I are teh FAIL?

Check out the 60-question American History and Civics quiz.

At least I got a 90%, which is a College A. It would be a B in High School. I can't believe that I missed the last three questions! Duh!

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The TNH Amp, 1.2

Okay, I picked up some glasses for him to wear today, but this table saw pic was from yesterday. After cutting the sides of the cabinets to length, and routing dovetail joints, the next step was to rip the boards to dimension. We settled on a head cabinet and speaker cabinet (open back) with a 10" depth. This ripped about 1-1/2" to 2" from the boards and usually involved ripping both sides. This is so that the dovetail joints ended up nicely on the corners. It is incredible how much lighter this thing is with that little bit of wood removed. You can see the little push stick (black/yellow tape on the end) that I use for ripping smaller pieces. He learned to hold the wood against the fence and not bind the blade. Actually, he did very well at this stage and ripped 80% of the boards.

I learned on my other builds that any hardware connections that mount through the wood should be drilled before glueing the cabinets together. On my first build, I must have spent 45 minutes trying to line up where the holes should come up through the bottom to meet the receiving threads in the chassis. It turned out just fine, but it was a headache. With the piece unassembled, it is a 45 second job. The bottom has four holes where socket cap screws mount the chassis to the cabinet. The top has two holes where the handle is mounted though the wood. I don't trust wood screws for stuff like that. I will screw the feet on with screws, though, as well as all of the corner protectors.

Here is a picture of the amp chassis bolted to the bottom of the cabinet. Note that I have a t-nut counter-sunk (3/4" forstner bit) for a solid connection. I use 1-1/2" or 2" hex socket cap screws for this (10-32 thread). The mistake that I made on my first build was to leave the threads in the t-nut. This means that the screw has to thread the t-nut as well as the thread-sert in the chassis. While I like that I can back out the cap screws and have them hold in place, it is better for them to just fall down. This makes mounting the chassis a lot easier because you can feel just the threads of the chassis, and not the chassis and the t-nut. It was very hard drilling out those little t-nuts. I should have used a larger size and not worried about the threads at all. However, now they look and feel fine.

I like to use these hex cap screws for this, but I don't care to use an allen wrench. There are these little plastic thumb knobs that stretch perfectly over the tops of these guys so that you don't need tools at all to remove the chassis from the cabinet. Judging from this pic, that screw is at least 1-3/4", and possibly 2" (the dimension of the chassis side). Sorry for the bad picture here, but you can see that the bolts meet up with the chassis using the nut-sert or thread-sert that is mounted to a hole drilled in the lip. This makes such a positive match to the cabinet and I am very pleased with it. It is a little detail that I think makes the whole project a little higher quality. The quick and dirty way that some builders use is to mount an angle bracket on the outside. However, this means the whole cabinet needs to be wider, and then you have to hide the edges. This method is one way to have the cabinet inside dimension match the chassis.

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The TNH Amp, 1.1

Continuing with the power tool introduction, this is his first chance with the router. The template that you see there is the Keller 1500 dovetail jig. This is my third of fourth project with it, so I am glad that I invested in it. I am also glad that it is holding up well. This is not really the best picture of Tyler routing (minimal dust spraying back), but it is the only one that I have with him wearing ear protection. I think the router is 90-105db, so this is a good idea. You can get fairly precise with this dovetail jig, but I don't choose to. I'll build the boxes for the cabinets, then mark lines to rip the front and back nice and even.

He did not do all of these cuts, but he did enough to get a feel for it. Here are all the pieces for an amplifier cabinet, and two speaker cabinets. I would like to have some kind of portable work bench, but as it is I just mount half my work to my table saw. Later on, I bet you'll see us using this for gluing, finishing, etc. Looking at all those pieces at once is sort of impressive - it's about an hour of work (setting up, clamping, etc.). Of course, by hand that would be a lot longer.

The cabinets were measured very well. I slapped them together dry to get a feel for size and note that the amp chassis slides very well. It will have a bit of paint and lacquer on it, and the cabinet will have a finish. I hope it isn't too tight! I'll check the other side first, and if it is then it can be opened up a tad with some judicious sanding. Note that the chassis is just a Hammond chassis (#1444-26). We'll drill that out down the road. I like that part too. Inside are various capacitors, resistors, potentiometers, and transformers. Might be a tube or two.

I slapped these together to get a feel for size. Also, because the lumber was slightly cupped, I thought this would straighten them out a little. It could get pretty messed up, but tapping the dovetails together would straighten anything. The cabinet on the left will be the 2x10 sealed speaker cabinet. I will probably keep it pretty deep, based on some calculations using data from the speaker company. On the right is Tyler's quarter stack. This will have an EL34-based tube amp on the top, and a 2x12 speaker cabinet. I am planning on trimming the front and back a little. This is 11.5", and we could lose an inch and a half, perhaps. They stand up just fine without glue. That's a pretty good test of the integrity of these joints. I will not use any screws to hold this together. The speaker cabinet will be strenghtened by the baffle on the front, which will be glued into a dado. On the back I'll incorporate a kick plate, and that will also help make it sturdy.

Here is a dry-fit of the dovetails. Note that the exposed ends are just proud of the joint. Those will get sanded, and all the corners will be rounded over as well. I am starting to get excited about this. Tyler's quarter stack will be up in his room by early October, I bet. Then the noise will begin. I am glad that he is putting as much sweat equity into this as I am - because a 14-year-old barely deserves something this nice otherwise!

I am a little embarassed to say that I never had the chance to play through a tube amp until early 2006. I was looking at Telecasters and the nice folks at the guitar store put me in a little room by myself. They showed me a bunch of complicated amps, and I plugged into a little Epiphone Valve Junior. I loved it. When the sales guy came back, he looked at me like I was crazy and plugged me into a very complicated amp. After he left, I went back to the simple 5-watt Epiphone amp! I had no idea.

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The TNH Amp, 1.0

Our next project is building an amplifier and speaker cabinet. We chose the P1-Extreme plan from the amplifier building community AX84.com. We'll start on the cabinet first, because I like to make sure that the speakers and the amp chassis fit well. Also, I'm afraid if we build the amp first, we'd be playing it from a table into speakers mounted in a cardboard box or something. It is more satisfying to finish wiring things up and then to slide them into a cabinet like we ordered it custom made. The design will be similar to my first build. (Measure twice, cut once!) It is a lot of fun taking pictures when I'm not doing this alone. This does have the amusing effect of looking like he is totally solo in this build. Maybe he should get his own blog going and describe it from his perspective.

I think this is Tyler's first real experience with power tools. When I was his age, I had already taken shop in junior high, so it seems to be about right. We started with a battery-powered circular saw. It kind of wimped out on us, though, and we had to go to the SkilSaw. Tyler is using a square clamped to the board to guide the saw. Don't worry, his hand is not as close to that blade as the picture suggests. The lumber we are using is some decent looking poplar from the lumber yard. I still haven't done anything that involves joining - but I still see a joiner in my future. I think this poplar will be dyed fairly dark, so I hope it looks even.

If you into counting these pieces, you may notice four extra sides. I decided to use some speakers that I got last year but never used. I learned that they were meant to be in a closed cabinet only, and not open backed. So, I will build an sealed speaker cabinet to try out. I bought the wood almost a month before cutting it. Even though I think I stored it pretty well, it still cupped a little. That's okay, this will be fixed in the next stage.





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Tylercaster complete

Side-by-side with my Telecaster, the Strat is definitely a cousin. I felt like I was taking family portraits or something. I finished 90% of the setup today. The intonation, action, and relief are all very close to my ideal. It plays beautifully, but I think I need to raise the bridge pickup a little. I will have to take the pickguard off to do it because I need to cut the rubber sleeve that holds it in place a little. The other issue is that the neck is still a little sticky. It is a nitrocellulose neck, made earlier this year, so that it to be expected.



Here you can see some carpet, paint, and trim work from our renovated bedroom. Cousins in the bedroom!

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Tylercaster C

There are not too many shots of us working on the inner electronics. To be honest, I had to help out a lot there so I didn't grab the camera. Here's a quick pick of Tyler soldering up the output jack. This is his first effort in soldering, so I thought he couldn't mess up a jack. (I had a spare handy just in case.) The worst thing we'd need to do would be to cut a half inch off the wires and start this part over. As it turns out, he did just fine. Note that the jack is sitting on top of a small can of solder flux. This kept the mat we are using here safe.

Here's one of the final assembly steps, the installation of the output jack escutcheon. This is probably the only thing we messed up, I never knew a Strat had a particular angle that the jack tip had to be at for things to work. We had this thing on and off about three times. Tyler got comfortable with this step.

Taking off the protective plastic from the pickguard must have been his favorite step of all. At first you don't really notice the plastic. However, with each component that you add, the plastic gets blistered up and pushed aside. Some guitars come from the factory with components mounted OVER the pickguard plastic protective layer. This is madness because you have to unscrew a lot of things to get that plastic out. I taught him to push the plastic aside, but keep it on as long as possible.


All of a sudden, the major part of this build was over! I strung up the guitar and it was even in decent condition for intonation and setup. Look at that dining room table! It took me 15 minutes to clean that up this evening. The guitar, as you can see, is pretty complete. I through all five tremolo block springs in the back and the bridge plate is resting on the body even with the six strings on there. It will take me some time to figure out what needs to happen with the setup. The springs are there to balance the string tension, and you can adjust the number of springs (3-5), as well as the tension on the springs. The bridge can rest on the body (as it is now), or "float" up a little, perfectly balanced between the springs and the strings. Of course, the neck's relief will need to be looked at (truss rod), in about a week. The microtilt might be the next adjustment. Then, the saddles will be moved to match the neck profile and set the intonation as well as the string height (action). My goal is 4/64" or so.

This thing really is a knockout. I need to take some daylight pictures, because this is a guitar that would stop me in my tracks if I saw it hanging on the wall. It was built as the cousin to my Telecaster. Specifically, it has the following in common: alder body, 3-tone sunburst, American Deluxe body, parchment pickguard, full cavity shielding, Seymour Duncan stack pickups, a vintage feeling and looking tinted neck, and a vintage shoulder strap with Schaller straplocks. There's probably more. I played around with it for ten minutes or so and I can tell that this thing will be a dream guitar in a few months. The neck is a little sticky (it is a 2007 nitrocellulose finish), but the feel of it is great. The neck radius is like a Les Paul, and the frets feel like Dunlop medium-jumbo. With absolutely no setup it feels better than a lot of guitars hanging on the shelf at many music stores. I don't think this is the store's fault, it's probably due to people misusing them. (Of course, it is the store's job to keep up with that stuff.)

I've already gone over the set up issues that need to happen next. I don't think I will document that process. However, it is the important last step of any parts build. The other thing that we need to start working on is the amplifier. There is a couple of board feet of poplar in the basement, as well as some transformers, tubes, and other various parts that will slowly turn into a tiny terror of 11-15 watts.

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Tylercaster B

I like this step. The neck needs a solid metal surface to receive the microtilt bolt that comes through the American Deluxe neck plate area. Since this is a more vintage style neck, I improvised with a couple of Forstner bits and a metal plug used for electrical boxes. It works great, and I did a much better job on this than my Telecaster earlier this year. I used this adjustment to tweak the Telecaster into a perfect neck angle so that my saddle and pickup heights were easy to get into line. It's good to have this on the Stratocaster because there will be a lot of setup as soon as the neck adjusts to having strings on it again.

Next goes some copper shielding. Shielding a guitar can be controversial because it can attenuate some high frequencies. However, I like to err on the side of quiet. I think 60-cycle hum is not acceptable. This guitar will be very quiet due to the cautious shielding and the Seymour Duncan stack pickups. Classic Stacks, STK-4s, are technically humbucking pickups made to look, fit, and sound like single coil pickups. The trade-off from true single coil sound is worth it to me. We are using copper foil tape for the cavity shielding. Here you can see Tyler soldering together the taped seams. This is not necessary for continuity, perhaps, but it also helps to lock things in very tight. I think this copper foil will still be hanging on in 50 years. The solder stiffens things, that's for sure. I also think the heat from the soldering station makes the glue on the tape adhere very securely.

Tyler is finishing up the layout of the wiring here. The controls are loaded onto the pickguard. Note that there is some shielding on this pickguard - that is from Fender. I think we changed things around a little bit after routing the wires this way. The 4-conductor wire that Seymour Duncan uses appears delicate, so this can be a little nerve wracking. The carpet on the dining room table here is what we now have in our stairway and upstairs hall. It's on the shaggy side which took some getting used to, especially on the
stairs. it does feel plush, though.

One of the things that Tyler wanted for this build was to have American parts (when available). So, when we stared talking about the bridge, tremolo, saddles, and block, I told him that what we needed was from Callaham Guitar parts in Winchester, Va. I have a lot of fond childhood memories of Winchester, so it's nice to know a piece of his guitar came from there. Oddly, they do not make a 2-pivot style bridge plate, so I needed to get that from another source. The trem-bar feels VERY secure in the block. It is the best I have ever felt. Thanks, Callaham. It may look like there is not much left. For the parts assembly, this is true. There will be a lot of setup issues over the next month, though.


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