A character from H.P. Lovecraft,Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Attachment 19975
Also famed by the Metallica instrumental from Ride The Lightning, https://youtu.be/sWGOEWdV13M
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A character from H.P. Lovecraft,Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Attachment 19975
Also famed by the Metallica instrumental from Ride The Lightning, https://youtu.be/sWGOEWdV13M
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fhtagn
And this should help with the translation.
Thanks Frankie, that made a bit more sense.
Amazing how this style of guitar is mostly stereotyped with Metal genre. Mind you, could you imagine the stares someone would get if they rocked up with one at the Tamworth Country Music Festival?
I guess that's the EX vibe really, though but I reckon they'd lend themselves to Blues and country quite well. The teles and JMs pop up more than you'd expect in Metal.
I loved to see their faces ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Don't write the idea off! Keith Urban used one on his latest tour!Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
But Mr Urban has always been a rebel deep down.....
They're stereotyped with metal? Well, I guess thats true, though I often think of ZZ Top and bad beer logos. :)
And long beards too. Can't forget the fur or lambswool covered look ZZ Top had on theirs about the time they launched 'Legs'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rev
Ah the Eliminator album, my first ever album purchase. There's a memory lane trip.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Watched the 'Legs' clip last night and forgot how racy it was for that era.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankenWashie
Haven't seen or heard from Simon on his on build thread and hope he is OK? Not like him to drop off the planet for long periods of time?
He's away on holiday's at the moment. I think he mentioned 8-10 days or so.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
He won't be far away.
Well, one step forward, one step back with this guitar.
Decided to go the selector switch on the lower horn route, so needed a pickguard to cover up the switch cavity and cable routs. Decided on a mirrored one to go with the white finish I'd decided upon, so ordered one from WD Music around 40 days ago. These are custom order from the US, so it only arrived today.
Checked it against the body and it looked fine. But there was a bit of silver foil taped across the selector switch hole which needed removing. So I tried cutting the foil out, but it creased up round the edges and when I went to pull it away, it pulled all the mirror backing off with it.
I was not impressed as it cost £40/Aus$64.
Underneath:
Attachment 21905
Top (still with the protective film on the fromt)
Attachment 21906
But after a couple of emails, they are sending me a new one in the post (hole in the foil pre-cut by them) as they ordered some spares along with mine (maybe this happens a lot) so a new should arrive in a couple of days, and I don't need to send the old one back. So, good customer service, but it's going to happen again to other people unless they put warnings on this type of plate - or better, just pre-cut the hole out.
But now I can at least mark out the hole, and rout out a switch cavity and a cable channel.
That's a bit of a disappointment. I've always wondered about how fragile the mirror finish on those are. Does this seem like it was just a weird situation, or will the mirror pickguards be extra susceptible to impacts on the edges?
I'd imagine that there's a thin layer of aluminium(or aluminum depending on your location) 'sputtered' on to the clear plastic, so that it's only a few atoms thick, and then the back is plastic coated to stop the aluminium from oxidising and going dull over time. The plastic seems to protect it round the edge, just that the plastic backing sticks to the aluminium better than the aluminium sticks to the clear plastic, so it's all too easy to peel it off if you've got some tape stuck to it.
There's also a big oval WD custom pickguards sticker stuck on the back which I'd much prefer if it wasn't there as I'm going to put some shielding tape on the new one, and it would be a lot better if the back was simply flat.
Had a strat acrylic mirror scratch plate a while back and they do deteriorate over time. On my 1980's Explorer I actually had a glazier cut me a glass mirror in the triangular shape only and thankfully they also pre-drilled the holes. Looked awesome but after several hot sweaty gigs the edges went feral from salt corrosion through soaking up sweat. Brushed or polished aluminium is far more durable if intending to play frequently or do live gigging.
Looks interesting. was looking up sci fi stencil graffiti. could reverse this one
Attachment 24246
It's still very much in an unfinished state, so still thinking about some of the finish options, but Yoda is certainly worth thinking about.
Just wondering if the headstocks are exactly the same shape and length as the Gibson headstocks.
No, unfortunately they are not the same shape. Original is more pointy and the kits are more blunt and rounded off.Quote:
Originally Posted by HECTOR
Check out builds 1 & 2 in my signature to see what i mean. The EX5 is closer to original pointy headstock.
Cheers, Waz
Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
I finally got round to routing out a cavity and channel for the pickup switch, and also filling in the old selector switch hole and drilling it out for another pot. It's not the cleanest routing as a lot of it was done by hand without any guides but also my new palm router wouldn't hold the router bit firmly and it kept coming loose, which didn't help as channels got deeper and shallower as I moved along them.
Attachment 26586
I've now decided to keep this one simple as I don't seem to have much luck with anything complicated at the moment, so it's going to be a nice simple white guitar with a black headstock and no flashy graphics.
I've been looking forward to seeing an update on this one! The rout looks just fine
White is a great colour for explorers, how do you plan to do the application? Also, will you be doing an inlay in the headstock?
Sprayed nitro finish. I've already got all the lacquer. And yes, a bit of my 'inlay' on the headstock for a logo.
It's nice to see this project back in business Simon. I always get Explorer envy when I see everyone's builds.
Thinking about an Explorer for my next build (promised myself I'll get the two currently on the bench done first, though). No way would I have the confidence to do that mod. :)
This is the only Pit Bull guitar I've progressed with this summer. Unfortunately a long series of mishaps with finish damage slowed me right up. I kept having to stop and let things dry hard enough before fixing stuff and respraying. And now when it was pretty close to just needing some clear coats, the weather changed and it's all going to be seven months time before I'm likely to restart.
I decided to pick the EX-1 to continue work on as it was all pretty straightforward as I'd decided on all-white with no special artwork.
I glued the neck on and then got to work on the area around the neck joint to remove sharp corners and smooth the rear of the bottom cutaway to make for easier upper fret access.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/FATlK0.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/pU3GrZ.jpg
I then went a bit further in the rounding of that area than the photos show. This was followed by applying some filler to get the body/neck join nice and smooth and then the ubiquitous sanding. It's not a huge amount that I've taken off, but it's amazing how much a bit of extra rounding can aid access and greatly improve the feel.
The body had picked up quite a few very minor dings since I'd received it, so I decided to first spray it with a white primer/filler. I was using my pop-up toilet tent spray booth, which could do with being that bit larger for spraying complete guitars. It's OK for bodies and necks alone, but a bit too compromised for full guitar spraying. So I think I'll be on the lookout for something a bit bigger for next year.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/ecBacT.jpg
You can see an old mic stand has been pressed into service for hanging up the guitar. Again, I really need something more solid and bespoke, so I'm thinking of making a wooden hanging stand with a swivel hanger over the winter. The bodge repair work with masking tape to keep the arm in place worked wonderfully, but some of the standard fittings sagged a bit, resulting in the wet guitar touching the tent sides, or dropping on the floor. I was not a happy bunny when this happened, and it happened quite a few times, both in this primer stage, and later.
After waiting for the primer to dry for a while, I sanded it flat, removed paint from fretboard and masked up again for the gloss. Again, more annoying handling and stand errors, and more remedial work, I left the body to dry for a few weeks whilst I was on holiday and working on other things. This is with the first gloss coats on:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/RITfPK.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/ymWFvf.jpg
Then it was sanding time again. And that annoying time when you over-sand and break through to the primer in a few places.
So it was more full-body spraying. more annoying self-inflicted dents in the bodywork and some manual paintbrush touching up. Not ideal with nitro, but I wasn't getting the spray-gun out for a few small areas.
I was all ready to add a headstock logo transfer and spray on a few coats of clear lacquer, when I discovered that my previously unopened big tin of clear lacquer wasn't clear at all. but pretty heavily amber tinted. I didn't want a yellowish guitar. So it was new lacquer ordering time, which held things up for a couple of days, by which time the weather had changed. Not rain, but very high winds which made spraying, even within the tent, impossible. And then the rain came. So that's pretty much it on the guitar for this year (being in the UK).
There's a few bits of tidying up I can do to get the last little bits of paint off the fretboard, and then it's waiting for the start of decent warm weather next year to apply the transfer, the gloss lacquer, the rubbing down and polishing and then fitting the hardware.
Finishing is the bane of existence. I have managed to scratch and dent every finish I have attempted so far. I don't know if this will be of help to you, but on my current project I am using MTN 94 rattle cans for color. It looks like you are using spray equipment, and I don't know if they make this for spray guns. But I am guessing there are other paints with similar features. It's an acrylic paint with a LOT of solids. I am in Miami, and in the summer it is hot, humid and can rain at any moment. It went on grainy at times. It splatters a bit. I once got raindrops on it once. But it always sanded out beautifully. The solids filled in small dents. I don't know this for a fact, but I am guessing that a part of why it worked in my wet climate is that it's water based.
As a clear coat, I have been using General Finishes High Performance top coat. Again, water based, and recommended by Stew Mac. I put it on with a brush, virtually no VOCs so I could do it inside. The mfg recommends spraying if you have the equipment. I am still sanding it out, but I have a finished neck, and it just looks great. No discernible yellowing, and finishes pretty hard. It's acrylic, and most reviews suggest it's not going to flatten as well as oil based finishes...but it seems to do well in my wet climate. It may not be idiot proof, but so far it's working for this idiot.
I'd hoped to have finished this by now, as most of the work was done last year. But various knock and sand-throughs meant that I've been doing various bits of touching up by hand. Nothing exciting so no photos of that. I am now almost there.
The fretboard had suffered from paint dust getting in the cracks when I'd been wet sanding, and small amounts of overspray where the masking tape had peeled away slightly. So today I got down to clearing that up with thinners and got back to just wood instead of wood with a dusty white look to it:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/aDfaXS.jpg
But it was rather light in colour, It went darker with Lemon Oil on it, but this board just soaks up the stuff and quickly goes light again very quickly. So out came some mahogany spirit stain and it's now looking a lot more like a rosewood board. I could go darker still, but I'm happy with this:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/sRqgvL.jpg
Just re-doing a couple of spots where I knocked the guitar (The Explorer shape is very awkward to handle and I seem incapable of moving it without hitting something in my path that I failed to move away) and the edge of the fingerboard had become a bit ill-defined, so I've got the masking tape out again and am just tidying up the edges to get back to nice straight lines.
Yesterday was spent sanding and polishing the finish on the EX-1.
Attachment 37867
It took three goes at sanding flat before I was happy and any slight orange peel went, but now it’s all polished up and shiny, so it’s all ready to start fitting the hardware.
After I drill a bridge grounding hole as it’s yet another kit without one (that’s 3 out of 5) and modify the pickup rout cable holes to be lower so the cables don’t get in the way of the pickups (again).
Looking good. The fret board has a real red colour in the picture - nice.
Are you painting the head stock face black or using a laminate like with the SG?
Just white. All very simple. Means I could just print out a black decal. And it also matches the body artwork.
Right thread this time! Lunchtime break status. Not too much left to do before the set-up. Just some wiring to install and a rear control cover to make.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/JycXZd.jpg
Short of fitting the straplock buttons (which I've just run out of so had to order some more), the EX-1 is now all put together. The nut need serious work as the action is currently a mile high, and it all need a jolly good setting up, but I've plugged it in and it works.
But that can wait until tomorrow, because right now, I'm knackered.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/hG2dZs.jpg
Looking very tidy.
This is rad Simon. Nice work.
Great job Simon. I'm not an EX fan, but I certainly appreciate good work!
Also, this build makes me feel better about my last ST taking over 12 months to complete! Thanks!
These things look cool in White and much better than the oh so common Black ones.
I'm thinking that it may look a bit too busy now it's all assembled. I've already changed the knobs from silver-grey to black. Would probably do the body logo in a light grey if I did it again. and a black ebony fretboard would also go better (but not an option).
At least I got to use the Gibson-sized pickup rings that I bought for the GSM-1 as the other ones I had (standard kit size and the typical rings you buy online etc.) pushed the scratchplate too far down against the edge of the guitar, whilst these shorter ones put it in the right position (well, it is a Gibson Explorer-sized scratchplate, so it makes sense).
Also not sure about the silver bell-truss-rod cover. I may have a go at making a black one that's shape's more in keeping with the scratchplate. I know real Explorers run with the bell, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved upon. Plus they are normally black on a black headstock, so less obvious.
My first thought is that a grey body logo would be a bit insipid. The stark black logo against the stark white body is my favourite bit. Its an Explorer, it ain't supposed to be subtle and understated... You could consider dying the fretboard couldn't you, I could see that working as black. An asymmetric triangular truss rod cover in black might work.
I've tried staining it. It's made it darker, but most of it came off. Getting stain off the fret dot markers invariably leads to removing some from the area around them and it then looks patchy. Also I don't want to use anything now that could possibly get taken up by the lacquer. Sort of thing that really needs to be done before the frets get installed.
Anyway, the guitar is set up, the nut's been taken down and polished and the bridge and tailpiece locked in place.
The Iron Gear 'Metal Machine' pickups are pretty much as described; high output, punchy and with a tight bottom-end (= not a huge amount of bass). Not the best sounding pickups in the world when used clean, but I've heard a lot worse. They do lack in the treble department due to the extra winding inductance, but gain in the mids as a result. However, the harmonics created by distortion adds back all the treble you need for a good punchy high-energy rock sound. Certainly not pickups suited to a multitude of purposes, but for their designated job, they work well.
I don't really have much to to compare them against to know whether they could be improved upon or not. The closest I did have in nature was some Ibanez Quantum humbuckers on a guitar I bought for a friend, and they were nasty and scratchy and soon got replaced by the friend, so certainly better than those. Otherwise a Kent Armstrong hot quad rails bridge pickup fitted in an Ibanez RG. That's very powerful, wound to about 24k, but has almost no treble as a result. I may well replace it with one of these Metal Machines.