First makings of a block rim

Following on from yesterdays woodpile, I thought I'd have a go at cutting some sections that can eventually be formed in to a banjo pot. The idea is to build the rim in circular layers with each layer initially being formed from sections of an octagon. To do this, in theory, you just set the mitre saw to 22.5 degrees and cut out sections of the desired length. In practice, it's never quite as easy as it sounds and it was not a complete success, mainly because my source material was not square, so getting a tight fit between segments was difficult, however, it was my first time, and I learned a few things in the process, and I've still got all ten digits remaining on my hands, so I'll just put it down to experience.

Anyway, my plan is to build two banjos at the same time, or more precisely, a 5-string banjo for me, and a banjo ukulele (or banjo uke, ukulele banjo, banjolele or whatever) for my son. And since he's getting it for nothing, I figured I'd experiment on his first, hehe. So, the segments I cut were intended for an 8" diameter pot.

sections prior to gluing

gluing up

I'm gluing the sections up as two halves of four segments each at this point as I fully expect they will not fit together tightly when I join them. My fiendish plan is to then make a 90 degree cut through the "bad" joints between the two halves which I hope will then true them up correctly. More to follow.

Comments

Vox Pathfinder 10 and Pathfinder 15 Simulation

I've got a Vox Pathfinder 10 amplifier that I bought a couple of years ago, and I love it. It's a great little amplifier, but I don't care for the distortion channel, it just sounds harsh to my ears. There are quite simple modifications that can be done to this amplifier to remove the clipping LED's and increase the boost of the clean channel (check out Ben Craven's mods for details). I'd been considering doing some of these, but whilst researching the subject, I discovered that the currently out of production (as at Nov '18) Pathfinder 15/15R generally receives a lot more love than the Pathfinder 10. I found schematics for both the PF15 and the PF15R online, and saw that there were a lot of similarities between the PF10 and the PF15, particularly the earlier non-reverb PF15. The PF15R (with reverb) is quite a bit different after the first two opamp stages. I thought I'd model both the PF10 and PF15 pre-amp stages in LTspice to see how they compar

Vox Pathfinder 15 Tremolo Repair

Last year, I snapped up a Vox Pathfinder 15 (non-reverb) combo amplifier from ebay. The seller was a charity shop, and the amplifier was listed as "untested", so I was taking a bit of a gamble, but figured I'd have a good chance of being able to fix it it it wasn't working, and cosmetically, it looked almost mint. When it arrived, I plugged it in, and as you guessed, it was not working. Barely any sound, and what sound there was was horribly distorted. One thin I did notice was the the power on LED was not aligned correctly with the hole in the back panel, so I did quickly took it apart, and realigned the potentiometers and LED indicator, but didn't have a look in detail at the circuit. I put it back together, but the problem remained. My guess was that the problem was the famous "cambridgitis" (just google that term and you'll find all about it). Basically, a problem where the optocoupler that controls the tremolo circuit fails. A common failure

Pete's Bazz Fuss

It's been ages since I built an effects pedal, so to get my soldering chops back up to speed, I decided I'd build a simple fuzz pedal for my long-time friend Pete as a surprise present for his impending birthday. The circuit I chose was the Bazz Fuss (yes that's the correct name) which you can read about here if you care to. I went for the basic v1.0 of the circuit and used a 2N3904 for the transistor, and boxed everything in a 1590A sized enclosure. Despite a number of stupid mistakes that I had to rectify, I got it all done and boxed within a day, complete with lo-fi graphics. Here's a gut-shot. gut-shot And here is the finished item. lo-fi graphic It sounded OK when I played it although it needed the volume knob maxxed out to get the best out of it. Maybe a higher gain transistor would have been better still. I'm pretty sure Pete will like it though.

Things With Strings

Search This Blog