Whats on your work bench?

[LightWingStudios]

I finally (I turned 52 last December) put together the Flying V kit my kids got me for my 50th birthday!

Yes, my kids painted the design.

Miraculously, my soldering job took. It still needs a setup and a few finishing touches, but it works.

One part of the setup will be new tuners. The ones that came in the kit are inaccurate and alternately tight and loose, with a hint of grinding. In short, they suck like a sextet of Shop Vacs.

I got mine off Amazon for the slew of Firefly Guitars I have now. Cheap and pretty good too!

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/C3F4 ... f_=ast_bln

[solteroblues]

This one scratch build is taking me forever, mainly because i can only work on it a few minutes at a time. Now it's to the stage where there's a lot of waiting in between steps, like letting coats and epoxy cure.

Here's the top after a seal coat of shellac. I'll sand this back before I do any clear coats.



Next is the headstock. I did the fretboard inlays by hand with a router and just tracing the shape of the inlays onto the board. I think it came out pretty well, but I thought, "That's a pain, let's try a laser!" so I did the headstock with a laser. First the outline just to see if it looked good...



Then filled out



Then I bought some mother of pearl in a super thin sheet so the laser could cut it out... First attempt didn't go as well as I had hoped, the "Solteroblues" was too thin, so the laser disintegrated it, and the eagle feathers broke off around where I let the laser overheat the material...



So while I work at fixing the burn power of my laser, I decided to do an epoxy fill with mica powder... still waiting on that to cure

[deeaa]

Wow that's a real nice axe! Gorgeous!

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[andrewsrea]

An amplifier that 'got away' from me, was a Marshall small-head 2553 Silver Jubilee 50w. Well, I decided to build my own starting with an Alexander Jubilee clone PCB (which is really just a modified Guv'nor pedal). My mods include 50w / 100w mode (like the real amp) with a bi-color LED to indicate on/off and mode, asymeterical clipping and interstage filtering like the real amp.

I call it 'AMI 2553 Silver Jubilee'

Today was the functional test and this thing goes from John Sykes' Whitesnake tone, to Slash's AFD tone depending on the IC I use. Lighter settings will easily comp AC/DC, Zeppelin, etc. Dead quiet, until I hit the volume and then it roars! Like a real amp, it can be boosted by another pedal. Really sounds authentic. Musch better than the Alexander Jubilee videos, which are great.

Doing the Cerakote grey paint and laser graphics this coming week and will post when finished. in the meanwhile, top and gut shots:

[glasshand]

Finally got around to replacing the cheapy tuning machines on my taxi tribute guitar with some Grovers. One of the nice things about a guitar with a lot of wear on it is that you don't care too much if your work is neat!

[deeaa]

Decided to improve one of my Vs...it was eggshell white, with a Yamaha 24 fret half scalloped (towards the end) neck. Never was quite happy with the finish quality, and there's barely enough room in the bridge to intonate so I got a wider bridge for it and refinished it in red. Also the scallop work was a little ugly so I put in new SS frets and reshaped the scalloping to be pretty and a little deeper past 14th fret.

Hard work, with the scallops removing the frets ripped out nasty shards from the board, so I spent hours working on it to fill the holes with a rosewood powder/baking soda and superglue mixture and filing and sanding it nice...now just need to file the fret ends and do a final leveling and fixing up some crowns where I need to level them a bit, and I'll also do a few coats of tru oil on the body to deepen the color and protect it, and then buff and polish the whole thing. It was a very nice guitar before but now it's gonna be superb. Probably I'll have to make a new nut too.

Besides that, I have a superstrat that has a fractured neck, very very thin neck and it's not fractured open but pretty nasty...I'll have to use a super thin drill to make a few holes in the fracture area and inject titebond into the fractures, and apply some pressure in the area and then hope it'll be firm and then sand and refinish the neck. An interesting project for sure. Not 100% sure it'll succeed but the neck is scrap as it is now so I can only improve on it really. If it fails, well, nothing lost.

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[LightWingStudios]

A COMPLETE Studio and Company production reorganization. Should finish this weekend. Pics to follow.

[mozz]

2 amp pcb eyelet boards from Hoffmans EL34 world. First a tweed princeton 5F2a, second a similar style amp with a el84 output and slightly different circuitry, Kalamazoo model 1. 2 inputs but join-able. They should sound close but i am hoping different enough to make a nice full sound. Going to be driven by 1 power transformer, identical output transformers. Gutted from a old stereo reel to reel. Cabinet has 2 parts that latch together, each has a 8" speaker. I don't know if there is room for the amp inside, if not a separate head will be built.

Next is a dummy load, a pair actually. I shall be good for 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 ohms and 1200 watts.

[andrewsrea]

2 amp pcb eyelet boards from Hoffmans EL34 world. First a tweed princeton 5F2a, second a similar style amp with a el84 output and slightly different circuitry, Kalamazoo model 1. 2 inputs but join-able. They should sound close but i am hoping different enough to make a nice full sound. Going to be driven by 1 power transformer, identical output transformers. Gutted from a old stereo reel to reel. Cabinet has 2 parts that latch together, each has a 8" speaker. I don't know if there is room for the amp inside, if not a separate head will be built.

IMG_20240516_193505551_HDR.jpg


IMG_20240516_193631227_HDR.jpg

Next is a dummy load, a pair actually. I shall be good for 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 ohms and 1200 watts.

IMG_20240516_193515501_HDR.jpg

Very cool conversion and that is a gargantuan variable load resistor! What in the world did that come out of?

[deeaa]

Finished the white V refin

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[mozz]

[/quote] Very cool conversion and that is a gargantuan variable load resistor! What in the world did that come out of?
[/quote]

Flea market at the old drive in movie theater . Garden drive-in, Hunlock creek, next to the Susquehanna river, RT 29. Seller had a lot of electronic stuff they had no idea what it was. 8 ohms, 300w each and there was 4 of them $5. 1 lb of unused 63/37 solder for $5. Got a full bag of XLR connectors and a bunch of 2n3904, 3906 transistors and a lot of other parts from Mouser. Dozen I.C. capacitors, 22uf-450v, 10uf-450v, I had to walk away, i was spending too much although the deals were great.

[andrewsrea]

Very cool conversion and that is a gargantuan variable load resistor! What in the world did that come out of?
[/quote]

Flea market at the old drive in movie theater . Garden drive-in, Hunlock creek, next to the Susquehanna river, RT 29. Seller had a lot of electronic stuff they had no idea what it was. 8 ohms, 300w each and there was 4 of them $5. 1 lb of unused 63/37 solder for $5. Got a full bag of XLR connectors and a bunch of 2n3904, 3906 transistors and a lot of other parts from Mouser. Dozen I.C. capacitors, 22uf-450v, 10uf-450v, I had to walk away, i was spending too much although the deals were great.
[/quote]

That is a find and sounds like money well spent. I think I've been through that area in the 80's, where a band I was in played a festival at Luzerne College.

[andrewsrea]

What a difference a $10 spring makes. Replaced my stock Bigsby tremolo spring with a Reverend Soft Touch Spring that @golem recommended (thank you Chandler). I thought for sure a lower tension spring would create a tradeoff in tuning and bending stability.

I was wrong. Not sure how they did it, but it provides more travel, easier to push and consistent to the bottom. Even with extreme dive bombs, it will come back in tune with a little flick. No noticeable change in sustain.

I enjoyed my Epiphone Casino before this, but much more fun now.

[golem]

@andrewsrea I feel like I told you about that and the coin trick years and years back. I can see you're using the vibramate spoiler I got you as well. Reverend used to use Duesenberg trems but had a supply issue, figured out some tricks with the Bigsby using the springs that addressed their dislikes and never went back to using Duesenberg vibrato/trem when they became available again.

[andrewsrea]

@andrewsrea I feel like I told you about that and the coin trick years and years back. I can see you're using the vibramate spoiler I got you as well. Reverend used to use Duesenberg trems but had a supply issue, figured out some tricks with the Bigsby using the springs that addressed their dislikes and never went back to using Duesenberg vibrato/trem when they became available again.

Yes - using all the tricks and thinks you gave me. The coin, Vibramate and the spring! If it weren't for them, I'd be slapping a trapese tailpiece on this and calling it a day.

[Tiga]

[/attachment]

Fixed up a early '90's Realistic Chronomatic-268 clock radio for my daughter's room. Love the blue LED's. Replaced the 9V battery plug, brought the volume pot back to life with deoxit and some elbow grease cleaning and it's like new. Surprised it picks up as many stations as it does with no external antenna. She digs it.

[tobijohn]

Fixed up a early '90's Realistic Chronomatic-268 clock radio for my daughter's room.

Jeez, it doesn't seem that long ago that old stuff meant it was from the 40s and 50s...

[Tiga]

I know right! I have a hard time believing this thing is over 30 years old!

[Rollin Hand]

...and it will last better than current clock radios.

[andrewsrea]

[/attachment]Realistic Chronomatic Battery.jpgRealistic Chronomatic.jpg

Fixed up a early '90's Realistic Chronomatic-268 clock radio for my daughter's room. Love the blue LED's. Replaced the 9V battery plug, brought the volume pot back to life with deoxit and some elbow grease cleaning and it's like new. Surprised it picks up as many stations as it does with no external antenna. She digs it.

I have to show this to my wife that I am not alone. She ribbs me once a year regarding a late 70's digital alarm clock that looks horrible, but I still keep because it works, is reliable and paid for!

[glasshand]

Fixed up a early '90's Realistic Chronomatic-268 clock radio for my daughter's room. Love the blue LED's.

Geeky nitpick: I believe that's a VFD, not LEDs. But in a way that's almost cooler, because VFDs are technically triodes!

[Rollin Hand]

I got all tuned up the other day, and swapped tuners on Dad's flying V (painted by my kids) and my Kramer Baretta Special.

The V got a set of Wilkinsons off Amazon. The original tuners, which came with the kit, blew like an ill wind. The replacements were made by Jin Ho, and are excellent. They feel as good as Gotohs when new.

The Kramer got a set of Guyker locking tuners, which... let's be honest: the originals worked OK but I like lockers.

[deeaa]

Gonna refin this SG.

It's a "Classic" brand, don't know when or where it's made, but it's real wood and very solid, nice guitar. Gonna go for Pelham Blue type color, already primed and sanded it. Still trying to come up with a good plan how to mask the fretboard sides nicely and accurately.

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[mozz]

Since i love all types of fuzz, just picked up this fuzz face tweakers board, lets you adjust/measure a lot of things, which is right in my particular ballpark of being a nerd.
https://huntingtonaudio.com/

[deeaa]

While preparing to refinish a guitar of mine I noticed it had cracked badly at the body both sides of the neck.

I don't know whether it'll be fine really...I drilled 4 small holes deep in the crack and injected Titebond, and clamped it. Soon will open and see if it worked.

It may have been cracked for a while already...the strings on it pulls the crack shut so I only noticed it when I was spraying on the first layer of base coat filler.

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