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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:25 am
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BigJay wrote:
I thank you!!! :D


No probs! :D

See y'all later - C


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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 12:58 pm
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Ceri.

Can you do me a favour before this trem goes on. Tell me if this wilkinson is a drop in replacement for a fender 2point trem.

Looking at it, the treble string side knife edge seems to be straight and elongated. Is it designed like Trev's others to fit anything.

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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:52 pm
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Hi Nick: that one's the VS401V, which I don't actually possess yet. Though it tickles my fancy and so I have one on order from WD Music - but I'm told I have to wait till their next delivery from Gotoh.

What I'm going to use here is the VS100 seen in an earlier pic, which has a measurement of 56.8 mm, center to center of the pivot posts.

I notice on Trev's Whamster website that these newer VS401 and VS401V bridges also have that 56.8 mm post spacing so it seems to be standard across his top-of-the-line range. And my ruler says that is the same spacing as on my American Strat, so you'd think it should be a drop-in replacement.

However. I know from experience that when you try to fit a VS100 to a Strat the tube the trem arm slots into beneath the trem plate has a tendancy to bump up against the wood on the treble side of the front trem cavity. In practice you usually have to take a small file and open it out by a mil or two - which feels kinda cruel treatment to our prized guitars.

My understanding is that this issue has been resolved on the 401s - but till I get my hands on one I can't confirm that.

S'all I know...

Cheers - C

PS Next instalment coming shortly...


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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:12 pm
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Location: Peckham: where the snow leopards roam
To work.

Here's the pickup routing cavity ready for action:
Image

Let's make some holes!

There's an issue with the work sequence here. Normally, I would start at the neck pocket, then make the front trem cavity and take it all the way through the body to the back. Then I'd use the front edge of that first trem route as a datum from which to index the block and spring cavities round the back. Simple...

However. We already have most of the trem cavity existing on the back of this body and so will have to work in reverse, positioning the front cavities to match it. To do that I am going to steal an idea from luthier Ron Kirn.

Ron Kirn has a website that is very interesting for guitar builders and I have got several neat tricks from it. Highly recommended.

Nearly halfway down this page - http://www.ronkirn.com/tutorial/index.htm - you will see that he does his cavity routing by means of an unusual block he fits into the spring cavity after that is excavated. To me that would normally seem an unnecessarily complicated way to go about the job: my simpler procedure is what I previously mentioned.

However, in the situation of this particular body Mr Kirn's spring block seems the very thing, so that's the way I'm going to do it. Here you see a plywood block I have shaped to snugly fit the spring cavity, and I have sanded it to exactly the same depth too, as the ruler shows:
Image

By also putting the control cavity cover in place (which is why I was making it a couple of days ago) I now have a flat surface all around the trem block cavity. And what that means is that I can use the remaining space of that cavity as its own routing template in order to cut down into the ash center block fitted earlier on the thread. Neat, huh? Like this:
Image

Here we are half way down through the ash block:
Image

And here is the cavity excavated to about 4 mm / 0.16" beneath the front of the guitar. We obviously don't want to go all the way through...:
Image

You'll notice that each time the router cutter has produced a burnt circle where I have made the "plunge". Couldn't seem to prevent that, so I have placed it where it will get removed by the next bit of routing, from the front.

Now we need to somehow index this cavity out onto the other side of the guitar so that we know where to start routing on the front. Ron Kirn does that by pushing a couple of awls through, as can be seen on the page I linked to above. I'm going to do it by drilling a pair of small holes instead. There's times when the slow accuracy of a hand cranked drill can't be beat, and this feels like one of them:
Image

And if we go round the front this is what we see:
Image

(As you can tell, this was at an earlier stage than I'd got to yesterday with shaping the heel. No intent to deceive - the last three days have produced a slightly bewildering mass of photos and I'm just trying put them into an order which tells the story in the clearest way...)

Now then. Pretty much everything in guitar building works off the center line, like this:
Image

You can see in that pic that when I attached the book-matched front I took great care to line the join up with a pencilled center line already drawn all the way around the body. So assuming the rear cavities are in the right place (!!!) we should simply be able to line the routing template up with the join in the top wood and bring the front of the trem cavity tight up to those two index holes and then everything should fall into the right position.

...This is the point where you wonder whether you measured everything right, cos there's no second chances. Gulp!!!
Image

There's the template set up on the front. And here's a close-up of the alignment in the trem cavity:
Image

Now we cross our fingers and start routing...
Image

That's the front trem cavity cut. It seems to line up with the rear ones OK, but I can't unclamp anything yet to check. Fingers still crossed...

Next comes the neck pocket. If the trem cavity and the neck pocket are exactly in the right places in relation to one another the guitar will set up and play properly. If not... it never will. Using the depth facilities of the router we take that neck pocket down to exactly the right depth. And if we get that right this neck should never need shimming either:
Image

Having done that we switch the half inch router blade for this yellow 3/8" one. I own this cutter only for doing the corners of neck pockets, which just so happen to have a 3/16" radius. The cutter is too small to do the rest of the pocket - it's not strong enough. So it exists for this sole function:
Image

Here's the pocket done:
Image

Still without removing the template we now move on to the pickup cavities. I am doing all three at a time in a series of passes. The build-up of sawdust is amazingly fast and it is important to constantly clear it to prevent clogging the cutter - which might lead to accidents and irreparable damage. Do you remember that just before attaching the sycamore front to this body I routed a channel in the middle? Here we are cutting down into it:
Image

And here are the pickup cavities excavated to the same depth as that channel - so it has effectively disappeared from view. Also, the bridge pickup cavity has just clipped the control cavity, allowing wires to pass between the two. Good calculation, no? :wink: :
Image

Only now can we unclamp, remove the template and see if it all worked or not. Hmmm: looks like it did...:
Image

I'll show you some more close-ups of how that all turned out tomorrow, and we'll drill some control holes and go in search of the output jack socket cavity.

Hey, it's beginning to look like a guitar though, huh? :D

Cheers - C


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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 7:20 pm
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WOW :shock: is all i have to say Ceri.
every day this gets better and better.


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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 8:11 pm
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Pretty amazing! Way over my head! I eagerly await the next step!

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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 8:59 pm
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Brilliant work ceri !!! :shock:


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Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 9:59 pm
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Hey hey loooooking gooooood!!!!

-Tagg


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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:29 am
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Fantastic!!! Looking good!

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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:29 am
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Sahweetah!

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Last edited by Silverslack on Wed Jan 06, 2010 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post subject:
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:42 am
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:D No surprise to me nowadays as I'm completely confident in Mr. Ceri's super skills!!! 8) :wink:


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Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:15 pm
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Superb. It's starting to look like a Strat again. I love all of the different types of grain going on in there. Any chance for a clear coat?


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Post subject: Well...Well...Well...
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:33 pm
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It seems your New Year is off to a grand start Mr. Ceri...Keep up the good work!

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Post subject:
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 2:55 pm
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Remember all the discussion we had way back regarding these EMG sets, particularly the DG-20, w/respect to placing the battery? Now that you have a fresh canvas, are you planning a battery cutout in the trem rout ala Clapton, or a setin box in the back of the guitar ala Powerhouse Strat? :!: :idea: The former would certainly give you a cleaner finish for the back. Your narrative briefly referenced having a plan for that but, unless I've missed something in the read, there's nothing further.

This is really coming along nicely. However, have you taken time out to shovel your way to the road yet?? :wink:

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