The 335 is finally finished. All agree that the Colortone Amber stain + Tru-oil looks spectacular, as does my choice of tailpiece and GFS Surf-90 pickups. You be the judge!
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
12 String 335 - Wiring It Up
Finally got to installing the wiring harness on my 12 string 335 today, and let me tell you it was a mammoth effort. Anyone who has tried to do this will tell you that it's a bugger of a job to get a set of connected pots through the F-hole and into place with anything less than a childish tantrum or two.
In the end I sucessfully used the "fish-tank 5mm pipe" method to complete the task. This involves threading pipe through the holes and onto the tops of the pots (and output jack) and then drawing them carefully through the body until they are seated and can be affixed. It takes alot of fiddling as the wires can easily become tangled or trapped between pots and the guitar body, and the pipe can be easily detached from the pots, but finally after 5 attepts and re-starts the components were seated and finger-tightened - job done!
All that was left to do was to add the glorious gold top-hat knobs from Stewmac and then it was off to the ball Cinderella.
Sunday, 25 August 2013
BC Rich Avenge - Shielding & Pickups
A little more progress on the BC Rich Avenge build with my son Eben this weekend. We managed to get the
top and back wet sanded and buffed (although not as nicely as I would
have liked - this poly is not behaving itself, and patience is not a 9
year old's virtue) and also got the pickup cavities shielded.
After shielding, we grounded the bridge and installed the pickups with their chrome surrounds. The pickups are the Entwistle HVX which I have read rave reviews about. I was looking at some Entwistle soapbars for another project a few weeks ago, and my son saw the HVX's and had to have them (go figure). Anyway they look great and I'm sure will sound awesome. I would have preferred Entwistle Darkstar pickups on this particular project (given the thrasher motif) but I was overruled.
After shielding, we grounded the bridge and installed the pickups with their chrome surrounds. The pickups are the Entwistle HVX which I have read rave reviews about. I was looking at some Entwistle soapbars for another project a few weeks ago, and my son saw the HVX's and had to have them (go figure). Anyway they look great and I'm sure will sound awesome. I would have preferred Entwistle Darkstar pickups on this particular project (given the thrasher motif) but I was overruled.
Anyway, things are nearing completion. Just the neck to go on and the
control cavity to do. We have already had plenty of fun soldering up the
wiring harness, so that can just drop in now. Sounds like next weekend's project!
Tuesday, 20 August 2013
ES175 Hollowbody - New kit started from RM Olson
With the 335 12 string all but completed, I now feel justified in starting the other kit that I ordered from RM Olson Guitars (www.rmolsonguitars.com) in the USA. The kit is a full hollow body ES175 kit in flamed maple. Out of the box the kit looks well made and sports the flamed maple veneer top and bottom - a detail often overlooked by other kit makers. Like the 335, the fixed neck also came pre-assembled - something that I am very thankful of Robert (Olson) for. All in all, a great kit and I couldn't wait to get started.
I'm planning to go with an orange dye job with this one, in the hope of emulating the classic look of the Gretsch orange hollowbody guitars. Initially, I hit the kit with the 240 and 360 grit sand paper to remove any glue and machnn marks. With these initial sandings were complete, I decided to do a trace dye - a step I was not able to complete with the 335. The aim of the trace dye is twofold. Firstly it enables you to detect any patches of glue that were missed by the initial sanding, and it also allows colour to soak deep into the figured parts of the maple veneer.
Using Colortone orange from Stewmac, the initial trace dying did indeed highlighted a couple of regions where glue had squeezed out around the bindings, and in particular where the fixed neck was attached. I was able to concentrate on a couple of these glue spots (mainly at the top and bottom of the veneer-join) as I took the majority of the dyeoff again with 360 grit.
The trace dye seems to have done its job and the figure is standing out nicely. Now for more sanding, from 400 to 600 grit, to smooth the surfaces before the final dye job is done.
I'm planning to go with an orange dye job with this one, in the hope of emulating the classic look of the Gretsch orange hollowbody guitars. Initially, I hit the kit with the 240 and 360 grit sand paper to remove any glue and machnn marks. With these initial sandings were complete, I decided to do a trace dye - a step I was not able to complete with the 335. The aim of the trace dye is twofold. Firstly it enables you to detect any patches of glue that were missed by the initial sanding, and it also allows colour to soak deep into the figured parts of the maple veneer.
The trace dye seems to have done its job and the figure is standing out nicely. Now for more sanding, from 400 to 600 grit, to smooth the surfaces before the final dye job is done.
Friday, 9 August 2013
12 String 335 - Polishing and Shielding
Great progress today - i *finally* got the polishing finished on my 335 12 string, and I also managed to shield the pickup cavities ready to receive their glorious GFS Surf 90s!
I started the polishing process after having wet-sanding with 1500 grit paper and applying a final coat of tru-oil thinned to 50% with turps. Polishing proceeded in 4 stages, with the first stage being a wet-sand with 2000 grit wet-and-dry using boiled linseed oil as the lubricant. I wet-sanded until the surface felt smooth and sanding marks covered the majority of the surface. The surface wasn't as dull as it probably should have been, but this wasn't unexpected given that I didn't leave all my wet-sanding until the last coat of Tru-oil was applied.
After the 2000 grade wet-sand, I then applied sucessive Stewmac polishing compounds - starting with Medium, then moving to Fine and Swirl Remover to remove the sanding scratches and bring out the shine.
I applied each successive compound using my electric drill and some small (3cm) foam polishing pads I purchased from Aussie site polish-up.com.au. The shine that resulted was surprising, with the Tru-oil displaying a satisfyingly reflective gloss finish, and a deep translucency that unfortunately shows up every little mistake I made when applying each layer of oil. The flame maple has really popped, and the 3d or "chatoyance" effect as you move around the guitar is fantastic. In short, I'm very happy with how the finish has turned out!
With polishing complete, it was time to turn my attention to preparing the guitar for wiring - notably, shielding the pickup cavities with some dual-sided conductive copper foil. This stuff is great - it comes with stickum on the back and simply lays down like tape (if a little harder to handle). Each strip lays over the strip next to it and the whole thing forms a wonderfully conductive sheet (resistance is effectively negligable).
I started the polishing process after having wet-sanding with 1500 grit paper and applying a final coat of tru-oil thinned to 50% with turps. Polishing proceeded in 4 stages, with the first stage being a wet-sand with 2000 grit wet-and-dry using boiled linseed oil as the lubricant. I wet-sanded until the surface felt smooth and sanding marks covered the majority of the surface. The surface wasn't as dull as it probably should have been, but this wasn't unexpected given that I didn't leave all my wet-sanding until the last coat of Tru-oil was applied.
After the 2000 grade wet-sand, I then applied sucessive Stewmac polishing compounds - starting with Medium, then moving to Fine and Swirl Remover to remove the sanding scratches and bring out the shine.
I applied each successive compound using my electric drill and some small (3cm) foam polishing pads I purchased from Aussie site polish-up.com.au. The shine that resulted was surprising, with the Tru-oil displaying a satisfyingly reflective gloss finish, and a deep translucency that unfortunately shows up every little mistake I made when applying each layer of oil. The flame maple has really popped, and the 3d or "chatoyance" effect as you move around the guitar is fantastic. In short, I'm very happy with how the finish has turned out!
With polishing complete, it was time to turn my attention to preparing the guitar for wiring - notably, shielding the pickup cavities with some dual-sided conductive copper foil. This stuff is great - it comes with stickum on the back and simply lays down like tape (if a little harder to handle). Each strip lays over the strip next to it and the whole thing forms a wonderfully conductive sheet (resistance is effectively negligable).
"chatoyance"
You can even solder onto it! I was able to easily solder wire from the neck cavity to the bridge cavity without any trouble at all. When the bridge is finally installed, i will be able to solder the bridge ground wire to the shielding around the bridge pickup, and then run another wire from the shielding out to the wiring harness. Exciting times ahead!Thursday, 8 August 2013
12 String 335 - Vintage 50s Wiring Harness
I got the wiring harness for the 335 wired up today based on the "Vintage 50s Wiring" scheme used by Gibson in the (unsurprisingly) 50s and 60s. This wiring scheme attaches the tone capacitor (and therefore tone pot) to the output of the volume pot rather than the input as is the case for so-called "Gibson Modern Wiring" that is used in all 335, Les Pauls and SGs today.
I'm hoping that this wiring scheme, in combination with my GFS Surf-90 pickups, will lend the guitar a very 50s jangly sound.
Everything went together fairly easily using 500K CTS pots and 0.022 uF orange caps from Stewmac. Because my push-pull CTS pots wont fit through the f-hole in the 335 body, my planned series/parallel and coil tap modifications had to be scrapped for this build. Hopefully in a later build I will be able to explore the plethora of wiring modification possibilities.
At present I satisfied myself with a simple modification to the 50s Vintage wiring scheme to allow the volume pots to operate independently. The problem with both 50s Vintage and Modern wiring is that when both pickups are selected, turning one one of the pickup volume pots to zero grounds out the entire signal from the 3-way switch (including any signal generated from the other pickup). A simple modification swaps the volume pot input and output lugs, placing the pickup input wire onto the pot's swing arm. When the pot is turned to zero, only the hot wire from the pickup in question is grounded rather than the whole circuit, allowing the other pickup to continue to supply signal to the 3-way switch as normal.
A second simple modification I am considering is the addition of a "treble-bleed" circuit to each of the volume pots so that the high-end jangle is not muddied as the volume is turned down. This simple circuit involves a resistor and capacitor wired in parallel across the volume pot "hot path" to allow high signal frequencies to bypass the increasing resistance as the volume is turned down.
As the pot is turned and the resistance increases, the resulting signal, while attentuated for the majority of the frequency range, is not reduced for the higher frequencies. These higher frequencies stay in the signal and the resulting output retains the high jangly tones even as the volume is rolled off.
I'm hoping that this wiring scheme, in combination with my GFS Surf-90 pickups, will lend the guitar a very 50s jangly sound.
Everything went together fairly easily using 500K CTS pots and 0.022 uF orange caps from Stewmac. Because my push-pull CTS pots wont fit through the f-hole in the 335 body, my planned series/parallel and coil tap modifications had to be scrapped for this build. Hopefully in a later build I will be able to explore the plethora of wiring modification possibilities.
At present I satisfied myself with a simple modification to the 50s Vintage wiring scheme to allow the volume pots to operate independently. The problem with both 50s Vintage and Modern wiring is that when both pickups are selected, turning one one of the pickup volume pots to zero grounds out the entire signal from the 3-way switch (including any signal generated from the other pickup). A simple modification swaps the volume pot input and output lugs, placing the pickup input wire onto the pot's swing arm. When the pot is turned to zero, only the hot wire from the pickup in question is grounded rather than the whole circuit, allowing the other pickup to continue to supply signal to the 3-way switch as normal.
A second simple modification I am considering is the addition of a "treble-bleed" circuit to each of the volume pots so that the high-end jangle is not muddied as the volume is turned down. This simple circuit involves a resistor and capacitor wired in parallel across the volume pot "hot path" to allow high signal frequencies to bypass the increasing resistance as the volume is turned down.
As the pot is turned and the resistance increases, the resulting signal, while attentuated for the majority of the frequency range, is not reduced for the higher frequencies. These higher frequencies stay in the signal and the resulting output retains the high jangly tones even as the volume is rolled off.
Friday, 2 August 2013
BC Rich Avenge - The Custom Decal
Still getting the layers of poly onto the BC Rich rockabilly death metal thrashmeister. The poly is taking roughtly 24 hours for each coat to dry, so it's a long plodding process with few results to report. In the meantime, Eben could not wait to put his custom decal on the headstock. So, executive decision made, we went ahead and applied the sucker!
The result is not quite centered - it's a tiny bit off to the right - but it still looks awesome. Eb is very happy with the result. A couple more coats of poly over the top and the headstock will be ready for a rough wet-sand and polish. This bad boy is going to look awesome when it's finally assembled!
The result is not quite centered - it's a tiny bit off to the right - but it still looks awesome. Eb is very happy with the result. A couple more coats of poly over the top and the headstock will be ready for a rough wet-sand and polish. This bad boy is going to look awesome when it's finally assembled!
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