OK, about drilling that hole. There are many ways to do it or at least two. You could use a reamer and twist and twist and you would have a cone shaped hole. And then file it out and all the gnashing of teeth that goes on with that. That’s what the traditionalist would tell you to do but they won’t do it that way, they’ll do it my way when you are not looking. And besides, that won’t work well if the tail block is very deep. Now, you can do what I did. You need a SLOW speed cordless drill and a full set of drill bits. Like this. Now find one the size of the existing hole on the tail block. Then select the one two sizes up from that. Chuck it in the drill. Put the drill in reverse and drill the hole 3/4 of the way in. Yes, it will drill backwards and surprisingly smooth too! Stop there and leave the bit in the hole and flip the switch to forward. If you go all the way through backwards you will punch through the back side making a mess of the tail block inside the guitar. Now you MUST control the drill by just pulling back on it with some muscle. Make sure the guitar WILL NOT MOVE in it’s clamp. SLOWLY(do not pull the trigger very far) drill forward until the drill bit goes all the way through. Repeat this procedure for every bit in the box. It doesn’t take as long as you think. And don’t think you can skip any bits because you can’t- you will find out why if you try to. But when you get around the 1/4″ bit and larger you best be very careful in controlling that drill or you’ll be bringing your guitar to me to repair the giant bungled hole you put in it, or putting it in the trash can. lol

On the electric side I always stock stainless .110 x .057 which is equivalent to Dunlop 6100. This is the biggest wire and what I prefer, but it is just my personal choice.  I find it is very comfortable and requires a very light touch.  Stainless provides the smoothest bends of all wire.

My new addition is .095 x .047 stainless steel wire.  This is equivalent to Dunlop 6105.  Many people have requested this wire because the 6100 just feels too big to them.  It is a little lower and narrower than the 6100.  There is a rumor going on that it provides better intonation.  Once you understand the physics of wire and intonation you will understand that this is just not true.  Fret wire effect on intonation is provided by point of contact and if the fret is shaped properly all fret wire will provide correct intonation.  Don’t be fooled by mystery mojo and hype as there is plenty of it out there.  If you have questions please contact me.

I soon found out like others have reported that it has two inherent problems.

1. It has a two second delay after switching. This doesn’t work.
2. It has a significant volume boost when switched in. No way it can work for me.

There are mods on the web to fix both of these but after examining them I decided there is a better way. One of the mods out there has you cut wires in the Cool Cat and hard wire the modulator light bulb directly to the battery. This will definitely shorten the lifespan of the bulb and besides, cutting of wires is not needed. It then has you unsolder the LED anode and wire it to the rate pot to get a flashing LED. This can be handy but this new mod does the same thing without cutting any wires or adding new wires, all by adding just one little resistor!

Next, I could not find pictures of how to add a volume adjustment so I will show that here too. It is a little more complicated but is easy for the average stompbox hacker. So check out the pictures below and enjoy!

First the delay mod

Now the volume mod

There is a small down side to the volume mod. The output driver is an op-amp with a low impedance. This is so that it can drive long cables. Cables have capacitance and it soaks up current so stomp boxes need low impedance current drivers. Now the op-amp is driving a 100k pot and looking at it from the cable side the cable sees about a 50k impedance. The end result is that long cables may cause a roll off in signal output. So keep your cables short from this box to the next one and you’ll be okay.

Believe it or not, this guitar has a bolt on neck! I’ll post pics of it later as this repair is still in process. I like Taylor guitars and I believe Mr. Taylor perfected the bolt on neck but after seeing this I have to say that Epiphone may have been one of the first to experiment with the concept on acoustic guitars.

Why are we doing this? Demand for our S-style and T-style electric guitar necks has risen to the point where we need to give more time to their manufacture. Until now we have intermingled the building of the necks with repair services, but demand has increased to where we need more time to procure wood, do design and actually build more necks! We are pleased with the response we are getting and wish to thank all of our customers for your support.

If you need to talk on Monday please call and I’ll answer if I am here or in the shop. If I don’t answer I might be in the shop running the machines so please leave a message and I will call you back.

Thank You!

Greg