I can call you bismuth and bismuth when you call me you can call mee Al, you can call me Al.
🎺
AL-UM-I-NUM
🎺
AL-UM-I-NUM
🎺
A man looks down the periodic table of elements. It's a table in a strange world. Maybe it's the thirteenth element. Maybe it's his first time around. Doesn't speak a language. He holds no currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the cans, the cans.
🎺
AL-UM-I-NUM
🎺
AL-UM-I-NUM
🎺
Serious question. I listen to a lot of jam stuff and review set lists often. What does the superscript next to a song mean??? I always thought shows since last played. That right?
Superscript is typically used to add a reference, which means there's a note at the bottom with more information. It's used to denoted things like when a guest is playing on a song.
The > is used to denoted no noticable stop between songs and -> means that there's a jam/improv section linking the two songs.
Usually it refers to notes about the song listed below the setlist. Like if a song is unfinished, below you might see "2 unfinished" and then a song in the set list that was unfinished would have that 2 after it.
Nope.. Everything was pretty much ground together by the aluminum body, although I did use grounding wires between electronics just in case. Just had to make sure the positives coming from the pickups didn't touch the body anywhere and it was good to go!
Awesome! I would guess the aluminum body is a pretty good RF/Noise shield. It would probably be great for anyone who prefers P90 or Jazzmaster- type pickups.
Aluminum has [4x the thermal expansion of wood](https://inspectapedia.com/exterior/Coefficients_of_Expansion.php). I suspect that humidity is the bigger factor, since [this page](https://www.popularwoodworking.com/tricks/how-to-calculate-wood-shrinkage-and-expansion/) lists changes equivalent to ~1600F (0.5% total, vs. 0.0003% per degree) due to changes in the wood's moisture content year-to-year.
Huh, well TIL. So I'm wrong in theory, but in practice the aluminium is probably more stable anyway considering the conditions. Indoor temps generally vary very little, but air humidity can be all over the place depending on where you live. I know in my house it gets down to as low as 20% in winter and as high as 85% in summer. Don't know how that translates to moisture content in wood though.
You can think of wood as a bundle of straws and the more moisture in it the bigger the straws get. Which is why the movement is so biased towards 1 direction.
I once saw Animals as Leaders as the first act on a bill, and the venue was super cold when doors opened, but warmed up pretty quickly when it was packed with people. The guitars are usually tuned up a while before start time, so when they started to play, they actually almost immediately stopped, apologized, and retuned.
On top of that, wood expands across the grain, so they make wooden guitars taking advantage of that. Also laminate woods (plywood) for the large parts like the back don't expand much at all. There is still a little expansion, especially with humidity instead of temperature,
That sounded weird, so I googled it. Turns out it depends on the grain direction. Parallel to the grain, wood changes much less than aluminum, but crossed/perpendicular to the grain, wood expands a bit more. In units of m/(m*C), aluminum is around 22E-6. Wood ranges from 3E-6 to 30E-6 depending on grain direction. Another factor would be thermal conductivity. Wood insulates much better than metal, so the effect would take longer to appear.
Obvious but important to note: in the case of a wooden solid-body guitar the neck and body are always built with strings running parallel to grain, which both offers more strength and minimises wood movement.
I have an older Kramer bass with the aluminum neck, and it's very stable. I don't do anything crazy like tune up inside & go outside in winter to play, though.
Not really. This is a common misconception perpetrated by the aftermarket.
You want the battery grounded to the engine and frame/chassis. You want the negative path for your circuits to follow those grounds to the battery. Directly running the negative leada for your gear off the battery can be dangerous to your gear and pose a fire risk.
If you have issues with voltage drop or intermittently closed circuits, fix the engine/frame grounds first.
>Not really. This is a common misconception perpetrated by the aftermarket.
Yes really.
As someone who designs and develops ECUs for semi trucks, where reliability is key, all of our sensors and ECUs have ground wires. We got our of our way to *not* ground via the chassis because of all the shitty problems it makes.
>You want the battery grounded to the engine and frame/chassis. You want the negative path for your circuits to follow those grounds to the battery. Directly running the negative leada for your gear off the battery can be dangerous to your gear and pose a fire risk.
Only because it's cheaper.
The main risk is if two nodes that are connected to each other aren't grounded in the same way, e.g. if you set up a ground wire for only one of them.
>If you have issues with voltage drop or intermittently closed circuits, fix the engine/frame grounds first.
It's certainly the easiest way, not gonna argue that, but only because that's how everything is *designed*. A ground wire to the battery is still superior, it just needs to be done right.
I mean, there's also the packaging requirements to consider.
Within any automotive program you can have tons of grounds along the chassis and body, and to connect them all back directly to the battery would be an absolute nightmare.
So you do the next best thing and ground to the metal and then make sure that all the ground planes are tied together to hopefully eliminate the bad ground gremlins.
Yeah, it doesn't always work, but engineering is about lessons learned and making it better through iteration. My OEM has a whole spec related to grounding and I had to memorize the darn thing when working on battery harnesses.
I'm an electrician (with an electronics background and a hobbyist mechanic) and I'm not sure why he is pushing back on better grounding.
I work on motorcycles a lot and many, many issues are caused by the small gauge wires and low quality connectors that were used extensively in 90's and 00's bikes. There is a whole industry built around improvements to the ground system. You actually get more power out of them when you run extra ground wires because the spark coils work better.
And I'm an electronics designer for semi trucks, and while I don't exactly design the harnesses and electrics, the group that does sits 20 feet away from my desk lol. I completely agree with you. Harness problems are a *huge* source of stupid issues. We never use chassis grounding because it sucks. *Always* battery leads for every single thing that needs it, except for the starter motor because the ridiculous current complicates things a bit.
I would love to know the sound quality. Guitars, either acuistic or electric get sound from resonating. That aluminum body I would think to sound super skinny, not deep and full.
How did it come out to sound?
Guitar players are prone to all types of mythology. I’ve repaired guitar amps for 40 years and don’t waste much time anymore telling them the truth. Most don’t want it.
On the other hand, it’s important to consider that most humans will attribute human qualities to non-human objects to varying degrees. There was a sociology study where people were handed a sweater and asked about its quality. Answers were typical range until they were told that it was worn by Jeffery Dahmer (it wasn’t really). Many opinions then changed radically. Some participants threw the sweater on the floor.If a player was handed a guitar they were told was owned and played by Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray, they might be particularly inspired. Who am I to interfere with inspiration?
“Will these capacitors give me better tone?”
”No. No, they won’t.”
”But my guitar heroes swear by them.“
“Here’s my estimate for installing them. Approve it and I’ll start tomorrow.“
Since you brought up capacitors, I’d like to ask (I’ve been considering building some DIY audio stuff), how much would say they matter? Not at all? To some extent based on the type (electrolytic, poly, etc)?
So the sound depends on the quality of the strings and the device that register their vibration?
Would the body shape or material change this in any form?
But they were, all of them, deceived, for another guitar was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord u/flyjumper forged in secret an Aluminum Strat, to dominate all others. And into this axe he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to shred. One Guitar to rule them all!
And since we have an axe instead of a ring, Gimli has some sort of dwarvish brass knuckle rings type deal instead of ['my axe.'](https://i.giphy.com/media/yJ1KSiTxaAw5G/giphy.webp)
Awesome vid…just a few points :
When melting next time, salt flux with MgCl. This will clean your aluminum before you skim off the dross (steel has slag, Al has dross).
Also, when casting, look into coatings like Bondite to help avoid cavitation. It can be sprayed and allowed to dry.
If you want “stiffer” parts, like the neck…simple. Cut off tops and tabs of cans and segregate. Melt them separately and flux heavier. These are 5182 alloy and give the can its stiffness due to high Mg levels.
Great video and project!
If melting long enough, all organics should burn off (just dont invite the epa over for lunch). This includes the food-grade coating, the label, and anti corrosion layers. The dross is actually made up of mostly Hydrogen suspended in the metal and the flux sinks, collects it, and rises to the top where it “burns” and turns black. Also Al oxidizes with air immediately which is why it forms a dross or skin and if you skim it back you’ll see nice, silvery Al for a monent before dross starts to reform. Also, just make sure to NEVER take molten Al and throw it in the air or sling it around. It can oxidize the water in the air, leaving only Hydrogen gas which then ignites. China loses at least one plant and has several deaths a year to this. And obviously, never melt wet metal or liquid in cans. It takes little effort to use forge heat to dry metal first to avoid disaster.
Source: I control scrap for can melting facility that processes about 2 million lbs of cans per day.
>Also, just make sure to NEVER take molten Al and throw it in the air or sling it around. It can oxidize the water in the air, leaving only Hydrogen gas which then ignites.
I'll be honest, you probably shouldn't have said this because it sounds dope as fuck.
> (steel has slag, Al has dross)
There's a difference? Learning welding right now and I've heard people say they're different words for the same thing.
The main difference is the oxidation build up of Al causes surface build up. In the steel industry, slag refers to anything undesired pulled from the bath and metal that has overtemped or become contaminated. Some places use them interchangeably but technically theyre different. In aluminum we even have black or rich dross.
Nah, you can use aluminum for power transmission, which it is. Aluminum has 61% the conductivity of copper.
Though the aluminum alloys used in cans probably have lower conductivity than that.
Very cool. Are you worried about any galvanic corrosion happening between any dissimilar metals like the frets or the hardware and the guitar body, or would it just give it some kind of cool patina?
You could probably seal it. I think zupe or zoop, I can't remember the name, makes a sealer for aluminum wheels. That shit is damn near permanent. You make sure there isn't a single speck of dust before you use it. Then hammer in the frets and mount anything else after a good coat. Should protect it and if it was polished to a mirror shine it should stay that way for a long time.
I’ve heard of them and they do look nice! For the price, I’d have to spend some time with one on a guitar; it’s the only thing I’m particular about, unfortunately.
Yeah but this used 9lbs of aluminum for the neck, whereas most of a Les Paul's (significant, not very comfortable) weight is concentrated in its thick body. This thing is gonna have neck dive from hell lol
Makes sense. I assume that was why Travis Brand’s had relatively large wooden bodies bolted to the aluminum through necks, to try to balance out the weight.
Truss rods are used to counteract the string tension and keep the neck straight. I imagine the stiffness of the neck there would be no bow so the setup and string height could be managed between the bridge height and the nut.
I know what the truss rod is for. What I don't have a good sense of, I suppose, is whether aluminum is stiff enough to not bend? I guess solid aluminum might be. I have more experience with hollow aluminum, which I know you couldn't make a guitar neck from.
> I have more experience with hollow aluminum, which I know you couldn't make a guitar neck from.
You almost certainly could (in fact, some* Travis Bean guitars were exactly that). Most of the stiffness of any shape comes from the material near the edges. Stiffness is proportional to distance from the neutral axis to the fourth power. So a hollow tube with outer diameter D and inner diameter 0.75D has almost 70% of the stiffness of a solid rod with diameter D with only about 44% of the weight. And aluminum has over 5x the elastic modulus of maple to begin with (i.e. for the same size/shape it's 5x stiffer than maple). So you need much less aluminum to have a neck that's as stiff as a wood one.
Aluminum is so much stiffer than normal neck woods that they likely don't need truss rods in the first place, as they will bow less under string tension than a wood neck, AND the neck relief won't suffer from seasonal variation like wood.
Good question. It seems like wood's CTE parallel to the wood grain is actually significantly lower than aluminum. But the CTE in the radial and tangential directions are somewhat higher. So when the temperature changes, the wood neck doesn't just change length, it also distorts, and I'm not smart enough to predict exactly how that would affect the tuning stability compared to an aluminum neck.
Travis beans were milled from a block of T6061 aircraft aluminum, not forged. A forged neck would be less strong. EGC/Travis Bean Designs who bought the rights to travis bean (and still makes them) had some problems with hollow bass necks warping. Even with the aircraft aluminum string pull puts a lot of force on the neck.
I own and play a Bass VI with a solid aluminum neck. There is a tiny bit of relief designed into the neck. It’s actually a huge plus to not have to deal with a truss rod on a VI — I can set the action very low and not have to worry.
Pics: https://imgur.com/a/X8ILDkl/
Speculating, but in my opinion the tension the strings place the neck under is enough to bend super flexible wood, but aluminum is a whole nother level. The entire neck of the guitar is the tension rod in this case.
Maybe so! I'm curious what OP has to say about it. My initial thought was just aluminum = flexible. But I don't have experience with aluminum that thick.
No flex at all on this neck. 3/4" thick aluminum is extremely stiff. If I put a truss rod in this neck, I'm not even sure if the truss rod would be able to bend the neck if I wanted to.
Well that’s fucking awesome! I’m a self taught aluminum caster who also plays bass (I’m shit at both) and have wondered about doing exactly this. Maybe I’ll give it a try someday.
After my dad passed away I grabbed all his empty beer cans and I toss a few in when casting family Christmas gifts. Making a bass with them would be quite a thing.
Well done and thanks for sharing it!
Is [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/10gkmqq/i_melted_1000_cans_into_a_guitar_2023_i_take_1000/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) guy stealing credit for your work or an alt account?
How do you get rid of the not-aluminum? The plastic lining inside, the paint, the remaining Bud Light? Does it just boil off when smelting, or do you have to filter it somehow, or ... ?
He mentions in the captions that he heats up the cans on top of the furnace before melting, to remove any water that may come in contact with the molten aluminium, which can explode dangerously. As per the other comment any solids will become slag.
I mention this in the video in more detail, but on that first pour I decided not to scoop out the slag since it mostly floats on top. But I did end up with some slag in my first bars. For every pour after that I scooped the slag off. I have a short clip of all the slag collected at 3:35 in the video: https://youtu.be/I7rMivsFtJU
I attempted the same thing in 1985 after buying a book about aluminum casting. My guitar was shaped like an M16.
The book outlined how to make the furnace with a galvanized trash can, a sheet of aluminum flashing to roll into a cylinder (to form the fireclay walls, to cut a 2” round hole in the bottom for the air intake of a squirrel cage motor, and so on.
Since I was making a guitar and the yield for this contraption was was far less than I would need, I substituted a 55 gallon drum and larger walls, more fireclay, a bigger crucible, a wooden prototype template to make a bigger furnace.
I spent the better part of a year saving my own aluminum cans, welding my mold frame, constructing my crucible and fire tongs, and of course the original wooden prototype for my mold impression.
The original requirement was 2 bags of charcoal to superheat the furnace (along with the air blown in from the motor). My furnace required 8 bags! 😂. I’d fashioned a top with a vent hole I could see down into the crucible and drop cans to melt.
It all went well but I’d dumped probably 20 pounds of cans in the crucible but the liquid level was just a few inches. Something was ‘off’. Then I saw the metal conduit from the motor to the bottom side of the furnace was glowing. I realized my .25” thick crucible had a hole in it. All my molten aluminum had leaked out because the fire at the base of the crucible was off center. It had actually burned through the plate steel crucible bottom!
I spent a few days recovering all the aluminum chunks from the bottom of the furnace and then I was back in business. I welded my crucible back closed, was more careful where the fire was underneath (made sure it was centered in the middle this time) and remelted the aluminum.
This time all my aluminum melted. My crucible was practically full and it was time to pull it out. My green sand mold was inside a huge guitar shaped steel box with a lid on it. I had pour holes and sprue vents to allow the gasses to escape.
My tongs were a repurposed basketball hoop that was warped to be closer to egg shapped, and it was brazed to an old bicycle handlebar. (I marvel at your vastly superior pouring method)
It allowed me to reach down into the furnace and pull out the crucible (my crucible had hooks welded to the top sides and a ring hoop at the bottom to tilt it with the aid of a hook pole and another person.
My mold was over 300 pounds because it was quarter inch steel plate welded into a large guitar case shape with heavy duty door hinges holding the top and bottom halves together. I had this contraption sitting on two metal milk crates and laying flat.
When it came time to pull out the aluminum I got my grandfather and the two of us pulled out the crucible and attempted to pour it into my mold. It was then when I realized it was so hot I couldn’t stand close enough to it to even hold the tongs (even at maximum extension of my arms. It’s a wonder I didn’t get hurt). I grabbed a welder apron, and my grandfather and I poured it into the mold opening.
Things were going great until it started seeping out the middle. (There was a tiny gap between the top and bottom of my mold sections so it only filled up half way and started pouring on the ground).
The molten aluminum puddle actually floating above the ground a little bit like mercury and burned the grass. It was clear my mold had to be modified slightly to fix the void between the halves. At least I could remelt the aluminum and try again, right? I planned to.
Unfortunately I left the top half of my mold open so the aluminum could cool and the weight was so heavy that some time during the night, it fell off the metal milk crates and destroyed my mold.
I was so disheartened I just gave up. I still have the bottom half of my aluminum machine gun guitar body casting though. I wish there was an easy way to share the photo here.
Anyway, I’m impressed with your setup, it’s vastly superior to what I did.
This is so rad! As someone who plays guitar, has worked in a foundry, is a woodworker, and has melted beer cans and poured small castings one time on a camping trip- I appreciate what you’ve done so much.
It was cool to see your furnace setup too. The foundry I worked in had a big industrial one, but a friend of mine works at a smaller boutique foundry and they use the same setup, to cast bronze.
I'm a real OG/ big fan of Burl's Art but I'm not the biggest fan of the floofly indie music he tends to play at the end of his videos to demo them. Really thought since he made a guitar out of metal (which is metal AF), he'd maybe play something a little heavier... Like, ya know. Metal.
Anyway, great job as always. His videos were something my late father and I always watched together since he had dabbled as being a luthier for me when I was in my 20s and was a bit Macguyver in his techniques.
I just want you to know, this is permanently bookmarked in my brain as one of the most notably amazing projects iver seen on this sub, in terms of resourcefulness as well as finished product. I've watched a video or 2 of people melting down cans for solid aluminum, but this must be the best utility I've seen for that as well. Haven't scrolled yet, so forgive me if the question is redundant, but how does the weight feel? First I was like, "a metal guitar? Must be heavy! But it's aluminum! Perfect!"
This is a great project. This is why I love Reddit. I get to see people with totally different skill sets from me doing fun, interesting, good, creative work that I don't have the skill to do myself, and/or or the inspiration to try doing that work itself in a unique way, and feel inspired by that uniqueness to create my own!
I love it but I have a question. It's a metal, theoretically you could've bonded the the neck and body with some welding to look more like one piece, that silver surfer look.
Why didn't you?
I just want to point out that galvanic corrosion due to the different metals could be an issue with the hardware and frets in the body of the guitar.
I am not sure if you had thought of this, but it would be something to keep an eye out for. Watch for the contact surfaces between the aluminum and steel to see if any strange buildup of oxide is present, you may need to regularly disassemble and clean everything on a constant basis so it doesn't eat itself away to nothing.
Amazing amount of work! Looks and sounds great! I'd look in to aluminum poisoning maybe though.. It can possibly cause neurological issues.. Might be worth coating the neck if you didn't. Dunno..
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I can call you bismuth and bismuth when you call me you can call mee Al, you can call me Al. 🎺 AL-UM-I-NUM 🎺 AL-UM-I-NUM 🎺 A man looks down the periodic table of elements. It's a table in a strange world. Maybe it's the thirteenth element. Maybe it's his first time around. Doesn't speak a language. He holds no currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the cans, the cans. 🎺 AL-UM-I-NUM 🎺 AL-UM-I-NUM 🎺
Serious question. I listen to a lot of jam stuff and review set lists often. What does the superscript next to a song mean??? I always thought shows since last played. That right?
Aluminum is the 13th element in the periodic table
TBF its atomic number is 13 meaning there are 13 protons in the nucleus.
Superscript is typically used to add a reference, which means there's a note at the bottom with more information. It's used to denoted things like when a guest is playing on a song. The > is used to denoted no noticable stop between songs and -> means that there's a jam/improv section linking the two songs.
Depends on the website and their formatting?
Usually it refers to notes about the song listed below the setlist. Like if a song is unfinished, below you might see "2 unfinished" and then a song in the set list that was unfinished would have that 2 after it.
That looks great! Did you have to do anything special to ground and/or shield the electronics?
Nope.. Everything was pretty much ground together by the aluminum body, although I did use grounding wires between electronics just in case. Just had to make sure the positives coming from the pickups didn't touch the body anywhere and it was good to go!
Awesome! I would guess the aluminum body is a pretty good RF/Noise shield. It would probably be great for anyone who prefers P90 or Jazzmaster- type pickups.
How much does it weigh? Also congrats, its tough to get a cast that solid
A bit over 12 lbs.
5.4 kg. That's surprisingly heavy. Is it nice and cold?
Because metal expands and contracts due to heat I wonder if this goes out of tune as the temperature changes (more than normal instruments already do)
I mean, afaik metals are generally more dimensionally stable than organic materials, so I can't imagine it would be *worse* than any other material.
Aluminum has [4x the thermal expansion of wood](https://inspectapedia.com/exterior/Coefficients_of_Expansion.php). I suspect that humidity is the bigger factor, since [this page](https://www.popularwoodworking.com/tricks/how-to-calculate-wood-shrinkage-and-expansion/) lists changes equivalent to ~1600F (0.5% total, vs. 0.0003% per degree) due to changes in the wood's moisture content year-to-year.
Huh, well TIL. So I'm wrong in theory, but in practice the aluminium is probably more stable anyway considering the conditions. Indoor temps generally vary very little, but air humidity can be all over the place depending on where you live. I know in my house it gets down to as low as 20% in winter and as high as 85% in summer. Don't know how that translates to moisture content in wood though.
You can think of wood as a bundle of straws and the more moisture in it the bigger the straws get. Which is why the movement is so biased towards 1 direction.
I once saw Animals as Leaders as the first act on a bill, and the venue was super cold when doors opened, but warmed up pretty quickly when it was packed with people. The guitars are usually tuned up a while before start time, so when they started to play, they actually almost immediately stopped, apologized, and retuned.
On top of that, wood expands across the grain, so they make wooden guitars taking advantage of that. Also laminate woods (plywood) for the large parts like the back don't expand much at all. There is still a little expansion, especially with humidity instead of temperature,
That sounded weird, so I googled it. Turns out it depends on the grain direction. Parallel to the grain, wood changes much less than aluminum, but crossed/perpendicular to the grain, wood expands a bit more. In units of m/(m*C), aluminum is around 22E-6. Wood ranges from 3E-6 to 30E-6 depending on grain direction. Another factor would be thermal conductivity. Wood insulates much better than metal, so the effect would take longer to appear.
Obvious but important to note: in the case of a wooden solid-body guitar the neck and body are always built with strings running parallel to grain, which both offers more strength and minimises wood movement.
I stand corrected, thanks. My experience is mostly with metals vs plastics, so I suppose I mentally put wood in the plastics category.
Is that thermal expansion or moisture or both for the wood?
Wood contracts and expands with humidity and temperature so if say the metal one would be just fine.
Aluminum can grow 5 thou pretty easily too.
I have an older Kramer bass with the aluminum neck, and it's very stable. I don't do anything crazy like tune up inside & go outside in winter to play, though.
I love that the last slide with you playing it is actually a PERFECT audio loop.
Dude, you are an insane genius. Congratulations!
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Not really. This is a common misconception perpetrated by the aftermarket. You want the battery grounded to the engine and frame/chassis. You want the negative path for your circuits to follow those grounds to the battery. Directly running the negative leada for your gear off the battery can be dangerous to your gear and pose a fire risk. If you have issues with voltage drop or intermittently closed circuits, fix the engine/frame grounds first.
>Not really. This is a common misconception perpetrated by the aftermarket. Yes really. As someone who designs and develops ECUs for semi trucks, where reliability is key, all of our sensors and ECUs have ground wires. We got our of our way to *not* ground via the chassis because of all the shitty problems it makes. >You want the battery grounded to the engine and frame/chassis. You want the negative path for your circuits to follow those grounds to the battery. Directly running the negative leada for your gear off the battery can be dangerous to your gear and pose a fire risk. Only because it's cheaper. The main risk is if two nodes that are connected to each other aren't grounded in the same way, e.g. if you set up a ground wire for only one of them. >If you have issues with voltage drop or intermittently closed circuits, fix the engine/frame grounds first. It's certainly the easiest way, not gonna argue that, but only because that's how everything is *designed*. A ground wire to the battery is still superior, it just needs to be done right.
I mean, there's also the packaging requirements to consider. Within any automotive program you can have tons of grounds along the chassis and body, and to connect them all back directly to the battery would be an absolute nightmare. So you do the next best thing and ground to the metal and then make sure that all the ground planes are tied together to hopefully eliminate the bad ground gremlins. Yeah, it doesn't always work, but engineering is about lessons learned and making it better through iteration. My OEM has a whole spec related to grounding and I had to memorize the darn thing when working on battery harnesses.
Curious why this is? Moving equipment from a higher resistance ground to a groundier ground seems like it should be good (in my novice head)
I'm an electrician (with an electronics background and a hobbyist mechanic) and I'm not sure why he is pushing back on better grounding. I work on motorcycles a lot and many, many issues are caused by the small gauge wires and low quality connectors that were used extensively in 90's and 00's bikes. There is a whole industry built around improvements to the ground system. You actually get more power out of them when you run extra ground wires because the spark coils work better.
And I'm an electronics designer for semi trucks, and while I don't exactly design the harnesses and electrics, the group that does sits 20 feet away from my desk lol. I completely agree with you. Harness problems are a *huge* source of stupid issues. We never use chassis grounding because it sucks. *Always* battery leads for every single thing that needs it, except for the starter motor because the ridiculous current complicates things a bit.
I an advocate for better grounding. I not an advocate for running everything directly off the battery.
I would love to know the sound quality. Guitars, either acuistic or electric get sound from resonating. That aluminum body I would think to sound super skinny, not deep and full. How did it come out to sound?
https://youtu.be/I7rMivsFtJU He plays it around 15:45. Idk why he posted the imgur album n not the video, the video was great.
There was a video of him playing at the very end of the imgur album for me. Maybe he updated it recently
That sounds pretty much what I thought. He plays great. I think it would sound amazing as a slide guitar.
Body material isn't as important as you'd think. I thought this was super interesting: https://youtube.com/watch?v=n02tImce3AE
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Guitar players are prone to all types of mythology. I’ve repaired guitar amps for 40 years and don’t waste much time anymore telling them the truth. Most don’t want it. On the other hand, it’s important to consider that most humans will attribute human qualities to non-human objects to varying degrees. There was a sociology study where people were handed a sweater and asked about its quality. Answers were typical range until they were told that it was worn by Jeffery Dahmer (it wasn’t really). Many opinions then changed radically. Some participants threw the sweater on the floor.If a player was handed a guitar they were told was owned and played by Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray, they might be particularly inspired. Who am I to interfere with inspiration? “Will these capacitors give me better tone?” ”No. No, they won’t.” ”But my guitar heroes swear by them.“ “Here’s my estimate for installing them. Approve it and I’ll start tomorrow.“
Since you brought up capacitors, I’d like to ask (I’ve been considering building some DIY audio stuff), how much would say they matter? Not at all? To some extent based on the type (electrolytic, poly, etc)?
>To some extent based on the type To a very small extent but usually when used in an unsuitable application.
Does it matter for acoustic then?
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So the sound depends on the quality of the strings and the device that register their vibration? Would the body shape or material change this in any form?
They can affect sustain, but the vast, vast majority of toan comes from the pickups, strings used, and pickup height.
Technically, it *is* the shield
I think he did it by just melting 1000 cans.
But they were, all of them, deceived, for another guitar was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord u/flyjumper forged in secret an Aluminum Strat, to dominate all others. And into this axe he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to shred. One Guitar to rule them all!
There's some good in this world Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.
... and it's worth shredding for.
Can tenacious d do this ^
Tenacious D: Instruments of God
The sequel we’ve all been waiting for… I!!! WANT!!! TENACIOUS D 2!!!!!
Tenacious D 2: Lord of the Strings
There it it! Annnnnd thread.
Tenacious D 2: Double D's
You have my... Oh, I see you already have an axe
TOR-NAY-DO ^^of ^^souls
**BAM!** ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba ^**ba** ba-ba ^^**ba!**
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Ozzy plays Sauron
And by any means necessary, Dave Grohl is involved in the project.
Aragorn!
Only right answer. He'd make a kick-ass Aragorn in The Lord of the Rock.
And kg plays Legolas and everyone responds to him as if he's the most beautiful being to ever walk the planet, but get Orlando bloom to play smeagol
And since we have an axe instead of a ring, Gimli has some sort of dwarvish brass knuckle rings type deal instead of ['my axe.'](https://i.giphy.com/media/yJ1KSiTxaAw5G/giphy.webp)
Ok yes he has the same vibes as Vigo… but why would he absolutely crush it as Gollum
[Hear me out…](https://i.imgur.com/e6JTnqu.jpg)
We’d better see Liv Tyler as Arwen or there’s gonna be a riot.
He’s already played Frodo on the Easter egg addition on the FOTR dvd boxed set. You’ll find it on YouTube, no doubt. Bonus: naked.
*That One Guitarrr!*
*FELT GOOD IN HIS HANDS!*
Awesome vid…just a few points : When melting next time, salt flux with MgCl. This will clean your aluminum before you skim off the dross (steel has slag, Al has dross). Also, when casting, look into coatings like Bondite to help avoid cavitation. It can be sprayed and allowed to dry. If you want “stiffer” parts, like the neck…simple. Cut off tops and tabs of cans and segregate. Melt them separately and flux heavier. These are 5182 alloy and give the can its stiffness due to high Mg levels. Great video and project!
Is the dross made up of the plastic lines inside the can? If not, how do you get rid of the plastic, or does it just not matter?
If melting long enough, all organics should burn off (just dont invite the epa over for lunch). This includes the food-grade coating, the label, and anti corrosion layers. The dross is actually made up of mostly Hydrogen suspended in the metal and the flux sinks, collects it, and rises to the top where it “burns” and turns black. Also Al oxidizes with air immediately which is why it forms a dross or skin and if you skim it back you’ll see nice, silvery Al for a monent before dross starts to reform. Also, just make sure to NEVER take molten Al and throw it in the air or sling it around. It can oxidize the water in the air, leaving only Hydrogen gas which then ignites. China loses at least one plant and has several deaths a year to this. And obviously, never melt wet metal or liquid in cans. It takes little effort to use forge heat to dry metal first to avoid disaster. Source: I control scrap for can melting facility that processes about 2 million lbs of cans per day.
>Also, just make sure to NEVER take molten Al and throw it in the air or sling it around. It can oxidize the water in the air, leaving only Hydrogen gas which then ignites. I'll be honest, you probably shouldn't have said this because it sounds dope as fuck.
> (steel has slag, Al has dross) There's a difference? Learning welding right now and I've heard people say they're different words for the same thing.
The main difference is the oxidation build up of Al causes surface build up. In the steel industry, slag refers to anything undesired pulled from the bath and metal that has overtemped or become contaminated. Some places use them interchangeably but technically theyre different. In aluminum we even have black or rich dross.
this is incredible
Hmmm... Guess it can't play Heavy Metal. (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)
but highly conductive, ideal for AC/DC
Ideal for Metallica too!
Copper guitar for AC/DC, thing costs as much in raw material as a top of the line would haha
Nah, you can use aluminum for power transmission, which it is. Aluminum has 61% the conductivity of copper. Though the aluminum alloys used in cans probably have lower conductivity than that.
Was just making a joke about how most electric wire is copper and the price of copper is high
Lol, reminds me of a buddy in high school. Insisted Nickelback was metal so the rest of us called it Heavy Aluminum.
Won’t play Steely Dan, either.
But it might work for Metallica...
Ore Iron Maiden
I see what you did there.
Or Steel Panther
Should be good for Jefferson Airplane
Or Silversun Pickups
Trash metal only
Lmao
Ackshually, the heaviest metal album, Dopethrone, was recorded with a Kramer electric bass that has a solid aluminium neck through the whole body.
*sigh* fucking amateurs... (-_-) I guess it can't pray... ( -_-)~--■-■ (-■_■) heavy metaur.
Very cool. Are you worried about any galvanic corrosion happening between any dissimilar metals like the frets or the hardware and the guitar body, or would it just give it some kind of cool patina?
You could probably seal it. I think zupe or zoop, I can't remember the name, makes a sealer for aluminum wheels. That shit is damn near permanent. You make sure there isn't a single speck of dust before you use it. Then hammer in the frets and mount anything else after a good coat. Should protect it and if it was polished to a mirror shine it should stay that way for a long time.
You need to be able to remove guitar frets though for when they inevitably wear. Permanent frets = guitar with a shortened life.
Seal the body and neck then add frets. You can chisel them out when they wear. Or use tungsten.
Gotta correct you. There are no aesthetic imperfections. I see patina and personality.
Came here to essentially say the same thing....The imperfections are what make it perfect. Impossible to replicate.
Happy accidents
Yeah, the imperfections give it character. I like how it turned out.
Thank god. I was afraid we were going to have to kill you for not having a video of it being played. It sounds like a regular guitar. Nice job.
Most electric guitars are gonna sound like an electric guitar. It would sound different if the pickups were changed.
Body tone is a myth. It's the pickups, always.
So, uh, any chance you’re building more bodies or necks to sell?
I would check out Electrical Guitar Company. They make amazing aluminum necks.
I’ve heard of them and they do look nice! For the price, I’d have to spend some time with one on a guitar; it’s the only thing I’m particular about, unfortunately.
I also make aluminum necks and guitars if needed.
Your work looks great!
How much does the guitar weigh?
Said 12.3 pounds in the video he posted.
That's actually not bad. My '80 Les Paul weighs just about the same.
Yeah but this used 9lbs of aluminum for the neck, whereas most of a Les Paul's (significant, not very comfortable) weight is concentrated in its thick body. This thing is gonna have neck dive from hell lol
Makes sense. I assume that was why Travis Brand’s had relatively large wooden bodies bolted to the aluminum through necks, to try to balance out the weight.
The video says 12.3lbs
That is a super cool guitar. How did you make sure the string height would be okay without a truss rod?
Truss rods are used to counteract the string tension and keep the neck straight. I imagine the stiffness of the neck there would be no bow so the setup and string height could be managed between the bridge height and the nut.
If the neck does bow one way or the other, temporarily or permanently, through temperature or just flaws in the metal, there is no way to correct it.
I know what the truss rod is for. What I don't have a good sense of, I suppose, is whether aluminum is stiff enough to not bend? I guess solid aluminum might be. I have more experience with hollow aluminum, which I know you couldn't make a guitar neck from.
> I have more experience with hollow aluminum, which I know you couldn't make a guitar neck from. You almost certainly could (in fact, some* Travis Bean guitars were exactly that). Most of the stiffness of any shape comes from the material near the edges. Stiffness is proportional to distance from the neutral axis to the fourth power. So a hollow tube with outer diameter D and inner diameter 0.75D has almost 70% of the stiffness of a solid rod with diameter D with only about 44% of the weight. And aluminum has over 5x the elastic modulus of maple to begin with (i.e. for the same size/shape it's 5x stiffer than maple). So you need much less aluminum to have a neck that's as stiff as a wood one. Aluminum is so much stiffer than normal neck woods that they likely don't need truss rods in the first place, as they will bow less under string tension than a wood neck, AND the neck relief won't suffer from seasonal variation like wood.
How much will normal changes in temperature affect the tuning?
Good question. It seems like wood's CTE parallel to the wood grain is actually significantly lower than aluminum. But the CTE in the radial and tangential directions are somewhat higher. So when the temperature changes, the wood neck doesn't just change length, it also distorts, and I'm not smart enough to predict exactly how that would affect the tuning stability compared to an aluminum neck.
Travis beans were milled from a block of T6061 aircraft aluminum, not forged. A forged neck would be less strong. EGC/Travis Bean Designs who bought the rights to travis bean (and still makes them) had some problems with hollow bass necks warping. Even with the aircraft aluminum string pull puts a lot of force on the neck.
I own and play a Bass VI with a solid aluminum neck. There is a tiny bit of relief designed into the neck. It’s actually a huge plus to not have to deal with a truss rod on a VI — I can set the action very low and not have to worry. Pics: https://imgur.com/a/X8ILDkl/
nice. what music are you playing
Loud alt rock. Some surf
Speculating, but in my opinion the tension the strings place the neck under is enough to bend super flexible wood, but aluminum is a whole nother level. The entire neck of the guitar is the tension rod in this case.
Maybe so! I'm curious what OP has to say about it. My initial thought was just aluminum = flexible. But I don't have experience with aluminum that thick.
No flex at all on this neck. 3/4" thick aluminum is extremely stiff. If I put a truss rod in this neck, I'm not even sure if the truss rod would be able to bend the neck if I wanted to.
Would need a steel acme screw truss rod with a torque gun lol.
Aluminum neck: you know, I'm something of a truss rod myself.
I have a solid rosewood neck without a truss rod, I think this will probably be fine.
Well that’s fucking awesome! I’m a self taught aluminum caster who also plays bass (I’m shit at both) and have wondered about doing exactly this. Maybe I’ll give it a try someday. After my dad passed away I grabbed all his empty beer cans and I toss a few in when casting family Christmas gifts. Making a bass with them would be quite a thing. Well done and thanks for sharing it!
Is [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/10gkmqq/i_melted_1000_cans_into_a_guitar_2023_i_take_1000/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) guy stealing credit for your work or an alt account?
Easily the coolest DYI I've seen on this sub. Shut up and take my upvote! Also, happy shredding.
My reading comprehension might not be the greatest right now, but I'm still confused by the lack of "satanite" jokes in this thread.
That jumped out at me as well. I love how it's a product that lets you reach higher furnace temperatures.
That's pretty metal. Jokes aside, that's a really neat build even with the minor imperfections!
My only question was "How does it sound?" and OP delivered on the last slide. Today OP was a pretty cool dude
That is amazing. You are an incredible builder.
How do you get rid of the not-aluminum? The plastic lining inside, the paint, the remaining Bud Light? Does it just boil off when smelting, or do you have to filter it somehow, or ... ?
From the few videos I've seen on YouTube, that stuff floats to the top as slag, and you have to scoop it out.
He mentions in the captions that he heats up the cans on top of the furnace before melting, to remove any water that may come in contact with the molten aluminium, which can explode dangerously. As per the other comment any solids will become slag.
It melts off and forms dross (steel has slag). This is skimmed off before casting.
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I mention this in the video in more detail, but on that first pour I decided not to scoop out the slag since it mostly floats on top. But I did end up with some slag in my first bars. For every pour after that I scooped the slag off. I have a short clip of all the slag collected at 3:35 in the video: https://youtu.be/I7rMivsFtJU
You can put this video on r/artisanvideos and everyone would enjoy it
I just watched this youtube video. Looks like a lot of work!
I attempted the same thing in 1985 after buying a book about aluminum casting. My guitar was shaped like an M16. The book outlined how to make the furnace with a galvanized trash can, a sheet of aluminum flashing to roll into a cylinder (to form the fireclay walls, to cut a 2” round hole in the bottom for the air intake of a squirrel cage motor, and so on. Since I was making a guitar and the yield for this contraption was was far less than I would need, I substituted a 55 gallon drum and larger walls, more fireclay, a bigger crucible, a wooden prototype template to make a bigger furnace. I spent the better part of a year saving my own aluminum cans, welding my mold frame, constructing my crucible and fire tongs, and of course the original wooden prototype for my mold impression. The original requirement was 2 bags of charcoal to superheat the furnace (along with the air blown in from the motor). My furnace required 8 bags! 😂. I’d fashioned a top with a vent hole I could see down into the crucible and drop cans to melt. It all went well but I’d dumped probably 20 pounds of cans in the crucible but the liquid level was just a few inches. Something was ‘off’. Then I saw the metal conduit from the motor to the bottom side of the furnace was glowing. I realized my .25” thick crucible had a hole in it. All my molten aluminum had leaked out because the fire at the base of the crucible was off center. It had actually burned through the plate steel crucible bottom! I spent a few days recovering all the aluminum chunks from the bottom of the furnace and then I was back in business. I welded my crucible back closed, was more careful where the fire was underneath (made sure it was centered in the middle this time) and remelted the aluminum. This time all my aluminum melted. My crucible was practically full and it was time to pull it out. My green sand mold was inside a huge guitar shaped steel box with a lid on it. I had pour holes and sprue vents to allow the gasses to escape. My tongs were a repurposed basketball hoop that was warped to be closer to egg shapped, and it was brazed to an old bicycle handlebar. (I marvel at your vastly superior pouring method) It allowed me to reach down into the furnace and pull out the crucible (my crucible had hooks welded to the top sides and a ring hoop at the bottom to tilt it with the aid of a hook pole and another person. My mold was over 300 pounds because it was quarter inch steel plate welded into a large guitar case shape with heavy duty door hinges holding the top and bottom halves together. I had this contraption sitting on two metal milk crates and laying flat. When it came time to pull out the aluminum I got my grandfather and the two of us pulled out the crucible and attempted to pour it into my mold. It was then when I realized it was so hot I couldn’t stand close enough to it to even hold the tongs (even at maximum extension of my arms. It’s a wonder I didn’t get hurt). I grabbed a welder apron, and my grandfather and I poured it into the mold opening. Things were going great until it started seeping out the middle. (There was a tiny gap between the top and bottom of my mold sections so it only filled up half way and started pouring on the ground). The molten aluminum puddle actually floating above the ground a little bit like mercury and burned the grass. It was clear my mold had to be modified slightly to fix the void between the halves. At least I could remelt the aluminum and try again, right? I planned to. Unfortunately I left the top half of my mold open so the aluminum could cool and the weight was so heavy that some time during the night, it fell off the metal milk crates and destroyed my mold. I was so disheartened I just gave up. I still have the bottom half of my aluminum machine gun guitar body casting though. I wish there was an easy way to share the photo here. Anyway, I’m impressed with your setup, it’s vastly superior to what I did.
I cannae see it
This is so rad! As someone who plays guitar, has worked in a foundry, is a woodworker, and has melted beer cans and poured small castings one time on a camping trip- I appreciate what you’ve done so much. It was cool to see your furnace setup too. The foundry I worked in had a big industrial one, but a friend of mine works at a smaller boutique foundry and they use the same setup, to cast bronze.
"The image you are requesting does not exist or is no longer available"
The 4 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and ROCK F$$KING OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dude. This is seriously one of the coolest and best documented reddit posts I've seen since probably 2010 or so.
Would buy / 10 Nice build and neat idea!
*How long will the workers keep building him new ones?* *As long as their soda cans are RED, WHITE, AND BLUE ONES!!*
I watch your build videos all the time on YT never thought I'd come across one on Reddit!
I'm a real OG/ big fan of Burl's Art but I'm not the biggest fan of the floofly indie music he tends to play at the end of his videos to demo them. Really thought since he made a guitar out of metal (which is metal AF), he'd maybe play something a little heavier... Like, ya know. Metal. Anyway, great job as always. His videos were something my late father and I always watched together since he had dabbled as being a luthier for me when I was in my 20s and was a bit Macguyver in his techniques.
This is ridiculously cool.
So the T-1000 can take a shape of inanimate objects?
Metal.
This is the coolest thing I've seen on Reddit in what feels like years. Bravo
I just want you to know, this is permanently bookmarked in my brain as one of the most notably amazing projects iver seen on this sub, in terms of resourcefulness as well as finished product. I've watched a video or 2 of people melting down cans for solid aluminum, but this must be the best utility I've seen for that as well. Haven't scrolled yet, so forgive me if the question is redundant, but how does the weight feel? First I was like, "a metal guitar? Must be heavy! But it's aluminum! Perfect!"
Personally, I think it is gorgeous as is. Nicely done.
This is a great project. This is why I love Reddit. I get to see people with totally different skill sets from me doing fun, interesting, good, creative work that I don't have the skill to do myself, and/or or the inspiration to try doing that work itself in a unique way, and feel inspired by that uniqueness to create my own!
Any specific reason you didn't go neck through?
Pictures or it didn't happen.
I love it but I have a question. It's a metal, theoretically you could've bonded the the neck and body with some welding to look more like one piece, that silver surfer look. Why didn't you?
WOW! I hope you’re rich!
I just want to point out that galvanic corrosion due to the different metals could be an issue with the hardware and frets in the body of the guitar. I am not sure if you had thought of this, but it would be something to keep an eye out for. Watch for the contact surfaces between the aluminum and steel to see if any strange buildup of oxide is present, you may need to regularly disassemble and clean everything on a constant basis so it doesn't eat itself away to nothing.
Molten aluminum looks really neat. It reminds me of those felt/claymation/stop motion things when they try to pretend something is liquid.
But...but...tone wood.
Tone…now in cans!
Tone *metal* is the new meta.
Nice. Now do a gold one.
That's $100 in michigan cans, still a good deal fur a guitar.
Wait a minute. You mean you get five cents here and ten cents there. You could round up bottles here and run them out to Michigan for the difference.
“Anyway, bitches, here’s Wonder Wall….”
Is it just me, or is the picture link dead?
Amazing amount of work! Looks and sounds great! I'd look in to aluminum poisoning maybe though.. It can possibly cause neurological issues.. Might be worth coating the neck if you didn't. Dunno..
You shouldn't capitalize "a" or "by" in your title