Whats on your work bench?

[Pilipete_Townshend]

New pickup winder, cnc-laptop based. Spent my second stimulus check before it even got here.

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Looks a lot better than ones I saw on some picture ads.

[TVvoodoo]

Today, sadly the last of the gem encrusted ribbon straps. Shall I make more again? Maybe.

[Spike]

Had some pin lock tuners laying around forever so I decided to put them on my Reverend Roundhouse yesterday. Love these tuners!

[devdem]

Just posted a project link for the new bone nut I cut for the AL2000

https://www.aguitarforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=939

[mozz]

Finally got my chinese wire tensioner. Kind of cheap because of the plastic but i'm sure it's more consistent than using your fingers. Coils come out better looking yet it does a little bit of collapse when winding due to the turns per layer setting. Seems pretty tight but i have to bump it up just a litttle more. Did one humbucker as a test and it's reading 7.8k which is good for the target i was shooting at. 4% mismatch on the coils. A Squier from a guy at work wants a set of single coils and i have one here to throw pickups in myself so this weekend i will try and set up a program for single coils. Working on a few new magnet staggers, 9.5 radius. Ebay threw me $25 as a gift for being a long time member so i put that towards a few hundred A2 single coils magnets which i have not tired before.

[Rollin Hand]

Got some painting done. Plenty of flaws, but I am NOT redoing it. Now to wait the three or so weeks for the black stripes to cure enough for sanding and polishing.

[glasshand]

Last night while I was at band practice, I spotted a Big Muff in our bassist's pile of random gear, and I said, "Hey, do you mind if I borrow that? I'd like to try it with my rig." He said, "Sure, but..." and when I picked up the pedal there was a rattling sound from inside it and the button flopped loosely in and out.

So I cracked it open to see what it looked like, and the 3PDT switch body had come completely open, and all of the parts were rattling around inside. At least I hope it's all the parts...now to see if that's actually the case and if it's fixable. And before you say "why not just replace the switch", EHX uses a circuit board with a ribbon cable to attach their footswitches.

[rrobbone]

I suppose technically, it's not on my workbench anymore since I moved it inside... but I've got my arcade up and running:

Indeed, your powers of observation are serving you well... there are no joysticks or buttons of any kind.

Well, that's because she's not quite done yet. I want to get some very specific high quality components, and they're on order. With Covid, it could be some time. It will have two joysticks, a spinner, and a trackball in order to accommodate the myriad games it'll run. Once I get the controls, I'll drill the control panel and paint the plexi on top of it.

In the meantime, I've been having a blast every night remembering old faves and finding new ones.

[Rollin Hand]

I can assure you it lools way better the right way up.....

[Gear_Junky]

In the end my SJM was reborn

That looks great! I was bitten by the SJM bug way too late into the game - missed the opportunity to get any of the maple neck models. I recall having an SJM body in surf green or some such from someone at the old AGF and I was trying to get a neck for it from Rondo, but not the "liquid" pointy headstock... and I don't even remember, I might've traded it to TWANG for some pickguard work...

I really wanted to make an SJM with Jaguar pickups and controls, but I'd need the ability to produce pickguards. I even got a set of Fender Jag pickups and a jag bridge... the best laid schemes of mice and men...

What pickups are those?

[Gear_Junky]

I put a speaker out switching jack in my Danalectro Honeytone amp. It sounds pretty good through a 1x12 cab.

dano1.jpg
dano2.jpg
dano3.jpg

I have one of these somewhere, they're surprisingly good sounding little amps. I like how you can clip it to your belt (or guitar strap), put in a battery and have crunchy or clean sound somewhere without electricity. Imagine driving a 12" speaker with 9V... how loud does it get?

[Gear_Junky]

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So of course, for me, working on guitars often means running into problems. (Why can't it always go smoothly?!) Here's my first one: this guitar is chambered and I guess that means the factory putting a 1/2"+ deep channel under the pickups. I tried adding foam into the channel but the wood on the sides above the channel is still too low for the screws that came with the pickups, which are vintage-style and screw into the body, rather than hanging from the PU rings. Ugh...

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I figure I'll have to go find some small, flat scraps of wood and glue them next to the channel. Anyone Have any other ideas?

RiverDog, were you able to finish the project? I feel your pain, why do those filtertrons have to be so finicky? In my case, with my WNO (archtop hollowbody) it's getting the neck pickup adjusted closer to the strings. I pretty much had to use my own versions of "english mounts" (made them from humbucker baseplates from the stock pickups). But now that GFS offers a simpler version of that (meant for guitars that used to have PAF-style buckers), I am leaning towards getting those. Have you considered that?

https://www.guitarfetish.com/GFTron-Ada ... 33866.html

[Rollin Hand]

Put in the post bushings and.....uh oh.

Guess i need to get some slow-cure cyanocrylate and wick it in there.

Also, I some how effed up the 5150 stickers! Despite measuring, marking, taping, etc., well...

I also discovered that none of my good locking nuts are the right size. Another one on order.

Guess I am ordering new spacetape too.

[Tiga]

Very cool - are you running Rasberry Pi? I have a Arcade1up Street Fighter cabinet that I've been eyeing up for a Pi system. Too many projects.

I suppose technically, it's not on my workbench anymore since I moved it inside... but I've got my arcade up and running:


IMG_2855.jpg


Indeed, your powers of observation are serving you well... there are no joysticks or buttons of any kind.

Well, that's because she's not quite done yet. I want to get some very specific high quality components, and they're on order. With Covid, it could be some time. It will have two joysticks, a spinner, and a trackball in order to accommodate the myriad games it'll run. Once I get the controls, I'll drill the control panel and paint the plexi on top of it.

In the meantime, I've been having a blast every night remembering old faves and finding new ones.

[mkgearhead]

I put a speaker out switching jack in my Danalectro Honeytone amp. It sounds pretty good through a 1x12 cab.

dano1.jpg
dano2.jpg
dano3.jpg

I have one of these somewhere, they're surprisingly good sounding little amps. I like how you can clip it to your belt (or guitar strap), put in a battery and have crunchy or clean sound somewhere without electricity. Imagine driving a 12" speaker with 9V... how loud does it get?

It actually gets pretty loud. I was a bit surprised.

[JimyTheAssassin]

In the end my SJM was reborn

That looks great! I was bitten by the SJM bug way too late into the game - missed the opportunity to get any of the maple neck models. I recall having an SJM body in surf green or some such from someone at the old AGF and I was trying to get a neck for it from Rondo, but not the "liquid" pointy headstock... and I don't even remember, I might've traded it to TWANG for some pickguard work...

I really wanted to make an SJM with Jaguar pickups and controls, but I'd need the ability to produce pickguards. I even got a set of Fender Jag pickups and a jag bridge... the best laid schemes of mice and men...

What pickups are those?

The pickups are the same Original stock SX P90s. I covered the pickup covers with white label tape to see if I liked the “all white” look.

[rrobbone]

Very cool - are you running Rasberry Pi? I have a Arcade1up Street Fighter cabinet that I've been eyeing up for a Pi system. Too many projects.

Those little A1U cabs have really taken off. There's lots of folks are converting them. Some of the builds I see on a couple FB MAME groups I'm in are incredible.

As for the power: for now, yes it's a Pi.

I have a 3b+ in the control panel I built for the kids a couple Xmases ago. The image I've been running in that one has always been a bit wonky, so I'm going to replace it this weekend.

The cab in my office (pictured) is running a Pi 4 with a 200GB Damaso build. I intend to get a dedicated PC in there at some point so I can run bigger, fancier front ends - maybe start running some higher end emus. Once I do that, the Pi4 goes into the kids' control panel.

In the meantime, I've been running through the game list and I've found a lot of games I've never played before - and having a blast remembering how damned hard some of the old classics are.

I still need 2 joysticks, one trackball, one spinner, 24 buttons, and one interface card.

...And after that... finally, my own driving cab (powered by XBox and PC). Then I can stop.

I promise.

[Chocol8]

Then I can stop.

I promise.

HAHAHAHAHA! Who do,you think you are fooling?

[UrenragK]

So today the Eric Clapton build commences

Nothing to do with Eric Clapton, but it’s going to be slow hands

Picked up a big chunk of maple from the wood yard at Westonbirt Arboretum to get cracking on!

[glasshand]

I got our bassist's Big Muff fixed! I was fiddling with maybe making a replacement "plunger pin" or whatever you call it to fix the footswitch, since the old one had apparently gone missing when the footswitch exploded, but then it occurred to me: hey, I have another busted EHX pedal, so why don't I just cannibalize it from there? Five minutes' work, and it was fixed and the Big Muff works excellently.

[Rollin Hand]

Got this as far as I could today, when I hit a wall made of ash.....there's no hole drilled for the ground wire. GAH! I have a 90-degree drill attachment on the way, but it won't get here until Friday. And I don't want to attempt to drill with the pot in the way. Guess more patience is in order.

Man, it is getting hard to be patient. After Ed's death, I want this thing working.

Besides it has to beat my next guitar to my door...so I have a month.

[voodoorat]

so i got a mim precision bass a few weeks ago off the local market. my buddy picked it up for me (he's a little closer to town and sometimes it's easier to have him do the meets and i pay venmo or pay him back). he noticed the action seemed high but he knows i do most of my own maintenance so wasn't too worried about it and didn't say anything at the time.

i wasn't worried about it either until i took a closer look at the neck and saw that the truss was capped out, the saddles were already all the way down, and the neck was super bowed. it was so bowed i was worried that it was twisted and would wind up firewood. i tried to shim the neck and that sort of worked, got the action at the 12th fret down to maybe a shade over 2.75mm or so (still quite high imo) but there was a buzz on the high frets and i wasn't happy with it.

so came up with a plan a and a plan b. plan b was to get another neck. i found a nice mim jazz neck on the local market and bought that for like $150 with the tuners. concurrently though i also clamped the p bass neck to a board with some smaller boards to apply backbowing pressure with heat. i left it on for a few days, looked at it and it was still pretty bad so i was worried it wasn't going to work. tightened up the clamps to where you could see the backbow (enough i was a little worried it might break) and left it on for almost a week.

took it off the rig yesterday and took that replacement neck off and put the p bass neck back on. after adjustments the action feels great (a shade under 2.25mm). it already was a little rough when i got it but the baking definitely introduced some more fret sprout, but that's a problem that i can fix (and mostly fixed already). i'm very pleasantly surprised by how well it worked and it still feels good today, hopefully it can stand up to the string tension long term. if not i guess now i know how to sorta reset it. the truss even has a little extra room for adjustments (although not much), had to dial it back slightly. i had a few washers i was going to try to slide in under the truss nut too but i didn't do that because they didn't seem to be the right size and i didn't want them to get stuck.

this was taken in the last day or so actually when i thought i saw the bass side slightly lower so had adjusted how it sat on the blocks to try to reverse that (not sure if that helped or not--but it seems flat now).

[Partscaster]

took these all and re adjusted pickups, intonation, etc. Played a bunch today.
The one with brown tortious pg, lower left, is a re-assembly of a CV60's. I've been so impressed with my inexpensive stratosphere Hot Texas Blues pups in the neighboring guitar with red tortious pg, that I bought some GFS pro-59 single coils to also try. Well, turns out a work friend wants a guitar so I'm selling the lower left one with a Hot Tex Blues neck ( HTB-6.3k/4H) and two GFS Pro59's ( 7.0/7.7...no H available). That set sounds so impressive I had to get all my 3sc Strats out to compare.

I have Klein pickups, 58,59, and 65 sets, that do sound more open. But before direct comparison, I thought the set with pro59's and Hot Texas Blues neck sounded as good as the Kleins. The inexpensive mixed set doesnt quite match up to the Kleins, but is a great comparison for the price.I have one other "best" set from Amalfitano, a winder in Texas. Its a custom ordered set with A3 in bridge, A5 N/M, and at 6.7/6.4/6.2. It's my favorite at this point. It's got the best of the rest, but I can easily enjoy them all.

The 49$ Stratosphere HTB set in the red tortious pg with maple cap neck, is able to get such a tone that it has become my poor mans comparison to a Castles Made of Sand tone. Also as a good 2nd and 4th position quack fitting for Wait Til Tomorrow sound. It easily gets a little breakup, but still with clean string separation. Glassy with grit. The Amalfitano's get that tone with a bit bigger more open sound, but the cheap HTB set is a keeper. It has particular voicing to it that I like. I dont know how to describe it, but I like it very much. was going to sell that CV60 too, but not now. Its too fun to play and I wouldn't have to worry about it if playing at some dive.

The 3 Klein sets are different. The 59's are super open, bright, touch sensitive, punchy, tight bottom. The 58's are thicker, open, but with more mids and bottom than the 59s. The 65's , mine are pre "Epic series". the Klein Epic Series 1965 set is 6.4/6.4/6.4. This earlier 65 set is 6.7/6.5/6.3. It has really varied in different guitars, but now its getting a great voice in the white Strat.

[Gear_Junky]

...but now its getting a great voice in the white Strat.

Interesting how in that picture the white strat looks like it has an offset waist and even the neck/middle pickups are angled, albeit less than the bridge. I know it's an optical illusion, but that looks cool, would be a neat guitar.

[mkgearhead]

I voided the warranty on my month old Kramer Baretta Special and installed a Floyd Rose Special.