Bleh. I kind of messed up pretty bad. I needed to re-round a small part of the edge...being lazy, I grabbed the router instead of the sand paper... The router bit started to slide out of the collet and dug into the wood quite a bit deeper than I intended. I patched it up with stainable wood putty. Hopefully it will blend a bit. From my tests with the stain, it blends pretty well...almost imperceptibly well. Erin said it shouldn't be a huge issue. Hopefully that's the last stupid mistake I make on this build. I mounted the jack cup retainer too -- I'm a bit antsy, I guess.
Drill press and poly will come Monday. I'll drill some holes and, as long as everything goes well, dive in and order the remaining parts. I don't see the point in buying them just yet if there's a chance I'll break everything =\ Plus, I'll only lose one shipping day, anyway.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The scene gets nasty
I'm nearly done with House of Leaves. I'm taking it a bit slower than I normally read things...partly because I'm working on my guitar and partly because it sort of resonates with me. It almost seems like it was written to specifically prey on my fears...that said, I think it's been a great book. I look forward to reading other stuff by Danielewski...there's a companion piece to House of Leaves as well as another novel. I also look forward to reading some more "classic" horror.
The guitar is coming along. I've had to buy a drill press in order to accurately drill the holes for mounting the neck, the bridge, and the control plates. I was originally going to buy a mill, because I want to mill parts out for future projects (that bass replica, for instance) but there were 2 main issues with that. 1) the throat depth for the mill is slightly too short for the guitar I'm currently working on. 2) Harbor Frieght would have to order one and their ordering process takes quite a while at times. I ordered a nice Craftsman drill press through Sears that will do what I need, plus it has some neat bells and whistles, for about $130 cheaper than the mill. I'll wind up buying the mill later, but this will be absolutely fine for the time being.
Monday, my drill press and my water-based polyurethane should arrive. I won't be able to get much else done on the guitar until then. Ideally, I would get to work on it over the weekend (especially Saturday, because Erin has finals) but it won't be that bad, I guess. After this stuff comes in, I'll have some work on my hands...but I need to place an order with Mcmaster-Carr for some other stuff...and the final things will come from Stewart-MacDonald. I still have quite a bit of work left to do, but it's getting closer and closer. I may not finish before Christmas, but I should finish before the new year.
The guitar is coming along. I've had to buy a drill press in order to accurately drill the holes for mounting the neck, the bridge, and the control plates. I was originally going to buy a mill, because I want to mill parts out for future projects (that bass replica, for instance) but there were 2 main issues with that. 1) the throat depth for the mill is slightly too short for the guitar I'm currently working on. 2) Harbor Frieght would have to order one and their ordering process takes quite a while at times. I ordered a nice Craftsman drill press through Sears that will do what I need, plus it has some neat bells and whistles, for about $130 cheaper than the mill. I'll wind up buying the mill later, but this will be absolutely fine for the time being.
Monday, my drill press and my water-based polyurethane should arrive. I won't be able to get much else done on the guitar until then. Ideally, I would get to work on it over the weekend (especially Saturday, because Erin has finals) but it won't be that bad, I guess. After this stuff comes in, I'll have some work on my hands...but I need to place an order with Mcmaster-Carr for some other stuff...and the final things will come from Stewart-MacDonald. I still have quite a bit of work left to do, but it's getting closer and closer. I may not finish before Christmas, but I should finish before the new year.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Now the world was empty on the day when they made it
But heaven needed someplace to throw all the shit
Images are not fully opaque, sorry. Can't do anything about that. Click them for larger views.
I made this from IKEA shelves. Like these:
It's semi-hollow. The F-hole on the left and the oval shaped hole on the right (will be covered) open up into cavities.
Here it is semi-mocked up. I don't have the pickup routes done yet, nor do I have a pickguard.
I'll be cutting my own pickguard, because I did this in a funny way. Most of these that have the f-hole don't have that silver control panel on the right.
This has turned out to be a very fun project. Ideally, I'd like to learn to make guitar necks, but they're MUCH more complicated than making the bodies. If I can manage making the necks, I plan to make a copy of my bass out of oak, I'd like to also make an oak jazzmaster. If those turn out well, I might try to make an archtop guitar, but those get even more complicated. A Jazzmaster with f-holes might be fun too.
I made this from IKEA shelves. Like these:
It's semi-hollow. The F-hole on the left and the oval shaped hole on the right (will be covered) open up into cavities.
Here it is semi-mocked up. I don't have the pickup routes done yet, nor do I have a pickguard.
I'll be cutting my own pickguard, because I did this in a funny way. Most of these that have the f-hole don't have that silver control panel on the right.
This has turned out to be a very fun project. Ideally, I'd like to learn to make guitar necks, but they're MUCH more complicated than making the bodies. If I can manage making the necks, I plan to make a copy of my bass out of oak, I'd like to also make an oak jazzmaster. If those turn out well, I might try to make an archtop guitar, but those get even more complicated. A Jazzmaster with f-holes might be fun too.
No I can't slap you no five
I started reading House of Leaves on Thanksgiving...I guess I've been reading for about a week now. It's very good. I've never read anything put together quite like it. Amber, I think you'd possibly like it. It's got a weird edge to it...just feels spooky. It's been a long time since I read a book that had me worrying about what might be in the dark corners of a room...
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I also started working on building my guitar body modeled after a Fender Thinline Telecaster. I bought some shelves from IKEA to use. Buying real nice wood is a bit too expensive for a first shot. Plus, the neck that I'm going to be putting on it is a bit thin; I'm worried it'll be too narrow for my giant fingers. I'd hate to drop a bunch of money into something if I won't even be able to play it.
The shelves were almost exactly 1/3 the final width of the body, so I had to cut 3 pieces. I rough cut those last Friday. This was advantageous, though, because the body is semi-hollow (it has some open cavities, instead of being solid wood. Over the weekend, I routed out the cavities, cut the F-hole and the control cavity hole. Last night, I glued the pieces together. As of now, it looks kind of odd, but I think I'll route out the final shape of the body tonight. I'll probably cut the neck pocket sometime this weekend after I do a test or two to determine that my template will fit. I'll try to take some pictures sometime.
After I do that, I'll only need to cut the pickup cavities, drill the mounting holes for the bridge, the string-through holes, the strap button holes, and the mounting holes for the neck. Also, I'll need to do the holes for the wiring. Physical construction of the body will be complete. Then I'll need to stain and seal the body with a clearcoat. I'll wind the pickups and do wiring. That should wrap the whole thing up.
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Christmas is a dumb holiday because so many people get all religiously excited. No one even knows when Jesus was born; they just took the date because it was a popular day and hoped to convert as many people as possible. Plus I hate Xmas music...
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I also started working on building my guitar body modeled after a Fender Thinline Telecaster. I bought some shelves from IKEA to use. Buying real nice wood is a bit too expensive for a first shot. Plus, the neck that I'm going to be putting on it is a bit thin; I'm worried it'll be too narrow for my giant fingers. I'd hate to drop a bunch of money into something if I won't even be able to play it.
The shelves were almost exactly 1/3 the final width of the body, so I had to cut 3 pieces. I rough cut those last Friday. This was advantageous, though, because the body is semi-hollow (it has some open cavities, instead of being solid wood. Over the weekend, I routed out the cavities, cut the F-hole and the control cavity hole. Last night, I glued the pieces together. As of now, it looks kind of odd, but I think I'll route out the final shape of the body tonight. I'll probably cut the neck pocket sometime this weekend after I do a test or two to determine that my template will fit. I'll try to take some pictures sometime.
After I do that, I'll only need to cut the pickup cavities, drill the mounting holes for the bridge, the string-through holes, the strap button holes, and the mounting holes for the neck. Also, I'll need to do the holes for the wiring. Physical construction of the body will be complete. Then I'll need to stain and seal the body with a clearcoat. I'll wind the pickups and do wiring. That should wrap the whole thing up.
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Christmas is a dumb holiday because so many people get all religiously excited. No one even knows when Jesus was born; they just took the date because it was a popular day and hoped to convert as many people as possible. Plus I hate Xmas music...
Friday, November 21, 2008
Remember through sounds, remember through smells
Jogging/running has gotten a bit easier. Sometime last week I bumped up my jog from one mile to two without decreasing my speed. I still sprint/walk the last mile. My most recent time for the first two miles was 16:11. It's still pretty boring and after you count in the time it takes to get changed, go run, shower, it wastes about an hour...that might be about all I'm willing to waste on it, though. I'm getting to the point I was looking forward to, though: I feel obligated to do it when I'm supposed to.
The biggest downsides I see, though, are that I get very wound up afterward, but I don't feel like doing anything. So I just sit on the couch all jumpy and watch tv until sleep time. =\ Hopefully that's just a phase and I'll get over it.
Erin and I bought ourselves a chumby for Christmas. Well, I bought it, but it's for us and she didn't complain. GOOD GOD I NEED TO BUY THE NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL ALBUMS. Sorry. Had to remind myself. Back to chumby. Basically, it's an internet-connected touchscreen device that will let us listen to Pandora radio without our computers, it will replace the alarm clock we have (our current clock currently loses time, and is a pain to set). We should be able to set up different alarms for ourselves so that, when Erin wakes up before me, she doesn't have to re-set the alarm. It may take some getting used to, but hopefully it won't make us late.
I ordered some books. The last in a series I'd been reading since middle school (I think). After the first couple of books, they started to get silly, but I have this...quirk. Erin has referred to it as being a "completion whore"...once I start something, I have a hard time stopping before it is done. I've started a video game, found out that it sucks, but forced myself to finish it, just so I knew how the story finished out... I also ordered The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and House Of Leaves. I ordered these because I tend to like suspense/thriller/horror, I guess, and wanted something new (House of Leaves) and something classic (Jekyll & Hyde).
I have a few more books that I want to read, but I'm open to suggestions.
The biggest downsides I see, though, are that I get very wound up afterward, but I don't feel like doing anything. So I just sit on the couch all jumpy and watch tv until sleep time. =\ Hopefully that's just a phase and I'll get over it.
Erin and I bought ourselves a chumby for Christmas. Well, I bought it, but it's for us and she didn't complain. GOOD GOD I NEED TO BUY THE NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL ALBUMS. Sorry. Had to remind myself. Back to chumby. Basically, it's an internet-connected touchscreen device that will let us listen to Pandora radio without our computers, it will replace the alarm clock we have (our current clock currently loses time, and is a pain to set). We should be able to set up different alarms for ourselves so that, when Erin wakes up before me, she doesn't have to re-set the alarm. It may take some getting used to, but hopefully it won't make us late.
I ordered some books. The last in a series I'd been reading since middle school (I think). After the first couple of books, they started to get silly, but I have this...quirk. Erin has referred to it as being a "completion whore"...once I start something, I have a hard time stopping before it is done. I've started a video game, found out that it sucks, but forced myself to finish it, just so I knew how the story finished out... I also ordered The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and House Of Leaves. I ordered these because I tend to like suspense/thriller/horror, I guess, and wanted something new (House of Leaves) and something classic (Jekyll & Hyde).
I have a few more books that I want to read, but I'm open to suggestions.
Monday, November 10, 2008
the bad things travel in droves; the good wander alone
I want the T-Mobile G1. My contract isn't quite one year old, though, and I have to wait for it to be 22 months old before I can get the decent price of 179. However, I might just buy in earlier, but I don't really know. The phone and OS look very promising; if I could make my own phone, it would wind up having specs very close to the G1, only I don't know if I could get it to work X(
The show on Friday went pretty well. The show was kind of weird in the way that it was set up. The main show was something called Cartune Xprez. I'm not certain that all Cartune Xprez shows go this way, but this one had a group called Hooliganship performing in front of some cartoons. Their music was instrumental and sort of went along with the videos; the two guys moved around like they were actually part of the cartoons, though, so it was pretty sweet. After their show, they showed some more videos by other people, some of which were incredibly sweet.
After that happened, the show moved to the Scoot Inn where Hooliganship played another 15 minutes or so on the outside stage. After they finished, a band called Gayle Gold played inside. We only saw part of their set, though, because we had to set up/prepare some last minute things (Kerstan needed to write some of the lyrics for "Total Eclipse of the Heart" so he wouldn't forget them...only he still did). The guitarist was really good, but that was really the only impression I could get in the short time they played.
Kerstan and I went outside to set up on the stage, get levels and everything set up. It was weird, though, because we didn't have monitors. I could still hear everything, but because the guitar amp wasn't micced, I had no idea about the way the entire mix sounded. I basically had Erin tell me if I was too loud or quiet, but she only gave feedback in between songs...next time, I'd like instant hand gesture feedback. So, we get levels set up and tune the instruments and all. I wound up playing Kerstan's 3/4 scale classical guitar for two of the songs (he wanted an acoustic sound on those) and my pink stratocaster for the remaining 3 that I played on. Once Gayle Gold finished, Kerstan started by playing the songs he'd play alone. Because he plays to a dvd, it's not like I have all the time in the world to get on the stage and set things up before I'm expected to start playing, so I was pretty worried I'd forget something and play with the volume all the way down...or the amp turned off...or something like that.
When the song before I played reached the halfway point, I went up on stage, checked my tuning, turned on the amp and waited. By this point, I wasn't really worried anymore. I'd practiced enough and the songs are fairly easy, so I figured everything would be fine. It was. The nice thing about not miccing the amp was that, because I was so close to it, I could really hear myself sitting on top of the mix, while I don't think I was actually that loud for everyone else. The set finished, and went off without any major problems. It was a bit cold, so I fumbled the stretch for the Eb chord the first time, but it wasn't too bad, I just wound up muting notes. I'd like to play again. Maybe I'll learn some keyboard parts or something, though, because not many of the other songs actually have audible guitar parts.
Oh yeah. We skated a bit Saturday night and I fell and kind of hurt myself. Kerstan said it looked scary, but I thought it looked funny. I wasn't expecting to fall, so it probably was funny -- I didn't really prepare too much. I banged up my left knee and hip a bit. That leg was already kind of sore from (I think) running. Oh well.
I started running again, but I'm still working up to it, I guess. I usually run a mile, then run/walk another...that's as much as I have patience for. I tend to finish those in between 20 and 25 minutes...can't waste much more time than that. I'd like to be in the shape where I can run 6 miles in an hour again, but that just got so boring that I quit doing it.
The show on Friday went pretty well. The show was kind of weird in the way that it was set up. The main show was something called Cartune Xprez. I'm not certain that all Cartune Xprez shows go this way, but this one had a group called Hooliganship performing in front of some cartoons. Their music was instrumental and sort of went along with the videos; the two guys moved around like they were actually part of the cartoons, though, so it was pretty sweet. After their show, they showed some more videos by other people, some of which were incredibly sweet.
After that happened, the show moved to the Scoot Inn where Hooliganship played another 15 minutes or so on the outside stage. After they finished, a band called Gayle Gold played inside. We only saw part of their set, though, because we had to set up/prepare some last minute things (Kerstan needed to write some of the lyrics for "Total Eclipse of the Heart" so he wouldn't forget them...only he still did). The guitarist was really good, but that was really the only impression I could get in the short time they played.
Kerstan and I went outside to set up on the stage, get levels and everything set up. It was weird, though, because we didn't have monitors. I could still hear everything, but because the guitar amp wasn't micced, I had no idea about the way the entire mix sounded. I basically had Erin tell me if I was too loud or quiet, but she only gave feedback in between songs...next time, I'd like instant hand gesture feedback. So, we get levels set up and tune the instruments and all. I wound up playing Kerstan's 3/4 scale classical guitar for two of the songs (he wanted an acoustic sound on those) and my pink stratocaster for the remaining 3 that I played on. Once Gayle Gold finished, Kerstan started by playing the songs he'd play alone. Because he plays to a dvd, it's not like I have all the time in the world to get on the stage and set things up before I'm expected to start playing, so I was pretty worried I'd forget something and play with the volume all the way down...or the amp turned off...or something like that.
When the song before I played reached the halfway point, I went up on stage, checked my tuning, turned on the amp and waited. By this point, I wasn't really worried anymore. I'd practiced enough and the songs are fairly easy, so I figured everything would be fine. It was. The nice thing about not miccing the amp was that, because I was so close to it, I could really hear myself sitting on top of the mix, while I don't think I was actually that loud for everyone else. The set finished, and went off without any major problems. It was a bit cold, so I fumbled the stretch for the Eb chord the first time, but it wasn't too bad, I just wound up muting notes. I'd like to play again. Maybe I'll learn some keyboard parts or something, though, because not many of the other songs actually have audible guitar parts.
Oh yeah. We skated a bit Saturday night and I fell and kind of hurt myself. Kerstan said it looked scary, but I thought it looked funny. I wasn't expecting to fall, so it probably was funny -- I didn't really prepare too much. I banged up my left knee and hip a bit. That leg was already kind of sore from (I think) running. Oh well.
I started running again, but I'm still working up to it, I guess. I usually run a mile, then run/walk another...that's as much as I have patience for. I tend to finish those in between 20 and 25 minutes...can't waste much more time than that. I'd like to be in the shape where I can run 6 miles in an hour again, but that just got so boring that I quit doing it.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
I broke free on a saturday morning
First, a correction: Kerstan will not be playing drums. I'm not sure why I said that. He will be playing bass.
The Mountain Goats' show on Saturday night was pretty good. I wasn't too into the opening act...or the part of the Mountain Goats' set where she accompanied them, but I guess I can't dictate what happens at shows....unfortunately.
I've been practicing guitar quite a bit...in hopes that I don't make a fool of myself on Friday. Still not sure which guitar I'm going to play...Kerstan is pulling for his 3/4 scale classical guitar. I'm not terribly fond of it, due to the nylon strings...also, the reduced scale length is a bit hard for my monster fingers =\ I'm kind of torn between my pink Stratocaster and my steel string acoustic guitar. I think the Strat looks nicer and would be way easier (less bulky) to get to the show, but it would definitely require an amplifier (passing it into a mixer directly sounds kind of bad). The acoustic guitar would need some sort of improvised pickup, though. If I were to use it, I'd probably just use an electric guitar pickup as well as a piezo element based pickup...but I need to make a volume/tone circuit for each of those (plus a pre-amp for the piezo, maybe)...and don't know that I have that kind of time. I'll have to look around.
The Mountain Goats' show on Saturday night was pretty good. I wasn't too into the opening act...or the part of the Mountain Goats' set where she accompanied them, but I guess I can't dictate what happens at shows....unfortunately.
I've been practicing guitar quite a bit...in hopes that I don't make a fool of myself on Friday. Still not sure which guitar I'm going to play...Kerstan is pulling for his 3/4 scale classical guitar. I'm not terribly fond of it, due to the nylon strings...also, the reduced scale length is a bit hard for my monster fingers =\ I'm kind of torn between my pink Stratocaster and my steel string acoustic guitar. I think the Strat looks nicer and would be way easier (less bulky) to get to the show, but it would definitely require an amplifier (passing it into a mixer directly sounds kind of bad). The acoustic guitar would need some sort of improvised pickup, though. If I were to use it, I'd probably just use an electric guitar pickup as well as a piezo element based pickup...but I need to make a volume/tone circuit for each of those (plus a pre-amp for the piezo, maybe)...and don't know that I have that kind of time. I'll have to look around.
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