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Thunderbird Club

#86,845
Chucky Stiletti said:
Would probably handle better since the engine would now be mid instead of rear mounted?...
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Actually, if the only change was dropping the corvette engine in the bug it would probably handle worse. Wayyy too much HP for the brakes which would require extreme care going into a corner since you'd probably cook the brakes off before completing the first lap. Then the excessive V8 weight at a higher center of gravity than the bug flat four wouldn't help the suspension and skinny tire set up any. And the small tire contact area with the high HP V8 would also make it difficult to get useable traction off the line or coming out of a corner. Yep, 5 laps around a Laguna Seca type road course might end up with the stock bug driver finishing first and the modified bug driver hauled off to the hospital. But it would be fun to watch!
 
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#86,846
GBassNorth said:
Actually, if the only change was dropping the corvette engine in the bug it would probably handle worse. Wayyy too much HP for the brakes which would require extreme care going into a corner since you'd probably cook the brakes off before completing the first lap. Then the excessive V8 weight at a higher center of gravity than the bug flat four wouldn't help the suspension and skinny tire set up any. And the small tire contact area with the high HP V8 would also make it difficult to get useable traction off the line or coming out of a corner. Yep, 5 laps around a Laguna Seca type road course might end up with the stock bug driver finishing first and the modified bug driver hauled off to the hospital. But it would be fun to watch!
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but we're talking about a Corvair..
 
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#86,847
Photobucket phollies.........

This was a long time ago!
5_birds-1.jpg
 
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#86,848
Count Bassie said:
Q: I have a nice plank of Padauk. It's heavy, don't want to use a lot in a bass build, but I like its density. I've also got some Big Leaf Maple I want to use for a top.
Would you be inclined to take a thin slab of Padauk and use it in the interior (lamination) of a bolt on body? Normally I see a softer wood on the inside of a bass sammich...

Just looking for a little conventional wisdom. Thanks for your time...
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Unless it's flamey or something, I wouldn't use bigleaf maple for much of anything. I don't like it for a number of reasons. There's some really great iridescence you can get from eastern rock maple that you won't get from western bigleaf as often.

I'm not sure what paduk looks like or what it is like to work with, so I have less opinion about that. I would think it's probably a better veneer or fingerboard material than inside lamination, but that's just SWAGing.
 
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#86,854
Count Bassie said:
Q: I have a nice plank of Padauk. It's heavy, don't want to use a lot in a bass build, but I like its density. I've also got some Big Leaf Maple I want to use for a top.
Would you be inclined to take a thin slab of Padauk and use it in the interior (lamination) of a bolt on body? Normally I see a softer wood on the inside of a bass sammich...

Just looking for a little conventional wisdom. Thanks for your time...
Click to expand...
There's no one a greater believer than me on the effect of timbers on the tone of a guitar but also I know that that effect is so small it's negligible compared to say swapping a TB+ for a Chinabucker. If you have a nice design for its use then use it, if not use something lighter. It's my belief that softer, lighter woods will kill vibrations transmitted to it via the bridge faster than a dense harder wood and a lamination of hard/softer wood will kill them even faster (that bit I know to be true). So the point of that was that a body that doesn't vibrate won't transfer any feedback of its own back into the strings so the pure sound of the strings is what is picked up not a coloured version. Which is better like all things is in your own preferences
 
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#86,857
Christine said:
There's no one a greater believer than me on the effect of timbers on the tone of a guitar but also I know that that effect is so small it's negligible compared to say swapping a TB+ for a Chinabucker. If you have a nice design for its use then use it, if not use something lighter. It's my belief that softer, lighter woods will kill vibrations transmitted to it via the bridge faster than a dense harder wood and a lamination of hard/softer wood will kill them even faster (that bit I know to be true). So the point of that was that a body that doesn't vibrate won't transfer any feedback of its own back into the strings so the pure sound of the strings is what is picked up not a coloured version. Which is better like all things is in your own preferences
Click to expand...
I have a Squier Bullet that I got in pieces some time ago. It's about a 1985 and is either Japanese or Korean. I don't know which. It's about the size of a Les Paul, and looks like the illegitimate offspring of a Telecaster and ES137. The body is a stack of luan (cheap, Philippine mahogany) veneers, glued together. It's ungodly heavy. It will sustain for a month if you let it. Luan is not dense wood. I assume the weight is partly glue, partly because the body is thick. I put different pickups in it, Alumitones, of course, and it sounds far better than it has any right to, since it was a guitar that I got as a bunch of parts in baggies and a garbage bag. It is now the Zombiecaster.
 
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#86,858
Gaolee said:
Unless it's flamey or something, I wouldn't use bigleaf maple for much of anything. I don't like it for a number of reasons. There's some really great iridescence you can get from eastern rock maple that you won't get from western bigleaf as often.

I'm not sure what paduk looks like or what it is like to work with, so I have less opinion about that. I would think it's probably a better veneer or fingerboard material than inside lamination, but that's just SWAGing.
Click to expand...
The Maple is highly figured, and with a nice dye and some catalized poly I'm thinking it might be pretty cool. The Padauk is very hard and dense, gonna cost a blade or two, maybe. Also heavy as bricks.
 
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#86,859
Count Bassie said:
The Maple is highly figured, and with a nice dye and some catalized poly I'm thinking it might be pretty cool. The Padauk is very hard and dense, gonna cost a blade or two, maybe. Also heavy as bricks.
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It sounds like the maple you have is great stuff. Paduk sounds like it would be outstanding fingerboard material.
 
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#86,860
Gaolee said:
I have a Squier Bullet that I got in pieces some time ago. It's about a 1985 and is either Japanese or Korean. I don't know which. It's about the size of a Les Paul, and looks like the illegitimate offspring of a Telecaster and ES137. The body is a stack of luan (cheap, Philippine mahogany) veneers, glued together. It's ungodly heavy. It will sustain for a month if you let it. Luan is not dense wood. I assume the weight is partly glue, partly because the body is thick. I put different pickups in it, Alumitones, of course, and it sounds far better than it has any right to, since it was a guitar that I got as a bunch of parts in baggies and a garbage bag. It is now the Zombiecaster.
Click to expand...
The body is killing the vibrations as it it laminated (plywood) so the strings can vibrate at will. Veneers glued up as a ply have nearly all their pores filled with glue so yes, much of the weight will be glue
 
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