Thread: My First Build - King V style custom

Try a melamine cutting blade in the saw, I reckon they make the smoothest crosscuts, even better than a triple chip 80 tooth. I tried it when I was too lazy to change the blade while making up a window frame. Had been making cabinets the day before, so just did the cross cuts with the melamine blade and it was the smoothest saw cut I'd ever seen.

Originally Posted by Archer

Try a melamine cutting blade in the saw, I reckon they make the smoothest crosscuts, even better than a triple chip 80 tooth. I tried it when I was too lazy to change the blade while making up a window frame. Had been making cabinets the day before, so just did the cross cuts with the melamine blade and it was the smoothest saw cut I'd ever seen.

Cheers for the tip Archer. I am pretty sure the old man will have one of those too.

One of the things which drove me away from lutherie, was the amount of dust generated. In carpentry, it's mostly coarse, and just falls down. However, when you're doing stuff like routing for pickups, fine sanding and so forth - it creates a lot of fine dust that permeates everywhere and tends to get inside you.

This comment applies to معكرونه in terms of jigs, templates and whatnot because I'm going to suggest cutting/drilling/shaving as much out as possible before putting a router near the work.

The other benefit of maximum stock removal by other than routing/sanding, is that because you're routing less thickness, there's far less risk of the bit grabbing and things going pear-shaped... That's sadly an ugly and not-infrequent experience when you're getting used to routing guitars. Generally, the more powerful and heavier the router, the more smooth and stable the cut.

Mustang is a three-speed manual 3.3 litre, and in NSW you don't need to either convert it, change your licence or get historical rego put on it if it's more than 30 years old - this car is 40... Bear in mind that importing it,paying the duty plus GST, fixing the front corner damage and getting rego, will all cost you three times the purchase cost.

Just think how much guitar/amp gear you could buy for that money!

Cheers, Adam.

if the mustang will cost 7500 altogether then i'll just wait til i get full licence.
im saving up for a tube amp right now anyway, thanks addo.

My last resto job as a Panel Beater was on a 64 mustang.
The same car got used in Tassie on the odd targa rally too.
Great classics they were/are.
They are commanding a high price for really well restored ones

mmmm
you much better spending your $$ on a decent tube amp than a fuel guzzling monster that will be a shed decoration in a few years

guess you could always turn it into a bar

ye the marshall mg i got isnt doin my guitar any justice

Eww, transistor amps do suck (in general), but we all have to start somewhere, and I doubt a single person here who owns a valve amp could deny ever owning a transistor amp at some stage.

I have a JCM2000 TSL. It's a great amp with plenty of features. It's certainly not the best amp around, but it still satisfies, and fit in my budget at the time. If I had the cash I'd go for a high end Mesa or Laney, but that's unnecessary for me in my current situation, and would only be indulgence.

Orange also make some really good amps, but IMO, they are definately overpriced (same with Mesa, to a lesser degree), and they are more suited to a 'british' style sound.

There are a lot of factors to consider with amps these days, especially if you are young and saving for your first stack (like I was not so long ago). If you really want a stack for gigging, fair enough, but don't avoid combo's just because stacks look cool and are bigger. Laney used to make (and faik still do) a VC30 (Valve Chorus I think it was) 30 watt combo that could easily hold its own against a 100w transistor onstage at your average pub type gig. It's also a fantastic sounding amp. When I played (c1998), it was about $700 from memory, which might seem a lot, but easily the equivilent of a 100watt Randall for example (which for the money, some Randall's are not bad either).

I am not particularly technical, or even have a broad experience of different amps, but if you want advice, I know there is collectively probably 100 years of knowledge here amongt the forum folks.

Good luck with the saving. It's very exciting getting your first valve amp!

thanks hammered, im looking at the laney vc and lc range. interested in the vc30 and the lc30, many say the lc is more suitable for metal, which is what i mainly play but alot of people prefer the vc's over the lc's so i might go and try them out some time in the holidays.

Originally Posted by macaroni

thanks hammered, im looking at the laney vc and lc range. interested in the vc30 and the lc30, many say the lc is more suitable for metal, which is what i mainly play but alot of people prefer the vc's over the lc's so i might go and try them out some time in the holidays.

5150's are nice

ye i wish man, 5150's are way outta my budget and their hard to find in aus, to ship it over from the US would cost half of what i paid for the actual amp.

anyway, UPDATE

scarf joint finished off with the router and jig i made, very good result.


scarf joint glued


router on rails


and a face on the wood i bought, freaks me out everytime i look at it

the trend these days is small amps - a 30 watt combo is more than you will ever need - in fact in many venues a 30 watter cooking well will have the sound guy tearing his hair out. i know with many young bands its not cool unless you have at least a half stack and you will be really wanting twin quaddies. the reality is that you will never get these amps any where near driving hard. if you do your vocalist will always be buried at the bottom of the mix and the drummer will be going psycho to get heard. your band will become a "zone of death" for open ears

I see a lot of young bands rehearsing and they drag in the marshall stacks until you couldnt get a f@art in the room. then they all plug up there ears nice and tight with earplugs so they lose all the tone in the ear and crank it till they are blowing the roof off. ??? dont understand it really.

We used the big amps before we had big pa systems so the guitars and bass could be heard across a big room or outside. these days when i play i find a big heap of subs under the stage, at least a kilowatt onstage and maybe 3 or 4 KW out front. even with that amount of power a 40 watter can cut right through it. even a 6 watt class a tube amp is enough. just dime it and there's your sound. put a 57 in front and the pa will do the rest

many players are using sub 20 watters - the sale of 1950's 6 - 15 watt clones is skyrocketing - with that amount of power you can crank the amp and get some real natural tube distortion which sounds so sweet compared to the sound of a thousand buzzing flies you get out of many amps that artificially drive the preamp to get "overdrive"

i remember a few years ago seeing troy cassardaly walk out onstage at a big festival with a little fender pro junior in one hand and a beat up old tele in the other, man what a tone that guy had - troy is a great player and really knows how to get a top sound. it was deafeningly loud through the 8KW pa [we had 3KW onstage with a separate crew doing the onstage sound - i rember the other guitarists laughin at cassardaly's amp until he opened up - we had just been on and cassardaly laughed at me struggling across the stage with the devill 4x10, guitar and pedal board i was using.

tone is in you fingers, pickups, tubes and speaker - the smaller the size of the amp the closer you can get to maxing it out and that is where the great tone is between 75% and 100%

with you 50 watt to 100 watt stack you will be damaging your ears or other peoples

i am onto a line of handwired low powered tube amps pm me if intrested
if nothing else you can get an amp you can crank at home and the cops wont hear it - promise

ye im not into stacks, a small combo loud enough to play at a small gig would be good enough for me. i mainly practice at home or jam with the band, the gigging option is for the future.

and i personally dont like things too loud, loud is good but dont like it when u can barely hear the music and only the fuzz.

im interested in the handwired amps u got. how much for a 15 or 30 watter?

15 watter [5e3] is around the 750.00 mark [chassis only]
25 watter [5e3] is the same price plus freight from here to sydney
byo cabinet and speaker

ur into woodwork so a nice cab will be a intresting lil snack for you
i recomend a lorantz 50 watt 12" to go nice with that one - i can arrange one of those if you dont have a outlet in sydney [around 175.00]

heres mine






crank it and ur in heaven