current DIY projects you are working on .. or planning on.

[sonikBOOM]

just wondering what people in here are up to project wise.
i just switched my guitar rig over to 2 channels of solid state action and plan on making a nice wooden box for it to all sit in.
standard rack sized , birch, mitered corners, i have some nice deep purple aniline dye left over from a previous project i may stain it with. not totally sure.
anyone else starting anything up? lets check some photo time line progress on em!.

[japmn]

I still need to build my pedal board. All of the wood is in the basement where it has been for almost a year. I have to build a fuzz for my friends B-Day. I need to clean and balance my Otari. I need to clean or replace a fer bus switches in my Tascam board. I need to crack open the Kustom Combo and see why it farts all the time. I need to put P94's in my SG. I need to replace the power switch on one of my sound card breakouts. I have about 50 cables that need soldering.

I could probably go on and on for hours with the things I actually need to do before getting into the things I want to do.

[vogelscheuche]

i'm moving in in a month to a new studio space that currently holds a bunch of lumber racks and nothing else but masonry walls and a pitched roof.

got me some walls to build, electric to run, drywall to hang... anybody feel like picking up a hammer and a caulk gun?

[Mason]

- Converting my Strat copy from a sideways-pickup atonality machine back into a regular guitar (I only got halfway through the project anyway)
- Tricking out a cheap Tele with a GFS Dream 90 and an EGC neck:

[caset]

[Rodabod]

I'm attempting to "clone" a Neumann U47. It's taking ages, but it's good fun, so that's cool.

I've also made a fairly unique distortion pedal which I designed myself, but that's on the back-burner as I can't be arsed making PCBs and drilling boxes.

[beckertronix]

I have about 60lbs of aluminum stock that I'm planning on turning into an electric upright bass. (I have zero machining experience, or instrument building for that matter.)

Slightly more realistic is the parts-Telecaster I'm accumulating parts for. It started out as an SX tele, but by the time I'm done I'll have replaced every part of the original guitar...
so far I have a mighty mite neck, a rough-finished ash body, Lindy Fralin bridge p/u and TV Jones neck, and some other odds and sods. Just need pots, a switch, jack, and some copper to cut a pickguard from. (Chris Jury - this is your fault.)

An all-tube tremolo, rebuild a Yamaha Pm1000 with direct outs and improved power supply, and I have a bunch of kits that I need to build: BYOC and GGG pedals and other stuff.

Plus maintaining and fixing the stuff I do have.

[J. Burns]

After I get back to work, I have a Pan-ES 335 copy, Ibanez IC400, and Squier '51 to get into shape.

The Squier just needs pickups.

I wanna refin the IC400 in a dark walnut stain like qrj is planning on doing to his.

The 335 needs a lot of love. I gotta glue the fretboard back to the neck where it's coming off, refin (either another dark walnut stain, or pelham blue). new frets and new electronics.

Also wanna buy a bias probe so I can bias amps properly. I've been jacking up the bias until the plates get a little bit orange, and then backing them off about 15-20%. It works fine, but I'm kinda done horseshitting around.

[Mason]

Hopefully you're shocked in a good way??

[where is post while drunk thread[

[chris jury]

As I have mentioned, the projects are piling up like a motherfucker around here.
-Bronco-Bass VI Conversion. Made a good start, got it stripped down and cut/installed the new nut. as soon as the bridge arrives and i find a piece of veneer I can wrap that up

-Ultimate telecaster- I've been slowly getting the parts together for this one. Ash body in Olympic white, soft v 50s profile neck, tonerider overwound vintage pickups.

-Schecter Diamond bass -kind ric like just need pickups so I'm thinking of a bill lawrence at the bridge and a mini-hum at the neck.

-Ibanez roadstar II-friend sent this home with me. pulling out the HSS garbage, cutting a new pickguard and replacing w/ 2 mini hums.

-Stratotone clone- after playing Rob Mercer's stratotones, i decided to build myself one from scratch, using the 1954 plywood that used to make up my bathroom vanity. The body is just getting glued up.

-Shop residing- my shop was sided with cheap plywood about 30 years ago, and it is of course rotting and crumbling. With help from J Burns i was able to replace the bottom 4 feet of the north side on saturday. The west side is next.

-Bathroom- The wife and i hoped to do a quick gut of the 1954 bathroom, which was falling apart. Turns out there has been a long term leak, so we had to strip a large portion to the studs, and due to insect damage, actually had to reframe 6 feet of the exterior wall, and 3 feet of load bearing interior wall. Plus our sink and tub plumbing is shot. On sunday I redid the sink plumbing, and will try to get to the Tub/shower rough in wednesday.

[kazoozak]

Fender Lead II: Planning on re-wiring the guitar. Current switch setup is pickup toggle switch + phase switch for neck pickup. I don't use the out-of-phase switch all that much so instead I'm gonna re-wire it to toggle between Series/Parallel wiring modes. My awful MSPainted schematics are as followed; left diagram is the wiring as it exists, right is my modification:



From the way it's wired putting the toggle switch on the neck pickup while in series mode will probably have a killswitch effect to it. Eventually I want to put a mellower .47 cap in place of what's currently in the guitar, it's plenty bright at 10, all too plenty bright.

Crappy Squier Stratocaster: Plans are in place to turn what was once a crappy, piecemeal Squier Strat into an awesome Kazoozak Strat Deluxe, as follows:



As far as pickups, I'm trying to decide between GFS Mean-90s or their Loudmouth pickups. I'm going for a sound sort-of like Pete Townshend's tone on Live at Leeds, as well as Neil Young. A killswitch will be integrated into the wiring. As far as the tremolo goes, I'll probably just get new saddles for the existing Strat tremolo then block it. Alternately I can just get an actual good tremolo and use it (maybe a Wilkinson? How do those usually fare?), but the hardtail Lead II has been my main guitar for four years so I'm not in any rush to have a trem-equipped guitar at this juncture.

Last week I cut out a design for the pickguard, which will probably be refined several times before I send the sucker to a custom pickguard manufacturer (anyone have any suggestions)?





I borrowed a friend's Dremel to rout out space for the new controls, but upon the realization that I am a pussy and also had no clamps, drill press or even goggles and SARS mask to protect against sawdust I decided against working on it until I have the proper tools (or access to a friend who has them).

[Maurice]

In the thinking stage: maybe I should try one of these Res-O-Glas kits.

[caset]

Hopefully you're shocked in a good way??

[where is post while drunk thread[

shocked in the best way. looks amazing, have fun!

[deadfate]

z vex super hard on clone... pretty simple

[blue_thunder]

Finishing up framing the walls for my new studio. Plumber's installing new lines for bathrooms and kitchen. I should be able to start on the drywall by the end of the week, as long as my framing passes inspection (which it should). Also, planning on building a new rack for my outboard gear, as I've out grown my old one. Not to mention the assload of cables I need to make to incorporate some new gear.

[ldopa_chicago]

My living arrangements are in limbo, so the first order of business will be move, and then set up a shop space. Following this is:

1) Put the Grovers I bought off of benadrian on my bari. This is made slightly difficult by the slightly too small tuner holes. I'm working on a work-around.

2) Prototype my Jazz Chorus-based booster/preamp pedal. Will run at a full 30V and can be used as a versatile boost or a full preamp (with xlr out), all in a B size enclosure (I hope...)

3) Begin the tough work on scratch-built guitar #2. I need to buy a fingerboard and fretwire first. Electronics and misc hardware can come later. I need to build some templates for cutting the neck and such.

4) Put an efx loop in my amp. One extra 12ax7, buffered output with makeup gain stage. This should be the last modification I make to it...... ha, right.

[sonikBOOM]

ill check my storage closet. i may still have some ebony finger boards, slotted lying around. 25.5 scale if they are even there still.

[E. Norma Stitz]

New Grovers -> Hondo P Bass.

Folding two Zim-Gars together for a refurb.

Tele w/ 2x surface mounted gold foil + post pups. I'm thinking the face of the body should have no pick guard, two pups, two switches and two volume knobs - all raw wood. Dunno - going back and fro on the Bigsby vs stop tail thing.

I hope to eventually get an aluminum neck for this ampeg scroll bass...

[n.c.]

taking up carpet and refinishing the wide plank flooring.

getting the studio set up again once i make room for everything.

down the road, turning the garage and workshop into a control room and live room with a little iso booth where the laundry room used to be.

pretty much gutting a couple of bathrooms.

[benadrian]

fake analog delay.

about 6 pedals backordered.

making the ultimate V-4 for jason of kowloon walled city.

so damn much. ouch.