offricial DIY discussion thread

[elbuennico]

this thread is making me nervous. I'm obsessed now with starting a new guitar build but I really don't have time for this.
I'd love to build a replica of a a Richie Kotzen Telecaster. This is an awesome guitar

[elbuennico]

anybody here built an all-valve guitar amp ? I might wanna build one. any recommandation ? I saw there are several companies like Ceriatone who provide kits.

[blkmagik98]

I built a Metroamp plexi replica but now that I go on their website, evidently they are not doing kits now. The amp sounds fantastic though.

Michael

[dispatch87]

Here it is. I bought some Gorilla wood glue and some cheap clamps from Walmart. I'm gonna let it sit for about 24 hours. I hope this works! Now let's see what happens

[Gonzirra]

I have a couple LPs I'm about to do some work on.

One's a beauty of an Epi Wine Red Les Paul Custom, the other is a straight black 25.5" scale Warmoth LP. Looks like the LPS above with a slightly longer neck and trapezoid inlays + ebony board.

I'm short the awesome-looking shop blkmagic (and skill set I'm sure) has for right now but I can make do.

[dispatch87]

What kinda work you gonna do?

[Gonzirra]

The Epi is getting a TonePros locking bridge, some new hardware. Possibly tuners, not sure. New nut which is an Earvana in this case. It's gutted at the moment, and the bridge posts are kind of loose. Fret level and all of that basic setup stuff.

The other is a clone of a guitar I had stolen, will be assembled from parts. Mahog body maple cap. Neck mahog with ebony fretboard. I have to put posts in and everything. Other than being a bolt-on and a longer scale it's pretty vanilla. Even have the typical JB/Jazz pickups for it. Just waiting for some replacement files and and things from Stewmac to start.

Speaking of, blackmagic:

Any basic tips for fret leveling a compound radius 10"-16" fretboard the right way? I've been kind of winging it by feel and there's really limited information online about it. I'm getting okay results but I think my approach could be fine tuned a lot, it doesn't feel very precise the way I'm doing it. I'm not even sure I'm radiusing the saddles enough.

[Gonzirra]

And fwiw I've been going 18" radius at the saddles. If the radius is 10" at the nut, about 14" at the 12th fret, and 16" at fret #22, then that seems like it should work out about right, but not sure.

[blkmagik98]

Originally Posted by Le Gonso

Speaking of, blackmagic:

Any basic tips for fret leveling a compound radius 10"-16" fretboard the right way? I've been kind of winging it by feel and there's really limited information online about it. I'm getting okay results but I think my approach could be fine tuned a lot, it doesn't feel very precise the way I'm doing it. I'm not even sure I'm radiusing the saddles enough.

I think you will have to wing it. Jackson, Warmoth and others are doing those but I know Jackson/Charvel is using a CNC machine and I assume that Warmoth is as well. I also have a small CNC machine that I use but it can be done by hand if you take your time, use some radius sanding blocks and fine tune. The guy that I learned from could do them with a wood plane but I don't have that kind of touch with one. He is from Croatia and his father built the old style wood barrels with the metal bands around them, and he started assisting him when he was a kid. He was small and would go inside the barrels and use a wood plane, so he has tons of experience. GL!
The finish on my Tele was actually pretty easy to do- the mahogany took a lot of sanding and then quite a bit of vinyl sealer as it is so porous. The transparent black was done with an alcohol based stain so it wouldn't make the grain rise like a water based one. I just used a rag and wiped it on, making sure to do it very quickly and evenly because if you hesitate, it will make it darker in that spot. Then sprayed the whole thing with sealer, wet sand, then multiple coats of lacquer. Wait three weeks for the lacquer to cure, then lots of wet sanding and then buffing.

Michael

[blkmagik98]

Originally Posted by dispatch87

Here it is. I bought some Gorilla wood glue and some cheap clamps from Walmart. I'm gonna let it sit for about 24 hours. I hope this works! Now let's see what happens

That should work..let us know how it turns out. The glue joint is stronger than the wood, so if it breaks again, it will be somewhere else.

Michael

[blkmagik98]

Originally Posted by LirvA

yeah these are kids from buildyourownclone.com


It's modified in that there's a separate boost circuit and a couple different clipping options.

Like the Landgraff LED clipping option or something different? I have built a lot of pedals and sold a lot of them as well. I started out with the kits, then started etching my own boards (which is a messy process), and now I just send them out and have them done by a company.

The most difficult kit that I ever built was the BYOC analog delay but it sounds fantastic. I used an oscilloscope to adjust the trimmers to get the most clear repeats....not as clean as a digital but it has a great analog tone.

Michael

[LirvA]

It's got LED clipping and you can swap that out for MOSFET clipping.


What kind of scope do you use? I need to get one imo.

[blkmagik98]

Originally Posted by LirvA

It's got LED clipping and you can swap that out for MOSFET clipping.


What kind of scope do you use? I need to get one imo.

I use a Rigol DS1052-E which is dual channel digital with 50 Mhz bandwidth. There is an easy hack where you reflash the firmware that doubles the bandwidth, which I did, but you don't need that much bandwidth for analog effects. This model and the one above it are the exact same internally, the only difference being the firmware- China, LOL!

Michael

[blkmagik98]

Here are a couple of pictures of another that I built to be a 'sister' to the Tele. Neck through construction of flame maple with an ebony fingerboard and brass inlays that were a major pain to work with.

[LirvA]

Nice guitars sir.


I'm reading a book called how to diagnose and fix everything electronic, by Michael Jay Geier, as I'm planning on moving on to general electronics repair and production, and the author recommends getting an analog scope, stating

The oscilloscope is a good example of an older analog technology being superior in some ways to its replacement. For most general service work, an analog scope is the simplest to use, and its display is the easiest to interpret. Further, it shows details of the signal that digital scopes may miss.
...

Probably the most profound difference between an analog and a digital scope is that an analog instrument actually writes the screen at the sweep speed you select, while a digital unit does not. A digital collects the data at that speed, but it updates the screen much slower because LCDs don't respond very fast. For many signals, that's fine, and it can even help you see some signal features that might be blurred by repetitive overwrites on an analog screen.

Sometimes however, those overwrites are exactly what you want. When viewing the radio-frequency waveforms coming from video and laser heads, for instance, you need to evaluate the envelope, or overall shape of the waveform over many cycles, not its individual waves. The overwriting and true to life writing speeds inherent in an analog scope make envelopes stand out clearly. Some envelopes can't be viewed at all with a digital, because it misses too much between screen updates. You'll see individual cycles of the waveform, but not their outer contour, unless you slow down the sweep rate so low that all you get is a featureless blur.

Thoughts on that?


I've never used a scope at all, and am still very very new to electronics.