I’ve been bad. I try to post here at least a couple of times each month but I’ve been busy. And not getting much accomplished despite all of my running around! Well -
A fellow in Texas (or maybe California; it isn’t clear yet to me exactly where he lives) is a real KISS fan - so much so that he acquired a special guitar online and he wants to turn it into a copy of one of Ace Frehley’s lit guitars, the pair that John and I built back in the Dark Ages. He got a hold of John through his Facebook page and John referred him to me. After bargaining over exactly what he wants to for effects and how much he wants to pay to get the effects that he wants, he sent the guitar to John’s office last week. I ordered parts (which should start to arrive tomorrow). I’ve been dredging my memories of years gone by for snippets of guitar-effect construction.
I can’t build exactly the same guitar; in the first place, there were two completely different guitars and in the second place, the components that we used are obsolete. I can’t even use incandescent bulbs; the factories that made them around the world are closing as even the bulbs that Thomas Edison manufactured are obsolete. I’ll use bright LEDs. Jack is going to program a modern microprocessor and I’ll put the whole beast together, except for the set-up (installing the bridge and strings, etc.). If that happens locally, it will be by an expert, not me.
Figuring out exactly what I’m going to do takes a lot of thought. When we made these before, we got brand-new Gibson Les Paul guitars shipped from the factory. This time, I got a guitar that has already had extensive modifications done to it. It looks like somebody tried to make it look like one of Ace’s guitars without actually putting any electronics into it. The body had a mirror back plate and what looked like a circuit board for the lights already installed into it but on closer inspection the “circuit board” is just a piece of fiberboard covered with holographic film. I removed the back and the fiberboard insert and the poor thing had been gutted. All of the wood in the middle of the body has been removed except for a narrow edge and a strip running up the middle, exactly enough to install the bridge (the pick-up is installed but not connected to anything), with an extension of wood going from the neck to the base of the body. It’s pretty flimsy. You can see straight through most of the body.
The mirror can’t stay; there was no mirror back on Ace’s originals. We used an aluminum back-plate as a heat sink. And that fiberboard insert is a joke. We had a plexiglass top, covering the circuit board that housed all of the lights. I’ll make one for this guitar but it will differ from the originals in that it won’t be inset from the topside. I’m afraid that there isn’t enough wood around the edge to inset it. Instead, I’ll attach it with plastic stand-offs to the circuit board (sandwiching the LEDs) and the whole thing will drop in from the top but be attached by screws from the rear. The fiberboard insert is supported by a half dozen little wooden supports on the border of the body; the circuit board will rest on them. The electronics and battery will mount underneath the LED circuit board, and the entire rear opening covered with the aluminum back plate. I think this will work and the aluminum back plate will add a bit of strength to the seriously compromised body.
I took the guitar to a local guitar shop; the tech told me that the neck was “back-bent” despite the neck-rod being completely loosened. It will have to be heat-treated to straighten the neck. I have already told the KISS fan that I do not know how to mount the bridge or set up the guitar’s strings and someone else will have to do that. I’ll email him the cost of having it done properly at the shop or, if he doesn’t like the price, he can arrange to have it done himself. Ta-dah!
I'll post pictures as soon as I have something interesting.
I can’t wait for the parts to come tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to getting creative, in a purely constructive way. I really like building stuff. I spent a lot of time this week baking - brownies, banana bread, and chocolate chip cookies, all from scratch. It’s a similar process to building electronic devices - I take ingredients, mix them in proper proportions and come up with something that is completely different from its basic parts. Yum!
