Doing Things Wrong

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Audiovox Gibson-style Bass
Audiovox 736 Replica Bass
Audiovox Gibson-style Guitar
Audiovox Danelectro-style Bass
Audiovox Fretless Bass
Audiovox Electric Upright Bass
Audiovox Strat-style Guitar
Audiovox 12-string Guitar
Audiovox Ukulele Bass
Audiovox Mandolin
BC Rich "Osprey" Bass
Brownsville Violin Bass
Cowbell Bass
Danelectro Pro-1 Bass
Danelectro "Super-63" Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1457 Rescue Guitar
Danelectro Longhorn Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone U-1 Guitar
Danelectro Companion Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1443 Bass
Danelectro '67 Hornet Guitar
Fender Jazzmaster Bass 1
Fender Jazzmaster Bass 2
Fender Jazzmaster Bass 3
Fender Stratocaster Bass 1
Fender Stratocaster Bass 2
Fender Stratocaster Micro Bass 1
Fender Stratocaster Micro Bass 2
Fender Stratocaster Fretless Bass
Fender Stratocaster Bass VI
Fender Stratocaster Bass IV
Fender Stratocaster 12-string Guitar
Fender Stratocaster Uke Bass
Fender Squier Stratocaster Guitar
Fender Telecaster Bass
SX Precision Bass
Gibson Fenderbird Bass 1
Gibson Fenderbird Bass 2
Gibson Reverse Fenderbird Bass
Kubicki Bass
Schwinn Stingray Bass
Mosrite Bass
Rickenbacker 325 Guitar
Rickenbacker 325 Bass 1
Rickenbacker 325 Bass 2
Rickenbacker 325 Bass 3
Rickenbacker 4001 Bass 1
Samick SG450 Guitar
Danelectro Pro-1 Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1448 Guitar
Danelectro '63 Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1457 Guitar
Harmony H617 Bobkat
Danelectro Silvertone 1450 Guitar
Harmony Silvertone 1478
Danelectro Silvertone 1472 Amplifier
Danelectro Longhorn Bass

I like to experiment with materials, designs, and techniques outside of conventional luthiery to build low-cost, high-quality, fully-functional, and attractive electric guitars and basses. What I am not interested in is doing the same old thing the same old way it has been done for decades.

This site is arranged in four main sections:

  • Home is where you are at now.
  • Projects contains details on all the instruments I have built, and some other related subjects.
  • Laboratory contains tools, techniques, and designs used in my projects.
  • Blog - anything else I feel like writing about: carpentry, programming, music, etc

This site is aimed at the home hobbyist, and particularly the first-time builder. So welcome to the lab. See what's on the slab. I hope you find this site interesting and informative.

Navigating This Site

Main navigation is at the right left around here somewhere. First there is a "breadcrumb trail" showing where you are, with "up-links". This is followed by a list of child pages, or "down-links". Around that is a list of sibling pages, or "side-links". There is also an overall Site Map, as well as indexes for each major section. Finally, the search box works surprisingly well, or just hit the Random link.

If you are on a small 'mobile' device like a phone or tablet, the main navigation collapses to a button at the upper-right, with the rest at the bottom. The button opens a condensed popup menu. The mysterious unlabeled checkbox in the menu is a 'pin' that holds it open as you navigate between pages. You can force 'mobile' mode on a larger device by making the browser window narrow. In any case, the layout is optimized to make the best use of the available screen space.

History

This site was assembled from a mass of material I had previously posted on Talk_ass. This is seven years of material - over 200 pages and a gigabyte of images, and ongoing. Just getting it all back up was a huge task.

The luthier's anthem

Featured

I added some notes on this subject, see page linked below. I keep seeing truly horrific advice being dispensed online by luthiées, when the correct solution is easy and free.



My take on bodies

An electric guitar body serves several purposes. It provides a place to attach (and hide) hardware and electronics, and provides a counterweight for the neck, specifically the tuners out there at the end. It also provides enough weight and bulk to stabilize the instrument while it is played, either sitting or standing, while at the same time being not too heavy or interfering with natural playing motions and access to the strings. And needless to say, it must be strong enough to resist the effects of string tension, which can be 100-200 pounds or more.


Solid ash body, 32" neck, active electronics ( stacked tones. )


This is the big brother to the Silvertone 1448, vintage 1964-67. Construction is basically the same, but with a full-scale neck, two pickups, and a much better amp. For a lot of details, see the 1448 page. This guitar is in excellent condition for being almost sixty years old, and apart from cleaning and re-stringing, it needed nothing.


WordPress suffers from misguided ideology, bad programming, and arrogance, usually all at the same time. Case in point: image handling.

Image handling in WordPress is pure insanity. Left to its own devices, WordPress will create multiple copies of every image at many sizes. This creates a pile of garbage on the server, roughly doubling the disk space used, sometimes worse. And they are so sure they are right about this that there is no way to turn it off - not by settings, not by filters or hooks - no way.

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