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Helianthus Annuus posted:but only because i know you are a guitar tech with good opinions and understanding of important details. i want to know more about 3 bolt necks. can you help me understand why they were used, if they are now known to be shittier? Three bolt necks were designed by Leo to shim the neck without needing a separate piece of wood. Two bolts would hold the neck while a third screw by the base of the neck plate would go into a special channel in the neck and adjust the neck angle up or down just by turning it. This is a really good idea because occasionally a neck will need it's angle adjusted due to the fact that wood compresses, expands and moves as it ages as well as goes through seasonal changes. It saves a ton of time because you no longer needed to go through a whole process of shaving down a piece of wood and hoping you took off just enough to get the neck angle right. There is nothing inherently wrong with the three-bolt concept, and shouldn't be viewed as lovely in and of itself. What really killed the design is that it needs very tight tolerances to work properly, which both G&L and Fender were either unable to or didn't have the capability to meet. Loose tolerances in both the neck pocket and screw holes meant that the neck could shift easily or even be installed at the incorrect angle. A four bolt neck doesn't (necessarily) have these problems because even with looser tolerances the four bolts keep the neck from moving. This isn't getting into the quality of the necks themselves at the time, which had their own issues as well.
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Jul 26, 2020 00:22
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The TV yellow Epiphone Les Paul Specials are seriously fantastic guitars for the money.
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Aug 4, 2020 03:17
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Today I discovered that there's a guy making glass guitars and replacement glass necks: https://www.morningstarglassguitars.com/ Looks really neat but I wouldn't want to drop it.
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Aug 4, 2020 17:44
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Huxley posted:I wired up the franken-telecaster for dad and it plays fine but has a little more hum to it on the bridge pickup than my bought-in-store tele. It goes away when I touch the control plate but not when I touch the bridge or the strings. Is the bridge grounded to anything? Not all wiring diagrams include the bridge ground in their diagrams for whatever reason. If you feel like fixing it, there should be a wire coming from a small channel in the side of the control route. You just need to connect that to the ground on the back of one of the pots. Alternately, you can solder a wire to a strip of copper tape that you'd sandwich between the bridge and body, then run through the pickup cavity. It won't look as nice but it'll be a lot easier to swap wires/remove. Either way, the hums not dangerous. The guitar will just be noiser.
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Aug 6, 2020 04:03
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Baron von Eevl posted:This is a weird question but I can't find an easy answer to this. Strat bridge pickups are a different width than middle and neck pickups, right? What's the difference? They don't differ in width, but sometimes the polepiece spacing is different for each/some of the pickups.
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Aug 13, 2020 02:36
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Springs or block of wood are the two main ways but anything you can wedge in between the body and the trem block will work. I probably wouldn't use a battery though, if only because they can leak/corrode.
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Aug 13, 2020 03:04
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Yes, because the Spitfire guy is using a material that isn't really made anymore. He makes the pickguard material himself using the same processes used in the 60's, with all the benefits and negatives that comes with. Almost no one uses those processes anymore, and the ones who do don't make it in sheets large enough for a guard so he's literally the only game in town. He posted his research and process over on the offset guitar forum a while back and its an really interesting read. Edit: All that being said, I still think he let it get to his head some and is charging a little too much. Some competition would probably help drive prices down. Chip McFuck fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Aug 24, 2020 |
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Aug 24, 2020 02:55
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It's funny, I was just reading a book that talked about Fender's paint colors. Historically, Fender only produced guitars in sunburst or blonde, every other color until the late seventies (I think) was a custom color and had to be special ordered. You got a choice of any GM car color of the time for only a 5% surcharge. That's so wild to me now; could you imagine walking into the store and paying $50 (when adjusted for inflation) for a custom color? Fiesta Red was an incredibly unstable color because the pigments used in it were prone to color shifting before and after they got mixed into the paint which means that even in the same year the color would look different from guitar to guitar. It also was prone to color shifting even after it got painted, so a lot of the "Salmon Pink" guitars from the 60's are actually Fiesta Red that faded. Candy Apple Red was much easier because you shot a base coat of gold, then a color coat of a translucent red. Much easier to control and mix because you were essentially using dyes at that point. Fascinating stuff. It looks like modern Fender is starting to shift away from Candy Apple Red to Fiesta Red though, as most of the reds in the Vintera line are Fiesta. But anyway, who cares about all that. I wish they'd reissue Dakota Red more. It's my favorite of the Fender reds. Such a deep, rich color: 
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Aug 24, 2020 15:59
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GreatGreen posted:They're called pickguards mostly as a funny kind of thing that sort of makes sense. It's just a word to describe the slab of plastic they use to cover the fact that the guitar's electronics cavities are routed into the front of the body. Pickguards were around way before the electric guitar and were created to protect the finish and top from being scratched or worn away from strumming with a pick. The use on guitars dates back to the 19th century when flamenco players added them to protect the top from their expressive and intense style of playing. Martin added them to their acoustics around the turn of the century when steel strings were introduced and picks started gaining a broader use. Pickguards were meant to be replaced when they got too beaten up or warped, though if the player didn't have an energetic playing style then they probably never would need to. Basically, pickguards keep your acoustic guitar from looking like Trigger if you strum hard. Edit: Trigger is completely badass, just using it to illustrate what they're meant to protect against. Chip McFuck fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Aug 31, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 05:00
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BonHair posted:Pickguards are definitely aesthetic for a large part, just look at how many fingerstyle bass players still have them despite never touching that part of the instrument. They definitely are there for aesthetic purposes as well. My post was more to inform against the implication that pickguards weren't meant to be replaced or didn't serve a function other than to hide routes. Like, the whole reason a Les Paul even has a pickguard was to keep the gold finish from being scratched up because it was a lot easier (and cheaper) to replace a piece of plastic than to refinish the top. The same reason is why a lot of acoustics also have them. Whether or not you play with or without one, or just like it for the looks is completely fine and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Though if we're talking about pickguards, special mention should go to the J-200:  Now that is a beautiful pickguard.
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Aug 31, 2020 16:08
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20 Blunts posted:so about pickguards........is taking the pickguard off a Les Paul what you might call a "douche move" No, it's totally fine. Play the guitar how you want to play it.
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Sep 3, 2020 16:07
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and then i became slash
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This one is so wild; it's so busy my eyes keep sliding off of it. Is that a dragon engraved on the tailpiece? Huxley posted:I've got one of those little armrest guards on my mando but I've never seen one on a guitar before. It used to be a thing for country players to put them on their electric guitars in the fifties and sixties. Gretsch still has them standard on their high-end guitars like the White Penguin: 
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Sep 3, 2020 20:17
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20 Blunts posted:how are these Fender Vintera gits? kinda scoping out the 60's strat...the 60's profile neck sounds cool. but is it just a mexican standard with an extra bell or whistle for $200-$300 more? cuz if thats the case no bueno They're good guitars, though whether or not the extra money is worth it to you I guess will depend. I have a Vintera Jaguar that I really love. What makes the Vintera line different from the Player line is that the Vintera is much more of a period-accurate take on the line while the Player is a more modern version. So with the Vintera you get a vintage neck profile, 7.25" radius, vintage fretwire, vintage voiced pickups, as well as vintage tuners and trem, while in the Player it's a modern neck carve, flatter radius and larger fretwire, hotter pickups, with a two-point trem and modern-style tuners. The Vintera Modified line adds some of the most common mods made to vintage guitars, such as adding slightly overwound pickups, satin finishes, stuff like that. What made the Jaguar right for me was that I liked the unique single coils, all the switches and bridge of the original Jag so the Player series didn't really appeal to me since they added a humbucker and simplified the switching. So, long story short, if you want something that plays like a vintage guitar then go Vintera. If you don't care about that then go with a Player.
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Sep 4, 2020 18:37
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Yeah, 12" radius on Gibson/Epiphone stuff but whether or not that's a problem will depend on the person. In my own experience it's pretty easy to switch between that and the 7.5" on the Jaguar.
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Sep 4, 2020 22:03
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Helianthus Annuus posted:25.5" scale is better for folk music, because that's the same scale length as most steel string acoustics. it will be much closer to the expected sound for that style of music I think the reason I gave you flack for this last time is because you're presenting it as fact when it's really just an opinion. Like, plenty of folk music is rooted in the J-45 and twelve-fret-to-the-body acoustics which have smaller scale lengths as much as it is otherwise. That being said, don't disagree with you about common scale lengths though. It would make a generally easier transition to an acoustic with a longer scale electric. In thinking about quiet acoustics, maybe something like an Epiphone SST? Haven't played one myself, but have heard good things. Supposed to be almost silent. I kinda wish fender still made the Fender Classical Strat. Came in both steel and nylon string veraions and was a strat that only had a piezo under the bridge and a volume knob. Really neat idea but so niche I'm surprised they actually made it.
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Sep 6, 2020 23:48
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Helianthus Annuus posted:the silent guitar would have to be plugged into an amp. and if you have an amp, you might as well play the electric guitar -- it's easier to play, and it's easier to control the tone thru the amp Yamaha's silent guitar has a built-in headphone jack, so there's no need for an amp. A Multiac would be a good choice too, but they're way more expensive than Yamaha's offering so I was thinking of budget options.
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Sep 7, 2020 01:36
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Baron von Eevl posted:A couple years ago I built a guitar, but unfortunately I finished the clearcoat when it was really loving humid out and it never fully set in a couple places. Yesterday the pickup switch broke so I'm going to be taking it apart and want to use this opportunity to fix a couple issues, including the gummy finish. Does anyone know of a way to get a clear poly coat that never fully dried to harden? Or am I just going to have to strip anything that's soft and do a couple more coats on top? I'm only a hobbyist so take this with a grain of salt, but if the poly still hasn't cured after years then it's most likely never going to. You could finish over it with something hard like shellac or even a wax though what's probably going to work best is to strip and refinish. There's a woodworking thread over in DIY that could provide some more thorough answers/options: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2819334 Edit: oops, wrong link. Chip McFuck fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Sep 18, 2020 |
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Sep 18, 2020 17:15
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 The correct answer is Jaguar neck pickup.
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Sep 23, 2020 05:23
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Baron von Eevl posted:I just mean they're the same size, use similar bobbins, have screws in the same places, are reliant on the exact same principals, and can be wired as a drop-in replacement. You can't use a tele bridge pickup in a jaguar without some modifications. A dynasonic won't fit in a jazzmaster. These are radically different configurations whereas 90% of humbuckers on the market are effectively just Seth Lover's original design but modified somewhat. I think its kind of strange to write them off just because they have a somewhat standardized form factor. Like, I would really hesitate to call something like Fluances that can switch between pickup voicing on the fly or Alumitones, P-Rails, or the sustainiac as anything but innovative.
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Sep 24, 2020 06:24
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Baron von Eevl posted:Eh, kind of. The only real analog to modern single coil pickups before the P90 was Gibson's Charlie Christian pickup, which was basically like a single-coil version of a rails pickup, with a blade instead of individual pole pieces. The P90 was among (if not the first?) pickup with individual adjustable poles and did give a heftier sound with more definition but there wasn't really any noise reduction. We're still a couple years out from the Esquire at this point too. The P-90 was an outgrowth of the P-13 pickup that Gibson developed in the '40's. Because the pickup wire that Gibson was using was thicker than what you'd normally see nowadays, the pickup had to be wound short and fat to keep it relatively compact. There were three different types of P-13: one with no-exposed polepieces, one with square exposed polepieces, and one with adjustable polepieces. The pickups were installed on their products as well as on guitars from brands like Kay, Silvertone, etc. Eventually, the design evolved into the P-90 in the 50's. Though the exact reason why Gibson made the switch isn't known, it's easy to speculate that it was either a way to differentiate from the pickups they offered to OEM guitars or simply a way to cut costs. Plastic housings were a lot cheaper to make, after all. Here's a P-13: 
Chip McFuck fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Oct 21, 2020 |
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Oct 21, 2020 20:55
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BizarroAzrael posted:Not as delicious, but I'm fixing to stain the body of my Harley Benton kit. After getting a sander, vice and coping saw it's already false economy vs buying a complete guitar but should be interesting. I stained a guitar body that I had custom made so I could put a jag pickup in the neck:  Really, the most important part is to prep the body as well as you can. After that, just apply the stain by whatever the manufacturer says. I used SamaN stain and a kitchen sponge to apply it, making sure to make each stroke one smooth motion. Stain soaks really quickly into the grain, so stopping and starting could cause an uneven finish. Then I used Tried and True oil as a finish over that because it's super easy to apply. Oh, and wear some rubber gloves unless you want your hands stained for a couple days.
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May 21, 2022 01:27
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