[krissovo]

Hey all

Due to starting to get tendonitis in my left hand I am going to venture into the wonderfull world of some slide. I have a spare guitar (Cheap Telecaster) that is crying out to be used as a slide guitar so I am going to set it up permanently for the role. Here is where I need some help from some experienced folks on here. My plans so far are:

Pick Ups - I am thinking some medium output pup's and I have these in mind for two reasons. Firstly the cost and secondly they have great reviews on harmony central. When I contacted the company they told me I can return them within two weeks and gave me email address of happy customers.

Guitar Pickups UK - IronGear Pickups - IronGear Steel Foundry Details

Bridge - I am replacing the bridge, again its a cheapish one for now but it will allow me raise all the strings slightly as well intonate it correctly. At the moment I have a traditional ash tray tele bridge.


Electrics - I am going to re-wire the whole thing, I toyed with a 4 way system but in the end went for traditional 3 way. I am going for 500k pots. I will insulatate the cavities at the same, not sure if I will use paint or tape

Here is where I am really stuck

Neck - Now I understand that to a certain degree the neck and frets does not have to be in A1 condition, is that correct?
Also do I need a raised nut?

Strings - My gut feeling is that I should start with .12 gauge but else where I read that I should be looking at a minimum of .14 and upwards.

Lastly did I forget anything?

[starsailor]

Hi Krissovo just a note on the strings, I use 13s on my electro-acoustic so you could probably raise your sights a bit on the strings, 12s might be a bit light for an electric, 14s plus would probably be more suitable, I'll have to leave the other stuff to the techs but I think the neck should be ok unless it's in a really bad way, the action on slide guitars is usually higher than standards but the more experienced guys will know more about the nut than I do.
Hope this helps in some way, sorry to hear about your tendonitis it can be quite painful, hope that gets better, great project this.

All the Best

Chris

[knight46]

Bummer about the tendonitis Krissovo, hope things work out well. Keep us informed on this project, it looks like a lot of fun.

[krissovo]

Thanks Chris, Hmm 14's could be the way to go to start with now I think about it

The tendonitis according to my consultant is due to me missing the top part of my index finger and the extra movement involved is causing the strain. He has suggested some form of prosthetic attachment kind of like thimble or to not use / limit the use of my index finger. Slide would be a good way of limiting the use I think. Who knows until I try but there is no way I can give up guitar now!

[knight46]

Krissovo,
If you search the threads you will find some great info on Sliding. If I am not mistaken Kirk and AT like really heavy strings for Sliding, like 18's and up.

[allthumbs]

Heavy strings will raise the action without having to do anything. Kirk and I use 16,18, and the rest from a 13s set. You will get great tone with those thick strings and you won't have to worry about fret crash either.

[X4StringDrive]

Sorry Kriss for cutting in...and do please keep us updated.

When going to a heavier string will the intonation have to be reset?

[krissovo]

Originally Posted by X4StringDrive

Sorry Kriss for cutting in...and do please keep us updated.

When going to a heavier string will the intonation have to be reset?

I imagine so as well as adjusting the truss rod. It would be good practice to check after any changes to the setup.

Oh and its not my index finger, its my 3rd or ring finger. I got a bit muddled up

[fly135]

Keep us updated on your progress. I can't wait to hear your first slide tune. I smashed my knuckle on the ring finger of my fretting hand and had to have surgery on it. The result was it's a bit bent, stiff, and arthritic, but playing seems to help not hurt.

[Ben_Sir_Amos]

Sorry to hear about your tendonitis.

Couple of points from my own experience.

1. If you are going to do all slide, I guess the action and the state of the frets is not so important. If you are going to be doing blues songs, then you might well be mixing slide with open strings and fretted notes (to do a riff rather than the melody). If that is so, there are some implications - like heavy strings are harder to fret, and you won't want the action too high otherwise the intonation gets tricky.

2. Why change the bridge? The intonation isn't going to be as critical as with guitars for other purposes.

3. People tend to over-react when they go for slide. It might be that you will want thick strings but you might be happier with 12s on an electric at first. When you go acoustic you might want something heavier.

4. Same with raising the action. I put mine way up high - and then started reducing it until it wasn't nearly so high.

5. Thicker strings might bind in your nut. I didn't need to change the nut on my tele to get what I wanted. But new nut blanks are only a couple of quid / euros so you might as well try a new one out. Nut files are very very expensive, but if you are handy you will work out how to do the same job much more cheaply.

Play loud.

[krissovo]

Fly - Will do, all the parts should be here next week. I have ordered Kirk's slide and DVD so I guess it will be a few weeks (/months/years) until I get some reasonable sounds from it.

Thanks for your advice Ben and I will take on board your comments. To clarify your points:

1. The frets are ok on the Tele, its almost new and only has 30 or 40 hours playing time. It did have one dead fret but some adjustments made it ok.

2. I am changing the bridge as the one I have is not very adjustable, there are only 3 saddles and I have not been able to intonate it 100%. The one I have ordered is also slightly heavier so might help with some tone.

3. Good point, I will start with 12's and have a few other packets around of different sizes so I can experiment.

4. Point taken, it will need some raising but I might get away with a new nut and the saddle. Oh and thats point 5 dealt with.

Thanks for your input, it very much appreciated!

[Ben_Sir_Amos]

Originally Posted by Ben_Sir_Amos

Couple of points from my own experience.

Obviously, I can't count.

As a temporary measure, to see if you want a higher nut, you could slip a shim under the existing one. Say, a business card - no thicker, I shouldn't think. Maybe a train ticket would be better.

[tina_]

Originally Posted by krissovo

Hey all
Lastly did I forget anything?[/b]

You'll want the strings level across the bridge... no pretty radius's Apologies if thats obvious!

For a specific slide guitar - you'll probably get heavy strings, I'd do the same. I think its worth saying (for those who don't have a specific guitar for slide) that I use my guitar for both slide and standard playing. 11's work fine for me

[krissovo]

Hi all here is a update to the project.

I first stated by taking sound samples on different amp settings, I shall use this as a reference for a comparison later.

OK - after reading a link that Allthumbs posted I decided I would also sheild my guitar at the same time.



I could only get hold of aluminimum tape, did some tests with a multi meter and that seams to work well. I found the shorter the strips of tape the easier it was to sheild the cavity



I used a roll of kitchen foil to cover the pick guard, I thought it would be easy but it turned into a pain in the ass. I used spray glue and it is still drying now! To trim off the foil I just ripped off the excess and ran a sharp knife against edge of the pick guard. I pointed the knife in the opposite direction to where I was moving it, this prevented the knife from cutting into the guard..



All Done! Just Measuring up the new PUP's

[krissovo]

Ok at the same time I bought a replacement PUP's and a wireing kit from a unknown UK store Axetech. They were very cheap the kit was £12 and the pup's were £23 each. They had great reviews so I thought why not!

The wireing kit came with what looked like good quality parts, I think they are reversed engineered and not a top make but they were solid and looked identicle to the parts in my American Fender Strat.

http://www.axetec.co.uk/tlkit01%...2001%20800.gif

The Pup's are probably reveresd engineered as well, I was initially dubious about them, the quality looked good but there was a couple of finish flaws on the plastic. For the Bridge pick up the first thing I noticed was the brass backing plate was much heavier than the pup I took off.



Nearly there finishing of the control plate, I did reverse the plate to change possition of the change lever as I am a wild strummer and keep knocking it when I play.



I did a comparison of the old wireing at this stage, the difference between the old and the new quality is staggaring. How I got any tone at all out of the old is amazing! The pots are very small on the old as well as the cheapest switch I have ever seen! Its a pcb with very flimsy plastic connectors. The wires were also very small as you can see.



Just fitting together! As you might see I added an extra piece of tape between the neck cavity and the wire route to the control plate. The cavities are different to the instructions on the web site and I wanted conectivity between cavities. I could have soldiered a wire between then but my Iron didnt have the output. I used tape as this should be hidden and when testing with the multimeter there was flow between them so job done!



Job Done!



I tested the switch with the multi meter so I was confident that all was ok, the circuit is easy enough. Even so I only put 1 string on initially and then plugged it in to my setup.....IT WORKED! So a mad dash to get the rest of the strings on and to play, again it worked and sounded different!



Ok so what happend!

The neck PUP- WOW!!!!!!!!!! The difference is stunning, I now have a creamy tone that takes a lot to make it muddy. I could have jammed all night with that alone! Hum.....well there is still some there so I was initially dissapointed but there is virtually no hum on a clean amp setting its takes about 3/4's setting of gain to produce the same hum that I had. Once I found some nice amp settings then I was very pleased. This pup I can honestly say has at least twice the tone of my american delux strat!

The bridge PUP - Good I went from the neck to the bridge and again the hum is there but in a much reduced capacity. The pup was responcive but initially a little bright for me. A small tweek of my settings and all was well. Its a good pup and much better than the orriginal but with the result I had with the neck pup i was a little dissapointed. I wish I had started with the bridge first now :-( and maybe my opinion would be different.

Middle possition - Utopia! In the middle possition, zero hum with the way its wired and the blend of tone is sweet!

In all my excitement I forgot to change the machine heads and the nut so I still have some work to do but not until I get my money worth out of the strings!

Conclusion - For the £60 I have paid for this (Strings, PUP's, wire kit, tape etc) its a bargain and well worth the investment. Next comes learning how to play slide baby! I shall post before and after sound clips later on for your own ears.