Tuesday 21 November 2017

Revelation RJT60Q

This here is a Revelation RJT60Q, an unusual asymmetric body guitar built with four pickups selected individually by slide switches, coupled to the usual tone & volume pots and supplemented by a chickenhead switch offering several selectable RC filters which can be used to alter the output style of the guitar.





Its relatively tidy on the outside...


Less so on the inside, where there is evidence of human activity manifesting itself as insulating tape and a non-functioning guitar...



Two issues: one, the two wires to the additional filters have been cut and joined together. This earths the output of the pickups...


and bending the output of the volume pot so that it touches the shielding doesn't help either!

Fixing those two issues, and re-wiring the ATN-5 circuit so that it functions as the makers intended has the guitar working again.


Apparently it now plays as intended, and as demonstrated here

Sunday 19 November 2017

Another fall

Another guitar appeared this month, attached to a sad looking chap concerned about the health of his daily player. "The sounds is not coming out" he said, as he explained how it had landed on the kitchen floor with a sickening crunch.

No wonder. The back to rib joint of this Martin OO-X1 Java has opened from upper bout to lower, fortunately quite cleanly:




No matter though - it's an easy fix. After a practice run with the spool clamps, we can open the joint with some wedges and introduce some Titebond:


One glued up all the way along, we can align the back and rib and clamp up, cleaning off squeeze out as we go along:


After a couple of days, we can release the clamps and clean off any more glue. Fortunately these guitars don't have any binding, so we just tidy any marks in the joint with a little matt black acrylic to match the original finish on the bevelled edges.