u/Queernephy

So I only use the bridge pickup, this mod would basically be disconnecting the neck pickup, I'm fine with that I don't use it.

I know that in the default position the bridge needs to form a circuit and in depressed position the circuit needs to go to ground to prevent noise.

However do I also need to ground the body of the switch? How would I go about this? I cant solder onto it cus the nut needs to thread on, should I solder to a washer or something between the nut and the wood of the cabity? (The cavities in the guitar are unshielded if this is relevant at all)

For the depressed position when it grounds do I want the bridge pickup live to go to ground or do I want the neutral to go to ground?

Do I ground the disused neck pickup live or do I just tape off the end and leave it disconnected?

I can sus out what to connect where by trial and error but if anybody knows which of the pins pictured above I solder the bridge live, neutral and ground to that'd make this whole thing much easier.

Cheers in advance all.

(Reposting with pictures because I'm a dumbass 🤣🤣🤣 mods: sorry for the double post xx)

Next 3 paragraphs are background, you can probably skip them if you dont care about the history of a cheap bass 🤣.

So recently my brother aquired this epiphone thunderbird bass at a renovation job for a family friend. It'd been abandoned in a garage for years burried under some rubbish and the owner told him he could take it as he was just planning on throwing it out.

I recently borrowed the bass to do some recording and noticed it splitting on the bottom of the raised section on both the front and back. The bass hasnt been dropped or anything so I assumed it might have been string tension pulling it down (i only noticed the front at first) since id been tuning it up to drop D and my brother usually used it for playing tuned down a few steps. Brother hadn't noticed it before loaning it to me, and I didnt notice it for the first week or so so its probably new. Might be it getting used to being in a less damp and humid enviroment because loosening the strings didnt show any signs of making it better so its probably not string tension. Its spent its entire time in my posession hung up on a wall or resting against my desk between takes so I dont think its anything thats actively happened to it if that makes sense?

I've told brother I can try and fix it for him as he doesnt want to spend money getting it properly repaired and he's said go ahead since he just sorta happened on it and doesnt have any real attachment to it. He only really played it because hed cut the G on his usual bass a little short when restringing with new black strings and didnt wanna downtune incase it came off.

/background

So!

Long time maker/tinkerer/etc but I've never done an extensive repair on a guitar so please be patient if I'm still pretty unknowladgable

Due to the very straight and clean nature of the break I'm assuming the raised plates are glued on and not part of the wood of the body.

I have concerns about how far into this crack im going to be able to get glue, as well as my ability to clamp the length of the body.

I know its not really best for working on guitars since hide glue is reversable and they're not but I basically only have access to CA and wood glue.

Do you think itd be worthwhile thinning down wood glue and injecting into the thin portions of the crack to provide *some* bond and glue the wider gap with undiluted wood glue then clamp everything the best I can? This wouldnt be pretty but it feels like the easiest job and the one that requires least dissassembly since I dont think id need to do more than take the strings and maybe the bridge off (if the bridge bushings/threaded inserts were contributing to the raise or stopping it pushing back in place). This will also probably preserve most of the finish as itd just leave the cracks that are currently there and i could probably even go down the cracks and fill them in with something clear then buff/polish it all down. The downside is that idk how well diluted wood glue would bond, how deep it would penetrate, nor what that level of moisture would do.

I suppose the only alternative would be to completely dissassemble the bass down to just the body, call the finish entirely unsalvagable (cus itd probably chip) and slowly pry the front raised section off entirely, clean and reglue the entire thing properly. It'd result in the chipped finish going round the entire raised plate but it'd ensure the thing was glued down fully at the very least. Could always strip the paint for my brother and get my sister to paint it like shes doing with my old strat.

For thr back it seems to just be a light crack in the finish atm, i was thinking of injecting some super thin CA into the crack to try and fill the gap a little and hold things together if I go with option 1. May do something more involved if I do option 2.

In terms of tools I have a standard DIY setup, drill, jig saw, orbital sander, etc. and a lot of modelmaking tools, dremel etc.

I'd love any and all feedback on my outlines here, what youd do if you were me etc. However please don't just come here going "throw it out and dont bother" thats fair if its what you'd do but if this is getting thrown out itll be after a good old college try!

Cheers in advance all

So I'm working on an old project from years ago.

Basically stripping an old squier strat for a repaint and wiring it up with a single splitting humbucker.

Originally I was planning on having the whole thing custom painted by my sister with colourful clear/translucent base coat and opaque art ontop of that (she did a guitar like this when I was younger and I loved that thing) however after seeing the mostly stripped strat body with the dark pic guard I'm considering coating the whole thing with white opaque primer and having her paint sections of that instead as I think the light coloured base coat will contrast nicely and I'm a sucker for a white guirar.

I'm operating under the assumption that the paint is going to wear off in spots over time as I don't wanna spend a lot of money having it professionally laquered so ill just be spraying it with clear coat when we're done painting, I may go as far as getting a 2K clear coat but thats tbd. This expectation also slightly influenced why I chose a white base coat as I think that wood showing through the edges and high spots on a white guitar is just a really nice look and without proper laquering some wear will be inevitable anyway so I might as well make sure it looks good when it happens.

So anyway my question is:

If the wood will eventually start to show should I do some kind of finish/varnish on the wood before i start the paint to ensure what shows through in the future isnt just bare untreated wood?

Cheers in advance x.

So yeah about 15 years ago I took apart my cheap squier strat to strip the paint and get a cool custom paint job by my sister. She'd recently done a family friends fender strat and I was really keen to get similar.

School/college/life got in the way and I only got the body half stripped.

Recently I've been getting back into guitar alot and thought Itd be fun to finish it up so I fished the body out of the box I knew it was in. However the neck wasnt there.

I'm maybe 40% sure it'll turn up in the loft of the family home but the loft is packed and near impossible to navigate so getting it out of there wont be happening any time soon.

I wanna keep plucking away at this project so I'm considering buying another neck to tide me over until I can find the original one.

This wasnt a fancy squier or anything it was basically the cheapest of the cheap back then and I believe it was second hand.

Should I try and find another standard squier neck or should I just get a cheap unbranded neck online to tide me over?

Are there any necks I should avoid like the plague?

Heres a wee pic of the guitar atm. I put the bridge back on so I could align the new pic guard properly. The final plan is to either paint the body in a thin coat of white primer and get my sister to paint some stuff on it for me before I seal it, or Ill be giving her the bare guitar and letting her paint the whole thing in blue purple and green (like peacock feather colours) with some designs on there. Atm I'm leaning towards white cus I think itd contrast the pic guard nicely and I can imagine the paint wearing off nicely over time since itll be a consistent and smooth base coat not a hand painted one with all the brush variance that entails. The single humbucker will either go to a push pull tone pot for splitting, or to a rotary switch with one position being whole bucker, one regular split, and the rest various capacitor values to provide different kinds of sound (if you search "smart coil splitting" on youtube a guy did a cool video on this that kinda sold me on the idea), the volume will be a kill pot because who doesnt love tapping things and pretending theyre tom morello 🤣

Cheers all.

This is my first time doing something like this to a guitar so it's a steep learning curve but its been a fun one to pick up again.

Pic 1, nice and clean, Y sticker intact, all the bits there just a bit of duct tape holding the switch in the tone position

Pic 2, Y sticker starting to look a little worse for wear, all the bits are still there, same duct tape holding the switch down.

Pic 3, starting to show dings, switch seems to have had the tip removed and been re-taped with electrical or gaffers tape.

Pic 4, starting to yellow a bit more Y sticker is very peeling quite a bit, pic guard is gone and again the switch has the tip removed and is taped up.

Pic 5, same as above only now its lost a volume knob too 🤣

But frank still has the guitar and in the most recent pics I've seen that I now cant find its looking good, no missing knobs and the switch is back, likely due to franks guitar bits being a lot more varied these days than in the early MCR days, though I'm partial to leaving my guitar in trebel myself so I get it.

Hoenstly my wee queer heart feels some sorta ways about revenge era frank 😅 i think he was my first major guy crush, not just cus hes pretty but cus he has that sorta wild explosive energy on stage that i feel can only come from someone having a real fucking ball.

I know "who even has a CD player these days" but a handfull of creative projects have converged together including my friend having a printer that prints directly onto CDs that they wanna try out so I thought I'd go old school and maybe try my hand at making a handfull of physical EPs to get printed on and such sorta to give her an opportunity to try it out and to give me a wee side project to throw my energy at for a wee bit.

Saw these blank CDs but honestly I'm not super in the loop of making physical media anymore and dont know if some CD blanks will be more for file back up/storage vs music playback.

Seller says theyre good for making audio CDs but thought I'd ask some more knowladgable folks first incase there's a better option out there. At £15 for 100 these seem pretty well priced but idk if thats actually a good price as my blank CD buying experience remembers when my dad was paying £15 for 25 when we were making my brother's band's CDs back in 2013 or so.

Anyway thanks in advance all, this is probably a silly question but im a belts and braces kinda person and dont like to buy new things im not savvy in withput asking some folks who are likely a lot more knowladgable than I am.

Needs to be white, side opening or with the sorta C shaped front opening pictured and sturdy enough to be dragged on smooth concrete, industrial rental carpet, and over those plastic wire covers they use to get power across the isle in conventions.

Was considering this one pictured cus its cheap but unsure if something like this will actually be able to be dragged along a floor all day without shredding/breaking up.

I really dont want "can you drag a polyethelene body bag about all day without it ripping" in my search history and I'm skeptical of wether or not I'd get a useful result 🤣

Despite lots of searches on various marketplaces I'm struggling to actually find something that looks correct.

Probably gonna get one square frame and display the bandannas folded in half diagonally, one on one corner, one on the other, then might put my frank guitar pic and some other small accessories in there like my boxpark wristband and mask maybe (if it doesnt take away from the overall look)

Im kinda worried about the prints on the bandannas sticking to the plexiglass of the frame.

The bandannas are printed with a sorta plastisol ink and some of the print has gotten a little messed up from being stored folded on themselves (pictures 2-3 above)

Has anybody tried something like this? If so what was the result did you have any iddues like these that I'm worrying about? Have you framed other items that have that kinda plastic print on them?

Cheers in advance.

While I have many skills, colour matching is not one of them. Im aware that the mask I have is deffo a little paler than the on screen poison mask but I'm struggling to figure out which yellow paint will make a better match.

Trying to compare to the palest part of the mask as the rest will be darkened by weathering.

Some of these are definetely too-orange or too-pale but struggling to make an actual call on which matches the original mask best.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Different sizes, different qualities. Etc.

I mean it makes sense but would have assumed this to be a bit like those sound boards from toy laser guns, everyone just sorta works to the same standard domino mask produced overseas.

That last one isnt a joke btw. They had normal photos of the same kind as the others and thats what arrived in the post 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ gonna cut it up to make the appliqué parts for Gerard's mask.

Its far from perfect but it deffo works nicely.

At some point I'll likely buy some veg tan leather and pattern a more screen accurate harness design off of this one.

The screen used harnesses are a uniform thickness all the way around the shoulder, the fronts are stitched together instead of laced and since they were custom fit to the guys the back just features the four holes for lacing with no extea holes for adjustment, this makes them look sleeker snd nicer overall in my opinion.

The screen used harnesses also lack the rivet and belt holes for the cross body strap. Since they're all double sided harnesses joined at the back by the lacing that closes each shoulder loop, they dont need the cross body strap to prevent them slipping off.

I keep mine from falling off with the epaulettes I made for the jacket and a few strategic chicago screws that go through the harness and into the jacket, one at the top of the shoulder under the epaulette, one at the back of the shoulder where the rivet hole already existed for the cross body strap, two that come from the holster, pass through the harness and then the jacket, and one at the bottom of the holster that holds on the leg strap when the holster is configured as a drop leg, that one just goes through the jacket.

The first two are to stop the harness from slipping on my shoulder, and the last three to hold the holster down in the correct orientation so I can take out the raygun without the holster coming with it.

I think the drop leg holster looks prettier quality/assembly wise, but I think this looks better on the jacket. If I ever rock the killjoy look at an event thats too hot for the jacket I'll swap back to dropleg configuration (by event I mean convention of post apoc festival, not gig, wouldnt risk the raygun at a gig even if it is clearly a prop.

Had to extend it a little with some spare leather laced underneath as the jacket has big arm holes but now that's done and the raygun holster is attached to the harness I'm immensely pleased.

Shoulder holster looks a lot better with the jacket than the leg holster did since it's fairly long for a denim jacket and it was covering the raygun a bit when I wore the leg holster. I've also put some of the various chicago screws that hold the holster together through the jacket so the holster is held down and doesnt flap around or lift with the raygun when I draw it.

This is far from screen accurate but for a custom costume I think it still fits the vibes and aestetics nicely and now that I've got the size more or less perfect I can use this to pattern a custom one in the future that I can make more accurate to the ones worn on screen if the mood takes me. In the short term I'll probably get some more of this style of black leather and make a matching right side at the bare minimum as all of the shoulder hoslters in the videos are double armed and connected across the back with the cordage that laces them up.

I have a vague memory of it being posted on the mcr website forum that Gee had lost the poison mask and they were asking fans if they had one he could use? Just saw a pic of Gee wearing a different mask and had a vague flashback to someone (maybe frank?) Posting saying Gee's mask had gone missing and did any fans have one they could get to the band at a show.

Anybody else remember this or have I just started manufacturing fake memories in my old age?

The sight has been bothering me from the start. Ive been really unsure about how I was gonna make it work but I think I've nailed the shape.

Honestly abandoning my initial method for making the slide move has been a godsend as its allowed me to tighten up the area around the sight and where the slide interacts with it.

I think the end result will come with a choice. Either I can fit lights and sounds in the raygun or I can engineer a working slide mechanism. I likely cant do both as the best way to make the slide work is to fit the springs and rails in where I made room for the batteries ontop of the barrel/frame. Once ive got casts made up ill experiment with a slide mechanism and a stationary slide mount that leaves room for a battery pack.

In all honesty with how much I've lowered the slide batteries might not fit anymore.

Have a few with smaller head ones on the way that I may use instead but these work at the moment. Once I have the smaller ones in I'll decide if they need the smaller heads or not.

These aren't as clean as the others, doing three was a small job, doing the rest of my MCR CDs is less so and I was starting to lose the light so theyre a little rushed.

The darker disks are also just plain harder to photograph as they bounce the light weird.

Havent bothered with the album covers and such as they're widely available for these unlike the new stuff.

These would be a lot better if I had a scanner, I could get nice flat scans of the disks and all the booklets and such but this will have to do for now.

This concludes all my MCR albums with the exception of the main version of DD15 (fun ghoul and jet star disks) as I have no intention of opening those up to photograph.

I may do vinyls and singles in the future if the mood takes me.

These aren't as clean as the others, doing three was a small job, doing the rest of my MCR CDs is less so and I was starting to lose the light so theyre a little rushed.

Havent bothered with the album covers and such as they're widely available for these unlike the new stuff.

These would be a lot better if I had a scanner, I could get nice flat scans of the disks and all the booklets and such but this will have to do for now.

Album covers pulled from website listings.

Photographed the disks and removed the backgrounds in photoshop myself.

Since I've got various versions I thought I'd make up a wee asset pack for both of these for anybody ripping their CDs onto their computers.

For my deluxe edition alt cover that I just ripped as a FLAC to my home PC (i listen to my music via home server) I've got the main folder as the album cover, then folders for disk 1 and disk 2 set up as the pictures of each disk so everything is clear and distinct at a glance.

There's two pictures of each disk as I'd exported once at 100% and once at 50% for converting to an icon file. Idk which is which as uploading photos on here doesnt list file names so posting both incase one looks worse after being fed through reddit as I dont know what compression is going to do to these.

Sadly I cant post the .icon files but theyre straight forward to make with a file converter.

​

Just applied some watered down black paint, butned it a little (more just soot from the flame more than actual burns), scarred the cheek with a hot scalpel and took some of the paint down with a bit of sand paper. Im honestly pretty happy with this