Building a wood PC case on a budget

          After running a much-loved-but-aging desktop with a GTX 660 and a CPU over a decade old, it was finally time for an upgrade.  I got a great deal on a desktop with a middle-aged i5 and an AMD RX 580 graphics card - still nothing top shelf, but doubling the cores and over doubling the graphics processing power is nothing to scoff at.  

          Problem is, it might have had the speed, but it didn't have any style (that, and it sounded like a 747 about to take flight in my bedroom).  Buying a better case and fans was the obvious choice, but this seemed like an opportunity to be unnecessarily thrifty and add some personality to the build.

Remember the good old days?

I've been learning keyboard for the past 2-3 weeks so this was a very fun way to, ahem, apply my skills.

DIY Jack Daniels Barnwood Telecaster Build

After years of disregarding the Telecaster as the troglodytic brother of the sleek and superior Strat, it finally hit me why the Telecaster has remained popular for over 50 years.  Trimming down the glitz of a tremolo and a middle pickup (which I always ignored anyway) leaves you with a utilitarian tool that gets you back to the fundamentals of playing with less maintenance and distracting thing-a-majigs.

Inspired by this minimalist vision and this bourbon-infused aesthetic from "Big D Guitars", I decided to build my own Jack Daniels Tele... on an extreme shoestring budget, as usual!  Looks pretty good for about $40 and some barnwood, doesn't it?

Stedman "Pro" Flying V Review (Spoiler - it's pretty rubbish)

What kind of guitar can you get on Craigslist for $10, an old airsoft scope, and some magic beans?  Well... quite possibly the worst guitar I've ever seen, and I build instruments out of garbage like it's an extreme sport.

Lightswitch Strat build

          If not mojo, it's certainly got... well, something.  A Home Depot light switch for one, a $30 neck and a scrap body for two more.  I really enjoy these builds where there design is fluid and the only goal is to make it sound alright and play nice for cheap, and this certainly fit the bill.

Spectacular Sememes

          Feeling enervated by the dearth of opulent prose in your prosaic routine, ensnared by the treadmill of drab vernacular?

          Me too.  Thus begins our quest to find the most swank words in the English language, entirely without foresight, substantiated background sources, a five year plan, any observation of any other lists that may exist, or caffeine (commitment to one of these stipulations is dubious).

Building a Guitar Body from Plywood, part III of III

In part III of this build, we go through removing orange peel and polishing the finish, wiring, final assembly, and adjustments!  Sound demo coming your way soon as well :)

Building an Eddie Van Halen Frankenstrat Part 2 of 2

If you haven't seen Part I: The Painting yet, go ahead and check that out first: if you have, now's the time to check out how this fantastic Frankenstrat turned out for only about $100.

"Blondie" the B-Stock Partscaster

As my third Partscaster build, this has been one of my favorite transformations from a pile of leftover junk into a surprisingly nice playing guitar all around and a pretty unique build from the paint to the wiring.

How to Paint an Eddie Van Halen Frankenstrat Guitar

My latest project guitar has been hugely interesting, trying to recreate a 10 year journey of one of the most famous guitars of all time.  Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstrat is famous for its complex and semi random design, but isn't too terribly difficult to make if you know what to do.

"Reel Character" Woodybucker

The second hand-wound pickup I've built by hand with the "Reel Great" pickup winder, the"Woodybucker", an asymmetrically wound humbucker with wood bobbins and hex polepieces.  A humbucker is an even bigger pain to wind than a single coil but opens up a lot of opportunities for unique tone as well.

First "Reel Character" Custom Pickup

          After finally getting all the minimum necesary supplies, I was able to put them to work winding my first cutom pickup - a Strat single coil bridge with coil tapping!
*If you haven't seen my inordinately popular post about the "Reel Great" guitar pickup winder, you can find that first here: http://mattwins.blogspot.com/2016/06/how-to-build-guitar-pickup-winder-from.html

          Wait - a coil tapping single coil?  Heresy!  Fully handwound?  I'll show you how it's all done, and if you don't mind squandering a couple hours of your hard-earned life and risking your sanity by winding a mile of copper wire thinner than a human hair, you too can achieve the same results!

My extremely advanced high-tech workbench featuring state-of-the-art... okay it was about $30 for everything.

How to build a guitar pickup winder from (almost) nothing

Looking forward to an adventure in hand-winding guitar pickups, but not looking forward to the costs involved or the potential need for an expensive specialized machine or rigging up a sewing machine somewhere, I found a super-DIY method that should satisfy any and all "hand winding" enthusiasts.

With a bit of creativity and a few odds and ends, you could fashion together your own custom guitar pickup winder with your own style!  It's not hard, it only requires a bit of ingenuity while you tinker, and that experience alone is worth it in my book.

Custom Telecaster Thinline Build Design

Is there any room left in the market for another small guitar-builder?

I've been looking into building custom guitars in very small batches, but I'm not sure if there's any profit to be made, I'd like to just put this out here and see if anyone else has any experience.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins book review

The Selfish Gene is a book that should need no introduction to anyone with more than a passing interest in genetics.  More so than any book since The Origin of Species, The Selfish Gene has shaped our modern understanding of how life constantly evolves and adapts to the challenges it faces.  Unlike Darwin's 1859 masterpiece, however, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene has the benefit of another century of knowledge incorporated, and as a modern classic is a joy to read.

Breaking News: Trump selects Sarah Palin as V.P. Candidate

          Amidst the firestorm of debate surrounding the potential V.P. picks by the remaining candidates, billionaire business mogul Donald J. Trump dropped a bombshell this Tuesday by announcing that he would be selecting former Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate for this coming November election.

          While only eight years ago, selecting Sarah Palin as V.P. spelled the end for otherwise reasonable candidate John McCain, it doesn't appear that this move, or indeed any other move made by Trump, has had any influence on his unwavering standing in the polls.

Adventures of a Squier Strat Episode VII - The Fretboard Awakens

A.K.A. How to (not) scallop your fretboard.  But fear not, this story still has a happy ending.

Lots of pretty pics and some decent tips below!

7 Years Lyrics & Guitar Chords (Lukas Graham)

Lyrics and Chords to 7 Years Lukas Graham

Tabbed and synchronized the chords to the lyrics of 7 years by Lukas Graham, it's a beautiful song for sure and I hope a good tab will help you enjoy it even more!

> More convenient, printable, and absolutely free tabs <

1957 Fender Bel Air / Chevy Stratocaster

Fun with Photoshop and some crazy ideas today - Is it a Fender Bel Air or a Chevy Stratocaster?

The Political Spectrum as Spaceship Doodles

Now for something fresh in the musty world of politics, here's the (American) political spectrum represented in terms of spaceship doodles. 

A lighthearted representation of a serious analysis of the fundamental reasons that people tend to support one side or another politically.

[Note that the key term is "tend".  Perhaps you are a young urban conservative, or an old backwoods liberal.  That's fine, you're free to break the bounds of what is average or most common.  Of course, however, if we spend all our time analyzing the outliers, we will never find the common trends that unite people, and naturally we need some degree of generalization or we will never get anything done at all.]

The key theory here is that liberal and conservative politics, at least in modern America, represent a continuum based most predominantly on a spectrum ranging from fear to optimism.

This is not to say that one is right and the other is wrong; optimism drives us into the future with goals, while fear keeps us safe from being destroyed or destroying ourselves in the process.  I posit that a radical imbalance of either force is unhealthy to the development of any nation in the long term.

Discussion is always encouraged, bring your A game in the comments section below!