My Christmas project (finally) completed ... (Kawai content)

TTony

It's not because I'm lazy, or easily distracted.  It's because I like to do a thorough job, properly.

Hmmmmm.

I'd had this old Kawai Aquarius knocking about the place for ages.  I think I bought it originally because it had 3 rather hard to come by original p'ups in it, and my vague plan was that I'd cannibalise it if I ever needed the p'ups for one of my other, slightly more treasured Kawais.

The body is as rough and beat-up as it looks - nothing structural, but plenty of dings & dents - and that scratchplate is cut quite roughly and unevenly for an original piece.  Strange.

I never played it, so it sat, ignored and unloved in a cheapo gig bag in a corner.  *sniff*.

And now, abut 3 months later than it should have been, this is it ...

Nice new scratchplate - cut properly - and a set of SCs.

The fretboard cleaned up quite nicely with some wire wool and lemon oil ...

That's a set of @TheGuitarWeasel 's finest StoneTones p'ups, which sound very sharp, distinct and powerful in the quick tune-up blast that it's just had.  The p'up selection is done via the 3 mini-toggles (on/off for each p'up), standard volume and a bypass tone control.  

Amazingly, I got it all wired up this afternoon, plugged it in, and it worked first time.  That doesn't often happen with my wiring.

It's all personal taste, but I much prefer the Wilko-look of the guitar now and I don't have a lot of single coil guitars, so it's going to get more playtime than it ever had before.

Now, next project ...

ThePrettyDamned

Looks very cool man.

monquixote

Good work Tony. 

TTony

Thanks both.

Ridiculous though - 3 months to swap a scratchplate over.

Make a scratchplate template from the original.  Find out that original scratchplate wasn't cut very well (kinks in straight lines, kinks in curves), so make another template from scratch.

Find out that I didn't have the scratchplate material that I thought I had, so order some and wait for it to arrive.

Make new scratchplate.

Find out that i didn't have any templates for SC-sized cut outs, so make some.

Find out that I didn't have any decent 250k pots, so order some of those.

Put it together and wire it up, then think "perhaps I should have shielded it".  Take it apart, and shield it.

Put it together and wire it up, again.

Still, got there in the end, and I rather like the StoneTones.  No surprise there!

Adam_MD

Looks much nicer with the red plate and single coils, I think the single coils suit the shape of the guitar better.
Out of curiosity what are the original Kawai humbuckers like? Are you putting them in anything else?

TTony

Adam_MD said:

Looks much nicer with the red plate and single coils, I think the single coils suit the shape of the guitar better.
Out of curiosity what are the original Kawai humbuckers like? Are you putting them in anything else?

The original HBs were Mighty Mite units - essentially a copy of the 70s DiMarzio Super Distortions.  They sound as you'd expect something like that to sound!

They're in the parts box now, just in case I need a spare or two for one of the other "proper" Kawais.  Finding a proper vintage p'up on its own is not an easy task, and they can easily sell for £50+, so it was cheaper to buy the beat-up guitar with 3 of them already installed.

TTony

@monquixote

So, having played it, what did you make of the Stone Tones??

monquixote

Awesome, seriously considering sticking some in one of my strats when I have some spare funds, 

That guitar's a proper giggable beater. 

ThePrettyDamned

Stone tones are going into my upcoming strat build.

Good to see a nice review

suspiciousminds

Looks great - how did you do the scratchplate and cutouts?

TTony

suspiciousminds said:

Looks great - how did you do the scratchplate and cutouts?

I used the old scratchplate to make a template - though the old one was a bit uneven in places, so I took the opportunity to make the template a bit tidier.  Draw around the template onto a piece of mdf, cut it out roughly on the bandsaw (or you could use a jigsaw), and then fine tune it with the sander or - there's a long straight edge on it to - a bearing guided router bit.

Similarly, made a SC-sized template to use for the pickup cut-outs.

I probably spent as much (more) time making the templates, but I can re-use those as many times as I want now - I'm thinking maybe a single bridge P90 - and as everything is mounted on the scratchplate, it'll be easy to swap them around for a completely different guitar.

usedtobe

That looks great!

digitalscream

Nice job.

By the way...does anybody use a toggle-switch pickup selection arrangement in a live context? I'm not convinced that I could, because I do a lot of (necessarily) quick pickup changes while I'm playing. It strikes me that this would be next to impossible without a blade or single toggle switch - at the cost of less flexibility, of course.

TheOtherDennis

That's as different as ever, Tony.

monquixote

digitalscream said:

Nice job.

By the way...does anybody use a toggle-switch pickup selection arrangement in a live context? I'm not convinced that I could, because I do a lot of (necessarily) quick pickup changes while I'm playing. It strikes me that this would be next to impossible without a blade or single toggle switch - at the cost of less flexibility, of course.

Doesn't Brian May?

I had a bit of a fiddle with it at Tony's gaff and I actually found it quite intuitive. 

You get into the habit of clicking one on and one off in one motion quite quickly though I did manage to get into an "all off" situation a couple of times.