Doing Things Wrong

Blog


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.


Featured

Hosting and domain names aren't getting cheaper. If you think there is something worthwhile here, you can make a small donation towards these costs. Just click the PayPal button here:

( PayPal takes 3.49% + 49¢ per transaction )





Audiovox 736 Replica Bass
Audiovox Gibson-style Bass
Audiovox Gibson-style Guitar
Audiovox Strat-style Guitar
Audiovox Danelectro-style Bass
Audiovox 12-string Guitar
Audiovox Mandolin
Audiovox Ukulele Bass
Audiovox Fretless Bass
Audiovox Electric Upright Bass
BC Rich "Osprey" Bass
Brownsville Violin Bass
Cowbell Bass
Danelectro Pro-1 Bass
Danelectro "Super-63" Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1457 Rescue Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1443 Bass
Danelectro Companion Guitar
Danelectro Longhorn Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone U-1 Guitar
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 Telecaster Bass
SX Precision Bass
Gibson Fenderbird Bass 1
Gibson Fenderbird Bass 2
Gibson Reverse Fenderbird Bass
Kubicki Bass
Mosrite Bass
Schwinn Stingray 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 '63 Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1457 Guitar
Harmony H617 Bobkat
Danelectro Silvertone 1450 Guitar
Danelectro Silvertone 1472 Amplifier
Harmony Silvertone 1478

For a while now I've been working on the WordPress plugin that does the slideshows. I had re-written the php back-end from NivoSlider, and then I decided to rewrite the front-end. The front-end is driven by jquery, so it was a good opportunity to get familiar with that. It's actually pretty simple.

Over a few months of tinkering, I added several hundred slide transitions, grouped in families to make things manageable. Eventually, I pretty much exhausted all the things you can do by animating css with jquery. So I turned to inline svg image masks. You can do much more with real graphics than just css, but there is one hitch - svg is poorly supported in Chrome and all its derivatives, including Opera, Edge, and Brave. But if you load this page in Firefox or Safari, it will demonstrate what you can do with svg.


This wound up on the back burner for a while, but I finally got back around to it. The black stripe is 1/16" tape from the roll there, applied to the shiny under-layer. It wasn't that hard to apply, using the screw holes as guides. It's not awfully sticky, but should hold up well sandwiched between the clear pickguard and the body. You can get that tape at Hobby Lobby. I finished the pickup 'routs' with hand files.


I've been experimenting with some Gargle stuff lately, and the experience is not good.


Danelectro Catalog 1963

Here are some catalogs from the two golden eras of Danelectro - the sixties and the nineties. Use the arrows to flip through the pages.


This is a pack of Duracells I found in my dad's closet. The 'use by' date is January 2002, you can see it right there. Yet, there is not a speck of white mange on them. They have not leaked after over twenty years! These batteries were made in the USA. Modern Duracells are made in China, and are pretty much guaranteed to leak in 20 weeks, if not 20 days. The whole point of alkaline batteries once upon a time was that they didn't leak like acid batteries. You paid extra for that.



rat's nest

One of the fun things about building electric guitars is wiring them up. Factory wiring tends to be simple, minimizing the amount of fussy handwork required. Many manufacturers keep strictly to 'classic' designs, seldom if ever changing anything. These designs are generally simplistic, often crude or even stupid, and sometimes outright flawed. There is no need for you to do this. I don't. Here are some of the things I have done over the years. I don't claim to have invented any of this, although some of these schematics I have never seen anywhere else, and had to derive them myself.

Printed from luthierylabs.com