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22/05/2007, 13:12 Gluestick Joined on 22/03/2006 UK and Nord Pas de Calais Posts 2,343 Re: New project Guitar  Dick Smith wrote: painting finished - ......................................, and then awaiting a friendly guitar tech to come and string it and set it up. Just a basic tip, Dick. If building or re-building any electric solid or semi-accoustic guitar (unless it is a quick refinish job), always but always leave finishing the neck until after someone has completed the set up. The reason for this is that the frets are always set into the fingerboard in their precise mathematical (i.e. tuning) position, but not for their optimal string stopping height. Setting up the fingerboard is done by stringing the instrument to proper pitch (thus ensuring that the neck is pulled into its tension position), adjusting the truss rod to correct neck tension (bearing in mind that different players use widely different string gauges) and then finally carefully filing each fret, string by string, to create the best "Stop" that is free from fret buzz, that the precision and quality of the neck can allow. With cheaper instruments and most kits, it is necessary to carefully clean up the neck slot in the body, to ensure that the neck sits in its optimal position. Setting up via the individual bridge screws is a  final tweak, not the correct way to approach the problem. All this tends to do is raise the string from the fingerboard along its whole length making it harder to stop the string and much harder to play! As for finishing, I re-finished a number of original gig-battered Strats in the 60s and always used multiple costs of clear Polyurethane lacquer for the neck and automotive cellulose paint for the bodies; multiple coats, rubbed down with wet and dry inter-coat and finally compounded with automotive Farecla compound (up to three grades!) finishing with Brasso! These days you can use T Cut. It is possible to use wet and dry for cutting the raw paint finish, rather than the coarsest grade of compound (600-800 grit) but this does tend to leave minute lines. In any case, if inter-coat flatting leave the paint for 48 hours to really harden off. Leave the paint for at least one week and ideally two, before compounding. Automotive paint is excellent 'cos they already have thousands of colours! The one we used to use to match Fender red was a Roots Motors colour. Boy, that shows you how long ago it was! BTW, my very early 70s Japanese re-issue Strat, to me, is indistinguishable to my original early 60s American maple necked/rose wood fingerboard Strat to play and in sound. (Wish I still had the original!). A chum of mine builds handmade concert flatop accoustics and is building a name amongst concert guitarists. he also restores guitars and builds clones using some of the suppliers below. He also plays a mean rock riff! Didn't realise that there were so many old rockers on this forum! And one lives only a village away from us when we are in France.................................... http://www.luthierssupplies.co.uk/ http://ukmg.altrion.org/faq.html http://www.kevinchilcott-luthier.co.uk/private/links.htm http://www.wdmusic.co.uk/pages/about.php http://www.wdmusic.com/ http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/   "Yes, but that apart, Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?" Gluestick    Report

22/05/2007, 17:46 f1steveuk Joined on 29/03/2007 Belves, Dordogne Posts 276 Re: New project Guitar I have cut the plug for the bridge pick up, because none of the books I have looked at tell me if the Esquire had a cavity for the bridge pick up or not, so I am going to assume not, and glue the plug in, and sand smooth. I also ahve to get my head around the wiring for the Esquire, as the selector switch alters the tone settings. I wont be painting it for a while, shame "Some scoundrel has taken the cork for my lunch" W.C Fields    Report

23/05/2007, 8:08 Gluestick Joined on 22/03/2006 UK and Nord Pas de Calais Posts 2,343 Re: New project Guitar One of my guitar reference books has a number of original circuits, Telecaster, Strat, LP Gibson. If this is any help let me know and I could scan and email to you.   "Yes, but that apart, Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?" Gluestick    Report

23/05/2007, 8:54 f1steveuk Joined on 29/03/2007 Belves, Dordogne Posts 276 Re: New project Guitar Cheers. I managed to get an Esquire wiring diagram, now when we go back to the UK I need to get some capacitors, and find my soldering iron! I have now read about 15 books about Telecasters, and not one knows if there was a unused void for the bridge pick up, or if it was put in when Leo decided to sell it as the two pick up Broadcaster. As there seems to be a bit knowledge reading this, than I have, would I get a change in sound if I plug the void with a more dense wood? "Some scoundrel has taken the cork for my lunch" W.C Fields    Report

23/05/2007, 9:27 Gluestick Joined on 22/03/2006 UK and Nord Pas de Calais Posts 2,343 Re: New project Guitar The original Telecaster was always two pickups: the bridge, or "Riff" pickup and the neck or" Harmony" pickup. Here's a pic of Townshend and one of his 1952 originals:  http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/equip-52telecaster.htm Please forgive me if I am already telling you what you already know (Grannies/Eggs!). The standard guitar pickup is simply a series of coils of copper wire surrounding a magnet or magnets. Whilst its primary purpose is to pick up the minute EMF (Electro Motive Force: Faraday's Principle) generated by the strings - conductors - cutting the magnetic field, all such pick ups also have a microphonic effect and pick up complimentary vibrations through the body of the instrument. That's why the sound of a solid is totally different to an accoustic or semi-accoustic. Purists maintain that differing tonalities are achieved by using differing wood for the body. Undoubtedly, the wood used for flat top concert guitars and Spanish Flamenco guitars if critical. Spanish makers demand spruce or some pine (for the top and thus the sounding board), and stoutly maintain it takes a few years of playing to become more resonant! However, I did have access to a guy's PhD thesis a few years ago which was focused on the guitar and resonance, harmonics etc. He was a lecturer at (Swansea?) and was also a guitar nut. he used a lab with an anachoic chamber and etc, spectrum analysers, frequency analysers etc and ran an intensive series of tests, all aimed at reaching some serious conclusion about guitar design. I believe the bottom line for you is that if you left the bridge pickup void and simply covered it with a scratch plate you or indeed anyone, honestly, would be hard put to detect any difference in tone! Personally, I would fit the bridge pick up, 'cos it will be hard to obtain the harsh sound essential for riffs from the higher pick up. Tone controls: be careful with creating tone control from passives (i.e. capacitors and resistors) as you actually drastically reduce the frequency response doing it this way. It was conventional in the early 50s, of course, since transistors were only invented in 1947 and were very rare and very expensive and very limited! Chips were still a distant dream.......................... It is far better to have an active tone control in line between the guitar and the amp. Here is a US outfit with loads of genuine Fender spares! http://www.angela.com/catalog/guitar-parts/tele.html   "Yes, but that apart, Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?" Gluestick    Report

23/05/2007, 17:44 f1steveuk Joined on 29/03/2007 Belves, Dordogne Posts 276 Re: New project Guitar Blimey, thanks for the in depth answer! I will plug the hole, as I want to be as close to the single pick up Esquire as possible, and until I decide on the scratchplate (I need a sheet of bakerlite!!!) I was going to use it without a scratchplate. The wiring for the Esquire isn't ultra complicated, but If I am going to reproduce it, best do it ptoperly!!! "Some scoundrel has taken the cork for my lunch" W.C Fields    Report

23/05/2007, 18:13 Gluestick Joined on 22/03/2006 UK and Nord Pas de Calais Posts 2,343 Re: New project Guitar My pleasure. One of those URLs I posted yesterday sells the right type of plastic sheet for scratchplates etc. It isn't Bakerlight, which from memory was (from Google actually!) phenol formaldehyde resin. You need something like ABS, I seem to recall.   "Yes, but that apart, Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?" Gluestick    Report

23/05/2007, 18:25 Bugbear Joined on 15/11/2006 Vienne (86) Posts 3,823 Re: New project Guitar  Gluestick wrote:  You need something like ABS, I seem to recall. Carbon Fibre ?................................... "Life is Short - Forgive Quickly - Love Truly - Laugh Uncontrollably" ............ and get yourself an Apple Mac.    Report

23/05/2007, 18:45 Gluestick Joined on 22/03/2006 UK and Nord Pas de Calais Posts 2,343 Re: New project Guitar Could be: if he was planning on breaking the World Speed Record for Guitars! Which neatly leads me on to my other favourite love real racing cars and real racing drivers. Sir Stirling was on BBC TV lunchtime, (The Daily Politics, Brillo Neil's pension), telling that idiot Ed Balls (in case the filter edits the name of the Cabinet Treasury Secretary round, spherical objects called cojones in Spanish!), his fortune. Stirling was fuming about the planned national UK charge for simply driving: and pointing out that zillions of billions had been nicked from British motorists.   "Yes, but that apart, Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?" Gluestick    Report

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France Forum » Leisure and Pas... » Sport, Leisure ... » Re: New project Guitar

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