FrankenBass audio sample

So... the P pickup sounds pretty good.  It's loud and aggressive.  The J pickup is thin and tinny.  Oh well, I got me self a functional 24 fret P bass now.  Thanks Dan, for not making me show my terrible bass skills.

Franken Bass... The Bridge of No Return

I took the bass to Guitar Center and talked to their Luthier a while.  He recommended just moving the bridge, which is what I ended up doing.  

I took the bridge off, and moved it up about an inch.  It's right on the J pickup, but that's where it needs to be to get the intonation sounding right.  You can see the five holes where the bridge use to be, and there was an impression left in the finish where the bridge used to be.  I simply lined it up so it was even with the old impressions to line it up.  Drilling through finish sucks, if you don't do it right, the drill will skip along the surface and your hole won't be in the right place.

To get around this, I used a small nail to start the hole.  You just position it where you want it, and then tap it a few times just to get through the finish, then pull it out.  Start with the smallest bit you have, and work your way up to the size you need..

The wood colored splotch just under the bridge is the hole for a ground wire.  This wire must be electrically connected to the bridge, which is electrically connected to the strings.  I don't remember the exact reason for this, but I believe it acts somewhat as a noise shield.

Funny story, in high school I used to play music in Will's basement.  There were metal strips running under the carpet, and if you stood on the strip and touched your strings, you'd get shocked.  If you touched the strings and a microphone at the same time, you'd get shocked.  It was cool though, and it didn't affect me in any way in any way in any way.

Anyway, this is the finished bass...  As expected, the J pickup is not very loud, and it's kinda tinny.  The P pickup sounds great.

Maybe next project can be winding a super hot J pickup with a low pass filter... I dunno.

Franken Bass!

I have 2 bass guitars sitting around.  One is an 80's Fender PJ bass that I bought 8 or so years ago.  I tried to refinish the body and... well.. it was kind of a disaster.  I did learn a lot though, so that's something.  Number one... if there's a wood veneer on the body... don't remove it.  Number two... stripping paint sucks.

It may look okay from a distance, but I promise you, I did a terrible job, AND I wired it improperly.  I had purchased a pearloid pickguard to go on there, but the body was some weird size, so I cut my own pickguard.


The second is a fender squier PJ bass that someone gave to my girlfriend because it's a POS with a terribly bent neck.  I tried to adjust the truss rod a few years ago and just ended up stripping out the adjustment bolt.  Oops.  The pictures here don't do the neck curvature justice... imagine the curve you see WITH strings pulling it farther.  The action close to the body was about 1/2''.  I was t

As you can see, it's as straight as Elton John

Last weekend I got all fired up about fixing it, so I decided that I was going to replace the truss rod.  In order to do that, I need to remove the fingerboard.  I was a bit worried about damaging it... but the neck is shot anyway, so I decided to go for it.  I learned that the best way to do it is to use a clothes iron on the steam setting to loosen the glue, and then for VERY slowly to avoid damaging the fragile fingerboard.

I sat there for about 2 hours, playing Deus Ex, refilling the iron as needed, making sure things didn't burn, and prying the fingerboard a bit more every 10 minutes or so.  At first, I was making good progress... the finger board was coming up clean and straight... but once I got to the 7th fret it cracked.  By that point I was able to look under the fingerboard where the truss rod *should* be... but it was completely sealed up!  No way to remove the truss rod.  I kept removing the fingerboard for a while for the practice, but eventually gave up and just pulled it off.

Truss rod?  Where are you?!?

Well... foo on that.  I pulled the neck off of the bass I had refinished and fit right in the neck pocket of the Squier.  Wooo!  I also took the opportunity to take the Seymour Duncan Basslines pickups off of the other bass and replace the terrible stock Squier pickups.

Hooray!  Bass Geeetar!  Well... almost.  After I tried to set the intonation, it was a total wreck.  It's WAY flat.  It's so flat that I can't adjust the saddles far enough to get it in tune.  After the fact, I realized that the new neck is a 22 fret, and the old neck was a 20 fret.  The old neck is about an inch shorter.  I either need to move the bridge, or mod it in some creative way to make it work correctly...

Sovtek Mig-50 repair

Check out this beauty!  It's a Sovtek Mig-50 model 001 guitar head.  If you look closely, you'll notice that they misspelled "Presence".  I was told that this means that it's a rare first issue, which might explain why it doesn't work.

In Soviet Russia, guitar plays you.

This amp has been broken and in the possession of one of my bandmates for quite some time.  A month or two ago, he and his father attempted to fix it, and briefly succeeded by replacing a resistor (so I'm told).  The amp lasted for about 2 hours of play time before it just quit working again.  We're going to open it up and try to figure out what went wrong.

Removed the wooden cabinet.  This is the equivalent of a circuit in it's underwear.  Stay tuned for bare circuits

You can see the output transformer on the left, the power transformer on the right, 5881 power tubes, and the two cans are power supply capacitors.  Behind the output transformer hides 3 12AX7 preamp tubes.


Turning over the chassis revealed the problem immediately.  Two of the power resistors are scorched, and one is completely missing.  There's another less scorched resistor out of frame.  We tried for an hour or so to find a schematic for this amp online, but to no avail. This is the closest thing we could find (http://music-electronics-forum.com/attachments/8148d1266759648-mig-50-oem-full-crop-print-landscape.jpg), but the resistors in the schematic and on the board (R34, R27, etc) don't match the schematic.  I traced the components by hand to figure out which resistors had burnt out according to the schematic.  I found another Mig 50 schematic which the same power supply design which actually listed the power rating for the resistors, and hopefully this is going to work.

R34?!?  Where are you R34?

I have every value of 1/8 watt through hole resistors you can buy, but I don't have any of these mammoth 2 and 3 watt resistors.  Lucky for me, Digi Key exists, and I found all of the parts I needed, and a few spares for about $7.

Now, we play the waiting game...

Fixing tools

I borrowed my Dad's table saw a few years ago.  It came in quite handy while I was building shelves, and even more handy while I was making the 2x12 speaker cab.  On the very last cut I had to make, something went wrong.  The lights in my house dimmed, then I heard the circuit breaker pop.  Then smoke started rolling out of the table saw motor.

To quote Rick Perry again,  "Ooops."

Well,  No matter, I took apart the saw and pulled out the motor.  It took about an hour and some wrenches to figure it out.  I typed the model number into google and found a website that offers replacement motors.

http://www.ereplacementparts.com/

For a mere $200, I can repair my Dad's table saw!  I called up my pops to see if it was even worth it to go through the trouble.  He said it's like 25 years old, (makes sense the motor burned out, especially with the original, dull blade still attached), and that it was a middle of the line product, which it turns out is still quite expensive.  I looked around online and a new equivalent would cost about $1000.  My dad didn't want the saw back, and said that if I replace the motor it's mine!  Wooo!

New motor:  $200
New 10'' blade:  $30
The ability to cut off my fingers accidentally:  Priceless

Anyway, here's some pics.

Disassembled table saw

When I take stuff like this apart, I put the nuts and bolts back where they should be and screw it in a few turns just to remember where they went.  When you go months between taking apart and putting back together, it's easy to forget.

So I started by installing the new motor, and then bolting the chassis and motor mount back to the table.

New Motor!

Re-attach the wires.  This follows standard home electrical wiring.  Black = Hot,  White = neutral, Green = ground.  Notice that one white wire has a connector on it, and one is bare.  The green and black wires have the proper connectors, so this one probably fell off at some point.

Good thing I just happen to have a spare!

I re installed the wiring box and the clips to hold the wires down.

Now it's time to turn it on and make sure everything works before I install the new blade and the rest of the base.

WARNING:  I've learned a few lessons building and repairing things.  Number one:  Be safe.  Always be safe.  You don't want to lose an eye or a finger.  I know I sound like an old codger, but seriously.  I've tempted fate too many times.  Circuits exploding.  Razer blades snapping and flying at my eyes.  I've gotten wires shoved under my fingernails.  Metal shavings into my eye. I've seen people accidentally shove screw drivers into their hands.  In this situation, the table saw has a fuse, so I don't need to worry about electrical hazards.  The only thing left is to put on your safety glasses.  Always put on your safety glasses.

I'm taking to YOU. 

Well what do you know, I turned it on and it ran just fine.  Nothing shook loose, nothing flew at my face. Huzzah!  Now you take off your safety glasses.

Time to install the blade.  This is the old blade.  It's a 10'' blade, and has like 24 or 30 teeth... I don't really know.  As replacement, I purchased a 40 tooth Diablo blade for about $30.  All I know about saw blades is that the more teeth, the cleaner the cut.

25 years of gummy gummy crap

Left:  Old and busted     Right:  New hotness

Odd tip... most circular saws I've used have a reverse thread where the blade attaches.  It's righty loosey, lefty tighty.  I put the blade in, and couldn't resist a Tim Tayler grunt or two.

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I bolted the lower part of the base back on, and took in all of the awesome.

Well, I have no projects in mind yet... so I guess it's gonna be a while until I put it to the task.

AX84 Hi Octane with 2x12 cabinet

I never got around to posting a final picture of this...

Effects pedal power supplies

So I got all of these guitar pedals I've been building, but powering them is an issue.  At my house, I've actually been using a variable power supply thought I bought on eBay a few years ago.  It serves it's purpose, but I use the power supply for other things, and sometimes I forget to disconnect the pedals... oops.

Quad power, baby!

Anyway, this is how you can re-purpose old 9V power supplies for FX pedals.  I got this honker here out of the trash.

This is what you want to look for, a supply that will deliver 9V and at least 1000mA.  This is a typical connector configuration, with the positive voltage on the center pin, and the negative voltage (ground in this case) on the sleeve.  Most effects pedals are exactly the opposite.  Using this power supply as is on guitar pedals will, at best, not work.  Worst case scenario, you damage your expensive pedal, in a glorious flash of smoke, and a beautiful electrical fire.  No one wants that.

Lucky for us, switching the leads is easy, and takes only a few minutes.

You will need:

Solder Iron
Wire cutters/strippers
Solder (I recommend lead free solder.  Lead is poisonous, take precautions if you use it.  A little lead solder here and there shouldn't hurt you, but prolonged exposure is not good)

Heat shrink of various sizes. I bought a huge pack at Ax-Man surplus for less than $4.00.  It's lasted me for more than a year, and the heat shrink also makes great cat toys.  Seriously...

Voltmeter (a cheap one will run you about $5.00.  A high quality meter can cost a $200 or more.)

Optional:  Hot air gun to shrink the heat shrink  (a hot air paint stripper works best, hair dryer will work, but you can also use a solder iron)

First... plug in your power supply, make sure it works by measure the voltage on the connector.  Use the red lead in the center hole, and the black lead on the sleeve.  It should read 9-12V.  Wait a minute... why is my 9V power supply reading 12V?  Well, when there's no load (I.E. Guitar pedals) sucking power, the voltage can be higher.

So, you power supply works?  Great!  Unplug the supply, and continue monitoring the voltage with your voltmeter until it reads 0V.  These power supplies can still have energy stored in them, and you can get shocked if you don't let the power supply discharge.  Power supply doesn't work?  What I usually do is snip off the wires close to the plug.  You can use the connector and wires on your variable power supply, like me!  Or you could use the extra length of wire/connector to extend the range of a working power supply.

Second.  Cut the wires.  I usually do this 3-4'' from the connector.  Pull the two wires apart, and strip a small amount of insulation from each wire.  Using your soldering iron, place a bead of solder on each of the exposed wire tips.  This is called "tinning the leads".

Next, the miracle of heat shrink!  Seriously... you need heat shrink.  It's far superior to electrical tape.  Since I'm going to be soldering the wires back together, I need to put the heak shrink on before I solder.

Do you notice that only one wire has a white strip on it?  This is how you can identify the correct way to re solder the wires.  It's nice to have a third hand, or a clamp for this part.  I just popped the connector end into a pedal to hold it on place.

Solder the wires together by melting the beads you applied when you tinned the wire, do it as fast as you can so you don't heat up the wire too much, and then just hold the wires in place until the solder sets.  It's usually only a second or two.

Once your wires are re soldered, you can move the heat shrink into place and use the collar of the solder iron or a hot air gun to shrink it.

Slide the heat shrink over the solder bonds and use the solder iron to shrink  them.

A larger diameter piece of heat shrink holds the two wires together

Plug in your supply and measure the voltage on the connector.  If you put the red lead on the sleeve, and the black lead in the center hole, your voltmeter should be the same voltage as your first measurement.

That's it.  It's a 5 to 10 minute endeavor, and you can save yourself the cost of purchasing the expensive effects pedal power supplies.