The show that I was building this guitar came and went last Friday. I had the guitar intonated about 2 hours before the show. It was very tight but I was able to finish it and use it for the show. It was awesome. I am going to write up a review for this show as well as talk about our set a bit. First, the bands that played were The Unthinking Majority, Sleeps Six (my band), Corporate Saturday, Rockasaurus Rex, and Credible Witness. There was another band that opened up but they were not part of the battle and did I don’t think they told anyone their name.

I will begin with them then. They were cool. They weren’t an “official” band hence why they didn’t want to be judged. It consisted of a guitarist and drummer. The drummer didn’t really stand out to me. I no sense was he bad, but I’ve seen some incredible drummers around here and he’s not quite in that category. The guitarist, on the other hand, was incredibly good at guitar; very strong technically. There isn’t too much I can say about these guys because they played for about 15 minutes and it seemed like one 15 minute song.

The Unthinking Majority played first in the judged portion of the show. They were your standard alternative rock band. They did a couple Chili Peppers’ covers and they matched the rest of their set really well. Sound-wise they were very RHCP-style. The singer had a very controlled and powerful voice. One thing that caught my attention during this band and whole show was the vocals for each band; all were very strong. Like the show I went to last week where all the drummers stood out to me, it was the vocals that stood out this time. Overall, they were a tight band and although it was a bit generic for my liking, they were good at what they did and were awesome guys to talk to afterwards. 3/5

We played second and I hated our set. The sound guy kept screwing with my amp so I was either way too loud (to the point where I was annoyed) or not playing at all. It threw off a lot of timing within the whole band, especially at parts where only I played. I was also expecting to have a monitor but it just sat there for stage decoration or something because no sound was coming out of it. That made me angry. We got good feedback from the crowd afterwards despite all the technical difficulties. We had practiced a lot with the guitars and vocals because we knew each other so well so we intended to be very active on stage. We had major drummer problems over the last couple of weeks though so our last resort drummer had to learn very short notice and a lot of our last days of practice went to making sure he had it down, not our actual show. I also spent the entire show listening into my amp to see if there was any sound coming out so it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Luckily Crystal (singer) is incredible and she could be heard well so that worked out for the best. I’ll leave us unrated.

Corporate Saturday played after us and pulled out an acoustic set. They were the battle winners and rightfully so. These guys are awesome at what they do and work so hard. The whole band is ridiculously tight and they know what it takes to put on a good show, including how to tell a good story. Said story had something to do with XXL women’s underwear, an Aero chocolate bar, and a band sleepover. I’ll let you imagine how it ended. Anyway, these guys have some of the best music in Windsor, in my opinion. I love their sound and they are all very talented at their respective instruments within the band. Rob is one of those elite drummers in the local region, Brendan can shred like no other (even on an acoustic guitar), Austen has serious vocal range, and Chris is short. Really, Chris is a great bassist with sweet backup vocal abilities. I’ve seen these guys twice since they wrote and released the new music and both times have been acoustic. I am so excited how it all unfolds when they play full band and I hope I can catch a show soon. 4.5/5 (I’ll leave that last 0.5 for when they amaze me with the full band)

Rockasaurus Rex was next up. I left. They consist of a bass player and a drummer and are really boring. They are both good musicians, but as a band they are lacking a lot of depth. There is only so much variety one can get from the rhythm section of a band and I found myself bored pretty quickly. 1.5/5

Credible Witness was the last band on the bill and once again they rocked the house. I’ve seen these guys so many times now and have been good friends with most of them for quite a few years now. Their live show never gets old though. Lead singer Walter is always a crowd pleaser and has a goofy attitude, always interacting with the crowd. Mike D (guitar) is one of the best guitarists I’ve met even though he kind of humbles himself playing in a pop/punk/rock band that isn’t very guitar-oriented. From what I’ve seen though, he has an incredible knowledge of theory and anything that has to do with anything related to guitars. Ryan (drums) has become one of the better drums I’ve seen around the local scene. He’s very controlled and knows what he’s doing; a huge step up from when we were in our little crappy pop-punk band together four years ago. These guys rocked and if it Corporate Saturday hadn’t taken the title, these guys would have won for sure. 4.49/5 (because Corporate Saturday had to win)

For a first show, it was fairly successful. One thing we told Crystal to do was make sure she talked to the crowd in between songs. She didn’t really and that’s where we lost points. I’m not too worried about it. As she gets more experienced with the band setting, it’ll come to her. We have two more shows this summer for sure (hopefully more) and so there will be a couple more reviews up as those shows come around.

-- Mike

This was possibly my favourite part of the process: installing the pickups. It really wasn’t that exciting and I mean, finishing the paint job and seeing it turn out beautifully was awesome, but putting in the pickups meant it was ready to go! I called up my friend Rob because he knows what’s up when it comes to electronics and stuff. I also do not own a soldering iron and this would have made the process impossible. So I went over to his house and we began installing the pickups. I had wiring diagrams ready to go, so we got started pretty quickly.

We started with the neck pickup. Seymour Duncan has a video where he installs all the pickups at once, but that’s really confusing. One pickup at a time is much more straight-forward. We desoldered the neck pickup from the switch and its ground wire from the volume pot. Then we took the hot wire from the pickup and soldered it to the switch and left the ground wires unattached so that we could save all the ground wires for one final solder at the end.

It was a very simple process and one that was repeated for the middle and bridge pickups. Attach the hot wires to the proper places on the switch and then solder all the ground wires to the volume pot. The last thing to do before screwing the pickguard back on was to reconnect the ground wire and the input jack wires. We soldered those to their respective places and we were done.

Some things to watch out for and/or make sure of when installing pickups:

·         Make sure all new joints are strong. After adding the solder, reheat the joint making sure to touch the wire or metal near the solder without touching the actual joint. This reheat will strengthen the joint. After you’re sure the joint is firm, give it a little tug to make sure the wire won’t come loose.

·         Be careful around the soldering iron. I’m sure this is common sense but it was new to me because I’ve never actually used one before. Obviously it’s hot (and I knew that) so don’t touch it, but also be aware of the smoke that it produces and avoid it. My friend said he’s cried many times after getting some of the smoke in his eyes.

·         If you’re guitar was wired like mine, your input jack will have two wires: a tip (hot) and a sleeve (ground). Both Rob and I almost missed that and nearly soldered them to the same spot.

That’s really it for the installation process. It was fairly simple and it didn’t take very long. The exciting part was putting it back together and testing it out. We got some killer tones out of it and it was really exciting! I’ll have some videos up with samples soon.

When putting the guitar back together, it’s mostly a reverse order of how you took it apart. Re-attach the neck, bridge, tuners, and all the other little screws that are needed. My buddy noticed while we were testing it out that the company did not cut either the neck or the cutaway straight as my neck isn’t aligned like it should be. Nonetheless, it still works perfectly fine.

So, pickups were in, strings were attached, sound was great. The only problem now was the intonation and some fret buzzing. I attempted to contact a guy I know to help me intonate it but he was nowhere to be found and I was in a rush. The only other option was to learn how to do it myself and so I quickly searched the Internet to find out how (http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/intonate.htm).

I began with the bridge saddles. I knew how they should look (as can be seen in that picture on the project guitar website) and I followed the instructions from the site and I was quickly intonated and very happy. I did notice however that after stringing the guitar, my bridge was now on an incline and looked almost like a Floyd Rose style bridge. To fix that, I loosened the strings and then tightened the springs that are underneath the backplate. Once they are tightened, retune the guitar and all should be well. One thing to really keep in mind when adjusting anything on the bridge is to loosen the strings. Adjusting the saddles, springs, or height adjustment screws (action) will change the tension in the strings and if you’re tightening the tension there is a likely chance you will pull your string too tight or it will break. That’s how I intonated my guitar.

The last thing left for me to do is fix some of the fret buzz. In my case, it is caused by a loose fret and so I need to take it in to have the frets hammered down. I don’t have the tools or knowledge of how to do this properly so I will entrust it to someone else.

Aside from that, this guitar is done and awesome. As I mentioned earlier, I will have samples up within the next couple of days. That’s it for project guitar number one. I will have some of my band updates on here soon as well as show reviews and possibly CD reviews as well.

-- Mike

I have finally finished the guitar! Everything is done and it sounds amazing! I’m going to quickly wrap up the paint process and then soon, I will add a pickup blog and a reassembling and setup blog.

  Body:

·         Last time I wrote, I had finished priming the guitar. As I mentioned in my “steps to come” part of that article, I proceeded with my layer of red. I applied two or three coats of red to the section I needed. There was no point in painting the whole guitar red when a portion of it would remain white.

·         After letting it dry for an entire day, I masked off my red stripes and then painted white. I was notified by a friend who paints guitars that white is extremely hard to work with and that I should use a lot. I later found out what he was talking about. I applied an entire can of white paint to the guitar and I am lucky I did. For some reason, the clear coat seemed to bring out the base colours so if there wasn’t enough white, this could have turned ugly.

·         So, I now had a fully painted guitar. I let it sit for two or three days before I began clear coating. I put on about 5 layers of clear coat one day and then 5 more another day. There was a lot of clear coat. You want to make sure you apply it thinly and evenly. I seemed to have a problem with that because I was outside and it was really windy that week. I ended up getting a pretty even finish; however it resulted in a few runs; but nothing that was too big or bad.

·         Once clear coating was done, I let it sit for a few more days. Then I did a very light wed-sanding job to make sure everything was evened out. It helped remove some of the bumps and even took out a bit of the run. It also removed some of the bug parts that happened to get clear coated into the paint job. After sanding, I used Turtle Wax Scratch and Swirl Remover to polish the guitar. Wow; did it ever get shiny!

And that’s that for painting the guitar. It’s really important to let it sit a few days between the painting, clear coating, and finishing of the guitar. Make sure the paint dries before you do anything to drastic. Now, mine didn’t turn out perfect, but for a first time at it, I’d say I’ve done well for myself.

Headstock:

·         When I left off last time, I had painted red and black on the headstock. After a day of drying, I sprayed on the white paint and let it dry for a couple of days, just like the body.

·         After drying, I got my brother to draw on a design for my headstock logo. I wanted something original and something that would mean something to me. After throwing out ideas, we stumbled upon pi. I have this weird thing about myself where I can recite 60 decimal places of pi and I used to be able to do it in less than 10 seconds. Just using a sharpie pen (0.1 fine), he wrote out 80 digits (which means I need to memorize 20 more decimal places) and drew on the Greek letter for pi. It turned out really well; I’m not sure how he writes so small yet so legibly.

·         I let that sit overnight before throwing on the clear coat the next day. Again, 5 coats one day and 5 another. Pretty soon it was shiny and done.

·         After drying for a couple days, I wet-sanded and polished it along with the body. It turned out so beautifully.

And now, my guitar is done and ready to be reassembled. After polishing, I did put the guitar back together. I put the tuners in (after drilling new holes for the screws – see pictures), put the pickguard on as well as the backplate, and attached the neck and bridge to the guitar. In the next articles, I will talk about installing the pickups and setting up the guitar (I intonated it myself!).

I attended a pretty awesome show last night. One of my top three bands, MEANS, came to Windsor and when I first heard about the show I was excited out of my mind. A month later – after signing with Underground Operations – they held a contest where a person from each city that is on their tour gets to have a pizza party with the band and all this free merchandise. I won for Windsor so this show was going to mean a lot and now I was going for free. Unbelievable! So come show day, my brother and I headed downtown to the venue. I was definitely ready for pizza. We were walking towards the bar when I noticed the entire band walking towards us (away from the venue). So I was thinking weird, where they going? I stopped and said hi, introduced myself and told them about the pizza deal. Apparently, Underground Operations didn’t do a very good job of organizing the pizza parties and that I was one of few winners who actually showed up throughout the entire tour. This lack of organization and communication left the band without funds for a pizza party. However, they were all for just hanging out and grabbing a $2.75 burger at The Beach. At dinner, we got to chill with some of the bands on the tour: Oceans, Farewell to Freeway, and MEANS. It was great and meeting the guys (and girl) was an awesome experience. My brother and I were pretty interested in their stuff (you know, living the musician life) and they were pretty interested in our stuff (school). We also talked a lot of hockey. It was cool. After dinner, we took a couple of the guys out to a local coffee shop called Mila’s Gelato (or something to that extent). If you’re in downtown Windsor, look it up. We got to know Matt (guitarist, MEANS) fairly well at this point because there were just a few of us out for coffee. Steve (guitarist, Oceans) and Kyle (drummer, Oceans) were also there with us. They were really cool guys and were around my age. It’s so awesome how an engineer like myself can only dream of being a full-time musician and how full-time musicians are in awe of what engineers can do. It was really cool to see. This was probably the first time I could just sit down with big, signed bands and chill. It was great.

 

So we walked back to the venue for the beginning of the show. Local band I Am the Vine was opening. We caught the last two songs of their set. They were pretty cool. However from what I heard it was typical drop-D power chorded hardcore music and it wasn’t really my thing.

Next was Oceans and I was excited to see these guys mainly because I got to hang out with some of the guys. They didn’t strike me as the most amazing band or anything, but they were enjoyable. I think it was the vocals that brought it down a bit. I’m picky for extremely strong vocals (which is ironic because I’m not a very good singer) and this just wasn’t my style. I commend them for their awesome work though; and touring with my favourite band is a plus!

Farewell to Freeway was next up and they were pretty good. A great mix of vocals and they were really strong vocals as well. Drummers who can sing well and play amazing always inspire me and this guy was on the ball last night. They had sweet stage presence and an awesome sound (and a really attractive keyboardist as well). They were a bit more melodic than the previous two bands because they had so many singers available to them and I really enjoyed that. We purchased their CD and I am quite pleased with how it sounds.

Kathleen Turner Drive played after FTF. They were alright; nothing special. I made a joke to my brother saying the singer looked like an ugly version of Rody Walker (Protest the Hero) and had a very similar resemblance about him. I’m not sure why so many artists have taken on the douche bag front man approach like Rody Walker has, but it’s really getting old. They were strange. Enough said.

Ligeia played next. I’m still not sure how to pronounce that. They were pretty cool; nothing overly advanced or technical, but I found myself head banging along with their tunes. Unlike most bands, they had only one guitarist. Sometimes I find that this hinders musical creativity (one guitarist can only play so much) but some bands can make it work and these guys did just that.

Finally MEANS hit the stage (I was arrived for dinner at 5:30 and they started their set between 10:30 and 11:00. It was long night). They, once again, blew me away. Matt has such powerful vocals as well as insane guitar-playing abilities. Dylan can scream and jump like very few I have ever seen before. They played a mix of old songs and new songs and I was very happy with their song choices.

 

One thing I noticed that I enjoyed about each band was that they all had really good drummers. I’m pretty sure that all six drummers left good impressions in my opinion. Drumming is essential, especially in this genre of music, but everyone was rocking last night.

A couple things I didn’t like were the stupid scene/hardcore kids and skinny jean shorts. First of all, the little “hardcore” kids who think they’re gangster and tough need to realize there’s more to life than hardcore dancing. They also look like retarded chickens as they “dance”. Walking back and forth across the floor does not make you tough; ever. Seriously, whatever happened to straight up mosh pits? Secondly, skinny jeans have slowly become accepted by me. However, cutting them into shorts is perhaps the dumbest thing I have ever heard of or seen. They’re stupid and make me angry.

Lastly, the one thing I was kind of disappointed about (and I say this at almost all big shows I attend) was that I didn’t really know any of the bands before the show started except for MEANS. It’s really hard to get into bands when you have no idea what they’re about or what they’re going to play for you. Next time I’ll know. That is why I always make it a habit to see my favourite bands more than once. I have seen Protest the Hero four or five times, The Human Abstract twice and now MEANS twice.

 

Overall it was a good show. I got a sweet new t-shirt (for free) as well as CD (for free) and I got my fix of metal for the month. We went around saying our goodbyes to the band members we really had the chance of meeting and then we took off. It was a great night. My ears are still ringing and I can say that anyone who stopped by A&W today was most likely fed up with my inability to hear their orders.

 

In guitar news, I am so close to being finished. I am having my pickups installed tonight/tomorrow and then it will be finished. I will have the next part of the paint job blog and a new pickup blog ready to go within the week. Stay tuned!

 

-- Mike

I finally have all the old paint off of the body and it has been primed. So I’m going to go through some step by step points to try to help you guys understand the project. I’ll start with the body and then go on to the headstock. I have also uploaded many new pictures to the pictures section. It is in the form of a slideshow video in order to save scrolling space. Anyway, back to the paint descriptions.

Body:

·         I first removed all the old paint. Now, it’s not necessary to do what I did. I scraped it down to the bare wood because I used a chemical paint stripper. The paint stripper made it fairly impossible to get all the paint to one level, unless I went to bare wood. If you are just going to use sandpaper, all you need to do is sand down until the entire layer of clear coat is gone. This ensures that your primer will have something to grip. You must be careful when using this method though because certain types of paint may react with others. So, the paint that the company used may be harmful to your finish. Though I know it is a pain, it is best to sand all the way down to the white layers beneath the paint. These are layers of sand sealer. If you use my route, you can go to Home Depot or Rona and pick up a can (or two) of Behr “The Stripper”. This is what I used and it worked wonderfully in removing the paint layers. I’m not sure what the active ingredient is in this stuff, but it reacts extremely well with heat. I found this out by accident, but it was a great accident to stumble upon. I had to spray outside because there would have been no ventilation in my basement. It was really sunny and hot this past week, so as I sprayed the paint stripper, I noticed that it seemed to be bubbling and turning the paint (all layers at once) into a flimsy papery substance. This was extremely easy to scrape off all at once and it left a relatively clean finish.

·         Once I got the paint off, I began sanding. By sanding the surface, you can smooth out any bumps as well as provide a surface suitable for painting. I began with coarse-grit sandpaper. You need to make sure you sand long enough and hard enough to remove any impurities left behind by the paint. I noticed that while sanding with the coarse-grit paper, I was removing green-coloured sawdust. Wood shouldn’t be green. Once it was a more wood-like colour, I went to the medium-grit; this smoothed the surface out even more. After a few rounds of medium-grit paper, I went to a fine-grit brick (we didn’t have any sheets of fine-grit left). Again, this smoothed out the surface and I was almost ready for my first round of primer. However, I was not completely done sanding yet (it takes quite a while). I then took fine-grit wet/dry sandpaper. This is different than regular wood sandpaper. It is made of aluminum oxide rather than the commonly used garnet-made sandpaper. This different material, along with its adhesive makes it waterproof. After soaking the sandpaper for 5-10 minutes, I began my final portion of sanding. The wet sanding removes oil from the surface and can help pick up some of the sawdust left behind by the other sandpapers. Using a dry rag, I quickly prepared the guitar for painting.

·         One last step before applying the primer was masking the electronics area. Using painter’s tape, I taped off the pickup holes, pot, switch, input jack, and bridge areas. This keeps the paint out of those areas. You want to ensure that you don’t get any paint in those areas. You wouldn’t want spray paint particles collecting themselves all over your pickups and wires.

·         Prime time! If you want to paint the entire body at once (as I do), take a metal clothes hanger, bending the end so that it can reach through the whole where the neck is screwed in. I hang my guitar from my clothes rack in my backyard. After spraying and letting it dry for a few minutes, I pick up the clothes hanger and move it to the shed and hang it there. This keeps stuff from flying into the paint (it’s windy and I have a tree that likes to shed) as well as protects it from the sun. The sun is your paint jobs worst nightmare!

And that’s as far as I’ve gotten so far using the body. Tomorrow, I will spray my base layer of red for the stripes. Sunday or Monday (likely Monday), I will begin adding the white layer. Once all the paint is done, I will be able to apply my clear coat and it will hopefully be done by the end of next week (in time for my band’s shows I hope).

Headstock:

·         So I’m currently on my third attempt at painting the headstock. For the first attempt, I used a paintbrush and this left brush marks that were very ugly. Second time, I mixed enamel paints with lacquers (without using primer) and it turned out horrible (there were runs and all sorts of bad stuff). Now, I have (hopefully) learned from my mistakes. I have a practice piece of wood to practice the design and make sure the paints work well together. I am also making sure I use the same type of paint for each layer!

·         To paint the headstock, like the body, you must sand it down until you reach bare wood. Jay Turser has an obsession with clear coat and shiny looking guitars. Unfortunately, they are poorly made guitars. Again, use the different levels of sandpaper to smooth out the surface and prepare it for painting.

·         Once it is sanded, it’s time to mask again. Use painter’s tape to mask off the sides of the headstock. Also be sure to mask off the part of the neck that touches the headstock. Paint on the neck is not good! To ensure that no paint gets on the neck, I took two pieces of newspaper and wrapped them around the neck, taping the paper to make sure it stays wrapped and securing it to the neck. Though it is tough to do, cut a piece of the tape to fit into the truss rod area.  I found some little cotton balls that fit perfectly into the tuner holes as well as the truss rod area. This isn’t necessary but it keeps things clean in those areas.

·         After it was sanded and masked, I applied two coats of primer. Though it is “fast-drying” primer, I made sure I waited a day or so to let it dry. Once I was certain it was all dry, I applied my first couple layers of red. I didn’t need to paint the whole headstock red since I am only going to have a stripe of it actually showing. After a day or so again, I masked the stripe and began painting black to get my thin black stripe below the red. Once that is dry, I will add another mask that covers that black stripe and then will begin my white layers. After white, clear coating will be the final step.

That’s where I stand and hopefully, it helps to understand the process I’ve taken to complete the project. Paint Part Two and Pickup blogs will be up as soon as I get to them. The pickups should be coming in within the next few days.

-- Mike

I have learned a lot over the last few days; things such as how not to paint a guitar, how to remove paints of different kinds and how many different kinds of paints there are, and how sharp putty knives really are.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve had my headstock sanded and ready to be painted for quite some time. So I started painting. I took a brush, some primer, and some paint and started on my way. It took 2 coats to realize that a brush was not going to work well. It left brush stroke patterns and textures that would definitely not look nice at all. Luckily, it was water based paint and it all came off fairly easily. So next day, I went to RONA to pick up some spray paint. IMPORTANT: know what types of paints you’re going to need before you go shopping. I purchased some red and some white enamel paint cans. So I went home and sprayed the base layer of white on. After reading up on some guitar painting tips, I realized I needed lacquer paints, not enamels. So off to Home Depot this time to pick up primer, red, white, and black lacquer paints and some paint stripper. After coming home and masking off my desired stripe area, I started to spray paint the new red lacquer paint on. IMPORTANT: do not mix different types of paints. When I took the mask off, the paint had bled underneath the mask. So I was forced to re-sand the guitar back to its bare-wood state. I went back to the Internet to find more painting help and I came across a great website: www.paintyourownguitar.com*. From here, I learned what I needed to do. So my headstock is currently sitting in my basement with its first coat of primer on and that’s the story of my headstock.

The next story I have to share is my guitar body story. I went out and got my body back because I decided I wanted to do the paint job. So what does it take to paint a guitar body? The first thing I knew I had to do was take off the paint layer that was already on the guitar. That’s what the paint stripper was for. I applied the paint stripper and began peeling away at the paint with a putty scraper. It has taken quite a bit of time and effort to get to the wood layer; however I know I have saved a lot of sanding time. I still have half of the paint to get rid of, but I am much farther now than I thought I’d be after one day. I am modelling my guitar after a Ron Fellows Custom PRS guitar and so I am very excited to see how well I can match the paint scheme.

LINK TO PICTURE

As I was scraping some of the paint off today, I accidentally stabbed myself with the putty knife. Though it is common sense (that I seemed to have forgotten for one stroke), make sure you always scrape away from your body and HANDS or any other body part that might be touching the guitar.

One last change in plans that I have decided on is a change of pickups. For one, I figured if I want to work in the electrical field, I probably shouldn’t buy a prewired pickup set. That just ruins the fun. I was also iffy on buying a set of EMGs because my other guitar already has them, though I have never heard EMG’s single coil pickups. Yes, I still recommend EMGs for any guitar; however I want to test out different pickup brands for this guitar. Instead, I chose Seymour Duncan pickups. I am purchasing an SH-6 Distortion humbucker for the bridge, an SSL-1 Vintage Staggered single-coil for the middle, and an SHR-1 Hot Rail Stacked single-coil pickup for the neck position. These pickups look pretty sweet.

I will be doing follow up entries about the painting process (with pictures), as well as the pickups and their installation as the processes take place. I will also have some new pictures up very shortly. It’s almost time!

-- Mike


*Note: www.paintyourownguitar.com does not tell you how to paint a guitar. He sells many books that help you along the way. If you, like me, are extremely broke and cannot buy the book at the time, sign up for his newsletter and read through the tips he gives. Many of these tips will help you as they have helped me.

I have decided on a pickup set. I am going with the KH-20 pro series pickup combination that features an EMG 81/S/S configuration (Check the specs). I am very excited to get this. I just need a job to be lined up before I go ahead with the purchase. I also need the guitar body to be painted and passed on back to me. I am very excited about this as well.

There has been a lot of excitement around here lately. The show set up for mid-July has been a very large factor in that excitement. Getting back into the band swing of things has really got my blood rushing. I’ve been learning covers, attempting to write some originals, and preparing myself for the upcoming weeks of practicing.

Being in a band again has brought about a few things that are new for me this time around. None have taken very long to get used to and all have proven to be rather interesting.

1)      I am no longer a frontman. Most of my previous band experience has had me doing a lot of leading vocally. I wasn’t always lead singer, but I took on a prominent role in the vocal portion of the band. This time around, I am just the guitarist. I may throw in a few backing vocals here and there, but for the most part, I am the guitarist. This hasn’t had too big of an impact on my though this time because it’s given me a chance to work on my stage presence and my recent outburst of love for guitar has not hindered me at all. Being out of the band scene for a while, the thought of going back on stage has my mind dancing already and when it comes time to perform, I won’t be stuck at the mic and will be able to “rock out hardcore”.

2)      The lead singer is phenomenal. My past bands have always had mediocre singers, myself especially. Playing alongside an exceptional singer allows me to be extremely confident in the music we plan on playing.

3)      I have been looking at music theory quite a bit lately. My friend Jesse has a guitar lessons blog on which he has posted multiple articles about theory (Check it out here). As I attempt to write down chord progressions, lead parts, and harmonies, I have found myself constantly referring to the notes he has posted. And it has helped greatly. I am confident in the fact that this is some of the best music I have ever written solely because I understand what I’m writing. It also has sparked more interest in learning more theory and digging deeper into the art of guitar playing.

4)      I am challenging myself much more. Normally I practice and play music within my limits. If I get to a lead part that I believe I will never master, I play the rhythm section. I have found myself reaching out much more this summer. Sitting down and taking the time to slow down those hard riffs and learn them to perfection. I have found my guitar playing abilities have multiplied by countless amounts because of this.

Though this post has nothing really to do with my new guitar, I am not too worried. I was thinking about what would happen when I finished the guitar. What would become of this website? I will likely continue to use it as my general guitar blog. This is certainly not the last project I will undertake and so this site will continue running as long as I do.

Cheers,

-- Mike

I will no longer be making my own pickups for this guitar, although in the future, I would still like to make some of my own. Instead, I have decided to purchase an EMG 81/S/S combination set up (pending funds available). I have never heard or even seen an EMG single coil pickup, so I am very excited to see how it turns out. There are a few different sets I am looking at and the winner will probably depend on price (I am broke).

I have found an 81/SA/SA set, and two 81/S/S sets; one being a Kirk Hammett signature set. Once again, the one I choose will likely depend on the price. I plan to make my way to the local music store to see how much a new set will cost and then will compare that price with my options to see if I can bargain down and save myself some money.

(Click to view a list of EMG Strat Pickups)

I am very excited to get this guitar put back together with all the new tweaks. The guitar is out being painted and will hopefully be back in my possession soon. Tonight, I sanded down the headstock so that it could be painted as well. I no longer own a Jay Turser by name; very soon it will have a new “brand”. That brand will probably be named after the name of my summer band. I now also have a desired time of completion and so I will be working on a timeline now to have it completed by July 19th. My summer band has a show set up for that date and I will (hopefully) be sporting my customized new guitar.

I hope to have updates soon, along with pictures, of a new looking guitar. And hopefully I’ll find the money to purchase the new pickup set that I need for it. Wish me luck!

-- Mike

So I decided that since this is going to be my first project guitar, then I'm going to make my own pickups and we'll see how it all goes from there. I have a collection of resources online to help me with the process and I'm currently setting up an expense sheet to see how much it's all going to cost. That will be posted once it has been started with the essentials. It looks as if I'm going to need:

    -   42 gauge copper wire (and lots of it)
    -   Alnico #5 magnet
    -   Some plastic, probably from a CD case
    -   Screws and/or short metal rods
    -   Lots and lots and lots of time

I have a jar of money started as my summer guitar fund. I'm looking to add to that jar, so if you know of any jobs, need a tutor, or have any old junk that you don't mind donating to me, let me know! If you have any thing that might be usable for the building of this guitar, that would also be very handy and greatly appreciated.

Ha; alright so after that shameless plug, I sat down the other day to try and learn how to do a little guitar sweeping, using Bloodmeat by Protest the Hero as my training song and I can proudly say, I have accomplished my goal! There is a new link at the top, "Video" and if you follow that link, you can view the video of that song.

So check it out and let me know.

-- Mike

Today, I started looking at these pickups; what they’re made of and how they’re made. Unfortunately, the pickups on this guitar were not the greatest to start looking at. The single-coil ones had been super-glued together, making it tough for me to take the bottom cover off and impossible to get the top cover off. The humbucker pickup was easier to get apart but still not very easy to get a full look at.

Single coil pickups are fairly easy to understand. They consist of a bar magnet, which acts as a base, wire, pole pieces, and a cover. The wire is wrapped around that base bar magnet thousands of times which allow voltage to flow once a current is generated.

Humbuckers are slightly more complex. The one in this guitar (as well as most other humbuckers that I’m aware of) are made up of two small single-coil pickups mounted on top of another base magnet, surrounded by more pole pieces.

Now, I know a lot of this may sound pretty ridiculous (or maybe it doesn’t), but I will explain it all. For those people who aren’t into physics, this may either just drive you insane or could be an interesting lesson for you. It was originally physics class that got me thinking about guitar pickups and electronics. So, how does each piece of a pickup help make a sound come out?

-          Base magnet: creates what is called a flux field around the pickup. What’s cool about fluxes is that I studied them for about a month in physics and I still hardly have the slightest clue as to what they are. I do know however, that they can create an induced voltage and current. Because of Faraday’s Law and Lenz’s Law... I’m just kidding. I won’t actually start teaching the reason the voltage is created because all you need to know is that it can happen. Keep that in mind for later.

-          Wire: allows current to flow. When voltage is induced in the flux of the base magnet, it generates a current. With current flowing through the wires, they cause the pole pieces to become electromagnets due to the way they’re wrapped.

-          Pole pieces: or electromagnets create a magnetic field. When you play your guitar, the metallic, slightly magnetic strings vibrate with each strum and the vibrations within the magnetic field generate an electric signal. That signal is then transferred through the guitar’s electric circuit, through the cable, into your amp, and out your speakers in the form of glorious music or potentially horrific noise.

So that is how that all works out. Single-coils, again, are pretty simple; one coil wrapped around a pole piece, through in a base magnet and you’re all set. They can achieve great tones, but because there is only one coil, it can give a “hum” noise. Humbuckers use the two single-coil pickups, each wrapped in opposite directions, to cancel out the “hum”. They are unfortunately known to give up some of the tone that a single-coil has in order to cancel that “hum” noise.

Another thing I was unaware of when I first started taking apart my single-coil pickup was the “potting” used on it. First, what is potting?

-          Potting – sealing the coils in a solid material. This solid material is often wax and it prevents the coils, magnets, and other pieces of the pickup from moving around, relative to each other. It prevents the pickups from giving feedback by eliminating and vibration-induced signals.[1]

After finally prying off the bottom cover of the pickup (remember all that super-glue stuff I mentioned earlier), I slowly started to scrape off some of the wax, thinking it was excess glue of some sort. I hadn’t paid much attention to the resources I was using so I initially had no idea what the wax was. After realizing it would be fairly impossible to take the whole pickup apart, I decided to find out what this stuff was to find out that it was wax and that it was pretty important. Luckily, wax isn’t very hard to come by and a quick match-and-candle cover job worked wonderfully.

With the new knowledge of pickups I have discovered today, I am definitely interested in making my own and trying things out. It will take a lot of time, probably money too (which I don’t have), but I think it would be a great experience.

Until next time,

-- Mike

[1] http://www.guitarnuts.com/technical/electrical/index.php