KW Monsters Blog of Evil

PINOCCHIO VS DRACULA

2011-12-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

THE TABLECLOTH TRICK

2011-10-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

Is this real? I can't quit watching it.

Biertijd.com // Media » Tablecloth Trick

TARGET STACKS ITS MEAT THE SAME AS ME

2011-10-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a drawing I made in 2009:

LINK

And here's a range cover I saw for sale at Target a couple days ago.

What are the odds of this?

After I think about it, it is logical if you want to draw farm animals these would be the three main animals. And if you want to stack farm animals it is wise to go in descending weight order so maybe everyone would stack farm animals that way.

LIFE LESSON

2011-10-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a comic I did a while back and don't believe I've ever posted on this here blarg.

Everything was drawn separately and then pieced together in my photo-manipulatin' program. I think I even drew their arms separate from their bodies so I could rotate them to point in the right directions once I knew where they'd be standing. I like doing it that way now, rather than composing the entire scene in one shot. I can scoot and shrink and fiddle with all the junk in there before flattening it into one image. It's funner!

EVIL EXIT HALLOWEEN IDEA

2011-09-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

With pieces of tape the same color as the sign's background, you can make EXIT signs more spooky for Halloween.

2011-09-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

More sights from China.

This guy just made himself comfortable out on the street. I admire that ability to just not care what anyone thinks. I never bought anything from this street vendor because I felt bad to wake him up. He looked so content.

I have no idea

At first I thought the name of this store was GOD, and went, "Wow! That's rude!"
Then on closer inspection I realized it was called COD. That's still not much better.

This store mannequin looked like Jonny Quest to me. Even though all they sold were purses I had a compulsion to give them money just because of the mannequin.

I know by the look on Mei's face she was wondering why I took a picture of her buying a purse. That's just what I wanted her and anyone else watching to think. I was really trying to get a front and side profile of that Jonny Quest.

They're very unfriendly when it comes to cameras in stores in China. I've been told to get out several times. Mei told me they thought I was a competing business trying to learn their secrets.

CHINESE PUZZLE BALL

2011-08-21T08:37:00.001-07:00

You may have seen these before. Sometimes they're called Mystery Balls. The fancier ones are carved from ivory, while the cheaper ones are wooden. I've been wanting one of these for a while, and I think I'll just have to keep wanting them. I'll never be able to afford one since they cost as much as a new car.

My brother-in-law has one with 28 or 30 levels in it. He let me try to solve the puzzle but I was too scared I'd break something if I handled it very much. To solve the puzzle you much align all the holes through all the layers. It's much more difficult than it seems. Usually you can get one hole lined up all the way through but the rest aren't even close. It's very much like a Rubik's cube; it's not too difficult to get one color but you can forget about it after that.

It's all carved from a single chunk of ivory. I have no idea how they can get in there to carve those inner layers. I would assume they'd have to carve the innermost layer first so they could hold it in place while working on it. If they worked on it from the outermost first everything would roll around and they'd never be able to grip anything to carve it.

I think I heard someone say all the old guys in China who know how to make these are dying off, and it's becoming a lost art. I hope they train some new younger guys to take over.

UNSETTLINGLY HIGH BRIDGE IN GUANGZHOU

2011-08-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

We got to ride on a double-decker buss to the airport in GuangZhou. At first I was happy about that. We got up onto the top of the buss because that would be more fun. I thought.

I didn't realize we'd be barreling down a highway at rocket speed, and right on the edge of a roller-coaster-height bridge. The guardrail was about 2 feet tall. That would be just enough of a guardrail, not to stop your double decker buss from flipping, but to give it a quick spin and make the fall even more dramatic.

When I look at these pictures it doesn't seem as bad as it did in real life. It's difficult to conceive the scale of the drop in these shots. We were about 2 feet from the edge, and bouncing and bumping and flying across that highway the entire trip. Also big winds were blowing our buss which only added to the excitement. The only thing that gave me comfort was the fact that the driver probably drove that buss on that bridge many times a day, every day, and he was still alive.

Look at that tiny little guardrail!! Those are the tops of trees down there!

DANG! (Number 8)

2011-08-02T14:53:00.000-07:00

I didn't have a single bad meal in Thailand. In fact every place we went was my new favorite.
I remember each time I ate somewhere I'd think, "I gotta remember to come back to this place!"

We never got the chance to eat anywhere twice, but it didn't matter. Everything was equally delicious.
So delicious I would say "DANG!"

While we ate at this place called Dang(?) a frog jumped through the entire restaurant, coming in one end of the dining area, hopping between the customers' feet and out the other side of the restaurant. Everyone saw it, and no one cared.

It started raining really hard so they let us stay there after hours until it stopped. It was an hour after they'd closed before we could go outside. While we were there they gave us some soup on the house.

LIU RONG SI Temple in GuangZhou China

2011-08-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

This is a temple we visited in GuangZhou. I hope I typed the name correctly. We visited a few and I get them mixed up. This was a pretty big statue in the doorway. It had to be at least 9 feet tall.

Here's a detail of the little monster underneath the giant guy's foot.

There's no telling how old this stuff is. It could be hundreds of years old for all I know.

See this building? Look up there on the roof!

Here's a closeup

And each section had a uniqued sculpted scenery inside.

Here's Mei and a door.

MONKEY BEACH in Thailand

2011-07-31T17:58:00.000-07:00

There's a place in Thailand called Phi Phi Island. It's actually pronounced "Pee-Pee Island," believe it or not. We went on a boat ride to Phi Phi Island and got to visit Monkey Beach along the way.

These monkeys weren't tame and would steal sunglasses, hats, earrings and cellphones and whatever they could grab and run with.

Monkeys were darting around and yanking food out of our hands too. It seems extra bad for a monkey to drink Coke since they probably aren't gonna be brushing their teeth afterwards.

This was a cliff right on the edge of Monkey Beach.

In this picture I appear calm but was very horrified by these tiny monkeys. Who knows what kinds of weird monkey diseases they carried.

I had to beg Mei to stand by the monkeys. She was scared of them too. I told her it was safe, but I didn't really know if it was or not.

We both made it out of there unbitten so I guess it was safe after all. Next time maybe I'll be more brave and approach a monkey. Maybe I'll even touch one. Or not.

ASIAN FRUIT : The Good, the Bad and the Disgustingly Hideous

2011-07-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is probably the greatest and most delicious food discovery I've made in all my adult years. This fruit is called "Hong Mao Dan" which translates into Red Hair Egg.

I find them in Chinese groceries once in a blue moon, but they're never as big as these I found in Thailand.

The skin breaks off pretty easily, like peeling an orange. You don't eat that part.

Inside is something which is about the size, shape and texture of an eyeball. Mmmm.... eyes...

It's very sweet and slightly tart, somewhere in the range of strawberry tartness. There's a seed inside. You'll wanna spit that part out. I've been told by my grandpa if I swallow apple seeds an apple tree will start growing out of my belly button. I don't want to chance that! Anyway, these are pretty delicious. I could eat them all day long.

Even though they sell the delicious Hong Mao Dan in Thailand, it is also possible to buy...... (shudder).... THIS!........

DURIAN!!!! (wretch!) Just look at it's prickly evilness!

Look at all of them laying there, like rotting, (gag!) stinking dead animals... (choke!)

I defy anyone to tell me there's a worse smelling fruit in all the universe. Even if there was a fruit called "Granny Smith bung apples flavored with infected pig feces" it couldn't top this. I can smell these things blocks away. When I walk, I mean RUN, past them and I'm blocks away I can still smell them in my clothes. The smell is like a mixture of rotting animal, spoiled and rancid sour fruit, poisonous hair permanent solution, Satan's fart after he ate something he was allergic to, and just some general extra rot thrown in on the side.

Mei and I got some popsicles on a hot day. I got cherry-flavored and she got durian-flavored. I'm not kidding I could not each my popsicle because I kept smelling durian odor coming off her popsicle. I walked a considerable distance away from her and could still smell it every time I tried to take a bite of my cherry popsicle. Even if you try to man-up and brave something like that it just can not be done. I felt like a failure but I eventually flung my popsicle into the trash, and accepted the fact that I was just going to have to be parched.

These were pretty nifty. These Chinese characters are grown into the skins of the apples. I wonder if they put stickers on the apples, and the apples tanned in the sun, and then the stickers were removed leaving tan lines.

VLAD THE IMPALA

2011-07-20T16:34:00.000-07:00

Wakka wakka!

UNUSUAL CHINESE STUFF I SAW

2011-07-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

I saw these all over China. They were small plastic boxes located in every nook and cranny, every where I went, even on little boats. At first when I saw one I thought it was some kind of funny joke product like you'd find in Spencers: a man in a business suit, in a clenched-fist action pose, with either a robot mask or space helmet. But it wasn't that! It was real!

Inside is a fire escape hood. These were in all the apartment complexes too, located where you'd normally find fire extinguishers. The odd thing was I never saw any fire extinguishers. They never had enough of these though. If there really was a fire only a small percentage of the people would be able to get out alive.

These were popular too. Kung Fu restaurants with Bruce Lee as the mascot. Sadly I didn't get to eat at one. Maybe next time.

See the girl in the white t-shirt in the lower right? What's her shirt say?

Here's another angle. I suspect she doesn't know what it says. Mei says Chinese people like English lettering the way we like Chinese characters. Sometimes Mei will whisper to me when she sees an American with a Chinese character tattoo. She will tell me the meaning and I'm sure the person with the tattoo doesn't know that's what it says. One time it said "smell" and another time it said "hooker." Mei said sometimes it takes a second character to clarify the meaning. Some characters are used for a variety of meanings. It looked cool though in spite of the actual meaning.

FAT DOG, LITTLE DOG

2011-07-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

These are my brother-in-law's dogs. We got to see them when we visited him in China last month. These dogs were seriously funny to watch.

They were relentlessly bothered and tormented by us, and they didn't care. They just laid there like stuffed animals.

I know this fat one is a pug but I'm not sure what the little one is.

The fat one could stand up for about a minute, and then he'd slam himself back down onto the floor as if he'd been over exerted.

Look at how lazy they are in this video. Both of them are basically lumps of immobile meat.

I want to know what kind of dog this is. They called it a "bear dog". Is it a Pomeranian? I guess not because they said the parents of this dog were only 5 pounds each. He's reeeeeally light. It felt like a puffball with nothing inside when I picked him up.

ALLIGATORS AT THE GUANGZHOU ZOO IN CHINA

2011-07-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

I remember "Yikes" being the first word that came to my mind as I entered the alligator section of the zoo in GuangZhou China. It was just a narrow bridge maybe about four feet above the water.

There was a waist-high railing on the bridge to keep short people from falling into the alligator water, but it only served as something for me to trip over and land in the water more splashy and noticeably.

Everywhere I looked in the small lake was swarming with alligators exactly as dense as you see them in this picture.

Some just stood there and stared as us with their mouths open.

Even though some appeared to be asleep, they weren't. They would snap into a violent frenzy at the slightest motion around them. Any ripple in the water could be possible food and they had to fight the others off to get to it.

This one is just waiting for some kid to fall over the railing. The others are waiting too, but are trying not to be so obvious about it.

See that hunk of pink floating in the air? That's what's left of a chicken on a string. You could buy a dead chicken on a string, on the end of a bamboo fishing pole, and torment the alligators with it. You could bounce chickens on the alligator's tails, or even their heads, and then quickly yank the chickens back up before they were snapped up at shotgun speed by alligator jaws. It was like being on a battlefield. Alligators below and chickens flying past your head from above. And I did get hit with slimy dead chickens while standing on that bridge. Nobody got mad. Everyone understood it was just the standard uncontrollable reaction of mortal terror when alligators rocket-lunge out of the water at your chickens.

When the alligator's jaws slammed shut I think I could feel the concussion of it. Maybe I'm just imagining that part but it sure did seem that way. Look at the bloody mouth on this one. He finally got his chicken.

It was cheap to buy a chicken so I got one and dangled it over the railing. Those alligators are extremely quick. I tried to keep my chicken for as long as I could but they zapped it up in seconds. They pulled pretty violently too. It was a struggle to hang onto the pole. Some kids lost their poles. It's better to lose the pole than to hang onto it and get pulled into the water.

CHINESE POLICE VEHICLE

2011-07-12T21:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a little police vehicle I saw in China. I really love these things a lot. The roundness, and the raised headlights and the grill make it look like something from the 1930s.

As much as I love this car I admit I have no respect for any cop who would drive it. It reminds me of something Cling and Clang would drive on H. R. Pufnstuf, or something 20 clowns would crawl out of at the circus. If I got pulled over for speeding by one of these, it would be all I could do not to pat the cop on the head.

CHINESE MINI COMIC BOOKS

2011-07-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

Mei and I recently returned from a trip to China and Thailand to vacation and visit her family. While we were there I picked up a bunch of stuff, including these tiny old Chinese comics. They're roughly 3 1/2" tall, 5" wide, and of various thicknesses.

Many of them have famous Disney characters, but I somehow doubt they're approved by Disney. It looks like they re-drew every image from a real Disney comic so the format matched the shape of these little books. Some have beautiful images, and then some are plain horrible.

I saw these books at several book shops in Guang Zhou, China. Some dealers were asking hefty prices for them, like $7 each, while others were selling the same books six for $1. The expensive dealers were firm on their prices too. Usually you can bargain with the dealers, but I couldn't get the expensive dealers to budge an inch on these. They said these books were collectible. Maybe and maybe not. Dealers in the other less expensive shops didn't treat them so seriously. They would fling handfuls into sacks, tearing them in the process as if they were garbage.

Mei told me these same old book shops we visited had been around since she was a little girl. Every single book, not just the comics, in these shops where old, and I wonder if these comics have been sitting on the shelves in there since they were new. Maybe Mei even picked up these exact books and flipped through them when she was a kid.

I grabbed a handful of Tintin comics and every Disney book I saw. There were a lot of famous Japanese characters mixed in too. It was real work to find some actual Chinese-specific character comics. I got a few but the pickin's were slim. I don't think Chinese illustrators draw many comics; I think they spend their time drawing wall art.

Some of these books were photo stories, with screen caps from old movies.

These three seem like actual Chinese characters to me. I'm guessing they are because they're about the Monkey King, who is popular in Chinese folklore. I need to ask Mei to be sure.

Look! Smurfs and Henry Hawk!

This is some kind of adventuring duck character. He fights robots and whatnot, and suspiciously resembles Donald Duck.

I asked Mei if this mean kid was actually cramming a feather duster up his dad's butt, or if I was just looking at it wrong. She said Yes, he's cramming a feather duster up the dad's butt, and the thought of it never phased her.

I'm not too keen on the drawings in this one, but I still like it because it's mostly wordless and I can understand the jokes.

Here are two:

These are all the "Disney" books I found.

Here's a typical inside page. You can see the images have been redrawn to fit the book's format. They aren't awful drawings, but there's something not quite right about them.

This elf character was pretty popular. I found piles and piles of books about him.

These elf comics are about the same size as a wiener dog's nose.

Look inside: Are people committing suicide in this kids comic?

All the comic panels are numbered. I guess that makes sense because I've seen some books in China read from left to right, while others read from right to left, or in columns top to bottom.

Here are some movie photo comics.

This one looks like a non-Asian movie.

There were bunches of kungfu comics. For some reason they were more beat up than all of the other comics, so I only got a few. Maybe the kids were practicing the kungfu moves they saw in mid-read?

THHHWIPP! I wonder if any kids practiced this move.

This was a box set of six little comics that told one big story.

The covers have big, bright, colorful, fun action. So radiantly colorful in fact, I wonder if there's lead in the ink. Gulp.

Check out the action on the inside. How can you not love that?

I really like that whale painting below.

This is a page from inside the book in the above pic.

I found a bunch of Tintin books but only a few that still had all their pages.

These Tintin books were the thickest in the entire bunch.

I'm not sure if these Tintin comics were redrawn or not. The look pretty close to the originals, just formatted differently.

I bet Lucy wants to squat on these and "mark" them so other dogs know they're her property.

I like the drawings a lot in this one.

The cover of this book is in the last picture below, on the top of the stack on the left.

I probably spent less than $15 on all this! Now if I can learn to read Chinese it will have all been worth it!

I also got a stack of horror comics from Thailand. I'll try to get pics of them to post in the near future. During the next several days I'll be posting more pics from my trip. I hope you guys enjoy seeing it, because there's a lot.

MORE BIRDS IN THE DOOR

2011-07-04T20:30:00.000-07:00

It seems to be a yearly event now. Each Summer I get a nest full of baby birds in my front door. It lasts about 2 weeks and then they fly off leaving me a disgusting mess to clean up.

I should just shoo the mama away when I see her building the nest but I don't have the heart.
See the sleeping action! Also you can see the mama:

INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN STATUE

2011-07-04T00:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of those things I couldn't live without when I saw it for sale. Now that I have it, it just sits on a shelf and does nothing. Having it there is comforting though. It is pretty fancy. Also it was cheap.

I remember seeing scenes from this movie in old magazines, and wanting to see it very badly. When I finally did get to see it I dozed off in the middle. Not because it was boring but because I was just tired that day. I've still not completely watched it yet. I remember they had long syringe-type fingernails, and maybe it was my hazy dream stupor, but it seems like I remember beer squirting out of their fingernails? Is that right? I think they were stabbing kids and making them become drunk? Is that really what happened?! Am I crazy? Did I dream that?

DUNE BUGGY: It's getting there

2011-06-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it's slowly getting closer to being finished. Now the body is on the frame, and it has a roll bar and loads of hidden chunks of metal welded all around under it for support.
It's just lacking small things. It needs side mirrors, and the seats need to be bolted down.

It'll also get a top, and mounting holes are already drilled and ready to go. It can be driven without the top so that's not an emergency.

Lee, the guy who's fixing up my dune buggy, had a 'Hotrod' emblem laying around in his shop since the 1960s. He didn't think he'd ever have a use for it so he mounted it to my grill. I thought that was pretty nice of him.

This photo isn't the clearest, but you can see the trunk has a diamond plate lid and also some bed rails. I'll be able to haul things back there, truck-style.
That's a "classic car" license plate. The previous dune buggy owner hasn't come to get it yet. He told me these plates don't expire. If that's really true it would be fantastic. I'm all for the idea of not spending any more money on this thing.

I PAINTED A GUN

2011-06-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a gun stock I painted. The guy who bought it loves deer hunting. If you click and enlarge the picture you'll be able to see some tiny little deer hidden in it.

EASTER ISLAND MOAI HEAD CARVINGS

2011-06-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

Here's what exists so far of a yet-to-be-finished wooden shelf project. The plan is to use 2 heads as brackets for a shelf, and then have the other 2 heads create a second tier so I'd have a bi-level shelf to display tiki mugs.

The reason I haven't finished the project yet is because I realized I don't have enough wall space to hang such a shelf. Now they sit awaiting a new idea.
These faces were free-handed rather than using a pattern. That gave each one its own personality.

LITTLE DOCTOR FRANKENSTEIN CORPSE REVITALIZING KIT

2011-06-17T14:58:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty old drawing but I don't think I've ever posted it here on this blog. Obviously kids shouldn't really play with actual body parts, but I think this would be a solid and worthy toy idea in plastic form. If I were a kid I'd love connecting parts together to create my own full-sized 7 foot tall monster. Maybe size would be an issue. It wouldn't fit in the toy box.
I could see a toy like this having lots of expansion packs, like veins with blood-pumping action and nervous systems to be added to the monster. Light-up eyes. A voice box with a wailing scream which could be set to go off at certain times like an alarm clock.

Once kids constructed their creatures they could stand them upright beside their bedroom doorways, and feel safe and protected. Or maybe kids would be mortified to see that thing standing there when they woke up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. I know I can't speak for all kids, but I personally would have loved it.

DEADY BEAR

2011-06-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

Idea for a horror movie about an evil teddy bear.

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 10 of 10

2011-05-19T14:42:00.001-07:00

The final day of my Cigar Box Guitar Project:

At the last minute I decided I wanted the strings lower so I sanded some off the bottom of the bridge. Then the tail piece was taller than the bridge, so I had to cut some grooves to set the strings down lower. It was still close so I also put 6 screw-eyes in between to pull the strings down behind the bridge.

This is what it looked like before the screw-eyes were put in. I only uploaded this picture because Lucy was in it.

This is the actual final version.

The sound is sort of banjo-ish. It's very loud too, which surprised me. I figured the size of the box was proportionate to the volume, but I guess other things also affect the volume, like the kind of wood, and how thick it is, and where things are located on the top surface.

It's pretty nifty to have a tiny guitar I can easily tuck out of the way. It's small enough I can just leave it on the couch and it doesn't use up a spot. I've been just leaving it on the couch and so far Mei hasn't asked me to move it.

In addition to looking fancy I think the paper labels act a little bit like veneer as far as aiding in the prevention of expansion and contraction of the wood during temperature changes.

Here's what the Big Wolf sounds like unplugged. I don't have an electrified Wolf video because the amp is in a room too messy to film.

The only downside to having a tiny guitar is the tininess. Depending on the day, sometimes it's awkward to hold onto. It's fun though because it's so quick and handy.

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 9 of 10

2011-05-18T16:24:00.000-07:00

Day 9 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project:

I bought a kit online to electrify my guitar for cheap. It would have been even cheaper if I'd have located the items myself, but in the end laziness triumphed! This kit is pretty nifty though, and I'm glad I went that route.
The pickup is just a cheap (so cheap they give you an extra) Piezo speaker, the same kind you'd find in Walkman headphones. By wiring it backwards it acts as a microphone instead of a speaker.

Before soldering I twisted the connections together and checked it in the amp. Everything worked fine on the 1st try. Yeeha!

After feeling confident it was wired correctly I soldered all the joints. I learned something about solder. It's much easier to solder joints when you get the low-heat solder. It's only good for small electronics. In the past I was using some harder stuff and it took a while for it to melt.

After soldering, I taped all the exposed joints with electrical tape, and then twisted the wires so they weren't going all over the place, rat's-nest style.

It was fairly simple to mount. The jack and the volume knob were tightened on with nuts, and the Piezo speaker was attached with duct tape. Thin strings are louder so it was mounted off-center toward the thick string side.
It's nice having the ability to open and close the lid. In addition to the obvious handiness when building it, it's also nice because I can store guitar picks in there, wedged under the screws in the corners so they don't rattle around.

All that's left if stringing it up! Woohoo!

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 8 of 10

2011-05-17T15:26:00.001-07:00

Day 7 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project:

I drilled a hole for the volume knob and another on the edge for the input jack, and then this dog was ready to for finish.

This is my new favorite finish. Minwax Wipe-On Poly (clear satin). With sprays I have trouble with runs and drips. This stuff goes on with a rag, so it's easier, and it adds a yellowish antique tint to the wood, and the more coats you use the better it looks. I used 600 grit sandpaper between each coat and it took about 6 coats. It dries fairly quickly for polyurethane - about 2 hours. The spray urethane I used in the past took more than 24 hours to dry. Maybe I didn't shake it enough or something like that. Who knows. This stuff is great though.

After the finish cured over night I screwed all the hardware onto the body. Since I cut the tuner strip in half it required one extra hole and an extra screw. I couldn't find the exact screw to match the rest, so I didn't even try. This one is brass.

I snapped in the sound hole grommets. Those were easy. The brass corner protectors took some time, just because there were so many of them. Eight. Eh, I guess that's not so many. Never mind.

Here's the back view. I'm happy with the color of the box. The neck is poplar so it has a temporary greenish tint. As it ages it will become golden brown.

Here's the top face. Oh yeah, I also put in some new fret markers. They are made from dowels. I put some of the Wipe-On Poly finish onto the fret markers too so they wouldn't eventually turn dirty and gray from finger sweat. That's another nice thing about this finish. I can control where I want to apply it. I only wanted the markers to have finish, not the fretboard, and it was pretty easy to do by dabbing the specific spots.
All that's left now is the electronics. Then the Big Wolf shall live. The first song it'll play is probably going to be Wild Thing.

More to come...

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 7 of 10

2011-05-16T21:28:00.001-07:00

Day 7 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project:

Before putting a finish on it, there are only a couple more things left to do.

First, a sharp ridge was carved across the center of the bridge, and 6 grooves were filed into it for the strings.

I attached the saddle with glue and dowels. The dowels are inside the groove so they won't show when the bridge is in place. I coved the edges of both the bridge and the tail piece because they looked really plain.

Tada! A bridge!

Instead of a big sound hole in the center of Big Wolf's wolf face I put 2 smaller-sized sound holes in the corners, clear of the label. The sizes of the holes were determined by the grommets I was able to find. Finding non-plastic grommets was a chore. I think I went to 10 different stores and came up empty handed. Eventually I found some louvered air vents and removed the slats from the middles, leaving just the outer rings. I won't pop them in until after it's been finished, because once they go in they won't come back out.
Basic construction of the Big Wolf is complete now. Next will be finishing and then making it electric. Stay tuned for more.

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 6 of 10

2011-05-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Day 6 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project:

Due to the shortness of the fretboard there's a 1" space on the neck where there is no fretboard, so I made a decoration to cover that spot.

This is a dry fit to show what it'll look like in place.

Also I started the tail piece. It L-shaped so it'll fold over the back edge of the box. There are 6 slots in it for the strings.

In the upper right corner of this picture there are some corner brackets. I wanted the lid to be held firmly in place when shut so these will be glued to the 4 inside corners and act as a lip. I believe that'll prevent the lid from shifting around side to side. Otherwise I think the hinges would eventually get wiggly and snap off.

Here's a dry fit for the tail piece and the bridge.

Sometimes when I'm concentrating on a project and I've been in the zone for a while it'll suddenly occur to me something's been gently trying to get my attention. When I look down I see Lucy shaking hands with my foot hoping it would get her a treat. Eventually I'll give her one and she'll be satisfied and flop down to fall asleep again.

Toothpicks were used to attach the tail piece to the body. After the glue dried I cut them off flush.

I glued the neck decoration in place and called it a day. Lucy tried to shake hands with the guitar. I suspect she thought it would give her a treat.
Stay tuned.

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 5 of 10

2011-05-13T21:40:00.000-07:00

Day 5 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project:

To make a gradient shade around the edge of the headstock I used some watered down Burnt Sienna acrylic paint. It was diluted extra just in case, so when I applied it I could keep adding more until I got the shade I wanted. It's about half way there in this picture.

After the paint dried I put a block on the inside of the box, and used that to screw through, into the neck. If I didn't use the block and just screwed the neck to the flimsy wall of the box it probably wouldn't have been able to support all the stress of the strings.

It had 3 screws, but just to be safe I drilled a deep hole and glued a dowel in for extra strength.

Here it is after the dowel was trimmed flush with the block.

After that, the labels were glued to the front and back faces of the box. Before gluing them down I burned the edges in a few spots. Playing with fire is pretty fun so I had to restrain my desire to go crazy with it. I limited myself to 2 or 3 burn spots per label.
And that's a good stopping place for today. Stay tuned.

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 4 of 10

2011-05-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

Day 4 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project. Today I tackled the Nut and the Bridge. Below is a base or saddle for the bridge. Whichever you like to call it. It will hold the bridge upright.

Bridges are easier to adjust height-wise if they aren't permanently glued down, so a slotted base is what I like to use. The tightened strings hold the bridge down onto the saddle. If the strings are too high I can sand the bottom of the bridge down and then click it back into the saddle. If the strings are too low I can put a strip of veneer or some credit card plastic under the bridge. So far I've never had to do that, but the option is there if I need it, and I have been trying to come up with a good excuse to cut up some of Mei's credit cards.

Here's the Nut. It's wide at the bottom for sturdy support, and then thin at the top so the strings are resting on a sharper edge.

On the other side you can see 2 pencil lines. the lower line represents the fretboard surface. The upper line shows me how deep the string grooves need to be. The distance between those 2 lines is just barely more than the height of a fret.
That's what I did this day. It doesn't look like much but it did take a while since the parts were so little and finicky.

More to come.

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 3 of 10

2011-05-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

Day 3 of my Cigar Box Project. I drilled the holes for the tuning keys and that completes the neck.

The holes aren't symmetrical, but that's the only way they'll fit on the headstock because...

...I'm not using proper 3-key left and right set of strips. Both are rights because I split a full 6-key strip in half. It's a tight squeeze but if I jostle things around just right there's room for it all.

Next the fretboard was glued on. The neck was made just a tad wider than the fretboard so I could sand it down flush with the fretboard.

Here it is after being flushed up.

My friend Bob helped me print the image I found online with a laser printer on slick paper. There are 3 different images on the page but I decided not to use 1 of them.

I glued one of the labels to the headstock. That fancies it up purty nice. Soon this little Big Wolf will howl.
Stay tuned for further developments.

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 2 of 10

2011-05-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project. It's not easy to find a chunk of wood 3 inches thick without paying big bucks, so I glued two thinner pieces together. This is better anyway when it comes to necks on musical instruments.

I can reverse the grain directions in the two pieces so if warping tries to occur, both halves will work and pull against each other and not let that happen. To reverse the grain direction, you just need to look at the end of the board, and whichever way the grain arches are cupped, orient the other piece in a mirrored direction. I suspect that makes no sense. If so ignore it.

I sketched out the edge profile and cut that on a band saw.

Then sanded the fretboard surface flat.

Then I sketched out the top face. It all has to be custom to fit the tiny fretboard.

These strips of wood were selected because the grain arches were centered pretty well in the strips. If you look at the sawn section of the headstock you can see the grain arches. If the arches aren't centered then later on it may want to warp and twist in a weird direction. Now if it wants to warp it will pull the same on both edges, and then the opposite piece of wood will pull in the other direction. It has 2 choices: either stay where it's at forever, or explode.

Here's the side view of the neck. Lucy was distrustful at first.

Later she relaxed and allowed it to coexist in her world.

Next the top profile was cut out on the band saw. I left the headstock big since I hadn't yet decided on a pattern for that.

Rounding the back was done on an edge sander. It seems like a tricky job but really it's pretty quick and painless. The entire operation took 10 minutes or less. If I tried to do it with chisels I'd have spent a few hours trying to get it even. On the edge sander I can drag the length of it across the drum on the end of the sander. Then rotate it a bit and drag the length of it across again, and just keep repeating that until I've went around the entire back face. To do this you need some pretty coarse sand paper.

Lastly I drew out a headstock shape to fit my tuning keys and cut that out on the band saw. The pencil marks show me where to bore for the keys. Since I cut a 6-Tuning Key Strip in half (in the last episode) the keys can not be symmetrical. It doesn't bother me though, since it's a clunky cigar box guitar after all. It adds to the whimsicalness of it.

Next time on "Cigar Box Guitar: The Series," I'll cut those holes and stick that fretboard on that neck!

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 1 of 10 ( I promise!)

2011-05-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

My buddy Wayne found an rusty, broken, old 1960s Japanese guitar in his friend's garage. He and I were salvaging usable parts when tragedy struck. He needed the fretboard for a project he'd already started but when he was removing it from the neck it broke in half.

I didn't see it happen but I'm sure he wasn't too happy about it. It sat in the garbage for a day or two. I've been wanting a ukelele-sized guitar for a while so dug it out of the trash. Fortunately it broke off at the skinny end. If it had broken off at the fat end I couldn't have used it.

With a little cleaning the tuning keys were usable too.

I cut this strip of keys in half because I needed a symmetrical setup with 3 on each side. It was cut at a diagonal so there would be a little bit of metal I could drill for screws. It ain't pretty, but it's ugly.

I saved as much as I could on the fretboard. It ended up with 13 usable frets. The top one is going to have to be removed because the nut will go there.

The fret markers are now in the wrong place since the top end of the fretboard was lost. There was enough of the broken end to cut 4 plugs of wood. The incorrect fret markers were drilled out and patched with the plugs. Tada!

You can barely see the patches since they're made from the same wood. You gotta look really close.

I had two cigar boxes to choose from. My original first pick was this one with the cool designs all over it.

Inside had another loose label. I thought I could use that to cover the headstock so it all matched. The only bad thing about this box is the size. It's really tiny. I doubt I'd get much sound out of this little thing.

My second option was this larger, but more boring box. Even though it's not anything to look at, the size is perfect.

It's pretty well built too, with finger-jointed sturdiness.

There is a design on this box but it's on the inside, which does me no good.

After tormenting myself over this for a couple days I realized I could just google search for high res cigar box labels and print and glue it on myself. These were my 2 favorites. The "Crusader" seems obnoxiously funny to me.
The other one I liked was the "Big Wolf." In the end I thought this one was better and funnier since it said "BIG." That seemed even more obnoxious for a mini guitar.
Stay tuned. Tomorrow I'm going to carve out the neck.

FRANK, BAT and MUSTACHIOED MONKEY-FACE MAN

2011-05-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some post-it note doodles that have been scanned and colored. I like the look of simple 2-tone shades much more than airbrushed shading when it comes to black outlined drawings.

I don't enjoy modern comics because of the airbrushed shading they all have. I don't know exactly why it bothers me so much. Maybe it's because of nostalgia for the older flat color style. It wouldn't bother me so much if all the objects had a singular light source, but when I see them it looks like different objects in the same picture are lit separately in a way so each object has it's own uniquely-placed spotlight.

It's weird (to me) to shade something if it's already outlined. If it's shaded then the outlines aren't even necessary. If something isn't shaded then outlines are needed to delineate the forms and shapes. Having both is like wearing boots on top of shoes.

Since I'm already whining about comics, also I don't like the shiny glary paper. I liked old newsprint. It's both cheaper AND easier to see. Also it tones down the gaudy primary colors into something pleasing. I miss the advertisements too. Twinkies ads were just as fun as the actual comics pages.

I always wonder if they quit spending so much time airbrushing, and used cheap paper, and made the books half-full of ads if I could afford them again.

Whoever's in charge, hurry up and fix this stuff!

WRASTLIN'-WEIRDOS

2011-05-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

This started out as an early brainstorming pencil sketch for a cd design. Later the design plans changed but I still liked the sketch so I went ahead and inked it.

HEAD DOODLES

2011-05-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

That 80s band, Men Without Hats hates both of these pictures.

THE SCREAMING WILHELMS #6.1 (Reworked)

2011-04-29T13:11:00.001-07:00

Okay, trying it again. The 1st version of this comic was unclear. I hope this one makes sense. If not I'll throw it on the scrap heap. That heap is getting out of control these days. Sorry trees, for all the paper I wasted.

If you want to see some more Screaming Wilhelms comics click HERE.

And HERE for one more.

THE SCREAMING WILHELMS #6

2011-04-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

Number six in a long run of six comics (so far) about the Screaming Wilhelms. See their earlier comics by clicking HERE.
Oh powerful and mighty flatulence joke, is there nothing you can't make greater?

UPDATE: This junky old version of the comic has been superseded by a NEWER FANCIER VERSION. CLICK!

HORRIFYING FACE (and corpse story)

2011-04-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is Franklin Pangborn. He was famous performer from back in the day. I've never heard of him until now. This photo is very disturbing to me. It's difficult to explain why it creeps me out so badly. I'm wondering if it's because the guy is all gussied like a corpse in a coffin.

If I stare at the eyes long enough they look like they twitch. At the small size it doesn't bother me as bad. Click and enlarge the image for the real horror. Stare at it for at least 30 seconds. Does it seem creepy to anyone else?

This reminds me of something that happened to me as a child. My mom brought me to a funeral home to visit an old lady who had just became a widow. We walked right up to the coffin and stood there next to the dead guy. As my mom talked to the widow, I stared intently at the dead guy. If you stare at something long enough it seem to move. Of course it was all in my head but for the life of me I honestly thought it was really breathing. I swear and cross my heart I saw what looked like the dead guy taking a deep breath. I screamed out, "He's breathing!!" and my mom slapped me down and told me to be quiet.

As I stared more intently at the chest and stomach of the dead body, it looked like it would periodically do it again and again. I thought the dead guy was trying to trick us and I was the only one who knew his secret. I figured my mom didn't hear what I said the first time because she didn't get upset about the trickery, so I yelled it again.

"HE'S BREATHING! HE'S BREATHING! HE'S TRYING TO TRICK US! HE'S NOT DEAD!"

When I said it louder the widow became excited and looked into the coffin at the body. I got promptly smacked and told to shut up by my mother. This was extremely frustrating. I felt like no one was doing anything about this deceit! Why was this faker trying to trick his wife into thinking he was dead? I figured everyone would be happy about my discovery, but they weren't. I got lots of glares and stares. I remember thinking, "What is wrong with these people?! Do they not want him to be alive?"

NOTEBOOK DOODLE part-M

2011-04-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's difficult to decide which spot would be the best placement for ears. In those cases I like to use ALL the spots. Then no one will ever be able to say, "Hey! You don't understand human anatomy!"

SIR NECKLY LONGSWALLOW

2011-04-13T19:20:00.001-07:00

I haven't drawn anything in a few days. Sometimes just a plain ol' ugly face satisfies the itch.

FREAKY GEEKS GUMBALL MACHINE JUNK

2011-04-05T17:57:00.000-07:00

These are pretty nifty. They're called Freaky Geeks and you can get this full set for a 3 or 4 bucks right now on Ebay. They're about 1 inch tall so they meet my fit-unnoticeably-into-a-drawer requirement.

This is just the kind of thing to get me into a drawing mood. They all have names but I don't know them. I could google them to find out their names, but the google tab is ALLLLLLL the way over there on the other side of the screen, so forget that!

You can probably attain an entire set the old fashioned way, from a real gumball machine, but I bet you'd spend tens of dollars before getting the last one needed to complete a set.

FUZZ FACE

2011-04-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

I just got a new toy. This is a Fuzz Face pedal for guitar, bass, keyboard and whatever else you can think to run through it. I like this thing a lot. It's pressure sensitive too. The stronger you strum a note, the more the fuzz is activated, so you have a lot of control over the sound of your sound. I wonder if it's a coincidence it's called Fuzz Face and it looks like a smiling face.

There are distortion pedals, overdrive pedals and fuzz pedals. A fuzz pedal has a sloppy sputter sound whereas the overdrives are more warm and solid, and distortions are cutting and sharp. Youtube explains it a lot better than I can.

FUZZ (You may want to skip ahead to 2:30)

OVERDRIVE

DISTORTION

I FOUND SOME FINGER PUPPETS

2011-04-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

At the Hot Topic store in the mall they're selling weird little monster finger puppets. I found two different sets.

There's a zombie set, and a set of strange guys I can't quite figure out. They aren't exactly monsters but they aren't people either. Both sets oddly have six characters each, which is like selling a set of three shoes.
I really like finding little goofy things like this. They put me in the mood to doodle. Lately my home is getting pretty full of junk so I'm not able to get large items anymore. These things are so tiny they blend fairly unnoticeably into a drawer. Also since they aren't famous character products they're really cheap.

THE SCREAMING WILHELMS #5

2011-03-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the newest Screaming Wilhelms comic. You can see the older Screaming Wilhelms comics by clicking HERE and routing around.
The above comic is an expanded version of this old notebook comic:

CARLTON HOUSE DESK DESIGN

2011-03-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

For my day-job I work at Karges Furniture. I've been there since 1990, first as a wood carver, and then moved into the engineering department. Recently I was allowed to design my first piece of furniture. I've always liked Carlton House desks so that's what I chose as my first project. What I like about Carlton House style desks are the walls of tiny doors and drawers curling around the guys who sit at them. It feels very private and personal, and nice if you need to concentrate.

Now that more and more people are using laptop computers, I suspect old-fashioned desks like these will make a comeback. People don't really need giant computer desks with printer, scanner and tower cavities anymore. Now with Wi-Fi the printer can be put anywhere, even in another room.

This desk uses mahogany solids, with mahogany and prima vera veneers. The white inlay lines are holly tree wood. Before applying stain to this desk, all the holly inlay lines had to be covered with a frisket, which is sort of like liquid latex rubber. This prevented the stain from darkening those places. After the stain had cured the frisket could then be removed by simply rubbing it off with fingers. The frisket-appliers cussed me real good for all those skinny lines.
I like secret compartments a lot. I'm not gonna say exactly where there might be secret compartment in this desk, but there could be some surprises here and there, on the inside. Those are not secret compartments on the sides in the photo above. They're much sneakier than that!

Above is a closeup of the inlay work. To make the shading on the white strips of holly, the tips of each piece were placed in hot sand until they were burned dark enough.

I'd love to own one of these desks since it was made to possess all the elements I personally love, but I'm gonna have to save a while to be able to afford one. They cost as much as a car.

NEW TOY

2011-03-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

New-ish. It's used, but new for me... sort of. It's called the Ibanez Tube Screamer TS9. I had one of these guitar pedals about 20-something years ago. I left it at a buddy's house and as time went by it became more and more awkward to ask for it back. To make a long boring story a short boring story: I never saw it again.

Ever since I lost it I haven't been able to get a sound I liked on any other pedal, and I've gone through a bunch. For the longest time I couldn't get another one of these because they were discontinued and the price zoomed up on Ebay. Now they're easily accessible again. This pedal records very well. It sounds good no matter what type of music you play on it. I think opera backing music would even sound good on this pedal. Maybe even country! he he! Just teasing.

Before you get mad about the country music - gaze into the eye of the wiener dog... Your anger shall dissipate.

MY GREEN-MAN DREAM: Plagiarism-able school assignment material

2011-03-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

I've decided to start helping students who are having trouble with writing assignments. I know how it is sitting up that night before a paper is due, racking your brain trying to think of something you can write about. Kids, I'm happy to say there will be no more need for that. I am going to allow anyone to plagiarize this story as their own.

Get your pencils out, here it is:

MY GREEN-MAN DREAM

By ________________

A while back I had a dream about a green-colored man with a long heavy head. So heavy in fact, he could not stand upright. He stood in a stooped position and looked at me. I remember noticing his shadow; it seemed very important at the time. After I woke up I couldn't remember why the shadow was so important. His head looked like some kind of vegetable with asparagus points on the top. To the best of my ability I drew what I saw in my dream. SEE DIAGRAM BELOW (Write it in all caps like that so the teacher thinks it's important.)

He stood motionless almost like a vegetable yet he did very subtly, almost unnoticeably, turn his head when I walked to a different place so I was never out of his line of sight. I was afraid to look away because I didn't know what he was capable of. I wondered if he'd attack if given the chance.

A football is not a very good gift. (Good finisher-upper.)

Well, that's it. Use it freely and enjoy your easy A! I don't allow you to copy the drawing though. Not because I value it, but because the teacher should see something created by your own hand. That will make it more authentic. If anyone does draw their own version of this guy I'd love to see it. Email me some pics or links!

WHAT IS THIS FRANKENSTEIN TOY?

2011-03-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

I need help. Does anyone know the name of this toy, or where it came from? He's just under 2" tall. My friend gave it to me and he couldn't remember the name, but he said it was a part of a set of figures.

He said it was designed to pull apart so you could mix and match heads and limbs.

The back of the toy says:

(C) 2007
WILD PLANET
ENT., INC.
MADE IN CHINA

I googled that and came up with nothing. I really like this weird little guy, so I'm curious what the other monsters looked like.

ADORABLE AL CAPONE KEEPSAKE BOX

2011-03-10T22:21:00.000-08:00

This was so weird I had to get it. We went to Chicago Chinatown and I saw this in a gift shop. It's a precious little ceramic box with a sweet little brass bow tie latch on it, and it just happens to glorify a horrible scoundrel. Right on!

Here's the right side. See the little bullet holes? Cute, huh? I know it!

The left side:

The back has a beautiful signature in the handwriting style of the man himself, fired permanently into the ceramic. It's the little details that make it so special. It's a keepsake to be treasured and passed on through the generations.
My Grandma used to live in Chicago back in the 1920s and 30s with her dad, mom, and a bunch of siblings. She always had lots of stories about the good ol' days. I remember one gangster-related story she told me.

One time her entire family was in the car waiting at a red light, and another car pulled up beside. She said there were some men in the other car and they all had guns. According to her they were holding Thompson machine guns. These men intently studied each face in my Grandma's car, one at a time. When they'd seen every face and decided these weren't the people they were looking for, the men drove on down the street and were gone.

I remember being just old enough to do the math in my head. "Hmm... If they'd have killed Grandma then my mom wouldn't have been born! Then who'd take care of me?! Where would I live?!"

HAIR IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

2011-03-07T19:10:00.001-08:00

This is an old comic I don't think I ever posted on this blog.

DOODLES FROM THE TRASH HEAP

2011-03-05T12:04:00.000-08:00

These are Post-It note doodles. Sorry in advance.

SINISTER WINSTON'S PRANK TIME - MORE Fun With Ears

2011-03-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

Not to be confused with the previous "Fun With Ears." This is MORE Fun With Ears!

Click HERE to see the previous ear prank devised by Sinister Winston.

CREATURES BASED ON CHINESE WRITING

2011-02-27T15:12:00.000-08:00

I was looking at Chinese writing and lots of them look like stick figure versions of little monsters. Here are some fleshed out versions of what I imagined. I wish I could remember which symbols each of these guys were based on. I wrote it down somewhere but lost it. I drew more of these too, but haven't rounded them up yet.

These are a couple years old now and I can't remember if I've already posted them or not. If you're looking at them for the second time I apologize.

SINISTER WINSTON'S PRANK TIME - Fun With Ears

2011-02-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

The idea for this came to me one day when I bought some cheaper unofficial Q-Tip ripoff brand. When I used it the cotton ball came off deep inside my ear. It was a long miserable task involving tweezers and toothpicks and bent paper clips to remove it. After that experience I've always splurged and bought the real deal.

When you read the warnings on a box of Q-Tips it says DO NOT PUT IN EAR. If you don't use them in your ear what are they for? I guess they just don't want to be sued if someone pokes out an ear drum.

Speaking of warnings, this comic is for educational purposes only. Don't really do it or the victim will sue you.

KEV

2011-02-21T21:00:00.000-08:00

I don't know what this video means but it makes me laugh. This is my brother Kevin when he was about 7 years old. Now he's all grown up with 2 kids of his own, and one is about the same age as Kevin was in this video. The part that makes me laugh most is when I see his dirty feet.

Kevin recorded this music all by himself about 10 years ago. I remember when he recorded it. I was going to offer to play something in the recording but it was some kind of strange 3.5/4-time thing so I couldn't figure it out. It's very twitchy and blink-inducing but I like it a lot.

Speaking of Kevin's kids - check out this artwork by his daughter Mimi: CLICK!

THE WAR - clay animation from 1982

2011-02-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

Back in '82 and '83 my cousin David, my brother Kevin and I made several animated clay movies using a Super-8 film camera. Even though we were frustrated with all the film scratches and washed out colors we couldn't figure out how to make it any better with the equipment we had at the time. It's funny because nowadays professional movie studios pay big bucks to artificially reproduce this scratchy film look.

We made this film one Sunday afternoon after church. Even though it's less than a minute long, we probably spent five or six hours making it. From the all the blood and violence it doesn't appear we learned too much in Sunday School that day.

The animation in this video was by my cousin David and me. The music was recorded by my brother Kevin and me.

We kept making movies up until the day the $50 bulb in the lamp burned out. Since we only got $1 allowance each week (and usually I'd lose mine as a punishment for something) we never replaced the bulb, and the filming ended.

DUNE BUGGY UPDATE

2011-02-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

Here's an update on the dune buggy. Lee, the dune buggy man, says we're in the home stretch. A couple things need lengthened and welded, and a windshield needs to be cut and fit to the window frame. Then the shell can be put onto the body and it'll be ready to drive.

He put little rails on the back, so I can use bungee straps and haul stuff.

The old wires had a mysterious short in them, and several wires didn't connect to anything. There were pendulous hanging blobs of knotted wires here and there. In the long run it was easier for Lee to tear it all out and start from scratch.

He put in this shorty turn signal and headlight knob. The headlight knob is right in the corner of that black metal framework.

Also he hooked up a gas gauge with a light in it for me.

These wires go to the fuel sensor.

Here you can see the new turn signals and the red Ooga horn.

The 1st time I heard the Ooga horn (I guess that's what you call it) I literally jumped. It's startlingly loud. You can hear it toned down to computer speaker volume in this video.

Lee is also making a removable vinyl top. I'm not sure how long that takes, but the buggy will be drivable this Summer with or without it.

DOODLE TIME

2011-02-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

My one regret on the above doodle is not making the sasquatch look insane enough. He should have had violently insane and unfocused eyes, and a big open mouth with sharp teeth and drool. I guess that's why I doodled it first, so I could figure out what I really wanted.

Here's a worm's eye view of Lucy. It was taken with my old Minolta camera. The colors are warm and saturated. I can't find Minolta cameras in the stores anymore. I've owned two and loved both of them. Now I own a Kodak and every picture I take is dreary or too bright and washed out. It has about 100 settings to fiddle around with, and I don't understand any of them. The Minolta only had one setting, but every picture always turned out great every time.

My Minolta camera still works but the pictures are only 4 mega pixels, whereas the Kodak is 10. Choosing the right camera to use is a tough decision for me.

JOHNNY WEST'S HORSE

2011-02-09T15:33:00.000-08:00

One piece at a time I'm re-accumulating the contents of my childhood toy box. Johnny West, Evel Knievel, and The Six Million Dollar Man were my favorites. Recently my friend gave me a Johnny West figure with most of the little gizmos came with. It's tough to get them all since they're 40 years old, and tiny, and kids would tend to break or lose them.

My cousin and his wife found Johnny West's horse and gave it to me a couple weeks ago. He's in pretty good shape for as much as he's probably been played with. I think his name is Thunderbolt but I'm not positive. There were a few different horses. I realize I could find out by googling it, but I'm old and lazy.

The silhouette of Johnny on his horse is pretty realistic. Woah, horse.

Horse, I thought I said "Woah."

BANG! I know what I'll do now. I'll beat you with a stick.

What's this?.. Wheels?.. He was a ...a robot?
I need to locate the saddle now. He came with some other horse-type items too. I figured the prices would be outrageous on Johnny West merchandise on eBay but they're surprisingly cheap. I have my eye on the wagon, but I suspect it'll be a long time before I win one of those for a price I'm happy about.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 27

2011-02-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

I lied. I said the last guitar post was the final post for this guitar project. There was one more small step. I added an "S" logo to the headstock. I went ahead and used the aluminum "S" from the last post. Originally I didn't think it looked right but after letting it settle a few days I grew to accept it.

To get it to stick I had to remove the lacquer in that spot on the headstock. Also I made that area rough and scratchy so it would have teeth for the epoxy to grab.

The front side of the S is very shiny. I am learning it's practically impossible (for me) to take a picture of a shiny object and have it look shiny in the photo. It almost needs to be a motion picture for the glimmer to show in it.

Then the back side was made scratchy and rough with coarse sand paper so epoxy can squeeze into all the crevasses and hold.

When applying the epoxy I only used a small amount so I wouldn't have any squeeze-out. I didn't want to hold by hand until it cured, so I used erasers and whatever else was in the vicinity to keep it compressed.
That's it and I'm not lying this time. I will not cut on this guitar again. Done and done! I really like playing this guitar. It's very small and easy to handle. The action is good too. It has a rich meaty tone when it goes into a speaker. I have one more pickup like the one I used on this guitar. Both pickups were salvaged from an old demolished guitar from either the 60s or 70s. Hopefully someday this guitar will have a brother.

GUITAR NEWS

2011-02-07T19:51:00.000-08:00

Woohoo! My guitar appeared on the GUITARZ blog! You can see it featured HERE.

I find myself looking at this blog practically every day. It's got some of the weirdest designs I've seen. Some of the nicest too. If you've ever thought about building a guitar for yourself that's a good place to find inspiration.

THE SCREAMING WILHELMS #4

2011-02-03T23:44:00.001-08:00

This is the 4th in The Screaming Wilhelms series. If you click HERE you'll see some more.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 26

2011-02-01T18:14:00.000-08:00

Finished! In only 26 easy steps! This guitar project is finally behind me. Pretty much. I have a final decision to make and then it's off the work bench.

In this last episode of ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT the hardware was screwed on to the face.

All the wires were fished through worm holes and pulled out the access port in the back.

Using the wiring diagram I skinned wires and twisted them together. I shortened all the wires so they were just long enough to work with, but wouldn't over-pack the compartment.
Before soldering I plugged in the guitar to make sure it got a signal and everything was wired correctly. After feeling satisfied with all the connections it was soldered together, and the solder joints were covered with electrical tape, and then the entire mess of wires was coiled down into the compartment.

The cover plate was screwed on and suddenly Bertha was alive!

The only reason I bought this soldering iron was because it looked like a space pistol. It probably doesn't work as well as others but I'm willing to suffer for it. If it ever breaks I'll probably transform it into a movie prop.

Here's a shot of the face after everything is finished (minus the strings.)

Here it is with Mei just for size comparison.

After I finished it I noticed the fret markers had turned dark gray after sanding the frets. Metal dust had worked itself down into the pores of the dowels I used for fret markers. I decided to redo them. I found some aluminum "common" nails and polished the heads so they were shiny. This picture doesn't show the shininess very well but believe me, they're shiny! Also buffing them gave the heads a convex shape which was a bonus. Now they still hit the light no matter which way the guitar is tilted.

The nails were cut short, about 1/4" long, and then the previous fret marker dowels were drilled out. I epoxied these new fret markers in place and TADA!

Here's a picture of the back of the headstock.

Here's the face. As it is now I have no logo at the top. It seems pretty plain and generic without anything up there. I Made an "S" out of aluminum and was ready to attach it and then I had doubts. Maybe it doesn't look right. I'm back and forth on it. Another idea is to mount a 2011 penny into the head. That would show the date it was finished. I guess too it would mean Made in USA. These days that's pretty rare so maybe I should capitalize on it.

Strings were attached and I plugged it in and was extremely, pleasantly surprised at both the sound and the action.

It's light and comfortable to hold, and it has very low action. Now I need to make a video.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 25

2011-01-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

This guitar project just passed a massive milestone (way better than passing a massive kidney stone) and it's smooth downhill sailing from here on out.

My friends at work helped me out a ton on the finishing. I was asking them how to do a gradient dark-to-light blend in the stain and they told me it would be best if I kept my hands off it and let them handle it. That sounded good to me.

After seeing how much was involved in the process I was glad I didn't attempt it. First it got a light even stain over the entire surface.

You can see the grain patterns popping out very nicely at this point. I think if I were doing it myself I'd have probably said "That's good!" and stopped right there. It kept getting better though, as they did the entire process. It took about a week and a half for everything because it would need to cure over night between each coat.

After it was stained it got a coat of sealer, and then they did a process called glazing, where they brushed on a thicker, pastier, gooier stain. Since it had a coat of sealer beforehand, the glaze couldn't soak in to the wood and they were able to control where it went. They made it darkest on the outer edges, and then they used clean brushes and rags to fade it to nothing in the center of the body. Also during this step they brought out individual lines in the grain pattern by adding and removing glaze in certain places. Compare it to the 1st picture to see the difference.

When the glaze cured they coated the front and back, I don't know how many times, with lacquer.

I think the back looks even more beee-yoooo-ti-fuller than the front.

After the lacquer process was done, it glistened like it was wet. I could see myself in the reflection almost as clearly as in a mirror. Then it was hand rubbed to tone down the shine and give it a satin surface. It's very difficult to get a good non-glare angle with my flash camera, but it looks way better than I'd ever envisioned it in the beginning.

Although tilting it gets a more accurate representation of the color, now in the photo it doesn't exactly show how shiny it is. Lucy and her rawhide chew are in there for size comparison.

Here's the back side. Look at Lucy; she doesn't even care. That sort of hurts my feelings.
All that's left now is to screw the hardware onto it. There's a little soldering to be done as well. That solder has lead in it. I don't like the idea of messing with lead. I'm gonna make a personal note to be sure not to eat any of that solder while I have it out. Now they make lead-free solder. That's what I'm getting next time. See? It's best to just avoid temptation.

WALLY WALDO #2

2011-01-20T20:57:00.000-08:00

Here's installment number two of Wally Waldo, the boy who gets nervous and says exactly the wrong thing every time. You can see part one by clicking HERE.

WALLY WALDO #1

2011-01-18T21:03:00.001-08:00

THE SCREAMING WILHELMS #3

2011-01-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

For more of the Screaming Wilhelms click HERE.

WHAT IS THIS WIENER DOG STARING AT?

2011-01-09T18:41:00.000-08:00

I wonder when Lucy looks at something for a long time like this, what is going on in her head. What does she think it is? Does it look like some kind of tool by which she could either eat or sleep(her two main functions) more easily? Maybe she could rest her head in there and relax better? What is her plan?

Actually it's a wall-hanger for a guitar. There's a small room in my house with too many guitars all on stands on the floor, and there's hardly any room to walk in there anymore. This is a hook for hanging shovels and rakes. I got it at Menards for about $1.50.

Then a block of wood was cut from poplar:

1 1/4" thick

2 1/2" wide

4" long

A random shape was routed into the edge just to make it purtier.

A 1/4" hole was drilled in the center, and 2 screw holes were drilled on each side.

That shovel hook was twisted into the center hole

And Tada! It fits every single guitar I have.

It got a few coats of Krylon clear satin acrylic spray and it's ready to hang on the wall. I'll have to make sure I find a stud for this thing since it's gonna be holding a lot of weight.

It was so easy and cheap I went ahead and made a bunch of them. This is gonna clear out an entire room in my house. It'll be like moving into a bigger home! Yee ha!

SHNORBY GOOTZ #1

2011-01-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

I don't know what possessed me to spend the time drawing this up. Is it funny? I'm not sure. The idea of this actually happening slightly amuses me for some reason.

SPIKE THE SELF-CONSCIOUS #3

2011-01-06T13:24:00.000-08:00

Here's number 3 in a set of Spike the Self-Conscious comics. You can see more HERE.

I think Spike is the saddest, most emotional character I've ever made.

SPIKE THE SELF-CONSCIOUS #2

2011-01-05T20:45:00.001-08:00

Here is the second Spike the Self-Conscious comic. You can see the 1st one by clicking HERE.

This was the original version. It seemed like it kept needlessly going after the joke was already over. I'd be interested in what other people think. If you have a long horn on your head you don't need to comment. I already know how you feel about all of this.

SPIKE THE SELF-CONSCIOUS #1

2011-01-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 24

2010-12-29T21:48:00.000-08:00

I'm closing in on the final stages of this guitar. I never imagined it would take this long.

There needed to be an access port in the back for the electronics and wires. A circular recess was routed out, and a lid was made to fit into it.

The lid has a small lip around it to overhang the routed edge in the body. The lip is secondary piece of 2-ply veneer added to the disk of wood.

Here it is in place.

Next a hole was cut big enough to hold the volume knob. Then a little hole was drilled for it to poke through the face on the other side.

It also has extra space around the volume knob so wires can be crammed around it.

There it is protruding out of the face.

The next step was to make worm holes connecting all the components to this chamber. This hole leads to the pickup slot.

It comes out here. See that big ol' hole? Even though the wires are thin it will be a lot easier to wire it up if the hole is ridiculously huge.

Size comparison to a wiener dog.

Also it needed a hole leading to the bridge so a ground wire could be ran to it. That was a smaller target so I made crosshairs with a pencil. Then I'd have an idea as to which direction I should drill.

Woohoo! I was sort of expecting my drill bit to bottom out and never connect to anything, or poke through the middle where the laminated strips are running, but it worked.

Then a slot was cut out for the jack plate. I was stumped as how the jack plate should run in the last guitar post, but since then I've made the painful decision. I hope I don't regret later. It's too late now. It's just wood so the worst that could happen is I'd have to glue in a patch and do something different. I don't think it'll be too bad though like this.

And since there's a jack plate there needs to be another worm hole leading to it. This chamber sure did get worm-holey fast.

POP! There it is! And that's it!

Oh, wait. One more step. Holes were drilled in the lid to attach it to the body.

Since the holes aren't measured at exact quadrants and I don't want to accidentally forget and try to align the wrong holes with the wrong holes I made myself a secret note.

Since it's Winter Lucy likes to do this a lot. She pulls the blanket out of her bed and drags it over to where everybody is gathered, and then grunts and squirms and wriggles until she's gotten herself under it. Notice she's in a different blanket than the one up a few pictures. That's because she vomited in that earlier one. She gets sooooo comfortable in her blanket she's not willing to get up and vomit somewhere else. Nice, huh? It's hard to get mad at her though. She's old.

Sometimes she covers up completely and I forget she's there. I can't count how many times I've tripped over a lump like this.

Believe it or not, I think I'm actually done with all the woodworking on this guitar project. All that's left now is staining, lacquering and then soldering the components together.

MELBA SNARCH #2

2010-12-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! Here's something completely unrelated to help celebrate:

Could this be the end of Melba Snarch?

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 23

2010-12-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

Step 23 of my guitar project:

I've got another decision to make. I need to choose between 2 kinds of jack plates. Visually the flat circular jack plate is nicest. For usability though, the angled plate is way better. The flat plate would shoot the wire straight up in the way of my hand while I tried to play it. The angled plate kicks it down and out. Lots of guitars have the jack plates in the edge of the guitar but since this body has such a deep shape I don't have enough room to do that.

Another problem: The angled plate is too big for the space it would need to fit into. It bumps the pickup plate and still hangs over the break of the body's shape.

A possible solution would be to turn the jack plate backwards and upside down. Then I'd have a convex plate rather than concave. Then the extra length of the plate wouldn't be needed and could be cut off.

This is what it would look like with the flat circular plate.

And here's how the angled plate looks.

And here's a digital simulation of what it would look like after I removed some of the metal and rebored it.

It's a weird nontraditional way of doing it, but the idea is starting to grow on me. Alternatively I could stick the jack plate in the back of the body but then the wire would always be in the way of my ever-growing gut.

TWITTY WIDGIMS (The Screaming Wilhelms #2)

2010-12-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

Here's another Screaming Wilhelms comic. The 1st one can be seen HERE. I wonder if this comic is going to make people blink 2 times (like they do in animated cartoons) rather than laugh. Hopefully it makes sense.

I like the long pause (2 staring panels) in the above cartoon, but if I want to make this more comic book format friendly maybe those could go, and it would be like this:

Learn about, and hear the real Wilhelm Scream.

ASAP! (The Screaming Wilhelms #1)

2010-12-14T18:24:00.001-08:00

This is the very first Screaming Wilhelms comic. There will be more to come.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 22

2010-12-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

Another installment of the guitar that never quits being unfinished.

Previously, I put veneer around the headstock, and now it's time for the face to be veneered. This job made me nervous because I've never veneered anything before.

With much uncertainty I used masking tape to hold these 3 pieces together, and then took a deep breath and fearfully applied them with contact cement. Then I removed the masking tape and this is what I had.

Here's the back view. I allowed plenty extra veneer for trimming just in case I didn't measure something right.

I loaded up all the pieces with plenty penciled-in center lines and guide marks. That helped a lot.

After everything was good and cured I trimmed off the excess and was relieved to find it was actually centered like I wanted. What is going on? Nothing is ever that simple or easy!

The bad news. I was right; nothing IS ever that easy. I pierced the veneer where the tuning pegs holes were and saw they weren't centered properly. The veneer was right but the holes were in the wrong places. It never showed up until I put the veneer on it. I don't think it's a big problem though, and I may inlay a thin line of walnut veneer to shift the balance of the pattern just a tad. If I put the inlay to the left of both lines it should hide everything well enough.

Here's a panorama shot of my desk at work.

I've been wondering how well that camera would do taking a vertical panorama picture of myself. Now I know. This will go on my list of Things to only try once.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 21

2010-12-10T09:46:00.000-08:00

While deciding on a veneer layout for the headstock, I went ahead and finished the plate to hold the Pickup onto the guitar body. A piece of aluminum was sliced down to 1/8" thick on a band saw, and the opening was routed out in the middle. Then the corners were rounded and holes were drilled.

After that, it took about 2 hours for me to smooth up the band saw marks and make it flat. I started with coarse 60 grit sandpaper and progressively went to finer grits. The last was 600 grit. Since the plate was thin I ended up sanding off my fingernails while trying to hold it. I should have made some kind of jig to hold it, but that would have meant a trip waaaaaaaay out to the garage. Eventually after I couldn't take it anymore I put on some work gloves and that helped.

When the sandpaper work was done I shined up the plate on a polishing wheel. It's difficult to get a good picture because the flash makes it glare, but it looks like chrome. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. To cut down on hums, electronics chambers can be shielded and grounded with aluminum foil. The nice thing about using aluminum instead of wood or plastic for the plate is now I'm halfway there as far as shielding goes.

Here are the work gloves afterwards. They were new when I started. To a lesser degree my fingers kind of look like that too.

Here's something unrelated. Mei wanted an exercise hula hoop, and we found out they were $50 if you get the size and weight she was looking for. We made this one instead. You get some bendy PVC pipe, and a coupling link. We put 5 pounds of wire cable inside to make it heavy. TADA! It was about $8 total. She's been using it every night.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 20

2010-12-06T19:46:00.001-08:00

I can't believe I'm up to 20 steps on this guitar and it still isn't finished. Last time I put some veneer around the edge of the headstock. Now the plan is to veneer the top face of the headstock. I haven't got it all figured out just yet but I'm getting there.

Here are some scraps of variously colored veneers. (It's an early picture before the headstock was veneered around the edge.)

I traced the headstock shape onto a piece of paper and cut it out to make a mask for viewing veneer arrangements.

The idea of a triangular wedge pattern is what I'm hoping to successfully pull off. Bear in mind I've never veneered anything before and it could result in horrible disaster. The worst that could happen is I have to sand it all back off and try again. That's assuming I don't have some kind of conniption fit and fling the whole guitar into the nearest brick wall.

Here I've arranged some pieces together and laid the paper mask over the top to get an idea of how it might look.

When I got a pattern I was happy with I cut some over-sized maple and mahogany pieces to fit together like a puzzle. I cut them on an office paper cutter. It sliced though the veneer very nicely and made a good clean cut.

If all goes well it'll look kind of like this.

As an alternative I could flip the triangle upside down and do it like this.

Both ways have their good and bad points but I think I like the 1st version best. The 1st version lends itself well to having a decorative symbol or logo in the middle of the white triangle. I guess there could also be one in the second version too but the strings would sort of obscure it.

I think I also need to be careful the tuning peg holes won't disrupt the pattern. It's a dilemma, dang-gonnit! This is what happens when I don't plan things out from the start.

PRETTY AWFUL

2010-12-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

I never realized how weird English was until I started trying to teach it to Mei. One time she said "No do that" to Lucy and I told her she's supposed to say "Do not do that."

She asked, "Why do you say DO two times?"

I couldn't think of a good reason other than it just sounded better. Mei's way is much more simple and streamlined. Maybe in the distant future people will say it that way.

The word PRETTY means LOVELY, but can also mean KIND OF.

The word AWFUL means TERRIBLE, but can also mean VERY.

I made the above chart to teach Mei the different usages of the two words. It took me about an hour and a half to get it done. It only took her 10 seconds to look at it. I hope she appreciated it.

Here in Southern Indiana we shorten the word AWFULLY to AWFUL, so we say "She's awful pretty." I'm curious if that's how people say it in other parts of the country, or if that's just our local hillbilly talk.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 19

2010-12-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Part 19 of my guitar project:

In the last post I mentioned how I was unhappy with the way the laminated wood looked on the headstock.

I'm going to cover the headstock with veneer. I'll start with the edges first, and then do the face. That way it'll lap over and look better. Here's the way the headstock looks currently. Since the contour of the headstock cuts diagonally through the walnut/maple lamination there's a large ugly stripe of walnut right in the center of the edge. That bugs me every time I see it.

I brushed some contact cement onto the edge of the headstock.

Also I brushed contact cement onto a strip of mahogany veneer. Then I let both pieces sit and dry to the touch (for about 15 minutes.)

After both pieces dried I wrapped the over-sized veneer around the edge of the headstock using a big heavy hardback book. I only had one shot to get it right. As soon as the pieces touched they were permanently bonded together. There was no opportunity for sliding pieces around to align them like you have with regular glue.

After the glue cured overnight I used a knife to trim the excess flush with the headstock. Done!
Next time I'll put some veneer onto the face.
I have no idea what it'll look like when it's veneered. The nice thing about working with wood is if you don't like it you can always sand things back off and try again. Hopefully that won't need to happen.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 18

2010-11-30T19:29:00.000-08:00

Previously, On ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT, we saw the crazed old man digging and hacking and chopping for what felt like hours, and for what? Who knows! Today the seemingly endless quest continues...

I have an irrational nagging worry concerning this guitar and if I don't do something about it, it'll bug me forever. When I made the pickup notch I separated the neck into 2 pieces inside the body. Technically it's not a thru-neck guitar anymore. I'm sure it's plenty strong as it is, in fact there's still more attachment the way it is than there would be with a bolt-on neck. Regardless of any of that sensibleness, my addled mind can not let it go and WILL NOT rest comfortably until I reinforce that neck, dangit! I know it's an unnecessary waste of time, but I can't NOT do it.

I'm going to drill 4 holes through the neck into the body, by way of the pickup notch, and glue dowels into the holes. That'll pin everything together pretty well. At least it'll satisfy me a little more.

Two holes get drilled on each side. One angles to the left and one to the right.

Then with the help of glue and a mallet, a dowel gets crammed in as deep as it'll go into each of the 4 holes.

After the glue dries I cut the extra dowel away with an X-Acto knife...

...And trim it off flush.
Okay, SHOO! Now I can relax and let it go.

While I had the hand drill plugged in I went ahead and drilled two holes for the shoulder strap buttons.

Here's something else which keeps bugging me. The walnut/maple lamination is nice looking in the body, but I hate the way it looks at the headstock. It disturbs the flow of the tapered headstock since the laminations are parallel. Also, look at the edge. Just look at it! ! You can see a big ugly, out of place, dark stripe of walnut breaking up the maple.

I got some scraps of mahogany and maple veneer and I'll attempt to cover the face and edge of the headstock. I'm gonna try to do a 2-color pattern too. I've never veneered anything before and I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew. We shall see. . . next time, on ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT!

This is a size comparison of a dachshund with a little 2 1/2 year old Chinese demolition catastrophe machine.

She actually loves Lucy, but Lucy doesn't know it. Lucy just thinks MeiMei likes falling on her.
It's like a battle field for dogs. Lucy went in, grabbed some grub, and skeedaddled!

Pet...pet...pet... (POUND! POUND! POUND!)

PRETTY SPECIAL MOVIE DEATH SCENE

2010-11-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

Right before he dies he makes a shrugging hand gesture as if to say, "So? Big deal. I've seen better."

FENDER JAGUAR BASS

2010-11-22T19:56:00.001-08:00

I realize this post will only be of interest to a small group but I'm too happy to not talk about it.

Recently Mei and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary. She got me a Fender Jaguar bass for my gift and I got her some shoes she was wanting. That's what she wanted! I believe I came out ahead on that deal. I asked her I don't know how many times to tell me what she REALLY wanted instead of shoes, but she REALLY wanted shoes.

My stringed instrument army is growing.

In the past I bought basses and guitars solely based on their looks. This is the first time I think I did it the right way. I took my old BC Rich bass into the guitar store and compared it to the other basses they were selling all on the same amp so I could get a good comparison. This Fender bass was my hands down favorite. It was so much better than my old one I was kind of ashamed to ask if they'd take it as a trade in.

I like that all the strings seem to be evenly volumed, and each string seems to be pretty evenly volumed across the length of the neck on any fret. That was a frustration on my old bass. This Fender has a thick growling tone with lots of low end bassy tone, but also enough treble to hear the frets clicking and crunching if I want that. It's got steady sustain too.

The tuners are so big and cartoonish I didn't like them at first, but now they've grown on me. These photos seem to bring out the fingerprints. I'm looking at this bass in real life right now and I don't see the fingerprints. I don't know if that means my camera is good or bad.

There are lots of switches and knobs providing mucho variety in tone. So much in fact, sometimes I can't settle on a sound. The more choices I'm offered, the more doubts and indecision I'm faced with. Every button click seems to make a completely different sound which is equally as nice as the last setting I thought I liked.

These are battery-powered active EQ dials. The switch on the right turns them on or off. The 2 dials are for bass and treble.

These switches are pickup selectors.

Then there are the master volume and tone knobs. All of these knobs and switches combined make too many combinations for me to add up, and the nice thing is the combinations all sounds pretty good. On my old bass I had basically 2 settings: (1) kind of usable and (2) everything else which was all unusable.

If I had to name one complaint about this Fender Jaguar bass it would be the cord jack being in the face plate rather than in the edge of the body. That puts the cord more in the way. It's not a huge inconvenience and can be rendered less intrusive with one of those 90 degree jacks.

I feel like a heel for finding anything at all to complain about though. Not only is this a good sounding bass, I like the way it looks.

In the past when I recorded music, the old BC Rich bass would kill my guitar tracks. It didn't matter if it was an acoustic guitar or an electric, or if it had light or heavy distortion. I could get a guitar to record exactly how I liked it, and then when I added the bass, the guitar would suddenly disappear into the song, or just sound like fuzzy and puny toneless white noise.

The pickups on the old bass were creating a signal which invaded the guitar's realm on the EQ band, cutting into the midrange rather than staying down in the lower bass levels. I could fight with EQ settings for a while and eventually get a sort-of sound from the guitars, but I was never completely successful. It was danged aggravating and unsatisfying. I've recorded a few songs with the new Jaguar bass and the Danelectro guitar and it's fun to record music now. I can just run a wire straight from the instruments to the recorder with no effects pedals or amps in between and they sound great, and they don't bleed over the tops of each other.

Maybe in the future I'll be able to put a music CD together and then if you guys have the stomachs and tolerance for it you can punish yourselves by listening to it. Hopefully afterwards you'll still want to be my friend.

COULD THIS BE A GOURDTAR?

2010-11-20T10:43:00.000-08:00

My pal gave me a gourd with a long straight stem. It seems perfect for a stringed instrument. All I'd need to do is put a fretboard and bridge on it, and then some tuners and a sound hole. Look HERE to see another gourd I turned into a guitar. The unique feature on this new gourd would be the ability to incorporate it's own stem into the guitar's neck.

It may not be big enough for a 6-stringer, but I could probably get 3 on it. That's enough to make chords. It's just another project to throw onto my to-do list. Maybe it'll show up here sooner than later. It seems easy and fun so maybe I'll put other things aside to work on it.

Snort!

THE UNDESIRABLES

2010-11-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a fairly old drawing I dug up. I remember having completed an epic saga for these guys too, but can't find it as of yet. There were big plans for them at the time but in the end they got pushed aside for other projects. I think the main reason I gave up on them was because they seemed too much like the X-Men as far as their story went. If I can find the story I'd sort of like to work on them again, and give their looks and X-Men-iness an update.

I remember bits and pieces of their story, and I remember all of their powers.

Mental Man has the power to make people think horrible things are wrong with their bodies, such as making them think their hands are cut off, or they have fresh bullet holes.

The Virus is a carrier of all the viruses in the world and has the power to emit them from her body. She basically makes people sick.

Charlie Horse (his nickname) has the power to give people excruciating muscle spasms of bone-breaking proportions by a mere touch to that spot on their bodies.

Rokki can eat anything including poisons. Nothing can contain him because he'll eat through it, whatever it is.

Since I get good responses when I include Lucy in a post, here she is unrelated to anything, just drinking water. I thought the water looked nifty in this stopped moment of motion. Maybe it is related. I can compare the waves in the bowl to the power waves which come from Mental Man's hands. They would be accompanied by a slow, low sound effect "WOOOBA... WOOOBA... WOOOBA..."

WOODEN PLIERS

2010-11-15T23:25:00.000-08:00

This weird thing has been in a desk drawer for 2 decades now. It's a wooden pair of pliers with extra littler pliers built in here and there. I made it back when I was a teenager with a coping saw and an X-Acto blade; hence the cuts are crooked and rough. It's difficult to get a good angle of it so I took a few pictures.

Here's the 2nd one and it isn't any more clear.

And yet another difficult-to-understand photo.

You can fold the tiny pliers handles in to make it look like this.

Then you can fold the medium-size pliers handles in. It looks like regular a regular pair of pliers now, sort of.

When you fold the big pliers handles together it settles into its original form, a stick.
This was not my idea. I saw a picture of one in a book a long time ago and wished I had one. Since they didn't sell them at the store the only alternative was to make it myself.

To make one of your own there isn't really any pattern for it. Just start with a square stick and do the biggest pair of pliers first. Cut as much as you can with a coping saw (or preferably a scroll saw), and then do the rest with a very long, skinny, thin carving blade. Just keep working your way to the middle of the wood, going at it from both sides and meeting in the middle. Take your time and don't force anything too hard. Eventually you'll feel the pieces separate.

Once you get the biggest pliers handles completed, do the same thing in half(?) scale to each handle, and then quarter(?) scale to those new handles. Whatever the scale would be. It's math; therefore it's magic and mystery, and does not compute in my head.

THANKS, GUYS!

2010-11-12T17:29:00.001-08:00

Here's my new favorite toy. A Danelectro DC-59 reissue. I bought it with the money I collected selling Pukey Pals trading cards. See? Booger and poo jokes really DO pay off! Thanks everybody who bought them.

A Danelectro guitar has a sound all of its own. It has a very crunchy, hollow, air-cutter sound. It even sounds good unplugged. That thin aluminum nut is partially responsible for the unusual sound.

And in case you were wondering: Yes, it is shielded... TOTALLY shielded.

After some research I found out the sound comes from the cheap materials they use to build it. They were originally built with cheap materials to make them more affordable, but as an unexpected bonus the cheap supplies actually made them sound better. They use poplar, which is one of the cheapest good hardwoods you can get. The guitar is very lightweight and feels almost hollow. Also they don't paint them; they cover them with Formica kitchen counter top material. As it turns out, layers of paint and lacquer will hurt or deaden the sound of a guitar.

Volume and tone knobs are stacked on the DC-59. The black ring is the tone, and the white in the center is the volume. There's one stacked knob for each pickup. The 3-way toggle switches from the bridge pickup, to both, to the neck pickup.

Lipstick tube pickups are unusual these days. They're fixed to the inside of the body, and are not adjustable like most pickups. There's a thin strip of wood for the bridge. That's not typical for an electric. When I look really closely at the wooden bridge I see a slight concave valley down the length of it, so the strings only touch at the sharp outside edges of the wood, and not in the middle.

Size comparison.

If you are thinking about getting an electric guitar you ought to consider one of these. They sound great, they're comfortable and easy to play and they're affordable. This one was $275 which is pretty danged cheap for how good it is. Also they tend to go up in value every year because they do limited numbers of a design, and then move on to something else. Once these are all sold, that's it. Some of the sneakier dealers like to buy up a bunch of these, hold them for a year, and then pull them out and sell them for double their original prices.

Jimmy and Jimi both played Danelectros at one time or another, and so did Elvis.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 17

2010-11-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

This guitar is gonna get finished even if it kills me! In the last episode I finally got the electronics figured out. Now I'm going to start cutting notches in the body to hold the electronics.

I traced out the size of the pickup where I wanted it in the body, and then I stepped it out a little bigger to give the pickup some wiggle room.

The screw shank is just under 7/8" long, so a 1" deep notch should work fine and give me comfortable room for wires too.

Since the body is 1 1/2" thick I have 1/2" to spare. That's good!

I put tape on my drill bits at the 1" mark so I wouldn't drill too deep. I measured from where the 1" diameter started, not the center points that extended out.

Oh oh! The center points are 1/2" long. That's bad. That means the tips of these bits will just penetrate through the back side of the body. This means I need to stop drilling a smidgen before I get to the 1" tape mark.

I tried hog-drilling this notch out in my shop on the drill press, but my tiny drill press didn't have a long enough reach. Instead I just used a hand drill back in the house, right there in the living room. I had to hurry and get all this drilling done while Mei was at work.

Here's what it looked like after I drilled out as much as I could.

The rest was cut out by hand with a flat chisel.

Tada! It ain't the most beautiful notch in the world, but none of it will be seen once the pickup's plate covers all the edges.

When I drop the pickup into the notch I have good depth, and breathing room on the sides. Even though I couldn't go the full 1" depth with this notch, the plate which holds the pickup will also have some thickness which will raise the pickup a little more. At the pickup's lowest setting I should have roughly 1/4" of space underneath for wiring. That's plenty.

Now to get rid of the evidence before Mei gets home. Trust me, you do NOT want to experience the wrath of a mad Chinese woman.

We're babysitting on the weekends. This is MeiMei. She's 2 1/2 years old. I call her Hurricane MeiMei. After a couple hours I didn't even recognize my house. She got into EEEEEVERYTHING. Every room, every door, every drawer, every toothpaste tube, every glass ornament, every button on every appliance. Every. Tiny. Little. Thing.

Days later I'm still finding evidence of her being here. My clocks were set to new individual times and my guitars were all tuned to new experimental half-half tone chords. I noticed I was getting very warm today and I looked at the thermostat and found MeiMei had fiddled with the dial until it was 10 or 15 degrees higher.
In this picture you see her playing with a potato chip bag clip. At one point I saw it clipped to my dog Lucy's ear, and Lucy was having a fit trying to get it off. When I looked back at MeiMei she was sitting watching cartoons as if nothing had happened. She's adorable though, so even when she's doing the most evil thing in the world it's difficult to say NO to her. It's like her super power.

PICTURE FOR THE KIDS

2010-11-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

Print it and color it. See what Your kids can do with it. If it's anything particularly odd or frightening send me a scan of the handiwork.

OLD LOST DRAWING

2010-11-06T10:52:00.000-07:00

I found these while digging through some old folders. That's supposed to be Donald Trump in the middle.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 16

2010-11-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Presenting Part 16 of my ongoing guitar-building saga. In the last episode we saw things actually happening again after a long hiatus. Here's a pickup wiring diagram I found on the Seymour Duncan website. I really like his easy diagrams. As you can see from this picture, most of the work is going to be soldering all the wires to the the Volume knob.

It's easiest for me to think of this as 3 separate components rather than a whole chunk of spiderwebby wires going everywhere.

First I soldered 22 gage wires to the Volume knob exactly like the diagram showed me. It's messy but.... well, it's messy. The key to soldering is to heat the component rather than the solder. Once the component is hot enough the solder will flow onto it. That makes a better bond.

It's dangerous when soldering electronics because you don't want to fry the component with too much heat. Some guys use a heat-sink, like an alligator clip attached to the wire to suck off some of the heat. In this case, I had to solder directly to the Volume knob's metal housing and there was no way around heating it up. I just had to hope I didn't cook it too much at this point.

Then I soldered wires to the 2 leads on the jack, and since the pickup wires were too short I lengthened those. All of these wires are extra long for now because I really don't know how long they need to be yet. I skinned to opposite tips of all these wires so I could temporarily hand-twist them together and test everything. Later they'll have to come back apart since I need to thread all the individual pieces through the body of the guitar, into their respective places. I'll be able to shorten the wires as well at that point.

Here I've hand-twisted everything together the way it showed in the above diagram, and I plugged it into the amp.

Here's what no signal looks like in the Audacity recording software.

Then when I turned the volume knob and tapped on the Pickup with a metal object I got a good strong signal. It worked! I didn't fry anything internally with that soldering iron! Yay!

The next step will be routing slots in the body to hold these components. That's gonna have to wait a few more weeks until I can go back to work, since I don't have the right tools here at home. I guess I could drill and chisel out the slots. Maybe I'll do that. I'm thinking out loud.

Here's a picture of my dog Lucy standing next to my house for size comparison. Next year I'm gonna have to do something about that porch carpeting. I don't think it's gonna be very fun.

This is a picture Bob took from back when he babysat her for a while. She doesn't look pleased.

Here's Lucy looking at the mail man.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 15

2010-11-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

It seems like it's been quite a while since I worked on this guitar, but actually I never stopped. The last post was back in July.

I decided a while back I only wanted 1 pickup and 1 volume knob. I didn't want a tone because I never mess with that anyway. I always set the tone with the amp, or through the EQs when I record something.

I've been reading books and searching the internet for months, and I couldn't find a wiring diagram for one pickup/one volume anywhere. I was starting to think I'd have to just start touching wires to different contacts until I got a signal. In the past I made a guitar with one pickup and no volume or tone knobs. That was very simple. There were 2 wires coming out of the pickup, and there were 2 contacts on the jack. There was no way to mess it up.

Adding in a volume knob confused me because instead of it having just 2 contacts there were 3. That increased the possibilities to all kinds of chances of getting it wrong. 2 contacts on the jack, 2 on the pickup and then 3 on the volume knob add up to 1 worrisome headache. One thing I do know about wiring a guitar pickup: if you don't get it right, even if you do get a sound, if it isn't wired properly there will be lots of annoying buzzy white noise which will come and go as you touch the strings.

After about giving up I found Seymour Duncan's website, and he has wiring diagrams for pretty much any guitar pickup situation you'd ever wanna try. (I realize some guys are gonna take that as a challenge. He doesn't have wiring diagrams for use with roadkill or vegetables or exotic things like that.)

The thing I really like about his diagrams is he doesn't mess with those mysterious electronic symbols; he just draws a picture of the actual component. When you see his diagrams you can't do anything but get it right the 1st time.

Here is a Halloween picture from yesterday. That's my niece and nephew Mimi and Moe. Recently they helped me record a song and they did it perfectly. I needed them to say 3 different lines, and they had to be on beat and clear.
I'm off work for 6 weeks and I've been seeing how long and grubby I can grow my beard before I have to go back. So far it's about this grubby. This is 3 weeks worth.