Guitar Building part 2

The pickguard with the electronics and the piezo pickup.

The routered pickup cavities. Later, I realized that the little one (for string loading) should have actually been six little holes. I'm probably just going to put a wooden block inside it with holes drilled in it.

Stupid camera. It won't focus on the piezo properly. Arrgh. I took about a dozen pictures of this trying to get it to focus. It never did.

The body partly cut out with the jigsaw.

The body mostly cut out with the electronics put in.

The bandsaw used to cut out the res of the body. Dad got it at a garage sale, and it's about 60 years old (the company that made it has gone out of buisness since then. We didn't have the right size blade, so Dad put an old scooter wheel on a metal beam to act as a third wheel so that the larger blade would fit. To see better, we duct taped on a flashlight.

Partly done sanding and routering the edges of the body.

Cutting out the pickguard.

Since when we tested the strings we only used the middle two, the bridge was miss aligned because we didn't see how far the outer two strings were from the sides. This picture is measuring where the bridge should actually go.

The volume knob. It really looks much better than that, the bad quality is the camera's fault.

This is Watson. Totally unrelated.

Everything screwed together for a WORKING TEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guitar Building part 1

The "parts guitar". I bought it on craigslist, and it came with an amp and the cord shown in the picture.

The parts guitar with the strings taken off.

After taking the pickguard and neck off

Guitar guts.

The wood, after planeing and gluing. You can kind of see the outline I drew on it.

Neck pocket drama. Stupidly, Dad and I routered out the space about 2 millimeters too large, so this picture shows shims being glued on the side to fix the shape. We don't have enough C-clamps, so the wood in the middle is bracing the shims to the side.

The all important router (given to Dad by Grandpa. Thanks!)

The neck pocket done - FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

The neck stuck in and the bridge resting on top.

Measuring the scale length. The scale length is the distance from the nut to the twelth fret, and the bridge has to be exactly twice that distance from the nut to make sure the intonation is correct.

The bridge clamped on to test the intonation. I played a couple songs on the middle two strings. I don't know why we didn't use the outer two strings instead. If we had, it probably would have saved us a lot of trouble down the road. 

     Yesterday I went to a soapbox derby in Turners Falls, MA. It was called the Montague Soapbox Derby, even though Montague was actually the next town over. On the way there, we picked up my friend, Ben. Be brought a skeleton mask, which he wore and tried to scare people with.
     I made and built my car last year, but I used it again this year. It is inspired by 1920s race cars, with their long hoods and little wind windshields. This year I added a large, black barrel in the back to look like an old gas tank. I painted a radioactive symbol on it in yellow paint. I filled the barrel with water so that the car would be extra heavy and therefore go faster.
     There were a lot of very strange cars. One looked like a go kart frame painted green. There were a bunch of little stuffed frogs on it, along with one enormous stuffed frog that doubled as a seat. I raced it, but it always coasted to a halt short of the finish line.
     Another car was made out of junk. The wheels were enormous metal spools. There were at least four barrels stacked up in the back. The steering was made out of two rusty ice picks. The brake was an enormous metal pipe that was jammed against one of the rear wheels. When it was weighed, the driver was told that the car weighed 409 pounds, and that the limit was 450. The driver ran off. A minute later, he came back with a hammer, some nails, and some miscellaneous iron junk (gears, cannonballs, etc.) Surprisingly, he didn't crash! He did have some steering issues, however. Since the wheels were solid metal, they dug into the concrete and were hard to steer. When the driver tried to steer, it didn't work. He tried again, and he went too far. Fortunately, he didn't over correct and managed to fix his coarse.
      One car, however, did over correct. It was literally 3 feet long, and was painted green. It was made entirely of wood, with plastic lawnmower wheels. The driver of the car held it back at the starting line, but when she was supposed to release his car, she didn't. Ten seconds after the other car was released, an official came over and told her to let go of the car. When she released it, the driver rocked the car back and forth to try to gain speed. Then he started to over steer. The car veered to the right. He spun the wheel to the left. The car slid and veered to the left. This continued, each zigzag bigger than the last. A photographer was taking pictures of him from the grass. He didn't realize that he was going to get hit until the car was about a foot away. He jumped out of the way, and the car rolled over. The last I saw of it was the driver's mother carrying the car away. When it was his turn to race in the second heat, no one could find him or his car. The officials spent ten minutes looking for it, before I told them that the car had been carried off towards the vendors, and that he probably dropped out.
     There were many other cars as well. There was a rat rod car with real rust on it. There was a car with an enormous, metal chicken mounted on top. There was a car with pictures of snoopy on it. There was a brown car with two real missile cases on the sides, a remote control helicopter zip-tied to the side, and a very bad steering system.

Today I made this out of LEGOs.

I made up that a golden monkey lives in it.

The black thing on the front is an air intake. Air goes through the stack of cylinders and to the other black thing: a hot turbine. The turbine powers the propellers on the back. The neon yellow cylinders are neon because of the hot turbine.

       I hope you like it.

On 9/16/12 in Turner Falls, MA, I went to a soapbox derby where I was racing. Some of the cars were very interesting. There was one black wedge shaped one that said Corvette on the back. It had all wheel independent hydraulic suspension, All wheel vented disc brakes, and a steering wheel that looked exactly the same as some real old Corvette steering wheels. It also had a tubular metal chassis and a sheet metal body. Another car had all wheel independent hydraulic suspension, all wheel vented disc brakes, and a roll cage.
     I found this post in my drafts folder-I had meant to post it almost a year ago.

Some people have probably began wondering about why my username is Charger III (My brother, for 1, has). Well, the Dodge Charger III was a concept car built by Chrysler in 1968.  Its design borrowed ideas from its predecessor,  the Charger II. It was by far the most streamlined car built by Dodge. Although Chrysler implied that similar designs would soon be used on all of its models, it took over 25 years for anything like that to happen. For more information, please see this website.

On Rt. 122A in Holden, MA I saw what I at first thought was a Chevrolet Impala with a truck bed. Then I looked up El Caminos online and found out that it was really a 1959 El Camino. It had he exact same tail light setup with the bat-wing fins as the 1959 Impala.  Some pictures of '59 El Caminos ( I did not take them myself):

Most people have heard of the Delorean DMC-12, if only from Back to the Future. For those of you who haven't, I won't go into detail. The company, founded by John Z. Delorean, the hotshot GM executive who created the Pontiac GTO, was mired with financial trouble from the moment it was founded. Now, however, a company based in Texas called DMC Texas plans to release a new electric Delorean this year! Before you head out to the dealer, however, let me warn you that it is going to cost about 90,000 dollars. And while I'm on the topic of electric cars, don't get me started on the electric Fiat 500.  (;

Who has heard of the Fiat 500? Everyone who only knows it as a boring economy car should meet the Fiat 500 Abarth. The name comes from the Italian (I think) company with the scorpion and the Fiat 500 Abarth has 8 scorpion logos on the outside of the car, and no doubt more on the inside. Motor Trend clocked a 0-60 time of 6.8 seconds, three seconds slower than the Abarth's little brother, the Fiat 500 sport. That's about half a second slower than the Mini Cooper S, the Abarth's main competitor. It gets 17 mpg city and 32 highway, according to Motor Trend. According to the Fiat website, it gets 34 mpg highway with the 1.4 liter turbo engine and a 5 speed manual transmission. If anyone reading this has ever driven one, please post about it in the comments. Oh, and one more thing. Here is the Motor Trend test for it and here is the link to the Fiat Website.

The new Corvette Stingray is going into production in 2014! Okay, okay, I know I'm a bit late on posting about this, but I only just read about it. I've been to busy reading about old cars to read about new ones lately. For some reason (don't ask me why, I don't know), they have been selling them to a select few people now, even though it's only due to be released in 2014. I believe that Jay Leno got one. I also think that Motor Trend got one and wrote an article about it. I saw pictures of it- I think it looks best in red. The carbon fiber Targa roof on the hardtop is, well, carbon fiber, so it's Greyish-black and looks very good with a red body.
Here is the first generation Corvette Stingray:                    

And you can look up pictures of the new C7 yourself.

"We wanted technologies that actually enhance the driving experience" said Tadge Juechter in a Motor Trend article. I'm not sure who he is aside from that he has something to do with the new Corvette. I think he's like a GM executive or something.

When testing the Dodge Viper against the Corvette ZR1, the Corvette beat the Viper by about 2 seconds. 2.07 seconds, really. Motor Trend said "I can't think of two other direct competitors that are so eually matched, so equally designed, so equally sadistic." They also said, "Very few cars are as angry as these two, as fast as these two, and as scary as these two. That said, the Viper's meaner." By which they meant that the Viper was less refined. The Corvette is faster, but it, as opposed to the Viper, can be driven instead of tamed. Now all you Viper fans out there, take no offense. I like the Viper a lot. I think of it as a modern reincarnation of the Carrol Shelby's AC Cobra. But the Corvette was the original American sports car. And it gets better gas milage. (;

      As it is winter, there have not been very many interesting cars out, as most devoted car watchers will know. Because of this, I have been forced to do other things to fill my life with cars.
      I have found a number of very good books about cars, including Cars A Celebration by Quentin Wilson. My mother thinks the title is quite funny-she laughs when ever she sees it. I also like Corvette from the Inside, by Dave McLellan. My mother always says that I'm probably the only person who ever checks out books like that. Dave McLellan was the Corvette's chief engineer from 1975 to 1992. He was a very remarkable figure in the Corvette's history, along with Zora Arkus-Duntov, Bill Mitchell and Harley Earl. He even helped create the ZR1!
      I have been using an easy programming language to make a car video game. The language is called Scratch. I call it pre-programmed programming because instead of typing commands you drag little blocks across the screen and stack them together like Lego bricks to make the program. The game is fairly simple to play-you use the arrow keys to drive (up is forwards, back is brakes, and you use the left and right arrows to switch lanes) and there are other cars that drive around that you have to avoid. The track is straight, so you don't have to steer. It is taking a long time to make, however, because I am giving it a simulation manual transmission and making RPM and speed gauges. I will try to put it on the blog when it is finished.
      Recently, I have been reading about old cars (surprise, surprise) and I have found a number of cars produced in the '40s, 50s, and 60s that get better gas mileage than most modern cars (excluding hybrids). I am talking about real cars too, not the BMW Isetta (which had a motorcycle engine and couldn't drive on half of the roads in the USA because it was too slow), but cars that could go about 70 miles per hour. Most of them got about 40 miles per gallon. This leads me to wonder what modern car designers are doing? Aside from designing cars that get about 20 miles per gallon, I mean. I would think that if they could make cars that could go faster than the speed limit on the highway 60 years ago, and got such good mileage, why can't they make cars like that now? It seems like even with all the safety and emissions regulations, they could still make cars at least that good now? (Like I said, I'm not counting hybrids because they are too expensive.) And those cars had just about no aerodynamic aids, so that was a serious disadvantage for them.
      Also, I have discovered a new band (it's not really new, but I didn't know about it until very recently) called The Rip Chords. The only reason I'm mentioning this now is because just about all of their songs are about cars. I especially like their song Sting Ray. It makes references to the lyrics of Little Deuce Coupe by The Beach Boys. Also, the song Maybellene by Chuck Berry, one of my favorite guitarists, talks about cars in the lyrics (also, it is a very good song).

O2 9/8/12 at a car show in Hubbardston, MA I saw a really nice car from a movie. It was the Delorean from Back To The Future! The sign next to it said that it was the car that was really in one of the movies. It had a ground clearance of about 1 inch and all of the things on the back from the movie. It seemed to be getting the most attention of all the cars in the car show.

On 7/13/12 in Boston, MA and on 8/29/12 in Sturbridge, MA, I saw a car that I didn't think was even in production yet. It was a Chevy Volt. Chevy Volts are gasoline-electric hybrids and they are Chevy's answer to the Toyota Prius.

On 9/1/12 in Athol, MA, I saw a light blue and cream colored ragtop Ford roadster driving down the road with the top down. It had a closed hood but I know it had a V8 engine because there were four exhaust pipes and one collector pipe running down each side. I think that it looked really neat.

On 7/22/12 in Barre, MA, I saw one of the weirdest cars ever. Really, It wasn't really a car but I am not sure what else it would be. It was basically a cross between a dune buggy, an ATV, and a golf cart. It was painted flat tan and was driving down the road. It had no roof. I think it was going about thirty miles per hour. The fenders were very indistinct. Oh, and one more thing. It had an ATV in the the little hollow space behind where the driver was sitting.

On 7/22/12 in Athol, MA, I saw a silver car parked in someone's law. But it wasn't just any silver car - it was a silver AC Cobra 427 with light grey racing stripes. It was missing it's bumpers and a few other parts, which leads me to believe that someone was restoring it. That also makes me think that it was an original Cobra, because I don't think that a replica would have been around long enough for it to need restoring. A few miles down the road from there, still in  Athol, I saw a Ford Model T roadster. It was black and had no rear fenders. It had grey trim and lots of chrome. I think that Model Ts make very good hot rods, especially in roadster form. Then I saw that it was leading a whole herd of cars. There was a 1967 Chevy Camaro hardtop. I like the 1967 hardtops but not the ragtops. I also think that the mid 70s Camaros are very ugly and I think the new ones are too but the 1967 hardtops are nice, I think.

On 7/21/12 across the road from the Hannaford in North Brookfield, MA at the bottom or a little hill next to a brick building I saw a green Ford Model T truck from the 1920s. The green Ford Model T truck from the 1920s that I saw at the 2012 Old Sturbridge Village car show. Or at least I think that it was the same one. I think it was the same one because the body looks exactly the same and the owner of it at the car show said that he lived in North Brookfield. And I think that the truck lived at that brick building because when I drove by there two days later the truck was still there. I am going to look for it there when I drive by other times.

On 7/21/12 a few hundred feet from Tip Top Market in Brookfield, MA driving down the road I saw one of the most rare cars ever. In the whole world. Any Guesses? Anyone? It was a orange 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray hardtop. That was the one that had a split rear window. It was the first production stingray and it was the only year that had the split rear window. It could go from 0-60 MPH in 5.4 seconds nad it had a top speed of 152 MPH. It is one of my favorite Corvettes ever.

On 6/11/12 I went to a car show at Klems in Spencer, MA. It was supposed to be 1950s cars but there were lots of other ones. One of my favorites was a red 1975 Corvette Stingray. It had a T-top roof and a huge engine. There was hardly any trunk space because there was a big hollow section under the tail. It was for sale. There was also a black 1964 Corvette Sting Ray. There was a bright yellow heavily customized Ford Model T. It had a black ragtop. The back wheels were four times as wide as the front ones, which were as big as normal modern car tires. It had a big V8 engine and had twin four-in-one collector pipes that ran on the sides below the doors and let the exhaust right before the rear tires. it had two seats. I will try to post my pictures from that car show soon.

On 7/6/12 in Rutland, MA, I saw a AC Cobra 427 . I LOVE Cobras. They were made when a car company called AC teamed up with Carroll Shelby, a race car driver from Texas. Ford supplied the engine because GM didn't want to help the development of a car that could compete with the Corvette. The 427 was the most powerful original one. The one I saw was green and had a small roll cage over the driver seat.