Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Hope you can read this, just a photo. A simple chart is available at fccj.us

Garry.

Hi Clancy, On a 34" scale roughly 2mm on the G and 8mm for the E will be close for most strings, the A and D may be slightly in front of a straight line between these points. The thick strings will need some help to form a bend at the saddle, once at pitch gently push down on the string in front of ...

Thanks again Allen.

Garry.

Thanks Allen,

I have mostly sprayed in the past but now looking for a way to get a reasonably hard satin finish without upsetting my neighbours. Don't mean to be a pest but do you have a preferred wax?

Garry.

Hi Allen,

Another great looking uke! I like the low sheen finish, would you mind sharing how you achieve the low sheen look?

Garry.

Hi Max,

A fridge compressor makes a good vacuum pump, easy to find and more than enough vacuum.

Garry.

Hi Tod,

Do the pus have leads with uninsulated braided shield? The braid or its frayed ends shorting on a hot lug is a common problem.

Garry.

Hi Ross, Thanks for the photos, looks like a good method, similar to the method some builders use to laminate arched doorways in situ. It would probably be best to use the 207 hardener for laminating to avoid the bleed through resin blushing / turning white over time as is likely with the other hard...

I have been using the West system micro fibre blend filler with epoxy for some laminations. The intent was to minimalize bleed through and get better control over the amount of epoxy by using a very fine notched spreader. The epoxy with filler seems much stiffer and harder than without and the fille...

The acetone based "C23 balsa cement" sold at hobby and craft stores seems to work well with ABS and celluloid binding. You will need to test any of these acetone glues on the lacquer. Your biggest headache will be leveling the binding on the existing lacquer.

Garry.

Looks good Rod, a massive repair no doubt. May I ask what type of strings you used?

Garry.

Congrats Mat, the bass looks great. Time to scare the neighbours!

Garry.

Hi Mat, Shielded wire is not needed if all the cavities and wire paths are shielded. The Duncan music man pickup has copper shielding underneath and maybe inside the box, this needs to be connected to earth. Your control cavity should be joined to earth via the pot case but you will need to run a wi...

Hi Mat, Looking good, great job with the stain. You had said in a previous post that the pickup wiring was missing. Did you fit shielded wire or run an earth from the copper shield in the pickup itself? All sections of your shielding need to be earthed. Does the buzz disappear when you touch earth (...

Hi Mat, It is important that you establish the start and end of each coil to have the pickup working in phase and as a humbucker. The series / parallel sounds are both humbucking and very different with the series option being much more powerful. Splitting will cancel one coil and introduce single c...

Just had a look, for a Duncan the wiring shown above will work except the green and bare shield wire go to earth and the black is hot.

Garry.

Hi Mat, If your pickup is the Duncan musicman you can use the diagrams on Duncan's site as colour codes are the same through their range. Other pickup makers use different colour codes so won't be suitable. Your switch needs to be double pole, double throw, on / on, the on / on should be stamped on ...

Thanks Martin,

I have the books but yet to fully intonate a guitar at the nut. My mate says these are a quick fix on electrics with problems in the open chord area, with easy resetting at the saddles compared to an acoustic.

Any idea why my photos show upside down,

Garry.

One of the other local repairers gave me this yesterday. It's intended to fit in front of the nut and supplied with packers. This is the electric version, anybody using them?


Garry.

Hi Mat, Looking good! Have used the 5 string version of that pickup both alnico and ceramic a number of times and always been happy. In theory a 500k pot will retain more of the high frequencies and are commonly used with humbuckers. In the configuration you have shown the pots are wired to each sin...

Hi Jim, I have this coax, it was only available from the big guys in 100M rolls. The core is 10 x .12, 1.6mm outside diameter. The other is Jaycar dual core for comparison. Don't know if it suits but will be lower mass, makes me wonder why K&K don't use something smaller. Happy to send you some if y...

Customer: "Man, my guitar's broke, when I play the 5th fret harmonic no sound comes out" (demonstrates) Repairer slowly rubs chin in the manner of a wise man and moves the pickup selector switch from neck to bridge pickup. Harmonic rings out. Customer: "Wow! Man, you're are a magician, how did you f...

This should be an interesting test, I have wondered if there is anything special in the discs. May I suggest that shielded cable will be mandatory, a break in the shielding between a piezo and pre amp / amp will introduce heaps of noise.

Garry.

Great choice Matt, the mention of bunya pine and mango in your first post sparked my interest. I have a hankering for an electric bass with an acoustic flavor and very resonant low density woods like these may lead in that direction. The New Guinea rosewood I have used was also very resonant with a ...

Interesting videos. A custom built guitar from this factory came in for repair a few weeks back. It was a baritone tuned arch top with the bottom two stings offset at the nut and saddle by 10mm to the frets and fretless. The owner plays upright sounding bass lines on the fretless strings together wi...