Artisan 8 String Upgrade - Part 1

[Therman Jones]

After reading about Alan Brookes plan to convert his D6 Galveston into a D8, I decided to do the same to my Artisan. These are cheap, but usable, steels available on ebay and other places under various names...Artisan, Galveston, Rogue, et al.

Thanks to Alan for mentioning that he would be using mandolin tuners in his project...I had never thought of that, but as you can see they work just fine.

Here are some pics of the first part of my conversion. Other parts will follow as completed.

The required 'Before Shot' along with the tuners I robbed from a seldom used mandolin.


I used a 3/32" bit to drill new holes in the tuner shafts. You probably wouldn't need to do this as there seems to be adequate clearance.



Comparing the shaft spacing...pretty close on the outside shafts...I had to 'move one of the holes a smidgen'.



Drilled the two inside holes...I used a 5/16" bit on my holes.



Installed and ready for a new bridge and nut. My new pickup should be here soon.




More to come......

Therman (Ukuleleo) Jones

[Andy Sandoval]

Thurman, what's the problem with the original tuners? are they inferior? and is the conversion from 6 to 8 gonna be pretty tight?

[Therman Jones]

Andy, the original tuners were/are cheap but they get the job done. Going to 8 vs 6 will be a little tighter but it should be OK. I've never heard a mandolin player complaining about it.

My goal is to convert to an 8 string guitar with readily available and inexpensive parts. And I'm one of those guys that goes around muttering to myself, "I wonder what it would be like if I ......"

Therman

[Bill Creller]

I use mando tuners all the time. When converting a six to a seven I use them on the treble side of the headstock. I used them on frypans, bakelites, and some wood guitars. They seem to work fine. A little closer than the six, but no big deal.
I have been keeping sets of the Grover 304C tuners around here for projects. They are around 35 bucks, but seem to be decent tuners.

BILL

[Andy Sandoval]

I used a set of Grover 18:1 Sta-Tites on a 38' Silver Hawaiian that had a broken tuner shaft and they were only 35.50 for a set of six.

[Gary Stevenson]

I have used those Grover Sta-tites twice now and they are real smooth tuners and nice looking when installed.

[Alan Brookes]

Therman: since you're going to have to build a new nut I recommend that you make a wider one, even if it overlaps the fingerboard, to avoid the string spacing being too close. You mentioned getting a new, wider pickup. What are you going to do at the bridge ? It doesn't have to be too exotic, since the Stratocaster-type bridge they provide has adjustments that you won't need, You could actually just use threaded pipe for both the nut and bridge, which allows you to adjust the string spacing to whatever you like. Anchoring the strings to the body could be done by passing them through the body to string anchors underneath.

[Therman Jones]

Hi Alan,
Your post just bears out the old saying, "Great minds think alike." I made a wider nut today with 11/32" spacing, as soon as the pickup arrives I'll make a new bridge with either 3/8" or 7/16" spacing. Of course, while I was studying the nut and bridge situation a thought occurred to me that I could move things a bit and increase the scale length from 21" to 22". So off came the 'Made by Mattel" fretboard and it now sports a new fretboard made from white poster board. Now I agree that a paper fretboard may not be very durable, but they only cost about a nickel a piece.

More later,
Therman

[Alan Brookes]

You should check out this thread. Towards the end I show a cheap way of marking out a fretboard and also the use of threaded bar stock as a nut. I've used the threaded bar on many instruments over the years. It holds the strings in place, is very easy to make, and you can slide the bar over it if you want to glissando down to the open string, which you can't do if a regular nut is there...

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... =resonator

Another good way of making a fretboard is to get a length of perspex, make the frets with thin strips of masking tape, spray the perspex and then remove the masking tape. The frets then show up the color underneath, or you could even put a light underneath and see the frets in a dark room.

[Mike McBride]

What about the pickup?

[Ron Whitfield]

If your new 8 string nut is going to extend past the sides of the neck, you might consider tapering the sides so that only the top part is sticking over.
Bill Creller does this on his 6 to 7/8 string fry-pan re-dos, and they look classy instead of stupid.

[Alan Brookes]

How are you progressing with this conversion, Therman ?

I haven't started the Galveston conversion yet. Since I mentioned that I've been busy finishing off the double-course lap steel for Basil and delivering it to him in England, and the restoration of a Fender S8 Pedal Steel. The mandoline tuners that I ordered were out-of-stock at the time and I only received them a couple of weeks ago.

I put palm levers on an SX 6-string lap steel a few months ago, and I thought of doing it to the Galveston, but they haven't left much space at the bridge end on the Galveston. When it's converted to 8-string I shall probably change the pickups to GeorgeLs, and, of course, I have to change those hideous fingerboards. In reality, all that will be left of the Galveston will be a chunk of wood.

[Therman Jones]

Thanks everyone for your interest in this project. I am starting a new thread with updated pictures.

Therman