Guitar Nerds Anonymous

Hadn't clocked is was going to a 12 string. Very cool.

In much less interesting set-up experimentation news: Although the Riviera was playing great I thought i'd try 9’s on it. Although it played great with 10's i felt that the high E string was stiffer feeling than the other unwound strings. I put this down to the weird frequensator tailpiece which makes the string length behind the bridge much shorter (and therefore tighter) on the top three than the longer bottom three.

So I switched the tailpiece around to have the longer string length on the top three and put a set of 9's on... lived with it for week or two but nope. The 9's felt slinky enough but I found them hard to get hold of for bends. Hard to explain but when I went to bend it felt like the string would slip out from under my fingers, as if i was about to "drop" the bend all the time. The other thing was that every string bend was accompanied by ticks, pinks and creaks from the bridge. Not sure if this was down to the lighter strings or the tailpiece switch... either way it made it virtually unplayable. Certainly unrecordable.

Switched back on Friday immediately fell back in love with it. Easy fretting, bending and no more ticks and creaks. Weird how much difference it made.

Thanks all.

That’s a great looking bit of wood.

It is, but unfortunately my noob router technique caused a couple of small tear-outs, so once those are filled it’s going to have to be a paint finish. Pity, as the plan had been to leave it natural with a Tru-Oil finish.

There's usually a way to repair oopsies like that. Got a close up? Did you keep the chips that tore out?

The joy of semi-acoustics. My 330 has always refused to settle down with 10's mostly because of bridge break-angle but it loves 11's, which luckily suits me okay. Recently tho it's acquired a delightful phantom ringing noise on the G string which has eluded me despite poking, prodding and holding every single freaking component. I strongly suspect the tailpiece (an original, it took me ages to get round to finding one) but I cannot suss exactly where the noise is coming from. But fuck it the thing is 60 years old so it's probably allowed a complaining squeak or two.

No, the chips are gone. The worst bit is at the upper side-wall of the neck pocket and it can't be hidden, sadly.

Still possibly the loveliest guitar I've ever held in my hands... That and the 1960 Les Paul TV that got away...

If it's that that's stopping you getting the finish you want, (and you may have considered this already) could you route / chisel out the chip and glue in an offcut?

Respect to the guitar projects in here. They all look amazing.

My much-less-special Yamaha Revstar RS502 arrived today. Looks, feels and sounds like a lovely guitar for the money, IMHO. Good enough that it makes me feel like a fraud, anyway.

There's now a non-bike Projects subforum in the Current Projects forum.
Should we open Threads? Or a common Guitarbuilding thread?

Chuck it in! I would've put the flame guitar in there but it's a bit after the fact now...

Maybe I'll chuck my '58 in there...

I reckon individual threads would be best... I couldn't bring myself to sully some of the genuine works of luthiery brilliance here with my ridiculous anti-confederate flag unicorn ML!

Would it be overkill to try to keep them all together by making a folder (parent microcosm?) for 'guitar projects', then individual threads in that? Is that suitable / possible?

That's actually a great idea I reckon, one for @Velocio of course but it would make sense to me to keep cars, motorbikes, guitars, home improvements/ DIY all grouped together perhaps?

100% up for this.

I'd start by saying: Create threads for guitar / music projects in the new Current Projects (non-bike) forum.

Then, when there are enough (+10?) I create sub-forums for major types of projects.

If in the future we end up with more projects that are not bikes than are bikes, I will move all of the bikes into a bike projects folder and bump everything else up a level to give it all equal visibility .

It’s probably possible to graft in a chunk of wood, but I’d always notice it. At this point it just needs hiding under a few layers of nitro and pretend that was always the plan.

It would be a real shame to lose all of that lovely grain pattern. You could try re-sawing down the centreline then gluing it back together minus a couple of mm and extending the parts you've already routed.

Alternatively rework the scratch plate to hide it

Or some kind of burst may look good.

Out of curiosity why did you opt for a router table over hand held and template?

I’ve been giving real thought to a burst, actually, it would seem the best compromise. Or maybe a finish that lets the grain show through.

I went with a router table because it seemed like the way to get the straightest, most accurate cut. And it did work well, although I probably took too much off at too slow a speed - hence the tear-out. I’ll do better next time. Also the thought of using a router table scared me, and I wanted to push myself a bit.

Don't imagine anyone's flogging some old Fender stuff are they? I'm after a Jaguar / Jazzmaster (Crafted in Japan and up) and a smallish silverface with verb and trem - I'm very tempted by the 68 Princeton / Vibrolux but interested in WHY.

Postman's been... Still haven't been able to source accurate 50s style Gibson headstock decals, frustrating... Sent an email to Philippe Debreuille but no reply yet, maybe I should try Clive Brown?

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Decals bought, had to get two different types... Gibson logo wasn't right on one and the 'JUNIOR' type wasn't quite right on the other...

Postman's been...

Likewise...

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Finally finished my upgrades on my Fender Offset Duo-Sonic.

Callaham 3-saddle bridge
Bone nut
Kluson plastic butterbean no-logo tuners
Kaish cream knobs
Black switch tip
Setup with Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky

I considered changing the pickups but I'm really happy with how it sounds.

It feels and sounds absolutely incredible now and it looks pretty good too!

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I really like that man.

Ace colour combination. The white knobs and tuner buttons seem like the perfect choice. Looks really nice.