My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

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Tone Slinger
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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by Tone Slinger » Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:16 pm

Hell yeah, cool man,I never noticed that,but its great that you did.This forum has the MOST info on Ed period (as well as most of the other greats,etc), thanks to fella's like yourself and many others here. I sure wish we could have a resurgence of members and interest here :rock:
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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by garbeaj » Mon Aug 19, 2013 1:46 pm

Thanks Andy!

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by garbeaj » Tue Aug 20, 2013 10:42 am

Here's some pics of the nice old block logo Kramer case that I found on eBay to go with my build. It has nothing to do with the tone, but it is in keeping with my "What if Kramer actually made this guitar?" theme...

(Sorry for the blurry pics...I used my iPhone and it doesn't work perfectly all the time)...

Image

Image
Last edited by garbeaj on Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by vanhalen5150 » Wed Aug 21, 2013 6:59 am

garbeaj wrote:
vanhalen5150 wrote:Any of you guys waiting on necks from Musikraft or KNE. Usually the wait time is also dependent on glue and applied finish. I don't know about Musikraft, but KNE Mitch told me his wait time is more based on those 2 factors. He can usually get a body out in about less than 2 weeks. A maple cap neck has to let the glue dry and then adjust the rod to stabilize correctly. It takes a few weeks and then there is finish if you asked for it. I wouldn't want a neck that's still curing finish and still has wet glue inside as I string it up. Also if you get a neck body combo, I assume they want to make sure they fit together correctly when shipped.
According to Scott Smith, the only thing that is delaying Musikraft orders is the fact that they are very backlogged...they have a ton of orders to complete. I've been waiting for a little over three months for them to "catch up" on their orders so that they will finally make their '78 headstock profile Frankie neck available. Scott says to check back in a month and that has happened three times now. Menawhile, I have a '78 Frankenstein body that is almost finished being painted and no neck to go on the guitar and I'm getting restless.

As far as the necks fitting into the neck pockets on Musikraft matching bodies and necks...super tight, like a glove, can't fit a cunt hair in there, solid fit. It is so tight that you better not get any paint or finish in that pocket or on the heel...you may have to sand it a bit to get it to fit. Just be sure to keep the heel and neck pocket completely masked and free of debris because it is 100% on the money fit wise from the factory, at least in my experience.
Most likely true but I would imagine they are not going to glue a neck together, nitro it and send it out the neck day.
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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by garbeaj » Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:06 pm

vanhalen5150 wrote:Most likely true but I would imagine they are not going to glue a neck together, nitro it and send it out the neck day.
I was referring to any paint or finish work that you do yourself...if YOU do any paint or finish work, I was saying to be sure to mask carefully and avoid getting anything in the neck cavity or on the heel because the Musikraft necks and bodies come straight from the factory with a very tight fit in my experience. Musikraft doesn't do any finish work. They have the Orion finishing company that they work with, but I was talking about any finish work that the end customer would do...

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by vanhalen5150 » Wed Aug 21, 2013 1:33 pm

garbeaj wrote:
vanhalen5150 wrote:Most likely true but I would imagine they are not going to glue a neck together, nitro it and send it out the neck day.
I was referring to any paint or finish work that you do yourself...if YOU do any paint or finish work, I was saying to be sure to mask carefully and avoid getting anything in the neck cavity or on the heel because the Musikraft necks and bodies come straight from the factory with a very tight fit in my experience. Musikraft doesn't do any finish work. They have the Orion finishing company that they work with, but I was talking about any finish work that the end customer would do...
Gotcha. They use a CNC machine? I think KNE does.
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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by garbeaj » Wed Aug 21, 2013 7:57 pm

vanhalen5150 wrote:
garbeaj wrote:
vanhalen5150 wrote:Most likely true but I would imagine they are not going to glue a neck together, nitro it and send it out the neck day.
I was referring to any paint or finish work that you do yourself...if YOU do any paint or finish work, I was saying to be sure to mask carefully and avoid getting anything in the neck cavity or on the heel because the Musikraft necks and bodies come straight from the factory with a very tight fit in my experience. Musikraft doesn't do any finish work. They have the Orion finishing company that they work with, but I was talking about any finish work that the end customer would do...
Gotcha. They use a CNC machine? I think KNE does.
Oh yes...Musikraft uses a CNC. In fact, they already have the pattern for the '78 headstock profile Frankenstein neck. They keep telling me they are too backed up to enter the pattern into the machine and start producing them. Every time I ask them for the '78 neck they keep saying "Check back in a month" and it has been 3 months...still nothing.

But at any rate, they use the CNC machine...this is why their bodies and necks are so wonderful and generally consistent. this is why they can get the EBMM neck profile perfectly. This is just one reason why I recommed Musikraft and KNE.

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by fhn_lopes » Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:22 pm

Does Musikraft offer EBMM necks? It's not on their websote though...

I'm planning on a future build (azusa body HH with figured maple top) that I'd like to throw an EBMM neck on... Something like the SM Y2D but without the fag trans pickguard and that bunch of pickups... do you know how much they ask for one maple/maple EBMM nck?
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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by garbeaj » Thu Aug 22, 2013 12:36 pm

fhn_lopes wrote:Does Musikraft offer EBMM necks? It's not on their websote though...

I'm planning on a future build (azusa body HH with figured maple top) that I'd like to throw an EBMM neck on... Something like the SM Y2D but without the fag trans pickguard and that bunch of pickups... do you know how much they ask for one maple/maple EBMM nck?
They don't do Ernie Ball Music Man necks...just the neck profile.

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by garbeaj » Sat Nov 16, 2013 12:04 pm

Well, fuck. I finally got my black Musikraft 5150 replica back from my tech. I had the problem with the muffled "rolled down tone knob" sound whenever I rolled the volume down and my tech installed a cap on it...I'm not sure what this is, but here is a picture:
Image

This took care of the "tone knob turned down" problem that I was having when I rolled down the volume knob. I'm finding the tones a bit too trebly when I roll down, but I think that is more a function of the Mod 5. I'm still tweaking so I'll make a clip after I've had a chance to work on it more.

The sucky thing is that my tech could not straighten out the one cock-eyed tuner that I had him try to fix. Instead he made several other tuners go crooked and now all the tuners look like shit. I think the problem was that Musilkraft drilled the holes incorrectly. The only way I can fix this is to take the neck to my painter people and have them strip the headstock, then fill and re-drill the tuner holes, then repaint it, apply another headstock decal and clear it again. I'm going to deal with it for now, but I'm really disappointed in how it came out. Just looks like shit to me...
Image

On the bright side, I did get my string tree finally installed. Now when I ping behind the nut, the B and high E pitch matches the beginning of the "Feels So Good" solo and the pinging at the beginning of the "Cathedral" segment of the solo from the Live: Without A Net show perfectly.
Image
Also, it turned out there was quite a bit of fret levelling that my tech had to do to get the intonation right. It came from the Musikraft factory requiring fretwork after all. I didn't know it until I got down to checking intonation everywhere and playing it for a while, but unfortunately I experienced what some others have experienced when buying from Musikraft when it comes to additonal fret work. Now, to be fair, almost every new guitar from just about every manufacturer requires some degree of fret work to get the intonation just right...including Gibson and Fender.
Last edited by garbeaj on Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by Santino » Sat Nov 16, 2013 2:50 pm

garbeaj wrote:Here's another positive note...I've finally proved that I can place the Fender string tree almost exactly as it was on the original 5150 guitar's headstock. My theory of matching the pitch by using the pinging behind the nut heard during the bridge immediately preceding the solo of "Feels So Good" from the 0U812 album proved to work like a charm!

http://youtu.be/6eb2XW0et8g?t=2m32s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Though Eddie is playing the original Frankenstein with a Kramer neck on it in the official video, I believe that he used the 5150 guitar to record this guitar part and the majority of the electric 6 string guitar on the 0U812 album. I just slid a Fender string tree along the B and E strings somewhere between where I placed the block Kramer logo and the regular "bar" Floyd string tree...in fact the pitch ended up falling perfectly at a sweet spot between the Floyd bar string tree and the "K" in the Kramer logo-pretty much like the Fender string tree is positioned on the original. Eddie needed to put this string tree on the original guitar because the Floyd "bar" string tree was too short to keep the strings from sliding past the headstock and there was also probably some issue with the Floyd nut and the angle of the tuners that caused the high E to go past the headstock...I have the proper "longer" Floyd "bar" string tree and it already works perfectly in that my high E passes to the high E tuner perfectly. But by adding the Fender string tree and using the "Feels So Good" recording as a reference I have been able to achieve almost identical pitches when strumming behind the nut as Ed did on the original 5150.

This is a small and obsessive thing, but I've never heard of anyone getting this right or even caring to...but I'm stoked that I figured this out!
Feels So Good vid. Ed stated he took the Franky "out of retirement" for the video and the wood around the trem posts was soft and causing problems. If I recall he tried to blame it on the original installer,(Floyd himself?) which is silly. So the Kramer 5150 was used on OU812. And I'm also a fan of the Letterman tone. I think it's the 1984 rig, album and tour, stripped to one cab. The MTV Lost Weekend thing was on YT. When they throw cake on the winner. Very little guitar, but I think it's the same tone. I assume it's the magic Marshall through the Palmer speaker simulator and H&H power amp. A set up I'd very much like to put together. With a Friedman BE-100 though.

I built a Kramer 5150. Actually got a 5150 Korina body from Musikraft. Found it on eBay. Divebomb neck. Thing sounds way too good! I put an old Tone Zone in it. Sounds super close to my EBMM Axis.

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by vanhalen5150 » Mon Nov 18, 2013 7:30 am

Not sure why there is a cap on there? Thats wired like a bypass cap. :what: The tuners are going to look out of line because of headstock curve I think. I have a few bannanas and I think they are all a little off especially on the high E. Looks fine I think.
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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by Tone Slinger » Mon Nov 18, 2013 7:41 am

I agree,it (tuners)looks fine. Very sweet axe :rock: . Allen, if I'm not mistaken, the hybrid pu you have comes stock with an A5 magnet.If you want it to 'brown' out just a bit and sound a touch more organic,put an A2 magnet in it.This should also help with the high end present when rolling the guitars volume down.It is REAL easy to do. I think you would be VERY pleased with the results :thumbsup: .
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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by garbeaj » Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:23 am

Tone Slinger wrote:I agree,it (tuners)looks fine. Very sweet axe :rock: . Allen, if I'm not mistaken, the hybrid pu you have comes stock with an A5 magnet.If you want it to 'brown' out just a bit and sound a touch more organic,put an A2 magnet in it.This should also help with the high end present when rolling the guitars volume down.It is REAL easy to do. I think you would be VERY pleased with the results :thumbsup: .
Hmmm...I'll PM ya:)

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Re: My black Musikraft "5150" sort've replica

Post by rgorke » Mon Nov 18, 2013 4:46 pm

garbeaj wrote:Well, fuck. I finally got my black Musikraft 5150 replica back from my tech. I had the problem with the muffled "rolled down tone knob" sound whenever I rolled the volume down and my tech installed a cap on it...I'm not sure what this is, but here is a picture:

Image

This took care of the "tone knob turned down" problem that I was having when I rolled down the volume knob. I'm finding the tones a bit too trebly when I roll down, but I think that is more a function of the Mod 5. I'm still tweaking so I'll make a clip after I've had a chance to work on it more.

The sucky thing is that my tech could not straighten out the one cock-eyed tuner that I had him try to fix. Instead he made several other tuners go crooked and now all the tuners look like shit. I think the problem was that Musilkraft drilled the holes incorrectly. The only way I can fix this is to take the neck to my painter people and have them strip the headstock, then fill and re-drill the tuner holes, then repaint it, apply another headstock decal and clear it again. I'm going to deal with it for now, but I'm really disappointed in how it came out. Just looks like shit to me...

Image

On the bright side, I did get my string tree finally installed. Now when I ping behind the nut, the B and high E pitch matches the beginning of the "Feels So Good" solo and the pinging at the beginning of the "Cathedral" segment of the solo from the Live: Without A Net show perfectly.
Image

Also, it turned out there was quite a bit of fret levelling that my tech had to do to get the intonation right. It came from the Musikraft factory requiring fretwork after all. I didn't know it until I got down to checking intonation everywhere and playing it for a while, but unfortunately I experienced what some others have experienced when buying from Musikraft when it comes to additonal fret work. Now, to be fair, almost every new guitar from just about every manufacturer requires some degree of fret work to get the intonation just right...including Gibson and Fender.
Like the other guys said, I think the tuners are fine. I have a couple of banana/hockey necks and the tuners are all a bit cockeyed.

Do other guys twist their ground and hot wires from the jack too? Does this help with grounding noise? Or just a neatness thing?
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