What's on your work bench?

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by bobiron »

Bg wrote:Aria Bass back on the work bench today.
Lowered the action yesterday and it highlighted a couple of nasty dead spots. Off with the neck so I could give it a dressing.

Something uniquely satisfying about lovely shiny frets!
You going for rounds or flats? I am looking at changing to flats, as the bass as active controls for adding mids and highs if required. What are you dressing?
OMM OM MM OMM MM

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by Bg »

Flats on the Aria, it sounds perfect with them.
Half rounds on the P-Bass, feel very weird at first, like they're sticky. Once some of your skin rubs off on them (ib:jb;) they feel more like flats but still have punch :)
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by chur »

My first fuzz build. Based on the Wampler Velvet Fuzz, seemed to be for people like me who don't know if they like fuzz or not. (other people make it sound good)

I couldn't get any TO-92 J201 FET's without sinking a fortune, so went with the SMD version and converter PCB. Real pain in the backside, but sorted now. Pots, wiring, drilling and she'll be up an running ready for JFET biasing :thumbup:
Fuzz.jpg
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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by Zaulkin »

My strat has an old Wilkinson bridge where the strings lock at the bridge end. I broke a string for the first time since I got the guitar, and tried to change them to 10s.

I could not for the life of me get two of the broken old strings out of the trem. I tried everything I could think of, had to email Trevor Wilkinson as well. After a week or two of messing around with oil and trying to tap the pins out through the holes, I pulled the whole assembly apart. Put the trem block in a vice, oiled it up, and smashed the pins out with a hammer. Still took a while, they were rather lodged in there.

Hope I don't have to repeat this next time I change strings... lol.

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by codedog »

Finally scrounged up enough bits to have a set of plastic knobs and pickup covers that were all white for a Strat. It's meant to replace a hotchpotch mix of different colours. I thought I would try "aging" them with the coffee trick. Well... as it turned out, not all plastics are created equal! They didn't all react the same way to the coffee bath. Now I'm back to square one... non matching bits! :crazy: :lolno:

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by willow13 »

Zaulkin wrote:My strat has an old Wilkinson bridge where the strings lock at the bridge end. I broke a string for the first time since I got the guitar, and tried to change them to 10s.

I could not for the life of me get two of the broken old strings out of the trem. I tried everything I could think of, had to email Trevor Wilkinson as well. After a week or two of messing around with oil and trying to tap the pins out through the holes, I pulled the whole assembly apart. Put the trem block in a vice, oiled it up, and smashed the pins out with a hammer. Still took a while, they were rather lodged in there.

Hope I don't have to repeat this next time I change strings... lol.
on my malmsteen strat I broke a string and could not get the broken bit out of the tuning peg...try everything to try and poke it out so gave up. A week later I went back to try again and still could not get it out ....... it was at this point I went to get my drill to drill it out when I noticed that they were locking tuners, so I just had to un lock it :oops: ......... this is a 100% true story :rofl: :rofl:
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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by calling card »

Zaulkin wrote:My strat has an old Wilkinson bridge where the strings lock at the bridge end. I broke a string for the first time since I got the guitar, and tried to change them to 10s.

I could not for the life of me get two of the broken old strings out of the trem. I tried everything I could think of, had to email Trevor Wilkinson as well. After a week or two of messing around with oil and trying to tap the pins out through the holes, I pulled the whole assembly apart. Put the trem block in a vice, oiled it up, and smashed the pins out with a hammer. Still took a while, they were rather lodged in there.

Hope I don't have to repeat this next time I change strings... lol.
Is that where the ball end gets stuck in the tremolo block holes?
Mine jam in quite well, always meant to bore out the holes a bit. My work around is take a 6th string, the big fat one and chop a piece say about 100mm long. Shape a loop and twist it back on the string as a finger hold, jam that down from the top through the offending string hole, usually the light strings. Gets them out.
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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by Zaulkin »

calling card wrote:
Zaulkin wrote:My strat has an old Wilkinson bridge where the strings lock at the bridge end. I broke a string for the first time since I got the guitar, and tried to change them to 10s.

I could not for the life of me get two of the broken old strings out of the trem. I tried everything I could think of, had to email Trevor Wilkinson as well. After a week or two of messing around with oil and trying to tap the pins out through the holes, I pulled the whole assembly apart. Put the trem block in a vice, oiled it up, and smashed the pins out with a hammer. Still took a while, they were rather lodged in there.

Hope I don't have to repeat this next time I change strings... lol.
Is that where the ball end gets stuck in the tremolo block holes?
Mine jam in quite well, always meant to bore out the holes a bit. My work around is take a 6th string, the big fat one and chop a piece say about 100mm long. Shape a loop and twist it back on the string as a finger hold, jam that down from the top through the offending string hole, usually the light strings. Gets them out.
It's an old Wilkinson bridge that has a locking mechanism. So I wish it was that easy, I had tried everything. They stopped making them because of that reason.

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by Bg »

Zaulkin wrote:
calling card wrote:
Zaulkin wrote:My strat has an old Wilkinson bridge where the strings lock at the bridge end. I broke a string for the first time since I got the guitar, and tried to change them to 10s.

I could not for the life of me get two of the broken old strings out of the trem. I tried everything I could think of, had to email Trevor Wilkinson as well. After a week or two of messing around with oil and trying to tap the pins out through the holes, I pulled the whole assembly apart. Put the trem block in a vice, oiled it up, and smashed the pins out with a hammer. Still took a while, they were rather lodged in there.

Hope I don't have to repeat this next time I change strings... lol.
Is that where the ball end gets stuck in the tremolo block holes?
Mine jam in quite well, always meant to bore out the holes a bit. My work around is take a 6th string, the big fat one and chop a piece say about 100mm long. Shape a loop and twist it back on the string as a finger hold, jam that down from the top through the offending string hole, usually the light strings. Gets them out.
It's an old Wilkinson bridge that has a locking mechanism. So I wish it was that easy, I had tried everything. They stopped making them because of that reason.
Weird, I've never seen those. I think you did the right thing though. Can't beat putting stuff in the vice and braying the shit out of it with a lump hammer :)


and then you notice the tiny wee grubscrew....
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

My old Boss RV-3 on the workbench today. Got it off the shelf for a jam and it wouldn't bypass. Found a wire that looked pretty suspect and replaced it. Great Success

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by Single coil »

This is on my proverbial workbench.

https://youtu.be/4f3d5ZdE4vY

I’ve been playing it for almost 10 years and fuck it’s hard to get right!

Edit: gave up on the link, it copies the weird one on mobile.
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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by rickenbackerkid »

On the workbench today was my Rickenbacker 360. After our last Springsteen show, we decided that the guitars were a touch muddy, which is not surprising, considering there's usually 3 guitars going at any one time. So decided to jump down the rabbit hole a bit.

Vintage aka 60's Rickenbacker guitars had a 'tone capacitor' designed to trim some bass from the bridge pickup, so I decided to test what it sounds like- and it sounds good. Thin, but good.
I reckon for a lot of these old 70's Springsteen songs, it will work a treat. However on the newer Springsteen tunes and in my covers band, it's way too thin and small sounding.

So I went against my personal theory that classic guitars should be left alone, and I installed a switch to move between 'Vintage' and 'Modern' wiring.
After that I decided I'd do something with the fairly useless Rickenbacker 5th knob, and I have that wired up as a variable bass cut on the neck pickup, which is a very hot bassy pickup anyway.

All in all I think it's sounding really good and I think in the band with it's wall of noise it will help to cut some fat and allow space for the rest of the band. And apart from a tiny hole for the switch, it's easily reversible.

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by calling card »

Shed design on my work bench. At work supposed to be doing other things. See that pic in the petrol head thread of two shipping containers and a vintage car. Roofing structure over it all.

Image

I know it's all civil works & no guitar, still could gig in there.
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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by Single coil »

Ply or whatever around the walls to stop mental amounts of reverb or what?
Insulated?
Sounds like a sweet project.
werdna wrote:Well at least I can still make toast in the bath without anyone telling me it's unsafe.

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Re: What's on your work bench?

Post by calling card »

Not wrong there, uncanny how much sound bounces around back & forth from those big steel boxes.
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