Finished my first personal guitar build

I've done a lot of builds for other people but up until last month, I had never completed a personal build.

I have a load of bodies and necks and various hardware, but usually not the time. 

I fell in love with a SpaltKing (look him up on ebay - some really good stuff) guitar body and paid a premium for it.  I also discovered how much I love maple burl tops. 

 Here are my completed pictures.  I'll get into the details of the guitar in a moment.  My pictures were taken with a crappy cell phone which does absolutely no justice to the details of the guitar.  As you can see by the two different pictures the color of the guitar isn't even consistent in the pictures.  I swear, the finish did not obscure the burl figure! 

I'll start from the neck down and detail the guitar a bit.  The neck came from a Japanese Fender Floral Telecaster RI.  I used the floral body to test a Bigsby (which I ended up not caring for) and needed to patch some holes from this process.  I loved the neck on the guitar though.  So I took the neck and the vintage style Gotoh tuners.  I left the nut as the original although in the future if I feel particularly motivated, I may change it over to brass as I prefer the brighter sounds of a brass nut over plastic (or whatever they call the material - which is just plastic).

The neck originally did not really fit the neck pocket.  It was a bit too tight.  About 1/16" too tight.  It doesn't sound like much, but with a Maple neck and a beautiful burl top that i had no interest in destroying forcing it to fit, it was a lot.  What I ultimately ended up doing was running the bolts into the back of the guitar and into the neck and using them to hold the neck in place above the pocket.

Then I clamped a straight piece of scrap up against the neck on the bass side since the treble side was clear over the pocket.  Otherwise, I'd have clamped a straight board alongside the neck on both the treble and bass side.  Then I took my router and used a bit with a bearing on the shank and carefully trimmed the pocket so that it was a hair wider.  The neck has an absolutely perfect tight fit now!

I'm glad I went with this option instead of using a different neck.  Again, I'm particularly fond of this Fender neck.

The body was my first attempt at French Polishing.  It isn't as difficult nor as exotic as it sounds.  Just read a few articles and take your time.  I should mention that before I began the French Polishing, I filled some of the voids in the figured top with super glue.  I let it dry and then sanding it smooth with 220 and 400 grit paper.

I could have done a better job sanding.  A lesson I will take with me for me next project.  The smell of the super glue when it is being sanded is awful and my suggestion is some sort of dust mask at the very least if you choose to go this very popular route.

I put a load of shellac on the top over the course of a couple of weeks.  The thing to know is that if you have to sand shellac, it clogs your paper very fast and it takes about 10 days or so in a normal room temperature to fully gas off all of the alcohol.  I learned that the hard way.

The finish felt hard to the touch but while French Polishing the back of the guitar, I had the front resting on my corduroy pants.  Needless to say, there were a load of corduroy lines running in my finish and I had to sand a lot of it back and refinish the top. 

I used a lot less shellac on the sides and back which are Honduran mahogany.  I didn't fill the grain which I really should have in retrospect.  I was a bit impatient is all. 

Another cool thing about shellac is that it is pretty well non toxic and can be applied indoors with no special ventilation. 

The bridge was the original Fender ash tray 3 saddle bridge from the floral Tele.  The pickups were a set of Electric City Black Scotch pickups that I acquired on a trade for a beat up Fender Tremolux cabinet. 

I didn't use a pickguard because I didn't want to obscure the top in any way.  I also ended up directly screwing the neck pickup into the body because I didn't have the correct hardware to make the metal pickup rings I had purchased work. 

That reminds me, GFS (Guitar Fetish) sells pickups rings as brass pickup rings.  They are NOT brass.  They are most definitely magnetic (which means they are almost definitely steel).  This will mostly have some effect on the sound of the pickups.  They are nice rings and for the money they cannot be beat, but they are NOT brass.  I didn't use them because of hardware issues though.  Not because they are not brass.  And I'm sure they will sound fine.  I just wanted to make anybody aware who was thinking about brass pickup rings from GFS that they are NOT brass!  Did I repeat myself enough here? 

The control plate is a Telecaster Plus style plate I picked up a few years back before the newer Mexican Telecaster Plus guitars came out.  The only difference is that they have a small hole in between the volume and tone control for a mini switch. 

I used the mini switch alongside of a 4 way switch.  The mini switch toggles the phase of the bridge pickup while the 4 way switch is wired for neck, neck-bridge series, neck-bridge parallel, bridge.


The series position is easily my favorite!  I love putting the pickups in and out of phase with it!  It is like going between rhythm and lead sounds without having to play with the pickup selector. 

One thing about the wiring was that you have to disconnect the ground connection from the bridge pickup to the baseplate of the pickup.  I went to unsolder the bridge ground connection and much to my surprise the solder blob just came off without any heat.  Only some pressure from a screw driver. 

When replacing the ground connection with a new one, you have to be fast and use a lot of heat.  The wax that holds the baseplate in place melts with the heat and the heat isn't good for the enamel wire either.  My connection wasn't pretty much it was definitely held down better than the original. 

This isn't to say that the Electric City pickups don't sound good or are of low quality.  I'm sure it never would have been a problem had I not decided on an alternate wiring.  I also suspect this may be why most baseplates are copper instead of zinc plated. 

The 4 way switch on the control plate gave me some issues as well.  The middle two positions were fine but the outer two positions didn't have enough clearance from the plate to make good reliable connections.  I am not sure if this is because the switch has a wider throw or because the control plate had too much chrome/tighter hole clearance for the switch. 

I took a dremel (which don't even get me started on how shitty Dremel products are.  I had a Black and Decker rotary tool that worked better and cost less than my newly purchased Dremel - ugh - what a piece of crap it is) and took the metal grinding attachment to the corners of the control plate.  It doesn't look pretty, but it works and most people really wouldn't notice it if I didn't say anything.  And given that I found the 4 way switch to be something I will never not use again, it was well worth it! 

I set the guitar up with 2/32 action at the 15th or 17th fret.  I don't recall which.  I know that the action is lower than I prefer and it doesn't buzz anywhere on the fretboard.  The pickups were set at 3/32" or so with the last fret depressed. 

The guitar sounds and plays really good!  I wish it were a bit brighter at times, but I think that is my lot with vintage Telecaster style pickups.  Bear in mind, the guitar I have been playing the most is a Strat with all sorts of upgrades to make it brighter.  I'm of the belief that you can always make it darker, but you can't always make it brighter. 

Went shooting with a friend...and finally fired my S&W 1911 Pro 9mm!

I have a couple of updates that are about a month old.

A longtime friend of mine invited me out for a few drinks and something to eat.  During the course of the night he told me the craziest story that had happened to him just a few nights prior.

The short version is that he was in front of his house talking to his wife on the phone when a bum walked up to him and without any provocation punched him in the face and then walked away.

He called the police and waited for them to show up while keeping his distance.  They showed up and he started talking to them.  During this time, a construction worked walked up to the police and said that there was some homeless guy breaking into a van up the road.

The police went to check it out, but by the time they got there, the guy was already out of the van. The police proceeded to talk to the homeless guy and he explained to them that my friend "grabbed his ass, told him he had a small penis, and called him a faggot."

The police at this point explained that since they neither saw him get punched in the face nor saw the guy break into a van that they were going to do nothing.

My friend returned to his home and asked his neighbor if he saw him get punched in the face.  He did not, but suggested that he ask the security desk if they had seen it on the cameras.  Sure enough, they did catch this SuperBad-esque moment.

Again, he called the police.  They watched the security footage and then posed the question, "What would you like us to do?"  My friend said, "Arrest him?" 

The police then explained to him that they had no intention of doing that because it was just going to be a waste of time.  My friend asked, "Well what should I do?  This guy could know where I live.  I could have shooed him away years ago and he could be upset about that."

He asked if he should get a stun gun or a taser to which the police officer said, that won't do much good since the crazy ones always seem to get up.  The officer then went on to suggest a gun and why it could be ruled that it was self defense. 

I was in shock by this entire story.  My friend suggested I take him shooting. 

That seems like as good a reason as any to go shooting.  I loaded up a bunch of different guns so that he could get a feel for some different calibers.  I brought my Walther PPK/S Aristocrat in .380, Ruger Mark III Hunter, Beretta 92FS, CZ 75B, 4" Smith and Wesson 686, and my new Smith and Wesson 1911 Pro in 9mm. 

I also brought around 300 rounds of 9mm, a brick of .22, a box of .357 magnum rounds, and just a handful of .38+P and .380.

I expected he'd enjoy the various 9mm pistols the most as I think they are a bit easier on the hand than the .380 or the .357 magnum with magnum cartridges. 

And while he did like the CZ75B for its ergonomic grip, he ultimately like the Walther PPK/S the best as it was small and he shot it well. 

He didn't care for the .357 magnum at all.  I can understand as it has a lot of kick.  But it doesn't kick like a semi automatic pistol to me.  It just kind of pushes back where as a semi automatic pushes back and up from the cycling action of the slide. 

During the course of our shooting, I loaded up 5 magazines for my S&W 1911 Pro 9mm.  4 of which were Wilson combat magazines and the other was a cheaper magazine.  I don't recall the manufacturer at the moment.  All magazines fired with no issue.

I was blown away by how nicely the gun shot!  Very little recoil and what little it has wasn't unpleasant in any way.  In fact it felt very controlled and much like driving a big car on a nice flat road.  The trigger pull was short and the break was really crisp.  I shot the gun exceptionally well.  Especially when compared to my Colt 1991A1 in .45 which I do not shoot well at all. 

The sights were easy to line up and the magwell was just a pleasure to experience. 

I admit that the price tag on these guns is pretty hefty, but I have to say that it is clearly the nicest gun I own and the attention to detail that went into these guns can justify a lot of the costs.  However, unlike modifying a gun later or piece by piece, the cost is all up front. 

I certainly never would have purchased something this expensive for myself had I not got it on a trade, but I am glad that I own it and plan to shoot it more and never let it out of the collection.

I still have issues shooting the CZ75B as well as I shoot the Beretta 92FS.  It feels better in my hand than the Beretta, but I just don't shoot it as well.  Maybe I just need to spend a lot more time with it.  I remember it took a long time (and ammo) for the Beretta to feel good.

The morale is that shoot what you are comfortable with and practice practice practice.

The BYOC Tweed Royal has been completed!

I wasted no time after finishing the Weber 5E5A kit to start my BYOC Tweed Royal kit.

I couldn't find much in the way of reviews for the kit but I thought the concept was really neat.  My original plan was to wait until I was finished the Weber to even purchase it but July's 25% off sale was too enticing to say no to.

I ordered my kit with no speaker and no tubes.  I had new JJ's and plenty of loose 12" speakers to pick from.  The discount only applied to the kit and not the tubes or speaker.

One thing that differentiated this kit from the Weber kit is that there were instructions.  This kind of gave me more focus and was incredibly detailed about things such as lengths of wire needed.

Another thing worth noting is that the transformers are all made in the USA.  The bulk of the resistors are carbon comp (for that old school mojo), the caps are Sprague, Switchcraft jacks, and the board is a turret style board instead of an eyelet board (as found on most Fender amps). The wire the kit came with is also vintage style pushback wire which is a blast to work with!  One thing that I was a bit puzzled by was that one of the color wires provided was not pushback wire but was actually cloth covered normally insulated wire.  After using pushback wire, I never want to use anything else.  The only negative I could come up with immediately was the use of Alpha pots.  I understand that they have a selection that most other manufacturers can't compete with, but I am just not a fan.  Additionally, my PT came with dented bells.  Somebody probably dropped it before it was ever packed.  The kit came well packed and the damaged didn't look very severe so I figured I'd try the kit and if I had problems I'd worry about it then. 

I followed the instructions building up the board first.  This process went very quickly. I would have been a little happier if the turrets had a slightly larger opening in them so that I could fit some of the thicker lead parts in without difficulty.  Some of the turrets didn't want to take on the solder very easily either.  If I had known, I would have cleaned each of the turrets with some coarse sandpaper first.  Yes, it would have been a lot of work, but it would have saved me even more frustration.

Next I built up the chassis.  This was mostly just putting the sockets (which like the Weber kits are also ceramic), transformers, and pots into place.

As I mentioned in my last entry with the 5E5A, it seems like heater wiring is just an afterthought, but I like to run my filament line while nothing else is in the amp to get in the way and then tuck the wires into the corner of the chassis.  So needless to say, I skipped ahead to the last instruction and ended up using some of the twisted wires from the Pro build to run the heaters instead of the solid pushback wire they included.

Sorry BYOC, my heater wiring looked nicer than the picture in the instructions.  That kind of brings me to another point which may be jumping ahead a bit.  Some of the instructions were not done in the most logical order.  This meant going back and doing things that you could have done earlier as well as having to solder connections that were made underneath of prior connections which isn't so easy.

Another "quirk" I found was that some of the wire colors change in the instructions from white to yellow or yellow to white.  Not a big deal.  At least one wire is referenced as though you had soldered it to the turret board and were making a connection to one of the sockets.  I had triple checked the instructions and this wire was never mentioned prior.  Not a big deal either.  What IS a big deal is that a lot of the lengths of wire that I carefully measured out as per the instructions were more than just a little short.  My advice, if you are building this kit, tack on at least an inch to each run of wire coming off of the turret board.  Not all of them are short, but they give you plenty of wire so don't be stingy with it.  I just assumed (wrongly) that it was carefully measured and was done for good lead dress.

What I ended up with was a lot of reworking and wasted wire.  Most of the wasted wire was salvaged for other steps that required short pieces of wire to act as jumpers.

Possibly the most frustrating part of this kit was that some parts that are inherently designed to accept solder refused.  I had a serious fight with the fuse holder.  You would expect that the fuse holder would take solder as it is meant to.  I had to "unsolder" (as though my solder wasn't literally just dripping off of the fuse holder) the wire and go over the surface with coarse sandpaper.  Then it finally stuck.  What is weird is that only one of the 2 terminals on the fuse holder gave me any trouble.  I also mentioned how some of the turrets themselves weren't so good about accepting solder.  I used a small mill file to score the surfaces and get the solder to flow.  And both of these were nothing compared to the back of the 2 volume pots which were grounded with a jumper lead.  I could not get solder to stick to them.  The instructions warned that there was a coating added to the backs of the pots to prevent soldering to them.  WHY!?  That is the most bizarre thing I have ever heard.  I ignored this advice (quite foolishly) and quickly found that the pots were indeed coated with something that made the solder run right off of them.  Again, WHY!?  I tried scoring them with sandpaper the same way I had scored the fuse holder and while that helped, it didn't eliminate the problem.  My solder joints to the back of the pots looks worse than my first time out with a soldering iron on my friend's crappy guitar.  Not a proud moment for me then or now.

I've never run into anything like that before.  If I had to do it all over again, I'd take that note a little more seriously, and really dig in with the sandpaper.  Don't even bother with steel wool.  It isn't abrasive enough to remove this heavy film of god only knows what.  I don't think I have ever swore so much at a piece of electronic equipment (besides the computer of course) in all of my life.

After getting the entire kit together, I had to decide what speaker I was going to put in the amp.  I was originally going to use an old Jensen C12R.  I have a set of 4 and this was the right sort of wattage for that speaker.  I also had a modern Jensen P12R that came in a broken Fender Musicmaster amplifier project.  In the end, I decided that I would rob the Musicmaster of the P12R and put in a C12R.

This turned out to be a mistake that would cost me a bit of time.

I wired everything up and loaded the pilot light bulb, fuse, and tubes.  I plugged the amplifier in and grabbed my Jap Strat.  I kicked it off of standby and into SE.  The volume was VERY low and everything was fuzzy.  It sounded cool, but it didn't sound right.  I turned all of the controls and they seemingly did what they were supposed to, only at low and fuzzy volumes.

Something was definitely wrong.

I turned off the amplifier and took it back to the shop.  I didn't even screw around with taking it apart.  I just disconnected the speaker and tried the 15" from the Weber 5E5A.  Immediately the amplifier began behaving exactly like I expected it to!

I played with all of the controls and honestly, this amp could have just been a champ and I'd have been happy.  The tone control is nice I guess, but it sounded good with it off and the cut control is a nice feature too, but again, it sounded plenty good off.  The Single Ended and Push Pull modes were the big selling point for me and yes, it is a little different tonally as well as volume wise.  But is it all that much different?  Not really.  I love how the amp sounds, but I guess I'd have been content with a Champ.  

The next day I woke up early in the morning and removed the bad P12R and installed the C12R.  30 minutes later, I had the amp completely back together and ready for testing again.  This time it made some crackling noise intermittently.  I shut the amp down.  Apparently, during the course of disassembly and reassembly, I had bumped the preamp tubes in their sockets.  The rectifier and power tubes had been removed but I left the preamp tubes in place.  I thought I'd save myself some time this way but I ended up having to remove them to reseat them anyway.  Let this be a lesson about trying to save a few minutes. 

After the tubes had been reseated, I turned the amp on again and this time everything worked as it was supposed to with no obnoxious crackling or noise.  The amp does have a small hum about it which could be the layout or the fact that I primarily tested it in SE mode.  The push pull setup should remove some of the noise due to the noise cancelling attributes it has. 

The noise is not all that loud and like most things, I am probably nitpicking.  The amp sounds really good.  I am still happy with a single channel and the volume control though.  Maybe with a hotter guitar the cut and tone controls would be more useful but I was using my strat with an underwound neck. 

One side note about the basic circuit (ignoring the fact that this amp is like a Swiss army knife) is that I can completely see why Fender moved away from this style of circuit and into fixed bias amps.  While the purpose of this amp (for me anyway) is to get a nice breakup at a relatively low volume (and it does it well), the amp has almost no headroom.  It breaks up very early and has enough gain to drive a much larger amp.  Even in the PP mode, the amp doesn't gain all that much in the way of headroom.  This is a nice thing for those of us who want a cranked amp sound without a visit from the local police department, but Obtaining 4-12 clean watts out of this amp is not really likely. 

To conclude this review, I'd like to say that the kit sounds really good and it may be exactly what you are looking for if you like gear with lots of options to tweak your sound to the smallest detail.  But if you are more like me, you are going to find a lot of the options gratuitous.  This isn't to say that I don't like the amp.  I really do.  I think it sounds great (as I've stated at least 4 times now), but I also know now that I'd have been totally content without all of these options. 

Built a Weber 5E5A Pro Kit!

I just finished a Weber 5E5A kit yesterday (8/3/2013) so I will post a review of my process and some of the things I liked and disliked about the kit and the experience in general.  This may come off as a bit disorganized because A) it is and B) I am 3 beers into relaxing on a Sunday. 

I ordered the kit and waited the 3-4 weeks as the Weber site indicates.  I chose a custom green covering with a green pilot lamp and wheat grill cloth.  Being able to completely customize your cabinet at little (if you go crazy with the options) to no extra (if you choose standard options) is a nice feature. 

I also chose to get the Weber 15" alnico speaker with it. 

When the kit arrived, I was surprised at how light it was.  I am not going to say it isn't heavy, but it isn't as heavy as a similarly sized amp. 

The cabinet looks good.  Some of the tolex work could be marginally better and the cabinet's joints could certainly be tighter, but honestly, I am nitpicking here.  The cabinet looks sharp and I have no doubt that it is structurally sound and infinitely nicer than virtually anything on the market from any of the mass produced companies.  It is a solid pine box.

The speaker came premounted in the cab.  I didn't check the nuts that hold it to the baffle.  If any sort of rattling develops later, that'll be the first place I look. 

I like the a la carte options with the kits.  I don't know what type of tubes Weber supplies with the kit, but I opted not to have tubes or a copper cap rectifier supplied.  I have plenty of 5U4's and other common tubes around.  That saved me a few bucks which covered the additional shipping charges which were more than fair. 

The kit portion of the amplifier comes with no instructions other than a schematic and a wiring diagram you can download from the Weber website. I printed both of these on my black and white printer as well as the transformer wiring diagram.

The power transformer comes with way more taps than you need.  In particular, it has a lower voltage secondary in case you opt to use a solid state rectifier instead of a a tube rectifier.  I thought this was a neat option but ultimately decided on a tube rectifier.  Could I picture a Fender clone any other way?  Absolutely not!

Being that the kit had no instructions, I just kind of soldered the parts into the eyelet board and left very generous lengths of wire where appropriate.  This isn't the most resourceful way to assemble an amp if you are short on wire, but it allows for a lot of screwing up. 

Shortly upon getting started, I noticed that I was missing a preamp tube socket.  I contacted Weber and without question, the sent me a socket.  I truly appreciate that!  It is why I will continue to shop Weber.  Customer support goes a long way with me!

While mounting the transformers to the amp, I noticed that one of the transformers is meant to be mounted at a 45 degree angle.  I wasn't crazy about this arrangement because the mounting hardware interferes with the board laying flush against the chassis.  I drilled new holes and mounted the choke more in line with what Fender would have done.  To be honest, I am not even sure whether the choke or OT was supposed to be mounted at the angle.  Both ended up mounted like Fender did on their Tweed amps.  In order of how they were mounted, I went PT, OT, Choke.  It made the most sense with the wiring.

I actually bothered to look at tweed chassis  photos just to see what Fender did.  It is worth noting that I put the nut end of the bolt inside of the chassis and had I put the head of the bolt into the chassis and the nut on the outside, I could have stuck with Weber's 45 degree angle transformer with no issues. 

While I was modifying the chassis, I moved one of their wire through holes to another part of the chassis that was more in line with how the wiring diagram looked.  I used a cold chisel to debur the hole which worked really well.  I should have moved both of the wiring through holes, but I'll have to remember to do that next time. 

The other through hole sits right under the board and lifts it which doesn't hurt the board any, but would have made things easier when mounting the board or moving wires from the OT and choke to their proper connections had I just moved the hole and inch or so. 

I also would move the transformers further away from the PT so that I could stick an adjustable bias pot in.  The amp is a non adjustable fixed bias.  I don't really have a problem with that, but having the option to adjust the bias would have been cool if I wanted to stick a 5Y3 and a couple of 6V6's in.  I'm sure I'll be able to figure some other way out when it comes up. 

Weber supplied wire with the kit.  It is a cloth covered type that is not a pushback wire.  It is just a cloth sleeve over a normally insulated wire.  It was easy to strip though (which some cloth insulation is not) so I cannot complain.  The wire was all 22 gauge.  Some of it was stranded and some of it was solid.

I do no like using solid wire as much as stranded.  It isn't as durable, which may be a non point in the case of the inside of an amplifier where the wire isn't being moved so much.  But it also doesn't have the same current handling abilities.  I used all of their stranded wire and stuck the solid wire in my "box o' wire" where all of the spare bits go.

I've noticed a lot of amp kits and even professional amplifiers give very little discussion to the filament wiring aspect of amplifiers.  If you look inside of a blackface Fender amplifier, it looks like the heater wire was literally the last step...almost like it was an afterthought.  Morgan Jones has a wonderful book Valve Amplifiers which is really worth obtaining and reading if you are into building and designing amplifiers.  It gets technical rather quickly, but also goes into a lot of theory which other authors don't mention at all or give a very brief explanation of. 

He suggests running the heater wiring first because if it is done right, it will never need to be run again and only stands to get in the way should other work need to be done.  Twisted wire should be used and pushed into the corners of the chassis for optimum hum cancellation.  I tried using some of the cloth covered wire for the heaters but it just knotted when I attempted to twist it.  I am lazy, so I took two equal lengths of wire and locked one set of ends into my bench vise and the other end chucked into my cordless drill.  Then I slowly pulled the trigger while holding the wire taught.  With the cloth wire it was just a mess of knots.  I used some loose 18 gauge wire I had around and it twisted perfectly.  Unfortunately, the 18 gauge wire was simply too large to get into the 9 pin miniature sockets so I went with 22 gauge wire for the preamp sockets and 18 gauge wire for the power amp sockets.  If I had 20 gauge wire, I'd have used that for the preamp section.  Again, it'll be on my to do next time list.  Maybe I am just going overkill anyway.  I've been accused of it before. 

I also used some 600 volt 22 gauge stranded wire I had when I ran out of the wire the kit came with.  Again, I probably had enough wire had I used the solid core wire.  The 600 volt wire differs from the 300 volt wire in that the insulation is much thicker.  This will keep any arcing through the insulation at bay. 

One thing that I thought was really screwy was that the resistors were all metal film resistors with 5 band color codes.  I literally double checked every resistor with a meter since I am used to the normal 4 band color code. 

Some of the resistors were also different wattages.  I really wanted to use all 1 watt plate resistors, but a lack of preplanning prevented me from doing that.  It wouldn't have been any more difficult.  Some of the resistor leads were unable to traverse the distance between the eyelets and have to be soldered onto the leads of other parts.  I am not a fan of this practice, but impatience got the better of me.  I could have ordered parts with the correct leads or wattages I wanted but I just sort of used what I was given.  I am sure the 1/2 watt resistors will hold up just fine.  Given the great number of Fender amplifiers from the 50's with the original resistors, I'd say I have nothing to worry about...but I just like to overbuild everything!

The caps that came with the kit were Weber's caps.  I have used them in the past.  They are very inexpensive and work well.  I have no complaints.  

The pots are kind of cheap.  I don't know that anybody makes a modern pot that is all that good though.  Most of them have tapers which are not as good as old pots.  It is apparently cheaper to make pots with two linear taper tracks that approximate an audio taper than it is to make a pot with a true audio taper.  This leads to all kinds of weird performance. 

I also didn't like that Weber doesn't supply a second nut for mounting the pots.  I wanted the pots as low as they would fit onto the chassis so that the knobs didn't have an unsightly gap between them and the faceplate of the amp.  I had some loose nuts in my random junk parts so I was able to make that work. 

You have to be careful when you tighten the pots and other parts onto the chassis faceplate.  The chassis has a very nice and heavy chrome with white letters that are silk screened on.  The lettering can be a bit fragile when you challenge it to a duel with a wrench.  I saw a post online about somebody using some sort of tape to protect the lettering which in turn pulled the lettering up.  Just be careful when you assemble it and you won't screw up your lettering.  Or maybe you don't care and think it just gives it character? 

The knobs that Weber provide are kind of junky.  One of them had a set screw that was missing the head.  I used a bunch of salvaged old stock knobs instead.  If the last knob had a working set screw, I would have used the ones provided. 

You are also given two wood screws (or are they self tapping sheet metal screws?) to mount the board to the chassis.  The holes they are to go into are much too small.  I had to enlarge them.  I also had to run various other screws through the holes to get them even started.  One of the screws sheared off at the head which required me to use some linesman pliers to remove.  A bolt and a nylon standoff would have been much easier and just as secure.  Again, impatience got the better of me.  Next time I'll go to home depot to get the standoff and bolts.  Instead I just forced a bunch of metal screws through until I found ones that fit the way I liked. 

The amp goes together really easily if you can read a wiring diagram.  The only thing I had major troubles with was the grounding scheme.  There are lots of ground points referenced throughout the amp and most of them go to either the heavily chromed chassis or the brass grounding plate. 

Neither are easy to solder to.  I have a heavy duty 60 watt iron (in addition to the more surgical regulated iron I use regularly) and it barely was able to get anything to stick to the  brass plate.  I didn't even try to make it stick to the chrome. 

My understanding is that the chrome finish is toxic if you bring it to high temperatures or if you removed it (and subsequently breathe it in) to solder to the steel beneath it. 

The Weber chasiss did have one interested feature.  There is a copper stud welded to the chassis near the PT.  I soldered a terminal strip to the copper stud.  Then I connected all of the grounds to this copper stud/terminal strip setup. 

For the cathode of the power tubes, I ran them to this terminal strip with a 2 watt 1 ohm resistor so that I can measure the combined cathode current should I ever get around to putting an adjustable bias setup in place.  Since I run matched tubes, there shouldn't be any problems with one tube drawing more current than the other and giving false readings. 

For the pots and jacks, I gave them a ground bus which was just a solid piece of wire run along the backside of the pots.  I then grounded the 5 connections from the board to this bus.  One end of the bus was connected to the grounding terminal strip.  I am sure I should have isolated the input jacks to prevent ground loops, but I have seen Gibson amplifiers with this exact setup and no concerning noise issues. 

All of the wiring kind of came together really fast after the board was wired up and the sockets had the heater wires run.  I was actually unprepared for the moment when it was all done. 

I had the power and preamp tubes but no rectifier tube.  I loaded the JJ tubes in and rummaged through my many boxes of old tubes and found a loose GE 5U4.  I was in business!

I plugged in the amp and kicked the power switch on for the first time.  The pilot light was bright and there were no blown fuses.  Surely, this was a good sign! 

I grabbed the Kramer Baretta I have been working on for a friend and plugged it in as it was the closest guitar.  I'm actually more of a Tele/Strat/Jazzmaster player.  I used a cord I had made out of some Belkin cable wire which is really low in capacitance and resistance.  At 10 cents a foot, the switchcraft ends are the most expensive part of it.

I flipped the standby switch and heard what can only be described as the rush of life into the amplifier for the first time.  I'm sure Dr Frankenstein felt the same way!

All of the knobs (except the volumes) were set to 5.  I did a check of all of the controls and inputs doing what they were supposed to.

One thing that really surprised me was how absolutely loud this amp is!  I felt it deafening me even at 2 (out of 12)!  This goes back to the pot tapers I mentioned earlier.  There is some hiss from the amplifier that could be caused by lead dress (I didn't use any shielded wire) or maybe it is just inherent in the circuit or tubes.  The noise definitely went away as the treble pot was adjusted.

It isn't a loud hiss by any means and I have no desire to track it down.  I have owned much lower wattage amps that made much louder idling noises.

The presence control is interesting on the amp.  I expected it to make the amp brighter as I turned it up.  This is what typically happens anyway.  What actually happens on this amp is it just gets more raw as the presence control has a large .1uf cap on it which allows almost all of the frequencies to bypass the negative feedback loop.  I played with that control the most.  It is subtle and I'm sure it'll do more as the amplifier is turned up, but at low volumes, it is noticeable and I think I actually like the control set more toward 1 than 12.  After I get to know the amplifier a little better, I may change my tune and come up with favorite settings.

Overall, I was really impressed with the Weber kit.  It is by far the cheapest kit in the internet and probably the most versatile in terms of what you choose to get with your kit.  Some of the things I didn't like just come down to personal preference.  I know it seems like I had a lot of trouble assembling the kit or had problems with most of the parts, but it actually went together very smoothly and I spent more time thinking about what I was going to do than doing it.  I also like the ceramic sockets that they supply.  The OT has 2, 4, and 8 ohm taps which is also nice.  I'm not going to say that this kit is for everybody.  If you don't know how an amplifier should go together or this is your first kit, you are in for a hard time.  There are no printed step by step instructions.  Right now I am enjoying a sense of euphoria that comes with successfully completing a project that was at times challenging and ultimately rewarding!

As for now, I have a speaker to break in and a new project to start.  Next on the bench is the BYOC Tweed Royal kit which looks to be like a really great package!

Fixed A Few Effects

Over the long holiday weekend, I had a little bit of free time and began working on a few projects that I had acquired.

2 of them were Crybaby wah pedals that I had mysteriously come into ownership of.  It is mysterious because I don't know where they came from or why exactly they were in the condition they were.

Both wahs were the same model except one featured the J-Fet buffer and the other had an older style pot.

Having two similar (although not identical) pedals in front of you can be pretty helpful when you don't feel like thinking too hard about where each wire is supposed to go.  There are slight wiring differences between the two pedals but the color coding of the wires and their general paths are the same.

It was clear on the one crybaby with the older style pot and no buffer that the pot had a wire break off of it because the pot came loose.  I resoldered the wire and tightened the pot into place.  When I went to fire up the pedal for the first time, I got absolutely nothing.  I was admittedly a bit stumped until I noticed that the PCB connector was not keyed and could be reversed.  I tried that and I now had 1 of the wahs working as intended.  It didn't sound the best and the pot was a little scratchy, but at least now it functioned as it should.

The other pedal clearly had more wrong with it.  The pot was missing the gear and c-clip that retains the gear.  Additionally, the switch was completely loose within the pedal.  After acquiring the proper tool to put a new c-clip on (which comes with the gear if you order the Dunlop part), I reinstalled the pot with its new gear and used a loose nut from my bin of parts to secure the switch in the correct spot so that it activated at the extreme toe position. 

Again I fired it up and again I got no sound.  A quick flip of the same PCB connector and my pedal was once again working.  I don't know why they were both backward but I suspect that probably had something to do with why I had both of them and neither of them were working. 

I was surprised at how much better the buffered wah sounded than the non buffered.  I don't know if this is true of all buffered wahs or just the two I had worked on. 

I didn't have any white lithium grease to lubricate the rack and gear so I used some sort of grease that I bought for my vise.  It is sticky but doesn't really like to stick to the plastic of the wah parts so should I even need to go inside of either of those again I will probably switch it up for white lithium grease as the factories use. 

Another pedal that I had very recently purchased was a 1970's Electro-Harmonix Small Stone.  It was an ebay purchase that I was surprised to have won for as little as I did.  It is missing the battery door (as 90% of them are) and through the hole you could see that there was some electrical tape holding some wires together. 

I really wasn't sure what to expect when I opened the pedal up but inside the only thing that had been tampered with was the battery clip.  I removed the electrical tape to reveal the wires hadn't even been soldered.  They were just being held together by the tape and being twisted around each other.  Worse than that, both wires of the battery clip went to the wrong places internally. 

The positive lead was sent straight to the ground and the negative lead was put on a non switching part of the power jack.  I took a new battery clip and soldered it on the correct terminals and then reassembled for test. 

Immediately I was greeted with the warm and smooth sound of the Small Stone Phaser.  It is a really neat sounding pedal and in my opinion, the black and orange 1970's pedal sounds quite a bit better than the green Russian Small Stones (which also sound excellent!).  The Small Stone has always been one of my favorite phasers because of how good it sounds!  The only other phaser on the market that I have ever liked is the DOD FX-20B Stereo Phasor (at least I think they spelled it with an "o"). 

Both phasers use Operational Transconductance Amplifiers (OTA's) instead of the more common matched FET system.  I don't know if it is the particulars of the circuits or the OTA's, but I think both of those phasers are the best! 

Unfortunately, neither of them are available new.  However, neither is particularly expensive used either.  This is especially true when you factor in the cost of modern boutique pedals which are no longer only for the wealthy but are becoming more of a common thing. 

One thing I like about the Small Stone is the simplicity of one knob and one switch.  Plus the footswitch can be modified for true bypass if you have to have it (which I don't - another story for another time).  The Small Stone has speeds that are nice and slow to just plain silly. 

The DOD on the other hand uses a buffered bypass scheme like almost all modern pedals (Boss, Ibanez, etc.).  The switch itself is just a cheap tactile switch.  I know a lot of people are not fond of the DOD pedals because of the case itself.  It does appear to be cheap (it is!).  Bear in mind that DOD pedals were always the budget pedal when compared to Boss.  One place that the DOD trumps the Small Stone is for actual control.  It has 3 controls which allow you to really dial in your phased sound. 

Another positive of the DOD is the price.  It is significantly less money than the Small Stone which has more than just a cult following. 

One quick note about the DOD FX-20B is that the FX-20 (no B) is not the same pedal nor is the FX-20C.  The FX-20B is a 6 stage phaser while the FX-20C is only 4 stages.  The FX-20 has 1 less knob and isn't stereo. 

What happened to the ammo? And why does it cost so much? Why not try reloading?

The same day I bought my S&W 1911 Pro, my sister bought her first gun (a used S&W 669).  The clerk at the store asked her if she wanted any ammo.  My eyes popped out of my head when he said that it was 35$ for 100 rounds of WWB 9mm.

I told her I'd give her a box and that she'd be able to find ammo online cheaper or at Walmart.  Wrong on both counts.

What happened to all of the ammo?  Following the wave of mass shootings and fear of new gun laws  plus the demand for ammo as more guns are being sold, the supply dried up!  Loose boxes can be found here and there but at prices nobody should have to pay for a box of 9mm.  I saw a box of American Eagle 9mm for 21$ a box!  It almost made me regret not buying the 35$ box at the store.  Almost.

I even saw the same box priced as high as 60$ from a dealer which claims to price their good for less than soil.  I'm not sure where they get their mud from, but around here, premium gardening soil is only a couple of bucks for a 20 pound bag.

The last time I bought 9mm I paid just under 12$ a box.  With the trend indicating that ammo is not going to get cheaper any time soon, I decided to reconsider the hassle of reloading 9mm.

After hours of research, I finally decided on a single stage press.  The Lee kits look good, and I am sure they are for the money, but I had read that aside from the press itself, most of the remaining parts of the kit ended up getting replaced later for better quality components.  Ultimately, I ended up getting an RCBS Rock Chucker kit.  The lifetime warranty and high praise from others helped make that decision.

While the press itself was readily available (and with a 50$ rebate!), some of the other supplies necessary for reloading are not so easily obtained at the moment. 

The die I ordered is on backorder and I won't be seeing it for at least a month.  Additionally, primers and powder are impossible to find at a fair price.  So for now, it looks like I'll be set to order the components when they become available. 

Fortunately, I have enough 9mm to last me for a while and this will give me some time to collect my brass. 

Cleaning out the safe...and bringing home a new toy...

After a difficult internal conversation, I decided to part ways with a few guns that I just didn't find myself using. 

Some were guns I obtained on impulse...others curiosity or maybe even desire. 

Whatever the case, I decided they no longer fit my needs and I traveled to my favorite gun store. 

I had brought my Mauser P38, S&W Model 19, S&W Model 686, Sig 229, and Beretta 96G. 

2 of those guns I had bought and literally never shot.

Anyway, the Mauser was in nice shape with no import marks as many P38's have.  It also had a bunch of Nazi markings on it.  I don't recall the year but I only ever shot it once with a friend.  It was fun to shoot in single action but the double action trigger was absolutely awful.  It might have been the worst double action trigger I have ever used.  I am not sure if this is indicative of ALL P38's or just the one I had owned.  I liked that it was 9mm and the magazine release at the butt of the gun was neat.  Spare parts are readily available which was also nice.  Anyway, it will reside better in a collector's hands or maybe even just a shooter. 

The S&W 19 had a 4" barrel that unfortunately somebody added a red ramp to.  I am a big fan of the red ramp but they did a sloppy job.  It could have been touched up upon and made to look nice but I wasn't really looking to invest any money into it.  The blueing was in okay shape and it was a pinned and recessed model.  But the K frame .357 magnums are known for falling apart under repeated magnum loads.  I literally had never shot the gun and only bought it on an impulse because the price was so stupid cheap.  I hope it ends up in a shooters hands.  It was a truly nice revolver.

The S&W 686 that I parted with had the 8 3/8" barrel and was a 686-1 without the M stamped into the frame.  This means that it was never sent back to Smith and Wesson for the firing pin bushing modification.  However, the gun was in absolutely perfect condition.  The barrel looks like the previous owner never shot it and neither did I.  It came with a shoulder holster too which felt odd to wear since the gun was touching your hip (because the barrel is so long) when you wore it.  I imagine a hunter or a collector will find this gun and take good care of it. 

My Sig 229 was in .40 S&W.  I originally got it so that I could convert it to .357 Sig.  I never got around to it.  After shooting it a couple of times I figured it didn't need it as it already kicked like a mule.  Strangely, the Sig 229 kicked more than the Sig 239; both in .40 S&W.  I would have expected it to kick a bit less.  The double action and single action trigger pulls were nice enough and the gun never gave me any trouble.  But I hated the decocking lever being where it was.  Half of the time I wasn't sure if I was going to decock the gun or hit the slide release. 

The original plan was to get the sub compact for carry but I never got comfortable with the gun and ultimately just started carrying my Beretta 92FS.  I really wanted to like the .40 S&W.  I still do want to like it.  I just haven't found the right platform for it and me yet. 

I decided to try the Beretta 96G since I loved my 92FS so much.  I couldn't have been more off in my judgement.  The ergonomics were familiar but the gun was absolutely horrible to shoot.  The Beretta 96 series goes down as one of the guns I've liked the least ever.  I don't want to say that it was the worst ever, but my mind is drawing a blank as to what I liked less. 

All of these guns left the comfort of retirement that my safe had to offer. 

And I decided to use some of my newly found funds to bring home a S&W 1911 Pro in 9mm!  Talk about a beautiful gun!  It is everything I could want in a 1911.  I'd never spend that kind of money on a gun normally, but I figured trading off other guns to get it made it okay. 

I like what the 1911 platform has to offer but I find my Colt 1991A1 a bit expensive to practice with and a bit rough on the hands.  Maybe I'm a baby about recoil but pistol recoil bothers me much more than revolvers.  I can take a .44 magnum with no issue but a .45 ACP is just plain nasty. 

I haven't had a chance to shoot it yet but I just tacked on 3 extra magazines to a MidwayUSA order.  I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about it after I shoot it.

Guitar Finishing

I have been very busy learning about finishes and how to effectively apply them to guitars. 

For a few years, I had a Warmoth Jazzmaster body hanging over my bed.  I used a can of Rustoleum enamel spray paint in seafoam green.  Aside from already having a guitar in seafoam green, I decided I wanted to try lacquer. 

I tried an all natural paint remover that looked like the slime river under New York City in Ghostbusters 2.  What a messy mistake.  In the end, I used Rustoleum's Aircraft Remover (found in the automotive section of Walmart).  The Aircraft Remover is nasty hazardous stuff.  I always read the warnings on all chemicals and any that promise neurological damage with repeated exposure should be taken seriously.  This means absolutely no indoor use and avoid breathing this crap in if you can.

With the warnings out of the way, it works really damned well!  I wish I had started off using it instead of making the mess with the natural pinkish orange crap. 

In the mean time, I had another Jazzcaster (Jazzmaster body + Telecaster function) that I had ordered and a neck that also needed to be painted.  I set up a small paint booth (and it begs to be expanded upon).  I sprayed the neck with a bunch of clear lacquer spray cans.  Any time there was a run I wet sanded it out with 400-600 grit paper.  I also sprayed the fretboard which is some sort of dark exotic wood (I don't recall which at the moment). 

I have been fascinated by sprayed fretboards ever since I noticed that Rickenbacker has sprayed fretboards. 

Finishing the neck is seemingly easier since I chose not to tint it.  This means that I only applied clear finish. 

The body on the other hand required more attention. 

I "sealed" the wood with a quick shot of lacquer and then sprayed aerosol lacquer sander/sealer.  That stuff stinks!  And in retrospect I would have skipped this step and used either more lacquer or shellac.  Sanding sealer is used because it is easy to sand but in actuality it is a weaker finish than regular lacquer (hence it being easier to sand). 

Then I used an aerosol (noticing a trend?) can of white shellac based primer.  I shook the can well but that stuff comes out gloppy and has some sort of agent in it to stop it from drying quickly.  This is another can that stinks terribly and not just of alcohol.  I made an absolute mess with the shellac primer so I had a lot of sanding to do. 

Fortunately the primer dries very fast and pretty hard.  It was also in this ghostly white which I was half tempted to leave the finish in.  I actually liked the color.

I started applying the color coats in a spray can.  Spray can lacquer from Home Depot or Lowes only comes in 3 colors (white, black, and clear) so I went with white.  The color coats went on easy and again any runs were handled after a 24 hours with some sandpaper. 

After I wet sanded the finish so that it was flat and would shine really nicely under a clear coat. 

One problem with white finishes is that they show absolutely every piece of dust or dirt in the air on your guitar.  The clear finish managed to attract damned near everything it could.  There were blue pieces of dust in the air!!  BLUE!!!  Why?  How!? 

They seem to be pretty well in the finish.  And of course during touch ups I managed to sand through the finish on a place.  I may just buff the finish out and kind of call it what it is...A low budget spray job and next time use the HVLP gun I bought (after I started) or the disposable spray unit sold at Home Depot and Stew Mac and mix my own lacquer so I have a bit more control over it (the canned stuff is orange peel city!).  Even the clear dries with a nasty orange peel unless you spray too much at which point it runs. 

I also purchased an air filter for use when I spray to remove dust from the air.  I figure I'll just run it for an hour before I start painting and see if that helps.  It certainly cannot hurt. 

I also have another guitar that I've been having a try at french polishing...but more on that in another post. 

Floyd Rose Speed Loader

It's been a few months since I updated my blog and a lot has been happening in my guitar gear world and virtually nothing with regard to firearms. 

As I mentioned in another post, I was given a Floyd Rose guitar with the speedloader system to work on.  Fortunately, the guitar had a fresh pack of strings with it because the strings are no longer made and are becoming increasingly pricey. 

According to Floyd Rose's website they are looking for a new manufacturer, but until that happens, ebay if you best bet and even there the strings range in prices wildly depending on how many auctions are listed and how many people need strings that week. 

Anyway...The guitar needed to be set up and the owner wanted it set up floating instead of blocked with the supplied blocking device. 

The Floyd Rose site actually has pretty clear instructions on how to do this and they work exactly like they are supposed to.  You set the guitar up blocked and then remove the block and loosen the springs until the guitar is in tune.  Done.  Simple, right? 

Some things I liked about the guitar were the ease of string changes.  Hmm...Well that is about it. 

The guitar felt...cheap.  It was made in china and while the finish looked really good, the fret job was not impressive.  The guitar is not an expensive instrument, but their are better options in the same price range in my opinion (and not just because of the string availability).

The neck also required a stubby allen key.  For those of you who don't know, a stubby key is a normal allen key that has been ground down on a grinding wheel so that the allen key can slip into the truss rod channel between the nut and the string retainer.  Otherwise you have to remove the string retainer to adjust the truss rod which requires you to do a whole lot of guessing since you ideally want to adjust the truss rod while the neck is under normal string tension.

Fortunately, I have access to a grinding wheel and a load of spare allen keys.  I made a couple of stubby keys in various sizes for use later. 

Another quirk that I wasn't too fond of was the fine tuning range adjustments for the strings.  It is cumbersome.  You have to keep adjusting this silly little set screw on the side of the saddle until the string is in tune.  Granted, you only have to do this once if you buy the same gauge strings every time (although good luck with that - beggars can't be choosers). 
 

More Guitar Projects - Kramer and Floyd Rose Content

About a month ago, a close friend of mine asked me if I'd be able to take a look at their Kramer guitar.  I agreed to take a look at it and do my best to get it playing correctly.  A few weeks went by before the guitar actually showed up due to scheduling conflicts. 

When I opened the case of the guitar, most of the hardware was missing.  But I could tell this project was going to be fun and special.  The guitar was a 1987 Kramer Baretta with factory Dennis Kline art.  The particular art is the lips as seen on the Vintage Kramer website.  It is just absolutely tacky and represents everything 80's. 

The body and neck are supposedly of an era where ESP was making them.  The tuners (Schaller M6!) were all there and in tact. 

However, that is where the good news ended, the nut locking pads were all missing.  The saddle inserts and locking screws were also long gone.  The saddles themselves were also completely locked up from rust. 

The stock Seymour Duncan JB had been replaced with a DiMarzio of some nature (nothing against DiMarzio, they make a fine pickup as well). 

But worse than all of this the bridge system was clearly missing parts.  In fact, it was missing all but the tremolo block and plate for the Floyd Rose Tremsetter. Parts for this system are basically not available unless you are willing to search ebay forever. 

My mission was to make the guitar a player.  If it could be done with original parts, great, and if not, so be it.  The other restriction was that it had to be done for cheap. 

That ruled out the original tremsetter system.  To be honest, it looked unnecessarily complicated.  Especially when you look at modern Trem Stopper units. 

Additionally, the guitar was banged up quite a bit.  So even if it had all of the original parts, it still would never be a museum quality restoration. 

With all of this in mind, I set forth to begin replacing parts and making the guitar playable. 

My good friend Adam Reiver with FU-Tone provided a lot of guidance in what was necessary to get this guitar running again. 

A lot of the parts were just common parts but it was a matter of finding which ones fit correctly.  For example, I learned that Floyd Rose saddle inserts come in multiple sizes and the only difference seems to be how wide they are.  This of course makes all of the difference as to whether or not they will fit in the saddle. 

Before I could really worry about the inserts though, he showed me how to take apart the saddles so that I could clean them and get them freely moving again.  Sure buying a new set would have been easier, but sticking with the economical theme of this guitar, I took a hammer a punch (again thank you Adam for your guidance on this!) and knocked out the pin holding the saddle together.  One important detail is that one end of the pin is splined.  You want to knock it out so that the splined end comes out first and when reassembling, the splined end should go in last and back into the same end where it came out of (you can see the grooves that the spline created in the saddle).  

I cleaned each of the saddles with some steel wool or scotch bright.  Some were worse than others.  All of the pins required cleaning as well.  I made sure to put a little bit of machine oil in the saddles so this will never happen again.  It wasn't difficult but it was just time consuming enough that I don't want to have to do it again any time soon.

We outright replaced the block on the bridge with a 37mm brass block.  It must be 2 or 3 times the size of the original Floyd Rose block.

Another important change to the bridge was replacing the screw in arm to an arm that tightens with a collar.  The newer collared arm socket is a bit larger than the old screw in socket.  This required the bridge plate to be drilled out.

My Harbor Freight drill press was not really man enough for this job.  They really don't make things like they used to.  I used some Harbor Freight step drill bits.  The titanium nitride coating literally stripped right off of them as soon as they hit the extremely hard steel from the bridge plate.

I was able to seize up the entire drill press trying to get the drill to go through.  I decided to try a dremel with a stone.  This worked better but eventually this also got VERY hot and the stone broke.  I also managed to burn my wrist on the hot metal not being quite as careful as I had planned.  Fortunately, I had enough sense to wear hearing and eye protection.  It is also VERY important to clamp the bridge plate to the drill and not try and hold the part in your hand.  No sense in losing a finger to a spinning bridge plate that the drill caught.

After the stone broke, I was much closer to the correct diameter I needed than the drill was able to get me to.  I tried the drill again and this time I was a bit more successful.  Hopefully the heat didn't change the temper of the metal...or at least not at the edge that rests on the stud.

I was also warned that the newer collared socket is a bit deeper than the older screw in style.  This meant that the bridge route would have to be deepened over the whammy bar socket.

This was a very easy operation.  I took my plunge router and put in a bit with a guide bearing and in one pass took care of the extra material.  I probably plunged a bit more than one should in one pass, but the results were good and the bit was cheap enough.  Plus I was at the shallowest depth I could be with the bearing making good contact with the guitar body.

I also took this time to enlarge the holes for the bridge studs so that I could put anchors in.  Since I had to replace them either way and the guitar was never going to be 100% original, I decided the anchor was a better option.

The wood was pretty rough from the string tension pushing on the studs.  Ovaling of these holes is a very common problem.

I measured the anchor with a caliper and then matched it up with a good drill bit.  I managed not to botch the paint up at this stage.  That was a good thing.  I drilled the holes only as deep as the anchors.

I don't have an arbor press (yet) so I hammered the anchors in and some of the paint around the anchors cracked.  I am just happy that the paint was already screwed up or I would have been REALLY angry with myself.  If anybody has a better way of keeping the paint from getting screwed up, I am all ears.

I think next time (if there is a next time), I will make the hole a little large with a countersink at the top and have the anchor dig its splines in below the painted surface so as not to destroy it.

I will also use a press so I can do it with one slow and smooth motion instead of the violent action of a rubber mallet.

I still have to rewire the pickup and fabricate new cavity covers.  So the project isn't done yet, but it has come a LONG way in just the week that I have had it.

Meanwhile, I started working on a Floyd Rose guitar with a Speedloader system.   Strings are becoming a bit hard to come by for this system as the last manufacturer of them stopped production in 2010. 

I was asked to float the bridge and intonate the guitar.  The neck also clearly needs to be looked at.  Hopefully it uses a 4mm allen key.  Whatever size it uses, it requires a stubby allen key to fit into the clearance notch on the body at the neck.  

The Speedloader system is pretty unique.  The strings get changed almost as a cartridge.  As long as you know how to set it up, you basically just replace the string and only minimal fine tuning is required.  The headstock of the guitar doesn't even have tuners on it.  Both ends of the string as bullet shaped to fit into the special nut and saddle.

It was a good idea that didn't catch on.  

I'll update more later.  And if I have any sense perhaps with some pictures. 

Random Tips

I will update this periodically as I have more to add.  If you have any good tips, feel free to share them!

When installing a retainer bar on a Floyd Rose style system, use the outer two locking pad screws on the nut to align the screw holes.  Their centers should be equal.  I usually use a ruler that has the same markings on both sides and is the proper width I need and just line up the same marking on each side of the ruler. 

If your guitar has ringing after you mute the strings with your hands, foam under strings behind the nut will reduce this.  The foam shouldn't be too hard or it will play with your tuning and possibly pop the strings out of the nut.  

Always push with your file or you will ruin it.  Keep your file clean as well.  Running your file over ordinary blackboard chalk before using it also helps to keep metal debris from building up in it.

Oil or lubricate your cutting tools to keep them sharp longer.

Use linesman pliers to cut guitar strings.  They aren't the cheapest tool but they provide good leverage for cutting strings and won't get all nicked up the way most wire cutters will when you use them to cut the steel core of guitar strings. 

Can't even tell what is real anymore

I was browsing the local craigslist ads when I happened upon an ad for a Chinese Les Paul copy.  The guitar was a pretty convincing Les Paul, but what disturbed me most about the guitar was that the headstock actually said Gibson on it.  While I worked for Ibanez, I recall a notice on their website warning of counterfeit guitars. 

Having been a victim of buying a counterfeit guitar in the past, this really struck a nerve with me.  It has me terrified to buy vintage guitars, pickups or just about any other vintage "mojo" part.

Admittedly my own experience with counterfeiting could have (and should have) been completely avoided but greed got the better of me and I found myself with one of the worst looking and functioning Fender Jaguar copies.  Needless to say I took a heavy loss and learned a valuable lesson; If it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. 

Caveat Emptor is truly the rule.  Buyer Beware.  I will say in favor of the craigslist seller, he did mention it was not an authentic Gibson.  But will the next seller be so honest?

Some "experts" claim to be able to spot them a mile away.  I've played guitar for more than half of my life.  I know there are exceptions to every rule for what one company did one year or another.  These guitars look very convincing and I'm not certain that I'd be able to tell an authentic one from a counterfeit.

The entire thing leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.  I'm afraid to buy a new guitar.  My only option at this point seems to be building guitars myself from reputable parts dealers. 

Is misrepresenting out of ignorance or intention just as bad as counterfeit?

Fender squier or package starcaster guitars being sold above retail.  Make no mistake the new starcaster line has nothing to do with the short lived 70's semi hollow guitar. 

For example, I have seen a number of Vox amplifiers being sold as tube amps when there isn't a tube in them.  Maybe "tube" is a buzz word that generates more profit like "vintage", "point to point", "Pre CBS", or "Blackface".

Even the manufacturers get in on the fun.  Marshall had their Valvestate amplifiers.  Some of the models contained no valves to speak of (see the VS15R post I made a while back as a reference).  Peavey has the "Transtube" series which while containing the word tube in the name does not have a tube to be seen...or heard for that matter.

The manufacturers also like to play games with the output wattage ratings.  Bigger is always better so they give you the peak output wattage as though it were the average power.  Then you wonder why your 12 watt tube amp (which was manufactured when clean wattage was important) is drowning out your 35 watt newly manufactured amplifier.  This has actually happened to me. 

Manufacturers and other retailers like to use the term "all tube", "class A", or "point to point" when it is clearly untrue.  All tube is admittedly subject to some semantics.  Do you define all tube as no solid state components or only a tube audio path?

For example, does the rectifier being solid state make a 1965 Fender Bandmaster any less all tube than a 1965 Fender Tremolux?  One could certainly make a debate for either side of the argument as the audio path is nearly identical in both of these amplifiers.  Sure the rectifier will affect the sound.

But an amplifier that has a few tubes and a solid state reverb cannot be called all tube, right?  What about amplifiers with relays to switch between channels?

As for point to point, again, one has to classify some things.  Do terminal strips, eyelet boards, turret boards, etc. count as point to point?  Or is that reserved for a mess of wire literally linking point to point?  Technically they may not be point to point, but again, this is accepted nomenclature when talking about an old Fender amplifier.

Referring to a modern amp with a printed circuit board just because the manufacturer claims it is hand wired is a falsehood.  Truth is, all tube amplifiers have some degree of hand wiring and assembly.   But that does not make it point to point wiring. 

I've seen plenty of Fender amps completely misrepresented as Pre CBS or blackface when neither one is true.  If your amplifier was manufactured from 1965 or later, it is not Pre CBS.  It can still be blackface assuming it was manufactured between 1965 and 1967. 

After that, they go into silverface amplifiers with and without the drip edge and then a return to blackface cosmetics.  Some of these late amps are the ones which get passed off as blackface...and a part of me supposes it is technically true, but vintage enthusiasts know that these late blackface amps are not generally what is meant when one refers to a blackface Fender amplifier.

Some people even have the nerve to classify red knob amplifiers as blackface despite no connection with the prior series of Fender amplifiers.

Another favorite of mine is amplifiers which aren't even Fender amplifiers being referred to as blackface. 

As if the manufacturers misrepresenting for their own gain (no pun intended) wasn't bad enough, end users continue to preach this stuff as though it were the bible of guitar playing.  If you've ever punished yourself by reading an interview with Eric Johnson, you've already been exposed to toxic levels of bullshit.  His playing aside, the man literally holds his fuzz face together with a rubber band because he believes that the screw that holds the cover on the bottom of the pedal changes the tone. 

Now we have an entire generation of guitarists who think that Marshall Plexis are high gain, Gibson amplifiers are only for jazz guitarists, and any guitar made before 1979 is vintage (trust me, plenty belong in a land fill!).

Here are a few other overly hyped mojo words to scrutinize carefully when you see them:
Bumblebee capacitors - A capacitor has a very definite function and these values are not magical.  In fact they are easily measured with the right equipment.  You will find most quality capacitors will sound identical in your guitar.  Do not waste your money on these.

Carbon Comp Resistors - These are an older style resistor that has almost universally been replaced by carbon film or metal film resistors for tolerance and thermal noise reasons alone.  They pop up in old amps because that is all they had to choose from and they were cheap and available in the correct wattage.  Like a capacitor, resistors have values (other than just resistance) which is measurable with the correct equipment.  Do not get roped into thinking something is better just because it features carbon comp resistors.

Silicon or Germanium - Usually the argument goes something like this; Germamium is warmer than Silicon.  Germanium doesn't have a life force of its own any more than silicon can control what it sounds like.  There are a great number of parameters that define the sound of a transistor (both internal and external).  Silicon replaced germanium for the same reasons that germanium replaced selenium.  It is infinitely more efficient and reliable.  Sure as guitarists we appreciate all sorts of inefficiencies (tubes, germanium, etc...), but know that something being germanium won't necessarily sound like anything.  It happens to be true that in a Fuzz Face pedal, the germanium pedal will sound a bit darker, but try and tell me that a germanium Rangemaster is dark or warm.  There really is more to designing an effect than just selection of the semiconductor material.

Alnico - Almost always in reference to pickups but also with speakers.  Alnico magically makes everything better.  Coils can be wound in a number of ways and the wire on the coil is just as important as the magnet attached to it.  How the coil is wound is important as well.  And of course this doesn't even take into account the various Gauss levels of the magnets.  Not that it is alnico, but I recall seeing a Neodymium magnetic pickup installed (from the factory) on a guitar while I worked at Ibanez.  I believe this was done in an effort to cut down on the amount of (expensive) copper wire used in the pickup.  The magnet was so strong that you could pick up a 12" adjustable wrench with it.  Additionally, the strings were being pulled down toward the pickup with such force that the entire guitar played sharp.  Use some sense when you buy an "upgraded" part for your guitar.  Alnico isn't always better.  It reminds me of an adage I heard that goes something like this "A well designed solid state amplifier will sound better than a poorly made tube amp."  Getting a 20$ alnico pickup?  Reconsider.  Handmade pickups take time and skill to wind.  The parts are expensive as well.  Look into quality magnets, wire, and fiber or bobbins. 

NOS - I once read something about buying WWII era rifle magazines in which the writer suggested, how many NOS magazines could there possibly be in existence?  You go to every gun show and see NOS magazines wrapped in brown paper 65 years after the war ended.  Do you really think they produced that much surplus?  It is the same with guitar parts, electronic components, and vacuum tubes.  I believe there are articles on how some germanium transistors were relabeled as NKT275 for the Dunlop Fuzz Face pedals.  The same sort of games go on with vacuum tubes and various electronic components that go into guitars and amplifiers. 

...Or maybe I am just being overly skeptical...

What is the point of this rant?  I admit that in part, my reasoning is selfish.  I want to educate people so that I don't have to hear these fallacies propagated eternally.  But I am also tired of seeing people attempt to take advantage of others as well.  

Before you start wasting your money on "vintage" parts, consider saving your money and playing your guitar or listening with your ears and not your "gut".

Did some fret work...

As the title indicates, I did some fret work for the first time, and I am not good at it...yet.  But, we do things to learn.  Practice makes perfect.

I had bought a small collection of various fret working files from Stew Mac.  I bought their double sided files as well as the dual grit diamond files that are angled.

As with all fret work, I removed the strings and straightened the fretboard as best I could using a Stew Mac notched straight edge.  It is a very expensive straight edge but it is really worth the money.  It gets a lot of use and it takes the frets out of the neck, which for leveling frets is ideal!

The neck I was setting has a bit of a twist to it.  but I did the best I could with it. 

For leveling the frets, I initially used a flat leveling file.  It took a lot less material off in a pass than I expected, but due to a lot of heavy wear on the first position frets, I had a lot of material to remove.

I ended up following the string path which ends up giving you a more conical (compound) radius to the fret board instead of cylindrical.

Then I tried using the traditional double sided crowning files to recrown the frets.  I was not confident in my work enough to try using triangle files for this task.

Their operation is simple enough.  Push the file over the frets until it is crowned.  At least that is how it reads online.  What I found is that it doesn't necessarily crown the fret evenly.   So I ended up with uneven crowns on the frets.

The markings on the frets also became increasingly difficult to see as I continued to work.  I am not sure if it is the lighting in my shop area (which is currently being upgraded).  This did not assist me in making a nice even crown.

I found that lubricating the file with pro-cut or paraffin wax greatly assisted the filing action.  However, the wax and pro-cut can hold the loose chips and powder from the frets.  I read about some people using chalk to prevent their files from clogging.  However, this does little in the way of lubricating the file which helps keep the file sharp and last longer.  This is important as these files are NOT cheap when you consider a standard hardware file.

One thing I want to make a special point out of is that you should ALWAYS push with your file.  Push it to cut and then lift it completely off of the material you are filing and then start again pushing.  Don't drag it in reverse over the frets.  This can (not saying it definitely will - but they are not cheap files - why risk it?) damage the teeth on the file. 

Polishing the frets was much easier.  I used 0000 steel wool and just rubbed them until they were shiny.  It was the only step that went exactly as planned.  The double sided fret crowning files took off very little material per pass and consequently didn't leave very deep gouges in the frets.  Therefore polishing them (or dressing them) was much easier and able to be done with the 0000 steel wool by itself instead of a many step process of polishing with progressively finer grit papers.

I'm sure I could have made the frets shine a bit more had I done more than the 0000 steel wool, but at the end of the process, the frets were in just as bad condition as when I had started except that they no longer had big dips in the frets where the strings rested on them. 

After I was finished with my first fret job I was well aware of what separates an amateur butcher job versus a professional job.  I also realized how important practice and experience are with this sort of thing.

I was not going to be discouraged from learning.  I ended up going back to Stew Mac (yes I am a Stew Mac fan boy) and buying their dual grit diamond files as well as the appropriate radiused wooden sanding block for the neck I was working on. 

I want to clarify a little bit about why I am a Stew Mac fan real quick.  Firstly, they have a wonderful and complete collection of guitars specific items at reasonable prices or at the very least competitive with other sites selling similar products.  Additionally, they have extremely prompt shipping!  Very few companies will beat them in this regard.  And lastly, very few of their products that I have bought have disappointed me.  Most of them are very much exactly as described and the high quantity and quality of their user reviews makes an educated purchase much easier.  Their site also features a lot of great free information with plenty of pictures to illustrate them.  I have no association with them and nothing to gain by talking Stew Mac up.  They aren't the only site I deal with, but they are usually the first place I go for guitar specific tools. 

With the new files I and radiused sanding block I decided to have another go at some fret work.

The radiused sanding blocks can be used instead of a file to maintain the clylindrical shape of the frets and fretboard when working on a fixed radius fretboard.  The easiest way to use them is with self-adhesive sandpaper.  Having used 3m paper for various woodworking needs, I am quite fond of it.  However it is not cheap.  While a few different grits would probably have been convenient, being on a budget left me buying just 320 grit.  I figured it is fine enough that it won't leave deep gouges in the frets and will take them down slowly. 

When actually working with the 3m paper, I really don't press down on the block more than just applying light even pressure so that all of the frets have an equal amount of material removed at the same time.  Like using a file, you want to go the entire length of the fretboard in one pass and then start again.  Starting at the last fret and working up toward the nut will result in slightly more material being removed from the rest of the fretboard than the first position as the sanding block stops at the nut and doesn't pass the entire length of the sanding material over the fret.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing since the first position is going to see a lot of play and having the frets higher than the following frets will ensure little to no buzz. 

I noticed I was able to do a much more even job of leveling the frets with the sanding block.  Some frets definitely had flatter plateaus on them, but it was very even from side to side on the fret.  How well the frets were initially installed on the guitar is also a factor in how even the leveling will be across the fret as well.  Anybody who has owned a very cheap import guitar will know exactly what I am talking about.  Usually one end of the fret is sticking up.  This can lead to the frets being physically sharp on the hand or in the case of the 90's Epiphone Coronet I owned, the high e string was able to actually get stuck under the fret end and created a really neat (although completely undesirable) harmonic droning e. 

I also used the dual grit diamond files for crowning the frets this time.  The files have a 150 and a 300 grit surface.  I found the 300 grit surface to be WAY too slow for me.  I was surprised actually.  I expected it to cut much faster.  As with the traditional files, I found that lubricating the file helped it cut as well. 

One thing that separates diamond files from traditional files is that the diamond files can cut with a push and a pull stroke.  The diamonds will last forever themselves but are only as good as the bond that they have with the tool.  My understanding is that the industrial diamonds are electronically deposited on the surface of the file.  I'd think the bond was pretty good, but still, I like to try and take care of my tools. 


One thing I had a bit of difficulty with when using the crowning files was which size file to use.  They come in narrow, medium, and wide.  Narrow wire isn't particularly common on modern instruments and wide wire is what I'd think was on a bass guitar, so I went with medium.  However, I think there is a trend toward wider wire now which means that it isn't always clear as to which file to use. 

I also found doing an even job with the diamond files to be easier.  Perhaps my one previous try at crowning the frets helped or perhaps I am just better at using the diamond crowning files.  Only time will tell as I have not yet given up on the traditional files.  I have plenty of junker guitars that I bought at flea markets to hone my skills with. 


As an unrelated note, why do vises have to be so expensive?  Or rather why do cheap vises have to be made like scrap metal? 

-Zach