Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 25, 2015 at 2:12am

OMG! Don't be giving me ideas. Maybe a variation on a Vibrato lever..............oooooooooh

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on April 25, 2015 at 4:11am

Now if you got hold of some threaded stud,mounted a hand wheel on the end sticking out of the tail end of the guitar, a captive nut in your pick up mount,a pivot above the nut,lever out of the side of the box,hey presto !!

SORRY!!!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 25, 2015 at 6:40am

I like it, Fred. Make it a steam-punk setup. Your idea would work, you know.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Skeesix on April 25, 2015 at 4:19am

Seems to me you could just use hot melt glue to stick the pickup to the lid (assuming you knew which position you wanted it in beforehand).

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 25, 2015 at 6:38am

Why take the simple solution when you can Rube Goldberg it..............

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 25, 2015 at 11:04am

Assembler? Haven't heart that term since 1985. Do you think I could use a short un-compiled line of code instead?

On the other hand, maybe I should crawl back under my rock.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on April 26, 2015 at 4:46am

This is totally awesome! Opens up a whole new world of cool. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 26, 2015 at 8:24am

I think you hit on a show-stopper idea. Let everyone see your little homemade guitar and think it's cute, then fire up the amp, put in some distortion and blow them away. I love the idea!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 28, 2015 at 2:40pm

It's Alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got the mag-in-the-box guitar put together this afternoon. It's a slider. Those fret looking things are actually pieces of small diameter piano wire flush mounted on the fret board. Provides easy to see fret marks and the hardness of the piano wire does provide a bit more sustain when I finger a string. The tapered neck is something I just wanted to try. I like the feel of it.

I'm still fiddling around with the action height. I have a lot of different diameters of piano wire and have tried several different sizes in the zero fret.

Now that it's assembled, I can do some comparisons of pickup volume between it and my regular player with the same pickup. Initially, I think that the mag-in-the-box is about 15~20% less loud than the regular player. This is based on where I have to set the volume knob to get the same sound from both.

I put the pickup 3 1/2" from the bridge, but think it will sound warmer around the 4" mark.

While there is still a lot of sorting out to do, I'm pretty pleased so far. The volume is totally acceptable as is. I may try the metal plate suggestion to see if it actually adds volume.

This one should keep me off the streets and busy for many weeks to come.

Thanks for all the suggestions posted in response to the original idea.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 29, 2015 at 2:03pm

picked up some nice 10 mm round magnets today at Home Depot. Though I would try the magnets on the outside of the box suggestion posted earlier here.

Well I sat a magnet on the box top in the area  where the pickup was located and it instantly found the pickup and positioned itself. I did the same two more times and had a magnet under each string.

Turned on the amp and gave it a try. Wow! It really added to the volume from the pickup. I mentioned that I had lost maybe 15`20% of the volume I got from the same pickup mounted through the box in the conventional way. I gained every bit of that lost volume back with the magnets, maybe a bit more.

The nice thing is that I can still move the pickup up and down the neck and just reposition the magnets when I do. Cool.

Another thing I noticed is that if I use strings a bit heavier than the small ones that came with the pickup, the spring pressure alone will hold the pickup in place. No need for the mounting screw. With this setup I can switch from a single wound pickup to the mini-humbucker in about five minutes. Since I soldered an audio jack To each pickup, I just unscrew the audio jack and slide the pickup from its location between the neck and box lid.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 29, 2015 at 11:57pm

The magnets are about 3 mm (1/8") thick. Off the wall stuff from HD.

Like I mentioned, they stick to the box top when they find the pickup poles.

I figure that they become, electrically speaking, an extension of the pickup poles. When the strings are plucked, they disturb the field of new magnets just as they do the pickup poles. Since they are closer to the springs the effect is stronger. Functionally, I think it's like moving the pickup closer to the strings.

Interesting stuff.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on April 30, 2015 at 7:48am

Please do. I think there is something here. Just not sure what.

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page