candyflipper7
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?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 12, 2013 20:16:16 GMT -5
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Post by newey on Apr 12, 2013 21:07:06 GMT -5
Nice job, cf! +1! That was a very complicated wiring scheme, it's good that all is working as you wished, at least electrically. You should repost the diagram and just a couple of shots (wiring gut-shot plus a finished one) in the schematics section. Actually, it probably qualifies for nutzoid status, so put it there!
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Post by cynical1 on Apr 12, 2013 22:04:38 GMT -5
I'll have to second that +1
Very nice and original build.
So, hows about some sound samples down the road...
Happy Trails
Cynical One
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2013 0:15:08 GMT -5
what can i say! it is so clean cut, so original and well designed and implemented! Looks beautiful. Both the electronics and the lutherie work.
Candy, in the summer when the family goes to vacation, i will attempt to paint my strat to olympic-white-cream from ocean blue that it is now.
Will be possible?
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
Posts: 99
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 13, 2013 9:11:24 GMT -5
Thanks everyone for the support from the beginning to the end! It was a really fun project. I learned a lot! I have been playing so long & never took the time to really explore the instrument. Once I found GN2 started reading the forum topics, I decided I could do this. It was so many interesting topics flying around, I had to join you guys. I have really had fun being part of this community. I look forward to sticking around for awhile(LOL) I will tone it down now actually. And just stick to building pickguards. "Not"!!! Anyways, thanks so much for the kind words and support. It really does mean a lot! I can't wait to get her fine tuned and singing. I promise sound samples once I install a new nut (brass) , and upgrade the saddles! I did manage to fix the fret problem by raising the action a bit. Truss adjustments, and saddle adjustments. I really do need to take it in for a fret dressing soon.
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Post by cynical1 on Apr 13, 2013 10:53:07 GMT -5
...once I install a new nut (brass)... You might want to ponder that thought for a bit... Back in the 70's and early 80's a brass nut was seen as some tonal gateway to Nirvana and everyone wanted one. Nowadays you never see them. Ever wonder why? Over the years I've pulled as many as installed for people...probably pulled more in the long run... Remember, it only does a thing on open notes. And they will sound noticeably different than your fretted notes. You may or may not like this. Also, you have a trem installed. Brass is not the ideal material for your nut in this application. Your strings are either nickel chrome or stainless and your nut is brass. There is a condition known as "fretting corrosion" that occurs when two dissimilar metals are put in contact with each other in a wear application. It has to do with different dielectric properties, but the long and short of it is that brass nuts and trems are a study in designed failure. A roller nut or Tusq oil impregnated nut would be a better choice, IMHO. Well, that was my two cents. Very cool guitar, by the way. Happy Trails Cynical One
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Post by b4nj0 on Apr 13, 2013 11:16:58 GMT -5
AFAIK, to this day, all Gordon-Smith guitars from Partington in the north west of the UK have brass nuts. They are known as the British Gibson and not without good reason. My own 1980-ish GS Gypsy 1 (like an LP Junior double cut with one HB), serial number in the low 300s, has a stainless-steel nut, it was a special request. There has to be an exception to prove the rule! I have never heard a single complaint regarding the sound of a GS in the 33 odd years that they have been trading. OT I know, but for interest, check out how John Smith (of Gordon Smith Guitars) fits truss rods into one-piece maple necks, it's a trade secret, but I've got an idea how its done... Bottom line, I agree with C1 regarding the use of brass, but I cannot ignore the (conflicting) evidence of Gordon Smiths (and then there's my sustain-forever Yammy SG2000 with the brass "sustain" block under the "Tunamatic" style bridge!)
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 13, 2013 12:31:39 GMT -5
Cynical One, Thanks so much for that input. I will take note of that and run with it I was considering the tusk nut for tone, as with the brass nut. Open notes... Yes. The pre-intalled nut on the neck is just horrible! The open notes sound really bad. Tone.... I think I will do the Tusk nut and use a lube in the slots. I usually use a pencil. Thanks for the advice. I will use it. The info on the fretting corrosion is super interesting! TY for that.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2013 23:56:53 GMT -5
I have a brass nut in my home-brewed strat as well. It took me a whole evening to file, sand, fit. My personal experience with this brass nut (and other nuts, plastic, tusq, locking metal FR nut, you name it) tells me this : even a cheap plastic nut worth 5 EUR which is slotted properly and installed properly will sound good. OTOH, even a "made in germany" locking nut nut worth 30 EUR will kill your sound if it is not machined properly. Now back to brass, the anti-brass arguments were explained by Cyn1. The pro-brass by Banjo. I would add to the pro-brass camp, the Yngwie malmsteen strat, (they rarely have problems with their brass nuts), and also the use of brass as an upgrade for saddles and sustain blocks, and i am talking mainstream high-end names here : KillerGuitarComponents , fu-tone with expensive products. If brass suck the tone as they say, and if it is a thing of the past, why is it still so widely used as an upgrade for tremolo blocks? All in all, what i think about brass nuts : they look good, better than other materials, except maybe for natural bone, but they are so hard to work with. OTOH they are harder than bone and do not break in an uncontrolled manner when removing them. Heck, even plastic nuts are better in this aspect. a nice and funny critique (but not very scientific) i found about Malmsteen's brass nut is here : pickroar.com/216/yngwie-malmsteen-strat-old-versus-new/Here is my nut. Works ok and looks ok, but the same would do a cheapo plastic nut if cut properly.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2013 0:01:31 GMT -5
The open notes sound really bad. This is irrelevant to the material. Most probably either you have no string trees installed or the nut is just junk, or both I would suggest trying to first fix that before moving to more expensive solutions. Brass nut is an aesthetic upgrade mostly.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2013 0:14:33 GMT -5
Hi Cyn1, Also, you have a trem installed. Brass is not the ideal material for your nut in this application. Your strings are either nickel chrome or stainless and your nut is brass. There is a condition known as "fretting corrosion" that occurs when two dissimilar metals are put in contact with each other in a wear application. It has to do with different dielectric properties, but the long and short of it is that brass nuts and trems are a study in designed failure. A roller nut or Tusq oil impregnated nut would be a better choice, IMHO. shouldn't the same corrosion condition hold for stainless steel locking nuts as those found in floyd rose equipped guitars?
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 14, 2013 5:39:44 GMT -5
;D Greekdude. TY for chiming in on the subject. I am taking all of this information from you & C1 and carefully studying more into brass nuts. This neck I am using came with a standard nut. After I set up and intonated the guitar I noticed the nut is cut really bad. It is sustaining forever with the cheapo nut. But my action is not what I want even after truss adjustments and all the other adjustments. Between the info C1 & yourself provided, I am curious to what will make these HVX Entwistle's shine even more. They sound so great....Choosing a nut to compliment my pick-up selection is going to be a challenge. Brass, Plastic, Tusq, Graphite. The links you & C1 provided are excellent resources by the way. I think once I do choose a new nut, I am going to buy a Bone, Graphite, Tusq, Brass and Chrome covered Brass nut. Over the next year once I get truly set-up. Frets dressed. I will do sound samples of each material with the Entwistle Pups.
Hopefully then we can hear a difference. I my theory (Maybe a different thread down the road) We can start a topic about the combination of materials we all use from Just Bridge, saddles, String Brand & Gauge, Pups (Number of) Nut material & Machines (Rollers-Trees) to see what varies in tone.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2013 7:04:15 GMT -5
Candy, i struggled all morning to find a difference in open notes between the brass nut and the other cheapo plastic nut i have in the other strat. Plugged or unlpugged. I found none. If your guitar does not sound like a sitar on open notes (which is very frustrating if it happens), and as long as the open notes ring like a bell (piano sound), then you know your nut is 100% correct, no matter if its made of brass, plastic, tusq, ebony, corian, or other exotic expensive materials.
Now forgive me, you said that your nut is badly cut, but sustains for ever? I mean sustain is a good thing, right? Now you said that the action is high. Well you might follow this rule. Press your finger at the 3rd fret of each string with the 3rd finger of your left hand. While at it, press with your pointer of your right hand at the first fret. You should see a minimal movement. No direct touching but no excessive movement either. If you could measure it with a capo at 3rd and a filler gauge, it should be around 0.3 mm.
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 14, 2013 7:14:18 GMT -5
Yes, it sustains forever with my Low E, A, D, G. B and High E has a sitar type boing-pinging if thats what you could call it. Neck isn't twisted. My action is where I like it Low. I do think the frets are not down all the way on 13- 14- 15. Can run a credit card cleanly up and down the neck but strings - fret board gets really tight on the B-E on those said frets. The nut is cout poorly on those strings as the rest have perfect height for me. Whick leads me to believe it is a fret - nut combination. Any suggestions? Ohhh, I have stretched the strings also. Stays intonated even after hour or 2 playing. Has me stumped. Stays in tune also! I guess it is troubleshooting from nut to 13-14-15 fret on B-E.... (Just went and plucked the B-E strings aggressivly) The boing sound-ping seems to be coming or echoing out of the pickup cavity? Not sure if it's from not having rings around them or what? Just a thought. I really think it has something to do with the fret rubbing the strings in the area I mentioned. It is only when picking or plucking open not fretted & only on the B-E. Hmmmmmm (Found the problem) Looking down the fret board the 13th fret is slightly raised on the B and High E. I'm pretty sure along side the deep B-E nut slot this is not helping with vibrations....) Back to topic. No Brass nut in the future. It'll Be Bone or Tusq! Thanks Greekdude & C1!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2013 7:50:09 GMT -5
It is only when picking or plucking open not fretted & only on the B-E. Hmmmmmm Man, in 99.99% of the occasions this is due to either badly cut nut and/or the lack of adequate string trees. Do you have string trees?
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 14, 2013 8:34:44 GMT -5
LOL. No` I have rollers on the way. I am sure this is part of the problem also. I was excited to play. They will be here Tuesday. I usually have professional setups. Do you recommend Trees or rollers? It is definatley the 13th fret. There is barely string clearance on that fret and 14 only on B & E. They are just higher there. I will get the frets level from my guitar guy around the corner.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2013 8:58:24 GMT -5
LOL. No` I have rollers on the way. I am sure this is part of the problem also. I was excited to play. They will be here Tuesday. I usually have professional setups. Do you recommend Trees or rollers? It is definatley the 13th fret. There is barely string clearance on that fret and 14 only on B & E. They are just higher there. I will get the frets level from my guitar guy around the corner. rollers are better. IMO. What you can do is detune high E a little, press with your finger to emulate the effect of the string tree/roller/whatever and see if the sitar sound goes away. If yes bingo! But i am puzzled. When plucked or picked open, high E,B have bigger clearance on the 13th fret, than plucked or picked fretted no some fret, right? So, how come and your problem is only when plucked/picked open? when a string sounds bad only when picked/plucked open (unfretted) the problem lies 100% in the headstock side. Are you experiencing buzz when fretting at 13th fret as well? If yes, then this has nothing to do with the nut. (directly).
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 14, 2013 9:34:59 GMT -5
Yeah. I agree about the string clearance as the b -e are so much thinner. I usually use a Power Slinky 11g e and even went down to super slinky 9 and it is still super dupper close (touching) the frets. I looked down the neck for my bow and fret height. It is fine on E-A-d-g-b-e untill you get to the 13th & 14th fret. I can visually see a jump in fret height on the 2 frets. Maybe the factory didn't smack them hard enough? Maybe a combo of the 2 frets. Nut slots? It is strange. I will keep working on it.
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Post by sumgai on Apr 14, 2013 10:15:45 GMT -5
gd, shouldn't the same corrosion condition hold for stainless steel locking nuts as those found in floyd rose equipped guitars? Without going into a college-level lecture on metallurgy, I'll just say that stainless steel comes in three types (not grades), but in each case, the major components are iron, nickel and chromium, with one of the types also having a small amount of additional carbon. (The Wikipedia article on SS is woefully deficient, I recommend against reading that for factual value, (But chemists will probably get a laugh out of it.) Instead, try this about.com article.) The very fact of chromium's existence works towards greatly reducing corrosion, although probably not completely eliminating it - the time scale is stretched out to several decades, instead of the usual couple of years. In addition, most strings, but certainly not all of 'em, contain some amount of chromium, usually more for aesthetic reasons than for preventing corrosion. The exception might be those strings labeled as 'pure nickel', but even then I'd suspect the alleged purity of such. (But only because I've been taking lessons from cynical1! ) Still, nickel is also slow to corrode, often assuming a dull, lackluster appearance before genuine corrosion sets in. Taken altogether, the tribocorrosion (the technically more-correct term*) will not become apparent for much longer than your regular cleaning sessions. That is, assuming that you do regularly clean all the parts and pieces of your axe, right? HTH sumgai * See this page for a more concise definition.
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Post by cynical1 on Apr 14, 2013 12:03:15 GMT -5
Wow, after yanking this thread off topic it sure got busy... Gumbo would be proud... Point of fact, I have seen brass nuts mechanically fail. Usually a hairline cracking on the heavy string grooves. I haven't seen a lot of it, but enough to be aware of it. I have also seen round wound string act as a rope saw on trem equipped guitars. Granted, they'll do this on standard nuts as well. Any standard nut will fail prematurely in a trem application. It's just easier getting a standard bone or Tusq nut out to replace it than a brass nut. Locking nuts eliminate the sliding friction, so the above does not apply. They're also general an anodized\chome. Mostly similar material contact in a locked condition. I have other reasons for not liking locking nuts, but that's just a personal preference. While I have no personal experience with them, I am intrigued by the Super-Vee locking nut. If you can find one on eBay, or buried in some old music store's old stock, the Bill Edwards locking nut was probably the best locking nut I've ever seen. Kahler had a version of this, and while an improvement on the standard Floyd locking nuts, it wasn't quite as good as the ones Edwards made. Although they are the most complicated nut to install correctly, roller nuts, especially the old LSR nuts, IMHO, were the best solution to the trem\nut application. They do limit the gauge strings you can use, but unless you're into very heavy strings it's normally not an issue. Wilkinson makes a fairly decent one, but steer clear of the plain roller version: My second choice would be the oil impregnated Tusq nuts. Third would be a standard nut. Last in line is a bone nut. The Tusq and bone nuts are pretty much a wash in cost, but the Tusq is far and away a better nut. Their hardness is consistent where bone can have a variance. This does make them easier to cut as well, IMHO, as you're not going to hit a soft spot and overcut them. If I use string trees, they'll be roller trees on the four highest strings. If not trees I'll use a bar across all 6 just behind the nut. And yes, fretting corrosion (or tribocorrosion, as pointed out by the somewhat judgmental SG) takes time to occur. I started seeing it in the late 80's on the guitars fitted with them in the early 70's. I didn't know what it was when I first saw it. I was also working for a custom machinery OEM and had contacts at metal supply houses. I asked a salesman to take one into their resident metallurgist to get his opinion. That was the first time I heard the term "fretting corrosion". From that point forward I never promoted a brass nut, but still put them on if the customer really wanted one...afterall, it was his coin... My experience with a brass nut was on a bass. Scott at SD Curlee swore by them. He gave me one and I put it on a Ripper bass. It lasted about 2 months and I pulled it out...I just didn't feel it added anything and to me the difference between fretted and open strings was too distinct. I never put one on any of my instruments after that. YMMV. One thing to consider is that all the big names you see playing and endorsing different components all have a guitar tech. If a part fails the tech replaces it. Since they probably got said part gratis they can burn through a pile of them with little or no concern. 99% of guitarists and bassists out there need to keep their instrument up and running reliably for a long time with a minimum of expense, rework and downtime. Long and short of it is do your research, understand the application and do it right the first time. This saves you doing it again...and again...and again... I think that covers everything... Happy Trails Cynical One
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2013 12:21:22 GMT -5
dope!!! now i realize Cyn1 is a pro tech/luthier! Now it all makes sense! respect!
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 14, 2013 16:00:04 GMT -5
C1! Thanks man. I feel so stupid. I need a new nut still, but I realized I didn't raise my saddles enough, lengthen-shorten strings. Sounding excellent! The info in this thread about different kind of nuts will help me decide.
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Post by JohnH on Apr 14, 2013 16:10:44 GMT -5
I just wanted to say, this is a really nice project, creative and orginal in every way, and neatly done.
How are you finding the controls in use?
J
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 14, 2013 18:50:59 GMT -5
I just wanted to say, this is a really nice project, creative and orginal in every way, and neatly done. How are you finding the controls in use? J John H, I like them very much so. The hum cancelling is great! I can really tell when I when I have all 3 in the on position. The Entwistle HVX go well with this guitar. I have some fine tuning to do. But overall it is really great. As you can see I believe I am having some issue with the nut. I am attempting to fine tune my string height & action. Very time consuming! Thank-you for your kind words John H ;D
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candyflipper7
Meter Reader 1st Class
?I don?t know sh*t from shinola. Maybe that?s why I?m so original.? -Ace Frehley
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Post by candyflipper7 on Apr 19, 2013 7:03:43 GMT -5
Thanks C1! I am in the process of buying difeerent nut types and trying them out. Once I settle on one I will post some sound samples. I am really wanting to try different metal types to compare sounds. I hope my recording device gets clear audio!
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