Posted on 10/24/2021 4:29:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’ve pared down my vast collection (which took up an entire 2000 sq ft house in Florida) to these few gems:
1. A Les Paul Studio(2009 ex-robot...I stripped the guts out)
2. Fender Mustang Amp
3. a Dean Accoustic-Electric
4. a beat-up-but-beloved Schechter Diamond Series Two-Octave Bass (my AXE)
5. Fender Rumble 25 Bass Amp
6. Casio Previa Electric Piano
And that’s IT. It may seem like a lot to normal people, but I do music for a living, so it’s really not much.
This conversation has inspired a thread that I will post today. Are you on the “Guitar/Bass/Ping List? Would you like to be?
Yes, add me
Will Do! :-)
The ONLY person i trusted with my Les Paul has lost my business due to his cobid hysteria.
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Sorry, saw that one after I posted.
I started learning to work on my guitars for a similar reason. Nobody around here I trusted. Guy at the local music
store in mod 90’s was a joke, he literally tie guiitar strings to the tuner posts.
Another guitar player in our band asked me if I could redo the setup on his guitar, he took it tot his guy to have strings replaced. Nothing else, just put strings on. Isaid OK, started to check out his strat. Everything had been changed. Intonation, action, pickup height, and when Istarted to remove strings, found out they were oiterally tied to the tuner posts. Took me almost 30 munites just to remove the strings, then another hour to reset everything.
I’ve never let anyone else tyouch my guitars since that day. Had to do guitars for both our other guitar players, same story, everything changed when he wasn’t supposed to touch a thing, just replace the strings, which any 10 year old can do. I was already halfway there, took a guitar to a music store in Baton rouge, let him put strings on for me, which I could easily do myself, then that night onstage the neck pickup fell out against the strings, made an awful noise...(Univox strat copy w/ 3 humbuckers). He had removed the trim ring and put it on someone else’s guitar, then denied he did it. I had to buy another one to put on a borrowed guitar, I was not a happy camper. But I was a walking bad advertisement from then on too.
that’s when Istarted learning to do most of my own wortk, except for the difficult stuff, nut replacements, filing and crowning frets, truss rod adjustments...the guy who tied strings on changed all that, I now do everything but fret replacements myself. Just finished replacing capacitors in a hollow body Ibanez AG 75 a few days ago, thats a chore...now I have to do it again and replace all 4 volume/tone pots. Fish everything through with a string...yish...I’d rather eat shoe polish...
How Ilearned to cut nut slots...by surprise...
took my Takamine acoustic to a frioend who owned a vintage guitarsop,bet repair guy in town. Ihad already made and installed the nut, looks like factory, just needed slots cu, alread had marked for spacing.
He said “well, it’s time for you to learn how”, and handed me his nut files...YIKES...talk about scred...if I screw up, I’ll have to buy another bone blank, file and sand for an hour, glue it in place, and start all over with the nut files...and might not get it right again...it only takes about 3 seconds too much filing and the slot is too deep, you start over because it will buzz aainst the 1st fret. Not deep enough is no problem, it will just pull out of tune when you fret it. Take another swipe or two with a nut file and play it again. I’ve seen him do it 4 times...on one string...shake his head and grab the file again, detune and pull the string to the side...grrrrr
I got really lucky, I hit it right the first time, I’m still playing the Takamine onstage but it’s about time for a fret filing, it’s developing fret grooves.
Ain’t it fun being a guitar player? 4 hours a day practice for half your life, 40 years of lugging heavy tube amps around, then you have to learn to rebuild your own guitars because the local “luthiers” can’t fix their way out of a wet paper sack...
This conversation has inspired a thread that I will post today. Are you on the “Guitar/Bass/Ping List? Would you like to be?
**************************
No and no.
I’m only on the Texas ping list, no idea how I got there, decided not to have them remove me, otherwise I have no interest in any other ping lists. I’ll most likely see it...now that I know, I’ll look for it.
YIKES!
I do the small stuff myself too, but the COVID-Crazy-Luther did a masterful job stripping the inoperative guts out of the robot and turning it back into a REAL Les Paul.
Anything involving a soldering iron freaks me out.
My late husband was good at electronics, but I just do the actual set-up stuff (Strings, truss-rod, set-up, tuning machines, etc.
Anything involving a soldering iron freaks me out.
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Soldering is easy. Dead simple. A friend taught me over 40 years ago. I knew he worked for Westinghouse, they had a plant outside Bryan. We had never “talked shop” so I had no idea just what he did.
It turned out he sat on a bench and soldered calculators together for 8 years...and taught me how they do it. Not hard at all. He took a 2 week class for it.
I use paste flux, can’t stand flux core solder. Resin flux, not acid, which will cause rust. Acid flux is used for things like copper tubing for water pipes. It won’t rust the copper tubing but will rust things like chrome guitar jacks. I found out the hard way...my jar of flux is 30 years old, still half full...2 inches diameter, 2 inches tall.
Put a little flux on each contact. (think toothpick) Melt a small blob of solder onto the iron. Takes very little, half the size of a bb or match head. Touch it to the contact and watch it flow onto the contact/wire. This is called tinning.
Practice with a couple of wires. With new guitar jacks, you might have to use a foamboard fingernail file to rough up the chrome surface and get it to stick better.
Then hold the 2 tinned contacts together, alligator clips often work wonders, and melt another small blob of solder onto the iron. Touch that to the tinned contacts and soon as it flows, pull it away.
If it’s a shiny silver solder joint, it’s good to go, if it’s dull gray, it’s a “cold” joint, do it again. In that case, all you have to do is let it cool, then reheat it with the iron and see if it cools shiny. Melt a tiny blob of solder onto the iron first though. Just enough you have a tiny puddle on the tip.
Always melt a small blob of solder onto the iron, the already melted solder heats and melts solder quicker than just the hot iron does.
Work quick, it only takes a couple of seconds. Be careful with capacitors, heat can destroy them.
Use a wet natural sponge to clean the iron, just wipe it on the sponge. Do that every time, just before you melt solder onto the iron. I use a custard cup to hold my sponge. Ialso use an old junk towel as a work surface so I don’t mess up a table or whatever. Just have a good stand for the hot soldering iron...I use a very large glass ashtray. You can get thick rubber mats that work great, I’ve just never tried to get one.
A work holder with 2 inch magnifying glass and 2 alligator clips is priceless, I used mine on the Ibanez almost every time I soldered. It also acts as a heat sink, so the heat is less likely to travel up the wire to the component, the clip takes the heat instead. You can also get alunminum heat clips for that purpose, aluminum draws heat better than most other metals.
Easy, try it on a couple of small wires, 2 or 3 tries and once you learn how to see the solder flow, you’re good to go. In most cases, you only have to strip a half inch of wire at most. Try soldering 2 wires toghether, or both ends of one wire. That’s how I learned, got it right the first try once I knew how to do it and what to look for. Once both are tinned, it takes 3 seconds.
Thank you for that, Paleo Pete! :-)
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