Yes, figuring out where to “tuck the cap” in my control cavity given the size of those oil-and-paper vintage-style caps was an added step I hadn’t appreciated, but it was do-able.
I tie a piece of stout line - fishing line or even just dental floss - to the end of my wires if there is even a chance of a wire or braid or something getting snagged and hung up. I tie the line then use tape to smooth out the knot and the line pulls right through.
I am not clear on the stray wire - can’t tell if you are saying they kinda kluged it together or if, like on most Teles, there was a ground wire that was specifically left bare between the bridge and the body for grounding purposes…
Back in the 60’s (my early drumming days), the strings used an extra stray wire to stick their cigarettes onto. Not healthy, I know, but it looked cool as hell in the dark during the slow dances. :)
E, I like the Hanson too, but I promised myself that until I got good enough, I’d never spend more than about $350.00 on a guitar, so me too about waiting, buddy!
Yeah, it does look doable, I was just taken aback when I saw these huge-ass caps, like I’d ordered the wrong thing. Thanks all for the reassurance.
Agree - I was figuring on some variation on what electricians do when pulling wire. I hadn’t thought of dental floss, nice tip!
Well, there’s a wire in the control well that presumably goes to the bridge or tailpiece. But given the chancy wiring job on this instrument from the maker, it would surprise me no great deal if it want toward those areas but wasn’t hooked up properly. I’m just gonna pull out the multimeter once I take the plunge and unwire/desolder all the old stuff and make sure that the bridge/tailpiece ground actually grounds the strings. I’d bet 99/100 that it’s fine, I just want to make sure.
Congrats to your friend!
Does the quote on his picture, re “this very interesting non-linear nylon-string model” refer to the asymmetry of the bridge/sound hole/waist on the guitar, or some mathematical property? It’s a very cool looking guitar.
I haven’t had a chance to play this one, but it looks like he has taken the principles of his earlier ‘Ellipse’ steel-string and applied them to a classical instrument. The body is a pair of non-parallel ellipses - if you were to draw lines extended from the two pair of foci, those lines would intersect about 18 inches down from the waist. Looking closely, there are small, white dots which outline the other half of each ellipse. The instrument is fan-fretted. The end result is that there’s a longer scale length for the bass strings, and more soundboard on the bass side, giving a deeper sound. Fan frets are really interesting to work with, allowing a more efficient use of the left hand. Note that the bridge and the soundhole are at the centre of their respective ellipses, emphasizing the asymmetry.
I’ll let you know more when I finally get to play it, probably sometime before the year is out.
The bad news, for me, in all this is that his prices will now go up to reflect the increased value and collectibility of his instruments. That 8- or 9- stringed fan-fretted instrument that I want to commission from him will now have to wait until its cost reflects no more than 30% of my net income from the ‘Troubadour’ concerts, or until I make so much money in a year that I need the investment to bring my taxes down and/or have so much that I won’t notice a guitar that’s worth the down-payment on a decent house…
Aha, I’d forgotten about fan-fretting. That must be so odd to play. And the ‘tilted’ sound hole makes perfect sense, like the tilted bridge pickup on a strat/tele.
So I’ve got my Xavier e torn apart, everything unsoldered, ready to shield the control cavity. Aaand the cavity is so rough, particularly on the bottom but also the sides, that my 1" adhesive copper tape won’t stick to it, even after liberal hand sanding and blowing out particles with a can of air. It’s like trying to tape something to gravel. I’m off to Radio Shack and/or the craft store to find copper foil and some sort of adhesive that I can use to adhere shielding to the cavity.
What the hell is with projects of any sort that require 5 trips to the store? Home maintenance, car repair, guitar wiring – everything requires 5 trips to the hardware/auto parts/electronic/craft store. [/rant]
Yeah, I saw that page, too Sabs. I had hopes of finding copper foil at a craft store like one of that page’s contributors, but Michael’s only had gold leaf, far too flimsy. The aluminum foil from the grocery store seems too flimsy as well, it tears very easily. I did manage to find some very light sheets of brass at the hardware store, so if I can figure out a way to make a template, I’ll cut something the shape of the bottom of the cavity, and leave 1/5" of “tongues” bent from that shape to cover most of the sides. The craft store did have some adhesive that claims if bonds to wood or metal (and other things, of course), so I can adhere that brass to the cavity with it. I think I can just finish with some of the copper tape to go around the sides of the cavity, since it will stick to the brass, then solder all the pieces to each other and to a ground wire.
So, now I have trip-to-the-store #2: it seems that that 4’ of shielded wire I bought from RS Guitarworks (“enough for a Les Paul® or 335 style guitar”) is about 6" less than I need to go to the switch on the upper bout 3 times. I just pulled out one of the wires (dragging some dental floss along through the wire route, per WordMan) and tripled that length and it seems I need more wire. I don’t think anyone sells that sort of wire around here, so I may have to shelve this project until I can get some via mail-order. Criminy.
The weirdest thing is when you switch between a fan-fret and a straight-fret instrument. I’m not sure I could use both instruments in the same concert… That’s part of why I’m envisioning an instrument so versatile, it could replace the baritone classical and the regular classical, with a floating low ‘A’ and ‘D’ string to boot. What the f*ck, dreams are free.
Around here, we measure the difficulty of a DIY project in Angelos, Angelo being the ancient guy at the really good lumber yard who ‘retired’ 8 years ago and still hangs around there at least 20 hours a week. Angelo is the guy who knows where everything in the store is, knows exactly why two indistinguishable parts are used for two totally different purposes, and asks you what you intend to use the wood for before he’ll sell it to you. It’s Angelo who can drill 20 perfectly spaced, perpendicular holes in a piece of oak bullnose by eye, but tells you you’d better use the collared spade bits with the spacer template so you don’t fuck up a beautiful piece of wood.
Never mind extra trips to the hardware store - a job that’s less that one Angelo can be done by any primate with a pulse. Most jobs are at least a one Angelo, if you want to do them right the first time. Two Angelo jobs usually mean you found some iabdfi in there (‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. I took thirty Goddamn bins of iabdfi out of this house when we did the total reno in 2007…). Jobs of three Angelos or more probably should have been left to a professional, and a ten Angelo job means you haven’t even got a corner left to cry in.
Yeah, Ministre, it’s always been my maxim when going to the hardware store: find the old guy. Don’t even bother with someone who’s under 60. The Old Guy At The Hardware Store knows how to mend or repair or build or rebuild damn-near everything, and what this part is that fell off my washing machine last spring, how to replace it, where it goes, and how much torque to use if you install it on a Tuesday. Always find the old guy.
Christ, Radio Shack and OSH both had nothing like that braided wire, so I have to mail-order (well, web-order) $5 of braided wire + $10 shipping, and probably get it in 4 days. AND I was going to look for heavier duty aluminum foil at the grocer, so I jotted down stuff we needed that I could also get, then drove to the grocery store and bought the stuff I’d jotted down. And completely forgot about the heavier-duty foil. Drat. Coming up: trip #3.
I really do enjoy doing little projects like this. I just hate the 40 minutes of driving around for every 5 minutes I actually work on the project. I also think that think with parts, gas and what-all else, I’m going to end up spending more than the price of this guitar rewiring it to get rid of some hum. But I kinda figured on that going in.
Aaa-yep. That’s the best thing about Xes. You really have no fear of taking them completely apart. I mean, if this was a Gibson, you’d be all ‘oh god I spent seven hundred bucks on this thing.’
I consider this part of the entertainment value of the guitar itself.
I admit, that was part of the attraction. But now I like that axe; I feel like I’ve got a wounded friend while its apart. And also some small (probably groundless) fear of the neck changing if it’s unstrung for too long. But, yeah, it’s fun to have an axe to perform eevil experiments on.
Oh, no doubt you have a wounded friend. But at least you don’t have to worry about him being expensive, just hurt.
Anyhow, guys, you have to check this video out. Ministre especially.
Guy stuck his iphone in his guitar and played it. Now, part of the result is because of the shutter effect of the CMOS, but I’m wondering if this could be interesting information anyhow. Take this iphone, record a guitar… maybe you can tell if it’s true, maybe… I don’t know.
I have a question regarding Fender Telecasters. Specifically the made in Mèxico model vs the American Standard.
On the guitar forums all over the net the usual reasons given for the price difference are build quality, wood quality and hardware quality.
Knowing something about both hardwoods and woodworking machinery makes me wonder about the first 2 reasons. When it comes to build quality, (and I am talking about the above models not a custom shop guitar) these are built mainly using automated machinery, CNC routers etc. Where would the difference therefore lay? Does Fender lower their quality standard and allow for more mistakes in the Mexican model?
The wood species used in building these guitars is ash or alder for the body and maple for the neck. These woods are all more than likely from the USA or possibly Canada. Does Fender have employees going through stacks of hardwoods selecting out which pieces go to Mèxico and which stay in the USA?
I can see where the hardware can make an obvious difference in the price. Fender installs less expensive pickups and tuners etc. in the MZ models but am not so convinced about the other differences claimed.
I’m on my smartphone and haven’t figured out how to paste a link into a post. There was a thread a few years back that squeegee started about Stratocasters and another about Fender’s lines at the time. It covered this territory reasonably well.
