New Guitar Day! And this one's a WILDKAT! ($350 MF deal)

[dcindc]

yep gigbags are key.






Has she got a sister?

[SlayerofShadows]

I love the transition on the back of the headstock

 

"USA" -> "Custom Shop" -> "Made in Korea"

 

Don't take that as an insult, I've loved some Korean guitars that I've had.

 

Congrats on the new axe. Definately a looker.

[GAS Man]

yep gigbags are key. Has she got a sister?

3 and two of them are "semi-available".

But they're a little more controlling types.

But the one that is the easiest going (damn near push-over), found herself a rich dude so she's off the market.

[GAS Man]

I love the transition on the back of the headstock "USA" -> "Custom Shop" -> "Made in Korea" Don't take that as an insult, I've loved some Korean guitars that I've had. Congrats on the new axe. Definately a looker.

Yeah, kinda funny isn't it.

I should almost consider lacquering over those stickers so I don't lose them.

I mean after all, some work done in the US of A, and in this day and age, "Made in Korea" is damn near braggin rights with the Made in China's, Maylasia's, and India's squeezing in.

[BobbaFret]

Damn I thought you were going to say,Finished basesment turned music room or something.

[GAS Man]

Damn I thought you were going to say,Finished basesment turned music room or something.

Yeah,

That would be ideal.

My last house was about the same size but was carved up into more separate rooms and closets etc. Plus it was a split/level with a downstairs rec room. That would have been totally ideal. A bunch of Gorilla racks in that house would have solved my storage issues.

And when I moved to this house, I had to sell off a very nice starter set of Yamaha Stage Custom drums. Just wasn't any place to put them here. It was like a choice between "drums in the living room" or "drums in the bedroom" and neither made sense so off they went. That and a mid 1950's solid wood bar from Japan also had to go in my move. Rec rooms are cool if you accumulate {censored}.

[cavpilot]

Okay, since two of you asked, I'll answer. I often don't like to talk about "how many", it feels a bit odd in a "self-expose' " type of way. But actually, storing the number of guitars I have does become a F'n problem. Right now I'm sitting in my guest bedroom/office/music room and there's 16 guitars crowding around me. Then out in the living room there's another 9 kicking around either in their cases or sitting in a stand. Then I have a sauna (came with the house) that turned into a storage room, and then there's an alcove wing off of my bedroom that has them lined up against one wall and tucked into a couple other corners, plus, one in a stand next to my bed, and then there's a amoire that has three in cases stacked on top of it. Now the guitar clutter even drives me a bit to distraction (and add about 11 amps to that). And I'd say my wife is a step removed from perfect, but I wouldn't be able to do this guitar collecting thing if she didn't have a great deal of patience with my self indulgences. But part of the key is "wife number 2". They aren't usually as much of a control freak as "wife number 1's" usually are. And this woman is particularly tolerate of the clutter I create with my GAS. But it's tough. My house is maybe 1900 or so square feet (so not so big) and with an open floor plan. So there's not a lot of places to squirrel them away. The only strategy I have is to avoid multitudes of hardshell cases unless they come with the guitar. You can squeeze a lot more together if you use gigbags for bump and dust protection. I often daydream of how to create a double decker glass door storage case for them, sort of like a gun case, and then eliminate most of the cases. Should be do-able huh. I figure roughly 10 feet long and double decked would do it. But truly a downside of getting too many axes, is not only storage and time to give each one justice, but also ready access. Oh well, it's time to go scour the on-line stores for "blowouts".

A buddy of mine turned his formal dining room into a music room. He's got 29 Carvins hanging on three walls (and a orphan Takamine sitting on a stand), a few amps, and a huge rack of 80's hair metal CDs. He then put in double pane french doors to help sound-proof it. Air is filtered to keep out dust, and it's humidity controlled. It's the first room you pass as you enter the house.

He says people will come over, see this, and still ask "So do you play, or is that just for looks?"

[GAS Man]

A buddy of mine turned his formal dining room into a music room. He's got 29 Carvins hanging on three walls (and a orphan Takamine sitting on a stand), a few amps, and a huge rack of 80's hair metal CDs. He then put in double pane french doors to help sound-proof it. Air is filtered to keep out dust, and it's humidity controlled. It's the first room you pass as you enter the house. He says people will come over, see this, and still ask "So do you play, or is that just for looks?"

Sounds like he'd be a great one to ask Carvin advice from!

[lowbrow]

Gorgeous guitar, congrats!

 

I love the look and concept of the Wildkat, but every one I've played has had messed up geometry (IMHO). I like to be able to get my action fairly low (though I don't awlays keep it there), and the neck angle, P-90 height and bridge/Bigsby placement all kinda made that impossible.

[thredlok]

This is what the inside of the 'Kat bodies looks like.

Isn't that the same thing they did with the gibby 336? Tonally carved was the name I think they used.

[carguy]

OK that does it. I'm posting mine. This is my AlleyKat. With my other kat...

Beautiful. Both of them.

[GAS Man]

This is what the inside of the 'Kat bodies looks like.

 

Thanks,

 

That was cool. Shows the chambering is more extensive than I would have guessed.

 

The plant tour is also worth the trip thru those slides.

[cavpilot]

..."The wife hasn't spotted it yet, but once I throw it up on my guitar tech mat, the gigs up. So I'll just say, "What? Tony Tiger? It's been around since last year babe."

That exact thing happened to menot an hour ago! I got a box of Gui*arF**ish parts via UPS, and my son grabbed the box off the porch and yelled "Dad, you got a delivery of guitar parts!" as my wife was standing there (my wife can't comprehend why I'd trade out "perfectly good" parts for better ones). Then when I pulled out a semihollow that I've had for a few months but haven't played when she was around, she started in with "When did you get that?!!!"
Luckily, the kids backed me up that I got it a "long time ago"...(maybe in dog years).






And before anyone goes jumping in my {censored} about hiding stuff from the wife, we're closing escrow on a house in a week so we're under the "don't spend a lot of unnecessary money" agreement...which to me means minor guitar parts are o-tay.

[GAS Man]

P.S.

As long as this thread still has some buoyancy, I'll post an update.

I just got done doing a little more setup work.

Tightened the truss rod a few turns to flatten the neck a hair more.

Raised the treble side of the bridge, lowered the bass side.

Set the intonation -

Ran into some trouble here. The "A" string saddle didn't have enough travel to bring the intonation sharp enough on the fretted 12th. So I flipped it. It still doesn't have quite enough travel to bring it "spot on" but it's close enough to where there should be no audible difference in pitch. At least I hope so. The bridge started with the low string saddles having the slope side toward the neck and the high string saddles had the slope side toward the brigde. So I flipped the one A saddle so it also had its slope side toward the bridge so I could bring the saddle edge just that extra bit more forward toward the neck.

Then finally I adjusted the pickup pole pieces raising them fairly substantially and following the fingerboard arch. I started with about 1/8" between pole piece and underside of string graduating to 3/32" as you make your way toward the high strings (with strings fetted at the 22nd). This seemed to wake up the tone a bit and get a bit more vibe from these P-90s.

I don't doubt that the guitar might sound better with some premo P-90s in it. And I may consider it. But I did notice that these dog-ears have a bit of an arch to the base of their covers. So I'd have to find a pup to match or have a base pad/plate or I'm wonder if these covers could be reused with the innards of some other pickups. (??)

In anycase, it now sounds a bit better and plays a bit better. But not without some scary moments on the intonation adjustment.

Makes you wonder what USA Inspector No. 28 actually does.

[GAS Man]

P.S. I meant to add, that as I was adjusting up the pole pieces, some bits of wax came up with the threads. So that lead me to believe that these pups might already be wax potted. I've read that wax potting could quiet the pups down from feedback in a high gain environment, but now I'm thinking the mfr already might have done that.

[guitar-fish]

Cool, thanks for the update!