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

[dubkitty]

got an unexpected check yesterday that gave me wiggle room, so i ordered the Firebird pickups off eBay and found some lightly used metal rings on Reverb. by the time these parts arrive i'll be gone on vacation, so they won't get installed until after 7/5. polishing the guitar is coming right along; i have 1/4 of the top and the sides left to do, after which i'll go over it closely in good light to catch flaws. once that's done i put the bridge and tremolo on and string it up.

i'll do a second coat on the Jetstar bits today and then put it aside till Sunday or Monday, when i'll do some light sanding to level the surfaces and then do poly clearcoat over them. i'm waiting to see how the other parts come out before painting the neck which is much more important to get right.

[dubkitty]

i finished polishing the M-77T and mounted the DeArmsby and the bridge. this was not without complications...the bridge posts screwed into the anchors OK, but once weight was applied one of them came out of the threads and dropped into the socket. i used the small strips of wood in the socket technique and both posts are OK now. the spring supplied by the seller of the tremolo has to have been non-original, because when i put everything together it was so much too tall that the handle was at a 45° angle to the top of the guitar. fortunately i had spare springs, so i put a normal-height spring in and it's fine. there's still a fair bit of adjustment to do; i particularly need to get the post height right so they don't protrude above the top of the bridge, which would chop my picking hand up. one nice surprise was that the neck appears to be reasonably straight and has about the amount of relief in the neck i'd shoot for, a bit more than some folks prefer but assuring fewer rattles. i’ll definitely have to shim the front screws on the Bigsby, because they’re resting on the back edge of the bridge body. but it’s all together and tuned up.

there are some small dings in the top on the cutaway above where the pickguard would sit. i considered doing something with them, but i really don't care that much. maybe somewhere down the road i'll mess with them. there are also a fair number of scratches in different spots, none of which are so egregious that they need treatment. i'll remind you once again that perfection has never been the goal; the goals are functionality and not looking like the guitars have been through the Tet Offensive.

i'll do the second coat on the treated parts of the Jetstar tonight. once that's done i'm going to let it sit over the weekend and dry. i'll be gone from Tuesday through Saturday so nothing's going to get finished (no pun intended) until week after next.

[dubkitty]

i'm very amused that i went from zero DeArmonds to one to three with the last two so close together (only a few weeks apart). it's not that they're the greatest thing on Earth, but they happen to have been made with two great pickup types and to be a perfect Firebird pickup platform. i'd assumed that the Gold Tone humbuckers were probably not great, and was very surprised to find out they were better than the pickups in the Kim Thayil model Guild Polara. if i'd happened upon a husk of some other brand/model that would work with the Firebird pickups first i'd have gotten that one. i do like them, though...as i've said previously they're the right proportions for my body, and the necks are comfortable. when i get this one done the people on Awesome Cheap Guitars on Facebook are gonna shit when they see the three of them together and hear what they cost. which in the case of the M-77T comes out to about $280 including the pickups and rings; the M-75 was $371, and the sparkly blue guitar was most costly at $650. not too fucking bad. but the point is the pickups. everything else that's good is gravy. me, i'm just looking forward to taking the photo of the 3 musketeers together.

that principle also applies to other projects. i seriously considered putting the Bigsby pickups in a Wildkat or one of those set-neck Telecasters with the flame top while looking for Supros. i think the combination of those pickups, the resonance of that style of guitar, and the aluminum Bigsby bridge saddle should go together nicely. i could get a whole Bigsby bridge, but when i looked at photos of actual Bisgby guitars they all had an aluminum saddle on some form of rosewood base. it's also cheaper to just get the saddle that's compensated for a plain G. the aluminum Bigsby bridge base also seems more likely to scratch the fiberglass than the wooden base.

i guess while i'm getting ready for vacation i'll mess with the Duo Sonic to find out why it's giving about 10% output, and rewire the Kondor with the varitone right after the selector switch and before the volume pot.

[Blackened Soul]

You’ve seen this one right?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/326647725517?_ ... R4jqv7H2ZQ

[dubkitty]

yes, but i ordered a modern Supro Black Holiday which has the advantages of being complete and lacking in vintage-destruction guilt. the Airline and Supro husks i’ve seen are truly beat. i had an alert on eBay and Reverb for “supro guitar.”

the other advantage of the Black Holiday is that it’s already set up for two pickups with a 3-position switch and pickup openings that should be close to what i need. all i should need to do is install the Bigsby pickups, change the bridge saddle, and install a Bigsby tailpiece. minimizing work is a new value in my project life.

[Blackened Soul]

That seems like a good easy one to me!

[dubkitty]

the M-77T has turned out to be pretty much as easy. i’m really hoping that the wiring harness is OK. if i can just solder the pickup leads to the switch and boogie it’ll be ready to play in record time. i could be tweaking the action and truss rod, but it’s been a long week and i’m tired. the one problem i need to address is that the 18th or 19th fret is damaged and will need to be filed/sanded. i hope that doesn’t also entail filing the 20th/21st frets as well. i guess if there has to be a funky fret, better that it be way at the top of the neck on the bass side where the notes seldom get played. i assume the guitar got knocked over and hit something hard enough to grind the strings into the fret like rasps. somewhere down the road i’d like to get better and lighter-weight ABR-1s for the M-75 and M-77T, which now have import-style tunomatics with heavy bases that i suspect kill some sustain and tone. but right now my priority is getting guitars into playable condition…there’s plenty of time to perfect things. i still need to go back and do stuff to the Kondor and Duo Sonic. i should also get the Hopf out and see how it’s settled in after its long-delayed assembly. it would be nice to get some of the shims out, but that may not be possible.

[dubkitty]

i went ahead and ordered the remaining bits for the Double Jet, those being a set of openback tuners from a recent Gretsch Electromatic that are higher ratio than the ones sold at fox-music (which unfortunately aren’t the same as the ones on the Oriole), and a simple banjo armrest which is something Gretsch started doing with the White Penguin and was a popular mod on the Gretsch Pages. when i’m done with the M-77T and Jetstar i intend to go directly to finally getting the Double Jet completed. i’ll be doing that while waiting for the Mojo PAB pickups that go in the Supro which take awhile to make. i’ll deal with adapting the TV Jones archtop wiring harness to a Jet-sized body first because it’s the part that worries me most. i’m glad i’ll have the tone switch which turns out to be more useful than internet chatter would lead you to expect. i’m also going to try to work on the Galaxiemaster body and neck. it’s still not out of the question for me to give up on the GFS finish, but the M-77T’s top is orange-peeled as well though not as badly so i may learn to live with what can’t be polished out. i’m really not interested in multiple rounds of sanding and polishing and may well just cut to the chase. i’m more interested in having it done than making it Just Exactly Perfect. i need to look at the neck and decide if i’m going to use filler on the fingerboard or not…i’ll test on one or two frets high up the neck to see how well it works. i’m going to order a digital caliper thingy from StewMac so i can precisely spec the pickguard which will be tricky.

when i look at my projects list everything seems linear and organized, but actually doing the stuff isn’t so clean and simple.

[dubkitty]

some of the stuff arrived. i need to find my ruler so i can measure more precisely, but it sure looks like the Firebird pickups will fit the M-77T. unfortunately the pickup rings were delayed and won’t be here till tomorrow. the tuners for the Double Jet are also here. the embossed decorative motifs on the plates are a bit cheesy, but take a look at those gears! 15:1 i think. i’m tempted to take the Grover Sta-Tites off the Dyna Pro Jet and get a second set of these.

i did a second coat on the Jetstar bits and will do a third tomorrow; after that it’s going to sit till i get back from vacation.

and the Supro Black Holiday finally shipped. i recall the website saying it was in Duluth, but it shipped from Georgia. i think they were sitting on it till the Affirm loan went through. it’s going to have to sit in the lobby until i’m back. once it’s here i can measure the string height off the body and choose which mounts for the PAB pickups are right for the install. i’m going to want to order the pickups sooner rather than later because they take several weeks to make. apparently the volume pot is fucked, so i’ll ask what values he recommends for single volume and tone pots before i replace it. the stock tailpiece is surprisingly long, and i might use the old B6 that used to be on my ES-335 and originally came from a singlecut Guild Starfire and get a shorter B3, which is more correct, for the Double Jet.