Gasalcoholics anonymous? whoever said this was a help group?

[dubkitty]

the mahogany Telecaster neck with the rosewood board arrived and it’s absolutely great. nice close grain on the mahogany, the rosewood board is consistent, and the Jescar frets should rule. i’m totally stoked to have gotten it and am already trying to find my way to a body inexpensive enough to start putting things together. i might go for the least involved option and get a Squier CV 60s Custom body in sunburst with binding. i’m a bit hesitant because those bodies are nato and might be a bit too dark-sounding for a Tele, but on the other hand mahogany slab guitars are my favorites. i also wouldn’t feel bad about removing the unwanted hardware and pickups because fuck it, it’s a Squier. we’ll see how that goes. i particularly like the flame in the maple truss rod filler and the nicer-than-usual MOP fretboard dots. i'll finish it with the brush-on poly clear coat. i may lightly sand the fingerboard so it's smoother.

i'm racing around the internet trying to nail stuff down before my medical bills blow my finances all to hell so i'm grabbing stuff for projects way down the road. i may buy a set of cheap Fender CS69 Strat pickups which are the only reason i want a second Strat, and that's even behind the Tele which is after finishing the DeArmond with Firebird pickups in, the Supro reissue with Bigsby replica pickups, and the Gretsch Double Jet with TV Jones Filtertrons. it remains to be seen when the Galaxiemaster gets done.

[dubkitty]

i put my name on the waitlist for a Sherwood Green double-bound alder Telecaster body from GFS. i don’t necessarily have to buy it, but at $100 and change it’s by far the cheapest option and also gets me into Green Guitar Land. this should be another simple build, particularly because that’s kind of what Teles do. i don’t envision anything outré as far as wiring goes because i want a 3-position Gibson-style toggle switch. i don’t care for blade switches much. it’ll take longer to finish and sand the neck than it will to put everything else together. i don’t feel pressed because who knows when the body will come in?

[Blackened Soul]

Got a deal on a squire rascal body… it’s candy apple red… other choice was pink.. not a nice pink.. but the same pink that both my grandmother and great grandmother had their bathrooms.. so that color to me will always be like a toilet… so I got a red one as red toilets are few and far between… I think this will work better with the bass vi neck vs the Fernandes… still working on the final form.. will need to see once I get it.. am thinking bass vi guard and plates.. with… a hi powered bucker in the middle position….

[dubkitty]

moving ahead on strategic purchases for the project guitars, i bought the Fender Custom Shop ‘69 Strat pickups. they were $200—or more than 1/3 off list—and come from a reputable seller in the USA so i’m not worried they’ll be fakes like the $30 Epiphone Firebird pickups. they’ll go hang out in the parts box until i get a Strat to put them in. this could move up the second Strat project because i don’t really want much customization. a dead stock guitar would be fine.

[dubkitty]

seems like there ought to be other colors available than red and slightly red. i’d swear i’ve seen a green one somewhere.

<edit> Sherwood Green and Metallic Black.

[Blackened Soul]

Yeah, but not for $75.00

[dubkitty]

there's that. i'm being fussy about color because i'm getting close to the end of the project list...it would be easier to not care, but i kind of do. i would love to get one of the spruce Strat bodies, but they're only made in honeyburst which i don't like and refinishing an entire body is well beyond my level of expertise.

[Blackened Soul]

Oh trust me.. it’s a right pain in the ass… I’ve done it 4 times (jazz bass, double bass, sgbass and a classical guitar) every time I ask why did I talk myself into this… at this point if I was just going to change color.. I’d just go over the current finish.. removing a finish first is an act of self abuse

[dubkitty]

i'm not qualified to paint over an entire body either. i could never have made a b-boy because i utterly suck at using spray paint cans.

[dubkitty]

i have to go back and honk some more about the mahogany Tele neck...i oiled the fretboard till it was slippy and then buffed it down with a soft flannel and the fingerboard feels great and doesn't need to be sanded at all. i really want to get the other stuff needed to put the Tele together because the neck is so inviting. if i wanted to be incredibly picky i could point out the one spot on the side of the heel where there's a visible finish drip, but it's less than 4 mm in a spot that'll be invisible when assembled and if it bugged me i could sand it out in 5 minutes. but why dwell on that when it's so exceptional in every other way? i wanted a mahogany neck, but didn't expect to find a great one.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Big find yesterday!



A Radio Shack cassette karaoke machine!

It needs some work. The radio plays, so the speaker is fine. The mic line in works (as the the "echo" function, and it's great!) The tape turns, but isn't outputting sound and the volume pot is scratchy as hell.

Hopefully it's just dirty inside and some TLC will put it right, I sent an email to my repair guy already. I'm also curious to see if he thinks it would be easy to add a mod or two to this — I'd love to have a speed control on the tape motor (maybe expression controlled?), and I'm guessing that "echo" function means there's a BBD chip inside, which could also maybe be hacked. Should be lotsa room in the case to tinker.

Even if those aren't viable, if this gets working, it'd be a cool tool for, like park drone jams, with those two inputs. And then run some loop cassettes in the tape player? Oh heck yeah!

[dubkitty]

i took a big leap forward in terms of knocking stuff of my Guitars Wanted list tonight. as i previously mentioned i’ve got green guitars on the brain, and have been watching various examples of a 2025 Fender Player II Stratocaster in British Racing Green. well, a used one popped up in my search at Guitar Center for $529, which ain’t bad for a guitar that MAPs at around 900 so i bought it. i wanted green with a rosewood fingerboard which it’s got. the only thing i’m unsure about is the 2-point tremolo and that’s because i’ve never used one. it’s probably fine, and if not putting in a vintage Strat trem is not impossible; Richard Thompson’s sunburst ‘57 Strat had a 2-post trem retrofitted that fucked the guitar up for years till a better tech got hold of it and re-fitted a vintage trem so it can be done. i shouldn’t even have to replace the pickup covers since the CS 69 Strat pickups i already ordered come with off-white covers that should match the pickguard though the knobs remain to be seen.

other than the pickups the only other thing i’m planning is adding a Stellartone Tonestyler, a multi-position tone switch that unlike a Varitone really works well. i had one in the CS 69-equipped Strat i had to sell in the early 10s and it was fantastic. i reckon i’ll keep a conventional tone control for the bridge pickup. i do enjoy the idea of getting a long-time goal sorted with maybe an hour or two of fiddling. i must say, though, that i’m disappointed GC no longer ships to a nearby store for free. if i have to pay either way, you’d bloody well better bring it to my house rather than me driving 50 miles to Richmond to pick it up. but anyway, Strat 2 is on the way. excluding guitars that are already in the project pipeline this knocks my want list down to the Bob Tele and a headless Steinberger-style that i’d put Bartolinis or some other painfully clean pickups in. some of the stuff that’s working will take time and ass-pain, particularly the Galaxiemaster, but it’s all happening at the zoo.

[gila_crisis]

I had to pull the trigger on the new CBA Lost+Found, I love the tones in the few demo (very 80s nostalgia to me). And to be honest after Onward, I started to like again the brand.

[dubkitty]

i found it interesting, but too confusing to remember all those modes and secondary controls. i imagine i’d use it like i use the Gen Loss, i.e. mostly on two presets.

[dubkitty]

for anyone who cares and has more money than they know what to do with, Eastwood’s Airline site is offering BOGO deals for guitars of equivalent or lesser value, which is so
silly i had to tell you. i’m trying to think of two of them that i’d even want.