avengers63

Well, to no great surprise, it's all done and nothing happens. I can't even get the power LED to come on. typical

All done with getting all the bits onto the board. Now I need to figure out the layout in the box and drill some holes.

Thanks. What doesn't get singed off will surely fall out from frustration

I FINALLY got all the parts in today. I'll be dorking up the soldering tomorrow and cursing so loudly PSW will hear me in Oz.

wow This has been open since yesterday afternoon, but I'm the first one to comment. Very strange. Anyway... ScottyD: This bass is really the cream of the crop this month. I'm still not a big fan of the bass horn tunning along the neck, but I can appreciate the apparent difficulties in doing it, as well as the benefits. What I AM a big fan of is you control cavity cover. Any chance of some pics of how you do it? I can imagine, but I'd rather see it first-hand. Jaden: I'm not so much for the control cavity cover. Maybe if it were black it's be better. Other than that, it looks pretty nice. You managed to pull off the denim look very nicely. Hoogelbug: I like most of it, especially the squished/slanted body. The controls on this one seem to be spread out too far though. eshuffle: Did you make this? IIRC, when you posted this, you had one post: this entry. Without a build thread, it's dang hard to even get recognition. Avedkan: I really don't care for the shape. It's not curvy or defined enough from the upper to the lower bouts. Jaycee: Nothing bad to say about it. Likewise, there's nothing that really stands out. Boggs: I'm still not lovin' the body shape. The separate wood plates the pups & controls are mounted to aren't doing it for me either. They make it look home-made. I know - it is.... but I don't think that's what you're really going for. I think it'd work better were everything on one plate, like a Strat or Jem. Avengers63: It's dang fun to play, looks cool, and sounds nice. Having only 19 frets makes this not for every song, but so what. Quarter: I like it. I'd like to try making one sometime, just for the heck of it.

found it I had the ground & hot on the jack backwards. Tonight I set the action, adjust the truss rod, and do the intonation.

That's because it isn't. I followed the schematic from the Seymour Duncan site for 3 singles, 5-way, 1 vol, 1 tone, as found in this link. Here's what I have on the 5 way switch: 1: jumper to D 2: bridge hot 3: middle hot 4: neck hot A: B: C: D: jumper to 1, out to volume pot The schematic had nothing for a ground from the switch.

Thanks for the kind words. I was honestly anticipating the bloodwood inlays polishing up a lot brighter than they did. i took it to a local shop tech who concluded that in order to find where the buzz is, I need to dismantle the whole thing and start the wiring from scratch, one piece at a time. Did I mention that I REALLY don't like doing the wiring?

You nailed it Joe. The body horns were originally patterned after an SG, but lengthened and pointed out to be more like dragon horns, but still have a 335-ish feel. For the headstock, I had the original shape to contend with while trying to make it mimic the body. The more I finessed it into shape, the more a top view of a dragon's head came to life. SJE - Thanks. My meter is an analog needle with no sound effects, but I'll see what i can find out.

Yep. I was on the phone with a local tech. He suggested that if it only buzzes when I touch metal but everything else works right, then there's most likely an issue with the ground to the bridge. I'll have to do some testing on it tomorrow.

With the pups, trem, and shape, you're clearly a man after my own heart. That being said, I'm not liking natural wood on this one. Sorry.

wiring cavity with unknown ground problem felt padding under the tailpiece bits It may not work right yet, but at least it's pretty

Thanks. I used Meguiars swirl remover from Auto Zone and a hand drill buffing sponge from Stew-mac. Check the tutorials on the home page. I'm pretty sure that's where I picked up the technique.

GOSH DANG I HATE DOING THE WIRING!!!!!! I finally got some noise to come out of it, all the pups right on the switch, and the damn thing buzzes when I touch metal. I've been at it for about 5 hours now. This shite happens every single time I pick up a soldering iron. I'm ready to just take every single one I do to a local shop and have them do it.

DOH!!!

Again, no heat? It was my understanding that you needed both. Then again, I freely admit that my understanding of bending wood is pretty low. I gotta try this sometime. And do I see a gap in the center? That's very unusual for you. Not that you don't already have a plan for it, it's just surprising that it's there in the first place.

Nothing. The matte finish is quite satiny to the touch. I painted the shielding foil black so it wouldn't stand out so much through the f-hole. It's finally starting to look like a guitar. Today I'm going to start fussing with the wiring.

I'm starting to wire up the Dragon, but I have a major shielding question. Here's what the inside of the body looks like without the back on... As you can see, there is no self-contained wiring cavity, just like a semi-acoustic. The question then is to what extent to I lay the shielding foil? Even were I to have covered the entire inside with foil, there would still be room for outside interference due to the f-holes, so it's really just a matter of how far inside the cavity opening do I go.

A little late, but posted nonetheless. I chose to go with the extremely subdued matte black back. I feel this will force the high-gloss front to stand out that much more. I almost forgot to glue the nut in.

The Retrotron build thread 2-piece ash body Aqua Boomerang Formica laminate top white binding maple/rosewood Danelectro neck with aluminum nut matte black finish on neck and body genuine Danelectro tuners top-loading hardtail tailpiece Gretsch pickups 2 on/off slider switches concentric volume/tone knob top-routed with custom w/b/w pickguard

Thanks for the tips. Yea... it'll see GOTM sooner or later. Maybe next month. Honestly, I wasn't sure that it was going to turn out worth anything either. It all started out as a quest to fix a mistake, hoping it didn't go FUBAR on me. As it turns out, I've really learned a LOT by fixing what I screwed up in the first place. BTW Pierce - it's actually cream binding. I know it's kinda hard to tell, but the black REALLY lightens it up. I still say it looks like an old Hofner.

No need to cast it when a red dragon can just breathe fire on everyone.

I finally had some time to work on the finish today. It managed to sit and cure an extra week - not necessarily a bad thing. before leveling after leveling buffed up to 4000 polished up - inside polished up - outside Tomorrow, I'll try and show some work on either the back or the neck.

It sat & cured for about 2 weeks. I finally had the opportunity to do some work on it today. Before touching it with any abrasive. top done & polished up I's bugging me that not a single picture thus far has shown what the top really looks like. They all have the red mushed into the yellow, looking really muddy.