V-locity build

[vernschrock]

6100's, 6115"s.6150's.

It may have more to do with the shape of the crown than the actual size. Since I’ve reshaped the frets, it does play a lot better. I can’t say I’ve ever liked jumbo frets. But if I really think about it, I think I do like to feel the fretboard with my fingertips. I just don’t want it sticky.

You might try a fretless?

 

[teleme01]

Fretless sounds like a possible future idea, errrrrr, or a fleeing thought anyway

 

[vernschrock]

Fretless sounds like a possible future idea, errrrrr, or a fleeing thought anyway

Ummmm…nope.

 

[TBurst Std]

I get what you’re saying. I wish it would be something like that, but if I switch off between the guitars I have within arms reach, why would I only be fretting too hard on this particular guitar?

Anyway, thanks for trying to come up with a possible solution.

Or maybe you’re saying this guitar is so superior to the other ones I have, that it takes the most delicate of touch to fret???

I found for myself it had to do with neck thickness and shape. Only happened with thinner necks. Now it rarely happens. Only when I am fatigued and playing acoustics.

 

[BroccoliRob]

hey, fresh, sick axe. I agree about the 6105 they feel pretty stair steppy when playing legato. frets that aren't so skinny tend to slide smoother imo, whether bigger or smaller. its all about that width. anyway, shred it up and shred it out

 

[vernschrock]

***I’m still in the middle of testing the electrical bits. I’ve ended up dropping some ideas altogether, adjusting others, and picking up a few along the way. I’ll give a more detailed account later on.***

But before I forget. Unlike some guitar bodies that make their presence known every time you pick them up and play (most big-G bodies seem to have this problem, now that I think about it!!!), the Velocity doesn’t seem to do that. It just gets out of its own way. I really appreciate that it fades into the background, and I’m not thinking about it while I’m playing.

 

[vernschrock]

This is how it's looking right now.

-Installed the truss rod cover I made out of Kingwood.

-Decided that the Lollar pickup is staying in the guitar. I'm not even going to bother testing the Righteous one when (IF???) it shows up. During testing to figure out what I was going to do with the electrical layout, I noticed that I kept turning the volume pot lower and lower. So I backed up, and tested the lower value pots I have. I ended up liking a CTS 250K, actual 253K. I didn't think I'd end up that low, but here we are. Does that mean the Lollar really was just hotter than the others??? I don't know, but it still sounds full and complete even with a 250K pot. The Lollar is F-Spaced, but it sounds so good it doesn't even bother me that the strings don't line up perfectly. My overall string spacing is sitting at 51mm.

-The amber knobs are from "knob head" on Reverb. I had Paige custom make them for me, she did a great job. I think they go really well with the body.

-I abandoned the rotary switch idea. I'll go over the wiring I've done so far in a post to follow.

-I'm not completely sure what is going in the empty pot hole. The idea I'm kicking around is to use a Bill Lawrence Q Filter in that spot. I got the idea from Spud on his last guitar. I have a Q on order.

-Speaking of Spud. I used his black toenail polish to lock the little adjustable bridge spacer wheels into place. A dab on each side did the trick.

 

[vernschrock]

I like how the x-shaped feature is centered on the volume knob.

This is just a closeup pic of the quilting, because it's gorgeous.

 

[vernschrock]

This is my goofy looking homemade wiring diagram!!!

The 3-way switch is acting as a selector between the "normal" sound in the middle position, a treble bleed in what would normally be the neck position, and what I'm calling a "bass cut" in the bridge position (I know it's more like a glorified treble bleed with cap and resistor values that are usually used in a bass cut circuit). The treble bleed consists of a 24k resistor followed by a 470pF cap, this gives me a tone that reminds of Ty Tabor's early King's X tone used on the song Pleiades (especially the extended bridge section). The bass cut does exactly what the name suggests. The reason for the second resistor that goes to ground, is to shave off some volume without affecting the overall tone of the bass cut. It was so much louder than the other two positions.

One thing I don't have shown is the "tone knob circuit" which is nothing but a .033 uF cap soldered to the first lug on the volume pot, which is followed by 470K resistor that goes to ground. I liked this combo the best. I'm a firm believer in testing to see what sounds good to me, and not taking manufacturers recommendations (or people that are dogmatic and state that a .022 cap MUST go with a P90) as the gospel truth!

I love the way it's sounding and playing now.

 

[Spud]

This is how it's looking right now.

-Installed the truss rod cover I made out of Kingwood.

-Decided that the Lollar pickup is staying in the guitar. I'm not even going to bother testing the Righteous one when (IF???) it shows up. During testing to figure out what I was going to do with the electrical layout, I noticed that I kept turning the volume pot lower and lower. So I backed up, and tested the lower value pots I have. I ended up liking a CTS 250K, actual 253K. I didn't think I'd end up that low, but here we are. Does that mean the Lollar really was just hotter than the others??? I don't know, but it still sounds full and complete even with a 250K pot. The Lollar is F-Spaced, but it sounds so good it doesn't even bother me that the strings don't line up perfectly. My overall string spacing is sitting at 51mm.

-The amber knobs are from "knob head" on Reverb. I had Paige custom make them for me, she did a great job. I think they go really well with the body.

-I abandoned the rotary switch idea. I'll go over the wiring I've done so far in a post to follow.

-I'm not completely sure what is going in the empty pot hole. The idea I'm kicking around is to use a Bill Lawrence Q Filter in that spot. I got the idea from Spud on his last guitar. I have a Q on order.

-Speaking of Spud. I used his black toenail polish to lock the little adjustable bridge spacer wheels into place. A dab on each side did the trick.

I would guess the Lollar actually was brighter than the others.

 

[vernschrock]

I would guess the Lollar actually was brighter than the others.

The other two were actually brighter, if you mean more trebly, Tinny, or plinky sounding… Less lower mids and lows. Less GIRTHY, which seems to never be a good thing.

Anyway, what was I talking about again???

 

[vernschrock]

I'm waiting for the Q Filter to show up before I can finish up the wiring, but it's perfectly playable as is.

With all the testing and fretwork I'm doing; loosening strings, removing, reinstalling, bring back up to pitch, has given me even more mixed feelings about the locking tuners. While it's easy to remove and reinstall strings, I have grown to absolutely despise how many strings that have broken right at the tuner. I'm basically cutting the strings with the locking mechanism combined with all the loosening and tightening. I'm sure I was way overtightening the lock at first. But it kept happening even after I took care to just barely tighten the lock. It may be fine if you just install the strings, bring them up to pitch, and never loosen them again. I don't know. I can't say I've ever broken a string with a regular tuner and rendered it completely unusable, and if I have it's extremely rare. I'm not that hard on strings. It's a wee bit more work to string with regular tuners, but it isn't exactly a difficult task by any means. With all that being said, I ordered a set of Graph Tech Ratio tuners, the non-locking variety. You could say it's user error, but I honestly don't care at this point (I'm up to about $100 in strings now!!!).

 

[teleme01]

With all the bargains on the internets, I'm sometimes thinking about cheap knock offs dressed in legit looking packaging. Not saying you bought knock off, I am saying I am suspicious about copies whereas I know I will get legit shit from stewmac or your trusted dealer. Long way of saying there are a lot of hipshot tuners at all kinds of prices and some vendors I find untrustworthy.

 

[vernschrock]

With all the bargains on the internets, I'm sometimes thinking about cheap knock offs dressed in legit looking packaging. Not saying you bought knock off, I am saying I am suspicious about copies whereas I know I will get legit shit from stewmac or your trusted dealer. Long way of saying there are a lot of hipshot tuners at all kinds of prices and some vendors I find untrustworthy.

They’re not Hipshot, but Schaller. I see your point either way. If these are fakes, Aaron would have some ‘splaining to do, because I bought these tuners from Warmoth!!!

Knockoffs have literally zero value in my eyes. I’m not an internet bargain hunter. I could care less about “getting a bargain”, I want to know I’m buying the real thing (whatever it might be) as much as possible. Even if it costs more. Like these Graph Tech tuners, I ordered directly from the company.

 

[TBurst Std]

Get some Mitchell Abasive cord. I bet there are burrs there. Oh and the cord is also great for smoothing out nuts and saddles.

 

[teleme01]

They’re not Hipshot, but Schaller. I see your point either way. If these are fakes, Aaron would have some ‘splaining to do, because I bought these tuners from Warmoth!!!

Warmoth is a trusted dealer, I bought a set of hipshot tuners from someone on ebay that were in hipshot packaging but were not properly merchandised as in "open box",condition from someone on ebay and it made me think of cleverly packaging and mold for identical looking replica made of cheap materials... I am becoming internets phobic

 

[vernschrock]

Get some Mitchell Abasive cord. I bet there are burrs there. Oh and the cord is also great for smoothing out nuts and saddles.

That's entirely possible, it may have some burrs in there. Great idea.

 

[vernschrock]

Alrighty. I got the Q Filter sussed out and installed now. I didn't like how it sounded when it was in the circuit all the time, so I put it on a switch. I only liked it when the pot was turned down to a certain spot anyway. It wasn't a difficult decision to go with a switch. I used the wiring diagram from the website. It seemed a bit convoluted, but it only took two resistors and one additional wire to emulate and remove the pot from the equation.

I guess I think the Q Filter gives me something different enough to go through the trouble. I did have an empty hole that needed filling with something. <------Go ahead Spud, it's set up and waiting for you!!! It works for that. I can't say that it's a necessary mod everyone should do. If I didn't already have an empty hole, I can't say that I'd drill a hole in a perfectly good guitar just to use a Q Filter. Sorry Bill. Maybe part of my underwhelmness has to do with the fact that I'm already using a single coil!?! I don't know.

I used a little amber knob I had to use as the switch top. It took a little work to fashion it to the switch. I think it actually lost some of the amber color from working it. That's why it doesn't look as good as the other knobs.

 

[vernschrock]

I had an issue with one of the Graph Tech tuners. The Number 3 tuner didn't work, the shaft would just spin and spin. The gearing seemed to be absent. Not quite absent, but clearly defective:

I contacted Support. Once I finally got connected to an actual human (which took a day), George in Graph Tech Support rectified the issue quickly with no fuss. George was awesome!!! Thank you George! A replacement tuner was sent out the very next day. It took a week to show up, but this one looks and works like it should.

 

[vernschrock]

Here's a recap of a few things that happened between my updates.

--I ended up doing a second complete fret job. The more I played it, the less satisfied I became. The frets were still too tall and the crown wasn't exactly fantastic. I didn't really care for how the radius felt on the lower section of the neck either. This is the stock 10"-16" compound radius. I don't know, maybe for me, this is a solution for a problem I really don't have. If I'd do it again, I would just get a 12" straight radius and be done with it. So as I took the frets down, I just removed some of the "compoundedness". Now it's at the point where I don't have any niggling thoughts about how the neck feels when I'm playing.

--As I went about taping and removing tape for the fret jobs, I kept reburnishing the back of the neck. I took it up to 2500 grit, which just feels perfect for this neck.

--The truss rod cover as I originally had it was a bit too thick and chunky, so I slimmed it down to look like this:

Unless I come across something else that bothers me, I'm going to call this DONE!!!

This pic was an accident when I was standing back up from taking the previous pic. I think it looks kind of weird and cool.

Thanks to everyone that helped me with this build, whether it was directly or indirectly. I appreciate everything I've learned from this forum. Whether I build another or not, it's time for me to play guitar now.

Hasta luego!!!