Looking nice. I like how this is turning out.
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Looking nice. I like how this is turning out.
Sometimes when you're on the net watching videos you get distracted, other times that thought enters your head after you follow a link...
Do I really need one of these to go with this build ???
https://store.steelpantherrocks.com/...y-melter-pedal
I think it sounds quite good, and would probably suit this axe build passing through it into a cranked JVM ... (Some substantial convincing to part with some 'hard earned' may be required...)
Sundays are great for spending time on fun things...
Sorted the wiring... Standard 5 way switching for a HSH, plus on the volume pot there is SC/HB switching for both HB, and on the tone pot a phase reversal switch for the middle PU.... By my calculations there is 13 PU combinations.... Took quite a bit of additional figuring out to get noise cancelling on all the combinations that used the SC, but I got there...
Loading the Floyd bridge with the kit strings wasn't the drama that I was expecting... pretty much like any floating bridge with a few extra precautions. The biggest problem is the neck has a slight natural back bow, that causes a few notes around the 5th fret to have the tiniest of buzz's... mind you the action at the moment is barely 1.5mm.
Due the back bow I've decided to leave the build under tension for a few days with the truss rod mostly relaxed. Hopefully the string tension will pull the neck into a better place as it settles. Intonation and a full setup (and possibly another round of work on the frets) to follow a few days after that ...
Just for giggles I plugged it into my AC18W amp build.... Yep, all the electronics work... and Damn, those IBZ Dimarzio's HB are hot !!!
Included some natural light photos for your enjoyment.... ;-)
Looks like a classic 80's shredder.
Gee that felt like a quick build - its come up a treat.
I love this thing! Great job
Nice job Marcel
Sometimes things happen.... and other days things happen...
The neck looked to be in a better place so I thought maybe now is the time to get this Dragon breathing some sonic fire...
Loosened the strings and springs to remove the bridge, and with clear access to the fret board spent a considerable amount of time trimming the truss rod and giving the frets one final level/crown and plenty of polish. Yep, all was sweet and the frets 'Golden'...
Re-fit the bridge, tighten the strings and springs.... awesome... all in tune at 1.75mm action but intonation still to go... Oh, it's not that far out, I wonder what it really sounds like.? And how well does it 'dive bomb'??
Ping, Ping, PING !!! ....Whammy bars can be a near lethal thing... at least for a high E at the nut. And the B and the G were not interested in remaining connected to the bridge either...
Buggar.! Late Saturday arvo and no place open to get replacement strings and I don't want to break up yet another new set... Looks like all of Sunday will be a beer garden day...
Doh!! I've been going through high E strings lately.
I'm considering just getting a set of high E's and not have to buy a whole set each time.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/172586168151?ul_noapp=true
cheers, Mark.
Had a quick look in FleaBay...
$11 for Qty 5 x 0.010 incl free postage .... tossing up if to get a few at different gauges...
As I have 2 guitars missing high E and B and 2nd G strings (on the 12 string build) I went and did the Fleabay thing and ordered bulk packs of 0.0085, 0.010 and 0.013 sized strings. No more breaking up sets...
And in a moment of idleness waiting for the replacement high E to show up to my nil neighbour acreage I plugged this build bare-foot into my Blues Junior IV..... Eq flat, Fat switch on, gain @ 11, Vol @ 7...
Oh my !
Ohhh my !
Ohhhhh my !!!
Yeah, I know... A BJ IV is not a metal shred amp... but the IBZ PU's certainly "sinks the boot in" into the BJ's front end... So yeah, Happy days... And I still haven't intonated this beast...
A Saturday morning with the Mother-in-law means I need to work on a build to unwind....
My replacement strings arrived and it was none too soon... After loosing the high E the other day the B string decided it no longer wanted to be part of this build, so it too was replaced.
Intonating was fun, however previous experience on other guitars made the estimate of the adjustments much easier to grapple with. To intonate one string required a check of the intonation, then completely loosen the string, adjust the saddle using the Allen key that locks it in place, the re-tension and check the intonation again... Repeat until correct, then move on to the next sting... An arduous process if you're hopeless at guessing where you need to move the saddle to.
Had a play for a couple of hours just to be sure... A NUX 'High gain' pedal with a delay and a reverb pedal into the AC18W tube amp build and Celestion loaded 2x12 cab soothed out the dramas from the morning...
Took some more photos and entered into GOTM...
not to shabby their Marcel, no 8 your as addicted as i am 😉
8th PBG build.... 15th guitar build...
All I need now is to win Lotto and I'll be set ....lol
sheesh Marcel, you are level with me, I feel so much better about it all with you and Phroz around :p
Lol Dedman... Its not like it's a race or anything....
Yeah, some builds are IMHO better than others, yet with every build I have in my mind the perfection of it and in my hands the reality... Visual vs sonic, each build runs at its own pace. I have one early strat build (in Emerald Green) that truly looks some crap that a primary school kid could have done better yet when I play it I just want to crank the amp and rock it,... This IB-1Q is for me up there in the list with the best looking/playing guitars I have built & own...
Wow Marcel Job well done
Your way in front of me!
I recently watched a video on YT that was a tour of the Marshall factory in the UK. In the video there was comments on how long they took to assemble an amp like a JVM or a JTM, and for the most part where automation was included there is no way anyone could be faster, but on the hand wired stuff I had repeated thoughts of "really, that long?"...
I look back on my "builds", the things I build and rebuild and repair (and there is more than just guitars) ... some take forever .... then in a day they are suddenly finished.... other 'builds' just sit there in the Axe rack, stalled, gathering dust while waiting for inspiration, that moment when all it should be and guided by my hands the parts simply land in the correct place so the it can arrive at what I consider 'completion'.... Okay, I romanticized a little...
As a hobby there is nil 'in front', just the day 'It's ready'....
And now, the truth comes out...
Its been 5 months since I last picked up and played this build. It has sat on a stand in my shed beside most of my other builds. Not a bad location by any stretch as it's a big shed and the conditions inside are no worse than any non air conditioned room in any house in this area. And this afternoon, on a spur of the moment thing I grabbed this build and brought it into my air conditioned 'main play area' in the house to see how it compared to my PRS and Gibson and Fender.
Well, it all fell apart didn't it. Strings had stretched so was all out of tune, and a intonation check indicated that was out too... better fix that !!...
Yes. I gave it time to acclimatise. Well over 4 hours before I started adjusting in the 25C air conditioning. But despite getting it close it's still way too far out to sound right, for that matter it sounds rather horrid. Unplayable horrid.
Let me explain...
Strings tuned to pitch, and 12th fret is within 1 cent. Play twos note from any barred E or A and it's passable, play 3 notes and you can hear something is wrong. Check any individual fretted note and it's within 1 or 2 cents. Finger any chord and pick individual strings sounds pretty damn near right, but strumming the entire chord just sounds terribly wrong. Any chord, D, A, E, G or C, or any barr chord, clean, crunch od OD'd, they all sound wrong and don't "Sing" together.. The intonation as per my Polytune is better overall than on my LP, yet the LP sings like the Tabernacle Choir compared to this build of untrained primary school kids.
The neck doesn't look warped and there is nil fret buzz, and the action is still fine... though I'm having suspicions over the nut which I fear may have moved/tilted as everything else settled. It's either that or the Floyd bridge... Hmmm... Maybe it's the frets... hmmmm ... Buggar !!
Hey Marcel, I had experienced similar issues with the FR on my SV-1. No amount of fiddling with the Floyd or nut adjustment helped, until I bought a string bar and fitted it across the middle of the TRC. It pulled the strings down across the nut and all of a sudden the tuning stability issues and dud notes went away. Not saying it will be a guarenteed fix but it might help?
Hi Marcel, quick question. .. does the locking tab on the two high strings actually lock them in place on your IB? No matter which way I orient the tabs, the high e still slips. I'm thinking of simply hammering that tab flat so to make it clamp the string from above.
I've had a bucket load of issues with getting this build right, and it's still not right for my tastes.
As for the locking tabs, I did have problems early on with the B and E however they seem to have self corrected over time. Either that or I have finally tightened them enough to do their job. I know initially the screw seemed to bottom out on the neck wood just as the plate made contact with the strings thus giving a false impression of the tension. That is no longer the case for me.
Maybe try taking the plate off and see how far the screw goes in. If it doesn't go in far enough then a light hit with a tiny drill or a scrape with a pointy knife or a spike might clear enough room for that tab screw to go all the way home.
Hi Marcel... Yeah, I have already taken the plate off the bottom of the nut. Had to do so to get the slot Heights down. Then it was too low. I ended up shimming it with a trimmed down piece of neck shim.
I've noticed I tend to push the bottom E off the fret board if I'm not careful. I can see the nut is about 0.5 mm off center. So there's something for me to look into at it's next teardown.
I like the general feel of this guitar but I'm still coming to grips with the tuning. I seem to spend heaps of time tweaking the tune instead of playing. The mossie and the Ricky just stay in tune, but this one... Not quite yet...
So glad I replaced the jack. The new one works great!
Sent from my D6653 using Tapatalk
Yes, on mine the "nut" needs a lot of work, however I'm reluctant to use my Stewmac nut files to do the job that I know will fix most of my tuning/intonation issues.
Stability isn't an obvious problem on mine. A dischordant tone when played is. I can tune and intonate till the cows come home but when I play a chord of more than 3 notes it sounds like sick dogs barking. Barr chord or finger chord and anywhere on the neck it just sounds wrong to my ears. It looks great, feels great and correct in the hand, but plug the buggar in and you had better be ready to be acoustically assaulted. Well, at least that's how I feel...
Maybe it's the IBX pickups I used, maybe it's the axe itself.... I'm simply not happy with its sound/tone. For me it has sadly become one of those great looking builds that gets hung from the ceiling on fishing line in the pool room....
I look at it as sometimes this happens. You get a dud. A build that just doesn't work for you at that time. Maybe on a day in the future the elements will come together.and it will sing like a bird and not burn my ears like a Dragon...
On another note (no pun intended)...
I swapped out the two HB's that came with the kit for a pair of ToneRider Generators.
but I kept the kit supplied SC in the middle.
I'm finding switch position 2-3-4 give very low output.
Position 1 and 5 are fine !
Would this be due to the SC being a very low impedance ? (SHould I be looking for one with a higher winding or resistance rating ?)
I need to go back a few steps n this build anyway, so in a good place to pull it apart atmo ...
PS... I suspect the SC has a very low dc resistance compared to the 7+K ohm Toneriders ...
Lower than the HB's by itself (pos 3)
and would equate to an even lower value when paralleled with the HB's (Pos 2 and 4)
Yes, it is an issue. The impedance of the three PU's should be similar for consistent volume across all three PU's . At least within 25% or so. Any differences after that can essentially be balanced out by height adjustments.
There is the phasing issue, where the SC is opposite phase to the HB's. That caught me when I first wired it up. Also if you are splitting the HB's you will need to be aware of the magnet polarities if combining one coil from the HB with the SC so as to continue a virtual HB operation in positions 2 and 4.
On mine the IBZ DiMarzios clock in at above 8k. Not gunna find a SC with that impedance... so I just have to adjust PU heights and put up with the volume difference.... Then again having a low output option into a OD amp does offer more tonal ranges.