DIY Pickguard

[MissionBrown]

Sounds like a real fun challenge

To quote JFK

"not because they are easy, but because they are hard"

[panther]

I've had very good success with thin material on a bench type router I made with a standard Craftsmen router turned upside down, you can buy one already made with the router for $99 at Home Depot.
The trick is take very small cuts at a time, and always feed the plastic where it is taking away material not digging into the plastic, It will be smooth and clean.
Dan

[MissionBrown]

I have a Dremel Table router, but it's probably no good as the bits are very small.
My workspace is outside and it's very wet at the moment, so I'm limited to what I can achieve for the time being.

[MissionBrown]

8 days from ordering, I got my Hallmark vibrato!
Also my roller bridge turned up along with a new bridge for my wrap tail Surfcaster and one of the I.T. guys gave me a brand new set of Gotoh Bass tuners from the 80's!

Was a pretty rough night with my daughter not sleeping, but this has considerably improved my mood

[MissionBrown]

Some pics on my wee blog.

http://theawesomepowerofrockets.blogspot.com/2011/05/parts-parts-parts-parts-parts.html

[JimPage]

MissionBrown, you have a great blog; I somehow discovered it before you became active here. I must have been looking up something on Google that led me to your blog.

Thanks to you, I got into using effects pedals, which have been most helpful, and also thanks to you, I looked into Tokai guitars and ended up with my TST-62 Strat copy. I love it.

So thanks very much!

--Jim

[MissionBrown]

Hey thanks Jim,

The blog is barely edited, so I'm glad other humans are able to understand what I try to say
I love music gear and end up repeating myself from person to person and forum to forum, so I figured I may as well just make a blog.

I'm also open to running other people's stories of gear that they love.

One of these days I'll get around to actually making music, rather than just tinkering with stuff.

What effects are you using now?

[JimPage]

Hey!

I only use four effects and a Boss chromatic tuner (old style with the VU meter).

The effects are a Boss acoustic simulator, Boss equalizer, Biyang chorus, and MXR Carbon Copy delay.

None get much use except the equalizer and the delay. I'm more a rhythm player than anything else in a country band and a classic rock band.

I enjoy trying to capture some of the old sounds of the great players like Scotty Moore, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, and a ton of others.

--Jim

[MissionBrown]

Nice, I'd like a CC delay,

Tried to build one once, but it's harder than I thought.
Even though I have loads of FX, I just use the Princeton which as verb and tremolo most of the time.

I play a blend of country(ish) and Man or astro-man surf, purely for my own entertainment.
My daughter digs it, so that's pretty fun

[MissionBrown]

I placed the Hallmark Vibrato and Mosrite style bridge on the Hummingbird with a guide string.
Like like they'll make a nice addition tot he guitar.
One thing I noticed is that the string spacing on the bridge is a bit wider than on my Mosrite and that makes the strings pitch out at an angle of maybe 15-20 degrees on the outside.
Does anyone think that this will cause any problems later down the road?
Can I fix it by getting a buzz stop to hold the strings firmly down on the roller bridge or should I opr for another bridge?

The bridge lines the strings up fairly well on the neck, and lets face it, looks pretty nifty

Once I have the placement sorted out, it'll be time to make the pickguard (See Dennis I'm on topic )

Does anyone have any thoughts about routing and gluing some tone wood into the body under the bridge? I think the body is laminate, but other pics I've seen, seem to have multiple pieces of solid timber visible through the finish (posted pics on my latest blog entry).
http://theawesomepowerofrockets.blogspot.com/2011/05/reverse-hummingbird.html