Donovan Banks

I never really liked the flying V so I advertised it for sale and I was traded a Samick strat style guitar for it. Value wise I reckon they're pretty much the same but the Epiphone has a more popular brand name. The Samick is a basic strat style guitar with two humbucking pickups and a floating Tremolo bridge.

I didn't really find time to play with the guitar much but when I did,
I found the D-string almost jumped out every time I used the trem. The guide at the bridge was broken and couldn't be held in place.


I obtained a new bridge hoping to just slot it in, but the plate was smaller than the current trem and it certainly wasn't going to be that easy. The next thing I thought I could do was to swop out all the guides.








There it is all done. The intonation, luckily, was spot on when I put the bridge on. The hardest part is adjusting the spring for the trem vs. the string gauge. Thankfully I've done that before and it was easier. It has a fatter neck than I thought it would but it plays very smooth and I can see myself enjoying it for a short while before selling it off.

2 Years ago I had a 70's Fender Bassman in fair condition but it was looking tatty. I undertook to re-cover it in white vinyl. It was a wonderful sounding amp but it was too big for me to haul around so I sold it.

This is how it looked before. That speaker was from another old valve amp that died.




It was quite old looking and had a fair amount of damage to the tolex



I set about removing the old tolex from the head

and cleaned off the remaining glue


I used the pieces I took off to cut the new vinyl and used contact glue to stick it on.


I covered the front face with the only black fabric I could find at the time using staples

After cleaning up the metal trimming I assembled it again when the glue was good and dry



The Cabinet had water damage (have no idea from where) and it was made out of chipboard. When I tried to remove the tolex it just disintegrated. I bought some pine and made a new cabinet using the same face and back board but I put castors on it this time to make transport easier....

I also covered the cabinet in the same vinyl and black face cloth


It turned out much better and even made my guitar look cooler....


I had a good time with this project and I intend to do it again some time, although not with a new amp, I'll find another old one.

I got a Fender Jeff Beck Hot Noiseless pickup for a Strat. Its supposed to be a hotter pup with more gain and stronger tone.

The result is fantastic and I also changed the look slightly of my guitar.

Before


After

I need to find a cover that fits the HN.

Inside before


Inside After


Tonally it sounds very cool. I made a video of that as well,

I pulled the tread plate off the V. It was stuck on with double sided tape. The Goth Epiphones have a matte finish so any damage can't just be polished away.

It was quite difficult getting the plate off and in places the paint was slightly damaged but I got most of it off without much trouble. The main problem was getting the glue off the paint that was left behind by the tape.

I used Industrial methylated spirits and a lot of slow rubbing with a cloth. I did eventually get it all of.

I was also glad to see no electrical damage so the main problem was appearance. I then changed the nut and set the intonation and action. Next step is to redo the paint but I have too many guitars to think about that now.

I was playing bass on a Fender Bassman 100 recently. It had a constant annoying hum, but when the lead was unplugged or muted it went away. I asked the owner if he knew what the problem was and he said it had been like that since he got it.

It was being used in a church. On the stage each instrument is connected straight into a DI box, the signal is then split. One to the desk, and one to the amp for monitoring.

what happens with some DI boxes is that the desk supplies phantom power. It sends 48V up the cable to the DI box. In this case the phantom power was passing through the DI box and being fed into the amp, thereby creating the hum.
when I flicked the ground switch, the power was no longer passing through the DI but was being used up instead so the humming went.


I had a Fender Bassman 50 previously and it too had an annoying hum. although I never used a DI box the ground switch on that amp too was in the wrong position. If you have a hum, check that first before you start replacing costly parts. It could save you some good time and money in the long run.

I bought an Ibanez (I don't care how you pronounce it, I say `eye`bun`ez and people correct me saying `e`bunez. It wasn't made by apple or the Zulu's) RG470 made in the mid 90's.