ei-51 meets Windfall at the Richmond Night Market

Date: Friday, July 30th, 2004
Time: 7:30 - 10pm
Location: The Richmond Night Market
Who: original bands Windfall and ei-51

A rare chance to see 2 Vancouver Chinese bands get together for 1 night of true, original music.

Thanks to all those that came and watched our show at Blox. To recap what happened, there were some time management problems on the organizer's part and everything ran late (they wanted to have a dance after the bands played). ei-51's set was thus cut short. We really enjoyed our time playing and watching the other bands play, though! 

Hopefully I'll get to watch you all of you guys play at least one more time before I leave :)

We will be playing a final show at the Richmond Nightmarket this Friday (July 30th). Please come and support~!

Guitar Daily

Final Touches.

Good news: neck is stable, no signs of joint wanting to come apart ever again (truth is, most of the time, cured wood glue is harder than the wood itself). Action is not bad, but some spots have some severe fretting out. One or two frets seemed alot lower than the others and I doubt this is X's or Puerto Rico's fault - you get what you pay for. So a little fret levelling is in order.
The Underpants Knome's Enterprise Theory: Step 1: Collect Underpants Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit First step is to make sure the neck is straight. Ideally, the frets should all level the same amount. However, I prefer to slope off at the higher frets to avoid any further fretting out. The upper registered is used less and the 19-21 frets being too tall can cause problems.
Second step is to mark the frets with a marker. This way I'll know if I miss any frets. I usually use a medium marker and make sure not only the top is marked, but the entire fret is marked.
Here comes the fun part: taking a flat stoning block, stone the frets until the marks are gone. Using this method, one must remember to follow the fretboard radius and not over level certain areas. Some people prefer to use diamond grit sandpaper glued onto precision steel blocks to ensure 100% straightness. Some others like to have a radiused block matching the radius of the neck. There are many ways of accomplishing this so long as you remember: RETAIN THE RADIUS!
Here's a halfway shot of what it'll look like after the mark's removed slightly (shy a few strokes) and the levelled fret. Note how the fret is no longer like a mountain top, but more like a trapeze. Also note how only the center of the mark is removed, the sides are still marked. Keep it that way. This will save you alot of work later.
This part sucks ass. Tape the fretboard with masking tape (2 layers preferrably). Go thru with a X-acto knife and make sure the entire fretwire is exposed (just score the edge of the fretwire/masking tape interface if any tape is covering part of the fret).
This part sucks ass too. Go through the entire fretboard, and re-crown the frets. Crowning means make the frets nice like a mountain top - with a small peak and rolling off to a base. Stewmac makes some wonderful tools for doing this. I HIGHLY recommend doing it their way. This ancient method of going thru each fret one by one with a triangular file means that I have to file twice (each side) for each fret... and not to mention - I have to inspect each one by eye. The fret crowning tool will save you tons of time.
After several hours of filing, the frets are sanded - 600 -> 1000 -> 1500 -> 2000 and then polished (I polished the fretboard too... just for kicks).
2 final shots. Nice and shiny.
The electronics were removed and I swapped in 2 passive pickups. Here's the guitar - ready for the next lucky player (Wilson?).

Guitar Daily

Finished! ...somewhat

After the repair process is finished, the guitar was cleaned up to remove sticker debris, guck, and whatever unsightly matter that was bothering me. My weapon of choice: Goo-Gone.
The fretboard was particularly dirty. This problem is quite common for people with sweaty hands (or people who play guitar with dirty hands). Make sure you wipe your guitar clean everytime after you play (kevin... hint hint... x_japaan... hint hint). If you have acidic sweat, it wears out the strings and frets alot faster.
Stickers on guitars - cool. Gluing picks to your guitar - not cool... borderline retarded. The previous owner (aka X_Japaan) thought Zakk Wylde glued his guitar picks to his Les Paul. No... you use double sided tape foo... Luckily the finish on this guitar is damaged in more than one spot. So I'm not too compelled to sand away the glue and fix that spot. It's not very visible anyway.
A new graphite nut was installed along with a set of 10-52's (my preferred string gauge). A full setup was done to factory specs (the way I like it). Some people prefer even lower than factory action. However, most people think my action's pretty low as it is (it's actually the same measurements as stock Gibsons).
The finished guitar. After setting it up and all, there are a few areas where it's fretting out for certain bends. So next up... fret levelling and dressing.

Guitar Daily

Last night, the repair process began.

The following are two photos of the initial gluing. Enough glue was used so that the glue would flow into the crack as best as possible (with the aid of an X-acto knife too!). The neck crack and fretboard contact was glued. Excess glue could be wiped off with a wet towel.
Here is the shot of the guitar neck all clamped up. The glue will squeeze out even more, but that's an easy clean up job.
This morning, further work was done to clean up the area. A few things should be noted though: The guitar is already damaged cosmetic-wise; the body has many dings and paint chips/scratches. I do not have the resources to match the same colour. This just means that I will spend less time in making the result cosmetically pleasing. If the guitar were finished in a common colour or a nitro-cellulose finish, I would definitely take the time to patch up the paint job. Of course, another consideration is that I might choose to strip the finish and repaint the entire guitar down the road (but it's not really worth it in terms of monetary value). Here are two pics of the guitar after the clamps came off. The smeared glue will be cleaned up (most of it peels off).
The rest is sanded down starting from 150 - 200 - 400 - 600 - 1000 - 1500 - 2000.
... and finally buffed to shine.
The repaired neck... the crack line is still visible. But the neck is smooth to the touch. No way you could feel it was fixed if you were blindfolded. Next time: Removing the dirt...