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

[dubkitty]

it’s more fun when i see real progress. polishing bodies and sanding fingerboards gets really tedious, and there’s always some shite to make it more difficult than the just-screw-it-together concept people have about Fenders in particular and bolt-neck guitars in general. when they start looking like guitars it’s much more exciting.

[dubkitty]

i finished cutting the notches in the neck pocket and pickguard on the Tele. the chisels worked quite well on the wood, but for the pickguard i used a combination of a small file, the big file, and a craft knife. i'll nice up the edges of the pickguard cut when i peel the protective plastic, which i won't do till the very end.

with that done, i had to drill the neck for the bolts so the My Three Husks shot would be a reality.

the Esquire is waiting for the string ferrules and capacitors, after which the only things left are filling/sanding the fingerboard and wiring it up. here you can see one of the Big Muff knobs on the volume pot. the Telecaster needs the pickups and controls ordered, and the neck pickup cavity routed out. i'm leaving the bridge partially disassembled because it'll have to come off for the bridge pickup to be installed. the Galaxiemaster is waiting for electrical components, needs routing on the pickup cavity and control area, and i have to design and order the pickguard.

[dubkitty]

i applied the StewMac rosewood grain filler to the Esquire fretboard this morning. i plan on leaving it till morning to scrape and sand it, though the instructions say you can sand in 1 hour. i scraped the last fret when it was dry and it’s a considerable improvement. once it’s polished it should be good.

then i went back to the Galaxiemaster to chop out the extraneous wood at the bridge end of the body rout, which took a long time. i think i need to sharpen the chisels. i measured and got it almost too close, but as is often the case the pickguard will cover a multitude of sins.

then it was time to work on the pickguard template, because i needed to know where the relocated controls would go before chiseling out the cavity. i think i got a good outline for the control area; the final strategy was to follow the outside edge of the body beyond the normal end of the pickguard and then turn in fairly gently, making a shallow curve for the end of the guard which i adapted from one of the body’s curves by doing a rubbing and converting it to a drawing. this was my third try at doing the lower bout, and i think it’ll work with minor adjustments.

i used the RCA knobs to figure out the spacing, which is subject to change based on the dimensions of the switches which are larger in diameter than the knobs. i need to make a few corrections, particularly adding back the bump at the left side of the neck pocket and about 8-9 mm of pickguard height so the sides match. i based the concept on one of the Höfners i posted upthread which had a similar configuration.

i haven’t tried to draw in the pickups yet, because i kind of need to put at least a string or two on so i can place the bridge and neck pickups in their sweet spots, especially the neck which really needs its polepieces right at the 24th fret harmonic. old Höfner solidbodies tended to put the bridge pickup as close as physically possible to the bridge, but i didn’t want the pickguard to extend under the bridge so i left a few mm of space.

when i’m done routing the control cavity i might just remove the extraneous wood from the area that’s under the pickguard on the right upper bout. it’s partially routed for the standard pickup switch with ample wiring channels but serves no function with no wiring up there, and i think clearing it out would make the body lighter (obviously!) and possibly a bit more resonant. if i do that most of the right side of the body will be, erm, extensively chambered. it really depends on how tired i am of chiseling.

[dubkitty]

at some point while working on the GM i remembered what made me interested in Galaxies in the first place, which was a live video of early Slowdive where Neil played a Rickenbacker 360 most of the time, and a Galaxie when he needed tremolo. this project got way beyond that long ago, but it’s interesting to reflect on how something gets started.

[dubkitty]

it’s early and i don’t feel like doing much, but i scraped the grain filler off the Esquire fingerboard and it looks to have helped, particularly on the upper frets. with some sanding to level it out it should be nice.

the lighter streaks are the filler.

the caps for the Eldred mod are here, and the string ferrules and the neck bolts with ferrules for the GM are supposed to be delivered today. the jack and second Big Muff knob for the Esquire arrive Monday, along with white switch tips. i think that’s everything i need for the Esquire. i don’t think i’ll do anything today other than the fingerboard. i’m tired.

[dubkitty]

when i hit a stopping point, probably after i put the Esquire together, i’m going to go after the Jetstar with Mr. Base. if it works well i may look into Mr. Color paints i could blend for color matching…assumedly they wouldn’t require 2 weeks to cure. i really want that job over with, enough so that if the primer is passably close i might just clearcoat over it and call it a day.

i can’t go any farther with the Tele until i can afford the pickups, and need to finish the pickguard template for the GM and order it before doing anything other than sharpening the chisels and hacking great chunks out of the body.

with those projects hitting a wall this would probably be a good time to unpack the soldering station and figure it out. the M-77T theoretically has maybe an hour’s worth of wiring to do so that could be out of here soon.

[dubkitty]

i sanded the first 2 frets with 1000->1500 grit and am quite pleased with the results. i don’t really see the point in polishing fretboards any finer than that because they’re going to have strings scraping across them. here again you can see the filler on frets 3 and 4, and how it disappears into the background once it’s oiled.

[dubkitty]

on reflection, i decided that laurel really needs to be polished down to 2000 grit to look good…it was still a bit dull compared to rosewood, and the extra work made it much better.

i also managed to install the string ferrules in the back without any obvious fuckups. they did not precisely fit the body regardless of claims by GFS, so i had to ream the apertures with a hand-held drill bit. using a powered drill would generate too much torque and take paint off in chips. that wasn’t too much trouble, but unfortunately the lips around the outside of the ferrules doesn’t fit the countersink either, and i’m not getting into hammering them in. so they stick out.

i also finished the fingerboard, whose figuring is nicer somehow than the usual variations in other woods that irk me so. the lighter parts are slightly translucent, which makes it light up in bright lighting.

the rest of the Esquire stuff is out for delivery today, so i’ll wait for photos till it’s all decked out. but by this evening it’ll all be over but the wiring and setup.

[dubkitty]

while waiting for today’s mail to arrive i wanted to push one of the Three Sisters forward so i decided to try removing the divider between the pickup rout and control rout of the GM body. the chisels were in better nick than i thought, but it still took hours to do. i approached the problem in two ways: by doing smaller cuts rather than huge swipes, and by chiseling big pieces off from the ends of the pieces on a diagonal so they’d break off. i had no way to completely flatten the bottom of the cut, but at least it’s not dead messy.

i think i'm going to try a different strategy for the controls...rather than taking out half a square foot of wood, i'll try drilling with successively larger bits at the locations of the switches/volume pot/jack, and then use the chisels to work from location to location. though it might be better sound- and weight-wise to take as much out as necessary/possible. with most of the right lower bout hollowed, that's almost half of the body hollow.

no, the damn mail hasn't come yet.

[dubkitty]

the mail finally came. i really like the white knobs and switch tip…when i saw the greenish-blue body with the white guard it just said “Miami Beach” to me so i gave it Deco-ish appointments. there’s literally nothing else to do except wire it and set it up. the fingerboard really needed the work.

i had a bit of a scare while moving guitars around…i found one of the Galaxie tuners on the floor which had come unscrewed, and while examining the headstock the post of a second tuner fell out. i took that one apart and found that the screw that holds the gear and post together had backed out. after reassembling that one it was fine, and after having to floor-crawl for the screw that holds the cover on the tuner i found both of the screws that went with the tuner that fell off. i gather that all the vibration from chiseling out the body loosened the screws. so i went through the other tuners, tightening as necessary. i’ll take the neck off before doing the control routs.

one thing i like about the Esquire is that though the headstock still says “Squier by Fender,” the “Fender” is in simple block type rather than the teensy Fender logo they generally use.

you can’t really see it well in the photo, but i changed out the string tree for one of the old-school circular discs, which i like the look of and which also give you just a touch steeper angle over the nut. sometimes tiny things make all the difference. i should probably do that on everything Fender-oid other than maybe the Duo Sonic and Lead II.

i didn’t think i could be this aesthetically pleased with an Esquire, which i’ve always thought of as half a Telecaster and as such just too country for me. the fun should come once it’s finished…the pickup is hotter than <insert aesthetically unpleasant simile HERE> and with the Eldred mod sorted out it should cook.

[dubkitty]

an interesting sidelight is that the tuners most affected by the vibration torture test were the ones farthest from the body, out at the end of the neck. i assume the length of the maple neck amplified the vibrations as they went. the sixth string tuner was completely off and the second lost its post, but the most any of the others were bothered was the post screw being slightly loose on a couple of them.

i've been cleaning the living room, and while sweeping up i found a nickel tuner ferrule that visually had to be from the Höfner neck, and sure enough the third string ferrule was missing. i hadn't even noticed it was gone. always check the stuff you sweep up before throwing it away.

you would not believe the amount of debris generated by removing that divider. so. many. chips.

[dubkitty]

i’ve been taking time off from working on guitars to play them, but that doesn’t mean i’m not thinking about stuff. i ordered a set of three compensated saddles for the Esquire, which can’t but be an improvement over the stock setup. if i wasn’t playing the Esquire on the cheap i’d replace the bridge, but this should be better and i actually got it pretty close before i took everything apart. they should get here around when i feel like working on stuff. i might get out the soldering station on Sunday if i’m feeling industrious. i really want to order the Telecaster pickups, but need to wait until i 1.) do Christmas shopping and 2.) see how much the dental work i’m having done next week costs per month. so the next likely stuff is finishing up the Esquire, doing the Galaxiemaster pickguard template, wiring the M-77T, primer on the Jetstar bits, and maybe doing the routing mods on the Double Jet.

[dubkitty]

spent some time today optimizing some of the recent projects that are pretty well finished, those being the Hopf, the green Strat, and the M-77 with the Gold Tone humbuckers which i actually started on yesterday. turns out that for them to sound good, the Gold Tones need to be cranked pretty far up towards the strings which brings out their full loudness--they're supposed to be like 11k--and thus makes the guitar rather louder than most of my guitars. the Strat and Hopf are low-output in comparison. it'll need to be rolled off with one or another of the clean boosts when run into the boards if i’m matching levels for looping, or i'll have to adjust the amp if i'm playing live. the GTs have a certain je ne sais quoi about them, and subjectively seem to have more upper mids than a typical 'bucker. i still need to work it out to see what works best for it. the Strat is great other than that it's a bit buzzy and could probably use a fret dressing, and the Hopf continues to delight with its newly snappy tone and improved resonance. you didn’t really think i was going to miss a chance to post a photo, did you?

deep greens and blues are the colors i choose.

i ordered some odd pickguard screws. there’s a batch made for beveled holes that sits flush to the guard that i’ll use for the Galaxiemaster, and some standard sized ones with slotted heads rather than Philips. at first i thought i’d put them on one on the Tele-oids, but on consideration i think they belong on the Hopf, whose pickup adjustment screws are slotheads. they’re out for delivery today. i still need some plain vanilla screws for other projects, but they can wait.

[dubkitty]

something that only struck me the other day is that rather than the weird DIN socket that other early 60s German guitars have—and which the Jupiter pickguard i harvested the pickups from has—the Hopf has a 1/4” jack that’s essentially riveted onto the guard with a metal fitting that appears to be original. i have no idea what that means in terms of production timing, internal sales vs. export, or any other consideration. probably notable here that the DDR kept the DIN plugs long after they went out of use in the West.

there’s these whole little universes of peculiar guitars, German, Italian, French, British, Dutch, East German, Czech, Polish, Soviet, Aussie, and of course Japanese. it seems almost impossible to know them all, especially when i’ll never even see a photograph of many of them. and i’d love to know about early electric guitars in other realms such as Brazil, India, and central Africa.

[dubkitty]

while messing with the three guitars naturally i wound up finding problems. the M-75 needs a better bridge than the crappy tunomatics they used on DeArmonds…the current one is eating string resonance. and in order to stop an incredibly annoying rattling on the Hopf, i had to trace it down to the tremolo which has to be tightened to the point it barely works to get things solid. it’s not a very good trem anyway, and clicks when the arm brings the plate back up to level so i can live without it. i suppose i should take the arm off, but i’d have to pull the trem to do that and i’d really rather not. uncharacteristically for me, there’s nothing to do with the Strat. i could tighten the tremolo springs a bit, but would prefer not to. it’ll get another round of fine adjustments after it’s been played in a bit so i’ll probably do it then.