DIY OneDay Travel Guitar Step 1 and "Booster?"

[AeroSigma]

Friday afternoon (boo) I got scheduled to go to Germany (yay) next week...all week(boo.) I don't want to miss a week of practice, so I decided to get a travel guitar. $299 at Guitar Center? No thanks, I have a jigsaw, I'll make my own!

I picked up a Sysonics Terminator for $25 off craigslist this afternoon with the intent to take the jigsaw to the body and cut it down small enough to fit in a suitcase. The terminator has a  built-in in (2x) 9v battery powered amp and speaker, which works....sort of. I'll try to get it working and take with as a practice amp, but decided to prioritize the body work so that I'll be able to stuff it into a suitcase by Monday! Finished pulling the electronics out and cutting down the string mounting bracket to shorten the length. (See pics)

So now that I'm taking a break and posting a bit, (because the wife's getting lonely with me hiding out in the shop :p) I though I'd ask for all your opinions on the idea.

I'd like to get it wired up to head phones at least before I leave, which I assume I'll need a preamp for, do you think the simple booster beginner project on the forum would work for that?

Thoughts on the body chop, or a way to mount the tuners on the body like the traveler brand guitar to cut off more space?

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[287m]

for $25? wow

want boost?

• http://www.muzique.com/schem/mosfet.htm
• http://www.muzique.com/amz/mini.htm
• http://singlecoil.com/docs/mini_booster.pdf

btw, what that trail bike?

[AeroSigma]

Ya, for $25 i was expecting crappy build, not like its super nice, but no complaints on stength , finish, &c, plus the free electronics!

Thanks for the links, I might actually have all the parts for that mini booster, I'll see if I can't whip it out tonight.

It's a 2002 WR250f. New to me, got with a busted stator, fixed last week, working on the carb today, but travel guitar takes precedence,  since I won't be trail riding next week [emoji14] You ride too?

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[287m]

woah, Yamaha! Cool!
Ah, miss event like this. Dont have permission from family after latest crash. hahaha

Riding small bike, a '76 CB125, now in progress to classic restoration look and bore up, need more horsepower.
Here some sample for contest

Enjoy build that booster!

[DIY Bass]

For body mounted tuners you are half way there with a separate bridge and tailpiece.  You could get proper headless parts and put then on but that would time you don't have and extra expense as well. If you have the tools and capacity (which it sounds like you might) then I would think about taking off the head and making a bracket that would screw onto the end (probably with screws down into the stub, not lengthways into the end of the neck) with 6 holes drilled to pass the string through but trap the ball end.  At the body end you would need to use a router to thin the body down to the thickness that the tuners can cope with.  I would try and design the shape so that there is a decent downwards angle from the bridge to the tuner, and not too much sideways pull if you can.

[AeroSigma]

Well I probably have about one, maybe two hours left to work on this.

For information, the body is made not from hardwood, but MDF!  Probably to be expected from a guitar that retailed for $40 in the 80s, but needless to say, I'll be replacing the body before my next trip.


I like the idea of bringing the tuners to the body, I think I can remove the head and  get the string mount attached to the end of the neck, but getting the tuners on the body will probably take too long for this trip, and since I'll have to redo the body at some point anyway, (and since it already fits into my large suitcase...barely) I'll put that off for a while.

I did find my old beginner boost circuit, that just needed the battery rewired, so I have that to work with to get audible drive to my headphones.

So the last part for now, is to rewire the electronics:

-I could forgo internal boost and just mount the output jack behind the bridge  pickup, see 1st pic. I'm leaning towards this since it will be faster and give me time to fix anything that comes up when I  restring. I would probably put the boost circuit in an altoids tin or the like.

-I could route out the space between the pickups, which would give me room to mount the boost circuit, and I could mount the knob and switch to the top side of the body. I'm leaning away from this, because I'm worried that removing that much material will make the remaining MDF too weak to support the string tension.

Thoughts?

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[stallik]

woah, Yamaha! Cool!
Ah, miss event like this. Dont have permission from family after latest crash. hahaha


Riding small bike, a '76 CB125, now in progress to classic restoration look and bore up, need more horsepower.
Here some sample for contest


Enjoy build that booster!

Thanks for sharing Febri. I miss this kind of riding too and like you, injury rescinded family permission. I broke my back doing it, still rode after I healed a bit but my buddy had a real major one and my wife imagined it could have been me...he still rides, lucky sod.

Have a good trip AeroSgma