B/H Round Table & Misc

[big_teee]

Tubes on sale at TubeDepot
https://tubedepot.com/t/tubedepot-sale
T

[big_teee]

Been awful quiet on here, for months!

T

[big_teee]

Is anyone building anything anymore?
Both Pickup forums are dead quiet.

What are you working on?
T

[rjb]

Have built & repaired a few things lately- just not pickups.
Anyone wanna hear about the folk-artsy windchime-slash-glockenspiel-slash-windvane I built from the leaky copper pipe pulled from the basement?
Oh well, thought not.

-rb

[SonnyW]

Hey T, I noticed it too, that the forum has been real quiet for a while. Maybe I can help with a few comments.

I've been pretty busy, just been doing my usual stuff, mostly rewinds, a few custom pickups, but not that many. This week I have repaired three old Gibson pickups, but only one needed a rewind. The first one was a working 1981 Tim Shaw model with a nickel cover, and the owner just wanted to change it to having a gold cover and pole screws. Easy as pie. The cable on that one was a little messed up, and I replaced that too. The second one was an old T-top, I'd say maybe early 70's which just turned out to have an open in its cable where it had been soldered for the ground connection, so I changed out the cable on it and also cleaned it up a little, but didn't have to rewind any of the coils. The only one that actually needed a rewind was a 1984 Dirty fingers, which had one coil bad. I rewound that coil and also ran the polescrews through the ultrasonic degreaser to clean them up, they were pretty gunked up. Anyway, it's all pretty common stuff, none of those were unusual enough that I thought it would be worth writing a post on. I have been told that I have a '60's Jaguar pickup coming in the mail for a rewind, but it isn't here yet. The last one before that was an old P-bass that needed both coils rewound. That was almost three weeks ago on the 3rd of the month. So that's it so far for October. Last month it was a little slower on the rewinds, just a Teisco Gold Foil, and a Fender Mustang to rewind.

The last custom pickups I made were all the way back at the end of July. That was a set of P.A.F. clones for a regular local customer, and install them in his guitar. He's a session player and I have made several sets of custom pickups for him, and done a lot of guitar work. This was for a nice ES125 clone that he had me replace all the electronics in it that needed to be upgraded.

As far as everything else, I have been doing a lot of minor guitar repairs. Those and the rewinds have probably been taking most of my time. I have one customer who has been collecting guitars for many years, and he has been bringing them all to me two at a time for me to fix whatever they might need. He has recently retired and is now going through his whole collection. When I get two done he comes and gets them and brings me two more. He has a ton of them too, I bet I have done 20 or 30 of just telecasters of his for one example. I didn't keep count, but it was a bunch of them. Some just need to be put back to their original configurations, and others need a lot of TLC. This has been going on for a good while, at least a year. Mostly it is replacing tuners and bridge parts, fixing dings, swapping out pickups, and so on. I have three of his guitars in my shop at the moment. One that I just finished is a Fender Tom Delonge strat, the one with the one Invader pickup. The pickup was not installed, the previous owner must have removed whatever replacement pickup that was in it, and the Invader pickup was just loose in the case. Also I had to replace two tuners that were bent and all the string ferrules. Half of them were gone and the ball ends of the strings had jammed solid into the wood. I had to knock them out with a punch. The worst thing on that one was repairing a big chip about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide and pretty deep that was in the bout. It took me a good while to figure a way to match the surf green. I ended up mixing dry pigments to match, then mixing those with 5 minute epoxy, (I had first tried mixing them with superglue but it went off way too fast) and once that set, filing it smooth and then using the same pigments in some behlen lacquer and airbrushing over the whole repair with about 4 coats and buffing that out. You can still see the repair if you look real close in a good light.

The one I am working on now is a really nice Fender Custom Shop MIM strat which only needs the headstock touched up where the owner had left a electronic tuner on it so long that the wood underneath is a different shade, and there were marks in the lacquer. I have that one sanded out, but to make the wood match I have been shining a strong UV light on it for a little while every few hours to darken the wood under the lacquer. I have to be careful with my sanding and not mess up the decals under the lacquer too. I figured if I tint the repair to match now, in a few years it would show again as the wood darkened underneath. I would have put it outside in the sun, except we haven't had any real sunshiny days for about a couple of weeks now.

Another job from a different customer is clear coating over a Randy Rogers autograph on a Yamaha acoustic. Have to be careful with that one too, not to let the lacquer attack and smear the sharpie signature. I'm using extremely light coats with the airbrush for it as well. Anyhow you get the idea of the kind of repairs I have been doing.

[big_teee]

Always great to hear from you Sonny, and you are always working on some interesting stuff!
T

[John_H]

Is anyone building anything anymore?
Both Pickup forums are dead quiet.

What are you working on?
T

Great to hear from Sonny!

I haven't done many pickups lately, but had a flurry of requests this week. 2 of them for P-90 sets.

A few years ago I built a guitar for my Daughter's boyfriend. He owns a recording studio here in Vegas. His guitar stays at the studio most of the time, and gets used on a lot of recordings. Several in just the last couple of months. I'm pretty flattered that some really good players have preferred the guitar over their own. Here's the guitar;



I want to make a couple of mini-humbuckers for myself. I've only ever built a few of them, and only used the kits from mojotone. They're always 'out of stock' now. I've checked for months it seems. Do you know of a source?

[big_teee]

Great looking guitar John.

Stewmac lists minibucker kits, but they are pretty high, and the cover is extra.
https://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_...its_and_Parts/

Here's an alternative you may want to consider, and you may be able to get similar tonal results.
https://www.amplifiedparts.com/produ...n-nickel-cover
I've not wound this kit, but it looks like a good deal and comes with a cover, and is similar in size to a mini?
I've always liked double row screw humbuckers.
I like the way it all mounts to the baseplate, like a regular humbucker.
Not like a mini, which is all flopping around until you get the cover soldered on!
Here's the matching pickup ring.
https://www.amplifiedparts.com/produ...tertron-silver
GL,
T
** Here's some data for the Allparts version kit, It will probably be similar bobbin dimensions.
The amplified parts version comes with an a2 instead of a5
I would think 3250-3300 turns would get you close.
If there is room you may can put more 42, or go to smaller wire, if you want a hotter more modern sounding pickup.

[SonnyW]

Hi John,

That's a great looking guitar by the way, and obviously it must sound pretty good or they wouldn't be using it so much.

I have mostly always used the Allparts mini-humbucker parts. I would go for getting the individual pieces rather than the kit that they have. They have a pretty good variety of pieces so you could make a bunch of different variations such as Firebird or Johnny Smith types. You have to look in two different sections to find all the pieces, there is most of it in the pickup making parts section, but the covers are in a separate section just for covers. They even have the floating covers with a mounting tab for archtops where the cover mounts to the pickguard like a benedetto. That is, if they have them in stock, but I think they probably do now. I used to make a few of that type for an archtop guitar builder and I did sometimes have trouble with them being out of stock.

[John_H]

Thanks Terry, and Sonny. I didn't know stewmac had those. Just like everything else there, a little pricey. I'll check out the allparts. I haven't bought anything from there in a long time.

[big_teee]

I've never bought from Allparts, because of the price, and I don't have a dealers discount.
I just installed 2 Stewmac mini covers, and I didn't care for them, they are so thick.
I wouldn't be surprised if they are brass.
I also had trouble getting the cover edge to take solder, even after a thorough scraping.
I do like Mojo's covers.
T

[SonnyW]

I do have the Allparts discount, mostly because of all the guitar parts that I buy. Without the discount they would definitely be kind of pricey though. They are a good source for knobs, switches, pots, bridge parts, cloth wire, and so on. They have a lot of bass guitar stuff too, which most don't. I have had the dealer rate with them for a very long time but if I remember right it wasn't that hard to get. I think I just had to apply and give them an estimate of how much I would typically order in a year. I probably order from them maybe six or seven times a year. Several of my regular customers are small time guitar builders and they usually want me to order extra stuff like pots, knobs, bridges and tuners for whatever they are making in addition to the custom pickups I make for them. And on a lot of the repairs and customizations that I do it is the same thing, I need to order up whatever replacement parts they might require. All that kind of thing helps me to keep my dealer discounts. So for me, in my situation it is well worth going to the trouble to apply and get the discount. Even StewMac has a special thing where you get the free shipping and a discount on some stuff for an annual fee. I do that and it seems to be worth it for me. But I probably use more parts than the average hobbyist. For most of the pickups that I make, I like the Allparts pickup parts, especially the humbucker covers, but they don't have a really comprehensive selection on stuff like magnets. That is to say, on certain things they have more selection than most, but in other areas they don't stock much at all. It is the same with all the other vendors, like Philadelphia Luthier, MojoTone, WD, ToneKraft, AddictionFX, and CE. I buy from all of those and have their discounts if they are available. And some things I also even get on eBay. Each one has certain things they have a good selection on and other areas they don't. So I may get flatwork or baseplates from one, magnets from another and covers from someplace else. I have found it necessary to have multiple sources for everything that I use very much. Even then I like to stock up ahead on things I know that will be needed, or might be harder to find, when I see that I can find them someplace. It seems inevitable that when something comes up that I don't have in stock, a lot of times wherever that I usually get them is going to be out of stock or whatever. Often when I order some special order parts for a guitar build or repair I end up getting parts from several places and it is the shipping that runs the cost up. Just my 2 cents worth.

[big_teee]

Since our good friend Steve Ahola posted here from time to time?
I would like to say what a good friend he was to us all.
We will miss him!
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ea...&pid=190610912
RIP Steve A.
I hope you get to play guitar, in the afterlife!
T

[LtKojak]

Since our good friend Steve Ahola posted here from time to time?
I would like to say what a good friend he was to us all.
We will miss him!
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/ea...&pid=190610912
RIP Steve A.
I hope you get to play guitar, in the afterlife!
T

Oh, man! I'm so sorry to hear this. He was barely six years older than myself. I hope he passed away peacefully.

His site, The Blue Guitar, was considered a beacon of light that helped a lot of us to get started in our quest for knowledge about the electric guitar and everything revolving around it.

Requiem In Pace, dear Steve. You''ll be sorely missed by this entire community.

Yours very truly,

[big_teee]

Upon request I can put them up again later.