Crawls Backward (When Alarmed)

I was astounded, or maybe just a little surprised, to see that I have just reached post number one hundred on this blog.  And, as it transpires, it is one year to the day from when I started.

If you do some math, that comes out to an average of 8.3 posts per month.

I thought it might be fitting to blog a bit today about another Stratocaster project I just worked on, since my first post was also about a Strat - the infamous Surfcaster.

But enough about the past, this is the present, and soon to be the future.

Or something like that.

My main Strat is a MIM "50s Stratocaster" model.  It's a 1998 I think (I'd have to check).  I snagged it off that world-famous auction site from a bloke in Kansas.  It's the old-style 2-color sunburst, maple neck, white pickguard.   It's a little beat up - turns out it was used for a Buddy Holly tribute show.  And since it looks exactly like Buddy's, it would be perfect for that.

One thing that isn't perfect is the fact that someone put straplocks on it at some point.  These things to me are big and ugly - I've never used 'em.  I've been wanting to take them off for a while and replace them with the proper vintage-style strap buttons.

Whoever put the straplocks on did a really awful job.  They totally hacked up the finish on the top button.  I have no idea how this happened, but it probably involved a big honkin' tool and a lot of beer.

Anyhow,  I had the guitar down on the workbench to change the strings, and before I knew it, I was working on taking off the old buttons and putting new ones on.

But one thing I have to do is fill the awful looking hack job in the finish.

I took the old strap button off,  and am using the Surfcaster as a model for the positioning of the new strap button.

You can see how bad the poor geetar looks.  You can also see how wrong the angle of the straplock was.  Now, maybe there was a reason for that too - but I think it was just a bad job all around.

What can I say?  Some people don't care about quality.

I'm fortunate for two things:  one, I have another vintage-style Strat body to compare to, and second, it turns out the original screw hole is still there!

It looked like it might be there - I scraped off a bit of finish and there it is.

I just ran a screw into it so I won't cover it up with filler.

The plan is to use wood filler to patch the old hole and the gap in the finish, then color it to match the finish.  Good luck to me.

Only a few things remaining now that the heaters are wired up and the thermostat is in place.  The biggest job is finishing up the network wiring, the cable and the phone line.

I bought an el-cheapo switch - it's a D-Link.  Cause, it make de link to de innernet.  In the pixture, you can see the green arrow pointing to it.  It's just a box that takes the input from the router in the basement and lets you plug in as many as 4 (four) computers to it.

All of the wiring for the network was pulled through to one outlet, so I just wired up the appropriate connectors and connected them to the switch.

Amazingly enough, it actually works!  I brought my laptop out to test it.

This is where the data lines all converge.  Two of them are for jacks elsewhere in the room.  The third will be right at this opening.  It's a little messy; I had to put jacks on the ends and then run them to new, shorter bits of cable.  It's not real pretty, but it woiks.

Proof that this ting really works.

The main "input" from the Verizon router goes to jack one on the switch.  The three data lines go to jacks 2, 3, and 4, respectively.  So we have line 1 lit up and line 4 lit up - they're both live.

Whoo hoo!

I am starting to tidy up the wiring.  I mounted the switch on the wall.  The lines from the three drops come out from the wall and go into the switch.

There is a mess of cable inside the wall, but ain't nobody gonna see it...eventually.

It was cold two mornings ago.  Real cold.

This is the outside air gauge in my car. It was so dark my vintage Canon digital camera was on 1/8 of a second shutter speed, hence the blur.

Not quite as cold as last year's record low.  But we still have a way to go this year.  Last year's picture was much better too.

 "Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind,
As man's ingratitude."
-William Shakespeare

I have this idea for mounting the thermostat which hopefully should work. I want to put the thermostat on an angle (see the last post for the trial fit) and make brackets to mount to the molding which will then hold the thermostat on.

Here's a test bracket - I used a compass as a guide up against the molding so the side that butts (hee hee) up against it will sort of follow the countour.

I think this is gonna work.  I think.

I cut two brakets and primed up up and then nailed them to the molding.  You'll see the bottom one has a square cut into it - that's where the Wiremold trim will come up and the wiring will enter the box.

"Wiremold" is the name for the wiring covers.  There probably are other brands, but that's what they sell at the Depot.

The Wiremold is pretty easy to cut.  I have a length that will run from the floor up to the thermostat.  I mark it with a pencil, and then cut it with a hacksaw.  This is going according to my vision.  Which may not be good.


I ran the wiring up through the floor - actually the step - into the Wiremold piece.

A couple of notes.  The entrance into the rest of the house - actually the dining room - is about 4 inches up off the floor of the sunroom.  So there is a step there.  This is a good thing, because the wiring for the AC and heaters, as well as the data line, cable, and phone, can all run under the step.

What's under the step is actually the ceiling of the basement.  So there's at least access into the sun room for the wiring.

The other note is that if you have fairly large-gauge wiring, your space inside a metal Wiremold piece of trim is very tight.  I have 12 gauge 3-conductor wiring here, and it just made it through.


Here I have the wiring going up the wall going into the area for the thermostat.  A problem immediately crops up.  Actually two problems.

The first is the triangular brackets are so thin, they crack when any stress is put on them.  The green arrow in the shot shows where one broke.

The second issue is that there is just not enough space in the area between the brackets to get all the wiring to fit there.


So, I need to make a larger space.

Originally I have the brackets the same width as the thermostat, but clearly they'll have to be larger.

I cut one as a trial after doing some measuring.  This should work.  The bracket is not only wider, but it's thicker, so it shouldn't crack like the first set did.

The bigger brackets work!

I had to fabricate a "cover" for the space that's left on the left side of the thermostat.  I just used a thin piece of cedar from a shim.

I test-wired and fit the thermostat into place, and it works and the mount is solid.  Now I just need to paint it.

I'm ready to start the wiring for the heaters now.   The plan, such as it is, is to mount the thermostat on the door frame, run the wiring down the frame in a wire channel thingy, and hope for the best.

Of course, what I find during this planning phase is that the door frame is in really bad shape and needs to be painted.

Just one more digression before the main act...we seem to have had a lot of these in this project.

You can see the condition of the frame in the picture on the right.  There are a lot of dents and gashes and bad paint.  The PO's must have been c-c-crazy from running into the door jambs so much!

But it's better to fill them and repaint now rather than later.

So I fill the gashes and dents and wait for the filler to dry.

While I wait for the filler - which takes several coats to fill some of the worst spots - to dry, I figgur I can go ahead and do a test wiring-up of the heaters to make sure they work.

I would really hate it if I connected everything up and I had no heat.  That wouldn't be cool (heh heh).

On the left is the wiring diagram for the heaters.  If you can read schematics, you can see that we're going to connect the heaters in parallel.  The total load on the circuit will be almost 18 amps.  I'll have them on a 30 amp circuit so there shouldn't be any concern about overloading the circuit.

I don't have pics of the connecting-of-the-heaters-together-in-parallel, but you can rest assured it went ok.

I have the heater circuit line coming into the room from under the step under the door.  (That part will be clearer in a bit).  We need to run the heater line to the thermostat, then run a line from the thermostat to the point market "Power Supply" in the heater diagram above.  So there will be two lines going up the wall to the thermostat - the "input" from the house breaker box, and the "output" to the heaters.


Being an audio guy, I think of current or circuit flow in terms of "in" and "out," which is easier for me to visualize.  The picture above is the thermostat wired up and laying on the floor...just as a test.  And it works!

I disconnect the thermostat and hold it up to the door frame to measure where it will be mounted.  The thermostat instructions say it needs to be at least five feet above the floor.

Now it's just...I say "just" a matter of mounting it, running the cables through the wire cover and turning it on.  Should be easy, right?  Ha.

Here we have a lineup of tools-n-stuff in preparation for the next mini-project-within-the-big-project.  Which is, getting the AC outlets installed.

This should be fairly straightforward, but you never know.

In the picture, we have, from right to left: one El Cheapo blue plastic outlet box from the Despot, one coax cable stripper, one actual AC outlet, one Black and Decker rechargeable screwdriver, and one RJ- type plug crimper tool.

If you are really smart, you are probably saying, "why do you have the coax stripper and crimper tools there?"  The answer is simple.  They were in the area because they'll be used on the next phase, which is connecting up the cable TV (actually FIOS, but the cable is the same) and the data drops.

Step One is to pry out the tabs in the box where the AC cable will run into the box.  This looks like an easy task for the trusty Destructo screwdriver.  And it is, except I find that the hole is a bit too small for my 12 gauge wiring to go through.  Sigh.

So, it's on to Step One, part two, in which I suss out a way to make the holes bigger.  Way bigger.

In my infinite...er...wisdsom, I take a drill to them!

This actually worked well, except for the first one.  I had the box laying on the floor, on top of the canvas tarp I put down.  When the drill went through the box, it kept going down onto the tarp and grabbed the tarp, twisted it around itself and spun the box around!  Yikes!

Fortunately, no drill bits, boxes or tarps or Yr Fthfl Blggrs (me) were harmed in this goof.  But a lesson was learned.

After enlarging the hole, I can run the AC lead through the box.  At this point, I am Darn Glad I labelled the cable way back when.  A couple of the holes also have the heater lines going to them and it might have been a mess trying to figure out which was which.

Fortunately for me, the terminals on the outlets are actually labelled with actual labels about which lead should go where. 

Now I just need to read French.






Ve streep zee insoolashun off zee wires....









And we hooook ze wahres up to ze outlet! 

See, I CAN read French!

I used my new B&D rechargeable screwdriver for this task.  Review of this device coming soon.





Part of the way through the job I thought it might be a good idea to check and insure the outlet boxes were actually level with the ground and with each other.  This is the sort of thing that will make me crazy if they aren't.

So I grabbed my Ryobi laser level and checked it out.  There's enough wiggle room in each of the rectangular holes I cut that I can shift the outlet box as needed.  Then I'll put a wood screw through each corner of the box to hold it in place.

Closeup of an outlet mounted into a box - have yet to mount the box to the wall.

There were four?  five? outlets total.  They all went smoothly.

OH YES.  I should have said this first.  Be sure you have your circuit turned off when doing this.  Otherwise you will get zapped.

Now finally, finally, finally we can install the molding, fill the seams and paint.

You may recall that I previously filled and painted the shelf when I installed the ceiling moulding.  As (bad) luck would have it, the seams where the shelf top boards join have cracked.  My guess is this may be a never-ending battle, but I'm going to fill them again and see what happens.  I originally filled them when it was cooler, and during summer when it was warmer they opened up again.  They're still pretty much opened up so maybe this time I'll get lucky and they won't crack.

I'm not sure why the PO used two boards and left a seam in the center.  He should have just used one 10" wide board...who knows why he didn't.

At any rate, I filled the seams again and used my trusty Ryobi random-orbital sander to sand the filler.  It's probably a good thing that I'm repainting the shelf tops, since they got marked up and dirty when I sat tools there.

I've actually gotten pretty good at painting.  I used to really hate it and rush through it.  But since I now take the time to do the prep right, my jobs are coming out much better, which makes me be more careful and makes it almost fun.  Note that I said "almost."  I still wouldn't want to paint for a living.  Now if I can learn to refinish radio cabinets the same way, I'll be in good shape.

One little detail I don't want to overlook before the floor molding is finished is one last bit of wiring.  It's for the phone line, and I need to run it from the place where the combined phone/cable/data outlets will be.  Actually, there will be 3 data drops total, and 2 cable drops.

When I ran the data line from the sunroom to the main router in the basement, I came up with a method to run the line from the room under the floor (actually up on the basement ceiling).  I have this Italian-made (!) extension pole for painting.  It rocks.  I just tied the phone wire to it (see the arrow in the pic) and then used the pole to run it under the floor to a point where I could retrieve it in the basement and finish the run to the phone box.

The area in the basement has a (dreaded) cheap tile ceiling much like the one I ripped out of the sun room.  The PO was REAL fond of that stuff.  I took some tiles out so I could then get up between the joists and pick up the end of the pole.

I took a picture of it which you see here.  The shutter speed on the camera as real slow - like an eighth of a second or something.  So what you see is a little surreal looking because of camera shake.  (Not to be confused with Shaky-Cam you see on You Tube).

The light at the end is a flashlight sitting on the sunroom floor pointing toward the basement.  The pole is on the left, and on the right you can see the coax for the cable. 

Another detail not to overlook is a cut into the molding where the two AC lines, the data line, the phone line, and the cable line will all run behind the molding/"wall" under the shelf section.

The white line is the AC for the outlets, while the gray is for the heaters.  You can also pick out the brownish phone line here as well.

You can also see where I masked the floor with brown paper.  I want to make the edges of the molding clean, but I can't risk getting any paint on the tile.

Simple-but-neato tool time.

I used a nail set to drive the finish nails holding the molding on below the surface of the molding.  So simple, so clever, so cool.

After you drive the nails in, just spackle over them, sand a bit and paint.  The nails are now invisible.

I put down a big tarp and moved all the tools and sordid junk onto it in the middle.  This stuff had all accumulated on the shelves that go around the room.

The tarp will also help keep the tile relatively clean during the rest of the project.

While I was doing all this, one of our neighborhood cats was out patrolling.  What a life.

It has been an extremely long time since I updated the blog on the sunroom project. It's actually more or less done as I write this, so it's probably time to get caught up with all the stuff that's been done since October.  So let's get to it!

One of the bits of the project that I've been mulling over for some time - since the beginning, in fact - is the place where the 'shelf' that runs around half the room meets the door.   The PO had a piece of wood there that was just sort of stuck on - it was rectangular and didn't blend in well.   It was ripped out when we took the old carpeting off the floor.

I figured whatever I did I would like at least to better match the shelf and make it look more blended in.  So I cut a rectangular board a bit wider than the space and figured I'd at least cut the edge on an angle to match the shelf top.

I cut the board and used my circular saw set on an angle to match the shelf angle.  In looking at the shelf cut, you'd think it was about 45 degrees, right?  Not so.  I didn't write it down, but it was more like 38 degrees as I recall.  Further supporting the "eh, whatever" approach of the PO.

When I cut the new piece, I knowingly made it a bit oversize because I figured I'd have to hand fit it to suit.  I cut away a bit of the door molding to get the board to snug right up to it.  

With the end piece test-fitted, it's starting to show promise.  Here you can clearly see the angle I cut to match up with the shelf cut.

Originally I was just going to leave it as is, but there is a big section under the shelf where the new end piece juts out.  Not good.   Time to get creative.

After a bit of pondering, I figured I'd try cutting that middle section back some to line up with the vertical board under the shelf.  If I mess it up, I'll just go back to Plan A, right?

I marked the side of the board where it meets the shelf and the floor molding.  As I was doing this, it occurred to me that I might be able to make this relatively complex cut with my new Best Tool Friend, the amazing coping saw.

Coping saw:  it cuts, it follows curves and it helps you deal with life's problems.  What a deal.

Here we are making the actual cut.  The lines look like a mess but they actually meant something to me.

I cut a little outside the lines so, again, I had some extra material to work with for the final fitting.

Yikes!

This actually looks like it's gonna work.  Just a little filing to make it line up perfectly should do it.  I'm amazed I got it the first time.  During the cutting I was dreading the thought of having to do all this over again.

The floor molding isn't nailed in place just yet, so I just stuck it up next to the vertical shelf board to use as a template.



I took a file to the bottom section of the end where it butts (hee hee I wrote butt) up to the molding. Took a file and emulated the profile of the molding. It's a good thing the shape isn't real complex!





I'm not sure how well this can be read, but I had to include it.  On the back of the molding, which is MDF, it says "Made from Sustainable Plantations."  I never knew there were actual MDF plantations!  I suppose they have them in Chile.

The excitement continues!

It's now a back-and-forth, not TOO tedious process to finish the nut.  I'm not so confident that I can just totally wing it, so I file the slots a bit, file the top, file the slots...etc, you get the idea.

I'm trying to get the slots to the point where the strings will clear the first fret by a mere few thousands of an inch (not sure what that would be in millimeters...).  I've found I get too 'greedy' and wind up going a little too far, in which case the strings may actually have too little clearance, and that means tons of string buzz and starting over again.

With the slots filed down a bit more, it's back to the vise, with the nut off the guitar, and file the top contour down some.  Again, this isn't rocket surgery, it's just a matter of being careful and watching your reference line.

The top curve is a bit freehand - although I do have the curve of the depth line to follow.

A note here:  I'm using my "new" vise for this.  It's a small one I picked up at a local estate sale.  Usually I'm too late to these things and all the goodies (if there are any) are gone.  But this one was good.  It was a house whose previous owner had a pretty cool wood shop in the basement.  I scored some tools and this vise.  The vise was marked $3, but I got it for half of that because the folks running the sale were closing and wanted to get rid of stuff.  Pretty good deal, I'd say.

Once the nut is where I like it in terms of height, I run a piece of fine (I think this was 600) grit sandpaper through the slots to smooth the sides and bottoms.  Hopefully this will make the strings not hang up in the slots - especially on string bending.

Stew-Mac sells some stuff that's like floss for this exact operation.  I thought about buying some, but it's not cheap and I can't justify it given the small number of nuts I make.

I've been meaning to add as an aside that while I have a bunch of tools and junk from Stew-Mac, that's not the only place to shop for this stuff.  Luthier's Mercantile is another good place.  Stew-Mac's stuff IS good, but it does tend to be a little pricey, and some of their stuff, such as jigs, you can homebrew if you're so inclined.

Now I'm doing the final shaping and need to make sure the thing actually plays ok.  I have been tuning the strings to pitch for the most part throughout this process, but now I'm gonna make sure I'm tuned up.

For this, I have my neato Planet Waves headstock tuner.  For years, I used one of those "needle" tuners, and then I graduated a couple of years ago to a Peterson StroboFlip, which is an amazing tuner.  But I started playing the occasional busking gig, and my old trusty Seiko tuner (with the window and needle) wasn't practical, nor was the Peterson.  

A couple of folks in my ukulele circle were using these little clip-on tuners - and I actually got one when I bought my Kanile'a. Making a long story a bit shorter, I wanted a full chromatic tuner and wound up with the Planet Waves one.  Let me tell you, this thing is worth its weight in gold.  It's not as accurate as the Peterson (what is?) but it's darn close and totally convenient.  It tunes by sensing the instrument's vibrations off the headstock, so you don't need to get it in front of the soundhole or plug into it.  So you can use it on acoustic or electrics and it works the same way.  The best part for me is that you can be standing on a street corner with your geetar and tune with it.  Or in a room full of twanging ukes.  Outside noises don't affect it at all. Very very very cool, and it gets my highest recommendation.

You may have noticed in the pictures that the nut is a bit wider than the fingerboard.  That's deliberate - to give you something to work with.  Now that our shaping is done, we just mark the excess on the ends, and saw it off with the razor saw. 

I especially like being able to customize this because I find a lot of 'factory' nuts stick out the tiniest bit from the nut slot and I find my first finger rubbing on it on certain first-position chords.  I like to file mine so that the end is smooth and not protruding at all.

Another advantage of filing your own.

We're almost there.  I went over the nut with a fine file and some fine (800) grit sandpaper.  You need to be careful especially on the sides - that you don't take too much off.  The nut should slide in and fit snugly, and shouldn't be easy to push out of the slot from the side.  As with the saddle, this is the way string vibrations are transmitted to the body (neck in this case) of the guitar.

Now ve use the polishing compound and a soft cloth and polish it up!

It's a little hard to hold it and take the picture, but the vintage bone looks like ivory when it's polished.

Ivory was the real material of choice for nuts and saddles in the old days.  It's illegal now, unfortunately.  Bone is the next choice.

I'd love to have a pre-war Martin with real ivory on it.  How cool would that be?

Here it is on the guitar.  A lot of folks put a touch of glue in the slot to hold the nut in.  I usually wait until my first string change to do that so I can see if the nut is up to snuff.

You can see how much height I took off it, and how close the strings are down to the fingerboard.

When you're filing and get that close, just one or two strokes can make it...or ruin it.

I try to make the unwound strings just lay beneath the top of the nut, and the wound strings about 50% above.  I got it pretty close on this one.

Here's a beauty shot of the Tele on the bench post-nut. You can see the old neck on the bench too.

The body is very light - it's a MIJ '56 reissue made of as.  It has the post-1955 whiter blond finish.  I put a real black bakelite pickguard from Callaham guitars on it - I really don't like white guards on blond Teles.

It's also got two Don Mare 50's pickups, 4-way switching, and heavy knurled knobs from Callaham.  The pickups are totally killer - the whole guitar is a beast. The neck is real thin - maybe just a touch TOO thin - and incredibly fast.

The bridge is a Callaham vintage with compensated brass saddles.  Absolutely first class construction.

It's interesting because a lot of Tele players say the Callaham bridge seems less 'twangy' than the Glendale bridge.  It's true that the Callaham is thicker, but at least on this guitar, it's more twangy than the Glendale bridge on my red '62 style.  I think a lot of the twang on this one comes from the light body.

Next we make a few passes with each of the appropriate files.  The idea here isn't to go to the full depth, but to get enough of a slot started so we can string it up.

This is probably a better angle of the nut.  You can see I also made a pass with a 'nut file' across the top - it follows the curve of the fingerboard.

None of this is too difficult to do in terms of the actual labor/craft.  The most critical elements are the slot depths, the slot widths and the distance between the slots.  I've made a handful of nuts and I find I tend to make the slots too deep.  But you live and learn with experience.

I've mentioned the files I have a number of times.  I have seven that are for filing nut slots, and two that are small nut files for shaping.  The slot files are gauged, while the nut files are two-sided - to include a coarse, medium, fine and extra fine file. Do you need all these specialized tools?  Not necessarily.  A lot of folks online claim they can just use razor saws for the slots and use woodworking files for the shaping.  The files I have weren't overly expensive, and I figured they'd be worth the investment.  Plus, I just dig neat tools!

With the nut beginning to (ahem) take shape, I'm a-gonna string up the geetar.  I'm using DR "Pure Blues" nickel strings these days.  I really like the tone - not as bright as GHS Boomers (which I used to use), and I think they tend to last longer (corrode less) than the Boomers.

Hokay.

Here we are strung up to pitch.  The string height is obviously way way too high.  The process now is simple, just a bit tedious.  I'll file each of the slots down, and also take some of the height off the top of the nut.

It takes me three or four passes of this process - nut on, tune to pitch, detune, file, nut back on, etc., until it's done.  I don't do this enough to get it in a couple passes.  Even Dan Erlewine says it takes most pros a few times of taking the nut on and off the guitar to get it perfect.

You may be wondering, "But Mr Yr Fthfl Blggr man, I have seen 'pre-cut' nuts for sale online, why should I cut one?"  The answer is simple.  Each guitar is different.  Even though a Fender (our example) is standardized, you'll get a better playing instrument by custom-making a nut to fit.  And you can also customize to your playing style.  Most production-line guitars will need a good setup - of which is nut is an important part - to play their best.

Before I get too far into the nut-cutting (nutting?), I'm going to put the string retainer on.  The string retainer is the circular thingy in the pixture on the right (red arrow).  This is the old style Fender round retainer.  The earliest Stratocasters (from '54 to '56 I believe) used them until they switched to the "butterfly" style.  Most all Telecasters until the late 60s/early 70s used the round style, until they, too, were changed.  Of course, they're more or less interchangeable.  I'm not sure one's better than the other since functionally they do the same thing - keep the string angle on the E and B strings correct as they pass over the nut and go up to the tuners.

I like the round ones better, and since this is a more-or-less '55-'56 Tele style geetar, I'm going with that.  So there.

I took the measurements off the old neck - see my scrawled dimensions.  Then it's just a matter of transferring the measurements over to the new neck and marking it.  I lined up the new retainer and used its screw to make a small center hole.

Then I used a small (I can't remember the exact size, might have been 1/16...) bit to drill a hole. It's a good idea to "flag" the depth - unless you want to drill a hole all the way through the headstock.  Your choice.

Here we have the retainer in place.  Staring to look like a real geetar at this point - too bad it's pretty much unplayable.  But, ve vill feex dat soon enough!

I like the round retainer so much I changed out my main Strat with one...and also did some other junk to it that I'll be getting on here too.