Installing a METAL ZONE in a GUITAR | Behind The Scenes

welcome to cs guitars the science of loud i hope you all had a wonderful new year i'm back to work after a little break getting stuff done for some new video content but while that's all going on i thought you might want to see some behind the scenes content for the recent bc rich ultimate teenagers metal guitar video there was a lot to the process of creating this that didn't make its way into the main video and usually all that extra content gets bundled together and released on patreon patreon is a fantastic way of financially supporting what i do here and members pledging three dollars or more get to see exclusive behind-the-scenes content like what you're about to see other support levels will give you access to the patreon area and the discord where we all collaborate on what new content will look like and access to the monthly live streams where we all get to hang out and have fun so the following segment was released on patreon a few days ago they've all seen it they've all been talking about it and normally you wouldn't know anything about it so if you don't want to miss this kind of content in the future then follow a link to the patreon it's in the description and become a paying member of the community welcome you patreon people happy new year we're going to start off 2021 by looking back at the bc rich and its myriad spikes skulls and of course the embedded metal zone this is a guitar that not only contains the covered 5g tracking ship but could also administer it there were a number of points during this build which i didn't touch upon in the main video because i was going for a shorter snappier mimier video i was trying to play the algorithm and get a viral hit for christmas yeah it did okay i think the spikes are probably the part that most people had questions about as the process was very quickly glossed over in the video here you can see the extent of the work involved i firstly need to measure out the center lines and get the spacing reasonably equidistant between the spikes i know this was supposed to be a teenager mindset build and perhaps i wouldn't have taken the time to do this as a goth teen but i wanted it done properly or at least as properly as my deadline would allow once the positions were marked i used a 10 millimeter forstner bit to recess all of the holes forstner bits leave a flat even bottom to the hole and won't chip the paint work like a normal bet would this was a fresh sharp bet and it sliced through that urethane finish cleanly these recesses are only deep enough to accept the base plates of the spikes which look like this the largest bases are 10 millimeters to match the forstner bit but some have a smaller diameter knowing this it was important to use black nitro to paint in the holes before installing the spike bases this with the epoxy would make the oversized holes basically invisible when the spikes were installed for the epoxy i used these double bubble sachets this has a three minute work time and there isn't much epoxy in the packet i knew i wouldn't be needing much and i ended up using four of the five sashes i purchased for this task although i did waste most of the first one it's set on the mixing pad while i was around with really poor technique you can see me here dipping each base into the epoxy one at a time not only did this take too long but this made a mess and didn't get enough epoxy in the holes i also noticed that the bases were too smooth and shiny in the epoxy wasn't holding them well so to go and sand all of the bases to ensure a surface the epoxy could uh grab onto i didn't film the rest of the process but i quickly learned that i should be running masking tape along all the edges cutting out the holes from the tape dumping the epoxy directly into the holes and then jamming the bases in before the thing set this technique worked very well i lifted the tape after the epoxy was mostly set leaving only a little cleanup the almost set up epoxy is still rubbery enough that it can be easily removed from the gloss finish i left the epoxy to set up overnight so that it was nice and hard by the time i went to install the spikes the spikes were screwed in in what i consider to be an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of alternating sizes there are 47 spikes in total which answers a question that was brought up in our last live stream which i didn't know the answer to because i hadn't bothered to count them before now how many spikes i didn't count the spikes i i actually don't know how many of the spikes were used on that guitar i still have a good number left over um i had small medium and large spikes only only three or four of the large spikes got used but i think i used almost all of the medium spikes and there was maybe 20 of them there's maybe 20 of them yeah i think there's 20 medium specs 20 large spikes and then 50 small spikes so definitely used almost a 20 maybe about 18 of the of the medium spikes four of the large spikes and a lot of the small ones but nowhere near hitting that 50 i've still got a lot of them left over regarding the spikes people have asked what injuries i sustained if any the only time i hurt myself uh was the first time i went to pick up the guitar after installing the spikes and i managed to jam one of the tall pointy ones under my fingernail which was not um not in the least a pleasant experience other than that there was no impalement but i do have to be careful around the spikes not for my safety but for theirs with the bases being recessed so shallowly it's actually very easy to break these off the guitar the long spikes especially have sufficient leverage for this to be very little effort i consider this to be somewhat of a safety feature though i'd like to think that if you fell on the guitar the spikes would snap off before you could penetrate your flesh although i don't think i'm brave enough to put that to the test of course when it comes to setting down i can unthread all the spikes on the lower reaches of the instrument and i'm just left with these small threads which aren't really an issue of discomfort unless of course i was playing this naked now what about that metal zone then i'm actually surprised that i didn't get more questions about how this was done i did notice one person ask in the comments if it was operative or purely decorative and frankly i'm insulted that anyone would think that i'd install a metal zone into a guitar and not make it fully operational yes this does work it's wired between the volume control and the guitar output the signal chain is pickups to select a switch to master volume to metal zone to guitar output however there were a few logistical problems to solve battery-powered pedals turn on when the cable is connected the barrel of the plug bridges contacts in the stereo socket which engage the battery i want this permanently wired in but i don't want the battery running all the time fortunately by upgrading the guitar to have active pickups i install the stereo jack for the guitar output which engages the battery for the pickups upon cable insertion it was a simple case therefore to run a wire between the metal zone and the ring log on the guitar out to turn on the metal zone power source when the guitar gets plugged in so a cable into the guitar turns on both the pickup and pedal power sources although they are both drawing from a different power pool you'll notice the pedal is a nice snug fit in its route and this was achieved by removing the pedal jacks and running the wires through the square power socket hole in the rear of the chassis this involved the soldering the power jack from its position on the pcb and bridging the board to allow the battery power to carry through the power sockets break the battery connection when a power cable is inserted this means the traces on the board aren't connected and removing the jack leaves them unconnected permanently a little jumper wire in the right place makes this work in addition to the wire that turns the battery on the only other wires that are being pulled through here are signal in signal out and ground the metal zone is mounted with two machine screws from the rear spreading the force with these recessed cups the machine screws that i had to hand were entirely different thread pitch to the ones uh used to hold the base plate onto the pedal therefore i had to tap new threads into the die cast pedal chassis to accept the new screws installing active pickups into an instrument that was originally passive is a pretty easy process these pickups and all the associated electronics were removed from the harley benton not long ago so i already had everything that i needed to make this work active pickups required 25 key ports as opposed to the 500k ports the passives had they also need to have a stereo jack as described previously and they need a battery to power them fortunately there was enough space in the existing cavity to house the battery for a little extra class i picked up these nine volt flip top housings and modified the control cavity plate to allow me to access the battery at all times from the outside i ended up using the metal zones base plate screws to hold this to the control plate it's a very neat and self-contained solution using the existing routing and those are the kind of mods i like minimally invasive there's not really much to say on the hardware it was all drop and replacement everything lined up perfectly with the exception of the jack plate this was a different shape and required new holes drilled to fix it the stickers were a bulk by ebay job i chose the ones i thought most stereotypical for a metal teen in the mid 2000s there was a lot of other stickers in there which would not have been appropriate quite a few beetles um rolling stones and that sort of thing which would not have classified i suppose for someone putting spikes in a metal zone onto a guitar um but they may get used somewhere in the future if i'm need for any more stickers and of course the swear word was tori so this build was not without its frustrations there were a few points where i up the wiring and short-circuited the battery but on the whole it was a hugely enjoyable and worth sacrificing a perfectly good metal zone for i'll need to think of something very clever to top this one thank you once again patreon for all your support let's chat this through more on the discord if there are any additional questions you have that's all for now though keep it loud and i'll see you later [Music] you

Channel: CSGuitars

Views: 38,694

Rating: 4.9207721 out of 5

Keywords: CSGuitars, Colin, all the gain, guitcon, scotland, victory, pickups, science, will it shred, whats the difference, studio, recording, guitar, amplifier, pedal, scottish, metal, cs guitar, cs guitars, collin, patreon, metal zone, spikes, bc rich, guitar maintenance, luthier

Id: wAfDPIZX8eo

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021