Thinking of putting a name on the headstock. Here are some size options. Feel free to give an opinion.
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Thinking of putting a name on the headstock. Here are some size options. Feel free to give an opinion.
Medium size
Largest size.
I'd go small or medium. Once you have the tuners, washers, strings etc on it will get a bit crowded. On your largest option some of the descenders will be covered by the tuner washer.
Nice script, much better than 'Brush' which seems to get a good work out.
I like the medium, it'll fill the space nicely without interfering with the tuners.
I agree with Sonic, classy font choice.
Hmm, I guess it would look crowded with the large design. Small or medium it is. I had a waterslide decal made up but I don’t thing the white text will be opaque enough against the black background. I’m thinking of making a stencil to spray paint the name. That means medium is the winning size as I find the small text a bit to difficult to cut out. The black was an oil based stain and I intend to cover in Tru Oil.
Thanks Sonic and Trv, I looked at many fonts before this one jumped out at me. I’ve tried laminating the paper and cutting the text out. My blade work is giving it a jagged rough cut edge. I actually think it looks quite good, perhaps I can patent a new font style while I’m at it.
Can I paint over oil based stain?
Should I use a water based or oil based paint?
Just for the record, the font is call Origins by Laura Worthington www.fontspring.com. I adjusted the text size to suit and photocopied my phone. Unless that is considered steeling, in which case I purchased the use of the font style and went through the proper channels 🤔.
Nope. This isn’t working.
For personal use you have nothing to worry about. If you were trying to use it for some kind of commercial branding then you would need to purchase it.Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkMark
There are a few different options for getting it on there. On my SG I made and aluminium plate truss rod cover and put my logo on that. Or you can go to a signage place and get them to cut vinyl or a mask that you can stick on and spray over. Or you could pain a light coloured strip up the headstock and sit it in there, then clear over the lot.
There have been a couple of guys on here (sorry I can't remember who it was) who were printing outlines of their decals reversed on water slide paper and then colouring in the logo with paint pens. Then you apply the decal upside down and clear over it, the results were pretty good.
I think it was Guvna ...and whats-is-name.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic Mountain
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...5&d=1523526774
cheers, Mark.
They look good. I'd agree re the small or medium for sure.
Thanks everyone,
Painting over the stain on my test wood hasn’t been very successful.
The reverse decal idea worked well but I think my text is too fine and delicate for that approach.
I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’ve come up with an idea of inlaying a separate piece of wood with the text on it...try to hide it in or turn a problem into an advantage by making a subtle feature of it.
Thanks for the feedback, this has had me stalled.
Attachment 26251 engraved work for me to get fine white lettersQuote:
Originally Posted by king casey
Yes! That’s what I’ve got in mind. Is that white paint and black stain?
What tool did you need for the engraving?
Nice work Guvna.
Ps The Blu Heeler was blue from memory and having a closer look...funny that.
I’ve been a spectator for a while waiting for my internet shopping to arrive. I was talking about making my own bridge but when I saw a flat wound compensated bridge it was all too easy to click the ‘buy now’ button. I had a go at engraving the headstock with some mediocre success. I decided on a name change (saving ‘Round Midnight’ just in case I decided to have a second go at guitar kit building).
Tru Oil should arrive soon. I will apply a layer or two to seal in the stain.
Question, when do people drill holes into the guitar body for pickups, strap holders, tail pieces etc? Before or after 40+ coats of Tru Oil?
Normally after. You'll want to wet sand, so best to do that with the minimum of holes in the body, otherwise the water can get into the wood. It then swells up and cracks the finish, as well as creating a bump.
Makes sense, thank you Mr Barden.
That's pretty good engraving. I would need 100 hours of practice before I could approach that. And definitely a cool name. (Mr Green was a cool guitarist). Next you need a ES-3 named after a Kenny Burrell album....
I think you’ve got good taste Fretworn. Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue was the first ‘jazz’ album I brought. I did arrange a ES3 as my first build but the factory messed up the customisation.
I got my cheap and cheerful engraving pen two days ago, I have no doubt you could do it.
A couple more questions.
The new bridge I ordered has a different shaped base to the stock kit. Is there any advantage of one over the other or any different acoustic properties?
Does the p90 pickup sit balanced on the apex of the curved surface with gaps under the screw holes?
No. You'll need to put some sandpaper (I'd suggest P180 grit) on the top of the guitar by the pickup hole, and rub the cover on it until the base has a curve to it that matches the top. Only sand until the base under the raised part of the cover is curved, not the 'wings'. There is a bit of flex in the plastic so the 'wings' should then sit flat on the guitar once screwed down.Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkMark
I haven't any experience with archtop bridges, so don't know if they have different acoustic properties, but again, sanding down to match the curve of the top will give best results. The split bridge base is there partly to accommodate different radius tops without sanding, but it's always better to sand it and have the best contact between the bridge and the top.
Not knowing anything about these, I just assumed from looking at the un-assembled kit photo that the wings went under the face of the guitar. It comes with a hole routed to the rectangular shape of the pick up implying that the pick up would sit in there. If it just got screwed onto the top of the guitar, why route a hole?Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Attachment 26614
No, they sit on the top of the guitar. The pickup baseplate also has metal wings and the cover has shallow indents in the wings that fit over the metal.
Attachment 26615
The hole in the body is to accommodate the main body of the pickup. Dog-ear P90 pickups are not height adjustable and screw directly into the wood of the guitar. The pickups are built to the approximate height required by altering the depth of the legs on the wings, and providing a matching height pickup cover. You can get shims to raise the whole pickup up, or adjust the pole piece height accordingly, but generally most dog-ear P90s are left as factory standard.
The above photo is of a bridge position P90, so the pickup sits a lot higher above the body than the neck one (at least it does on Gibson-style guitars with a significant neck angle). As there is generally less distance between the body and strings at the neck position, neck pickups have shallower covers so more of the pickup extends below the cover and into the body cavity (as the basic pickup height doesn't change).
Hmm, ok. Thanks again Simon, I doubt I would of figured that out left to my own devices.
Andy123, the routed hole is smaller than the black cover which sits on top of the body, and larger than the metal section which obviously pokes through the hole.
Here's the cover of a bridge pickup that I sanded using that method. It now sits nicely on the top of the guitar with no gaps. Carry on sanding until the curve reaches start of the ears, but no further.
Attachment 26616
I'm not convinced that approach will work with this kit Simon. If you pop the pick up into the hole the dog ears are floating about 4mm above the body. I think some kind of spacer will be required.
There's always the option of widening the pickup rout so that the pickup sits inside it and just the ears rest on the edges.
It looks more like a couple of mm on DarkMark's guitar, about the same as I had with my bridge cover. The ears are never going to naturally lie flat on a curved surface, so will have to be pulled down a bit by the fixing screws. I have a slight gap at the ends of the ears if I just sit the cover on the guitar, but can press them down flat easily enough.
You also need to consider the height of the pickup from the strings. A spacer will raise the height, sanding will lower it. I don't know how much clearance you have with the kit, but neck P90s normally sit away from the strings. You don't want the pickup sitting too close to them.
Will get the tape measure out after lunch and get back to you! :)
Of heights and measures...
Some approximate measures from my kit as follows:
The wing tips (as it were) have about a 3mm gap above the surface.
The plastic cover is about 10mm high.
The end of the fretboard will be about 15mm above the surface of the top.
How do these numbers compare with your kit DarkMark?
I wouldn't want the pickup quite that close to the strings (imagine you are fretting high up the neck so the strings will be almost level with the top of the fretboard). Even a narrow shim would add at least 1mm to the height.
You wouldn't be sanding the cover all the way to the ends of the dog-ears. You'd have about a 2mm reduction in the middle out to the 'start' of the dog-ears, with the last mm being reduced by the screw pulling the dog ear flat against the top of the guitar. You may need to just bend the end of each dog-ear down so they are slightly angled and sit flush on the top of the guitar.
Spot on blinddrew. Those measures compare similarly to mine. The only thing I’d remind you is that I had to sand the heal of the neck to get it to sit properly in the neck block. I’m unsure if you had to do this.
Yep, hadn't really appreciated just how thick that cover was, plus you have the pole piece screws sticking out slightly from the top. Doesn't look like I will be requiring a spacer after all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Not really, did a bit of light cleaning up to get a nice interference fit (plenty of wood on wood contact) and then a bit of judicious pressure gave me a nice fit at the bottom of the heel and below the fretboard. Whether that still appears to be the case when I go to stick it all together is another question entirely... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkMark
While we are on the subject...I initially misunderstood blinddrew’s last measurement and measured the distance from a straight edge across the frets over the top of the pickup. 6mm neck side edge and 5mm bridge side edge. Take off 2mm from the bridge side (I think 1mm could be sanded off the neck edge to sit flatter) and we have a length of 7mm plus the extra length associated with bridge height and nut height/fretted string position.
As a side note I had no idea how strong the pickup magnets were until I tried to use my metal rule as a straight edge for the above measurement. Smack! No wonder you don’t want the pickup too close to the strings.
The kit ones probably have ceramic magnets and so are pretty strong.
I'm halfway through the process of swapping out the ceramic magnets in a SD-made P90 from a '93 Hamer and replacing them with much weaker alnico ones from a Gibson P100 pickup I had lying around. Also doing it as I'd already replaced the neck pickup for a much nicer and cleaner sounding Iron Gear alnico P90 pickup, and it's out of phase with the bridge, so it gives me a chance to swap the polarity of the bridge pickup round so it's not really honky in the mid position. The bridge pickup also sounds too muddy when clean (it's as powerful in output as a humbucker) which is now highlighted by the new neck pickup, so a change to a less powerful magnet seemed the right thing to do. As I only just changed the strings when fitting the new pickup, I'm holding off taking the strings off again to change the magnets until they are a bit older and I can justify a new set.
Scratch plate idea.
Nice contrast
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I knew someone would pick me up on that as soon as I posted it.... I will stain it.🙂
I seriously thought you were going to do a natural finish on it and didn't mind that look.
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