The Camo Caster

Custom Double Neck Strat Kit Build

On the bench today, (and for quite a few days) we have what I'm calling "The Camo Caster."  Local musician, Michael Morales, plays with Group Therapy, and has always wanted a double neck, but has been more comfortable playing Fender style guitars than the usual Gibson.  Given the rarity of 6/12 Fenders and the potential cost of a custom "from scratch" build, Michael found a 6/12 kit on eBay.  Before I cold get my hands on it, he had a custom camo graphic Hydro-Dipped over the body, the back of the necks, and pickguard.  Here's what it looked like when I got it:

Regardless of how you may feel about camo and guitars, the pattern is both unique and striking.  From a tonal standpoint, I have some concerns about dipping the wooden body of a guitar in a chemical emulsion and then sealing those chemicals into it with vinyl printed material. I worry about the long term stability of the body and neck integrity in this state as well.  When Michael brought it to me for initial inspection, we talked about all of these concerns.  This is simply a guitar he always wanted to see built and play, and since I'm excited to help someone pursue a guitar dream, I hopped aboard.

Early in the design process, Michael decided that he wanted the stock chrome hardware switched out for black, the stock single coils switched to blackout or blade style humbuckers, and a general upgrade where possible to any integral components.  It took a few hours of searching and shopping, but after several emails of confirmation, we had the parts ordered and on the way.

While I waited for the parts to arrive, I focused on the biggest concern with the kit quality, the neck.

At first look and feel, I could tell that there was something wrong with the finish on the fingerboards.  It's difficult to feel from the photo, but they felt like sandpaper.  Michael is uncertain if this is a result of the Hydro-Dip or they way the necks came out of the box.  Personally, I suspect the latter.  In short, the necks were unplayable.  There are other examples of quality issues aside from the the roughness of the finish. The black smudge seen next to the dot position marker is the epoxy they used to either fill the hole or attach the plastic dot inlay.  There were several of these on both necks, all below the finish. 

Since budget was a concern, we decided to forgo a complete tear down of both necks for a respray.  With the knowledge that new necks might be in this guitar's future, Michael requested that I do my best to refinish the fingerboard with the frets on.  Not the best situation, but I had an idea.

The radii of both necks is a whopping 20" so I cut an arc across a scrap piece of 1/4" cherry and made myself sanding forms.  From there, I needed to sand with the grain in between the frets until I could get down to a level where the grit was gone.  I started with 220, worked my way up to 600, and then sprayed everything down with several coats of semigloss clear lacquer.  After some debate and at least one attempt to mask off all of the frets on both necks, I decided to spray over them all, and polish the lacquer off after.  

You'll notice at the end of the headstock, some of the Hydro-Dip chipping off.  At edges and drilled holes, the graphics wrap is very sensitive. These happened while I was screwing in the tuner backs.

The fingerboard issues aside, the rest of the hardware went in without a hitch.  I had some concerns about finding correctly sized replacement parts, but with the exception of one screw in the 12 string bridge, all of the chrome hardware was easily replaced with black.  For the 6 string neck, we went with black OEM six in line tuners, but since the 12 string neck lacked a string tree or 17 degree headstock tilt, I chose Wilkinson EZ lock tuners, hoping that the upper and lower hole design would help keep the strings better set in the nut.  Man! That was a lot of tuners!

 

Here's a pic with everything bolted on:

Once everything was in place, I could turn my attention to the electronics.  Aside from being white covered single coils, the OEM pickups were extremely low output, measuring 3.7K at the hottest.  Since our goal on the 12 string neck was something similar to a vintage Rick, we found 7K Kent Armstrong Dual Blades with closed covers, and to give Michael a "hot rod strat vibe" on the 6 string, we went with 8.9K Kent Armstrong Dual Blades.  After resizing the pickup routes and screwing everything in, it looked pretty cool.  I dig the stealth vibe.

The manufacturer's wiring diagram was a sketchy at best, but from what I could determine, all 3 pickups on the 12 string side were to be summed together at a volume control on the 12 string side of the pickguard before being sent to a tone control on the 6 string side.  This led me to the discovery of 2 issues.  The first and most concerning, was that there would be no way to choose an individual pickup.  To be honest, I haven't had a lot of experience with 3 pickup configured 12 strings, (has anyone?) so I wasn't sure if having all 3 pickups on at once would be normal.  I decided that they should be switchable, and after some discussion with Michael, reconfigured the control layout.  The 12 string pickups are switched via a 3 way mini toggle at the original 12 string volume knob location, then sent to a volume knob on the 6 string side of the pickguard where it shares a master tone control with the 6 string neck.  The 6 string pickups are selected at a traditional 5 way switch, go through a volume, and on to the master tone.

The connection between the two control cavities was a scant 1/8" hole.  Not only was it grossly undersized for even the OEM supplied wire, but wiring through this hole would mean that you would have to unsolder the connection between the two sides every time you needed to service or change the electronics!

After talking things through with Michael, I decided that routing a channel between the sides would be the best solution.  In truth, when it was time to mount the pickguard to the body, I wished I had routed the whole thing.

All of the upgraded components were more robust that their OEM counterparts, leading to more space issues within the control cavity.  I was able to squeeze in 2 Alpha volume controls, but the tail end of the route lacked the room for anything but the OEM tone control.  Regrettable, but unfortunately, necessary.  The new Switchcraft 5 way switch also posed a problem.  This time, depth was the issue.  You know you're having a bad day in the shop when you have to get the router back out after everything has already been wired!

After the wiring process was complete, it was time to move on to the final set up.  I started running into problems right away with the neck angle of the 6 string.  The neck pocket was routed deeper as it ran away from the body causing the strings to fret out above the 9th fret.  Almost 3/16 of an inch of shimming was necessary to correct the problem.  To add to the difficulty of establishing a playable instrument, several of the frets were improperly set and needed to be hammered down.

The neck pocket for the 12 string was much better, but a lack of foresight in the headstock design failed to apply enough downward pressure at the nut for the two center courses of strings. I hate to think of how much worse this problem could have been with out the 2 hole Wilkinsons.  To correct the problem, I filed the nut slots down as far as I dared and hoped for the best.  I'm going to suggest that Michael have me install a Floyd Rose Retainer Bar behind the nut to help keep the strings in place.

Once I worked out all of the kinks, the Camo Caster turned out like this:

 

Look closely at the picture above.  The cracking and caving in of the body behind the 6 string bridge was almost unnoticeable when I began working on this guitar.  I cant say for sure if this is just a weak spot in the wood, or if it's a reaction to the chemical process the body went through.  Either way, I have some concerns about the longevity of this body.

 

Despite the problems, Michael is happy with the way the Camo Caster turned out, and it certainly wasn't just another guitar project for me.  Thanks for reading!  Now go play something!

Mr. Black Eterna Shimmering Reverb Review

FINALLY:  THE ETERNA!

My Review of the Mr. Black Eterna Shimmering Reverb.

I've avoided reverb for years.  I guess it's always reminded me of that processed and isolated sound of the 80's, but I have been craving a little more space around my sound as of late and after some thoroughly enjoyable "research", I settled on the Mr. Black Eterna Shimmering Reverb.  The video review can speak for itself, (or not... Sorry about the narrative.  I recorded everything with my iPhone) but the Eterna starts where most reverbs end and goes bigger and more ethereal from there. This ain't no spring tank!  I was cautioned by a user that the shimmer function is best used in small doses, and I understand his concern.  The shimmer brings in organ-esque upper harmonics that take over the sound pretty quickly as you dial them in.  I personally like that function.  It's almost like having a pedal for GIANT reverb tones and a super cool faux organ simulator.  Check out the video for more tones and info.  Enjoy!

Bass Precision

Tracking Down a Buzzing A String

 

On the bench today, we've got a contemporary U.S. made Fender P-Bass. Local Grand Rapids musician, Tim Hamm, contacted me earlier in the week about tracking down a buzz he was noticing on his A string.

Getting the right action, relief, and intonation on a bass is tricky.  Bigger strings need a greater distance to travel in their vibrating ellipses above the fingerboard and the 34" scale imbues a greater amount of stress on both the neck wood and truss rod, so I immediately assumed the bass just needed a set up.  It was after Tim affirmed that he heard the unpleasant overtones when the string was played unfretted that I began to think the nut might be the one getting it's buzz on.


Check out the following video.  You can hear the A buzzing away until I apply some pressure to it behind the nut. It's a pretty simple test you can do yourself if you're trying to track down some unwanted vibrations.

After test playing the bass, I was about 90% certain the trouble was in the nut, but once I slackened the strings and pulled them aside I could actually see what was happening.  Tim had switched from D'Addarios to DR Black Diamonds, and lucky for me, the black coating left an imprint, visually demonstrating how each string was making contact in the nut slot.  It's a little hard to see in the photo, but the E, D, and G strings all showed a nice solid line in each slot, indicating good contact.  The A, however, left 3 distinct points of contact on the sides and bottom of the slot.  A tone killer for sure.

Once I saw this, I set about reshaping the slot with my nut files.  Since cutting the slot too wide or too deep would necessitate an entirely new nut, I sneaked up on this one by degrees.  After a couple of tries, I had it.  No more zzzzzzzzzzzz on the open A.

I also noticed that the bass had an excessive amount of neck relief.  Check out this picture of the 12th fret area when I set my old 32" level across the frets.  Keep in mind that the level is resting on the crown of the first and last frets here.  Major back bow.  Upper fret access would definitely be uncomfortable at this string height.

A good way to understand neck relief, truss rod adjustment, and playing action is to imagine a fishing rod that's been reeled all the way up so that the hook is caught on the last eyelet.  When pulled taught, the line (the strings) creates a bow in the rod (the neck.)  The tighter you reel in the line, the more the rod bows and the greater the distance between the line and the rod. On a guitar or bass, this is the neck relief, otherwise described as the action of the neck.  Tightening the truss rod helps counteract this tension mechanically, by bowing the rod into the opposite position.  Unfortunately, time and tension almost always win in the case of a 34" scale bass, and the rod eventually begins to weaken, leading to a permanent back bow and eventual unplayability. 

A technique I learned a few years ago "pre-loads" an up bow (negative relief) into the rod when it isn't under tension.  When the strings are tuned back up, the truss rod gets pulled back to straight, and the action can be adjusted much lower.  I recommend it for every single bass and apply it to my basses at every string change.

This is exactly what Tim's P-Bass needed, and after I was done, the playability was greatly improved!

Here's couple more pics from the repair session:

 

I did notice something unusual about the treble side fret ends.  Check out the pic.  It almost looks like there was tear out when the fret slots were cut and the voids were filled with some sort of epoxy.  I've never seen anything like this before.

 

I suppose a lesser company would have just left the gaps, but then again, why was there tear out in the first place?  If anyone else has run across this, please let me know.

Bridging the SG

Installing a WrapAround Tailpiece on an SG 

On the bench today we have a DIY (almost) bolt neck SG clone belonging to Mike from the band, Romance for Ransom. He's planning on doing most of the work himself, but chose wisely to have a pro install the bridge. Here's how it looked before I got started:

 

SG's always  have a special place in my heart because I was a huge Angus Young fan when I was a kid and still haven't heard anyone heavier than Tony Iommi, so I had pretty high hopes when I saw the antique natural finish on Mike's axe.  Here's hoping it turns out like this when he's done:

 

When I flipped it over to remove the strap button, I noticed something was a little off with the neck set.  If you check out the left picture, you can see that the bass side screw isn't completely set like the treble side screw on the right.  All four screws seemed to be tight and since resetting the neck wasn't something I had been contracted to do, I left well enough alone.  Bolt neck construction is certainly easier than set neck, but it still takes a little practice and finesse to get everything just right.

 

Despite the depth issues, the neck was aligned properly with the body, and after masking off the top I used a straight edge to make some reference marks on the body. (Tough to do with one hand!)

Now it's time to mark a line parallel to the nut.  On a 22 fret guitar with a 24.75" scale, Stew Mac's fret calculator says drill the holes at 24.81 inches from the nut.  I measured it out with my straight edge, laid it out along the neck, and came up with this:

 

From there, it was just a matter of finding center and then carefully marking out the 82 mm centers for the posts.  

 

Here's a shot of my spacing dry run.  Dig that grain on that Spruce Topped 2x6!! (lol)

Can't tell you how much my new lighted optivisor helps out in these kinds of close tolerance situations.  Now... all marked out and ready to drill.

Very happy with lack of chipping on these holes.  Masking tape helps, but nothing beats a good sharp bit!

The tricky thing about installing a bridge from scratch is that the posts which accept the height adjustment screws are both tapered and knurled so that they fit snug and can't back themselves out.  These are drilled just big enough to receive the thinner section, but the rest of the insert needs a little persuasion.

No customer wants to hear that you needed to use a 22 oz. hammer on their guitar, but with a few gentle taps, the studs fit nice and tight.

 

Once these are set, it's all down hill from here.  Just slide the bridge in place and tighten things down.  Looks pretty sharp!

The Fetching Gretsch

Gretsch 5120 - Tuning Stability Issues/New Nut and Bridge

On the bench today, we have a Gretsch Model 5120 that belongs to local punk, rock, and garage-o-tronic musician, Dust A.C., who uses this as his main axe in a few projects, most notably Antilogical and grrRoPoLis.

It's a pretty cool looking guitar, but the stock plastic nut, bigsby, and floating TOM bridge were creating some tuning stability issues. Dust wanted to have a locking nut installed, but we both agreed that all the extra modern hardware and hex nuts just wouldn't fit the rockabilly Gretsch decor.

A lot of tuning issues on vibrato equipped guitars come from strings getting bound in the nut slots. As the strings slacken during vibrato use , they move in the slot, bind at a different point, and are prevented from returning to tune. I recommended a Black Tusq self lubricating graphite composite nut from Graph Tech. An old school home remedy for sticky nuts (you heard me...) has been to rub a graphite pencil in the slots to keep it lubricated. Since the Black Tusq is made of graphite, it does the job for you.

Another binding point can often be the saddles themselves, so I recommended Mr. A.C. go with a different bridge configuration. After a little research into roller bridges, I realized that the relatively flat neck angle and stack height of the 5120 might not be enough to allow the roller saddles to move. A quick browse around the Gretsch forums brought me to the highly recommended Tru Arc bridge, a properly radiused, bridge that utilizes a wrap around design for unencumbered string travel. Shipping took a little longer than normal due to some supply shortages, but Tru Arc owner, Tim Harman was helpful and patiently answered all of my concerned emails during the order process.

Here are a couple of shots of Dust's axe as it came to me:


I dig the slick, jet black vibe this guitar has without the pickguard, though it is a little difficult to see under all the sweat and gig grime.

Here's a good shot of the old bridge. It's not uncommon for a gigging/player instrument to have this level of grime. In fact, I would totally expect it from someone as busy as Dust A.C. All of this crud (mostly pieces of hand) gives a guitar serious street cred, but it does take it's toll on an instrument. Check this out:

Take a look at the floating bridge base and bridge height adjustment thumbwheels. That brown stuff in the middle and on the thumbwheels is more gunk that was causing corrosion on the bridge posts. The wheels were starting to rust to the posts, something that would have made future bridge height adjustments much more difficult if it was allowed to go unchecked. I hit the bridge posts with naptha and a toothbrush for about 10 minutes each before I could get the posts clean enough to oil and re-thread the wheels back on.

This is the old bridge, also pretty gunk-ified. After looking at this thing I was pretty sure that this was part of the tuning problem. Although the saddles are slotted, the slots have just become magnets for more string snagging crud. A lot of the complaints coming from the Gretsch forums was that the OEM bridge wasn't slotted to match the fingerboard radius as well, causing the strings to hit the frets in the wrong places as they neared the bridge.

A quick pic of the cleaned thumbwheels after soaking in naptha for about 15 minutes. Shiny, shiny...

With the wheels clean, bridge posts free of debris and oiled, frets polished, body wiped down, and fingerboard cleaned and conditioned, it was time to start putting the 5120 back together. Check out the Tru Arc ST-120 Rocking Bar Bridge:

The firs pic shows the nice matching 12" radius, and the second is a good illustration of how the bridge is machined to receive the strings and hold them in proper alignment without giving them a place to hang up when you wiggle the bigsby. It dropped in without a hitch

Here's the pre-strung, post cleaned black beauty:


The next step is to shape, slot, locate, cut, reshape, re-slot, polish and install the new nut. I've spared you about 20 photos of me with various files, sandpapers, saws, and polishing compound since it's a pretty dull process and can be found elsewhere on the web by guys like the master: Dan Erlewine .

Here's a nice shot of the Gretsch all strung up with the nut roughed in but not finally trimmed and polished.

Hey! What happened to my nice clean bench?!

In the middle of the process, my three-year-old wandered in to see what I was doing and noticed immediately that he could look directly into the output jack and see into the body of the guitar.

As usual, I got so caught up in what I was doing that I forgot to snap a pic of the finished nut. Here's one I took when I was about 2/3rds of the way finished. The rough shape and slots are there, but the final shaping, slotting, and polishing remains. I think it was about here that I realized that yellow glue doesn't stick to graphite. I had to scrape it out of the slot and stick the nut down with a couple of drops of thinned out superglue.

With the bridge in and the nut set, it was time to turn to the intonation. The Tru Arc bridge doesn't employ individually adjustable saddles, so you have to take a "best of all possible worlds" approach by positioning the bridge where most of the strings have the best intonation. I used painter's tape to give me a reference point as i made some final adjustments to the relief and nut, but short of pinning the bridge, (major surgery) only string tension holds the bridge in place and allows it to make solid contact with the top.

Here's the final product all cased up and ready to go back to kick out some serious jams with Dust A.C.
I can't wait for the next time I can check it out live!


Next up: I restring and set up a bargain basement acoustic for my nephew.

Reverend Slingshot #2393 - Set Up and Restring

On the bench today I have one of my own guitars, a Reverend Slingshot.

Reverend is a Warren, MI owned company that sells great guitars and backs it up with top notch, personal customer service. The Slingshot is from their now discontinued US made line. These are semi hollow guitars with a string through strat style bridge, a hi impact injection molded outer rim, and were available with several different laminate or metal tops.

This particular finish is known as Bugeye Black Chrome, a highly reflective dimpled surface that looks as amazing under stage lights as it does outside. My band just landed a gig at Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts, and i was looking for something to make a big visual impact. This guitar and the customized amp i'm bringing (later blog) should do the trick. When i got her out of the case she looked sharp, but needed some TLC. The strings were shot, the fretboard and frets were cruddy, the 4th and 5th strings were pinging in the nut, and the action was rubbery and uncomfortably high.

Since i was the last guy to play this guitar, i was kind of surprised at the condition. Because Reverend's US models have been accruing value, i bought one of their Korean made models (a Volcano) to use for gigs and rehearsal, and have left the slingshot on the shelf for over 2 years. Apparently, i played the crap out of it, detuned the strings, and put it in the case. I'm sure i had all the best intentions to prepare it for long term storage, but probably forgot to do so once i settled into the volcano.

Here's a close up of the grunginess of the frets and board:

Very dull and oxidized frets and the residue and oils fingers leave behind make the neck feel sticky and inhibit fast runs. This isn't the worst i've seen, but it still needs a good cleaning to make it play efficiently. During my saturday guitar sales/repair gig at Farrow's music, i saw a lot of this. One customer made his living as an auto mechanic, and would come home, grab his acoustic, and start banging away without washing his hands. He had a layer of oil, skin, and grease built up almost to the level of the fret tops! I had to scrape it away with a plastic putty knife before i could do anything else. yarg! Fortunately, this guitar doesn't need that kind of drastic solution.


I stopped here, about 1/2 way through the fret polishing process to snap a picture. Haven't touched the fingerboard yet, but look at those frets shine! 4 ought steel wool and a little elbow grease does the trick. Stewart MacDonald's fingerboard guards (see photo) really save a lot of time and potential wear on the wood. They certainly fall into the "why didn't i think of that" category. Now that the the frets are clean, i can evaluate the amount of wear and pitting. Everything looks pretty good, and most of the frets are wearing evenly, something that can be attributed to a good set up (albeit a little high) and an exemplary original fret install, crown, and dress at the factory. Okay. Time to make the rest of the neck look pretty as well.


Pausing here for another pic. while a modest amount of lemon oil softens the grime and treats the rosewood. I am especially fond of the well defined grain pattern on this guitar; a very nice organic contrast to the sharp angles and shiny surfaces of the body. Joe Naylor's background in industrial design is lucidly detailed in the shape and construction of this guitar.

Now of course, a little more elbow grease. The best tool i've ever used for this job is an old worn out toothbrush. I like the way the flared out bristles dig into the joint between the fret and the fingerboard. After a little confusion over which toothbrush was from daddy's toolkit and which one belonged in the mouth of my 2 and a half year old, i decided to hack the end off this one with my nut slotting saw.

Nice clean playable board.

This is a great, simple way to breathe life into a guitar you're getting tired of or struggling with. I'm surprised that more shops don't do this to their inventory on a regular basis or as a courtesy when someone walks out the door with a new-but-played instrument. Now for the techie stuff:

The action needed to be brought down. I'm guessing that i was still under the "get under the string" mindset when i set the slingshot up last. After my set up and repair course at The Chicago School of Guitar Making , i've really refined my expectations of relief and set up. Finding the perfect medium between the least forgivable amount of relief and string height always brings the most out of any guitar or bass.

But first, a nice shot of the top that i feel communicates the idea of bugeye BLACK chrome. i was trying to capture some of the weirdly prismatic droplets of guitar polish as they dried on the top. Not a complete success, but it does illustrate another facet of the extremely groovy future alien design vibe.


Once the polish was gone, i set about widening and flaring the back side of the nut slots, restringing, and dropping the saddle radius down to a less rubbery height. None of that photographs particularly well. (lol) I did find that there was a significant amount of backbow already preloaded into the truss rod which was causing a slight fretting out of the 3rd string at the 9th and 10th fret. after rechecking the saddle radius, decided to try easing a little relief back into the neck. Just one minor problem:

That first string tree was in the way of all of my truss rod adjustment tools. Luckily, i still had the original bill of sale and Reverend "Standard Guitar" kit, and found the hex wrench that was included with the sale. i think i backed it off about half a turn, reset the intonation, and had it. the string through and strat bridge make for an exceptionally solid and precise set up.

I've forgotten now where i put my spec. sheet and notes, but i was able to significantly lower the action on this guitar just by dropping the saddle height and adding just a pinch of relief. Once i had it all strung up and intonated, i remembered why i love these axes so much. Solid, stable, and amazingly sweet. The Naylor designed P90's are unlike anything you'll find in a Gibson. Not as snotty or rawkin', but still full of single coil sparkle and song. Here's an improvised solo track i did a couple of years ago featuring just the slingshot and my funky old japanese tube amp:

The aside by theericsikkemaproject

That's the way she sounds, now check out how it looks on stage.


got a little video as well:

At least you can see that while the guitar player may not have always performed perfectly, the Slingshot did! I always enjoy working on these older Reverends and hope to do (and document) more in the future. Thanks for checking out the blog. Next time: see what i did to my pedal rigs to get 'em in shape for the high profile gig.