Category: Guitars

Bass Upgrade

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-12-30

I have had my bass for a few years now. It is a Squier Classic Vibe 70’s Jazz Bass. For Christmas, my lovely children got me a new bridge a Hipshot Kickass bridge.

It’s thiccc compared to the stock bridge.

The build quality and chonkiness of this bridge are impressive. It is not a bent piece of sheet metal like the original bridge, it seems to be machined (or cast) out of a decent chunk of steel. I weighed both bridges on my kitchen scale. The OG bridge is 101 grams and the Kickass is 234 grams.

While I had the strings off, I decided to chase down a couple buzzy frets.

I used a tool to find some high spots and used a black sharpie to mark the locations.

The high spots were minimal, so they cleaned up real quick with a file. Then I polished them up real nice and shiny.

The bridge was a bolt on replacement. The intonation was almost dead on right out of the box.

Bridge installed. This bridge uses the same hex key US Fender saddles use. I reused the screws from the OG bridge.

I ordered and received the steel saddles. They are suuuper easy to install; just loosen the set screw on the front of the saddle carrier with teh same hex key used to adjust saddle height and swap them out.

Loosen the string, then lossen the screw hiding in this hole

All strung up with steel saddles and some Rotosound strings

I like the sound of the bass with the steel saddles the best (it has a brighter sound). I especially like it better with the new strings. I recorded 4 demos of me playing some bass parts with the different configurations;

OG bridge, old strings,
new bridge with brass saddles and old strings
new bridge with steel saddles and old strings
new bridge with steel saddles and new strings

I played a snippet of a few things in each demo Sunshine of Your Love (pick & no-pick), Seven Nation Army (pick & no-pick), The Trooper (fingers cuz pick is blasphemy). The video below has the sound demos. If you watch the video on youtube you can use the chapters to skip around and compare one section to another.

Teenycaster

Teenycaster Side Marker Dots

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-10-16

The neck that came with the kit did not have side marker dots. Time to fix this (actually I should have done this before). I eyeballed the locations and drilled some holes, glued in some side dot material, then trimmed them off and sanded smooth. A little oil made everything nicey nice.

A bunch of holes!

Dot material glued in.

Trimmed off flush, sanded, and oiled up.

Teenycaster

Teenycaster New Nut

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-10-16

Time to replace the crappy plastic nut with something better. I picked up a new TUSQ nut, removed the crappy chinesium nut (it came out in pieces lol), cleaned up the nut slot in the fretboard, sanded the nut down to get the nut slots about right, and added a couple drops of super glue to hold it in place. Easy least.

Oh no! The plastic nut broke. I chiseled out the remaining shards of it’s broken dreams.

There is a new nut in town, and she is much nicer.

The nut is too thick, so gap at the first fret is too big

Some sandpaper fixed the nut. Now the gap is mucho holder.

Next I’ll refine the nut slots with my files and redo the intonation and action.

Guitars stuff

Tom Anderson Guitar Strap Buttons

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-10-12

This is such a brilliant idea! Ton Anderson guitars include 2 strap buttons so when you put it down and lean against an amp or something, the strap buttons form “feet” so it doesn’t tip over!

Teenycaster

Teenycaster Frets and Tuners

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-10-05

The Teenycaster neck needed some attention. The frets sucked (they are dull, the ends are sharp, and some are high and buzz) and the tuners suck (they are wobbly and the ratio is too low). I bought an inexpensive set of Wilkinson tuners that are really nice. They are much better quality than the tuners that come on most inexpensive guitars and they don’t cost an arm and a leg.

First it is time to fix the frets…

Use a fret rocker to mark out the high spots on the frets.

Use some special fret files (and a trusty triangle file) to knock down the high spots ad crown the tops.

Polish the frets to a mirror finish using some high grit sandpaper and micro polishing pads.

Now it’s time to address the tuners.

Old cruddy tuners with loose posts, sloppy gears, and too low of a ratio.

New tuners with tight tolerances and an 18:1 gear ratio.

Tuner booty shot. These are thicc, but were a drop in replacement for the originals.

Teenycaster

Teenycaster Bridge Upgrade

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-10-05

I hate Telecaster bridges.

They have the stupid lips to attach a cover that nobody uses.
They only have 3 saddles so you can’t get the intonation right (especially on a short scale like this)

Time to upgrade.

I bought a new replacement bridge with six saddles so it can be properly intonated. The new bridge is a “string through” bridge which should make it sound better too. Also, the new one is thicker metal so it should resonate some more.

Time to install it. The first step is marking the location where the strings will go through the body. Then I need to drill the holes through the body as straight as I can without a drill press (spoiler, they are crooked). Then some counterbores on the back side and then installed the ferrules to hold the ends of the strings. Next up is installing the bridge and voila!

Teenycaster

Teenycaster Size

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-10-05

I’ve been working on the Teenycaster again after a hiatus, and doing some upgrades as well. It’s a lot more fun that I initially thought. For giggles, here is a photo comparing the Teenycaster to my normal size PRS.

Teenycaster on the left, PRS SE Custom 24 on the right.

The Teenycaster has a ~16″ scale length compared to the 24″ scale length of the full size PRS. After my upgrades I hope to get it tuned to E standard tuning.

Vangaurd

Kramer V Paint Color

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-09-22

I think I have settled on a color for the V. My friend’s daughter has a Squier Telecaster that is bright orange and I love it. Her guitar is orange with a white pickguard and chrome hardware. It looks like an orange creamsicle. As everyone knows, orange and black look really cool together so I think I’m going that direction.

A company named Createx makes a line of water based paints that can be used on guitars and purchased in small amounts. The have a some really cool metallic colors that can be used with their clear orange. The video below shows all of their candy colors applied on 4 different basecoats. I love the orange applied over a charcoal metallic basecoat.

Metallic orange has a cool 1980’s vibe with a cool “heavy metal” twist with the dark metallic undercoat. Slap some all black hardware on that and it will pop.

I think I also want to paint the black part of the headstock with the same orange metallic and add the same logo back except in black.

The black headstock will be the same orange as the body, and the Kramer logo will be in black.

Vangaurd

Tremolo for the Kramer

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-09-21

I picked up a new Floyd Rose tremolo and locking nut for the Kramer Vanguard. Bombs away! It seems like a drop in replacement for the original tremolo (that’s what I was hoping for).

Vangaurd

Flying V Pickup

Post author By Mark
Post date 2021-08-30

A friend donated a pickup to me. It’s a wicked nasty Seymour Duncan Invader.

Seymour Duncan Invader humbucker

I measured the resistance of it and it’s 18k Ohms which is STUPID hot! It’s going to be a flamethrower.

~~I’ll prolly fill in the neck pickup rout with wood and run this as a single pickup guitar.~~ Edit: I decided I’ll buy another one of these for the neck position.