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Won't pots from a left handed guitar all be reverse taper?
I'd never really thought about it, but I guess it makes sense. Which then leads to thinking that if the pots are reverse taper, then the numbers on the knobs would need to go the other way too, so there must be such a thing as left handed knobs (Chippendale! Stop tittering!). A quick Google suggests that left handed knobs are "a thing" this is the case... So, the "reverse taper" bit sounds like it shouldn't be a major issue - though 1M pots are perhaps a little more unusual. Warrants further digging though...
Well, drilled in a new string tree on the Tele Deluxe. Worked a treat. Sitar noise gone.
I was up in the attic at the weekend, and discovered a Tele-style thinline body I bought very cheap on eBay a couple of years ago.
I'd put it to one side in a case, and forgot about it.
Also in the case was a no name Tele neck bought for another non-starter project ages ago.
The body is a nice wood back, but with an MDF (!) Top and an incredibly thin wood veneer on the MDF. Looks horrible!
I'm thinking that I might spray it up matt black, spray the headstock too, and as I've got nearly a full tele worth of chrome hardware (another project, that changed direction!) Fit all that, but with black screws.
So...murdered out matt black thinline Tele, with chrome/black hardware. Will be a standard single coil in the bridge, and a nice HB size P90 in the neck.
What do we think.... dog's dinner, or potentially cool? 😆
No pics cos I left it in the workshop at school/work after a sand, ready to spray in a primer coat tomorrow.
I'll take some tomoz.
Won’t pots from a left handed guitar all be reverse taper?
No, because most pots have three terminals - one connected to either end of the track and one connected to the wiper. For reverse operation you just wire up the two “end” terminals the other way around.
Left handed knobs do sound cooler though.
EDIT - yes I get it now - I answered a question above that wasn’t the one anyone asked. Oh well. The knobs would need the numbers the other way around yes.
So - left handed knobs are back - phew.
So…murdered out matt black thinline Tele, with chrome/black hardware. Will be a standard single coil in the bridge, and a nice HB size P90 in the neck.
What do we think…. dog’s dinner, or potentially cool? 😆
It'll be cool! Barely any sound comes from the body materials. A nice p90 in the neck will sound lovely.
No, because most pots have three terminals – one connected to either end of the track and one connected to the wiper. For reverse operation you just wire up the two “end” terminals the other way around.
EDIT – yes I get it now – I answered a question above that wasn’t the one anyone asked. Oh well. The knobs would need the numbers the other way around yes.
Kinda... Wiring up the pot the wrong way round would be a perfectly reasonable solution if I was after a pot with a linear taper, but unfortunately I'm not. I'm after an audio taper (logarithmic scale). A 250k linear taper pot set at halfway Should give ~125k from wiper to either end. An audio taper pot won't...
When Madame went to work this morning I picked up the Strat and after a few minutes warm up had another go at Pinball Wizard - it's clicked, I can place the lyrics on the triplets. I recorded it to check - yeah, the Strat is on the bridge pickup rather than bridge-middle, the amp is on default when I turn it on which is horribly jangly - but I got through it and I'm not going to spend all morning trying to improve it when the swimming pool opens in 15 mins.
Very nice Edukator!
Next on the list for the Tele... fret buzz.
Measured neck relief is spot on, action at the saddle is spot on, as is the radius. But... I'm still getting a lot of fret buzz on anything a little heavier. Is it likely the frets need levelling? Or anything else I should check?
@rickon
Any shims in the neck pocket? They sometimes get shims to give a little overall back angle on the neck. If overdone, this *can* lead to buzzing from the higher frets when you're playing further down the neck
@hopkinsgm - nope. I replace the nut, the action at the nut feels about right with my action ruler. Maybe a touch higher that it could be.
I'll remeasure and pop up my numbers at the 1st and 12th!
Thanks for the encouragement, guys. The Strat is Lake Placid Blue.
The Tele is probably a 9.5 neck radius, if you're used to 12" radius guitars it will need the strings setting slightly higher than you're used to. You can usually find what's causing buzz by eyeing up the gap between the strings and the frets from where you are holding the string down. If the frets don't gradually fall away from the string it'll buzz. You then have to work out what can be done to solve the problem.
That strat is a 9.5 radius. The nut is cut really low. I use old imperial feeler guages with 4 thou as go and 6 thou as no go at the first fret when holding the string down on the second fret. I work down with fret files over a few weeks as it's easy to take to much off and then the strings clean up the slot as they move through.
At the 12th it's: 1.9, 1.8, 1.7, 1.7, 1.6, 1.5 mm as near as my old eyes can see with two pairs of glasses. 😉
Put a capo on the first fret and hold down the strings on the 21st/22nd fret then measure the relief. I set using a .6mm pick at the 10th fret.
I can hammer at it (as demostrated) and it still doesn't buzz.
Measurements!
At the nut / 1st fret:
High E = 0.03"
Low E = 0.03"
At the 12th fret:
High E = 0.06"
Low E = 0.09"
Just been wandering around Farnham to find my way around and called into Guitar Village. First time in a guitar shop in absolute ages...
Too many nice toys and a good range of Epiphones and Squires as well as the Custom Shop and Tom Watson stuff. Seem a decent bunch of guys.
Not too keen on the guys at Hoops cycle shop. Roadies though so what do you expect. Nice Topstone in there.
That's much higher at the nut than any of my guitars, Rickon. How does it intonate on the first few frets? If you have an accurate tuner my guess is that you'll find your notes are sharp on the first few frets.
A quick check is a .6mm pick: if you slip it under a string at the first fret the string should hold it in place, if the pick is loose and falls out the nut is cut too high.
Just popped my feeler gauges in there. More accurately it's 0.7mm at the first fret.
On a slight redirection but still a Fender player Jeff Beck tickets on sale for a year's time...
Finally managed to track down a left-handed one of these… One-in, one-out so my Telecaster has just been sold
I like it
That's a lot and you have to set the strings correspondingly higher at the 12th to compensate to avoid buzzing high up the high up the neck. The most useful measure is with the string held down on the second fret. the gap at the first should then be "bugger all", my preference is 0.12-0.2mm on electrics. This is a much argued over figure as you'll discover if you start reading guitar forums or watching vids.
Some more guitar setup troubleshooting please!
On my (MIM Baja) Tele I'm struggling with the intonation. I've adjusted the bridge and the intonation is now spot-on at the nut and 12th fret. The action feels nice to me, and the neck relief is where it should be, I believe.
However, when I'm fretting anything below ~5th fret (E.g. open chords) the notes I'm fretting are sharp. This seems to be on all strings. From what I've read this could be because the nut slots are too shallow? Is there anything else it can be before I take a file to my guitar?
Could it be something simple like needing new strings?
Hmmm. Fretting the 2nd, gap is from 0.10mm - 0.12mm across the strings.
The frets are Fender's Narrow Tall, so they're 14mm high.
Perfect, Rickon (I've got a guitar that low and it's fine). If you've checked the intonation on the first few frets too and thats OK you've eliminated the nut height as a source of buzzing.
Superficial: First check the nut height as Rickon has done. Next look closely at the nut and check the strings are sitting on the nut right up to the edge. Third check the nut slot is in the right place; if the nut to first fret distance is too long then everything you fret low down will be sharp. All this assuming you're not a gorilla and pressing down too hard on the strings.
Thanks @edukator.
Measuring at the 17th I'm a little above 2mm on the wound strings, and a little below 2mm on the high strings.
Action, relief, nut and saddle feel spot on.
I'm guessing it's time for a fret level and polish?
The height at the 17th is fine too. I think I'd be looking for a high fret somewhere now. On a rosewood neck they sometimes just need tapping in with a soft hammer rather than filing, on a varnished neck where varnish has crept under the fret they won't tap in and need a file. Work from the outside in when tapping.
Yep - it's a coated maple fretboard.
Levelling bar, special files, an some fret rubbers ordered.
Gonna polish those frets good and proper!
Levelling bar, special files, an some fret rubbers ordered.
👌🏼 One thing you might also want to consider is one of the slotted rulers that people like Crimson sell. They fit over the frets so you can check the fretboard level with out the strings on and adjust the truss road accordingly. Checking it with strings on and truss rod tensioned show problems but not necessarily the root cause.In a bad case it could even be a slightly buckled neck.
To save buying one you could just get a cheap 24 inch steel rule and grind out where the frets are.
Oh, just to establish my guitar related problem solving skillset: last night I was working on She Sells Sanctuary. A nice chorusy slightly crunchy guitar sound that cleaned up a treat on the volume knob and a Gretsch 6120 with Filtertrons courtesy of the JTV.
All sounded fine until I kicked in my Flashback 2 delay. The MASH function wasn't working right and the sound generally seemed 'wrong' especially when I had the dotted eighth and quarter notes running. First up I was worried that the oversized and modified pedal topper had damaged the MASH sensor, out with the allen key and off it came. Nope.
Then I was worried that the software had corrupted and so I re-installed the latest firmware. Still didn't fix it.
So I thought I'd take it off the 'board and have proper look. It was only when I pulled the lead out of the 2nd stereo out instead of the mono out that I realised I plugged it into the THR wrong and was getting half the panned echo stereo image.
That's 30 minutes I'm never getting back.
It's great song though and the guitar tone is NAILED!
Genius 🤣
Ordered a decent 600mm steel ruler. I'll just Sharpie where the frets are and grind the ruler down. Only Gibson/Epiphone and Fender/Squier in the house, so can have one on each side!
Check the sharpie marks, you may get away with just making wider slots on one side giving you an uncut side for checking the frets/ relief.
It always feels wrong having to cut the rounded end off the rule to get it to fit betwixt nut and bridge.
As part of the PJE Macon deal my Gibson LP DC Special has to go. Now in classifieds, £400 for a USA Gibson is a bargain IMO
As part of the PJE Macon deal my Gibson LP DC Special has to go
Hopefully will go to a good home!
I've been trying to learn some Soundgarden on my acoustic. Finding it quite tricky but I only started on Saturday evening so will hopefully improve given some more practice 🙂
Oh, my, lord.
Had our first band practice in 7 months last night!
Practice rooms haven't been open since November. I'm very glad they survived 😊
First 2 hours were ropey as hell and VERY loud. Then we got it out of our system, and the second couple of hours sounded surprisingly good.
My ears are ringing today though 🤘
Ace 🙂
Sanding sealer, primer, and matt black coats nearly done.
Trying to decide whether I can be bothered to put a matt clearcoat over the paint, or leave it so it will 'relic' a bit quicker.
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Nice colour. matt clear sounds OK.
10% thingy for ivormairants if anyone is feeling spendy 🙂
AZEB10
Sanding sealer, primer, and matt black coats nearly done.
Nice! I'd put a matt clearcoat over it.
I'm trying to run before I can walk so having a go at learning Yellow Ledbetter this evening. I figure that if I try some harder stuff then it'll improve how I can play easier stuff 🙂
Finished a few coats of matt clear lacquer. Weirdly it came out more satin than matt 🤷♂️
Fitted neck and hardware, but pickups and socket aren't soldered in yet.
Looking quite stealthy.
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Nice, @ajantom - I have a body that I ordered last year from guitarbuild.co.uk and was going to do a Candy Apple Red on... manage to cock up the gold middle layer and ended up having to sand it back and re primer it. Just went with plain Dakota red nitro instead. Decided not to bother with a clear coat as I'm bound to just sand through a corner and have to start again, so I'm going to try to bolt it together - though I'm moving house in three weeks, so the clock is ticking... 🙂
Just dug this out of the spare room, thought y'all might like it. I stripped it down a long time ago and somehow it just never got rebuilt, probably something to do with the fact that I'm a completely shit guitarist.
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I used to have 2 of these, it's a MIJ Hot Rod Reissue strat from '91. The body cracked in the other one (at one of the trem posts, nasty) and this one had a randomly denty neck so I combined the two and swapped all the original silver hardware for black, just because I like the contrast (and the stock machine heads were absolute crap- good enough for a floyd I guess)
The wiring plan was demented. I never actually finished it properly and now I have absolutely no idea what I was doing. Coil taps and phasing on a push/pull, and a kill switch, and I don't bloody know. It's all conventionally wired now, the little DPDTs aren't connected (especially the one that's vanished) No they're not all tone pots. I do like the Gibson pickup switch on the bottom horn though, first time I'd ever carved a guitar body and that was some scary shit but it was just fun to use.
These were HSS originally with a pretty nice Dimarzio humbucker (where I got my taste for coil taps) and shitty 90s fender single coils but I got this double fat scratchplate made and swapped it to a Duncan Distortion and a 59. (the 59 is a custom shop- you couldn't get a 4 wire 59 at the time without special ordering so I had it slightly overwound to match the Distortion better. SD used to do this sort of thing for free- you just had to pay RRP and postage and they'd ship it straight to you like 6 months later with a little certificate.
Nice that it has a proper Floyd.
Some of the MIJ strats had the Fender System bridge which is a Schaller.
They were/are ok bridges, maybe not quite as good as a Floyd. However, parts for them are really hard to get. And the thumbscrew adjusters parts on the bridge body have a bad tendency for disintegrating threads. So you need to helicoil them.
Sadly the pole spacing is different from any other bridge so you can't put a Floyd on (unless you get a special one from GFS in the States). The headstock end locking mechanism is different too.
That sounds a bit like my first home build guitar I built with my dad some 30 years ago! I'll try to find a photo!
Random Gibson SG clone body with a random mail order neck (7.5 to 9.5 radius) into a Floyd floating bridge with twin SD trembuckers! Six way rotary switch like a PRS. Oh, and custom paint job too.
Looks amazing but plays like crap. Neck and body were not design for the floating bridge, locking nut never locked, and the action was always comically high given the radius of the neck and the flat bridge.
It's like the maxed out Vauxhall Nova of the guitar world. But I played the crap out of it regardless (mainly because I didn't know any better) 🙂
I've bought a new Epiphone acoustic in an N+1 sort of way. Too early to say much about it, it needs a few weeks of playing in and a set up to do it justice. But the strings! They sound reasonable but the gauges feel awful. 15, 23, 30, 34, 44, 54. Is it just me and my fingers that think a 23 steel B-string is ridiculous?
at one of the trem posts, nasty
It's surprising what you can repair with a big drill bit, a suitably carved dowel and some good glue.