Ryan's Guitar Projects

So a mosfet and an op-amp walk into a bar . . .

2008-12-31T10:32:00.003-05:00

. . . and the bar tender says "Those are EVEN HARMONICS!"

Ah . . . I slay me.

But seriously folks, I want to talk to you about Clipping. When you go after overdrive, do you know if you like Feedback Loop clipping, or Clipping-to-Ground? Do you prefer the natural crunch of a starved-plate preamp tube? The grind of a silicon diode? Or the versatile drive of a Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor?

I honestly can't say I know the answers to these questions.

That's why I'm embarking on my very own Drive Quest. My beloved Blackheart amp gives me sweet, sweet tube tone at all sorts of volumes, but it stays clean no matter what. Therefore I NEED some overdrive pedals. I'll be going into the lab to test out different combinations. When I've emerged triumphant, I'll be prepared to share my results with you. Many pedals will go in, few will return. Here's what I'm starting with:

MosFETs clipping to ground (no tone control): I took a rather ubiquitous yellow pedal and altered the clipping stage to use MosFETs and diodes.
MosFETs clipping to ground (with tone control): This pedal is a clone of a clone of a clone. Working from a schematic that drew from the pedal above, I added MosFETs directly, a capacitor to smooth the clipping, and a dual-acting tone control from the Tube Screamer family.
MosFETs OR a Tube clipping in a Feedback Loop: Our favorite Green pedals use clipping in a feedback loop. But why limit ourselves to the mild drive of diodes or LED's? I'll be kicking this loved and hated circuit up a notch with both a subminiature tube and MosFETs to see if we can really get this pedal to SCREAM
Finally, I'll be using a 12au7 running at 9 volts to generate some REAL tube overdrive. But with a twist. I'm going to build in a clean boost to the pedal for some dual-stomping saturated tube tone.

Stay tuned, and raise your Goblets of Rock, because we're about to enter 2009, the year of overdrive!

Oh, I almost forgot . . .

2008-12-17T07:53:00.003-05:00

I finished the Charcoal Frost Sportster! She's back in her proper slot at #1.

Oh, and my thread at http://www.offsetguitars.com/ is STILL fourth on Google for "John Mayer Charcoal Frost"

Working undercover

2008-12-15T11:42:00.003-05:00

Haven't had much to update you guys with lately, but we've been working hard.

Lots of prototyping going on around here; we've got lots of cool ideas. Some stuff still needs to be kept under wraps. Some of the stuff is exciting to us, but it involves behind-the scenes stuff you'll never see.

Anyway, here's some pictures of what we've been doing lately.
At the moment we're working on making my satellite shop more functional. When we get a bench and proper soldering station, I'll be ready to start cranking out some quality fx pedals. Some are familiar, some tend toward originality . . .

One thing's for sure. I think we can safely proclaim 2009 the YEAR OF OVERDRIVE.

Finished!

2008-09-16T08:47:00.003-05:00

Well the refinish is complete. It came out truly amazing and we were very glad to have been a part of the transformation!

Worm Rout

2008-08-28T10:18:00.001-05:00

As you can see, the restoration is going well. This is no candidate for a sunburst, but at least we've reversed the atrocity of that swimming pool. Worm rout added for authenticity and practicality.

The Bleeding Strat

2008-08-25T20:29:00.002-05:00

We got a commission to refinish a very old Strat. This one had some kind of red on it over what looked like a 3-color sunburst (note the amber in the trem cavity), but had been badly reliced. It looked to me like they had set it on fire on the front, but on the back it actually had some decent and real buckle rash.

No matter. The owner wants a pristine Nitrocellulose finish (Dakota Red), and that's what he'll get.

We love stripper.
Not sure the backstory on this Strat, but it's quite old, but it looks like basswood. Very light (feels like under 4lbs) with a tight grain. It's been swimming-pool'd, and we're going to fill that in with some basswood, and re-rout for three single-coils.

Should be a fun project.

Fourth on Google

2008-08-10T10:03:00.003-05:00

No, this site isn't fourth on Google for anything (It's first for "Trevisol", ;-) ), but when you search "John Mayer Charcoal Frost", the fourth result is this:
Offset Guitars Build Thread
That's my post at OffsetGuitars detailing the progress of my Charcoal Frost Sportster Build!

Speaking of which . . . let me go on record as saying I do not look forward to doing any more racing stripes ever again.

The guitar has 5 coats of clear on it, and after being sanded smooth (it looked like it had spray texture on it) it was ready to be taped off and striped.

Now I need to stripe it, and to get a good straight line, I'm going to be using a "la-ser".

Once I get that line taped, I can use it as a reference for the rest of the stripes.

Next came tape on the other side, and pinstriping to mask the individual stripes from each other. Then we masked the whole guitar off with brown paper.

3 Coats of Silver metallic Lacquer, and it's time to peel. That was a frenetic, harried, breath-holding activity.

But it came out! It's about as perfect as I could hope for. I even was able to wrap it around to the back (on the bottom edge), which is more than Fender does with this kind of racing stripe. It went well but now we've got all sorts of blue tape residue on the guitar. I'm going to use Dunlop 65 to get it off before the final 6 clear coats.

Things are wrapping up. I'll be ordering the trem soon, then it'll be on to assembly.

I didn't die.

2008-07-20T19:57:00.003-05:00

Two months is way too long to go between posts, and I'm sorry about that. I had the most busy, hectic 5 weeks of "vacation" of all time.

Anyway, all excuses aside, I have pictures:
6 coats of Charcoal Frost. It's impossible to capture with a camera how beautiful this color is.

Another day, another coat

2008-05-26T14:50:00.004-05:00

. . . of sanding sealer. Two coats should suffice this time around. I'm not seeing any grain holes that need plugging, and I did a nice, even coat of sealer for the second coat. Primer comes later today.

Charcoal Frost Sportster: not dead

2008-05-18T13:35:00.003-05:00

I've been extraordinarily busy the last few weeks. Needless to say I didn't have the time to go to the shop and work on the Sportster project. Saturday I got some time, and went and grain-filled it, sanded, grain filled, and applied the first coat of sanding sealer. I decided we didn't need to sand as aggressively as we had before, and while the wood is ugly, it's a much more stable base to spray on, plus, we didn't have to do so much filling. Enjoy two pictures of the progress:

Wasting no Time

2008-03-14T08:19:00.002-05:00

Well I don't like to waste time, so immediately after the Roadster project was done, I began eyeing that 3rd piece of ash.

This time, the goal is to make a new body for my blue Sportster. Using a template we made ourselves, we routed and shaped the new body with little trouble.

Today, I shaped the body contours. I always wanted a 50's style, deeply contoured body, and that's what I got.

It's done!

2008-02-16T11:53:00.002-05:00

And it's beautiful.

Taking my time

2008-02-13T08:37:00.003-05:00

All the parts are now in. It's taking all the strength I can muster not to assemble it. To refresh your memory:

Yeah, that one.

This afternoon, I'll be starting the fret dress, and I'll be using economies of scale by doing my Tele at the same time.

Left-Handed Jazzmaster: DONE!

2008-01-29T09:42:00.000-05:00

That was the quickest, and one of the most fun projects to date. Enjoy the pictures. High res versions here in the gallery

Clearcoats

2008-01-24T10:07:00.000-05:00

My dad did the next three coats of clear on the Ice Blue. Friday we'll mount the bridge, and wet sand it. At that point we'll decide if we want to do coats 12-15.

Hey GOOGLE! Screw you!

2008-01-24T07:58:00.000-05:00

That's right, Google, you can censor me if you want (you own blogspot), but screw you!

You're killing me over here. Something tells me you're not sorry either. I want to love you so bad, Google. You're faster, and better in every way. You have my email, my maps, my searching, and my local results loyalty.

Except at work. For the past week, my organization apparently resembles spyware. I work for Broward County Public Schools, you know, the 6th largest school district in the nation. Home to one of the largest Private WANs in the country. That's right, the country. We have hundreds of thousands of computers running behind proxies on some of the fastest internet connections available. We do a LOT OF GOOGLING. So when I (a tech) go to my camino bar and google "OS X force Adobe Reader PDF" and I get the above page (after, what I might add is a huge wait for my metro ethernet connection), and have to type in Yahoo, and do my search there.

You know what's scaring me? Yahoo's not as crappy as it used to be. They have a suggest feature. Did they rip it off from you? Yes. But guess what. They've got the balls to put it on their main page, not as a beta! And while we're at it, now that I've been using Gmail for THREE YEARS with nary an outage, do you think we can stop calling it a beta? It's a little embarassing for both of us, don't you think? So yeah. You're making me use Yahoo. Be careful, if I do it much longer, I might get to like it.

And let's talk about this block. I know. My ip comes through as 169.139.1.20, and it appears that about 10,000 other computers are the same IP address too. Wow, that's a lot. No kidding. We're using a proxy. Let's take a look at the domain name behind that suspicious 169 address. Broward.K12.FL.US . . . Does THAT sound like spyware to you? Seriously, Google. Get it together. I KNOW Educational Technology Services has contacted you. Figure it out. I have to wonder, if you flag and persecute every large organization that uses a proxy (i.e. values its security and privacy)? Do you do this to the federal government? I wonder, does the NSA use Google? They probably use Ask.com.

The daily HOTNESS.

2008-01-18T21:29:00.000-05:00

The blue has been sanded with 1000, 1500, and 2000 grit, wet, and it's now smooth enough to stripe and clear.

So then after that, I obsessed about a number of things for a couple hours. How much residue would various masking materials (Pinstriping, frisket film, blue painter's tape) leave on the finish? Would peeling them lift my ice Blue? Would they be porous and allow lacquer to bleed through?

After a while I just said, screw it. I masked the bottom edge with painter's tape, then the interior lines with pinstriping, and the top edge with thicker pinstriping. After about 20 minutes of sticking and re-sticking the lines in place, I was ready. It was mostly freehand, but it turned out 99.5% perfect.

I sprayed 1 heavy coat of olympic white over the masking and immediately removed it. The stripes came out PERFECT. See for yourself:

The fiesta Red is fighting us. We're having to sand the Warmoth neck; while the Mighty Mite neck I had laying around fit PERFECTLY in the pocket, the Warmoth is a little too snug and the pre-drilled bolt holes don't line up. So we're adjusting that, and while my dad did that, I foiled the pockets. I found that I had just enough to do it. I tore the tape by hand (it tears very straight), and just stuck it on. It's really not that hard. Then I used the foam that the SD's shipped with to mount them; you can see it's a little tall but it provides the appropriate pressure when you put the covers on.

Ooooo . . . swirly.

2008-01-17T13:06:00.000-05:00

Polishing on the Fiesta Red has begun; swirl remover is now being used to remove the scuffs from the lacquer.

The Ice Blue has had 4 light coats of clear, and still feels rough to the touch. When dry, we will sand the "paint stick" to see if it dulls the metallic finish too much, and if so, spray two more heavier coats onto the body before sanding. After that initial sanding, we spray the competition stripe on, and then 6-9 more coats of clear!

The Ever-Irascible Ice Blue Metallic

2008-01-14T09:26:00.000-05:00

I think my feelings might be best expressed

By a monologue from the movie Men in Black:

"[Ice Blue] makes this look GOOD."

SUPERSTAR!

Oh yeah.

2008-01-11T08:45:00.000-05:00

The lefty is moving along quite nicely. This is round two of four of clear coats. All the parts are in. The righty is still waiting for color, one pickup, and a neck.

Double Jazzmaster Build Update

2008-01-06T18:32:00.000-05:00

Well it's been too long since I updated on the progress of the Great Jazzmaster Build of 2008.

Shaping, sanding, grain filling, and sealing of the bodies is complete. . . .

And now we have 5 coats of fiesta red on the lefty. :)

Strip-eze + plastic inlay = Epic Fail.

2007-12-27T10:48:00.000-05:00

Here's a little advice for anyone who has ever thought "I could save so much money by buying a MightyMite neck and refinish it in nitro!" Tape as much you like, but you're gonna melt your side dots. At least that's what they tell me. :-[

The n00bs' Guide to iPod Touch interface on iPod Video

2007-12-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

I picked up a cool hack today. I was reading Engadget, one of my favorite tech blogs, and they reported that you can now use an iPod Touch-like interface on your 5G or 5.5G iPod Video. The original forum post seems to beoverloaded, so go here.

The guide is a little lacking for those who aren't familiar with hacking iPods. So here's how I did it.

First, I had to install parallels on my Mac, since the program you need, iPodWizard, is only for windows.

So, after you plug in your iPod (for Parallels users, click yes to the message asking you to connect the iPod to the Windows VM), you should open iPod Wizard, which looks like this:
More than a little daunting. Focus in on the drop-down menu. That's where you need to click:
Select Firmware File. Then click Open Firmware File. Now navigate to where you saved the firmware file, that you might've gotten from here.

Make sure you have the right generation. Here's a hint. If your iPod has a Search feature, you need the 5.5G firmware.

Then click Write to Ipod.

Then follow the steps from driven-design:

When writing is done, click "Eject", but DO NOT UNPLUG YOUR IPOD.
NOTE: This is the eject button in iPodWizard, not iTunes
Your iPod will reboot. When it has successfully rebooted, your computer will redetected. Eject it again. Now you may unplug.
I used the iPodWizard eject button again.

It worked flawlessly. I find it moves a little slower than my 1.2.3 regular firmware, but that's probably the graphics. it's totally worth it, though. :)

Jazzmaster Build

2007-12-12T20:21:00.000-05:00

Well my dad's taking up left-handed guitar, and it's giving me the opportunity to build one of my all-time favorite guitars, the Jazzmaster. The parts are all ordered; a template, a neck, two cans of fiesta red, seymour duncan pickups, and all the goodies to make a great (albeit backwards) guitar.

You know, while we're whacking away at slabs of swamp ash, maybe we should make a Jazzmaster I can actually play when we're done?

PS - The Marshall's done -- I just have to post up pics. ;)

iPod + CiVIC, pt. 2

2007-10-08T07:06:00.000-05:00

Well it worked, and better than I could've imagined. I'm amazed at how perfectly it does exactly what I wanted it to do. Pod goes in, tunes play, light comes on. It's really amazing.

You can see exactly how I did it here at 8thCivic.com. Here's a video of it in action: