off the high points to a flatter surface that can be hand-sanded and polished.