Small project thread. Vox Tornado guitar resurrection

Some years back I bought a basket case Vox Tornado via eBay. It was cheap as a cheap thing and I liked the idea of having a backup. Like every other "seemed like a good idea at the time" it has languished untouched since. Might as well spruce it up and get it back in playing shape.

Lets see broken tailpiece. I have that in a drawer somewhere.

Some serious finish checking

I happened to have another Vox pickup from my other Tornado. Ohming them out and one reads 5.3k and the other 5.7k so a bridge and neck setup seems logical.

So I cut some new holes in the body, made some new pickup mounting rings and s Screwed it back together

So onto the neck!

These atomically crappy tuners are at least the third set it has had over the years

The spare parts drawer rewarded me with some kluson style that will fit the bill and cover most of the holes

But upon inspection I found the neck has a back bow at around the 6th fret with truss rod fully loose

So I pulled out the frets

I then machined the fret board flat and sanded it to a 12" radius

I have always done fret jobs with a nylon hammer but was interested in the modern pressing method. There are some really affordable caul setups but, to make things difficult I just bought the 12" radius insert and machined my own. A spare arbor press was converted for use.

It works nicely. I am interested to see if less leveling work is needed than the hammering method

Anyway. That is as far as I got after yard work this weekend. I hope to finish installing the frets and level them Monday or Tuesday.

So if you are inclined to follow along there will more 60's Vox crappiness/goodness coming.

I am inclined. Keep them coming!

SkinnyG wrote: I am inclined. Keep them coming!

Yes please!

Love it!

Good stuff. Me and the kid started guitar lessons a couple years ago and all we managed to do was bring 4 guitars into the house in about 8 months. Best I can figure is guitars are like Yugo's, they just keep coming.

This is cool. I'm looking forward to seeing the finish get some attention.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

I don't think I will do much to the finish other than a wipe down with wax. It actually looks pretty nice, the color is awesome and I feel like refinishing it would delete some of its history. Besides patina is a bigger craze in the guitar world than it is with cars.

Frets are all in. Next step is to make a tool to file the bevel on the ends. I used to do this by hand but I might as well get another new tool out of this

"Relicing".

I have strong feelings about the difference between patina (the result of years of use on a quality item) and distressing (cheap stuff that's been abused to make it look old). I figured that you'd be reworking the finish on this after you called it out and given where you work, but I have no problem with you leaving the patina in place.

I would like to know more about finishing frets. My Gibson has some sharp edges, and I'm skeered to start filing in case I screw something up. Please be verbose

Uggh! Derailed by a case of projectitis!

The neck is still sitting there waiting for the frets to be leveled and dressed. You see what had happened was I was at the HfH restore looking for something for the house and I ran across two brand new in the box matched 120-12V transformers for $1.50 each. Remembering this schematic I grabbed them.

It is a boost and tremolo unit using one half of the 12AX7 as a gain stage and the other half as an oscillator. It uses two cheap 120-12V transformers back to back as an inexpensive way to provide isolation from the wall current and still provide 12V for the tube heater. Coupled with a voltage doubler rectifier circuit it pumps out a B+ of 210VDC.

So the next day I was cutting some sheet at the stomp shear and the offcut was, shall we say an inspiring size. Three bends, a punched and dimpled hole and my vague notion of what I wanted it to look like took an actual form. I had in mind a pedal format and I wanted it no bigger than a Danelectro spring king or Reel echo

Some digging around in the old Craftsman rally box I use for spare electronics E36 M3 turned up 90% of what I was going to need

The same sheet of Micarta that provided the eyelet board for the Spitfire donated some of it's length. Some head scratching whilst staring at the schematic resulted in a (bad) transition to the circuit board. Holes drilled with the DRO on the mill. I have no idea what this tool is actually for. It was in a box of random stuff when the missus moved in.

What I do know is that it is absolutely perfect for setting these 1/8" eyelets.

Anyhow started populating it with bits

I also did a quick nasty "weld some sides on and powdercoat it with a textured finish" to try and hide my sins.

I now realize that I forgot to plan for an attachment of the circuit board to the case. That is on my mind this morning. Once I come up with a clean method for that I can finish it up in about an hour.

But it is a three day weekend. I really need to finish that fret job by Monday evening.

Got any plans to travel-proof that tube? I love having it sticking out, but I'm having trouble imagining it living safely through many rounds of loading in and out of venues... Some sort of little roof or cage that would let it show but keep it from getting whacked?

That thing is so awesome; it give me notions of building some kind of combination pedal board with a few items built in... Like having this tremolo/boost, a nice reverb with spring tank also built in, and then a space for a few standard pedals, so I could plonk the whole thing down, play, put a lid on it and safely haul it around...

In order to avoid project paralysis I decided to do it the easy way and just mount it on standoffs

Some nylon tubing, 8-32 screws and nuts did the trick. The screws in the case aren't pretty, but they work

But yeah, It's done

It would have worked the first power up but I had forgotten to put in one last wire. A 2 minute troubleshooting session had it sorted. It is a cool, very vintage tremolo sound. Like an old Valco amp or a Tweed Tremolux. That cathode bias shifting sound.

The boost portion seems capable of some impressive gain. At 12 o'clock on the dial it supplies no boost but allows the tremolo to function. Since the tremolo oscillates the cathode of the first gain stage you have to have the boost engaged to get the effect.

So other than making a bottom for the pedal, (which can wait) I can now get back to the Vox

Nice pedal.

I want to build a Nady TO-2 clone but do some tweeks. I would probably use the 'button' power transformer from tube depot.

Damn dude, you've got all kinds of stuff in that melon of yours!

Well Jumper this is all fine and dandy as I like old guitars as much as the next guy. What I'm really jonesing for is what is happening with the Fiat? Has it been repaired and on the road?

Man, talk about project creep. I did not see that coming.

I did manage to finish the neck and get it screwed back onto the body Monday. Looks like i didn't upload those photos from the tablet yet though.

The fret end beveler was quick and dirty.

Scrap of Delrin out of the trash bin and a 30 degree angled cut with the table saw. I just tapped the file in with a nylon hammer.

It worked really well and FAST!

From there I used this small machinist gauge as a fret rocker to see how not level they were.

And that is apparently where the photos stopped. I took a 12" long radiused sanding block (the same one I used to sand the fingerboard and laid some 180 grit paper on it and lightly sanded the fret tops until I just touched the tops of all of them. Then a Stew-Mac fret radius file to get them back into a round shape with no flat tops

Next step is to take some needle files to the belt sander and smooth the teeth off of the edges. That way you can round off the fret ends without cutting into the fingerboard. I then taped off the whole fingerboard and sanded and polished the frets with 600, 1000 grit and 0000 steel wool.

Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the nut. I will have to make a new one

I am so close to stringing this one up.

Letting it sit under string tension for a few days before I give it a real setup

Did you have to make a new nut, or did you find it?

Thanks for the detail on the fret setup!

I had to make it. The original rosewood piece will turn up now that I have.

Surprise! I made it out of the same black Delrin I make everything else out of. Zero fret guitars are really forgiving when it comes to nut material.

And now I have learned what a zero fret guitar is