Semi-vintage Fender Jaguar

This is the Fender Jaguar I put together with some original vintage parts and some new.

Original 1965 neck

Original 1964 harness

Original 1964 knobs

New relic aged vintage style tuners

New alder body

I chose to get the guitar body at Guitar Mill because, as far as I know, it is the only one who makes Jaguar bodies with the exact specs of vintage ones, they are the exact replicas.

I painted the body using sanding sealer, Duplicolor white primer, Duplicolor stone white and Stewmac nitro lacquer.

This is the new body straight from the shop

After applying the sanding sealer

After spraying the primer.

It took me more than one attempt to find the right color. I always used Duplicolor spray pait cans. I first used Olympic White and I founded it too cold so, I sanded everything off and redo all the passages. Then I ordered Wimbledon White, this time I tried first on another piece of wood and it was too yellow. I finally found the Stone White to be exactly what I was looking for, so I ordered 5 cans, tried on wood and... that was it!

White... what a pain! If you don't have a spray booth, like me, you'll find fibers coming from nowhere landing on your paint that you have to sand it off after each coat when dries. it was a long process but in the end it paid off.

For the paint and sanding process I followed meticolously the instructions I found on Stewmac website, then I tried to polish it myself by hand. It turned out just all right but I could still see too many sanding scratches so I decided to take it to a luthier who polished for me with the buffing machine. It turned out perfect.

Tips: if you'll ever need to use masking tape, DO NOT EVER use regular paint masking tape, blue, green or similar because that kind of tape yellows the finish, just go to an art painting supply shop and get an artist masking tape roll, it's white and it's worth to pay a few extra bucks for that. The chemicals in the art masking tape don't ruin your finish.
Another tip is, when you put a screw for the first time, make a smaller hole marking the drill bit with tape for depth, then coat the screw in was, doing so you build the thread in the wood.

When everything was ready, I put everything together. Everything was good and was working but it needed a professional setup, so I decided to take it again to a luthier. 

Here the bad news, the frets were ok but not very good, so I decided to refret the entire neck. It didn't turned out cheap because the frets that were used in the sixties used to have a shorter tang compared to the new ones. The longer tank of the new fret wires would brake the fretboard, so the luthier had to trim them in a T-shape before placing them.
The original nut was too low so, in order to save the original bone nut, the luthier used dentist tools to fix it! yes... he used the blue light too to harden the tooth compound, the one they use to reconstruct your teeth!!!

Strings... I put the classing surfing tone string set that people used in the sixties: Pyramid Gold 12-52 flatwound, excellent strings. I also find the Dogal to be excellent strings, they are hand made in Venice, Italy.
Bridge: Offset Mastery Bridge.


Resources:

Stewmac (on how to spray paint and finish your guitar)
Webmasterman (on how to solder properly guitar components)

1977 Twin Reverb Silverface - tube layout and more

After a good research in the web and "tube rolling", I came out with this tube layout. It sounds pretty amazing. The ones underlined are the ones currently in the amp.

V1 12ax7 = Preamp normal channel (NOS JAN-GE 12AX7WA or  new Tung-Sol)
V2 12ax7 = Preamp vibrato channel (NOS JAN-GE 12AX7WA or new Tung-Sol)
V3 12at7 = Reverb send/driver (NOS Mullard 12AT7WA / CV4024 or NOS JAN-Philips or new TAD)
V4 12ax7 = 1/2 Reverb recovery and 1/2 gain stage for vibrato channel (NOS JAN-GE 12AX7WA or new Tung-Sol)
V5 12ax7 = Vibrato (GT or JJ) no tone effect, any brand would work just fine
V6 12at7 = Phase inverter (NOS Mullard 12AT7WA / CV4024 or NOS JAN-Philips or new TAD)
V7 6L6 = Power tube 1 (NOS 6L6GT Svetlana "Winged C" or GE 6L6GC or new TAD)
V8 6L6 = Power tube 2 (NOS 6L6GT Svetlana "Winged C" or GE 6L6GC or new TAD)
V9 6L6 = Power tube 3 (NOS 6L6GT Svetlana "Winged C" or GE 6L6GC or new TAD)
V10 6L6 = Power tube 4 (NOS 6L6GT Svetlana "Winged C" or GE 6L6GC or new TAD)


If you don't use the channel 1 there is one interesting mod I found on fenderguru.com:

 Use normal channel for reverb control to adjust EQ and depth of reverb.

"This mod is relevant only for two-channel amps with normal and vibrato channel. This trick is great for the reverb enthusiasts among us, and who is not? Plug your guitar into the vibrato channel, then unplug the reverb return cable on the back of the amp (the one that comes from the reverb tank output)* and plug it into the normal channel input. You will need a converter to go from male phono/RCA jack to a 1/4″ male jack. You may now use the normal channel as a reverb control where you can adjust the depth and tone using the volume, bright switch, treble and bass knobs (and mid if you have a Twin Reverb). The reverb knob on the vibrato channel will have no effect any longer. This mod is not applicable together with the Pull V1 mod, as you need the normal channel preamp tube." Fender Guru

*Note: looking from the back it should be the one on the left side "reverb output", grey cable tip.


Another interesting mod I found on robrobinette.com:

Put a capacitor to reduce ice peaks highs.

"If your particular speakers are giving you too many 'ice pick' highs simply adding a 100pF Mica capacitor across the feedback resistor will filter out some very high freqs that can cause ice pick highs. The cap allows high freqs to go around the feedback resistor so they are used for feedback which will reduce them from the amp's output. This is a nice, subtle mod that won't screw up your silverface's perfect tone. It's easy to use alligator clips to clip the cap in place temporarily to see if you like the mod. If you would like to cut even more highs than the 100pF cap, you can go all the way up to a .022uF cap to lower the filter's cutoff freq so more mid-high freqs would be cut. There's a small chance the Ice Pick Cap can induce oscillation at high volume. If that happens you can put a 4.7k resistor in series with the cap to reduce the very high frequencies that cause oscillation... This is an Ice Pick Cap on a 5F6A Bassman but it works the same way in silverface amps. Just put the cap around the 820 ohm Negative Feedback resistor." Rob Robinette

On this video below there is another mod to reduce the loudness, power and weight of the amp without altering the sound, great if you don't play in big stages.

Resources:

Fender Guru
KCA NOS Tubes
The Tube Store

Vintage Fender Amp Repair
Rob Robinette

Yellow School Bus Factory - Sonic Lovers

Song from the new EP coming out soon "Architecture of a Spaceship".
Music and Lyrics by Davide Bortolato - Yellow School Bus Factory - with the exquisite participation of Francesco Candura at the bass. Recorded in the basement, mixed at the Sine Studios in Philadelphia PA, US , mastered at Abbery Road Studios, London, UK.
Edited video footage of Sheree North "Tiger Dance" from archive.org and liquid light projection I did in my studio.

Surfy Bear - DIY Spring Reverb

I have been looking for a long time for a true spring reverb unit that sounds like a Fender one and finally, some months ago, I came across Surfy Bear (now Surfy Industries). I find this reverb effect to be absolutely the best and affordable you can find out there, with that drip that makes your guitar surf.
This unit does not have tubes but it sounds like it has them!


Items used:

1. Surfy Bear spring reverb kit
2. Spring tank reverb Accutronics 4AB3C1B
3. On/Off switch
4. 12V DC 1A regulated power supply adapter
5. Old Craftsman tool box that can fit the reverb tank
6. Black antique bakelite chicken-head knobs
7. Potentiometer dials
8. 12V LED pilot light model PL1601-R-12
9. Mini guitar pedal rubber feet
10. Water slide decal paper for laser printer
11. Satin lacquer spray paint

Tools needed:

1. 40W Soldering Iron
2. Helping hand soldering stand
3. Rosin core silver bearing solder
4. Electric wires
5. Electric pliers
6. Philips screwdriver
7. Wrenches
8. Drill
9. Multimeter
10. Laser printer

Once I got my Surfy Bear kit and my tool box I started drilling the holes and connect everything pretty easilyfollowing the instrucions. The only issue I had is to invert the power DC wires with a multimeter, as soon I finished connecting all the parts I turned it on and it was not working, so I check the polarity as written in the Surfy bear instruction and I solved the problem, it worked like a charm. Another small issue was that the first time I used a pilot light that you find in tube Fender amps were the light bulb has 6.3V , everything worked but the light bulb burnt out after a few hours due to the incorrect voltage, in fact was too bright when it was working. So I made my research and I found on eBay a 12V pilot light very similar to the Fender ones and, even better, I could use the old metal cap instead the new plastic one.
It looked awesome but I needed to make the labels for the pots and input/output so I got some water slide printable sheets, I then designed the labels, printed and sprayed with lacquer to protect the ink. I also made a personal Reverberation logo that I put on the back of the unit.

Useful links:

Pedal Heaven
True bypass switch diagram

When a 1975 Fender Bandmaster Reverb TFL5005D head becomes a combo

I wanted to find a good vintage Fender amp with reverb easy to move and fairly lightweight, well, there's none. During my research I came across the Fender Guru blog where I found this interesting modification you can do to convert a Bandmaster Reverb head into a combo amp because the head chassis fits two 8" speakers.
I read the procedure on how to do this mod and I decided to give it a try because it requires only a few basics electronic and woodworking basics, nothing advanced or dangerous. The only thing I had to be careful was to pick the speakers with the right impedance otherwise I could have literally put your amp on fire.

I took off the original baffle and save it, I got a pine wood board (16mm, 3/16") and cut it to fit the chassis, a tiny bit smaller to leave room for the grill cloth wrapping.

Once I was sure that the wood board was fitting it was time to cut the speaker holes with a router and a circle jig (Jasper 200J Model 200) and mounted the two speakers.

The speakers are: one Weber AlNiCo and one Warehouse ceramic, both 8 ohms impedance wired in parallel. I then stapled the grill cloth.

Finally I screwed the logo. On the left the original, on the right the one I made.

A view from the back without panel.

Bad news... I sold it.

Another example here.

Resources:

Fender Guru

Rob Robinette

Live4guitar