Conversation Between Pete for President and Slothy

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  1. Making the old man a tele type guitar since he doesn't have one. Had to buy the body pre shaped and routed and a finished neck because I simply lack the tools for that but I'll be shaping the body some more and making some modifications.

    Going with a swamp ash body and a maple neck and fretboard. Gonna do a tung oil finish on the body, and put a dark wood pick guard on it. Might buy one premade if I can find one that looks good enough but I'll cut my own out of some wood and veneer it if I have to. Thinking walnut or bubinga. Also going to put gold hardware on it, and make the control knobs and the knobs for the tuners out of some walnut burl I found on EBay. If I can, I also want to break out the dremel and do some larger inlays in walnut to match. Or maybe do a two toned look with the walnut on the sides of the inlays and something else in the middle. Maybe some sort of pearloid or even another type of wood like some cherry or purpleheart.

    Haven't even thought about the electronics yet though.
  2. Can't claim to be an expert (yet), but my basic understanding going off what I've read and what I remember about magnets and electricity from high school physics is that essentially you've got magnets, the ends of which are actually at the top of the pickup under the strings, and those have a fairly thin gauge of copper wire wound around them a few thousand times. When the metal strings move through the magnetic field over the magnets they produce electric current in the copper wire which is what gets sent to the pots and eventually the amp.

    Making them is pretty simple apparently. Not much more to it than having the magnets set in place and winding the wire, though the winding pattern, wire gauge, and how many winds you do would all have an impact on the ultimate sound.

    I'm planning to start with single coils since they're supposed to be a bit easier. I'll probably test them in the middle position on my Ibanez with the goal of eventually replacing that one and maybe upgrading the tele's pickups. Then I'll start practicing with some humbuckers to see how that goes. Building a pickup winder will be the first thing on the list though. Found an instructable for one that can be built for under $200 if you get decent prices on the parts. Otherwise I'd have to wind by hand and I've heard that's damn near impossible without breaking the wire, and extremely tedious even if you don't.
  3. That's awesome! How do those even work anyway, they're magnets with coils right? What type will you be going for?
  4. I think I've decided on my next project. I want to start making guitar pickups because it's one of the few instrument related things I can make from scratch at my parents.
  5. Curse you and your world traveling ways! Now who shall I play co-op with?! It actually is really fun. Basically you play two teams of four who are fighting the computer opponents, but each team is competing to get the highest score. Whichever team does get the highest score can get some more credits and better drops. Only thing I wish is that the game had more fuel drops, but it's not too bad for the most part. I've yet to run out, though some lengthy gaming sessions left my fuel stock a bit low.

    And the guitar I got is one of these:

    Ibanez Gio. It may be an entry model, but I like the way it feels and plays, and the finish is exactly what I wanted. It's newly restrung and I'll be breaking it in with some Rocksmith in a bit.
  6. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner! I'm actually in New Zealand right now and far far away from my PS3. Gonna check it out as soon as I can though... which will be in May :P How's the co-op?
  7. Did you ever get around to playing any Ace Combat Infinity? Been playing the last few days and it's actually pretty good.
  8. So I finally updated my progress on the guitar. God I'm slow.
  9. Yeah, I'm going to paint the back and sides black and do the blue using dye over the veneer on the front. I'll be doing everything myself because I have no money to pay someone to do it (and I honestly wouldn't know who to pay anyway).

    I thought about new Humbuckers, but they're a bit pricey and there are enough options out there that I wouldn't know which ones to get. And looking up some conversations online, most people seemed to agree that it wasn't really worth changing out the pickups before replacing the troutty wiring and pots in the guitar first. If he wants new pickups in it he can buy them after the fact and I'll put them in for him. New tuning machines were a must though because it does not hold it's tuning well at all right now.
  10. Dude, that sounds awesome! Do you do the paintjob yourself too? Any new humbuckers in it? A lot of my friends used to buy epiphone les pauls and just change the humbuckers and tuning machines. Seemed to work. Good luck with the project
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