Some self made instruments...

[bea]

Mhmm, my talent is not sufficient to reach the demands of nowaday's professional quality. After a few instruments i have a bit of experience how to deal with my mistakes, maybe even how to avoid things i can hardly do without a router (which i intentionally do not use). And Your SG is looking promising.

Regarding artistic talent: my father was a painter. I did not get much from his talent, but luckily a tiny little bit of his creativity.

That SG conversion is pretty straightforward; it was however necessary to find a balance in the lines. I had, for example, to change the bevelings to make the body look narrower. Otherwise it would be optically too large for the slim neck. And large projects like the archtop or the V bass encountered a phase of planning / thinking for over one year before i bought the first piece of wood. The RD bass has also been intensely reshaped, and that took a few months of planning, too.

 

[Dewesq55]

Mhmm, my talent is not sufficient to reach the demands of nowaday's professional quality. After a few instruments i have a bit of experience how to deal with my mistakes, maybe even how to avoid things i can hardly do without a router (which i intentionally do not use). And Your SG is looking promising.

Regarding artistic talent: my father was a painter. I did not get much from his talent, but luckily a tiny little bit of his creativity.

That SG conversion is pretty straightforward; it was however necessary to find a balance in the lines. I had, for example, to change the bevelings to make the body look narrower. Otherwise it would be optically too large for the slim neck. And large projects like the archtop or the V bass encountered a phase of planning / thinking for over one year before i bought the first piece of wood. The RD bass has also been intensely reshaped, and that took a few months of planning, too.

I'm building a V, not an SG, but I take your point. Any way, you have a nice aesthetic eye, as far as I'm concerned. Please keep showing us your work. I enjoy it very much.

 

[smitty_p]

...maybe even how to avoid things i can hardly do without a router (which i intentionally do not use).

Speaking of which, I have looked at your posts and build threads with a quite a bit of interest over the years - over at ETSG and here. The one thing I have NOT seen is a workshop crammed with power tools!

Would you mind taking a few pictures of the tools you use? I'm sure others would be interested, too.

Thanks, Bea.

 

[Hackmaster]

Well, not for me but for a friend: a 4 string guitar converted from an SG kit. At that time tuned in 5th, at present not anymore. I think it is at A-D-F#-B. It is the 2nd instrument i made not for me. The 1st is a bass for my son.

Bea, I love this SG tenor guitar. I'd love to do something similar with the next old derelict archtop that crosses my path.
You are indeed gifted in the creativity department.

 

[bea]

Well, the next one?

This time the attempt on

a) ergonomic design
b) a synthesizer

probably not everybody's case...

The body is made of spruce, and the neck is a rest of a really cheap guitar. Maybe poplar, maybe basswood or something like that. The electronics consist of a) a self made LoZ pickup and b) the synthesizer pickup. Both fully independent, which means that the guitar has two outputs. It is still lacking a buffer amp for the LoZ pickup.

Tuning is currently C-C, i.e. a high baritone tuning using an (old) set of LaBella flats in size '015-'056

 

[bea]

Well, i also did a bass for one of my sons:




And here a few details and pictures of the build:

 

[bea]

The next one. An SG bass. Yet another...
For those not on ETSG a build summary...

The neck. Framus NOS, age > 30 years. Intended for an SG bass, specifically the J-375. It was so cheap that it would be uneconomic to make the neck from scratch.

The body wood. Alder.
And the "template" for the body contour. Mhmm, the cutaways will become deeper...

The sketch:

Doing the body:

Give it a nice bright color. I used a brush.

The pickups are still waiting to be finished.

Done. With preliminary pickups and electronics. I still need to make a preamp for that baby...

 

[Dewesq55]

I think its amazing what you accomplish with hand tools. I'm really, really impressed by your skill.

 

[bea]

well, there is another one. A conversion. I turned a cheap shortscale bass into a Bass VI.



Here the story begins. A chinese bass for 73 €. short scale, 30".
And the conversion is done as a low cost project (well, with the exception of the split coil - i gave it a DiMarzio Model P). This is one of the basses i play frequently in my duo project (www.velvet-beyond.de).

Although i really like it, it has a few disadvantages:
- only 19 frets
- the cutaway is too narro to reach the highest positions
- the neck is a bit too wide. Mhmm, that was a precision bass ...

Taking it into parts:

Replace the bridge by a strat bridge - it must be mounted pretty oblique to achieve sufficient compensation.

The headstock need new tuners. 6!

A headstock "veneer" made from cardboard

A lot of dirt - cavity for a bridge pickup:

Here it goes:

Et voila:

 

[JohnnyGoo]

was wondering about the Epiphone Valve JR amp,is it modded ?? i see 2 chicken head knobs.i have one of those and it has one knob

 

[bea]

Aha...

yes, that's the one with two knobs. My 2nd one has three: an additional master volume in addition to the tone control. The two are pretty heavily modded: i reduced the rail voltage to fit exactly to the 5.2 k of the output transformer, replaced those by better ones (Wüstens ATRA 0211), gave them an NFB loop, also switchable, added an AMZ-PI tone control with switchable mids, increased the anode resistors in the one with the master vol - it is possible to overdrive the 2nd stage. And i limited the -3dB-frequency to 70 Hz.
Now the two babies are cool bass practice amps, but better than previously with the guitar as well. The only drawback is that i need to take care of not overdriving the EL84: it sounds cool, but the tube will be overloaded.

I did not show that because i have ideas for further modding: AFAIK the power supply and the OT can handle anode currents of 60 mA. A larger output tube, such as a 7591 or a 6L6, can deliver these currents easily. And i do not need to reduce the voltage in the power supply that much and use it for more output power. In simulations, the 7591 will give about 7 W and the 6L6 will give about 9 W.

The amp with the two photos is the candidate for the 6L6. The main reason why i did not start that is the repair job on the Sorgenkind guitar - which was unplanned.

 

[JohnnyGoo]

thanks for the info on the modded amps.alot of it is over my head but enjoy hearing about them.so you turned them into Bass Amp heads ? i bought mine from the small town music store near me.its bone stock and truthfully its pretty harsh sounding when turned up.i got a Blackheart Killer Ant one knob amp thats more pleasing to the ear

 

[bea]

let mer please continue with this one:

Meanwhile i changed the pickups against GFS lipstick humbuckers and added a preamp. A self designed one. Two JFETs, AMZ tone control, switcheable characteristics, and a C-switch. Running at 9 V, so unfortunately limited headroom - physics cannot be tricked ;-(
But a huge improvement in sound. Although i still have ideas for fine tuning.

Here a picture of creative application of kitchen supplies:

And for the curious the schematics and the characteristics of the tone control:

 

[WavMixer]

Dang Bea, you are the Bee's Knees!

 

[WavMixer]

I'm really liking both of those basses. Too bad you live so far away or I might try and talk you into selling one to me.