Dub's Wacky Project Guitars Thread--we're baaaaaack

[dubkitty]

i finished off the Höfner fingerboard this morning. took a bit more sanding that i expected to get things flush and smooth, but it’s pretty much done unless i discover some as-yet-unknown issue that needs dealt with. i cleaned the entire board off with alcohol because when i cleaned the first fret it was quite dirty. now all i need to do is let the super-thick CA dry on the divot on the first fret and then sand it down.

i want to jump over to the Esquire/Tele project, but i feel like i should do the two passes of polishing on the GM body first so the GM parts are in a similar state of readiness. so that’ll probably do me for today.

[dubkitty]

as i'm getting ready to do the hopefully final rounds of polishing the body, i got the neck and body out and lined them up as they'll go when they're assembled. checked for correct position for its 25.5" scale and the neck needs to join the body at the 16th fret, which is the same as a standard Jazzmaster. aaaaaand all of a sudden it looks like a guitar. and the Fiesta Red looks less washed-out with the dark board and headstock.

even though the proportions are roughly the same, the GM looks neck-heavy just sitting there. between the substantial weight of the body and the loads of hardware going on i think it'll be OK. if not i can always put lead weights in the tremolo rout LOL. if i decide i don't want to fuck with piezos on the GM i won't need the space for a battery/preamp, so in that case i'm thinking i'll put plastic toy dinosaurs in there.

so next it's polishing the body and then working out the neck mount. as you can see in the photo the amount of wood left at the end of the existing neck pocket is only about 2 mm so it makes no sense to leave it when i'd have to cut a notch through it for the heel truss rod adjuster. i'll spec the pickguard to sit flush against the neck heel with a notch once again for that pesky adjuster.

when the neck and body are together i'll probably mount the B50 as well. then it'll just look like a peculiar JM husk. i'll definitely need to create more room by enlarging parts of the control routs, and might relocate the lower bout controls slightly to leave room for a volume for the piezo should it come to pass. on the other hand, my friend Charlie says he has "a couple of offset bodies i'm never gonna do anything with" and a piezo could go in one of those. or i could spend $900 on that fucking Italia. that's a minor issue for now. i suppose at some point i'll order a couple of Schaller Oysters and place them near either end of the bridge, which will have space whether i use an archtop base or use the Musima bridge's studs.

[dubkitty]

i knocked out one more small Galaxiemaster job, fixing up the Musima bridge. a couple of the bridge saddles were wonky…the plastic saddles work with metal adjustment screws via wee brass inserts of very thin metal, just this side of foil, that the screws bite into. you can see the end of one of the bushings protruding slightly above the upper edge of the 2d and 5th string saddles (helpfully labeled “2” and “5” respectively on their bases) in the second photo. the bushings were missing from two saddles. fortunately i have a second Musima DeLuxe bridge in poorer condition i got with a heap of funky parts from a guy in Poland, and was able to pull the bushings and transfer them to the other bridge’s saddles. once that was done i needed to fix the lock nuts on the ends of the screws in place so i hit them with blue threadlocker and after drying they rotate freely with the screws without coming undone. my favorite blue threadlocker use is securing the nut that secures the output jacks on many guitars which can have an annoying tendency to come loose, letting the jack fall into the interior of the guitar. my 335 was very problematic that way until Loctite entered my life.

note the visible bushing on the 2d string’s saddle. yes, i did reinstall saddle 6 backwards. no, it doesn’t make any difference.

the Musima bridge, like many East German parts, is crudely made (compare to USSR parts where the prime directive seems to have been CHEAP AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE) but has a wide range of saddle adjustment that’s pretty detailed due to the closely-threaded screws. it also goes with the general weathered look of the neck, Bigsby, and RCA K-80 knobs. i need to decide just how to use it. the best solution that doesn’t involve drilling stud holes is the Göldo (yes, the umlaut is correct…the founder is Deiter Gölsdorf) multi-width base which can go wide enough for the wide-spaced bridge. it also has handy plastic foot tabs that would serve as decent mounts for the putative Oyster pickups, which come in a pre-wired pair with a single output jack. they might not be dreadful run through the Hotone Acoustic Simulator which could also serve as a preamp of sorts, and really what more could i ask for in a cheap piezo solution? they’d probably do better either literally stuck onto the bottom of the bridge or on the top of the body near either end of the bridge, though.

[dubkitty]

spent some time looking at the Lido Tele body to figure out specs for the hardware that won’t transfer over with the brains. i’m going to have to get string ferrules from GFS because they’re 8 mm while everywhere else they’re 8.6 and i don’t trust the finish not to chip for even one second. for the non-standard jack plate—GFS says the Lido bodies don’t work with a standard Tele cup—i’ll get a curved, square one. everything else from the Squier should fit.

i think i know why the body color is unusually greenish, and why the binding is variegated. the only thing that could make the binding go dark-to-light moving up is some kind of tinted (un)clear coat. no, i am NOT going to try polishing through the clear coat on an $80 body, but it could use a couple of rounds of polishing just to get it good enough to quit thinking about.

the color variation is particularly noticeable around the cutaway and next to the neck pocket.

[dubkitty]

it occurred to me that a wedge-shaped shim would allow me to normalize the neck mount on the Hopf. not wanting to get into precise fabrication, i went online looking for shims which apparently are a relatively common item-in-trade, and found a set for $6 that should do the trick. god bless StewMac, but they aren’t worth $13 apiece. if i combine another shim with the 1° shim the math says that should just about work…the current shim height is between 2.5-3.0 mm and the height of combined shims is close. getting the shims out from under the bridge improved the sound and resonance 300% and even if this doesn’t offer similar improvements at least it will stabilize the neck so it’s not too fragile to take out of the house.

[dubkitty]

since i'm trying to "eat around my plate" by doing stuff on different projects rather than homing in on one thing, i decided to take the Esquire apart and start grafting Squier parts onto the Lido body. before doing that i had a go at one round of polishing, but quickly decided that it'd be pointless to do more for several reasons. for one, the binding discoloration is not susceptible to polishing. for another, the actual binding job is lousy. they used binding too small for the routs no doubt to avoid sanding it down, but the result is that it doesn't quite reach the level of the top. and finally i really don't care that much about having an Esquire so i'm not as invested in making it as perfect as reasonably possible.

i pulled the Squier neck and happily it fits the Lido body with no problems. next i have to do the bridge and pickguard, which i'm not looking forward to since it involves a lot of drilling. i'll do the pickguard first because it sits right up against the neck heel and thus should be easier to get right. after this is done i'll need to to a similar set of operations on the Gemini Tele to actually assemble it. i won't be able to finish it until i can afford the pickups and controls, but whenever i get a neck and body assembled it makes me feel like something's happening.

after hanging out with the Lido body for awhile i'm a bit less bugged about the odd tint. it reminds me a bit of the Duo Sonic, which has a relic-ed Sonic Blue finish that's pretty greenish. it looks more blue next to the vintage-tint neck, which unfortunately needs a nice sanding and filling because the laurel fretboard is less than optimal in its current condition. but that's down the road. for now i like having things moving along. i think the Squier pickguard will make it look even more blue.

really looking forward to having two guitars that work around my problems with Telecasters because i love the look and feel, but i'm just not twangy. also looking forward to shimming the Hopf neck. Amazon says the shims will be here tomorrow, but i'll believe that when i see it.

[dubkitty]

as i continued taking apart the Squier Esquire, i discovered much to my surprise that unlike literally every other Esquire body i’ve ever seen it’s not routed for a neck pickup. it shouldn’t be a huge issue because the Dremel is great at removing wood, but it’ll be more effort than i really want to expend. on the other hand, the Mad Cat-style pickguard looks even better than i imagined it would. i was afraid it’d be too transparent, but it’s not at all. i think this will come out as nice as i envisioned it. i'll have to redrill the bridge bolt holes, though, because the Kluson bridge has different hole spacing.

[dubkitty]

i'll also need to open up the Lido body's bridge pickup rout a bit because it's just enough too small that the pickup rubs against the sides of the rout.

[dubkitty]

i fit the parts together on the Lido body and it looks like everything should line up. it's off in the photo because the pickup pushes the bridge plate out of position due to the rout size issue mentioned above, and the pickguard contour isn't quite right for the body which is most likely an issue with the body shape. but i can probably live with that. you can also see just how ratty the fingerboard is...the laurel board on my CV Mustang Bass is worlds better. but caveats aside, it sure does look like a fucking Esquire. once i get a jack plate i could wire this puppy up. i'm pretty sure the only other thing i need is strap buttons and felts.

[dubkitty]

working on the Teles is weird...in order for some parts to be placed properly they require that others be present, e.g. to install the pickguard you need the neck to be on to be sure it lines up and you need the pickguard to help assure that the bridge is going on straight. you also need to remove the saddles to access the bridge mounting screws. i'll have to file the Mad Cat guard a bit because it's longer than the body rout, while the Squier guard is a bit wider than the pocket and should probably have vertical shims on either side. all the drilling is really nervewracking because it's among the more destructive operations i need to do. theoretically fill-'n'-drill is usually an option, but i'm still not comfortable with it.

i'm going to try a new thing to hopefully get the holes straighter, that being using a small bit in the Dremel to do starter holes. it's much lighter and easier to hold than the electric drill, so it should be commensurately easier to align.

BTW the string ferrules literally fell out of the back of the Squier body when i took the strings off, so i was able to check and regular Fender-diameter ferrules will NOT fit the Lido body without reaming and ain't nobody got time for that. so it's off to GFS for that. the rest of the parts--jack plate and strap button felts--are supposed to be here Friday. meanwhile the Hopf shims are predicted to be here tomorrow.

[dubkitty]

the Tele process is going to require taking things apart and putting them back together more than i’d like. to do the Lido Esquire i’ll have to take the saddles and pickup out of the bridge, place it and drill the holes, reassemble to check, enlarge the pickup rout, re-check, and finally take the neck back off so i can sand the fingerboard. the Gemini Tele will go similarly with the added tasks of filling/redrilling at least some of the bridge mounting holes and trimming the pickguard where it impinges on the neck pocket. at least the mahogany neck is good to go assuming i don’t want to finish it more than the sealer coat it came with. but it’s a lot of onsy-offsy compared to the other Fender-oid guitars i’ve put together. i’m off to Philadelphia to see the Beta Band tonight, so nothing will happen at least until Friday evening. i’m surprisingly antsy to get the Esquire done. parenthetically, the shims for the Hopf have arrived in Virginia and should in fact be delivered today or tomorrow.

[dubkitty]

i found a 250kΩ linear D-shaft potentiometer for the Galaxiemaster on, of all places, a site dedicated to vintage Ampeg amp parts. 250 is the value of a stock Höfner Galaxie volume pot. IIRC the 8-way rotary switch is also D-shaft, which means that the RCA knobs should work with everything. i need to investigate cutting down the shaft on the knobs because they’re designed for recessed pots and the outside edge winds up about 3.5 mm from the pickguard. less than optimal! but that’s one more small GM thing sorted.

i got out the Hopf and put in all three shims (1°, 0.5°, 0.25°) and it worked reasonably well, but i still tried all the different combinations. finally settled on a slight variation on the original…since the pocket is quite a bit longer than the Fender-format shims, how far forward/back they are makes a definite difference. the full-pocket shims helped the resonance even more, the action is acceptable, and i have a little wiggle room for bridge adjustment. i’m very glad to get some regular parts to replace the mini-lumberyard stacks of shims so it’s more like a normal guitar and less like a precarious set of kludges.

tomorrow i’ll start drilling holes to mount the Squier parts on the Lido body. still waiting for the parts that will let me finish it, which should have arrived today but didn’t get sent out for delivery.

[dubkitty]

parenthetically, i think the stuff i’ve been doing with the Hopf is a succinct rebuttal to the people who insist that the only thing that matters for tone is the pickups. the difference between how it sounded before and after i took the shims from under the bridge would shut anybody up if they were actually interested in how guitars actually work.

[dubkitty]

ordered more small parts: the 8-way rotary switch for the Galaxiemaster which does indeed have a D shaft, and the ferrules for the Lido body. combined with the other small
parts i have coming this should cover all the pots and switches for the GM, and the ferrules are the only remaining bits i need for the Lido Esquire.

i’ll probably do at least some of the drilling on the Lido body today. once that’s done it’ll need to be wired up. i think i actually dread drilling more than wiring at this point because it’s the most destructive thing i normally have to do. but it has to be done, so i guess i’ll go for it. one nice thing about drilling is that my fingers don’t get burned.

considering changes to the Galaxiemaster control layout…i don’t particularly want to run the amount of internal wiring needed to put the volume control on the upper bout, and on consideration it makes more sense to have everything down in the typical lower-bout position. i could either squeeze stuff into the normal Jazzmaster pickguard shape or redraw that part of the guard and rout to suit. some Höfners had this design, as seen below. a nice thing about this would be additional visual differentiation from a regular Jazzmaster.

IMG_7617.jpeg (189.91 KiB) Viewed 112 times

[dubkitty]

and yes, every time i type “Lido” my brain immediately starts playing this: