Craig Guitar

[Redshirt]

Still an amazing project. Great work in this update!
Redshirt
Guess who's not coming back from the Slayer match--the guy in the Red Shirt
Signature Project: Halo 3 Working Airsoft Spartan Laser in Metal & Fiberglass

 

[Coreforge]

So the next thing was the pickup. Basically, a magnetic pickup is just a coil of wire with a magnet below it. The magnet slightly magnetizes the string, which then vibrate around the coil, which changes the magnetic field slightly. That magnetic field then induces a voltage in the coil, like in a generator, transformer, or dynamic microphone.
Usually, there are also iron (or steel) rods under the strings that go through the coil (pole pieces), which get magnetized by the magnet and then magnetize the string above. If the pole pieces can be adjusted up and down, you can adjust how loud an individual string is.
There also is a magnetic pickup type that consists of two coils, the humbucker, which is the type I want to use. They work on the same principle, but instead of just having one coil, they have two next to each other (or stacked, but I won't get into that now) which are connected in series, but one in reverse polarity (so connecting both inner or both outer wires together if they're wound in the same direction). This means that in theory, if both coils have the same amount of windings, the signals cancel each other out. This is great for reducing noise, as it should be canceled out, but the actual signal shouldn't get canceled. To achieve that, on one of the coils, the magnet faces the other way, so there is one with the north pole and one with the south pole facing the strings. That way, the polarity of the voltage induced in one of the coils is opposite to the one of the other coil, and since one of the coils is also connected in reverse, the voltages add up again, while the noise that's received by the coils still cancels out, so the signal to noise ratio should be better.

So that's the theory on how they work. Now from searching around a bit, I found that apparently, you need about 30-40g or wire for one pickup. I had a 450m roll of 0.1mm wire, so that wasn't very helpful (also, that site was using 0.0635mm wire, so it would be even longer). With some math (ignoring the density of the enamel on the wire), I figured out that I would need 580-1500m of wire, more than I had. The DC resistance of pickups is also apparently in about 6-12kOhm, and measuring the resistance of my spool of wire, it was at 870Ohm. Because it's fairly quick to try out though, I just soldered some wires to both ends of the spool and connected it to the line-in port of my PC. And with the coil placed maybe 1.5cm under the strings, with a magnet inside the coil, the signal already clipped, and with the magnet removed, it still clipped a little bit.

With it looking like I may actually have enough wire, I decided to just try it (worst case, I have to order some wire and wind new pickups), so I modeled a bobbin to wind the wire around and printed two.

Now I made a bit of a mistake here: it would've been better to not just connect the upper and lower plate on the sides, but throughout the whole length of the coil, as one of the sides separated on both coils, which caused some issues.
However, I did not know that it would cause some more annoying issues later, so I started winding.
Now obviously, I'm not going to wind 450m of wire by hand, that would take way to long. So instead, I did it on my lathe (though it would be perfectly possible with a drill, but I have a lathe, so that was the easier way for me). First, I have to mount the bobbin somehow. To do that, I took a piece of wood and cut it to the width and length of the bobbins base plate, and that makes alignment easier. That piece of wood was then screwed to a dowel, which was mounted in the lathe. The bobbin was then attached to the wood with double sided tape in the middle and some painters tape to hold down the ends, as they liked to bend up a little bit.

The rod in the tool holder is just there to guide the wire and to give me a reference of how much to move it side to side.
So after securing the start of the wire with some tape and winding a few windings by hand, I wound the rest at 100-250rpm. Now a bit of an issue was judging how much wire to put on each coil, as I had to split what I had had rather evenly (I didn't get it too even).
As you also might be able to see, I put a few pieces of threaded rod into the holes for the pole pieces. I didn't do this the first time, which was a bit of a mistake, as the wire squeezed the bobbin a bit and shifted the top plate, so the holes didn't line up perfectly anymore.


However, after winding both coils, I had one coil at 540Ohm and one at 330Ohm, so the balance isn't that great. This should just affect the noise canceling though, which won't be quite as good as it would be otherwise.
Now, two rather loose coils aren't very good for mounting them to a guitar, and I also didn't have a way to adjust the pole pieces yet (and I haven't even put them in), so the next step was a base plate.
I made that out of some 4mm acrylic, as I thought it might be a bit easier then making it out of aluminium, and using aluminium wasn't really needed here. Steel might have messed with the magnetic field a bit, so I didn't want to deal with that.
The base plate basically is just a rectangle with a few holes in it to screw down the bobbins, and 16 tapped holes for the pole pieces, M5 for the second coil and M4 for the first one (because the holes were out of alignment too much to reasonable fit an M5 thread through there).

One of the M5 pieces is still missing here as I had to drill out the holes in the bobbin a bit to fit it in, and one of them doesn't have a slot to adjust it. That's because when I glued the bobbin back together after it broke, I used that piece to align it, and I accidentally glued it in. It's at a decent height though, so I just have to adjust everything else around that one.
For the magnets, instead of using one long magnet, I have a small 5mmx2mm round magnet for each pole piece (mostly just because I could get those locally).

Now that's the pickup pretty much done, I also made the neck a bit thinner. At 32mm thickness, it was a bit uncomfortable, and it got thicker too close to the first fret, which made it even more uncomfortable. I thinned it down to about 27mm, and moved the spot where it got thicker again further towards the headstock, which made it a lot more comfortable.

(towards the left it's already thinner, but on the right it's still at the previous thickness)

(And now with everything thinner)


With the neck being thinner, it now also bends more under the string tension, but that's what the truss rod is for. However, the neck is supposed to be slightly concave, so it works pretty well.

So here's the current state of the guitar. I still need the clamp to hold the nut in place, as I didn't fill the slot enough, but that's something that's fairly easy to fix. The strings also don't line up perfectly with the pole pieces, but it works, so that's not an issue. It's also fredless again now, sorry.

 

[Lieutenant Jaku]

So the next thing was the pickup. Basically, a magnetic pickup is just a coil of wire with a magnet below it. The magnet slightly magnetizes the string, which then vibrate around the coil, which changes the magnetic field slightly. That magnetic field then induces a voltage in the coil, like in a generator, transformer, or dynamic microphone.
Usually, there are also iron (or steel) rods under the strings that go through the coil (pole pieces), which get magnetized by the magnet and then magnetize the string above. If the pole pieces can be adjusted up and down, you can adjust how loud an individual string is.
There also is a magnetic pickup type that consists of two coils, the humbucker, which is the type I want to use. They work on the same principle, but instead of just having one coil, they have two next to each other (or stacked, but I won't get into that now) which are connected in series, but one in reverse polarity (so connecting both inner or both outer wires together if they're wound in the same direction). This means that in theory, if both coils have the same amount of windings, the signals cancel each other out. This is great for reducing noise, as it should be canceled out, but the actual signal shouldn't get canceled. To achieve that, on one of the coils, the magnet faces the other way, so there is one with the north pole and one with the south pole facing the strings. That way, the polarity of the voltage induced in one of the coils is opposite to the one of the other coil, and since one of the coils is also connected in reverse, the voltages add up again, while the noise that's received by the coils still cancels out, so the signal to noise ratio should be better.

So that's the theory on how they work. Now from searching around a bit, I found that apparently, you need about 30-40g or wire for one pickup. I had a 450m roll of 0.1mm wire, so that wasn't very helpful (also, that site was using 0.0635mm wire, so it would be even longer). With some math (ignoring the density of the enamel on the wire), I figured out that I would need 580-1500m of wire, more than I had. The DC resistance of pickups is also apparently in about 6-12kOhm, and measuring the resistance of my spool of wire, it was at 870Ohm. Because it's fairly quick to try out though, I just soldered some wires to both ends of the spool and connected it to the line-in port of my PC. And with the coil placed maybe 1.5cm under the strings, with a magnet inside the coil, the signal already clipped, and with the magnet removed, it still clipped a little bit.

With it looking like I may actually have enough wire, I decided to just try it (worst case, I have to order some wire and wind new pickups), so I modeled a bobbin to wind the wire around and printed two.

View attachment 316809

Now I made a bit of a mistake here: it would've been better to not just connect the upper and lower plate on the sides, but throughout the whole length of the coil, as one of the sides separated on both coils, which caused some issues.
However, I did not know that it would cause some more annoying issues later, so I started winding.
Now obviously, I'm not going to wind 450m of wire by hand, that would take way to long. So instead, I did it on my lathe (though it would be perfectly possible with a drill, but I have a lathe, so that was the easier way for me). First, I have to mount the bobbin somehow. To do that, I took a piece of wood and cut it to the width and length of the bobbins base plate, and that makes alignment easier. That piece of wood was then screwed to a dowel, which was mounted in the lathe. The bobbin was then attached to the wood with double sided tape in the middle and some painters tape to hold down the ends, as they liked to bend up a little bit.

View attachment 316810

The rod in the tool holder is just there to guide the wire and to give me a reference of how much to move it side to side.
So after securing the start of the wire with some tape and winding a few windings by hand, I wound the rest at 100-250rpm. Now a bit of an issue was judging how much wire to put on each coil, as I had to split what I had had rather evenly (I didn't get it too even).
As you also might be able to see, I put a few pieces of threaded rod into the holes for the pole pieces. I didn't do this the first time, which was a bit of a mistake, as the wire squeezed the bobbin a bit and shifted the top plate, so the holes didn't line up perfectly anymore.


However, after winding both coils, I had one coil at 540Ohm and one at 330Ohm, so the balance isn't that great. This should just affect the noise canceling though, which won't be quite as good as it would be otherwise.
Now, two rather loose coils aren't very good for mounting them to a guitar, and I also didn't have a way to adjust the pole pieces yet (and I haven't even put them in), so the next step was a base plate.
I made that out of some 4mm acrylic, as I thought it might be a bit easier then making it out of aluminium, and using aluminium wasn't really needed here. Steel might have messed with the magnetic field a bit, so I didn't want to deal with that.
The base plate basically is just a rectangle with a few holes in it to screw down the bobbins, and 16 tapped holes for the pole pieces, M5 for the second coil and M4 for the first one (because the holes were out of alignment too much to reasonable fit an M5 thread through there).
View attachment 316811
One of the M5 pieces is still missing here as I had to drill out the holes in the bobbin a bit to fit it in, and one of them doesn't have a slot to adjust it. That's because when I glued the bobbin back together after it broke, I used that piece to align it, and I accidentally glued it in. It's at a decent height though, so I just have to adjust everything else around that one.
For the magnets, instead of using one long magnet, I have a small 5mmx2mm round magnet for each pole piece (mostly just because I could get those locally).

Now that's the pickup pretty much done, I also made the neck a bit thinner. At 32mm thickness, it was a bit uncomfortable, and it got thicker too close to the first fret, which made it even more uncomfortable. I thinned it down to about 27mm, and moved the spot where it got thicker again further towards the headstock, which made it a lot more comfortable.

View attachment 316812
(towards the left it's already thinner, but on the right it's still at the previous thickness)
View attachment 316813
(And now with everything thinner)


With the neck being thinner, it now also bends more under the string tension, but that's what the truss rod is for. However, the neck is supposed to be slightly concave, so it works pretty well.

View attachment 316814

So here's the current state of the guitar. I still need the clamp to hold the nut in place, as I didn't fill the slot enough, but that's something that's fairly easy to fix. The strings also don't line up perfectly with the pole pieces, but it works, so that's not an issue. It's also fredless again now, sorry.

This is extremely impressive, keep it up!
Who's building craig to play it though?

 

[Yesu88]

As a guitarist, this is really cool stuff to see. It's coming along very well for your first guitar build. Interesting to see that you also made the pickups from scratch, I'm curious as to how they will sound. Great stuff, keep up the hard work!

 

[skyranger72]

New update after a while! (I should really update my threads more often)

So I finished routing the shape of the body, which means most of the large wood working is now done! Cutting out the rough shape for the hole with a jigsaw wasn't very fun.

View attachment 316360

After then also routing out the neck pocket, it was ready for a test fit. Starting to look like an actual guitar now.

View attachment 316361

I also got the skunk stripe sanded down smooth again, so now, the next part was mounting the neck.

View attachment 316362

To mount the neck, I'm using 4 M5 bolts with some threaded inserts, as this allows me to remove and put the neck back on quite a few times without really wearing anything out, which allows me to be a bit more flexible with the order in which I do stuff.
So anyways, inserting the inserts.
To insert the inserts, I first drilled an 8mm hole into the wood which the insert will go in. Then, without removing the neck from the vice, I swapped the drill for a piece of M5 threaded rod with 3 nuts on it, two of them countering each other, and one loose nut. The insert is then screwed onto the threaded rod and the loose nut is used to counter the insert. This way, I can make sure the insert goes in straight.

View attachment 316363

This also has another advantage, as I can screw in the insert using a wrench this way instead of having to use a slotted screwdriver, as I don't have a wide enough one. (the hardware store didn't have any inserts with an internal hex)

Now with the neck attached, there was some more work to do on the bridge, more specifically the saddles. So far, there is no good way to adjust the height, which is something that I'll kinda need to do. The strings also go around a sharp corner, which isn't good, as they might wear faster this way, and this also isn't great with the thicker strings, as they need a larger radius to bend around that corner, so the heights are off again.
To add some height adjustment, I drilled a hole into each saddle and tapped an M3 thread into it so that I can use an M3 set screw to adjust the height. Removing the sharp corner wasn't that difficult either. I first took a cutoff disk on my dremel and ground a rounded shape from the tip of the saddle to the slot that the string passes through. After roughing in that shape, I took a 3mm burr to clean that up. So now, the bridge is pretty much done too.

View attachment 316364

Now, I had to shape the neck. This could be done with a belt sander, but I don't have one, so it was rasps and files for me.

View attachment 316365

So now, the guitar is in a somewhat usable state.

View attachment 316366

However, it's still fretless, so the next step was to add the frets. The frets are made from fret wire, which is wire with a somewhat mushroom like profile, where the "stem" part (or tang) gets pressed into a slot. To cut that slot, I used a fretsaw. It doesn't really have anything to do with frets, but it was the only saw I had with a sawblade of the right thickness. This made cutting the slots square to the surface difficult though, which turned into an issue later.

View attachment 316367

Initially, I planned to press the frets into the slots on my drillpress, as it's the closest thing I have to an arborpress, I know you're not supposed to put much pressure on the quill of a drill press, but pressing in the frets shouldn't take too much force, right?
Well, kinda. If the slots were square to the surface, it might've worked, but since the slots weren't, the frets needed too much force for my drill press. So instead, I had to do it in the vice.
The first issue I ran into there was the maximum width the jaws could open, as I couldn't fit in both the neck and the aluminium sheet that I cut in the radius of the fretboard to use it as a press tool. Cutting down that aluminium fixed that though.
So after doing that, it was just holding things in a weird position in the vice and then pressing in the frets.

View attachment 316368

However, the frets are still too long (at least some of them. Some are actually a bit short, but just by 1-2mm, so it's no big deal). To get them to length, I first cut them roughly with some side cutters. Now to get them actually smooth to the side of the fretboard, one option is to use fret files, which are basically just regular flat files that are mounted sideways in a block, so that you can easily file the edge to 90°. However, instead of doing that, or using handing blocks, I just used a regular flat file. The handle got in the way a bit, but it was doable. After filing the sides of the frets to roughly 90° (it's not really critical), I then filed an angle onto the ends of the frets to make it more comfortable (it's probably somewhere around 30-45°, but again not really critical as long as it doesn't dig into my hand or rip it up). After some passes with some sand paper to make the ends a bit smoother, the frets are now mostly done!

View attachment 316369

It's definitely playable now, but I need to level the frets as the first fret buzzes a lot. There are also a few steel parts left to be made, but mostly, it's electronics, finishing the wood, and cleaning up a few different things that's left.
For finishing the wood, I've got some clear coat (solvent based) that I'm currently trying to dye to a nice color (I got some also solvent based ink for that). I'll post more on that later though once I've got it figured out a bit more (if I don't forget to update my thread again).

Yooooooooo!!!! This is such a cool idea! It looks great!

 

[Coreforge]

Been a while since the last update.

In the mean time, I've got the neck painted, and some more things done. But first the neck:

Clear coating the neck wasn't quite as easy as it might sound, because it's made out of oak, which has rather large pores (that I didn't fill before), and I'm using an alkyd resin based clear coat, which only really works in thin layers. I ended up doing a bunch of layers (I think it was about 6 or 7 in total), including some thicker ones that didn't fully cure, but they filled up the pores, and the rest got sanded away. The most annoying parts were the larger drops though that accumulated in some places, as those stayed soft for a while, which made sanding them a bit more difficult. I eventually got it all smooth though, and finished it by sanding to 400 grit, which gives a nice matte finish that also feels very smooth and isn't as grippy as the unsanded clear coat.

I also painted the tuner blocks with some paint I found at a local art store, which I think gives them a nice look.

With the neck now essentially completed, I also did some more work on the pickup. Originally I was planning on just printing the case for it, but we cut a dead branch off of out apple tree, so I decided to use that instead. I started off by cutting it into a block on the table saw, and then tried to dry it in the oven. This didn't work out too well and lead to some cracks in the wood, but they weren't too big of a deal. After cutting the block and letting it dry outside for a few weeks as well, I then cut it into two boards on the table saw again.
Now the issue is, these boards aren't straight in any way, which is not very useful. I don't have a plane or planer, so I used the router again for this. To do this, I made a simple jig, where the board gets glued down in the middle with hot glue, and the router rides on two pieces of wood screwed to the base board. It's not perfect, and the boards don't come out completely parallel, but it's good enough for this purpose.

I don't have many WIP photos of the case, but it's not really that special anyways. Basically, the top it just a board with 2 long holes, which covers the actual coils. The bottom part only houses the connections, the magnets, the ends of the screws and pole pieces, and a pocket cut out to fit the 4mm plexiglas the coils are mounted to. It's not completely done yet, as it still needs to be sanded to get a good fit between the two pieces, and they need to be clear coated as well, but not much should change on them anymore.

I also got the rest of the parts I still needed to finish this, mainly two potentiometers and the jack. The body is now also fully routed, so it just needs some cleanup (mainly sanding), and then that can be painted as well. That then just leaves making a couple plates and another steel part, the electronics, and leveling the frets.

 

[Redshirt]

This looks fantastic! Love the apple wood! If you switch to black oxide or stainless screws with allen cap heads for the case, I think you'll love the more futuristic look over the phillips-heads. You may also be able to get brass to match the neck hardware. The neck looks really pro-made.
Redshirt

 

[Coreforge]

Brass or stainless screws won't work, as they need to be magnetic, and I'm not sure if stainless would be magnetic enough. I'll have to measure if I have enough space to use socket cap screws, but they would look nicer. I think the hardware store near me only sells galvanized and stainless screws (maybe brass) though, so I'd have to strip off the zinc and blue them myself.

 

[Coreforge]

Since I was at the hardware store today anyways, I got some cap head screws for the pickup, and I have to say it does look nice.

I didn't show the inside of the pickup casing before, but it's pretty simple. Under the plexiglass, the magnets are attached to the screws, which function as the pole pieces. I'm using individual magnets since they were easier to get than two long flat magnets of the right size. You can also see one of the holes for the screws that hold together the case (they're recessed from the back).

There isn't much going on on the top either, just the 4 wires going from the coil to the connector. Exposing both coils individually instead of connecting them inside the case and only having 2 wires exposed gives me more flexibility to wire up the pickup in different ways or just use it as a single coil pickup. I don't currently plan on doing that, but this just makes it easier if I want to do it in the future.

I also wired it all up, to see if there are any issues, and well, there are.

The main issue right now is a very large amount of noise, especially 50Hz hum. That hum is likely coming from the cable I'm using, as it's pretty much the same if I unplug the guitar. I've been using a different cable before, as I just had a 3.5mm jack soldered to the pickup, so I was able to use one of my 3.5mm cables, but now with the 1/4" jack, I'm using a 1/4" to 3.5mm cable that came with my headphones, and that cable is a bit thin and likely not that well shielded.
The other issue might not be as much of an issue with the hum gone, but the volume pot is very sensitive, making it basically useless. I'll try swapping the two potentiometers once I got rid of the extreme humming, as the current volume pot is logarithmic and the other one is linear.

And finally, a shot of everything so far put together. (there are only 4 strings on because the other ones broke from fatigue, due to me putting them on and taking them off quite a few times during the whole build process. The F# string is actually broken as well, but the outer wire is still holding it)

 

[Coreforge]

I fixed the hum (for now) by going with the old (and actually shielded) cable again. I'll probably just pick up an adapter when I'm at the music store again to get the fret rocker.
There still was the issue with the low output volume though. Adding a 10MOhm resister in series with the potentiometer to ground did nothing, but it turned out I had one of the pickup coils reversed. On the oscilloscope, I got about 25mV pk to pk at the output, which was rather low compared to some single coil numbers I found online. When probing the coils individually though, I got about 40-60mV, and I noticed the signals were in phase, which should not be the case when measuring from the center tap, as that means the coils cancel each other out. I only got some signal out due to the coils not having the same number of turns (the difference is actually pretty big).

Anyways, I'm getting about 80-150mV now at the output at full volume, which is more than enough to clip the line-in input of my sound card.

 

[Redshirt]

Brass or stainless screws won't work, as they need to be magnetic, and I'm not sure if stainless would be magnetic enough. I'll have to measure if I have enough space to use socket cap screws, but they would look nicer. I think the hardware store near me only sells galvanized and stainless screws (maybe brass) though, so I'd have to strip off the zinc and blue them myself.

Since I was at the hardware store today anyways, I got some cap head screws for the pickup, and I have to say it does look nice.

And finally, a shot of everything so far put together. (there are only 4 strings on because the other ones broke from fatigue, due to me putting them on and taking them off quite a few times during the whole build process. The F# string is actually broken as well, but the outer wire is still holding it)

I didn't know about the need for magnetic-capable fasteners. I don't think stainless would have worked at all. The cap heads look great!

I laugh about the broken strings. I, too, have build props that basically needed a rebuild by the time they were done, having trial fitted and tested the parts so many times.

The assembled pieces look great!

Redshirt
Guess who's not coming back from the Slayer match--the guy in the Red Shirt
Current Project: Needler Multimedia Arduino-Driven Animated Airsoft Prop (Everything the Neca Needler Could Have Been)
Signature Project: Halo 3 Working Airsoft Spartan Laser in Metal & Fiberglass

 

[Coreforge]

What's this, another update?
I'm really bad at keeping my threads updated.

So first, I painted the body. I started by sanding everything of course, and then put on a thinned coat of the same alkyd lacquer I've been using on the neck. Everything on the body will be thinned in order to get smoother coats and to avoid having ugly drops forming, as that was a problem on the neck, and it's gotten warmer, so everything dries even faster.

After a few coats of the clear coat with some sanding in between, next was the paint. The paint is slightly more difficult, as the thickness has to be more uniform than the clear coat has to, as it would be pretty visible otherwise. Because of that, I suspended the body flat, which gives a nice and uniform finish on the front.

See how I specifically said nice and smooth on the front? Yeah, it didn't work so well on the back.

This looks quite bad, but it's only after one coat. I just masked off the front and sides, flipped it, and put some more paint on the backside without getting any on the front, and only having a little bit run down the sides.
After then doing a few more layers, it doesn't look too bad.

Now, I could just leave it at this, but the surface is a bit rough from some air bubbles, and I'd like to protect the paint a bit more against scratches. So, more clear coat. Since I didn't want to deal with clear coat running down in places and creating an ugly surface, I tried using some spray clear coat I found in the basement. I of course did multiple test pieces to make sure the paint was compatible.

Apparently, you can do as many test pieces as you want though, it will go wrong on the actual part. The reason is probably that the clear coat pooled on some parts of the surface, but I'm not fully sure yet what the actual issue was. The result was pretty obvious though, the paint lifted off in those places.

This was a pretty big problem, as it also was on the front where it would be the most visible. However, there wasn't much I could do apart from sanding it down and starting over in those places. The three options I had were

• sand down and repaint everything
• just sand down and repaint the front
• just sand down and repaint the places that got damaged

Redoing everything would've be too annoying, so that was out of the question. Redoing the whole front could give me a rather uniform front again, but I went for the third option, just sanding the parts that got damaged.

I had to sand down a bit more than half of the front anyways, but I left it at this. Since I got back down to raw wood on this, I had to put on a few layers of thinned clear coat again before doing a few layers of paint. Once it was looking decent again, I also did a few more coats of paint over the whole body, and the red wasn't as strong as I would've liked. In the end it looked pretty nice though.

I then did a few coats of clear coat again with sanding in between (this time the same thinned brush on clear coat I've been using) without issues this time, and then it was time for the final sanding. I did that by only wetsanding at 1000 grit, as there wasn't much material to remove, and this resulted in a nice smooth surface. I also did some polishing with tooth paste after sanding to blend in some of the unevenness that was still in the surface after sanding (I didn't want to sand too far, and it's not very visible).

With that I could start on putting the body together, though I was still missing some parts. More specifically, the neck plate and the strap that goes from the bridge to the end of the body and is purely cosmetic.

I of course made the purely cosmetic strap from some 4mm flat bar and welded it onto that plate which holds the screw that adjusts the bridge height/rotation on both sides. I actually broke off the weld on top when correcting the angle (the plate wasn't welded to the strap at the correct angle since I didn't weld on the guitar), but since that weld doesn't serve much of a function either, just having the one on the bottom is more than enough. I would've probably had to anneal the weld again after welding to avoid that, as I'm pretty sure that 3mm plate can be hardened (I don't know what alloy it is).
The neck plate is just a piece of 1.5mm steel sheet with some holes drilled and basically acts as a washer for the bolts holding on the neck.

So with all parts made now, there was one thing left I had to do before I could assemble it. The frets had to be leveled, as the were very much not level, which resulted in the strings touching other frets they shouldn't touch in some cases, which shouldn't happen. There's a great video about fret leveling from Fabian's Tiny Workshop, but basically, you take something straight and sand down the entire length until all frets are at the same height, then you make then round again.

For my leveling beam, I used a piece of steel square tubing that had almost the perfect length with some 180 grit sandpaper glued on with double sided tape. This worked great, except for the fact that my frets were so uneven, it's basically impossible to get them all level. At the low strings, there is a gap of maybe 0.5mm to 1mm in the middle, which I can't get rid of by just sanding down more.

It seems to work pretty well now though, at least a lot better than before leveling, so I'm happy with the results. I did the recrowning with just a flat file with one safe edge, which definitely works, but it's probably the most annoying part of fret leveling.

So with all parts built now, it's time for the final assembly. There are still some things to do currently, but those can or have to be done after assembly. And since there isn't too much special stuff about putting it together, here it is:

There's still only 3 strings on since I only want to put on the new strings once I'm pretty much done with all the setup I can do before that.

Speaking of that setup, that's pretty much what's left to do. Mainly, apart from tuning and intonation, which need the new strings on, I have to set the string height. Previously, the height at the nut was way too high, which resulted in the tuning changing when using the first fret due to the tension changing so much.
That's quick enough to fix though with a file, some cardboard to protect he headstock, and some time. I probably still don't have it perfect, but a height of maybe 2mm maximum above the first fret, most lower, is a lot better than it was before, and it's easy enough to lower them a bit more if I need to.
Adjusting the height at the bridge is a bit easier. Until now, I just shoved some washers below the saddles to prop them up a bit. That isn't a very elegant solution though, and I had some M3 threads in the saddles for a while now, I was just missing the screws. So I made some 7mm long grub screws from some threaded rod, cleaned up the by now gunked up M3 threads with a tap, and put in those set screws, which now allow me to adjust the height of each saddle without messing around with washers.

The electronics aren't fully done yet, but it's just the capacitor value I'm not sure about. With 22nF I don't hear a difference, 100nF seems to filter pretty much everything a bit, but I haven't tried it with all strings yet.
So with that, I'll leave you with this for now, and I hopefully won't take another month for the next update, as there isn't even really that much to do anymore to fill up a month.

 

[SSGLordElmo]

Man the work you are doing is just amazing!! I can't wait to see it all finished up.

 

[TH3TA]

this looks awesome!!! Watching the progress has been awesome! The final product is going to be super cool!!!! Cant wait to see it

 

[Zoogami Snowfox]

I still have no clue to the working of the guitar, but I have been really enjoying the ride. Can’t wait to hear the final result!

 

[Coreforge]

It's not that complicated. Depending on the length and tension, the strings vibrate at different frequencies. The strings vibrating above the pickup creates a change in the magnetic field in the coil, which induces a voltage. That voltage then passes through one potentiometer to regulate the volume, and the second potentiometer is in series to a capacitor creating an rc lowpass filter.
The main problem I have now is that I'm pretty bad at playing guitar.

 

[Redshirt]

Outstanding updates. I'll echo Zoogami in not knowing much about the workings of guitars, but I've enjoyed the metal work and problem solving.
Fine work!
Redshirt
Guess who's not coming back from the Slayer match--the guy in the Red Shirt
Current Project: Needler Multimedia Arduino-Driven Animated Airsoft Prop (Everything the Neca Needler Could Have Been)
Signature Project: Halo 3 Working Airsoft Spartan Laser in Metal & Fiberglass

 

[Coreforge]

Got all strings on now, and most things set up, at least somewhat.

The most important thing to set up was the string height at the nut. If it's too high, I have to press the string down quite far, which is not only uncomfortable, but also changes the tension too much, and thereby the tuning. If they are too low, the strings always hit the frets, which causes buzzing.
To adjust the height, the slots in the nut just get filed deeper. That means if I make one slot too deep, I have to start over on the nut. I left the strings a bit high though, so that didn't happen. But it's way better than before, so I'm happy with how it turned out.
The slots for the three low strings had to be shaped a bit differently though, due to the rather sharp bend the strings have to make at the nut, and the contact point having to be at the front of the nut.

The other part I adjusted was the string height at the bridge. This kinda sets the height of the string across most of the fret board, though I mostly had to make sure they don't hit the pickup. To adjust the height, I have to loosen the string a bit, adjust the grub screw in the saddle, and then tighten the string back up.

I haven't done intonation yet, but as long as I don't need the really high frets, it seems to be fine for now.

And since a few people have been asking about how it sounds, here are some samples, without any effects applied (straight from the guitar to ardour, just keeping the signal from clipping with the volume and tone pots):
(I had to turn it into an mp4 with ffmpeg, since the forum doesn't like sound files)

Wait, that's not how a guitar should sound! And it sounds horrible!


Well, the sounding horrible part is just me not knowing how to do it better, but it is actually this guitar. However, I didn't play it with my fingers (well, only on the fretboard), a pick, or even an old usb drive as a pick. Instead, I used something much worse:

Yes, that's an old coping saw, with some hair instead of a blade, being used as a bow. Using some rosin instead of dried up solder paste (I didn't have any rosin on hand first, so I used that since the flux might be rosin with some solvents), it also doesn't work too bad, but it's pretty short and impractical. And I don't really know how to do it properly.

Enough messing around though, here are some more samples, this time played normally, first just finger picking, and then with the PCB from an old flash drive as a pick (because why get a proper one):

The first one is a bit quiet, so you might have to turn up the volume a bit. With some distortion it's easier to hear though, and it's how I'll likely be playing it most of the time.

 

[PlanetAlexander]

I know that tune...

 

[Coreforge]

What's that song called?