Wilco-Tango...

Here's a little slice of heaven brought to you by the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and my Motorola camera phone. There wasn't an explanation or anything for this at all, just a dude skeleton pulling on a stubborn goat skeleton.


--gh

"Art" by Greg

I really cheated on this one. The source art wasn't even a photo, it was already a vector-friendly drawing.

With the television off for the summer, I keep going back to youtube.com for entertainment. I stumbled into Reh Dogg's "Why Must I Cry." I don't want to turn this sordid blog into a 'look what I found on youtube,' but this guy is about to break out. ...or not. Here's a second song called "You Say I'm Ugly" featuring a hook that I have been singing for a few days ('you say I'm ugly who say I'm ugly don't wanna say'). Bonus, both videos feature Reh Dogg soaping up in the shower, for some odd, unexplained, and interestingly non-sexual reason. His rap style is a little uninspired, but his singing is like a disturbed Tom Waits (and yes, I know what I mean when I write that).

--gh

"Art" by Mike

Okay, I was looking for an image of a big-horn sheep. I wanted to stylize it in Adobe Illustrator for a project I was working for. This is something that I don't mind doing because I am not an artist, nor do I try to make a living (or a buck) taking credit for it. There are two images on the first page of a Google image search that just looked a little too similar.


One of them is from a site called Art by Mike. I thought, cool, he did a good job copying that picture! However, the quote from his website says:

This is another first for me. I finally have a drawing of a big horn sheep. This is another image that I have had a bunch of requests for. This drawing took me quite a while to do because of the amount of detail I put in. I tried to make this fellow look as regal as possible.

Since this appears to be stock USDA footage, there probably isn't a copyright concern. A framed print is $335, and there appears to be nothing on his website describing his technique, except that he is "best know [sic] for his ability to grab a moment in time." He seems like a nice guy.

I've read that camera obscura(black box, before film could capture an image permanently) was the secret weapon in the 17th and 18th century. However, no one really wanted to fess up to it. I guess copying images off the web is the new thing, and I am an active participant.

--gh

Swapping a pickup magnet

So, I decided to swap out the magnet on the neck pickup of my Les Paul Custom. This picture shows the magnet, which I labeled "Seymour Duncan AlNiCo 2" in case I use it in the future. The pickups on this guitar were changed out in the mid-nineties to the Seth Lover model (SH-55) which is a basic, no-thrills pickup with medium strength magnets. New metal music probably requires ceramic magnets, or at least something stronger than the alnico variety that has been used since the 1950s, and more. This particular pickup model is based on the original design that ultimately was used in the late 1950s P.A.F. pickups. His design called for AlNiCo 5 magnets (a little stronger), but economics dictated that AlNiCo 2 would be used.


As it turns out, this is about perfect for the bridge pickup. With the turn of the GAIN knob on my single-ended 5-watt amplifier, I can go from vintage rock to Van Halen. (EVH uses only one pickup, usually a real 1950's PAF, in the bridge pickup.) Both pickups at the same time usually sounds good - and when I play clean I often end up here. However, the neck pickup was always a little too muddy for me. I don't mind mids, but I want them to be clear. So, I bought another magnet from StewMac and jumped in with wild abandon.


Above, you can the guitar in my workshop, ready for the procedure. Swapping a magnet is the electrical equivalent to open-heart surgery. You literally take the pickup apart to get the old magnet out. First, you have to loosen and remove the strings. It's easiest to just take the stopbar off and push everything to the side. This photo does a good job of showing the economics of 1979 Gibson, the Norlin days. The top is not a fancy book-matched maple, it is actually three pieces that are not really lined up well.


Next, the metal cover needs to be removed. I like the look of covered pickups, but a lot of the purists remove these for more top end or something. They are better shielded this way anyhow, and I hate noise - so the covers stay on.
I perform this kind of work with the pickup still connected to the guitar, so I throw a rag on top to keep the top from getting scratched, or melting the finish or something. I probably don't deserve a guitar any nicer, if this is how I treat them. To remove the cover, I first cut through the solder with a cut-wheel on a Dremel tool.


After cutting the solder, I heat it up with the soldering station and use a combination of braid and a solder sucker to get the rest out. This is a little tricky, and I would not be comfortable working on a vintage pickup. I overheated the cover and blistered a little of the gold plating in a previous procedure. That would make me sick if this was a 50-year-old pickup. However, it's never seen since only the top comes up through the pickup rings. The whole thing heats up, which could be dangerous if you melt any of the varnish that surrounds any of the pickup wires (there are hundreds, or even thousands, of turns of this fine wire). I am using a soldering tip that looks a little like a screw driver, so I wedge that a little to separate the cover and slip a screwdriver in there. In about one second, the solder should cool and the cover should be separated. If it isn't I try a little pressure to snap the solder, but not too much. If I can't get it undone, I heat it up again and try to remove more solder.


I picked this little tool up from StewMac. It is a polarity tester to make sure I know the difference between N and S. If you get this wrong, you would end up with a popular modification called the Peter Green mod. This is how to get the two pickups in a Les Paul out of phase, but still quiet (shielded from hum). I like that sound, but only if the gain is up. Also, I am too much of a fan of the middle position (both pickups on), and I would hate to miss out on this. So, I'll make sure to get this right (took a second try, btw). The new magnet is nearby, sitting on the pickguard.


Sorry that I haven't figured out the macro-setting of this camera. Actually, it is from work - I don't own a camera. The screwdriver shaft is in focus, though. To get at the magnet, loosen these four screws. Nothing else needs to be messed with. I guess you have questions about the writing on this pickup. They are just stamped or screened on there - they are not autographs. Believe me, if I got Seth Lover's autograph, I never would have asked him to sign the bottom of a pickup... The pickup plate is starting to look a little haggard, isn't it? As I mentioned, I have been in here before, reversing the magnet, and then putting it back to normal. Maybe, just maybe, if I had two Les Pauls, I would keep one of them like Peter Green's guitar.


Action shot! I am proud of this picture. With those four screws loosened under the plate, I use some pliers to pull out the old magnet. With my other hand, I was holding the camera! You need to keep things pretty flat here, there are two wooden spacers (Seymour Duncan's fidelity to the original design, like it matters if it were plastic or not). In fact, I just noticed that an 1/8th of an inch of one of these spacers is exposed in this picture. I think if you go to Seymour Duncan's website, you will see that they even mention that the tape used to wrap the wire is authentic. Whatever. They are, however, very good pickups - so I do recommend them (with this mod, perhaps).

So, I lined up the magnets, and even used the tester, but I still got this wrong. For about 5 minutes, I played my guitar with the out-of-phase sound and debated if this was meant to be. However, I told myself that I would not be happy unless I went back in, loosend the strings, cut the solder, heated it up, snapped off the cover, swapped the magnet, and then put it all right. So, that is what I did. Funny how I hate having stuff ahead of me, but I really don't mind doing the work. The entire operation can be done in less than 5 minutes, really. So, I'm glad I went back in.


You probably don't want me working on your guitar. Here is the last stage (before re-stringing). A little bit of solder needs to be replaced here. It sort of locks in the cover (keeps it from becoming microphonic) as well as electrically connecting it to ground to complete the shielding. I have cut and soldered/unsoldered this cover about 5 times now, and it kind of shows. Of course, as I mentioned before, it's not something that you would ever see from outside. You may have noticed that there was no wax in any of these steps. That is what would double the time here. Theoretically, the pickup can be microphonic at high volume and gain settings. I never play like this, and the old pickups were not wax potted anyhow.

Review:
Okay, basically this whole operation was done to swap out the AlNiCo-2 magnet, and replace it with the AlNiCo-5. The difference is a little on the subtle side (which I am pleased with). However, I can tell that the neck pickup has more clarity, and even sounds good dirty (higher gain). I am now wholly satisfied with the pickups in this guitar and am not tempted to swap them out for anything else in the near future.

Can you hear the difference?*
Original alnico-2:


Replaced with alnico-5:


--gh

*disclaimer: I don't really have access to real audio editing tools or microphones. I used a laptop's internal speaker near the amplifier, on moderate settings. I did, however, keep the amp's settings, and the laptop's recording settings, exactly the same during the magnet change. Also, I kind of forgot what I played the first time (a CM7-Am9-Dm9-G13 progression, and some noodling in C major) but I tried to make it the same the next time. Also, sorry about the hiss, I don't have any editors with filters, normalizers, etc.

Haddo-caster 7.0 - Complete

Well, I can now report that I am pretty much done with the Telecaster put-together project. I am glad that I added the little metal plate under the neck, because I did use the micro-tilt feature to set up the angle of the neck. I think the action is a hair (literally) on the high side, but it feels just about right.

I had to adjust the truss rod, because I think there was too much relief in it. Now it seems okay. Raising the neck angle with the micro-tilt allowed me to bring up the saddles on the bridge. This is good because the bridge pickup was too close to the strings. Believe it or not, this affected the vibration of the string, since the oscillations had to compete with the magnetic pull. I think the technical term for this is Strat-itis as it is a common occurance on Stratocasters. Anyhow, it seems fine now.

Now that the height of the strings is set, I may have just a little more pickup adjustment to make. I think to balance things out, I need to raise the neck pickup a tad, and maybe bring down the middle pickup. The bridge pickup now seems fine. I ended up with a standard Telecaster-style output cup here. I was not able to secure the Electro-socket. It's on back order, or something - so, I picked this up for $5 in Jefferson City.

Man, I wish I could walk into a store in this town and buy a part like that! Funny story about that, I tried to buy this part from Guitar Center in Independence. I have such trouble there, but it is on the way. As I approached the store, I noted that there were 4-5 guys standing outside the door on their smoking break. I know that this is their right, but if I managed that store I would ask them to do this out back. It just flaunts that no one will be inside to help.

I go directly to the counter to request this part, and it takes several minutes for someone to assist me. Finally a young woman asks me what I want and I tell her that I am looking for a cup for the output jack of a Telecaster. She points to a control knob on the wall and says "like this?" "No," I tell her, I need the part that goes on the output of the guitar. "Hmmm," she says, without looking further "I don't think we have those." I couldn't believe it. Maybe they did, or maybe they didn't carry this simple product (I saw output covers for Les Pauls and Stratocasters, but the place where I thought these would be were obscured by some other products). However, she had no interest in finding out, or at least pretending to "look in the back." I promptly left and drove the rest of the way on my trip getting to West Music in Jefferson City 1/2-hour before closing. Not only did they have this simple item, but I bought strings and a Redd Volkert DVD. I spent $50 at a real customer-oriented music store. Sometimes I wonder how Guitar Center stays in business. But, I keep going back for this treatment.

Review:
Oh man, this thing plays well. The Fender body and neck allowed for a near-perfect setup. The Glendale 3-barrel saddles gives a vintage look and sound, but also allows dead-on intonation. The 7-position pickup selection gives every sound that I was searching for. So far, I don't have a favorite, but I do gravitate towards #2 (middle and bridge) for that bubbly spank sound similar to a Strat. I can definitely handle the 7-1/4" radius fretboard, which is good because it looks outstanding. The neck feels fine, too. I don't have a hang-up about needing the exact same feel on every guitar I play, I believe the player needs to get everything he can from guitar that sounds right.

The American Deluxe body here has a carved back to make it easier to play. Also, the heel is carved where the neck meets the body. This makes it a lot easier to access some of those higher notes. I can't get over how much better a tinted vintage-looking neck with 21 frets looks, compared to the 22-fret pale look that would normally come with this model. Fender really does do great work, though - because that neck from the other model fit in here so nicely (well, except for drilling the hole offset neck bolt.) The wood grain (alder) really shows through the 3-tone sunburst finish. Also, I like the top binding on these things.

I modified the leather strap per my usual method, Schaller locking straps, and a "tail" at the other side to put the instrument cable through. This keeps the cable from being pulled out accidentally if I step on it. This is something that I did to my strap for the Les Paul. The strap is all stiff and not broken in at all. It will probably take a year. It is that vintage thin style, because this guitar only weighs 8 lbs. If I used this strap on my Les Paul (over 10lbs. maybe?) it would cut right through my shoulder.

The reversed control plate is very comfortable to me. If you played Telectasters for a few decades, I could see this being a minor problem. In short, this is a simple guitar style, with the minor complexity of a middle pickup added. It sounds absolutely amazing through a tube amp.

--gh

Haddo-caster 6.0 final wiring

I would say that I am about 90% done. These pictures won't show it, but a critcal piece is not on this guitar. When I was ordering parts, everyone was out of the Electrosocket output jack holder. This is an improvement over the old cup-style jack piece, which used friction and the internal output jack plate in the side hole. The Electrosocket screws in, and the Switchcraft jack screws into that socket. Right now, the output jack is a little precarious, mounted to the little plate about an inch inside the output jack's hole. When I get an electrosocket, I will be all ready to tear that hunk of metal out, screw in the Electrosocket, drill two holes, and screw it in.

At "design stage," this is pretty much the exact guitar I pictured. I do not see myself ever owning a Strat. I like them, but I don't want to be surrounded by too many guitars. Also, I don't use a trembar, and why own a Strat with a hardtail, or a trem that I never use? So, borrowing the middle pickup design of a Stratocaster (with a real Strat middle pickup), and a five-way switch, I have the best of both worlds. I bought a vintage looking strap, and one of those older looking tweed cases. I love that look. The strap is fine because these guitars are so light. I haven't weighed it yet, but it is several pounds lighter than my Les Paul.

This is a look that I really like. It might not be a big deal to you, but I really wanted the pickups mounted to the body, and not the pickguard. The pickguard lifts right out and slides out from under the strings, because it has no pickups on it. It also is not pinched down by those new 22-fret necks that Fender makes. The 21-fret design in 1952 was right the first time. Maybe because Gibson has 22 frets, they thought they couldn't compete. Anyhow, if I had an American Deluxe neck, I would have to remove it just to take off the pickguard! I think that is silly. Note that I went with the 3-barrel saddle design, just like the 1950s.

This is the guitar that I wanted, and it has the features I desire (except the output jack). I haven't listened to it for real yet (through a tube amp), but all of the selections work (5-way switch and toggle). I only got two wires wrong, and it took about 2 minutes to correct. Not bad, since I don't remember wiring an electric guitar before. I really like the yellowy look of the neck, and not the pale color of the American Deluxe. (Those AmDlx necks are sure fine to play, though!) I took a gamble and went with a 1952 reissue neck. It has the sharp radius fretboard (7.25" v. 9.5" of more modern designs, and the 12" radius of my Gibson). Even though it is no where near set up yet, I can tell that it will play just fine.

Setup will involve adjusting the neck angle (microtilt!), the truss rod (neck relief), the saddle height, saddle intonation, and last, pickup height. Oddly enough, this is something that I am apprehensive of.

--gh

Haddo-caster 5.0 - Controls

The control plate that I ordered off of eBay ($7 for a chunk of stainless steel) did not have the right sized holes. For nice, clean holes, through a thick piece of hard steel like this, the only solution is a unibit. This is a Greenlee stepper bit, with a little electrical tape on there to tell me how far to go. Note the 3-in-1 oil in the lower right - I used this for some lubrication and cooling. The last thing I would want to do is to have that bluish off-color look of overheated steel!

The nice thing about a unibit is that it cuts such small pieces. A regular bit might make those spirally sharp pieces of metal spin off, and scratch the surface. Many Telecasters use a chrome plated control plate, for that extra shine. However, my Glendale bridge is not really shiny, and has a similar brushed stainless steel look to it. This picture does not show it, but I needed to place a hole between the volume and tone controls. This is to add a little toggle switch that turns the bridge pickup on and off in the 1st and 2nd positions. The first position could be the neck only, or the neck and bridge combination, depending on the toggle switch. The neck+bridge is a standard Telecaster combination, and it would be a shame to miss out on it.

Here you can see the controls loaded. The toggle switch can also make all three pickups on at the same time. Basically, if you know the Stratocaster 5-way pickup selections, this is that plus two more (neck+bridge, and neck+middle+bridge). For you Telecaster purists, sorry - you are probably cringing now. (The middle pickup might be enough to turn you off.)

I got this from an older version of Fender's American Deluxe. In 1998, they came out with a three-pickup version that has a 5-way switch and a toggle switch. Many of their diagrams, like this one, can be downloaded from the Fender Support pages.

This took a little finangling to get the control plate to fit right. I had to take some of my perfectly cut control holes and file them a little to move things around. It is actually a tight fit in that cavity! The controls cover this up, but it bugs me that I had to do it. Before you wire this up, make sure the controls fit the cavity without modification of the plate. Here is a nearly complete image. Note the nasty finger prints, grime, and dust all over this thing! I had a little try out this evening, and things turned out quite nicely, more on that next post...

--gh

Haddo-caster 4.0 - Shielding

In a previous post, you may have seen some rolled up copper foil. I have no tolerance for buzzing and hum in my guitars and amps. Shielding a guitar like this is a $10 affair, but it does involve taking it apart. So, it makes sense to do it at this stage. I am following most of the instructions from the Guitar Nuts website. That guy is great.

Here's the breakdown. Guitars with humbucking pickups have two single coils side-by-side, and wired to cancel out hum from electrical interference, namely the 60hz beast within our homes. The humbuckers are known for a slightly higher output (two coils), but at the expense of an upper high bite that single coil pickups are known for. The orignal Gibson P-90 (soapbar) pickups, and your standard Fender pickups are single coil - and retain a lovely chimey high-end. The cost? They do not cancel out hum and noise. All is not lost, though. You can shield the guitar's pickup and control cavitities and knock out 95% of outside hum.

Shielding a guitar is not just something that should be done to single-coil guitars, though. My 1979 Les Paul is amazingly shielded. The control cavity, pickup-selector, and even output jack, are all enclosed in metal cases. Only shielded wire goes from one area to the next. It is amazingly quiet. So much so that when I pick up someone else's guitar, and hear the hum, I think "how can they stand that?" So, why don't all guitars, especially single-coil guitars, have this shielding done at the factory? Two reasons: tone, and cost. Some people claim that they lose a tiny bit of top-end chime on their guitars when shielded. As for cost, well, you know the standard business model - find that price point, and sell it.

As for tone, I grant that people trust their ears and do hear a slight difference. To some people, a slight difference is huge. Eric Johnson makes statements about what battery brand he puts in his guitar effects (and note that he thinks the batteries sound better when they are "worn in" a bit). I would hate to be that guy's guitar tech. He's the type of player that is amazingly brilliant when playing, and has no clue what he is talking about when he is not playing. (I like the guy, and his music, but he claims that a different electrical cord powering his amps will have an effect on his tone --> audiophool!).

From this angle, you can see that I shielded the control cavity, and the neck and middle pickup cavities. You can't see this, but underneath the bridge is another cavity that is totally shielded. I bought a roll of copper foil from StewMac and took my time to not have too many pieces, or creases, in my shielding. For one reason, I don't want this to look like garbage, even though anyone would rarely even see this part of the guitar. The second reason is that the edges of the foil will be soldered to make sure that there is complete continuity in the ground here. Basically, I want to make sure that there is little resistance across any point in this grounding scheme (as close to 0-ohms as possible). If there is a gap, or not a good connection between two pieces of foil, then you could create a separate potential for voltage. In short, you just created a ground loop! It would sound as bad, or worse, than if you hadn't messed with it at all.

In this shot you can see the soldered edges a little better. Soldering has a second advantage as well. Heating up the copper foil to make a good connection also makes the adhesive back hold a little more, since it is kind of cool this time of year in my workshop. Note, following GuitarNuts's advice, the shielding of the cavities lips over the edge. This is because a big strip of shielding will be placed on the underside of the pickup cover and will encapsulate all of this as one connection. You can also barely see that there is a small bit of shielding from the control cavity that comes up just shy of the screw hole. That will connect the shielding to the metal control plate and have everything shielded as much as possible.

Some notes on this build that I don't have pictures of:

• I did not show this, but I have already mounted the neck and middle pickups to the body of this guitar for fit. This is not easy, because the placement of the neck pickup is determined by the hole in the pickguard. Some pickups are mounted to the pickguard (easy) and some to the body (harder). I want mine mounted to the body because it looks cleaner (less holes in the pickguard) and it allows the pickguard to come off to adjust the pickup height and the neck's truss rod.
• I took a bit of time cutting the middle pickup hole in the pickguard. I did not photo-document this process at all. Basically, with the pickups set in the body, it was a matter of laying the pickguard on the body and pickups repeatedly, and filing the hole for this middle pickup. The result is such a good job that many may not believe I did it. I guess that is the effect I was going for...
• Okay, now is the time that I need come clean about these pickups. I chickened out on the single-coil hum. If you buy an American Deluxe Telecaster or Stratocaster, they will come with some Fender SCN noiseless pickups. This is done by stacking pickups up, and using rare-earth magnets (samarian cobolt). Some people complain that these are not true single-coils and that they don't sound like single-coils. Well, I went another route, and chose Seymour Duncan vintage stack pickups for the neck and bridge, and a Strat classic stack pickup for the middle. In short, stacked means a hybrid humbucking pickup, stacked on top of each other to get characteristics of single-coil pickups. A tone hound will be able to tell that these are not true single-coil pickups.
• Tone-hounds who love single coils often state that the hum doesn't matter as soon as the song starts. Well, I agree with that, but the hum bugs me so much the rest of the time. Besides, I counter that statement that your pure guitar sound will be lost in the mix once you play with other instruments, and your amplifier is mic'ed through the PA system. So, I chose noiseless, get over it.

--gh

Haddo-caster 3.0 - Routing!

If routing and cutting into hundreds of dollars worth of guitar makes you queezy, then read no more. The next step involves some minor modifications to the body of the guitar, and the neck.

First, the neck. The neck pocket of this American Deluxe telectaster body has a neck angle adjustment called microtilt. There is a small hole in the neck plate that gives access to a hex screw that is mounted through the neck pocket with a simple t-nut. However, the 1952 re-issue neck that I am using does not have this feature, and screwing that hex bolt up would just damage the wood on the neck, and possibly crack it since maple is so hard.

I walked all over the hardware store yesterday looking for something that I could mount to the neck that would make contact with the microtilt screw. I found these simple electrical plugs that are about 3/4" in diameter. It is meant to screw into a hole in some kind of electrical panel, and was actually too tall. I ground down the underside of one of these plugs on my bench grinder and came up with a little thread that could grip a 3/4" hole. I like this picture, it shows several elements in my shop. Note the Seymour Duncan pickup logo in the back, the roll of copper foil on the left (for shielding), and the 1-lb Kester 66/44 solder. Man, thanks to RoHS, that stuff may be outlawed some day. Gotta stock up on it. Oh, and this is all sitting on one of those Stewart-McDonald guitar mats. That thing has come in handy.

You would think that cutting into a $400 neck with a forstner bit would be terrifying. Well, maybe I have the stomach for it, because it really didn't bother me. Note that I took this picture with one hand holding the camera, and the other holding the neck, with the drill press turned on. I am using a tee-shirt to "protect" the neck. The hole here is offset from the location of the microtilt hole. That is because I want a flat surface to make that connection, without fear of the groove on my metal plug. First, I drilled a 1" hole about 3/32" deep. Then, I drilled out a deeper hole with a 3/4" forstner bit. The next picture will show why I needed to drill two holes.


Here you can see the finished product. I now have a metal receiving surface for the microtilt bolt to screw up against. I was able to turn the screw 3/4 of a turn, so the threads locked into this rock hard maple. Dang, that stuff is tough! I was almost afraid of splitting it with just the little bit of pressure I was applying to get this plug's threads screwed in. I don't know how I got it to line up so perfectly. I decided not to back it out and apply carpenter's glue because it seemed sturdy enough, and I didn't think I would ever get it looking this good again! Note that I didn't really need a 1" hole to receive the minor "lip" of this plug. But, I did not have a 13/16th bit, and didn't feel like modifying (ruining) a spade bit to make this cut. If this was an exposed item, I would have ground the point off of an exactly sized spade bit, though. But, remember, this will always be hidden in the neck pocket.

Here you can see that we are almost on the two-year birthday of this neck. The date, stamped in two places, says "April 5, 2005." (The body is 2006, and a different model - that's why this is called a partscaster, but my parts are all Fender parts.) Also note the workman's name stamped here. "F. Perez" should be proud, this neck is beautiful. It is as close to one-piece quarter-sawn as an American neck can get. But wait, wouldn't the name indicate that this neck was made in the Mexican factory in Ensenada? Well, no. The American factory in Corona, California has many Mexican-American tradesmen working there.


The next modification was not as scary. I needed to remove some more wood from the control cavity of this guitar. This could have been done with a router, but I went ahead and used the 1" forstner bit shown here to deepen the cavity along the whole portion to the same depth. I need to deepen the back part of the cavity beause I will reverse the controls from the standard method and have the pickup selector switch in the back, and not the front. I want to do this modification because I sometimes accidentally hit the switch when playing on Stratocasters and Telecasters. It drives me nuts! On many guitars, the cavity is not deep enough along the whole distance, though, so you can't just swap things around without this mod.


Here's what the bit looks like down in the cavity. I just cut about 20 times to create the same effect as a router. I would say that the slot is about 1-1/16th" so the 1-inch bit fit very well in there. All I needed to do was to clean up the sides with a chisel and then that's it. Hey, note that I didn't bother to take the bridge and pickup off when I did this. If this was someone else's guitar, I would take more care of stuff like this. But, a little flying wood chips never hurt anyone.

The last body modification (I think) was to carve out this slice of heaven right here. The screw at the end of the neck is to adjust the truss rod. This is not something that really has to be done that often. But taking the neck off of the guitar to do it is too much, I think. To access this, all I would need to do is remove the pickguard. I should have shown the process of cutting that pickguard. It came with one hole routed for the neck pickup, and I needed to add the middle pickup hole. I did not see too many hints on this out there in the web, so I improvised. I drilled a small hole over the middle pickup, then I enlarged it with files until it was pickup sized. It almost looks professional, I can't believe it. However, it took an hour, which is probably why I did not take any pictures - it was such a pain!

The next time you see these cavities, it will be with copper foil in them, for shielding.

--gh

Haddo-caster 2.0

Got some more parts to talk about. Today I got the neck in the mail. It came in a mailer that I might send a map in. It is in perfect condition, I am pretty excited. This is not the neck that would normally go with an American Deluxe guitar. It actually came from a 2005 '52 reissue model. Those are pricey as well. I like that it is 21-frets, black clay dots, and that vintage tint. Okay, the vintage tint is a big thing for me, the American Deluxe necks are awesome, with abalone inlays, and 22-frets. (But they are so pale, almost pastey.)

Okay, I have to admit that I was worried about ending up with the same model neck and body. Maybe some day I will get a '52 reissue body and put an American Deluxe neck on it. So, now I have a 2006 body, 2005 neck, and 2007 bridge. It's a real partscaster!

I have some work to do on the neck. First, the bolt holes of the different bodies don't line up. The fourth hole is offset, because the American Deluxe body has a carved heel, and a special neck plate. The bolt that is sticking up marks the new location, so this is a one-minute job. There is another tiny hole in that neck plate, if you look close enough. It is for a modern feature called microtilt that adjusts the neck angle. It needs a metal receiving plate in the base of the neck. So, should I route out a little circle and glue a nickle on there or something? The old way was to shim the neck with a piece of wood, or a business card. Idunno, we'll see.

The look is great. I have a Fender tweed case which I have always liked the looks of. I sure hope I like the way this thing sounds, because it will look great. Here you can see the 3-barrel bridge from Glendale - it is compensated so it will be intonated well. The newer bridges have six adjustable saddles for each string. I like that as well, but the look of the older bridge is too cool not to try. There is some mojo in there as well, I think - but I am not too good at determining that. I should also mention that I will mount the neck and middle pickups right on the body, so the pickguard will drop right in. Due to the 21-fret neck, I won't have to do anything else to move the pickguard.


So, here are some goodies close up. The neck pickup will be the standard metal covered small style that Telecasters are known for. The bridge pickup is pretty standard as well. The middle pickup is a real Stratocaster middle pickup, which I hope blends well. The neck and bridge are Seymour Duncan Vintage stack models, and the middle pickup is a Seymour Dncan Strat Classic stack. The stack is a fancy small humbucker pickup, stacked on top of itself, for a noise-free sound.


I think I wished that the bridge was polished and shiny. But, it is a satin finished stainless steel. When I was looking at a black painted neck, I considered sending this to a jeweler to gold plate! It's funny all the thought processes I go through. Instead, I ordered a brushed stainless steel control plate to somewhat match the bridge. I hope that works.

On deck is the tuners, controls, output jack, and pickguard.

--gh