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Jeff R

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Everything posted by Jeff R

  1. Same went for Goatwhore, Sammy Duet is one of my repair clients and their most recent release's vinyl sat in hiatus for a year too. He said something about one of the few big-volume vinyl pressing facilities out there burned down in recent times and put even more strain on the few plants that could press in bulk. And on top of that, Sammy said a major artist, who he described as "I don't know, one of those one-named pop cunt divas" LOL, decided she wanted her new release on vinyl. The initial order, Sammy said he was told, was not only a HUGE HUGE quantity order, it was pushed to the front of the schedule due to her mass popularity. I guess the other one-named pop cunt diva named Metallica decided they ain't standing in line behind anyone.
  2. I date back to the mid to late 90s. HFC wasn't even a message board, it was a non-discussion one ledger registry akin to introducing yourself at an AA meeting. "Hi, I'm Jeff R., longtime Hamer fan and finally own one. Nice to meet you all!" That was back when you could amass a sweet Hamer USA collection for about $350 lol
  3. I've been busy the past few days totally overhauling CarondeletPickups.com from the ground up, it was a horrid, embarrassing domain placeholder before this weekend. It looks and functions and navigates MUCH, MUCH BETTER now. Please guys, click about and around it and alert me via PM if you find functionality issues. After I get the core site's kinks out, add some new content my pickup artists and I are creating, and then integrate an online store ... I will add a section for guitars available for purchase.
  4. Not that this is the culprit but ... make sure all your wires are actually in the cavity and that nothing in the "hot" signal chain accidentally got pinned between the pickguard and the body face. Pickguards are often shielded and subsequently in the "ground" signal chain because the shield contacts the mounted pots. And a hot wire pinned between the body and the guard, especially loosely pinned due to a pickguard that's warping slightly with age ... mixed with an exposed "hot" wire, like an non-insulated solder joint, that's getting pinched by the guard ... that can cause intermittence. Same goes for the occasional blade switch whose solder points are bottoming out and making contact into a shielded cavity. I always put a piece of electrical tape over the solder points on blade switches inside shielded cavities. In the case of a one-ply old skool Strat pickguard, that has more flex than a three-ply, the pressure of a hard flick of the blade could make the signal drop out during that split second swat to change pickups. You would have sworn the blade was bad, but it was fine, it was hots hitting shielding that was the culprit.
  5. This is my last post about or from the recent Nashville trip, I promise ... You may recall I met a very, very famous guitarist who doubles as a Country Music Hall of Fame member at the Amigo show. He visited my Carondelet booth and demo'ed my take on P-90s for a Telecaster. Here is about two minutes of the test-drive, captured on an Android. This is trimmed RAW audio, no processing whatsoever, of the player, my guitar, my pickups, and my '66 Super Reverb with a Boss analog delay set for subtle slapback. Talk about a f'ing player. Thought you guys might enjoy this ... I'm still speechless.
  6. There is a fretted repair/upgrade workshop that does custom pickups and custom guitars in Baton Rouge. But Its name escapes me.
  7. This is so special to me, I couldn't bury it in the Amigo Nashville Guitar Show thread. The bug to do what I do today bit me in my teens and due to a variety of circumstances I won't eat bandwidth discussing, I didn't get to turn my dream into reality until after I did grown-up stuff for about 30 years. All that time, basically all my life, one of my biggest inspirations in regards to guitar building stuff has been Grover Jackson. I was the only one of my aspiring rock god friends who as a teen didn't aspire to play or -egad - endorse Grover's products. I wanted to actually build them haha. Grover today is 73 and his Charvel/Jackson Guitars days are far, far behind him. But he is still very active with Grover Jackson Engineering, his OEM supply and collaborative endeavors operation, which he recently relocated from California to his home state of Tennessee. To most people, the GJE facility is a four-employee millworks maybe the size of a junior high school gymnasium. To me, it's like Santa and his workshop, but nestled in serene foothills straddling the Tennessee/Alabama border. Mutual industry friends hooked Grover and I up while I was at Amigo Nashville a few days ago, and Grover graciously extended an invitation to come meet in person (!) in the GJE factory (!!) on my way back to Louisiana. You hear stories about people meeting their idols and they turn out to be nothing like what you expect. Aloof, or cold, or just plain assholes. Meeting this idol of mine was just the opposite. Grover is kind, very funny, warm and 100 percent sincerely genuine. Within 30 seconds, you would have sworn watching us interact that we'd known each other forever. And of all the people in the world to express not only glowing reviews but bona fide interest in my guitars and guitarcraft, in my pickups, my bustling repair/upgrade shop back home, my trade promotion and consumer marketing strategies .. it was Grover Jackson. Grover Jackson cares about who I am, what I do, and how and why I do as I do. To say I was in a mixed state of elation and almost disbelief is a pitiful understatement. If my wife hadn't reminded us we had a long drive home, Grover and I would probably still be chatting it up in the wood room not only about everything from luthiery and tech-ery to our lives' Chapter IIs, everything from our paths to where we are, to our adult children's endeavors, and the recent foot injuries he and I have in common. I'm enlarging and framing the snap below twice, one for my workshop, the other for my winding room. Notice how well the decades of grown-up jobs and the influence of Grover's ingenuities all that time taught me ... I got three of my logos in our photo, while his brand is MIA. He thought that was hilarious I am still giddy and glowing. Priceless.
  8. Another vote for the Gotoh two-point fulcrum trems, my favorite guitar in the world has the SB-5330 Gotoh 510T-FE1 Fulcrum Tremolo. The feel and performance is absolutely glassy perfect for what I seek, like a very well set-up Floyd. If you like the stock non-locking bridge on the Music Man Petrucci guitars, you will adore this OTC and affordable option. Came stock with a brass block too, which is very nice.
  9. I didn't think this one constituted a beater because it was so beaten up already. But she still gets at least one thrashing weekly. I'm so happy it came home.
  10. A relic is a beater by default, correct? Here's the most recent one of mine I declared "not for sale." The fingerboard is lot darker than in this photo from finger smudge already.
  11. I just had one of the Sire Larry Carlton HSS strats just like this one cross my bench for a routine setup and you are correct, it is a really, REALLY good guitar and simply off the charts for pure value. A Suhr/Anderson/Melancon/Tyler owner who bought this as his bar band beater axe would be very at home on it and quite happy with his purchase.
  12. Vonnie and I are still in disbelief. Our prayers and love out to Chris and Siobhan. And Uncle Serial.
  13. I bought my first ever Klon clone, a Wampler Tumnus Deluxe, a coupla weeks ago when I saw a 10-pedal Klon clone blind taste test shootout on YouTube. The Wampler won AND it beat out a real deal Klon (it came in second). When my local GC had one, meaning I could return it if it didn't jive with my stuff, it was a no-brainer purchase. Compared to the original Tumnus, the "deluxe" has some extra EQ knobs and a "hot" switch that does just that. I'm quite pleased with it. Not returning it. Edited to add a linkie to the vid ...
  14. If and when you round up the Revolver that meets your criteria, plan on adding a jumbo refret to that too. Can't remember if I told you that. All the Fernandes and Burny guitars I've been around over the last 10 years had frets that were somewhat small for most shredder aficionados' tastes. But don't let that potential extra expenditure deter you - a.) a MIJ Revolver is a great platform of a guitar and b.) you may be cool with the OEM frets. Most Hamer shredders have small frets for my shredder tastes, if that sheds light on where I'm at.
  15. Jim, I'll tell you what I told my client who also wants to cut up a guitar in his stable for a Sustainer. I say "also" because oddly enough, my client is the same guy I mentioned in the "Diablo-oo-ooh" thread who goes batshit crazy when his Floyds don't go cent-perfect back to true zero from both push and pull directions. You two have a lot in common LOL. I wouldn't cut up the Charvel for a Sustainer. I wouldn't cut up the Dinky for a Sustainer either. I told my client I don't recommend cutting up his stuff. I'd get a guitar already loaded with a Sustainer and use the small fortune you would pay to alter ANY body for a Sustainer to upgrade the already-done platform. If it was me, I'd get a Fernandes Revolver Sustainer. They are readily available and affordable on the used market. MIJ and the quality you'd expect, plus alder body (yes, not bleh basswood), 24 fret, factory Floyd-license bridge 99.9 percent guaranteed to have been ghost-built by Gotoh and a factory bridge pickup that is plenty sufficient to not pull immediately. And I'd spend the money I would have thrown away on routing and cutting to make upgrades to the actual guitar, another addition to the stable versus a pile of sawdust and paint chips on my shop floor. Or I'd get a MIJ Burny LP clone with a factory Floyd and factory Sustainer. Same principle as above. LTD also at one time had a good quality MIK Eclipse with factory Floyd and factory Sustainer.
  16. The price is probably not that much out of line considering the number of Jem/Vai collectors out there compared to those who DON'T have an LNG, much less a clean one. I seem to recall there are only 777 out there and someone out there is willing to pay big $$$ for the right one. This one looks well taken care of, signature's still intact, case number matches, relatively unfaded neons (those pink Dimarzio pickups fade even on case queens), no neck joint finish cracks, intact and unpitted hand rest on the trem, etc. I don't know if he'll get that price on a local CL ad, even in a market the size of Atlanta, but I'd bet an eBay listing with many detailed photographs and open to international bidders would yield some really serious money.
  17. And THAT'S the reason why when I filled out the UPS shipping forms, I ignored HFC tradition and declared package content value substantially higher than $350 LOL
  18. She ships to Houston tomorrow. Get ready, Ken!
  19. That opens a host of possibilities, considering it's not a guitar grounding issue (or seems not to be). Wiring/lighting in the room where the high volume is applied; poorly shielded cable(s) somewhere between the guitar and the amp; AC disagreements between stuff on pedalboard, the list goes on. If you're seeing similar problems with other axes, Jim, start w/guitar-main cable-amp and slowly integrate pieces of the puzzle one by one to isolate the culprit(s). If it's only the LP that's doing it, try my external wire trick and see if that helps - you can't "over-ground" the internal circuit and it may help. I have no idea what type of metal the FR bushing is made of, but it could just be a poorly-conductive alloy, just a thought. We know (or fairly assume) the claw, springs, trem block and base plate together are sufficient conductors.
  20. Sounds like no ground wire to claw. Without going all crazy with the job, you may just take a spare long piece of wire, and see if you can tie it and/or tape it around ground on the claw (unused spring tongue) and on a ground connection in the cavity (maybe electric-tape it to a pot housing). You don't even have to run it through the body cavity, and that should answer the question in no more than 2-3 minutes with no evidence of solder tampering.
  21. Update from Baton Rouge, Louisiana ... "#5" has undergone a truss rod adjustment due to her national tour, and a subsequent saddle and pickup height adjustment. Pardon my Cajun French, but this fucker smokes. Glamour shots from the work bay. Bil is absolutely smiling from heaven right now.
  22. #5 arrived just fine today at my office, so her "tour list" now includes time in the complex that houses the tallest state capitol building in America. Me and this one are gonna have some fun in some interesting locations o'er the next few days
  23. The closest I've come to "living" thing in a piece of gear was a wah pedal with a wasp nest (the dirt dauber kind) inside the casing. No wasps, just those muddy cylinders. The craziest thing I've seen in an amp was in a college buddy's Marshall head. The amp didn't have the back grille on it, and Joe had a cat that would often get up in the head box atop the chassis, I'd assume because the chassis would be hot/warm after Joe would play it. One time I met up with Joe to jam around and the most disgusting stench ever began overtaking the room. Turns out the cat took a big shit on top of the chassis and the turds started simmering/melting under the chassis heat. Despite several cleaning attempts by Joe, the smell never went away completely - everytime Joe would fire up the amp, a faint whiff of cat shit would fill the room be it the apartment, a small club, wherever.
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