Virtually ran down to eBay this evening and picked up a pickup (pun TOTALLY intended).  This pickup has the mic and the piezo strip that goes under the bridge, with a slider to blend the two sources.  I'm hoping it is going to sound MUCH better than the piece of crap I just tossed in the garbage.  On a side note, I did read that the soundhole pickups (the one I disposed of) in general have the nasty characteristic of accentuating the B string, which I can indeed confirm.  What a nasty design, "yeah it works, it just sounds like the only string on your guitar is the B string, and it sounds electric".  Thanks guys, great job.

 

From my research, this design of this pickup seems to be quite popular, the blender will allow me to adjust to combine the best qualities of both pickup technologies.  Can't wait.

 

So stay tuned, I'll be hacking up my cherished 12-string very soon to put this pickup in myself.  Not recommended by any professional, but how can you get to the next level if you're not willing to sacrifice something you love (I think Hendrix said something like that, just before he torched his guitar on stage).  To stay true to the legend, I will burn my 12 if I arse it up :)

 

But if all goes well, I am going to replace the bridge nut with a nice new $20 bone one, again this is supposed to be the material of choice for bridge nuts, so we'll see what happens.  When I am done, I will post one of the following:

 

1) An MP3 of what it sounds like; OR

2) A mpeg of the fire

 

Stay tuned...

 

There was some severe corrosion in the pickup, so that's toast.  I guess I'll need to get a new one for the 12 string.  I'm also in the market for a new acoustic, and I saw a nice little Yamaha for a grand that has a built-in mike inside the body of the guitar.  Great for sound reproduction, but not so great for feedback.  I still haven't decided on that one yet.

So, I finished the bass.  Fixing the split headpiece went perfect, there wasn't much too it at all.  I opted to use a little thicker screws to resecure the tuning pegs, that worked well too, but I did learn a little something about the asthetics of guitars.  I'm using these stupid galvanized dull screws, which don't look "smokin'".  Something to keep in mind when I start attaching hardware to the one I'm building, I need to find the chrome-plated or stainless steel ones.  Small thing, but God is in the details.

 

Soldering in the new switch was a breeze with my new butane-powered soldering iron from Canadian Tire.  It made a world of difference since the soldering iron I had was huge and hard to work with.

 

Nice, I just sounded like Canadian Tire Guy.  I need to stop that.

 

Anyway I adjusted the neck, string height, and intonation as well.  The intonation was the most challenging part, I think I would have went insane until I read this on the Tune My Bass website:

 

"You will discover that it is impossible to get every single fret perfectly in tune. This is normal. Fretted instruments have a natural flaw where they can’t be perfectly intonated. You can just get really close. If you’re interested in why, look up “equal temperament” or “just intonation” in a music dictionary."

 

Yes, I discovered it.  Well I should have read that before I started.  With that knowledge, my target was to have the 12th fret come in around +- 3 cents, which made the green light on my tuner light up.  After that it was a breeze (sort of).

 

For anyone interested, this site has an excellent tutorial on setting up a bass guitar.

 

 

Next job is the Epiphone.  Well, not really, tonight I am going to tackle the sound-hole mounted pickup in my 12 string, the high E string doesn't pick up at all, and the B is too loud.  The strings seem lined up over the magnets correctly, it's old so I'm going to haul it apart and see what makes it tick.  I'll probably end up totally breaking it tonight so next job will be the Epiphone.

 

 

 

 

As some of you are aware, I am trying my hand at making an acoustic guitar.  I intend to record my progress in this blog to share with those interested.

 

Through a combination of my day job work, lack of tools to go further, and pure laziness, I haven't done as much as I would like with building my acoustic.  I am still waiting for a bending iron for the sides (word is Santa knows this), so to keep me occupied as I wait for my equipment, I have a couple of repair jobs to tackle to hone my skills.  I figure if I am cocky enough to attempt to build an acoustic from scratch, I should be able to repair them! 

 

This said, I have two repair jobs happening now.

 

 

The Story:  I have an old acoustic 6 string.  I paid $200 bucks for it in a small guitar shop back in Newfoundland around 1995.  It sounds ok, but the intonation is off higher up the frets, and the action is less than perfect.  It is the first six string that I bought, but not the first acoustic guitar that I owned.  I learned to play on a 12 string that I bought around 1992, which I still have (it sounds awesome).

 

So this 6 string has outlived my desire to keep it.  I intended to sell it for $100 to put towards a new 6 string, something in the $1000 range.

 

My brother-in-law's brother in law (I really can't think of a less confusing way to relay that relation :) was in the market for a cheap guitar for banging around with.  He has played mine, and agreed to buy it.

 

Before I sent him over the guitar, I was at my sister's house and noticed an old electric bass up in my brother-in-law's (Steve) jam room.  I asked Steve who owned it, and it turned out to be Dan's (his brother-in-law).  Well, I always wanted to have a bass for playing around with, so I suggested to Dan we make a straight trade, acoustic for the bass.  He agreed.  I now own a bass.

 

 

The Analysis:  The bass is not in bad shape.  I would suggest that I was getting the better deal, so being the sucker I am I threw in the hardshell case I had as well to ease my conscience.  But it needed some work, mostly maintenance.  Here's what I need to do with this one:

 

1) The tuning pegs are lifting away from the headstock.  Solution - a mixture of saw dust and wood glue to fill in the old holes, and then rescrew them with fresh new screws.  The tuning pegs themselves look to be in good shape, a little lube on the gears and they will be number 1.

 

2) One of the tuning pegs has lifted away so much that it has brought some wood with it and split the headstock.  I popped up the wood chip, used a razor scalpel to apply some wood glue, and clamped it for 24 hours.  Good as new.  Actually better structurally, since the wood glue is harder than the wood, cosmetically there is still a crack.  I think I may be able to sand it down and re-varnish it, but that will be another project for another day.  It's really not that noticable and is at the back of the headstock.

 

3) The switch for the active pickups is non-functional.  Looks like this mother went through hell.  10 bucks at Long and Mcquade found me a replacement.  I just need to pick up a new soldering iron to hook up the electronics.  The one I have is old and the tip is way too big for this kind of work.

  

4) The intonation is off.  I've hauled all the saddles off for a cleaning and lube, I'll adjust it when I get the new strings.

 

5) The pickups are functional, but I'm thinking a $60 pair of Fender Bass pickups will add new life to this sucker.  Low priority though, since the originals work ok.  I'm interested to hear the difference with the switch working.  I need to adjust the pickup core heights to balance the volume of the pickups.

 

6) The strings are OLD.  Easy enough to fix.

 

7) A good cleaning, the finish needs a polish, the frets need the gunk removed, and the bridge has about a decade of lint built up.

 

I figure this should take me about a week and then that's done.  All I need then is a cheap bass amp and we're good to go.

 

 

 

The Story:  This one came to me through a donation from one of my father's friends.  It's a sweet looking guitar, and the wood quality is excellent.  Mahogany sides and back, and a spruce top.  It just has that look that it will sound nice.  Research on the internet leads me to believe it was made in the early 1970's.

 

The Analysis:  Poor little Epiphone.  No one loves you since the night that drunk fell into you during a party and snapped you like a twig.  Some major damage was done for sure.  The neck was snapped from the body, and in the process, the fretboard damaged the soundboard just north of the soundhole.  There was a Red Green attempt at fixing the neck, which I quickly dismantled. 

 

Good news is the neck itself and the fretboard seem ok.  So there are two areas of work that need to be done:

 

1) The neck needs to be reattached.  The neck-to-body join design was actually 4 long screws that extend from the back of the guitar up into the neck.  As I mentioned there was an attempt to rejoin it, but it was basically with low grade glue without clamping from what I can see.  Also, the fact that the holes were stripped during the impact wasn't addressed, so the screws are not really holding like they should be.

 

2) The soundboard.  This is going to be hard.  I'm probably looking at 35 year old wood, so I don't really want to replace the top.  I just know that soundboard is going to sound fantastic.  From the picture in the photo album, you can see the damage.  The wood actually is split along the incision for the rosette on the top near the pick guard, and the wood is warped along the top.  I'll have to research this one a bit to come up with a solution.

 

 

So that's it for my first entry.  The bass guitar maintenance is in progress, so I'll update as soon as I get going.