Yes, love the ash grain as opposed to solid colour finish. Too nice to hide
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Yes, love the ash grain as opposed to solid colour finish. Too nice to hide
Thats an effing cool effect
That's a stunning effect. Its unique and it's highlighting the natural features of the wood. Great job Moo and good on you for seeing the potential in it, rather than just slapping some more paint on. Really looking forward to seeing how this finishes up!
Great effect Moo. Part of the joy of building is the way things evolve organically. You start off with one idea and it grows into something even better.
Look out gentlemen, looks like this one's well and truly bitten by the bug.
I like the flight of birds, maybe play around with the relative sizes of them? you also mirror them on the lower bout beneath the control cover, or on the upper front quarter, diving down the curve of the scratch plate.
At the end of it, go with what you feel suits you. This axe is your vision and if you do things that you aren't 100% okay with then you'll most likely wish you'd done the other thing.
Haha unfortunately not something I can afford to do very often on a high-school student budget *sigh* :PQuote:
Originally Posted by ILRGuitars
Decided to bite the bullet and buy some water slide decal paper. Bought 3 sheets of laser paper from Ebay. Hopefully all is okay and they work... Here's the link for future reference:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/A4-Waters...W1gjCPinpgXx3g
The plan for the design is something like this. Decided to go for something a bit outside the usual 'design your own brand' kind of idea just for fun :)
Attachment 16266
I like how the birds follow the shape of the headstock but a bit concerned that part of the design will under the strings when they (eventually) go on... Any advice?
Looking at it you are probably going to lose, some of the upper portion under the e, G, B strings, but that will happen with either design. you can try and shift the whole line down a touch but you will run close to the edge of the head with the outstretched wings of the 3rd bird in line (l to r). That may make decal application a fun endeavour. If you've the software to adjust the individual bird images you could play around with that a little, but I'm not sure that it will bring you a net better result for the amount of fiddling you'll need to do.
If nothing else I'd shift the design down a touch and slightly away from the nut. This should bring bird 6 further into relief in the bulb end of the headstock.
Thanks FW :)
I had a go and was able to separate the birds into different images (just using Word haha) and had a bit of a fiddle. This may be better?
Attachment 16267
If there's any more feedback it's easy to move the birds now, so fire away :)
Have figured out how to re-group the pictures as well, so I can re-size etc. when it comes to printing :)
I reckon that's an improvement. You may still lose a bit from the uppermost birds, but it highlights the point you made in one of your earlier posts about following the contour of the headstock your two right hand birds will be clear and unobscured as will most of the line.
Again, this should be down to what you are happy with. As far as collating them all again, I've not had much luck with doing that sort of thing outside of using something like Adobe Illustrator or GIMP or such. In word? Really don't know. Depending on what version of windows you run you should be able to save it as a PDF file type for printing, but remember to save a working copy in word first!
The PDF you should then be able to print on your laser printer. You may need some scale adjustments etc required and some plain page test prints first.
Geez...I WISH I had started in high school. If you keep this up, you will have a great life ahead of you mate
You've only got the thin top strings covering the birds, so they'll all be pretty visible. Just be careful where you position the string tree(s) so they don't clash and you'll be fine.
Started putting clear coats on yesterday. 2 done on the neck (have to wait for decal paper to arrive now before any more go on) and 1 on the body so far. All going relatively smoothly.
To avoid having to scrape clear coat off the frets at the end, I taped them... All of them.... And the nut slot too...
Haha one of the more painstaking tasks of the build so far (right up there with sanding) but hopefully will be worth it in the end. Attachment 16323
Attachment 16324
Attachment 16325
Also, my new pickguard arrived in the mail the other day. I ended up buying from Ebay on Adam's recommendation (PBG was out of stock for some time). Seems to be pretty good quality so I'm happy. Quick shipping too :)
Attachment 16327
All in all, build is progressing :D Once clear coats and decal are done, it's on to the scary bit: the fret level
nice work Moo you are motoring along ! When the clear coats have cured I would put the neck pup in the pickguard and do a mock build with the bridge and control plate to make sure they all align.
Must have been a fiddly job taping 21 frets !
Blue frets... that's some hardcore masking!
What a way to spend your school holidays.....shows a lot of patience, dedication and commitment, all good character traits.
Thanks wokka, I'll make sure I do that. And haha yes very fiddly. Lots of work with a razor blade.Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
Decal paper arrived today so was able to get them done tonight. Happy with the result. Decided to put my 'brand' on the back too just for fun.
Attachment 16378
Attachment 16379
Looks a bit crooked in the photo but I swear they're straight in person haha :)
Nice work Moo, they look great!
They are very cool decals Moo
Thanks guys! :)
Was looking around on Facebook and I found someone giving away a few tele parts, one of which is a bone nut. However, it has a radius on the bottom, rather than being flat. Will this fit or would I have to buy a flat-bottomed one?
Nice decals Moo
Sent from Android Nougat
cool headstock logo's Moo, love the anchor theme being a Freo Dockers fan ! Birds on the front look great !
Get a flat-bottomed one. By the time you flatten a curved one, you have lost too much height, and trying to fit a curved one when it should be flat is a Bad Thing. You need a good contact between the bottom of the nut and the neck.
Thanks Simon. Sounds like good advice :) I wasn't really planning on getting a bone anyway, it was just that this one came up free. But the guy selling actually originally bought it for a PBG kit and said it wouldn't fit, so I'll pass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Moo if you can get your hands on a flat bottomed bone nut I can tell you its worth it. The improvements in tone are well worth the investment.
Hmm, interesting. I assumed that given I am starting off with just the cheap stock pickups that the nut wouldn't be worth it unless I'm going to invest in better pups?Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy40
Initial plan was to start out with stock stuff and see how it plays and then make upgrades if I think it's worth it.
The plastic nut is soft and dull sounding and despite being cheap the kit pups aren't all that bad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moo
I have recorded with my STA with a replacement bone nut and standard pups was pleasantly surprised, it now has Seymour Duncan stacked HBs and sounds quite different
Hi Moo, the standard nut is flat bottomed not radiused.
Stock plastic ones can be a bit dull but no different to a lot of budget priced finished guitars. Besides most of the bolt-on known brand names for this shape come standard with plastic nuts. The sound difference is most obvious on open string notes and eventually once you decide to spend the extra coin on a bone nut it is not too hard to swap out the plastic one on a Tele neck.
Here in the UK, a generic bone nut for Fender or Gibson style guitars are almost as cheap as replacement plastic ones on eBay.
Yeah Simon, they are but not all come in the right size which can vary between 41mm, 42mm or 43mm wide and the wider they are the string spacings are also wider too. Then you have the height differences where some have been cut very shallow and almost require a spacer or shim under them to stop fret buzzing from the get go whereas others are too high and you then require the right tools to cut string slots deeper or spend half a day sanding some thickness off the base.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
The better ones state the dimensions (at least width and thickness), so as long as you have a good ruler or calipers then its fairly easy to order the right one. I've never found one (yet) that came with the fret slots cut too deep, and I do have the right tools to cut the slots (a painful purchase but I've never looked back).
Looking at my latest Tele build the stock plastic nut appears to be seated quite deep in the fret board and the spare bone nut I have may be too shallow? You only find out once you have extracted the original plastic one exactly what you are dealing with hence why I bought a few and ended up with a brass nut on the last Tele. Geez, filing & sanding the base down on that sucker took a lot of work.
Went ahead and bought myself a bone nut from PBG. Bit of a treat haha. Hopefully that will mean it fits well :)
Wise choice Moo.
Okay so school has meant I have had to put the build on hold for quite a while now (it is sitting sadly in the box) but I'm considering some hardware upgrades so I don't have to install anything twice (after deciding to upgrade later). Realistically, on a budget what are the most important things to upgrade, and what are people's recommendations?
I was stupid enough to not take advantage of the discounted machine head upgrade when I bought my kit so any decent-brand upgrade is now crazy expensive.
My thoughts are probably pickups and tuners... Thoughts? And what specific products/sources do you recommend?
Thanks in advance :) Nice to be posting again.
Hi Moo, I would recommend a Tonerider Hot Classics or Vintage pickup set ($99 from the PBG shop). Tuners I'd get Grovers (start at $22/set or $45 locking tuners at PBG shop).
If the budget allows a bone nut is a definite and recommend a bridge upgrade, the Babicz are very good but pricey. Have a look on Realparts website and have a look at something like a Wilkinson bridge are good value for money
EDIT another budget option is a 6 saddle bridge but note it's a string through so you will have to drill through the body and get 6 string ferules
http://www.realparts.com.au/bridges-...ge-chrome.html
Cheers Wokka. I forgot to say, I have already bought a bone nut :)Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
I have heard good things about toneriders, so hopefully I can find the money to fork out.
But where on earth can you find grovers for $22?! The cheapest I can find is around $60... And unfortunately all tuners in the PBG shop have to be bought at the same time as a kit (they have some deal which makes them cheaper)...
Hey Moo, no worries. The tuners are under hardware upgrades-> machine heads
https://www.pitbullguitars.com/machine-heads/
look for the Grovers, assume you want chrome hardware ?
Note the cheapest ones ($20.75) mini rotomatics you choose 3 a side, 6 inline or 6 inline reverse
the Toneriders are cheaper to buy the set of 2 pups compared to individual pups
Unfortunately when you read the description for these it says they are only available when you purchase a kit, and they switch out the original tuners for these. This is why I'm kicking myself for not upgrading them initially. :( I might chuck Adam an email and see if there's any way I could get around this...Quote:
Originally Posted by wokkaboy
ah ok sorry Moo I didn't read that part. Send Adam an email, I'm sure if you post him back the stock tuners he will sell you the Grovers at the cost shown