H-P90-S has it been done?

[McCreed]

Well would you look at that! Went and checked all my guitars and, wouldn't you know it I got one on every guitar. Danged if I know how to use it, but its there.

LOL! You wouldn't think so, but using it properly does take practise! I do use mine for volume swells and sometimes dynamics, but I'm guilty of mostly being a "10" guy.

I think part of it laziness. I've tried training myself to set up my amp volume & tone with the guitar volume on 8 so I could boost just by turning it up to 10, but I seem to have trouble getting back to the right level on the fly. It's too easy to click a boost pedal on & off and have a consistent level difference every time. Hence my laziness...

[Andy123]

You could just ask him "why not poly?". You're the customer, you have the right to understand his process IMO.

He did explain that he wasn't set up for it and that it's nasty stuff to deal with. I was just wondering if the end result will be worse off for having gone with acrylic instead?

[Simon Barden]

In terms of finish hardness, I feel that polyester is harder than polyurethane which is harder than acrylic which is harder than nitro. Though it's hard to say that definitively, as the only polyester finishes I've had have been thick '70s ones which came off in big limps when chipped.

With any finish, the effect on tone is mainly in the thickness of the finish. Thinner is better, but takes more practice (and more surface preparation) to get right. To me, Nitro ages the best, and generally wears and dents rather than chips like the other finishes do.

Acrylic can normally be cleaned off most equipment with water, so it's a less solvent-intensive process (though a water-based poly will be the same).

[fender3x]

The luthier's insistence on an acrylic finish over poly was obviously a cost and ease-of-use consideration. What are the benefits/concerns with using one over the other?

Also his excitement/relief when I suggested a satin finish - anything I need to know there?

Maybe you could take a look at his previous work? It could be that it's a finish he knows how to to get a reliable result from that he likes.

I am not great at this, and have crazy, mostly humid, weather (Florida), I don't have spray equipment or a booth and I want to minimize VOCs/toxicity. So, I have been using the acrylic poly that Stew Mac recommends (although I don't buy it from them). It's a satin.

This finish is a sattin, but I can get a high gloss finish out of it (a) by using enough of it, and (b) by buffing and polishing. That's nice if you are doing the entire instrument with one clear coat. You can do a high polish on the body and on the headstock, but leave the back of the neck satin.* It sticks well to anything I put it over as long as the substrate is very well cured. It requires a bit more sanding an polishing than oil finishes to get it really flat, but my result has been reliable so far.



*I find that the neck feels faster with a satin finish, and a little sticky with a gloss finish. I have a bass where the neck has gloss finish. I can scuff it with some gray scotchbrite, or 800 grit sandpaper to get it to a satin finish. But after a few weeks of playing it goes back to being glossy. By contrast the neck stays saitn when finished with a satin finish, and has, so far, stayed glossy where I buffed it out.

[Andy123]

Here's an odd one:

The luthier direct-mounted the pick ups onto the guitar which I didn't much like the look of. I've gotten hold of some pick up surrounds and attempted to install them. Now the pole pieces of my middle pick up no longer line up with the strings. Its as though the pick up has shifted upwards towards the bass strings.

What I don't understand is that the space inside the pick up cavity hasn't changed at all, so it makes no sense that the pick up position has changed. I haven't even screwed the surrounds to the guitar yet. I've just put the pick up/springs inside the surround.

Can anyone with more experience point me in the right direction here?

[Simon Barden]

Two possible causes, or a combination of both.

Unlike direct mounting, hanging pickups off a ring allows a bit of movement to occur in their position. The springs themselves don't compress evenly but bunch up and twist, and this alone can push the pickup around in the cavity.

You also have the output lead, which is almost always folded under the pickup and this can provide a force that will push the pickup around. If you've got the cavity pickup lead exit hole drilled high up in the cavity, then the lead can also push on the pickup to stop it hanging level.

I've swapped over to using latex tubing rather than springs for my last few builds as this seems to compress a lot more evenly and holds the pickup far more centrally within the ring and with less vibration than with springs. I've also had to use a Dremel to enlarge the entrance to the pickup lead holes so they can enter lower down in the cavity and bot hit the pickup baseplate.

Obviously you can get a mixture of spring and lead interaction moving the pickup position, which you won't get if you can firmly direct mount the pickup.

You can try manually turning the pickup springs to see if you can get a better position for the pickup within the ring, and check how the output lead is interacting with the baseplate. But if you then adjust the pickup height, the springs could turn as you adjust them.

The three pickup height screw method is far superior to the normal two screw method, but so few pickup companies cater for that, and getting suitable pickup rings to match is also very hard. You can normally drill and tap your own two pickup screw mounting holes on one of the mounting tabs (if they are wide enough), but finding suitable rings to match is the main drawback to this.

[wazkelly]

Would have been interested to see them top mounted which is how I would have done it.
Not sure if there are any sonic differences but one of the reasons a Strat sounds the way it does is because of the floating pickups. Tend to think screwed into the timber would have a fuller sound.

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