Thursday 9 October 2008

Telecaster finishing

Here's a few photos of the finished Tele:







I wanted a solid blue nitro-cellulose finish, but I could only find clear lacquer. Then I tried staining the wood with blue dye...Major mistake. All I got was a nasty purple with a few blue blotches.

Panic...

Then I tried coloring the clear Nitro Lacquer with the remaining wood-dye powder. It looked ok, but had a lot of un-dissolved powder-residue in it. I filtered i Twice through a Bob-the-Builders sock:


The filtered lacquer was applied to the Body with a regular Paint-Brush. After Three coats it looked like this (The Camera-flash makes the blue visible, in regular light it's almost black):



The I applied 7 coats of clear Nitro-Lacquer. In the next picture, the stripes from the Paint-Brush are very noticeable:



Sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding

The Scratchplate and Controlplate was sprayed with a regular spraycan. I did a horrible job, but won't bother to redo it right now. The Neck got three coats of nitro and a quick sanding. The pre-wired Tele now looked like this:



Offcourse I destroyed one of the Jaguar Pickups and decided to make a Geo-Mag version :
The Bobbins are cut from a Fiber-material. (In this case an old Cassette for Magazines):


Six Geo Mag poles are stripped (as in a previous post) and fitted in the Bobbins. The Magnets are stacked beside it:


Winding in progress:


Measuring the resistance:


The Guitar was finally wired with switchcraft hardware and a Fender No-Load Tone-Pot.

I am pretty happy with the final result. The intonation is perfect, action is low and it has great acoustic qualities. Its fitted with Grover Tuners and a homemade Camel-Bone nut

Friday 1 August 2008

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Wednesday 30 July 2008

Tele project update

Time to work on the Tele-Project again. Check out the first posts below.
The dirt-cheap 30$ Eden Neck I bought is basically allright, but the bottom of the Heel turned out to be curved. To get a tight fit in the Neck-Pocket I needed to straighten it out. The primitive router-jig below did the trick :-)




Here's a test-fitting of most of the still unfinished parts:

Thursday 26 June 2008

Aria makeover 3

A little progress...

I blocked the old Bridge Pickup-rout. A new rout will be made to fit the P-Bass pickups:



Here's a test-fitting of the new aluminium Scratchplate:





I just need to cut a hole for the P-Bass Pickup, drill for Pots and Switch and make the edges pretty. Any comments on the Design ?

Thursday 12 June 2008

Aria makeover 2

Finally the paint is removed...
Be carefull using Paint Remover near the bindings ! It will melt the Plastic.

Here's some pictures of the roughly sanded Neck and Body, getting ready for paint:





Wednesday 28 May 2008

Aria makeover

We are planning a huge makeover of this Japan 1978 Aria RE550 :


It is a very well made Matsumoku Rickenbacker 4001 copy as seen here: In the Original Catalogue

Front view:



Back view:



The plans are:

  • Stripping the paint and lacquer for new paint job
  • Re-designing the Scratchplate
  • Swapping the Bridge Pickup for a P-Bass-style Pickup (Leave a comment if You can recommend a good Model !!!)
  • Upgrading all the Pots and the Switch
  • Shielding the Body Cavity

The Neck-Pickup is cool...It stays, but the lacquer on the fretboard doesn't.

Sunday 4 May 2008

The Geo Mag Pick-Up (updated)

After successfully rewinding a broken Fender Jaguar Pick-Up, I decided to make one from scratch.
A pick-up kit, complete with bobbins, magnets, wire and polepieces just seemed to easy so I started to look around the house for supplies.
I found a bunch of these Geo Mag poles:



...and cut of the plastic:


There are two, extremely powerfull, Neodynium magnets on each pole. The one closest to the strings must be removed. When removed, the magnetic power on the "string-end" closely resembles standard Alnico magnets used for pick-ups.


I stripped 6 Geo Mag poles and attached them to a standard size bobbin, made from some very sturdy cardboard. I insulate the poles with tape to protect the coil wire from corrosion:



UPDATE:
I finished winding and ended up with 5000 turns and a resistance of 5,8 kohm. The coil wire was a bit loose so I gave the whole thing a nice dip in a mixture of 80% candle wax and 20% beeswax, heated to a temperature of about 60 degrees Celcius in a double boiler. I'm no expert, but there are plenty of tutorials out there on Pickup potting.
My boiler looks a little primitive, but it turned out fine. The coil wire is firm.



I installed the pickup in neck position and tested it through a PocketPod. At first it sounded pretty standard: Clear bell-like sound and so on. Then I noticed that the bassy notes has got a very distinctive snappy-sound to them. Also the pickup is almost noiseless, which I didn't expect :-)
All in all it's a decent pick-up with a unique sound and a lot of fun to make. The next one will be a bass model.

Redneck Pick-up Winder v.1.5

After experiencing a wire break after 4000 turns on the 1. generation winder, I altered it a little.



The Spool is now fixed and the wire is being pulled directly off. A little tension is created by drawing the wire through the two felt pads in front of the Fishing Reel.
Now it works great and I made 7000 turns in about 1,5 hours.


Saturday 29 March 2008

Redneck Pick-up Winder v.1.0

This is my first attempt at making a pick-up coil winder, version 1.0. I only need to make a few pick-ups so a hand-driven winder is ok.
I used an old Fishing Reel, with all the locking mechanisms removed, on which i mounted a bracket to support the stripped pick-up.
The coil of wire hangs on a paintroller holder. The Wire is fed through a board and some plastic beads that helps me aligning it with the winder.
The Fishing Reel is mounted on plastic strips. I can slide it back and forth to make an even spread of wire on the pick-up.




On the picture below, I made 1500 turns (I need to make about 7000)


I made some calculations, before I started wiring:
Thread thickness: 0.0508 mm (47 SWG eq 44 AWG)
Surface in mm2: r*r*pi
One wind is 120 mm of wire
Calculation of wire resistance: RL = e x L/q q = (e x L)/RL e = (q x R)/L L = (q x R)/e
7000 windings should equal a resistance of 5,9 kOhm

Sunday 9 March 2008

Hohner makeover

My trusty old Hohner St Lead Professional needed a makeover. Here's a few before-pictures





  • Lacquer and primer was removed with zieh-blade and sanding paper.
  • The wood was tinted three times with a waterbased cherry-color.
  • 12 layers of Nitro-cellulose lacquer was applied with a good quality paintbrush. Sanded between each layer
  • The lacquer was left to set about two weeks and wet-sanded with grade 400 to 1200 sanding paper and finished with polish
  • All cavities shielded with adhesive tinfoil from the local hardware store
  • All electronics were upgraded
  • A new Scratchplate was cut from aluminum and spray painted. The shielding connects to the the scratchplate to make a Faradays cage. The ground leds to the Tremolo.
  • I mounted a Kent Armstrong P90 in bridge position and a homemade (not by me...) bell sounding wonder in the neck.
  • The plastic saddle was replaced by cows-bone. The Saddle-Saws came in handy.

In the end it came out like this:




Monday 21 January 2008

Bass Projekt 08

Mens jeg venter på at det bliver varmt og tørt nok til at lakere Telecaster projektet, er der plads til et sideprojekt: En bas til S.A.D.'s bassist.

Foreløbige specs:
Ahorn krop
Ahorn/ahorn hals. EDEN P-style
Pickup, hals: Fender presision '51
Pickup, bro: EMC, Warwick
Bartolini NTBT pre-amp
Killswitch
Badass bridge ?
Muligvis onboard effekter

Monday 17 December 2007

Reparation og hals på

Jeg fik fræset for meget af halslommen (til venstre for det blå tape). suk...Det blev fikset med lidt træspartel.


Efter spartling blev halsen monteret. Hovedet på halsen er savet ud i Telecaster stil:

Saturday 8 December 2007

Kroppen rettet til

Så er de grimme kanter efter stiksaven efterhånden pudset af. Jeg har brugt en sandpapirstromle, korn 80, spændt fast i bænkboremaskinen. Stiksavens klinge har bevæget sig fra side til side under savningen, så der var meget at rette op.

Halslomme færdig

Halslommen færdig...Nu skal jeg bare regne ud hvordan halsen placeres nøjagtigt.

Tuesday 27 November 2007

Valg af pick up's

Jeg går efter en twangy/spanky lyd, så pick up valget er faldet på et par Fender Jaguar (MIJ re-issue) pick up's jeg havde liggende:


Alternativt overvejer jeg at at smide en P90 (Kent Armstrong) i bridge.

Halslomme fræset

Ok, det går langsomt det her projekt...Her er halslommen næsten færdig. Der er boret for med et forstnerbor og den ene kant er fræset med et notfræsejern. Det lyse brædt bruger jeg til at styre fræseren i en lige linie.



Efter billedet er taget har jeg ad flere omgange fræset dybden til 16 mm.

Thursday 15 November 2007

Scratchplate savet ud

Scratchplate'en er også savet ud og ses her i rå form. Værktøj: stiksav og dekupørsav til pickup-hullerne.
Der mangler et par timers slibning endnu...

Kroppen savet ud

Kroppen er her savet råt ud med en stiksav. Båndsav står på ønskelisten...
Træet er afrikansk mahogny, lufttørret i ca. 30 år. Den bliver lidt småtung, men klangen skulle gerne blive smuk. Tykkelsen er 40 mm.
For at give mest muligt støtte til den kommende fræsning af halslommen, er hornene ikke savet ud endnu.

Thursday 8 November 2007

sadel-sav

Her er en af mine hjemmelavede sadel-save af billige følerblade, som jeg har filet hakker i med en nålefil. Det fungerer fint, hvis man kun skal lave et par stykker.
Jeg var for nærig til at betale 500 kr. for et rigtigt sæt sadel-save...
Sadlen skal laves af kamelben.


Thursday 1 November 2007

Scratchplate i aluminium


Her er beta udgaven af min aluminium scratchplate. Den skulle gerne give lidt ekstra støj-beskyttelse.