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Post by strat80hm on Jun 9, 2013 18:02:28 GMT -5
I m afraid you re right Cyn1, plastic bushing. My whammy bar usually hold with some plumber tape: works very well, you can ajust tension/strengh, and necessitates NO tools whatsoever (i love tools at home, but not on a gig. Plus they re heavy and get lost). A simple basic was also one of the reasons why i wanted to go for the Vintage 6 screws model. Although it maybe not that simple: look at that picture here: x-bridge, 2 poles, and apparently no plastic bushing..?
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Post by cynical1 on Jun 9, 2013 21:04:11 GMT -5
A simple basic was also one of the reasons why i wanted to go for the Vintage 6 screws model. Although it maybe not that simple: look at that picture here: x-bridge, 2 poles, and apparently no plastic bushing..? Well, no bushing you can see. Pretty hard to tell how this arm mounts. I admit, I was wholly unimpressed with the amount of technical information on the LR Baggs website. I see you even hit their forum, too. Not a lot of front end support either place. Save your receipt. Happy Trails Cynical One
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Post by strat80hm on Jun 10, 2013 1:19:05 GMT -5
Indeed, little info online, no sample at stores, confusing pictures..
I m wishing for a classic threaded arm - on my guitars, the bar is firm and precise, yet loose enough to get out of the way if needed.
Also it stays on the guitar at all time, even in the case/gig bag: never had any problem, and more than that, never lost any - i m always impressed by the number of guitar for sale with the mention "bar missing."
Not that many options: save the receipt..or buy something else (and save the receipt)
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Post by strat80hm on Jun 10, 2013 1:31:27 GMT -5
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Post by ux4484 on Jun 10, 2013 8:52:19 GMT -5
I love the name of the store.
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Post by cynical1 on Jun 10, 2013 13:31:10 GMT -5
Now that bar looks threaded. Hope springs eternal.
HTC1
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Post by strat80hm on Jun 13, 2013 22:12:21 GMT -5
Today i received the X-bridge! Be careful when you order one of these; the X-Bridge comes in several versions and color, all under the name X-Bridge, and a lot of confusion in pictures/descriptions. I ordered mine (X-Bridge 2 poles Standard Chrome)...only to receive confirmation that i had just bought an X-Bridge FIXED (not a tremolo one), although of course the picture and the description were about the vibrato bridge version. It took some real effort to convince the seller (123music) to cancel and modify the order, mind you, despite the obvious mistake on the pics.. Anyway, when i opened the box today and found a legit chrome vibrato bridge, i decided to ignore the fact that it was the "plastic bushing" version, while i was trying to get the "threaded arm" version. So here is now my situation: I had this Kahler Spyder installed I bought this X-bridge and i have to make it fit in this routing: Existing holes are 2 15/16" (75mm) apart: before anything, i need to fill them up. - is it better to remove those 2 (rusty) inserts that are inside? I d rather not, it doesnt seem easy to do. - should i fill up the holes with pieces of wood? On the X-bridge, which comes without drilling template, I measure about 2.2"(57mm) in between the two poles. I ll use a press to drill vertically. As much as possible i like to take advantage of the existing routing in my floating setting: - i want to install the x-bridge horizontal (flat) -which is better for the piezo anyway- while keeping the floating-bridge setting that i like. - the recess is about 11/32nds"(9mm) deep - the pole-screw are about 7/8" (22mm) long. - therefore, each pole screw would end up 15/32" (12mm) inside the new insert and 10mm outside. => does it seem dangerously unbalanced?If so, i might have to add/glue a bar of wood along the knife-edge of the bridge before re-drilling, so that i keep the "floating horizontally over a recess cavity" benefit.
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Post by strat80hm on Jun 13, 2013 22:44:11 GMT -5
Removing the inserts seems to be quite easy in fact!
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Post by lunaalta on Jun 14, 2013 10:45:30 GMT -5
Is that 2, 3 or more springs.... .........sorry..........
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Post by cynical1 on Jun 14, 2013 15:18:22 GMT -5
Is that 2, 3 or more springs.... .........sorry.......... Should have seen that one coming... HTC1
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Post by cynical1 on Jun 14, 2013 19:51:01 GMT -5
Today i received the X-bridge! Glad the whole X-Bridge think worked out and you have the model you were after to begin with. Looks like you already solved the problem of removing the old posts from the Kahler. So, let's move on to your second question: If it were me, and that's how I'm going to answer this, I would route the body like this: You'll notice this covers all of the routing for the old Kahler unit. It also walks right up to the bottom edge of the humbucker routing. This fixes the body crack at the same time. I'd route down about 15/16" and fill it with a 1" piece of wood. You can make this piece, or, if you can find a lumber yard that does milling, a cabinet shop, or a pattern shop you can have the pieces made to a tight tolerance for a fair price. I did this with Project #1 and was amazed at the tightness of the tolerances I got back. I doubt you'll find anyone with basswood in stock, but either alder or poplar should be readily available, and they both share similar characteristics with basswood. You'll be sanding and blending the 1/16" back into the existing body, but it's better to be too high than too low with these fill pieces. Besides, alder or poplar sands very quickly. I can't tell from the pictures, but the LR Baggs bridge you have should work with a standard Fender 2 post trem routing template. Since you now have the bridge, a trip to any music store that sells Fender should give you a golden opportunity to hold your trem against the Fender trems to see if a standard Fender trem template would work. These templates are usually less than $15.00 and well worth the expense. As much as possible i like to take advantage of the existing routing in my floating setting: The one thing to consider in your desire to reuse or save as much of the existing routing on this body as possible is mounting the new trem bridge in a position that will allow you to successfully intonate late. Looking at the image below... I put them side by side. The red line is a reference point running through the middle of the existing posts. The blue line is running through what I am taking as an intonated saddle on the Kahler. I am also assuming both trems bridges are sitting within the through routed cavity to the back spring cavity. As I mentioned above, you really can't save the existing Kahler routing without leaving a big patch of useless ugly behind it. So, assuming you're going to fill as detailed above, the trick is re-routing the new through cavity accurately on top to allow you to maintain scale length and accurate intonation later. To me, it looks like you're close, but the saddles on the X-Bridge look pretty close to all the way out already. You may only need to move the routed through cavity fractions of an inch, but your focus needs to be on locating the bridge accurately on top. I don't think you'll need to do anything with the back routings for the springs cavity. Even if there's a small step between the original back routings and the new front routings, it should be no more that 1/8" to 5/32", which will still be covered by the back plate and has no effect on the operation of the new X-Bridge. The new fill piece allows you to drill clean holes to mount the post and their required depth. Again, just gluing a bar, or some other well intentioned fix is not going to give you the result or performance you should expect from this new X-Bridge. Granted, it's more work, will require a refinish, but it's the only real permanent fix when swapping out bridges this drastically different. We can walk you through the play by play on this, as there is more to this than I've gone in to here, so don't feel like we're gonna throw you to the wolves. Anything I might have glossed over, please feel free to ask for a clarification. Happy Trails Cynical One
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2013 23:36:17 GMT -5
my advice to strat, since cyn1 is in the mood for action, just grab the chance, and by all means resist the easy way out.
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Post by 4real on Jun 19, 2013 18:51:11 GMT -5
Above, the new bridge is not sitting in the trem posts as with the khaler, so if the posts were on the same red line as the originals, it looks like it would probably intonate ok...tricky to tell from a pic. There is a bit of work to be done here, the trem routing and new posts and properly filling the old ones. You might even consider strengthening the whole cavity which can be a bit weak and crack, perhaps with aluminium or similar or if filling that inset trem, this might help. It is a crucial area of the guitar there with a lot of tension and little 'wood' to support it with pickup routes and spring cavities and inset bridge. I actually prefer a much higher bridge placement so might consider insetting a whole new piece of wood into that recess and adding neck tilt... My strat for instance, has quite a pronounced floating bridge placement, similar to how Jeff Beck sets them... The neck is tilted back a touch to achieve this. You can also see that there is a decent break angle over the saddles providing down pressure which is important for a solid tone. And, that the bridge is set quite high off the body as well. Largely this take a bit of teh 'flatness' out of the right hand playing position which I find comfortable but also provides a full floating system from a normal fender/squier trem...
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Post by strat80hm on Jul 17, 2013 10:22:05 GMT -5
Hey everyone, me back! Sorry for silence, was on tour as planned, though didnt bring the guitar prototype with me! Ok, so first, thank you for taking for sound advice, i ll address your points more specifically soon. But i guess i m gonna do what you say Cynical1, then refinish the color later. Here s the first step: routing the vibrato bridge area and fill it up with a plug. Also i ll need to route for the sustainer s circuit and the kill switch. I m thinking of creating two more holes to install piezo buzzers into: these, combined with the XBridge, would give me a better acoustic guitar feeling, allowing hand percussion. Any thought before i get started?
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Post by newey on Jul 17, 2013 15:19:03 GMT -5
As to adding additional piezos, and routing more wood to place them, why not work with the cavities you have? 4real has done a piezo install in the neck pocket, between the neck heel and the body. He reported that worked well, although he didn't like how "alive" it made the guitar. But if percussive effects are on the agenda, maybe that's a plus to you.
Another could be secreted in one of the pickup cavities, or perhaps in the trem cavity behind the springs. Or perhaps the control cavity. The point is, the less wood you have to remove, the better, and the less work refinishing it as well.
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Post by 4real on Jul 17, 2013 19:15:39 GMT -5
I would be putting in a super striong filler piece over that whole bridge area and well to the sides clear of the cavities and worry first on structural integrety...in fact I'd go further and get the guitar working with a basic pickup to check for action and intonation and all that...after all "playability should be your #1 priority...along with raw srength. Basswood is one of the weakest body woods and carving cavites in it will have seriously weakened it.
Because things are not in one thread, I'm kind of missing the big pictue in all this, but there is a heap of uncertainties and quite a good likelihood that some 'systems' are going to be incompatible...especially with anything with a sustainer. You will definitely need good access to the battery and likely to go through them frequently...but there may well be problems with a shared ground with a piezo system so be aware.
An electric gutiar will not be an acoustic and a piezo too, is not an 'acoustic. Any read of an acoustic forum and everything is about how much these things dont sound like the real thing.
Normally, I would seriously csuggest people explore modelling pedals rather than piezos as you can use them on any guitar and a $60 new behringer pedal makes a passable acoustic like sound...considering that one can not change the envelope inherent in teh guitars sound and is not that of an 'acoustic' anyway.
You can not make one 'uber-guitar' that can do everything you know, facts of life. You might be able to make something that can do everything you actually need, but if you demands are very high...well, that too might not actually be possible.
So yes, I'd not at all be looking at more chanmbers, that does not make it more 'acoustic' that is a misnomer and can cause a lot of problems.
I would go for strength and structural integrety and work on that first, neck and body and all that as one project and get all that working as a unit...then one can tackle other aspects. As it stands now, that structural integrety is already poor and the wood soft and you are looking to weaken it more with more cavities an a design that is already virtually hollow with the spring cavity and pickup routs and bridge on a spring!
Get that happening, and then start looking at things likethe electronics and finishing and all the rest.
Make sure you take the old bridge posts and bushing in the wood out, you dont want that or to hit them with a router...and fill the old holes with hardwood dowels at least. Then route deep and insert a hardwood stable piece well to the sides of all cavites and glued and perhaps even screwed into the body. Then, drill new holes in the right place for the bridge.
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Post by strat80hm on Jul 17, 2013 20:12:00 GMT -5
Good point here 4Real: this guitar needs to be strong. Thus i wont take the short route - as lazy as i can be.. - and go for a structurally sound and sturdy route first.
Whatever bring strength is good in this case: the wood-savvy friend whose machinery i m gonna use has some wood - maple, walnut, elm, etc - to choose from to create the plug, im wondering which to choose? Also, that idea of aluminum sounds interesting: is this compatible at all with the full plug direction?
That is a good point too, good ideas! Actually i dont expect any electric guitar to sound like an "acoustic guitar" no. My main goal with this guitar is that it can create sounds that i cannot really get out of my other electric ones: this is for a music project of mine that i composed mostly out of monophonic analog synth from the 70s, long notes, portamento, weird noises, VCF and all. Also when playing acoustic, I mostly play flamenca guitar (nylon string) with a lot of right-hand-fingers percussions. So i would love this project-guitar to be "alive" like an acoustic, meaning there s a sound when you knock on the wood or the strings. Is this precisely what you obtained with yours 4Real?
This indeed is probable. I was thinking of a unique "piezo volume mix" that would mix the signal from the x-bridge (piezo saddles) with the signal from at least one piezo captor (located somewhere smart), offering the possibility of guitar-drumming-on-the-body.
Do you think the size of my plug (on the picture) could be wider/larger?
That deep? I was thinking routing 3/8 only, but ok, thanks Cyn1.
So i was thinking of operating in this order: 1 - get rid of old finish (too bad, i liked that sparkling purple..) with heat-gun. 2 - routing 3 - plug
Is this ok?
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Post by 4real on Jul 17, 2013 21:26:06 GMT -5
Ok...lets see... It'shard without the guitar in hand an a real sense of the project as a whole... but as above, yes if this 'plug' goes well beyond the spring cavity under and something solid that wont shrink...your friend might have a better idea of that kind of thing and what he will have that is suitable. Take the old bridge screws and bushings right out and plug with hardwood dowels and then route the thing perhaps. Rout out almost as deep as you can without removing the bock hole perhaps, so you can use the hole there as a template for making a new one with a router bit with a guide bearing. Leave the finsihing till absolutely last. It may not be necessary to remove the pint completely as this will have soaked into the basswood and making it harder, but sand it well back and prime and undercoat and sand, sand, sand till ready for a top coat...perhaps consider getting it done by a car spray painter as it is not an easy task to get right. But, as I say...finish becomes absolutely last, at least till you absolutely know that the guitar is functionaling as you would wish and all holes and such are drilled and the like. Work out the bridge fitting measuring three times and making sure it will intonate and all that, work out if you need and probably will need, neck shims to tile back the neck a touch to get the trem working just right. I don't think you will get a better 'acoustic sound' wit extra piezos and I tend to try and make my guitars quiet. I don't want the piezos to 'hear' every movement, bridge damping and all that. The neck pocket thing can work ok, but unfortunately it picks up the sound of your fretting fingers, especially at the high end and if you are doing things like 'tapping' it will sound like hammerswith every note...so not the best. If you want to just make a few 'thumps' and such percussively and you already have so may chambers for electronics, fit them in there...say where the battery is going to fit for all this, you may even need too batteries...I'm not sure at all how well all this will work with multile activesystems, but it is going to pull a lot of power and drain fast...a sustainer circuit is effectively a small poweramp and is an unavoidable consequence. I make my own system that avoids this, but typically commercials sustainer guitars do not work at all and deteriorate as the battery goes flat. Remote powering them has the potential for a lot of issues too, so rarely an option. Above is an example of a neck pocket piezo in my strat, though I decided not to use it for the reasons given. You can cut them a bit to fit, just watch you don't chip the crystal too much or do it near the leads...you will not be able to solder them back on! So, if you really wanted to put a piezo in there...well there are lots of cavities...say the spring cavity...but then likely to hear the sounds of the strings...possibly better a dedicated battery compartment, not clear how thats organised or how much power you are going to be carryi9ng. Likely too you will need yet more preamps fopr the piezo buzzers and so power and to be honest, that kind of thing tends to work only with massive EQing...acoustic players like Jon Gomm who I met and got to eer into his guitar briefly, have a heap of electronics in there and separate channels (multiple leads) to a mixing desk and multiple graphic EQ pedals in the pedal board...and that's on a fully acoustic guitar... people interested in 'shred' might be interested in this clip...even uses a pick througout and distorion, etc... All these kinds of things you could experiement with perhaps when you have a fully functioning guitar using the cavities already existing... Note also that JG there, has a big support taped to the back of his guitar and two guitar straps to keep it all stable and not moving about... Myself, I don't want noise and hiss and handling noise...so you know...i minimalise that and the more 'stuff' you add to things, the more noise is going to get in and harder to control. With a sustainer, you are adding something that puts out a farly big electromagnetic signal, so that can get into any and everything, wiring and circuits and all that...plus there may be issues with sharing the power, especially with the switch of things on and off, I don't know how that will all work, but the more 'stuff' the more likely there will be issues, many of which few if anyone has the answers for, some that there are no answers but to scale back the ambitions. As it stands, again, first work out the structural things and get the guitar to a functioning condition and playability with the new components to your liking. Perhaps then try out a few piezo things and get the acoustic bridge working as intended too...start out with a functional guitar...the add things like sustainers and piezos and the like. When it's all working as it should, take everything off and prep for finishing... You are likely looking at a project that will take at least months but such things often take years and some times...one just has to scale things back...for a few years my strat looked like this...with both piezo and sustainer things, most of which are still in the guitar, but without the circuits and functions and worked out a lot better afeter I stripped all this switching capacity and 'tricks' out of the damn thing...but we are talking a lot of work and no result to get to that...and not ahving the guitar for a few years!!! let that be a warning...and I started with a fully functioning structurally sound and finished instrument!
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Post by strat80hm on Jul 18, 2013 15:34:56 GMT -5
While i m unfortunately FAR from having your skills and experience, yet it s interesting that we ve follow very similar paths 4Real. Thanks for sharing your story - cool strat by the way, very close to my dream guitar! I could rout out about 12mm (1/2in) deep before reaching the "other side" of bridge routing: Cyn1 is advising 1 inch thick for the plug. I guess i m not gonna be able to keep the smaller hole as a template. I ll just route and fill for now, then install the bridge and see how good that is. Step one on my list was to get a Strat with 24 frets and standard vibrato bridge anyway. I ll start being fancy (piezo, sustainer..) from then on if it s worth it. By the way i love the idea of a guitar able to pick up any noise around (switches, fingers, tap..), especially if said noise comes with a volume control! That ll be perfect for creating more weird stuff!
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Post by 4real on Jul 18, 2013 20:14:18 GMT -5
While i m unfortunately FAR from having your skills and experience, yet it s interesting that we ve follow very similar paths 4Real. Thanks for sharing your story - cool strat by the way, very close to my dream guitar! I could rout out about 12mm (1/2in) deep before reaching the "other side" of bridge routing: Cyn1 is advising 1 inch thick for the plug. I guess i m not gonna be able to keep the smaller hole as a template. I ll just route and fill for now, then install the bridge and see how good that is. Step one on my list was to get a Strat with 24 frets and standard vibrato bridge anyway. I ll start being fancy (piezo, sustainer..) from then on if it s worth it. By the way i love the idea of a guitar able to pick up any noise around (switches, fingers, tap..), especially if said noise comes with a volume control! That ll be perfect for creating more weird stuff! Well, as I say, without having it my hands, it's hard to tell. If you were to route it out completely, there would be little to glue to, so I would still route down with a bit left as a template and not only glue it extremely well, screw it too if possible, countersunk and filled...since it will be painted and require filling anyway. Going further you are going to have to rout it out on the back side as well which would be pretty tricky and remove most of the wood anyway. That's the spirit...go for the simple structurally sound and working best playable guitar you can do...worry about things like finish and stuff last if more mods are required. ... Well, I wouldn't want a guitar that made all kinds of sounds just from touching it, but perhaps you could do something with it. Get a few cheap piezos and a preamp and when the guitar is working, just 'stick' them on with tape or something and see what works...sometiems you can get different sounds with a bit of padding of double sided foam tape, but beware that if these things can vibrate freely, you are going to make something that might uncontrolably 'squeel' at any volume...never a good idea. Who knows, you might find the piezo bridge alone will make 'noise', I'm not familiar with them particularly. Piezos work by vibration, so it may well do. Sustainers are a whole other minefeild of problems and electrically can be a problem, they have to put out a lot of electromagnetic energy and this can be sensed by pickups of course, but alos things like wiring and such. I think everyone advises that things are kept as 'separate' as possible. You might want to consider multipule outs. If you see my latest projects, this has been the direction I've been moving in... My present guitar is acoustic and I added a magnetic pickup and stereo+switch socket and a stereo lead so that the two pickup channels split to two 1/4" jacks. If I use a normal lead, the piezo works as standard. If I pull it half out I can get the passive mag alone if required. guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/6883/godin-seagull-maritime-modificationsThis kind of thing came directly out of the previous project...a kind of hollowbody multi tuning 'surround sound' thing... guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/5970Again, stereo mag/piezo with blend/pan controls and three outputs...there was a third pickup system that was tested and not fully implemented yet... ... There was a lot of good ideas in the former prototype and would like to explore that more one day, but I do these kinds of things with cheap prototypes. Withthe current gutiar, I've made it simpler and more 'acoustic'...but a big part of this was that I needed a far wider neck and quality and it is very cool to not require amplification and the 'look' is going to be more acceptable to most people too...all worthy considerations. The reason for multiple outs are many, but you are not going to get optimum sound out of a single amp with piezos and mags and all that. At the moment, I am trying now to work out how to reasonably amplify such things effectively. The only reasonable solution is to get use multiple amps, or more likely a whole PA to produce it electrically. SOme thins too are not really compatible, in order to make the 'jazz strat' do that multituning thing, hte top had to supported below and so makes only a little more sound than a solid body for instance. While a great device in the trilogy, perhaps one could get a similar flexiblity with great tuning stability...but who knows may well return to that concept...financially and in other ways, it would be a very difficult thing for me to do though. What I ahve, generally, is a kind of criteria for what I want in a guitar to measure success and give direction. Things like no noise, functional but not fussy or compromised by other features, certainly tuning intonation and playability is a big thing, even aesthetics and audience acceptance is a part of things. And, also that you can't get everything out of one guitar, very soon you are making compromises and with something with the 'lot' you will often reach a point where everything is compromised and it does nothing particularly well, at least so it seems. ... It sould be noted that before I go to make a really 'good guitar' or to learn, I've tended to use a cheap workhorse guitar to see if this stuff has possibilities...not try and build that 'dream guitar'... guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/799This link here was perhaps my first thread at GN2 and featured the guitar I did most of this kind of thing on, the sustainer and even I notice in this picture, a piezo in the bridge socket as the wires are hanging out on it. It was structurally heavily modified with an incredible amount of hollowing...for vearious reasons, it just got waorn out and structurally, though holding together, severely weakened and though light, unbalanced by all that 'hollowing'... The other thing one realises is that no matter what you think your dream guitar may be, there will always be another 'dream' and stuff to dream up ... even though I tend to settle with the one guitar exclusively for a long time...
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Post by strat80hm on Jul 31, 2013 22:59:43 GMT -5
Extensive research and knowledge in the domain 4Real, very useful links and tips. I ll get back to this when i m at the next stage. You guys were very right when i came to time: i was thinking i d be done with my dream guitar by mid July. Tomorrow is August and i havent started, haha.. Each time i foresee some free days to work on it, bam, a last minute gig is in the way. This time it was a movie-score - strange beautiful movie for which i so wished i had my dream guitar for... Well another time. Ok, back to guitar, i need to: - route bridge area (do i need to create a template?) - fill up with 1/2inch thick piece of wood (that i ll glue/screw) - route small hole for x-bridge (and 2 holes for new posts) - later i d need to make room for sustainer s circuit/battery. So, do i need to carve a template before starting? Also, ESP is apparently using a metal strip to reinforce this area, would i benefit from doing the same?
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Post by 4real on Jul 31, 2013 23:57:41 GMT -5
Well, if you've got someone helping with the trem route, perhaps consult with him how he intendes to do it...there should be a way to make a template to make bot the hole and the piece that fits in as tight as possible. The 'metal plate'...something like aluminium is good say, screwed in aleviates this critical weak spot, especially on countersunck bridges like these that leave very little wood given the trem cavity under. You might be able to includ something similar under the wood you are inserting, but ideally your wod will be making all this area much stronger and thicker...if you consider the pressures, all will be on these posts and substantially pulling that part fo the guitar,, (you timber insert) towards the neck and the stronger the better...hence suggesting screws and a lot of glued surface area and such to deal wiht all these things. And yes, templates typically work best and neatest, but iof not doing it yourself, consult with the person who is a and perhaps study up a little. A back plate for the sustainer say, is likely to require an adequate depth and such to be considered and a shelf for a back plate and hte back plate itself and all these might require some kind of custom template. You might waqnt to consdier the batteries too, you may need two and sustainers always need very easy access as they eat batteries, so some batteryboxes rounted into the guitar are often the best suggestions. Not sure I have many/any good pictues of my strat, but I made an allowance for a battery 'behind' the trem block (even though the guitar ended up completely passive in the end)... You can just see it in the pic above. I used emu leather on the top of the cavity and around the top exposed part of the block to eliminate 'knocking' with the floating trem should it hit the body and look a bit better. A dedicated battery box, perhaps a dual one might be a better idea for something like a sustainer, something I am not sure about will happen when running multiple active systems like you are attempting. As I've said earlier though, first step is perhaps to go for a working guitar and make it as playable as possible before going on to the electronics before stripping it all out for 'finishing' at them end. I'd not be trying to push this project too fast, projects tend to take months and a lot of consideration through all that time and this is a tricky one..
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Post by strat80hm on Aug 2, 2013 22:04:00 GMT -5
This is August and i finally started! Did exactly how you guys advised (thank you again!) - large square routing - dowels in old vibrato bridge holes - piece of poplar fitting tightly and glued with titebond3 - and now it s drying for 24h Next steps: - add a couple of screws at relevant locations, - vibrato bridge routing (following existing shape from below as template) - reinforcement using a metal piece (that i yet have to find) - carefully drilling new hole for x-bridge Any specific advice for those (especially regarding drilling of new holes)?
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Post by 4real on Aug 2, 2013 22:52:44 GMT -5
Excellent work for a start, exactly how it should be done. Give it time to dry and perhaps I might reconsider the need for screws and probably the metal plate.
At the least, I'd perhaps leave them out till the block is shaped flush with the body and the back hole routed. Good work keeping the hole as a guide, that will be easier and neater.
The big important part will be the bridge anchours, I tend to measure a lot, install the neck and add some strings to the two es to make suure all lines up...this is a very important and you will not want to have to fill and drill so get it right!
must run, but good work so far!
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Post by strat80hm on Aug 8, 2013 15:00:05 GMT -5
Thanks for support and monitoring 4Real, cool.
I m drilling/installing the X-Bridge today hopefully...
Question:
You mention 2 batteries because of Sustainer + Piezo Preamp? Or are you suggesting using 2 batteries for the sustainer s circuit (with works under 9V) ?
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Post by haydukej on Aug 8, 2013 16:15:34 GMT -5
You can not make one 'uber-guitar' that can do everything you know, facts of life. How about the Rocktopus? More pictures in link.
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Post by 4real on Aug 8, 2013 16:32:35 GMT -5
Good luck with the bridge...take your time and measure thrice...there is only one shot to get this right so you need to be aware of alighnment with the strings along the neck and intonation...so a lot there to consider. Have you 'leveled' that inserted block? Pictures? On the sustainer. All sustainers eat through batteries fast, it is the nature of the things. The circuit is effectively a power amp. Also, the devices by their ver nature put out a lot of EMI...it has to generate enough electromagnetic power to move the strings and any magnetisim could be heard by the sensitive magnetic pickups...so there is that. But these kinds of fluctuations and sudden power requirements when you turn it on can create all kinds of other problems in the power supply, such as pop clicks and the like as well as EMI in the circuit and wires, not just the coil that can create interference and so noise or potentially oscillating feedback...they can be tricky... The reason I mention two batteries is that the battery drain on a sustainer is a lot, so batteries simply don't last that long, especially if you are going to be usign the device much. I kno0w a bit about the commercial sustainers, but more familiar with my own designs whith which I tried to design around some of these problems. One is that with the commercial units, as I understand them, the whole guitar will stop functioning if the battery goes flat and the guitar signal will deteriorate while it dies. On my guitars, the guitar works completely passively when the sustainer is off for instance and the neck pickup is completely separate from the driver. Now, add in another active system such as the piezo and you are adding even more power demands on that little battery. How compatible the two systems are is a bit unknown (I beleive it can be done, but still....not seen the detailed information) and it may be necessary to keep the two systems a little separate, hard to do as they will both share the ground I suspect through the battery/s and I dont know if that could cause interference, but one can predict thatthere will be even more of a power drain and the guitar may need to ahve a constant supply of fresh batteries to function properly, if at all...and who knows what kind of power interference might occur. These are concerns, but until such systems are tested together a little unknown but reasonable to perhaps expect some hurdles to overcome. One 'solution' shoudl there be problems may well be to double the batteries or try and run them as separate systems... Remember that these things are not like pickups and just 'drop in'...particularly the sustainer which is really a kind of 'reverse pickup' and both the piezo and sustainer are active systems that are being combined with the passive guitar...the commercial sustainers seem to make the passive part active as I gather it in the circuit, butthat means whenthe battery dies, so does the guitar. Normally not a problem if just running a small preamp or a piezo system and things like that, but once you do something like run a poweramp/sustainer circuit, or power hungry effects like delays inside the guitar, well you cant expect the tiny battery to last long. ... Stil, don't panic yet....remember the priorities that I mentioned earlier. #1 is a great playing instrument...and crucial to that is the bridge placement to ensure that the thing will at least play in tune. So, one thing at a time, you are doing well with the structural issues and I would work towards putting a basic pickup in it for testing and setting up the guitar and having it play as best as you can. Then, work on the systems, even if they have to hang outside of the guitar...most likely a better plan before opening up a bunch of holes in the guitar and compromising it's strength. Get the bridge placed right and work towards stringing it up and working on that end first. It is why I suggest not going too far intothings like finish or anything or modifying things till you know what is going to work. ... I thought of you when I saw this instrument and it's percussive pads... guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/6969/unusual-guitar-lot-ideal-stealingThese are just piezo senses in 8 individual 'pads' that can be sent to trigger a drum module say, as in this clip...through an amp such things would produce a percussive sound, but how good it might sound is way up for debate. One though could imagine soemthing like this being something that one could attach to a guitar rather than be integrated in it so it can be used on other instruments perhaps...and to be tested and developed as a separate device rather than randomly cutting into your instrument in the hope of some kind of return that you may not be happy with or might compromise other aspects such as strength and power and all that. You are going to atleast require pramps on the things to run them and that too takes power. Hope that helps a bit...I added a Gallery thread on the last multituning project too if interested...
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Post by 4real on Aug 8, 2013 16:43:52 GMT -5
You can not make one 'uber-guitar' that can do everything you know, facts of life. How about the Rocktopus? More pictures in link. Even though I do try and make 'uber guitars', or so it seems, I do have a few of them now, so you know ideas change and evolve and often one way they do that is when you realise that somethings are a bit redundant... And...then there is always these Maxims I keep in mind... "Careful what you wish for" and a favorite I ahve to keep in mind, "Just because you could, does not mean you should"... Sometimes though people do integrate a lot into one insutrument andw while I don't want one, though perhaps once I might have, I do admire things when they are done really well...the guitar I mentioned in my post above is this "Taprrot" guitar that features some lovely 'functional art' in the 8 percussive pads...
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Post by strat80hm on Aug 8, 2013 21:39:59 GMT -5
So after drying, time to level out indeed. Manually first Then having fun with the array of tools available in my friends woodshop And here s the result, after routing the block I can then reinstall the neck - which headstock i stripped down (see my other post) and installed 2 tuning pegs on, with 2 strings Discovering that it does exist a Center Finding Ruler, who knew? (quite convenient indeed) Simulating final placement Bridge is going to be around here Drawing looks VERY bad and approximate, but i actually measured 3 times and settle down on those locations for the posts More fun toys to play with And now there s no turning back This whole process has been done with no template by the way - and now i understand better why templates do exist! Next step is the actual install of the x-bridge, and i have a question as always: I usually set up my bridges a la Jeff Beck, meaning floating and slanted, and i drastically pull and push it all the time. The X-bridge manual (very poorly written by the way) mention that piezo saddle would produce better result with a "flat" install. Therefore, i m thinking about angling the neck a bit, and routing a bit beneath said bridge in order to be able to pull the notes. My plan was to first try a basic install, but i m realizing that before that, i need to know how deep the post-holes are ultimately going to be. Q - if i recess the bridge 5mm, i d need to drill and extra 5mm for the post-inserts: is it recommended to place the pole inserts, then to remove them to drill more, and then to put them back? would this weaken the poles/wood?
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Post by 4real on Aug 8, 2013 22:00:41 GMT -5
Nice work...the chisel worried me, I'd ahve made some kind of jig perhaps to run a router over it...but worked out perfect..so well done... And...put the neck and strings and all that on, again, perfect approach...many would ahve taken short cuts to this aspect... So... My strat too has an extreme 'JB like' floating bridge... As you can see it too is a two post trem and one advantage of thiese designs is that you can lift the posts up well above the guitar top should you choose to allow it to float. I'd not rout the guitar (JB does not need to after all) and raise the bridge. To do this, one angles the neck with a shim, it does not take much at all to do this and I like the 'feel' of this combination...a higher bridge and angled neck feels more comfortable than the very flat fenders and notice it when I change to the tele (and the arm contour to of course) which feels very flat, even with the neck angled and my khaler trem). Rembember too, that you can not pull notes that much or the strings will snap!!! It does not take that much and my bridge placement is not for extreme up bends or anything, but for that 'float' and feel and occassionally to do those Jeff Beck Gargle things, punching the back of the bridge with the fist... So...nope, I'd not remove any wood than necessary from the guitar, especially whn you did so well to fill the hole already there... Not sure why they ahve said this, but likely that they are talking about maximum body contact or the pressure over the saddles, but that can be addressed in other ways and if floating, the first is not going to apply anyway...neck shimming will take care of all that to get the appropriate set up. Just a little aside on that photo btw is that I wrapped the 'block' with very thin emu leather. Partly to hide that trem block which is visible to match the guitar for aesthetics, but alos so that it softens the contact, should I make extreme down bends, and the block hits the body slot...but a small thing and not at all necessary...just my usual pedanticism ;-)
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