ThunderTwins!

[ctmullins]

Small headstock. Lightweight tuners. Strap pin placement. Suede-backed strap. Faith.

[reverendrally]

Found this verse the other day...

"James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he [Jesus] gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder)" Mark*3:17

So tell me, which one is James and which one is John?

[ctmullins]

Interesting. James and John were among the first of the disciples mentioned in the Bible, and were noted for their fiery dispositions (hence "Sons of Thunder"). Their mother Salome was sister to Mary, mother of Jesus, making them first cousins.

Saint James is the patron saint of Spain, as legend holds him as the first to preach in Iberia. He is the only apostle whose martyrdom is mentioned in the Gospels, suggesting he was the first to die for his faith, his head sliced off by Herod Agrippa. His emblem is the scallop shell.

His brother John, by contrast, is believed to have been the only apostle not martyred (excepting the treasonous Judas), giving him time to write his ethereal and introspective Gospel, as well as his three Epistles and that favorite of metalheads everywhere, the fantastical collection of world-ending imagery known as the Book of Revelation.

The both of them, along with Simon Peter, are said to have appeared in resurrected form to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, making them an integral part of the Mormon faith.

As to which is which, hmmm.... Perhaps I should make one of them headless, with a scalloped fretboard?

[reverendrally]

lol. and I thought I read too much into things!

[ctmullins]

Five-string neck fretted, beveled, and side-dotted.

[Showdown]

Originally Posted by ctmullins

Five-string neck fretted, beveled, and side-dotted.

That is nice.

[ctmullins]

Thanks, Showdown!


I had an epiphany last night, as I was drifting off to sleep. It wasn't a huge epiphany, but it is, I believe, a neat solution to a problem I had been pondering.

On my last eight-string I used four bass tuners and four guitar tuners. That meant I had to drill two differently-sized holes, located different distances from the edge of the headstock. I was planning on doing the same thing for this build too, but instead of using Gotoh and Grover tuners as on my last build, I had planned to dip into my stash of Schaller M4 and M6 tuners.

The M6 tuners are the nylon-bodied variety - I picked them up a while ago for a good price, and was going to use them on my LPDC, but I went with Hipshot tuners instead for that build. So I thought these nylon-bodied M6s would be good lightweight candidates for the eight.



But they're smaller in every dimension than the M4s, which was bugging me. They would have had to be mounted a good deal closer to the edge of the headstock than the M4s, and they are happiest with a headstock that is significantly thinner than what the M4 can take. And I wasn't entirely sure of their ability to stand up to the higher tensions of bass strings. What to do? I could use a bevy of eight M4s, but I like the staggered look of alternating bass and guitar tuners on most eight-strings. Hmmm....

Then, last night, as I was approaching dreamland, I remembered reading somewhere that the shaft design of the M4 and M6 are the same, so that the same buttons will fit either. Bingo! It's so obvious now! Transplant four of the M6 buttons onto the M4 bodies!



This neatly solves all of my problems - a robust M4 body with a smaller M6 button! Now I can break out the drill with confidence!

The only problem with this approach is that I'm left with four of these little freaks:

[Showdown]

Great idea.

[Dadagoboi]

Nice trick with the Schallers!

I bought a used Warmoth 8 string neck for my REV82. The headstock is huge to fit 8 GB7s. I like the compactness of my Robelli 8er so I copped the layout


Filled, drilled and veneered. Headstock yet to be shaped and neck shaved. Couldn't resist, threw it together and have been playing around with string gauges for a while. Honduras mahogany body. 1967 ThunderBird pickup.

[ctmullins]

Originally Posted by Dadagoboi

Holy cow, that's awesome! Didn't know you had done a REV82. I've been reading fantastic things about your REV52. What's the scale length of the Warmoth neck - 34"? What strings do you like the most on it?

I may have to come and visit your shop some time....

[Dadagoboi]

Originally Posted by ctmullins

Holy cow, that's awesome! Didn't know you had done a REV82. I've been reading fantastic things about your REV52. What's the scale length of the Warmoth neck - 34"? What strings do you like the most on it?

I may have to come and visit your shop some time....

Thanks! I'm really digging what you're doing on these builds.

The Warmoth neck is 34"...what I don't like about it:
Like every other Warmoth neck it's overbuilt and too heavy. The neck shaft profile is huge, they call it "fatback" and it is. The TR adjustment is at the heel which makes it very difficult to adjust, especially since they use a single slot nut (not phillips or allen) that's near impossible to get at due to the extended fretboard.

What For the next one I'll use a Warmoth 4 banger angled paddle head. I'm sure it will take the tension of 8 strings, has the adjustment at the headstock, and for an 8er is relatively light. Debating graphite rods or the standard steel. I'm a gambler so it will probably be steel.

Right now I'm using .045/.065/.085/.105, for the lows and .017/.028/.042/.052 for the highs. I like the bottom from the .045-.105 set compared to .040- .090. Action is .08 at the 12th fret and chords sound phenomenal.

I live near Gainesville, FL. You're welcome to visit. Contact me thru my site or PM me here.

[ps10black]

Hats off to you its looking great I really need to get back to mine and stop making MDF Guitars

Lee

[ctmullins]

Lol Lee! And I really need to go have a listen to your MDF sound clips!

Thanks for the props, guys. I'm still undecided about the electronics for the eight. Pretty sure it won't be the Dark Star (want to keep the other eight intact, I think), but I keep going back and forth between one pickup or two. I have the Basslines SSB; I also have a Delano soapbar in the same size, and now I'm considering using a SGD, due to their excellent reviews. And I also can't decide what preamp to use, or even whether to just go passive.... Aaaargh!

Edit: Pulled the trigger on the SGD - a Sidewinder from the TB Classifieds. So that's officially a contender now. Actually, I'd say it's the front-runner. But since the shells are the same size, I might just try all of them, and let my ears decide...

[ctmullins]

The eight is now fretted, beveled, and side-dotted.

I've grown fond of using a combination of 2mm and 3mm paua abalone dots (from LMII) for my side dots. I use the larger 3mm for the lower octave, and the smaller 2mm for the upper octave, with a combination at the twelfth fret. I use nice, sharp bits of just the right size, and then tap in the dots with a scrap block of hard maple and a hammer; they're a friction fit.

The only problem with paua is that its reflectivity can be directional, and it's sometimes hard to orient the dot so that it reflects well back in the direction of the player. You can see that with the center dot at the twelfth fret here:



I may have to drill it out and insert another one.

[ctmullins]

Had some time to work on these yesterday and today. I did the little detail sculpting around the headstock, a defining characteristic of the original. I looked at lots of photos online, and it looks to me like Gibson used a straight bit to route a square ledge (or maybe it's actually an overlay), whereas Epiphones are done at a 45-degree angle. I chose the latter. I was originally going to fire up the Dremel and use that, but it turned out to be more trouble and risk than it was worth. So I did it carefully by hand.



Also started rough neck shaping. Boy, are my arms tired! Here's the idea behind the neck heel on the eight - since it's a neck-through, I can pretty much shape it however I like. So I'm making it asymmetrical, and fairly long, so that I can mount a strap button way out there to help avoid neck dive.



The five won't be quite as dramatic, since it has a more compact headstock with fewer tuners, and because it's a set-neck.

[ctmullins]

You know what happens when you spend too much time doing Internet research, and then heading to eBay "just to see what's out there"?

It's a RayBird!



I got to reading about Entwhistle's FenderBirds, and I thought to myself "Self, that's pretty dang cool." So I did some more Googling, and found a few other folks' FenderBird builds.

And I always kinda liked the look of a lefty Fender neck on a righty instrument, with the tuners all upside-down and everything.

And, well, I had this cool old BadAss bridge lying around, and an Artec mudbucker that wasn't doing anything.

Next thing I know, I was the high bidder (for a low price) on a lefty StingRay copy neck!

I wasn't quite happy with using the ash/korina/alder body for the five-string anyway, so this seemed like a good match. I'll put another body together for the fiver, probably walnut back/flame maple top.

I'll put the mudbucker near the bridge, and maybe a soapbar next to it, and an on/off/on switch. And that, as they say, will be that.

[ctmullins]

Like this:



I know that I don't like bass pickups right up next to the bridge. That configuration tends to lose too much low frequency content, IMHO.

But I've always kinda wondered why people took the bassiest pickup known to man, and chose to place it at the bassiest possible position on the instrument. And vice versa. Doesn't it make sense to place a pickup with lots of low frequencies fairly close to the bridge, and place a pickup with lots of treble further away from the bridge?

Does anybody else agree with me?

[reverendrally]

If I were you, I'd at least test both PUs in position before going and routing the holes in your pristine body (bass body that is, hehe).

[ctmullins]

That's a good point, rev - I can actually do that pretty easily.

Another factor in my logic here is replacement pickup availability. There's lots to choose from in the EMG 35 shape. And there are several mudbucker replacements too - Curtis Novak alone has three variants, one of which is a BiSonic clone.

But yeah, I'll rig up a test jig soon!

[Dadagoboi]

Originally Posted by ctmullins

That's a good point, rev - I can actually do that pretty easily.


But yeah, I'll rig up a test jig soon!

I find the pickup position I want before routing like this; pup screwed to blocks, big block clamped to body: