Movie of the day
This a great concert with one of my favourite guitar pickers and singers, Dan Tyminski.
Claescaster
Tag: acoustic guitars
September 16, 2013
September 5, 2013
L.R. Baggs M1
I just ordered myself a L.R. Baggs M1 and I really hope it’s as good as people say. I have only tried cheap magnetic soundhole pickups so far, like Artec and Belcat and they worked ok both of them but sounded a bit thin, hopefully the M1 will be more full and warm without sounding muffled or muddy. I have an old Shadow humbucker from the 1970’s that I kind of like but it’s a bit too dark for dreadnought guitars. The undersaddle ARTEC PP-607 I installed in the parlour was way too uneven when played hard, and a bit thin sounding as well. My favourite magnetic pickup is still the old Japanese 1960’s one that my dad fitted in his Levin LT-16. I got the L.R. Baggs M1 new from dont_tell_the_wife_guitars on eBay and it only cost $139.00 with free shipping so I felt it was worth a try. If it’s good enough for David Gilmour then I’m sure it will be just fine for me.
Update 2013-09-10
I just received my new L.R. Baggs M1 and it looks awesome. Cheap, quick shipping and no customs issues, couldn’t be better. I noticed that the M1 Passive doesn’t have a volume control but I’m pretty sure I can live without since I have never used that on any of my acoustic pickups. I’m really excited about rehearsing with Chest Fever on Thursday so I can try it out loud. I hope it sounds as good as it looks.
Update 2013-09-20
Last night I finally got to play the L.R. Baggs M1 loud, we had to cancel the rehearsal last week since Araceli’s and I celebrated 6 years together. I fitted it in my Kiso Suzuki WE-150 and it sounded pretty good, well it sounded just like the Suzuki does unplugged. It was the first pickup I have ever tried that could handle my hard hitting solo playing and I’m really impressed with how responsive it is, loud enough when picking and not too loud when strumming. I can’t wait to put it in an even better guitar and really hear it’s full potential.
The Japanese pickup fitted in my dad’s old Levin LT-16 from 1966
A nice example of L.R. Baggs M1
David Gilmour playing L.R. Baggs M1, skip to 1:06
September 4, 2013
Kiso Suzuki WE-150, Made in Japan
Kiso Suzuki Violin Co. LTD. WE-150 Made in Japan, 1980
Last night I restored a Kiso Suzuki WE-150. There wasn’t anything really wrong with it, it was just extremely dirty and the frets seemed to have been lying around in aquarium. I cleaned it for 2 hours, polished the frets and set it up and now it plays and sounds great. I changed the nut too, from plastic to bone, which improved the tone a lot. It’s actually one of the easier guitars I have played in a while even though it’s a dreadnought. I strung it with 11’s which I normally do on all of my acoustics so I can play them like electrics but this one felt extra easy to play. I tend to find dreadnoughts a lot stiffer compared to folk- and parlour sized guitars even with light gauged strings. I would like to keep it but it has to go so if you are interested you can find it in For sale.
The frets was extremely dirty and full of something green that almost looked like moss. I cleaned, dressed and polished them and then oiled up the fretboard with lemon oil. I adjusted the neck and set it up so now it plays really well with low action without any buzzing. A great Japanese made Kiso Suzuki WE-150 from 1980 that looks almost new.
August 2, 2013
How to… fit a undersaddle pickup
Vintage V880N Parlour acoustic, newly fitted with a ARTEC PP-607 undersaddle Piezo pickup
I got the basic ARTEC PP-607 undersaddle Piezo pickup cheap of eBay, I think it was 15€ with the endpin jack including shipping. I got around to install it last night and I have to say that I’m well pleased with the result. I had read that Piezo’s without a preamp isn’t much but I have to say I disagree. This pickup is way louder than some magnetic soundhole pickups I’ve used in the past and sounds ten times more acoustic and natural. It’s without any doubt my favourite way to amplify an acoustic guitar, well I still haven’t tried fancy things like the LR Baggs M1, I have been thinking of investing in one of those. However, this is a cheap, discrete and really nice way of playing electric with an acoustic guitar.
I just drilled a 2 mm hole through the bridge. I wish I wouldn’t have been so lazy and gone and bought a 3 mm drill because the 2 mm was too small and the next size up in my tool box was a 4 mm which would have been too big. I tried to widen the hole with a screw, which worked but it was still a bit tight so when I was fiddling with getting the plug through the hole the plug came off. I was so happy to have purchased a solder free pickup that you could just plug in to the endpin jack, but no, not this time. I had to take the soldering iron out and fix it. I managed to figure out that the thin wire in the middle, the one shielded with plastic, should be connected to the top of the plug and the wide braided wire should be soldered to the side. It worked.
I start to get used to making holes in acoustic guitars now to fit the endpin jack, this was the third one I did. I normally use a round file first to make the hole big enough and then even it out with some sandpaper rolled up, just to get the hole perfectly round. It’s important to check all the time with the plug from the outside so you don’t make the hole too big. Next I had to file down the saddle to compensate the extra height from the pickup.
This guitar is for sale here, Vintage V880N Parlour acoustic
Here is a little sound clip
https://soundcloud.com/claescaster/035-vintage-v880n-with-artec
June 24, 2013
Eko Ranger VI
I went for a walk this Saturday and ended up in a Cash converter, as I usually do, and found myself with a Eko Ranger VI. I’ve been pretty curious about these and have kept an eye on eBay for one but they tend go for a lot more than I’m willing to pay but now the price was right. I took it home and gave it a good clean, oiled the fret board and restrung it. It’s a quite weird guitar, the neck feels like a Les Paul neck so it’s really easy to play solo on but it’s a bit thin sounding when strumming chords. I’m not sure if its’ because of the wood or the fact that it has a bolt on neck. I have a 12-string Eagle back in Sweden, a German made guitar from the 1970’s that has the same system and that one feels pretty similar. I’ve seen quite a few Framus and even some Japanese Epiphone’s with the bolt on so it must have been fairly common back then.
I’m not sure if she has spend two decades in the sun or what happened to the pickguard. I will try to find a replacement and change that.
It doesn’t say what model it is but I assume it’s a Eko Ranger VI.
There are quite a few cracks in the lacquer all around and the nut has come off and been badly glued back by the previous owner.
I guess it’s a 1970’s model since the headstock is not black but it’s a lot darker then these Rangers and has a black logo instead of white. Taken from OffsetGuitars
Update 2013-09-05 EKO got a new dad, a real Italian dad. This is how happy Gyo was when he picked up his new guitar.
June 17, 2013
Hondo D-18
About a month ago I stumbled upon a Korean made Hondo D-18 acoustic guitar in a Cash converter. It only had 1 string and looked like shit but I was intrigued by the challenge to see if it I could get it to sing. I took it home, cleaned it up and restrung it and the first thing that hit was the tone. It has a really warm and nice tone, way deeper than any of my other acoustics. I’m not sure how old it is, I guess the 1981 on the label is referring to the company name and not the year it was made but it must be from the early to mid 1980’s.
I changed the machine heads for a set of fake tulip Grovers that I bought on eBay about a year ago. Then I fitted a strap button and my old 1970’s Shadow pickup that I used to have on a 12 year old Cort I kept in the rehearsal room. It was the normal procedure, drill a pilot hole and then put some wax on the screw and fit the button. I had to widen the hole quite a lot to get the end pin jack in, but that was pretty straight forward as well with a round file. I do hate to fit end pin jacks since my underarm is to wide to fit in the sound hole so it’s quite pain full experience. If you have a girlfriend with slender arms nearby that is to recommend but mine was out of the house when I did this. I have to say that I’m pretty pleased with both the sound and the look of this guitar, the grain is amazing.
I had a cheap Artec MSP-50 pickup at home so I fitted that in my old Cort and then installed the Shadow pickup in the Hondo.
Update 2013-09-14
The Hondo D-18 is sold now. This is how happy Iñaki was when he bough it.
March 18, 2013
How to… solder electronics
How to change a potentiometer
When I found my Tokai Love Rock it had a broken shaft on one of the potentiometers so I’ve been planning to change that for the last month or two. This weekend I finally got around to do it. I changed the broken one for a Alpha 500k pot, not the most expensive replacement but I had heard quite good things about Alpha so I thought I would give it a try. I have no experience what so ever when it comes to soldering so I decided to play it safe and move one cable at the time from the old to the new pot. My main concern was of course that I would get confused and not manage to get all the bits back in the right place. Everything went fine, well maybe not the cleanest soldering but pretty good for being my first time. I should of course have scratched the new pot with a bit of sandpaper to get the solder to stick better, I didn’t think of that until after.
I changed the pot one cable at the time to not mess anything up
The final result, my newly fitted Alpha 500 k pot. Perhaps not the cleanest soldering but OK for being my first time.
Tokai Love Rock with 4 brand knew knobs, straight from China via eBay.
How to do a 50’s vintage wiring mod for Telecaster
When I had to soldering iron out I thought I might as well sort some other stuff too. I’ve been reading about different ways of keeping the tone on a Telecaster when you turn the volume down and decided to go for the old 50’s vintage wiring on my Claescaster. It’s a really easy procedure since you just need to move one cable but when I opened the Claescaster up I realised that it wasn’t wired like the standard Telecaster, not according to Seymour Duncan’s excellent wiring diagrams, so I had to move the capacitor and another cable as well. The capacitor is the worlds biggest Orange drop but it does the trick, I might go for something smaller and a bit more suitable when I build the new Claescaster.
The cables I swapped around on the Claescaster. It sounds great now and keeps the tone when you turn the volume down.
How to solder a endpin jack for acoustic guitars.
I found this nice old Shadow humbucker pickup for acoustic guitars when I was back in Sweden. I have a 12 string guitar from the 70’s that I bought cheap from an old Jazz musician and I had completely forgotten that it was equipped with a Shadow pickup. I brought the pickup back to Barcelona and have spent some time trying to figure out how to fit it in my Cort that I normally use for rehearsals. I bought a gold endpin jack and then I just needed to solder a mini jack cable to connect it. The question was, how the hell do I do that? I found and old RCA to mini jack cable that I decided to slaughter for this project but couldn’t find any info online how to connect it. I tried every single combination I could think of but just couldn’t get any sound out of it. Then it hit me, of course, a guitar cable has only on cable inside and then the shield around, so I have to make something similar to this. I twined the left and right together and then the same with the shield from both and it worked perfectly. It might not be the best cable in the world but it was what I got at home and it seems to work fine.
Standard RCA to mini jack.
I connected the left and right and then twined the shield together
The left and right soldered together to the shortest pin and then the shield to the longest.
Shadow humbucker pickup for acoustic guitars, newly fitted on my old Cort.
February 13, 2013
How to… fit a strap button
I have never been a big fan of having straps attached to the head of acoustic guitars. Therefore I decided to fit strap buttons to the base of the neck on my acoustics. I checked some Youtube clips and got fed up with people talking too much so here is the quick version. Find a strap button you like, ideally in gold, everyone loves gold or at least I do. Find a screw that fits and a drill that is slightly smaller than the screw. Put a bit of tape on the drill to mark how long the screw is, or rather slightly shorter than the actual screw. Decide where to put the strap button and then drill the pilot hole. Put some wax or soap on the end of the screw, this makes the screw go in easier and apparently keeps the wood happy. Done.
Now some thoughts on this procedure. First of all, make sure you don’t have any extra hidden metal parts inside the neck before you start. I wasn’t aware that Levin had an extra metal plate for the truss rod running in the heel. When I tried to screw in the screw it broke in half and got stuck so I had to make a second hole just above and screw in a shorter screw. Not the end of the world maybe but still annoying and unnecessary. Second, make sure you find a good flat spot to fit the strap button. In the last example below you can see how close to the fretboard they are factory fitted on some guitars. I hate that. It’s really hard to reach if you want play solos or do some fiddly bits high up on the neck. Make sure you can fit your hand comfortably and remember there is going to be a strap attached which creates extra bulk. If you put the strap button too close to the bottom it will mess with the balance of the guitar and it will tend to fall forward when it’s not supported, the same if you fit it in the bottom of the heel.
Levin LT-16, Vintage V880N, Tanglewood Rosewood Grand Reserve TGRP 73 VS E. I installed the strap button on the first two, as low as possible to be able to reach all the way up the neck. Notice how high up, close to the fretboard they were factory fitted on the Tanglewood. In this case it’s just a 12th fret parlour guitar so you can’t play much solos up there anyway but I do find it a bit annoying.
Claescaster 