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What do we find?
1. The node points on the two saddle types are at different positions from the saddle front. The difference is 1.8mm, which is over 3 complete turns of the adjustment screw.
2. The Graphtech saddles use American threads for saddle retention and height adjustment. The Graphtech’s don’t have much height adjustment, and I don’t have any longer spares with the correct thread. Thankfully there’s a compromise height which works.
3. There’s a tone difference with the new saddles, but not enough to worry about.
So the midi stuff will go in like this. I'll cut a groove under the bridge for the piezo pickup wires and drill from that into the control cavity, rather than route the delicate wires alongside the magnetic pickup cables. The cavity will need enlarging to take the midi circuit board and midi volume. The 13 pin socket will go on the edge, near the end pin. Any lower and it will get in the way of my thigh when playing. The battery will go in its own box behind the bridge, with a hole drilled through to the control cavity.
Sorry @Andyjr1515. This means that the jigs will get documented in another thread
The pair of wires side by side measure 1.5mm, and a single metal terminator will go through a 1.5mm hole. To get the second terminator through alongside the first wire through the hole needs to be 2.0mm.
Having pontificated in this and another thread about where to position the holes I discovered that they would be too close to the string-through holes. I ended putting them just behind the front edge of each saddle.
After that excitement I drew up the outline of the enlarged control cavity, and cut out a paper template. Extending the cavity will be the first non-reversible activity, closely followed by cutting a hole for the 13 pin socket. Now this is a bound guitar, and I’m thinking about redoing the binding, including rerouting the ledge. This will be much more difficult with another socket hole in the side of the guitar. So I put it aside while I decide on the binding, and dressed the frets instead.
Normally when I dress frets I take the strings off and let the neck settle, adjusting it back to flat over a couple of days. As luck would have it this neck was dead straight within a few minutes of removing the strings. I seized the chance and levelled the frets, then spent a happy couple of hours reprofiling and polishing them.
I’ve changed my mind about how the piezo wires will get into the control cavity. To get the channel sufficiently deep in the body I’ve had to come into the pickup cavity, and then a new hole from there into the control cavity. This is where my new pillar drill is useful.
For the extended control cavity I was tempted to route it out with the aid of a few ad hoc fences. As things turned out I’m glad that I didn’t. First I drew the cavity outline on paper, cut it out, offered it up the the guitar, and checked the positions of the pots, sockets and circuit board. Then I cut a mask from 9mm ply on my scroll saw.
Using the piece I’d cut out I drew a larger outline for the cavity cover, and cut that out too. The blank will be used as a template for the cover, and the hole as a routing template.
Here’s where it went wrong.
To start with I drilled out the extra area with a Forstener bit to make life easier for the mini router. With my main router I’d just have piled in, and let the router do all the work. The new router worked well at enlarging the cavity. Then I reset it to sweep across the cavity floor. Halfway through the bit came loose, and cut too deep into the floor. I caught the problem, turned off and hoovered the cavity so that I could check for damage. Not too bad. I can bring the whole surface around the pots to this level, and insert a ply or metal platform to strengthen the wood and support the pots. Cleaned the shank. Set the router up again ... and the bit came loose again. This time it came within 0.5mm of cutting completely through. Thought about it for a while, packed the hole with plastic wood, and gave up for the day. I would have liked to use something stronger, but cyano-acrylic or wood hardener would seep through and inhibit the new coat of wood stain.
Then back to work. Binding channel recut. This is what I bought the Makita for. I’ll give it 8 out of 10. It’s light, and easy to guide. With the bevel base locked at 90 degrees it does a good job. Much better than my old heavy router. Around the forearm champfer I stopped and adjusted the base angle every two inches, which gave a smooth transition. The bevel base holds the router bit at a constant depth, but I forgot to allow for the width of the bit. As the angle increases the bit bites slightly lower. Of course there’s a three inch section where I didn’t notice this. It’s on the top edge, exactly where I’ll see it as I’m playing. There are a couple of choices: recut and use a deeper binding, redo the champfer to match the channel, or fill the gap with plastic wood. On any other guitar I’d recut or re-champfer. This one is the Recyclecaster, made from a builders’ plank I found in a skip, so it’s going to get the gap filler treatment.
The original binding was put on with cyano acrylic glue. It sticks too quickly for my liking, and any excess can prevent wood taking colour and finish. @WezV, the fount of all guitar building knowledge, suggested plastic cement. The main ingredient is methyl chloride, or methylene chloride. It is used to make plastic models, and works by melting the plastic which then welds together. In this case I’m hoping that it will weld the plastic binding to the wood.
Gratuitous picture. As often happens, this doesn’t pick up the true colour, which is dark turquoise.
I think either the bits are not inserted deep enough (which might be what you are saying), or the collet is faulty or it simply it hasn't been tightened up enough. I say the latter because I find my Bosch palm router quite difficult to tighten properly using the lock pin - and Bosch don't supply a second (slim) spanner even though they do provide the spanner slots in the spindle. I find that I'm having to put the pressure on keeping the spring-loaded pin engaged and not where the pressure should be - ie stopping the circular body from rotating. It's one of the flaws of the available palm routers - particularly if a second slim spanner isn't supplied.
Are you using two spanners or the pin? If you are using the pin, try the two spanners (easier with the motor unit out of the base) and see if you are able to get a bit more purchase on it.
If you are already using two spanners, then it would be worth taking the collet off and checking there's no swarf or dirt in the slots keeping it from clamping properly.
Instagram
Here it is back together, and waiting for a chrome knob for the synth volume.
Instagram
Installing the saddles, electronics, and 13 pin socket was the easy bit. Getting everything working properly is a lot harder. My previous experience of midi guitar has been using a Parker Fly. First with external and internal GK-3 pickups, and later using the Parker piezos saddles into a Graphtech Hexpander. Tracking was a lot better with piezos: better note registration, and very few ghost notes.
This guitar tracks very well. If anything the Graphtech piezo signal is too strong, stronger than the Parker. There are no missed or late notes, and no ghost notes either.
The problem is that some notes continue to ring, even when the string has been muted. As far as I can tell it’s either triggering from an inaudible signal, or there’s an electronic problem preventing the note from terminating.
Anyone got any ideas?
If nothing else, it should tell you if it's some kind of ghost triggering, or something further down the signal chain.
I’m wondering whether a high pass filter on each piezo channel, set below the natural frequency of the open string, would reduce the noise.