Tag: DIY

Nut Case

Better tools than I deserve: The Stew-Mac Essential Nut Making Tool Kit

Not something I’d recommend to everyone, but…

…as part of an ongoing series on mongrel/hybrid Strats, I’ve built a new Strat from parts to house all the cool little tricks and quirks I stumbled upon during the series. (Wait till you hear the “Obsessive/Compulsive Capacitance” tone control!) I’ll be doing a post on the guitar next week.

Anyway, ~~lazy slob~~ perfectionist that I am, I usually take my instruments to my local guitar tech/genius Gary Brawer for setup work, especially for carving and fine-tuning the all-important nut. But feeling brave, I ordered a few blanks from Stewart MacDonald and tried making a nut from scratch.

Numerous times, actually.

The first attempt was, of course, an unmitigated disaster. The second one was a little better — I’d call it a mitigated disaster.

Only a poor craftsmen blames his tools, so I blamed my tools. I sprung for Stew-Mac’s Essential Nut Making Tool Kit, with all the proper files, saws, feeler gauges, and a nifty little vise. And it actually did help — thanks to some great instructions from the ever-reliable Dan Erlewine, which you can find here. (Understand that my workbench skills are a joke. I’m the kind of guy who grabs a screwdriver to pound a nail rather than take 30 seconds to fetch the…whatever the hell you’re supposed to use.)

Anyway, I saved a fortune! My new nut cost less than ten bucks — plus $200 in tools and about $2,000 in labor.

Am I bitter? No way! I learned a ton, and the next time I need a nut, whether it’s made by me or someone competent, I’ll have a much better idea what to go for. I kept comparing it to making one’s own shoes — not something most of us are dumb enough to try, but man, you’d sure learn a few things about the contours of your feet!

I’m not posting a pic of my work because it looks really nasty, and Gary Brawer might see it and laugh at me. But ugly as it looks, my third home-cut nut actually feels and sounds great. (BTW, I tried working with both real bone and the simulated stuff from Tusq. Both materials have their staunch advocates, but I can’t claim to perceive all that much difference in tone or workability.)

Anyone else tried this at home? (I’m not talking to you, pro luthiers — I mean regular people!)

April 13, 2012
Join the Pagey Project — If You Dare!

True fact: While Jimmy Page is usually pictured with a Les Paul, he recorded many of Led Zeppelin's greatest tracks with Fender guitars. (Artist's conception.)

All aboard, mateys! Join our ship of fools as we sail the fiercest seas of guitar electronics: Yes, the legendary Jimmy Page wiring scheme. There will be NO QUARTER for pickup pussies!

Actually, there will be a great deal of quarter as we help each other with this cool but tricky project. I’ll be disembolwing the black Les Paul Custom I wrote about here. My hope is that many of you will join me on this voyage. We can troubleshoot together, share tips, and ~~commiserate after we’ve destroyed a bunch of nice guitars~~ other things.

As you probably know, this complex wiring scheme transforms a standard Les Paul into an über-versatile tone machine with added series/parallel, phase-canceling, and split-coil options. It was the means by which Pagey reproduced the many Telecaster and Danectro parts from Zep’s studio albums when performing live.

We’ll cover the classic arrangement, with four push/pull pots. Then we’ll go a step further: If you add a pair of Seymour Duncan Triple Shot Mounting Rings to the mix, you get many more options than with the original scheme. Yes, we can all be bigger badasses than Pagey.

(FWIW, I’m less interested in cloning Page’s setup than in mastering the ins and outs of alternative humbucker wiring. So think of this as a chance to explore all available options, and refine a mod that works best for you.)

Here’s what you must have before setting sail:

(more…)

April 9, 2012
The Workbench & Rehearsal Room iPad:
My Top 10 Apps

iPad: Your pathway to a more productive and better organized workspace!
It’s not as if Apple needs more free publicity, but IMHO, the iPad is the greatest workbench and rehearsal room innovation since the Mesopotamians perfected beer.*

Seriously — I find myself reaching for the thing as often as I reach for the soldering iron. In fact, I sometimes confuse the two, which probably explains the sketchy wiring in my pedals and the mysterious burns on my fingertips.

Marketing hype notwithstanding, there’s isn’t always “an app for that.” (In particular, I eagerly await the “Why Doesn’t This $^%&Y# Thing Work?” app.)

But I would like to share a few tools that proven consistenly useful in the two years since the iPad’s debut. Prices range from free to a whopping $5.99 for Electronic Toolbox Pro.

Pause Play Play Prev|Next

Electronic Toolbox Pro

Cleartune Chromatic Tuner

Safari Web Browser

Dropbox

Metronome™

Camera

Kindle and/or iBooks

StreamToMe

Voice Memos

iCircuit

Plants vs. Zombies

Is anyone else foolhardy enough to expose their expensive mobile devices to hazardous workbench and rehearsal room environments? What are your observations? Recommendations? Bitter regrets? Do tell.

* Just kidding. Kids, don’t drink and solder.

April 6, 2012
The Mongrel Strat Project!

I've got a box of strat pickups and I'm not afraid to use it!

Okay, this should be an interesting experiment!

I’ve scored a box stuffed with wildy varied Seymour Duncan replacement pickups for Strat™ guitars, plus a couple of the company’s just-announced BYOP Liberator Pickguards. (These are prewired pickguard assemblies, minus the actual pickups — “BYOP” stands for “Bring Your Own Pickups.”) That means I can pop in whatever pickup I want to try without even firing up the soldering iron.

No, I’m not going to make comparison recordings of different replacement pickup sets (though that would be a worthwhile project). Instead, I’m going to experiment with unusual/unlikely pickup combinations, searching for something cool and unique.

Will I strike pickup-pairing pay dirt? I guess we’ll find out together!

I’ll also be taking a look at some of the alternate three-pickup wiring schemes we’ve been talking about over in The Secret Room, such as the bridge-pickup on/off switch and the middle-pickup fader option.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your experiences in choosing pickups for Strat-style guitars — especially any successes you’ve had in combining pickups that weren’t necessarily intended to go together. If you have a story to share, cough it up in comments!

I have a hunch we’ll uncover some cool new things. Stay tuned.

February 19, 2012