Assembled for test fit
After I made a new bridge and nut I finished putting everything together for a test fit. It'll all need to be removed in 12 days so I can laquer the body. The polish on the neck feels great to play, and the wide aperature single coil pickup has a unique and fun character to it.
Curing paint
The third coat of paint is on the body, and the neck has been sanded, lacquered and polished to shine!
Primer
Started priming the new project today. I'm still scouting for the color I want for paint.
Dan The Automator
I'm newly listening to:
Artist: Dan The Automator
Album: Deltron 3030 - The Instrumentals
Track: memory loss
Bassman
This is Bob's beautiful 60's Bassman amp in process of repair. This was a lot of fun (vintage always is)
Done:
- Deeeep clean of internal parts and circuitry to remove evidence of pests....
- Replaced a damaged standy switch.
- Changed burnt-out RCA power tubes with two new Svetlanas.
Who made Who
This is a new toy I recently acquired from a friend. The body seems hand-made (project guitar style) with a catalogue order neck.
After doing some paint the first modifications will be to replace the nut and bridge.
Here's some before shots. More to come.
MusicMan Bass “What’s that Jigglin’ around?”
My good friend Phil left his bass with me for a couple days to look into a mystery noise coming from his bass when you shake it. It sounded to me like there was something heavy like a 9v battery loose inside the body- which I thought at first might be likely as his bass has active electronics that require a battery.
Well I found the battery compartment snug and in great shape- so I started taking things apart and found that the secondary pickup (which is mounted underneath the first pickup) had come all undone, and broken a wire in the process.
To skip all the boring details- the pickup is re-glued, re-wired, and re-friggin-rockin!
My Gibson Gets Magic Acoustical Powers!!!
I set going recently on a big personal guitar project. I got a T-bridge, which is LR Baggs transducer bridge for Gibson style guitars. Of course the magic is only complete with a CTRL-X to accompany the pickup: giving the holder mystical powers to switch between or mix the electric and acoustic sounds.
I only had a few holes to drill in my 339: Two under the bridge for the new wires, and two near all the knobs for a couple new controls.
I took some time before installing on the phone with Bryan at LR Baggs, designing a new wiring setup that would give me the controls I want. The CTRL-X is designed to work in tandem with one master volume pot. That created 2 options for us Gibson players- give up independent pickup volume control, or - have no volume control pot when in acoustic mode. (YIKES)
Bryan's expertise with the CTRL-X was a huge help in creating a new setup that would add a master volume to the existing plan, and I get to keep my very important individual pickup volume controls.
To keep everything on the guitar looking as close to stock as possible, I modified some parts and made a bracket to mount the new additional volume pot in the F-hole, underneath the
pickguard, with a wheel rather than a knob: so it can be reached but not seen.
Thanks to my dad, who assisted with the install but importantly- photographed along the way. Here's Claire from start to finish:
