Re: Luthier advice

boxer wrote:

Hello I have a very good friend who is a luthier....

I know that he would be more than happy to answer any of your questions.
He is a complete star.

And if he can't help you, he'll know some one who can, also check out myspace, have met lots of amazing Luthiers there !

Where does he live? I'm near Porthmadog, Gywnedd.

Also, I'd get rid of the email address if I were you. People are spamming the forums and they might find it.

Re: Luthier advice

Tibernius wrote:
bootleger wrote:
Tibernius wrote:

Well, you were both wrong.
I fixed it yesterday, the problem was the inside and back of the jack was covered in rust! No loose wires anywhere. Scraped the rust off and it works fine.

But the rust did not allow the jack to be grounded so the common cause of buzzing is a loose wire. In your case the rust did not allow the ground to make contact in essence working the same as a loose wire. Still not grounded correctly. Your problem was still diganosed by two persons correctly, which in itself tells you something since we did not have the guitar in front of us. We worked of the post that you wrote and you did not get a bill.

Bootlegger.

I wasn't complaining, I just wanted to make sure that people know that this can cause problems. Rust isn't mentioned in any of the fixes in my guitar books. I apologise, I should have worded it better.

Thanks for the advice as well.

Since this is still about guitar-making, how much does it cost to make a guitar? I know that's a "how long is a piece of string" question, but can someone give me a rough estimate?

Rust is a common problem on older guitars, obviously, but it is easily remedied. I always keep a can of electronics contact cleaner with my tools. Just spray and let dry. If you have static when you turn your amp knobs, unplug the amp, spray the contact cleaner into the pot, and turn back and forth a few times to loosen and remove rust. After drying, it'll work like a charm. Incidentaly, I'm not a certified luthier, but I do repairs and setups on guitars, basses, and amps so if you have any specific questions fell free to email me at timbre_wulf@hotmail.com.

28 (edited by Tibernius 2007-12-14 11:21:10)

Re: Luthier advice

I'm still getting the hissing, and there aren't any loose wires. I think I might need to replace the jack.

Re: Luthier advice

Is it a staticy hiss or a hum?  If you have single coils on this particular guitar, they can be pretty noisy with 60-cycle hum.  Not much help for that, other than using shielded wire for the harness, and using copper foil to line the pickup cavities.  You'll need to ground (earth) that too.

Does it always hiss, or is it more prominent when you adjust a particular control?  That might point you toward other issues-- if you had a rusty jack, the whole guitar might have gotten wet at some point (condensation, maybe?) which could dirty up the contacts in any of the pots or switches.

Also, cold solder joints are easy to miss; they look pretty normal to an inexperienced eye, but dont' provide good electrical contact.  I would pull all the pots and switches and take a good look at all the solder joints, paying particular attention to the ground (earth) connections.  If any of the solder joints look dull rather than shiny, that is probably your culprit.  The fix in this case is pretty easy, you put an aligator clip on the wire leading to the pickup (or any bleed capacitors that might be present, to act as a heat sink) and touch a hot soldering iron to the wire just above the suspect connection.  Hold it there just until the solder turns shiny and starts to flow, then take it away.  Put everything back together and test it out.

Of course, if you're doing this close to the guitar, cover it with something non-flamable.  Hot solder can pop and spit, and that will muck up your finish in a heartbeat.

"There's such a fine line between genius and stupidity."
                              --David St. Hubbins

Re: Luthier advice

Right.

The guitar is an Encore electric with one humbucker. It's about 14 years old. For most of that time it has been stored somewhere around the house. All of the metal parts have at least a small layer of rust on them.

The hissing noise only comes when I'm not touching the strings. It's strong enough to get through the noise reduction on my G2.1U.

I'll have a look at the wires tomorrow, I think I've got a soldering iron somewhere.

Re: Luthier advice

Another guitar-building question: How difficult would it be to change this guitar to a coil-tapped HSH layout?

http://www.wesleyguitars.co.uk/storefro … =236208633

32 (edited by dguyton 2007-12-17 19:34:12)

Re: Luthier advice

It might be less of a hassle with your 'hissing' guitar to just gut it and replace all the electronics.  At least then you can be reasonably certain that you don't have rust inside something, preventing a connection.

I should let someone else with more experience answer your second question first, but I'll take a stab:  If you have the tools and confidence, probably not too difficult.  You will need to take off the pickguard, remove all the electronics, make some routing patterns based on your desired pickup dimensions and orientations, and then rout the body (and expand the holes in the pickguard) to fit.  With the coil taps, you're also going to have to replace the regular five-position switch with something that will handle whatever combinations you want for the pickups.  Before that, you'll have to come up with a schematic and wiring diagram, so you'll know what goes where when the time comes to put it all together.

"There's such a fine line between genius and stupidity."
                              --David St. Hubbins

Re: Luthier advice

dguyton wrote:

It might be less of a hassle with your 'hissing' guitar to just gut it and replace all the electronics.  At least then you can be reasonably certain that you don't have rust inside something, preventing a connection.

I was thinking of getting one of the Squier strat pickguards with pickups and using the electrics from that. (you can get them for about £20 on ebay in the UK)
In which case I would use all of the electronics (minus the wiring) instead of the originals.

Re: Luthier advice

Tibernius wrote:
dguyton wrote:

It might be less of a hassle with your 'hissing' guitar to just gut it and replace all the electronics.  At least then you can be reasonably certain that you don't have rust inside something, preventing a connection.

I was thinking of getting one of the Squier strat pickguards with pickups and using the electrics from that. (you can get them for about £20 on ebay in the UK)
In which case I would use all of the electronics (minus the wiring) instead of the originals.

If you're goin to go that route, check out www.stew-mac.com and you can order the pick guard with the pickups already ready to go, just solder the jack wires and ground wire and you're done. I think they run around $50 US

Re: Luthier advice

timbrewulf wrote:

If you're goin to go that route, check out www.stew-mac.com and you can order the pick guard with the pickups already ready to go, just solder the jack wires and ground wire and you're done. I think they run around $50 US

That's the parts I mean. Since I'm in the UK I can't get the parts from stew-mac. They are the same parts though.

Re: Luthier advice

dguyton wrote:

It might be less of a hassle with your 'hissing' guitar to just gut it and replace all the electronics.  At least then you can be reasonably certain that you don't have rust inside something, preventing a connection.

Looks like I'll have to do that know. I've found out that the rust has damaged the pickup as well. I've also found out that the guitar body is made of fibreboard, so I might have trouble adding single coil pickups to it.

Re: Luthier advice

Does anyone here know if you can finish a guitar with Acrylic paint instead of Cellulose? And if you can what kind of varnish you could use on top of it?

Re: Luthier advice

Tibernius wrote:

Does anyone here know if you can finish a guitar with Acrylic paint instead of Cellulose? And if you can what kind of varnish you could use on top of it?

Yes you can, just seal it with an acrylic clear gloss as well. You can't mix acrylic with nitrocellulose.

Re: Luthier advice

dguyton wrote:
Tibernius wrote:

Since this is still about guitar-making, how much does it cost to make a guitar? I know that's a "how long is a piece of string" question, but can someone give me a rough estimate?

I'm seeing solid-body kits from (I think) a couple of different makers that are in the $220-$280 range, depending on what wood is used for the body and fretboard.  That's with frets pre-set, and all the electronics included.

Me, I think I'd want just the wood, and add my own choices for hardware and tuners.  In that case the price would go up, probably pretty substantially.

Even if I decide to just do this sort of thing as a hobby, I need to get set up with a tax ID number just so I can get the goodies wholesale...  smile

Dguyton,

Buy the kit and trash or donate the electronics & tuners to someone or use as spares or replacments on a repair.  Overall the kit will be more cost effective versus buying just the body & neck. If the guitar is for you you can buy the electronics & hardware of your choosing  to make it your semi custom guitar.

Bootlegger.

Re: Luthier advice

Thanks, that was kind of what I have in mind.

By way of an update, my current project is replacing the pickups in a Gretsch 5120 archtop.  Since I don't really have a workshop, I'm having a real luthier replace the tuners for me.  Once it comes back from the shop, I'm going to pull the strings, replace the tune-o-matic with a 'rocking bar' bridge (no big deal), and then replace the stock pickups with some TV Jones models that I ordered.  After that, I get to decide whether or not to change the stock linear-taper pots out for 'audio-taper' ones.  At which point, the only original hardware left will be the frets and the (licensed) Bigsby.

So far, the total outlay for this guitar, parts and labor, is $982.  If all goes well, it should sound almost identical to a $4000 Setzer Signature model (without the dice knobs).

"There's such a fine line between genius and stupidity."
                              --David St. Hubbins

41 (edited by Tennessee Strat 2008-01-31 02:07:24)

Re: Luthier advice

Becoming a luthier is a noble goal in my opinion. I'm sure you've read some books on building guitars, but the best way to start out is to just do it!  You don't need a bunch of tools to start modifying, or doing small repairs on your own, or on friend's guitars. After a while, you'll know if you want to pursue this further. I'm a part-time guitar tinkerer and since I'm already over 50 years old, I'm slowly building my shop and skills by studying everything I can get on the net, or from books to eventually start a small business.

I've started building solid-bodies first, but now I'm also building an acoustic guitar. My first project took six weeks -and the results were not great. I've made many mistakes. The second guitar took almost six months..., because I've gotten a lot more careful with planning and more patient with woodworking, electronics and finishing. Currently I have no less than four guitars in the works that I'm building from scratch (I buy the pickups and some hardware, but everything else is handmade.)  Whenever I can afford it, I also get more tools. Making small repairs for friends builds my reputation, my skills, and I get a little cash for parts.

Grow into it, don't just load yourself up with debt and find yourself later under pressure to perform. It's a craft, almost an art, but it's also very rewarding to know that you've changed your life to do exactly what you wanted to do. Check out your local woodworking store, or besides browsing the links from this forum, check out www.grizzly.com (they are located in the US). Last word: Just do it! Remember how you learned to walk? One step at a time.

Re: Luthier advice

Update to the last update:

Well, I finally got the replacement for the replacement for my black Gretsch 5120 last Thursday, and I spent Friday evening and a chunk of Saturday morning replacing the stock pickups with TV Jones replacements.

I had to pull the individual volume knobs, and the Master Tone knob to do the soldering; I used plastic tubing over the pot stem (which fit through the hole in the body) in order to be able to pull them back into the proper position when finished.  I had to take a dremel tool to both pickup holes to fit new pickups, and drill and refill two screw holes for each of the pickup rings.  I also need a bigger soldering iron, my little 25-watt iron doesn’t work so well with those big pots.

All went back together smoothly, and the final product looks professional if I say so myself.  I restrung and set the pickups to the manufacturer’s suggested height, and plugged her in.  It sounds <jazz hands> FABULOUS!! </jazz hands>

I elected not to replace the linear taper pots; I’m more of a ‘set ‘em and forget ‘em’ sort of guy where guitar knobs are concerned.  If I decide to do it down the road, well, I can.

Final cost breakdown:

    Gretsch 5120 (black) ……………….....$595
    Customized Pickguard ……………......$   0
    .11 guage strings w/wound 3rd......$   7
    TV Jones pickups, rings, shipping...$270
    Grover locking tuners installed………$121
    Total cost:                                   $993

I forgot to bring my camera to work today so I can upload the photos to webshots; I will do that tomorrow and post a link.

"There's such a fine line between genius and stupidity."
                              --David St. Hubbins

Re: Luthier advice

Here is a link to my guitar album on webshots.  You can see the finished product (the black Electromatic) and compare it to the stock model 5129 (the red one).

http://entertainment.webshots.com/album/560739253gBXXPx

I'm waiting fpr a piece of original artwork so that I can customize the pickguard on the 5129.

"There's such a fine line between genius and stupidity."
                              --David St. Hubbins

Re: Luthier advice

Hi dguyton ,
   I owned a small music store
and I can tell you from experience that setting up and repairing solid body electrics will be a small part of your business volume . As far as the repair part goes , untill you can make a name for yourself setting up electrics , the bulk of your repair business will be accoustic instruments , ie. guitars , violins and such. Neck resets on guitars , repairing sound board cracks,
parting a violin to repair cracks and or rebuilding a crashed violin . I've done my share of resets and violin rebuilds successfully , but I
was always nervous when these instruments were valuable . If you get to that
point be sure you do not take on any repair job that you're not sure you can do well . It's better to send the job elsewhere than to mess it up .
   A music store or shop also means setting up dealerships with suppliers and when it comes to musical instruments
there aint no such a thing as floor planning , everything is paid for when you get it or within thirty days . That's where the problem comes in for guitar dealers if you're small , even the distributors who handle the cheap stuff expect you to buy a certain volume per year , and the big name stuff will want you to buy twenty to thirty instr.
per year , whether you can sell them or not . I don't want to discourage but do all your research and know what your getting into . I still do instrument repair along with other things and I love it  . And I don't have to deal with all the other crap .......

" Just reading the lyrics , it's hard to hear the song , but if the words tug at the heartstrings......it's enough for now........... "

45 (edited by dguyton 2008-02-05 22:29:09)

Re: Luthier advice

GSE, thanks for the advice.  I understand the wisdom of not biting off more than you can chew, believe me.  Right now I'm still taking baby steps in this repair and modification area.  One of the projects that I have on deck is a pretty good crack in the back of an old acoustic in my possession; it could stand a refinish, too.

One advantage I might have in the market I'm looking at, is that I know (or am related to) a number of the influential musicians in the area.  If I can demonstrate the quality of my work to them (prior to actually pulling the trigger on a store front), I can pretty well count on significant positive word of mouth.  It also looks as though (from the local shops where I currently reside) a large portion of the "bread and butter" comes from lessons.  A modest number of students, at an hour a week, can add up to a significant percentage of the store's total income.

Any info you can give regarding distributors is most welcome.  At present, it doesn't look like I will be able to swing a direct deal with one of the big names (Fender, Gibson), so I am looking at dealing with wholesale aggregators.

Also, anyone with insight into setting up a recording studio feel free to chime in as well.

"There's such a fine line between genius and stupidity."
                              --David St. Hubbins