He has a few - it doesn’t take much to find out more - they are made by Hamer, like most of Rick’s one-off weird guitars. The first one had a 12-string, a fretless, a standard 6 string, a 6 string with a whammy and I can’t remember the 5th…
My little guitar issue of the day:
I just tried grain filling a walnut Telecaster body with clear, 60 minute epoxy. After seeing what a gooey mess it’s become, I’m wondering if that was a bad idea. Sanding back that epoxy is probably going to suck balls…
Got the idea from this guy: http://www.guitaristjeffmiller.com/guitars12.htm
Oy - that sounds like a big pain if it doesn’t go the way you intended. “Undoing Epoxy” sounds totally oxymoronic…
It looked like a great idea on that guy’s build page. I was planning on filling the grain with the epoxy, then trying to get the glass-like finish with Tru-oil. We’ll see how it sands out - if it’s a pain in the ass, I’m sanding all the way back and starting over with something different…
I still haven’t perfected my finishing schedule for a glass-like finish on open-pored woods. I’d love for this combination of epoxy and Tru-oil to work because it would keep the process easy and a lot less toxic. I love using the Tru-oil finish when not filling the grain, but it doesn’t look as good otherwise - at least with the grain fillers I’ve tried. So if a project comes along where some one wants that mirror-glass finish, I have to use a filler and lacquer. I’ve yet to find a combination of the two that are compatible, go on easy without the use of a spray gun, and aren’t going to give me cancer…
I hear you - and don’t know what to say. I have no experience in actually finishing guitars - for my two homebrews, I bought one body already finished and one I had my buddy finish. I guess I am surprised at the thought of epoxy, simply because of all the hoodoo about how polyurethane finishes seal the wood so it can’t breath - well if poly seals it, what the heck does epoxy do? I know, most guitars these days are finished with poly and even Fenders lacquer finished guitars are typically sealed with Fullerplast before they get painted…there’s a lot of weirdness about finishing bodies. But I bet epoxy would be glossy as all get-out.
All that hoodoo is just that… hoodoo. All hard finishes - nitro, poly, Tru-oil, linseed oil, shellac - they all seal the wood. There’s no hard finish out there that “let’s the wood breathe.” :rolleyes: The different types of finishes may sound and feel different, but that’s not because of their sealing properties…
Can you explain what “grain filling” is? I assume it’s like priming a wood interior door before applying an opaque coat of latex, controlling how the next coat will absorb (or not) into the wood, right? How does that work when applying a “clear” finish to a guitar? Is it a requirement that the gain-filling material be transparent? Or am I missing the point?
Grain fillers fill the open pores of the wood which creates a very smooth almost glass like surface. They are applied in a thick consistency and rubbed into the pores. Once they dry the excess is removed from the surface leaving the pores filled and level with the surface. Then you apply the finish of your choice.
Grain fillers come in different colors so you can use a dark filler on dark wood and light on light woods etc.
CB comes in with the info…
Everything he said. Plus, you can use a purposely made grain filler or be creative and try something a little more unusual - which lands me where I am now with my walnut…
Actually, after a lot of sanding today with 220 grit sandpaper, it looks pretty good. Nice and smooth. I’ll post a few pics of her when she’s done…
Also, there’s a lot of different techniques for finishing a guitar but my basic finish schedule for lacquer goes something like this:
- Wood prep - sanding to 320 grit making sure to get all the lower grit sanding scratches out, fill in voids, steam out dents - basically, just make it nice and smooth.
- Grain filling for open pored woods (mahogany, korina, walnut, ash). If the wood is alder or maple then go to the next step.
- Transparent colors - usually aniline dyes mixed with alcohol or water and sprayed or wiped on. The dyes soak into the wood and show the figure and grain nicely. Some choose to interchange this step with step 2. If opaque colored lacquers are being used then skip to the next step.
- Sand and Sealer - this is usually a thin washcoat or two of unthinned clear laquer or shellac that seals the wood. Just a couple of coats sprayed a few hours apart. If there’s any “orange peel” (sometimes lacquer can dry a little bumpy, like the peel of an orange) or spits from the sprayer, these coats will have to be sanded flat with 600 grit paper - being careful not to sand thru to the wood.
- Opaquer colors - a few (4 or 5) wet coats of thinned opaque colored lacquer sprayed about 8 hours apart at the minimum. Some like to use a coat or two of primer first.
- Clear coats - clear lacquer usually thinned a bit with a solvent of some sort and sprayed in 8 “double coats” (spray a coat, wait 5 minutes, spray another, wait 8 hours, repeat 7 more times). After the last coats are on, it’s left to cure for about a month.
- After it’s well cured, then comes the wet sanding with progressive grits of paper from 800 up to 1500 or 2000. I usually use soapy water as a lubricant. This is just to get any orange peel or slight undulations in the finish nice and flat.
- Final polishing with my hand drill and a polishing pad attachment. I usually use Maguire’s Mirror Glaze polishing compound. This will buff out the scratches left by the last grit of sandpaper I used for the wet sanding. You have to keep the drill moving and not stay in one spot too long. Burning through the lacquer at this point would really suck…
And that’s it…
Seems like we should probably add a link to this thread, Guitar Playing Wanker
I was thinking the same thing.
Hey. So… a guitar has one, two, or three pickups. And when it has one pickup, it’s generally at the bridge.
What’s the difference? My guitar is a P90 at the neck and a humbucker at the bridge. How would it sound if I reversed them? What difference does location make?
You know what the three most important things about a pickup are? Location, location, location.
Sorry - someone had to.
Yeah, location matters a lot - random thoughts:
-
In terms of the pure physics of it, the further in towards the middle a pickup is, the greater the distance of string travel is picked up during the vibration. Think about picking up an acoustic guitar and picking near the bridge to get a bright, twangy, bass-less sound vs. strumming over the soundhole to get a smooth, open sound with more bass. Same thing.
-
Clapton’s famous Woman Tone - e.g., the lead on Sunshine of Your Love - is from a neck pickup with the tone control rolled off - you get that nice, thick, tubey sound - a byproduct of that location’s inherent tone with some distortion and chopped off highs thrown in.
-
Leo Fender slanted the bridge pickups on Teles and Strats because he wanted the extra snap and twang of having the pickup really close for the High E, but a bit further away on the low strings so they weren’t as pinched tone-wise
-
You know Mark Knopfler’s tone? Or the intro lick on Sweet Home Alabama, played on a Strat? In both cases that is one of the Quack Positions on a Strat. Positions 2 and 4 on the 5-way switch of modern Strats combines the middle pickup with either the bridge (2) or neck (4). That unique sound - referred to as a Strat Quack or a Notchy sound, since it’s waveform is notchy in shape - is a byproduct of the specific locations of the pickups and how they combine their signals.
-
Pickups themselves have their specific effect on tone - when you combine that with location, you change things around. Humbuckers can be thick, bordering on mud - and the more distortion you are loading into your signal with pedals and your amp, the more likely you will muddy up your tone. Well, using the pickup closest to the bridge adds bite and clarity and so that is why it is the choice to go to for that Les Paul through Marshall sound.
Gotta run…
Three months or so at this guitar thing and I don’t really feel as if I’m getting anywhere. I mean, I’m obviously a bit more comfortable with it than I was when I first picked the thing up, but I don’t know if I’m progressing like I ought to be. Still can’t play a damn thing–the most I can lay claim to is bits of things. The basic little opening of Smoke on the Water or Rock You Like a Hurricane with power chords; that’s about it. My teacher at the moment mostly just keeps poking exercises at me. Maybe my fault–I know what I like, and what I’d like to be able to play, but they’re rather disparate things–namely thrash and its progeny, older classic rock and proto-metal like Sabbath… and then on the other hand, grittier country-ish rootsy… stuff. Like, say, the stuff Reverend Peyton does with that Big Damn Band of his, or Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, or Reverend Glasseye (what’s with all these Reverends?!), or Pariah Beat (who have some tracks on their webpage). Not to mention just plain old Johnny Cash 'n whatnot. But half of it’s stuff most folks’ve never heard of, and I can’t figure out what to call it anyway. So even if I were to drag in a different song every week, it wouldn’t do much good–and couldn’t I just look (at least some of) them up on the internet anyway? Grrr.
Sorry–just had to come in here and vent my newbie frustration; I figure yinz’ve been there or somewhere next door to there, at least. Funny thing is, that I’m not frustrated to the point of wanting to give it up… more just feeling like I’m at sea, a little bit. But I keep paddling, even without a compass.
On the other hand, picked up a Pocket Pod the other day. It was ultimately going to be a necessity, what with an eventual move to a NYC apartment, and I was getting a bit tired of playing without distortion whenever anyone else was in the house. Haven’t really dove into it, but I love it. It’s fun just to try different stuff and see what it sounds like, and oh so nice to put it on the “Smoke on the Water” setting and do, well, Smoke on the Water. 
Anyway, back to your serious guitar geekery. One day I may join you yet!
A suggestion, for starters get comfortable with a few cowboy chords so you can strum though your plain old Johnny Cash stuff. It doesn’t matter what style you’re ultimately aiming at, knowing the basic open chords is a solid starting point. Pick out a few riffs, to move you on from Smoke on the Water how about Paranoid, that’s another good starters one
Passing shot. Nearly everyone plays Smoke on the Water wrong (see School of Rock). It’s not power chords, it’s double stops in forths (Blackmore does this a lot).
1------
2------
3------
4------
5-xx--- <- D G
1------
2------
3--xx-- <- F Bb
4------
5------
1------
2------
3------
4------
5--xx-- <- G C
And so on…
Dude - vent hard and all you want. Totally understandable. But don’t worry about it. Jeez, to this day, I still remember overhearing my older sister on the phone - I think I had been playing for two years or so - where she was angrily bitching to a friend of hers about how “he doesn’t play anything! I mean, its the same bit of a song over and over and over and over! He can’t even play a *complete *song - at least not one I’ve heard! It’s driving me crazy!”
You are focusing on mechanics right now - just like throwing a baseball, learning a new software program or new job, you have to learn the mechanics before you can actually *use *the new tool. 3 months is both interminably long, per your post, and a blip in time. You should be able to chord competently between 2 - 3 basic chords like A, E, D, G, C and so on - so you can actually strum a basic rhythm and detect a bit of groove in it - in 4 - 6 months if you are practicing regularly. Does that help?
Key point - and I say this every time in these threads - are you rockin’ out on one string? Playing Smoke on the Water or Foo Fighters (I love that riff out of Times like These on one string myself ;)) while making arena crowd noises with your mouth? I’m not just some indulgent Boomer telling you to get in touch with your inner child - it serves a purpose: it focuses on the groove more than chords. If gives you a chance to feel a groove, breathe with it and not be concerned about the mechanics of forming chords. That way, when you get competent in a few more months with chords, you have a sense of the groove and can feel it better as it emerges in your playing. When that happens = Happy. Well, at least happier; there’s always some new damn hill to climb, eh Sisyphus?
Also, if you don’t know riffs like the Peter Gunn theme(aka Planet Claire by the B-52’s) and AC/DC’s TNTor Muddy Waters’ Mannish Boy- you should, on one string.
Peter Gunn: Estring - Open Open 2 Open 3 Open 5 4, where you lightly drop your fretting fingers back onto the Low E to mute it right after you hit the string Open, so the note is short; doesn’t sustain.
TNT - E String - Open 3 5, 3 5 3 Open Same thing - each note is short and it is up to you to use your fretting fingers to dampen the strings to fit the groove. That is a shadow art that doesn’t get discussed much - knowing how to dampen strings - start learning it.
Mannish Boy - on a low E - Open Open 5 Open 3 Open with damping
They are all about groove. Get in front of a ball game and play these for hours - go ahead, bug your sister - she won’t mind. 
I am into my third week now and understand the frustration. I have to remind myself of where I am now compared to where I started. I can play all of the open major chords without difficulty and can strum fairly smoothly between A D and E plus a few other progressions. Certain fingerings still cause problems such as switching from C to G (with the 2, 3 and 4 fingers.) Just can’t get the pinkie to cooperate all of the time. And the F chord is successful on only about 25% of the attempts.
And I have the opening set for my upcoming world tour pretty well down. I’ll open with Ode to Joy, then Aura Lee and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Jingle Bells for a kick ass encore!
I’ve been playing for a year now, and I still struggle with those same things. Getting into G cleanly and quickly is still a challenge, though it is slowly improving. Same thing with F…took me a long while to figure out how to do the short barre correctly (though now it sounds right about 90% of the time).
I don’t normally go for the “shredder” type of player, but Paul Gilbert is just… WOW!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES1RypBww_g
This song offers up alot of examples of alternate picking. That’s quick combinations of up and down strokes by the picking hand. It’s one aspect of my playing I’d like to improve on but I’ve never been able to get to “ludicrous speed” like he does. He goes over the amazing end lick here:
I guess I’ll be happy if I can play like that some day.
Wordman, I appreciate the perspective. You see teenagers shredding on YouTube and you can get a little bit discouraged. I dig the tunes, too–fooled around with Peter Gunn a little earlier. (I know it well from a childhood spent playing Spy Hunter on the C64 and NES.) I’m not certain I understand the muting that you’re talking about–do you know anyplace I could hear an example?
I do fool around with this sort of stuff–my practice isn’t especially structured; I’ll do an exercise or scales for a bit, then play around with one of the little bits o’ song I know for a bit, then switch off again. Lately I’ve been just working on chord changes, trying to get them fast and smooth. The trouble with those little one (or two, like Sunshine of Your Love) string melodies is that I tend to start speeding them up a little bit each time around. A little faster, a little faster, through sloppy until I go off the rails. 
The little power chord songs are better–the mechanics of it seem to keep me a bit slower.
**
Small Clanger**, I’ve been working on that–teacher hasn’t been giving it to me, so I started working on it through the stuff over on justinguitar.com. And I’ve been looking at the song, I’ve Been Everywhere that Cash covered on one of the American recordings. I’m actually perfectly capable of playing all the chords (though the F# is a bit shaky, and I’d have to work on the change), but figuring out the strumming rhythm is another thing entirely.