Hobbies outside of guitars during lockdown
- Thread starter Taurus
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strat_strummer
John
One of my favorites is my SCX24 playing on my train table...
Tamarindo03
Squier-Nut
I saw your other pictures of the layout, that looks wonderful! I discovered the joy of building a layout last year during the pandemic. Will post it soon.
Tamarindo03
Squier-Nut
I already postet about my RC plane stuff in another thread a while ago.
But I discovered another great hobby.
During the lockdown at the end of 2020 I had some free time to spend. I always loved to look at dioramas and model railways, so I decided to build a small winter train layout in "Z scale" (1:220). I already postet a picture of this project in another thread last year, but it wasn’t finished at this time. The first three pictures is how it looks like now. (It measures just 35 x 50 cm)
It was so much fun to build that I did a another small diorama but without a train.
At the moment I have two projects more.
One is building a ww2 diorama together with a friend. We already buyed some buildings, Materials and two german tanks. I programmed a servo-controller with Arduino to move the head of the tanks.
Another project is about a Z scale model train again. I want to build a bigger layout that shows a Swiss alps route. For this I want the "glacier express" cars running on the tracks. Because these cars aren’t available in Z scale I have to make them by myself. Right now I’m designing the cars in a 3D design program. The models I gonna print with an 8K resin printer and airbrush them after that.
Cheers!
But I discovered another great hobby.
During the lockdown at the end of 2020 I had some free time to spend. I always loved to look at dioramas and model railways, so I decided to build a small winter train layout in "Z scale" (1:220). I already postet a picture of this project in another thread last year, but it wasn’t finished at this time. The first three pictures is how it looks like now. (It measures just 35 x 50 cm)
It was so much fun to build that I did a another small diorama but without a train.
At the moment I have two projects more.
One is building a ww2 diorama together with a friend. We already buyed some buildings, Materials and two german tanks. I programmed a servo-controller with Arduino to move the head of the tanks.
Another project is about a Z scale model train again. I want to build a bigger layout that shows a Swiss alps route. For this I want the "glacier express" cars running on the tracks. Because these cars aren’t available in Z scale I have to make them by myself. Right now I’m designing the cars in a 3D design program. The models I gonna print with an 8K resin printer and airbrush them after that.
Cheers!
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Tamarindo03
Squier-Nut
Tamarindo03
Squier-Nut
Oh and I forgot to mention this project. I designed it last year during the second lockdown but right now I’m not working on it. It is a grow box for growing - tomatoes of course ;-).
It’s gonna be a small box. As you can see I was inspired by guitar amps and I even put a Jazzmaster next to the design to put it in relation.
It’s gonna be a small box. As you can see I was inspired by guitar amps and I even put a Jazzmaster next to the design to put it in relation.
Lanaka
Squier-holic
Nice, @Tamarindo03, out of necessity I ended up doing some gardening work during lockdown. Got a variety of plants growing, bay leafs, chives, arugulas, a lemon tree, sweet potatoes and regular potatos, green onions, tomatoes and others. I'm currently trying to get an apple tree to grow altho many tell me that it's impossible to do that in Hawai'i.
Another thing during lockdown is that I resumed an old love affair I had with video gaming on the PC and PlayStations. Fallout 4, Persona 4, DragonQuest 8, Fatal Frame 1-3, Resident Evil 1-4, Silent Hill 1-3, Siren, Alone in the Dark 1-2, and City of Heroes. Among other old games I still have from the PS2 to PS4 era. PS5? Bah, cant get it and too expensive, PS4 & PS3 still works. And my PS3 still plays PS2 & PS1 games, altho I still have my chipped PS1 to gameshark it or play JDM games.
Another thing during lockdown is that I resumed an old love affair I had with video gaming on the PC and PlayStations. Fallout 4, Persona 4, DragonQuest 8, Fatal Frame 1-3, Resident Evil 1-4, Silent Hill 1-3, Siren, Alone in the Dark 1-2, and City of Heroes. Among other old games I still have from the PS2 to PS4 era. PS5? Bah, cant get it and too expensive, PS4 & PS3 still works. And my PS3 still plays PS2 & PS1 games, altho I still have my chipped PS1 to gameshark it or play JDM games.
Tamarindo03
Squier-Nut
That’s great. What’s better than growing some of your own food in your own garden!? Wish you best luck with the apple tree!
Lanaka
Squier-holic
I have feeling I may be able to coax an apple tree to grow, twill be interesting whether it'll bear fruit...literally, LOL.
If a student in the Philippines can get a tree to grow (where it's supposed to be even more impossible) then I oughter be able to do so because Hawai'i further away from the equator than the Philippines. We'll see. LOL If nothing else, I'll have a future source of wood to try as a guitar neck!
strat_strummer
John
Very nice @Tamarindo03 , honestly I'm losing interest with the train layout so my wife suggested turning it into a 1/24 crawler course. I may just go for it.
Tamarindo03
Squier-Nut
I’ll take over for you the train thing.
strat_strummer
John
This isn't exactly lockdown related but it definitely is one of my hobbies I absolutely love and I just bought it today. Peddle powered fishing kayak.
strat_strummer
John
My most rewarding "to me" hobby is RCs. I'm in the process of building one of these. Baja 5b 1/5 scale gas buggy.
AxelMorisson
Squier-Nut
some new some old AF. (no, not autofocus, the other A. F.). Still have a pair of fully operational Nikon D 100 (one still uses its original battery!) from 1999. Still enjoy cutting edge along retro ( no I don't shoot film anymore).
AxelMorisson
Squier-Nut
And sometimes I just love to punish my neighbors....These are mine but NO, I DON'T play violin (officially). Left one, HORA piezo solid body violin, really nice sound, has a small passive tone-volume stack, and another empty electronics bay, will receive soon a SMD buffer with an instrumentation amplifier... right, a STAR branded plywood marvel. Real ebony fingerboard replaced the painted wood, courtesy of yours truly. Upgraded pegs too , and put in an alumin(i)um tailpiece. The bridge is specially carved and profiled (tuned) by yours truly again. The Shadow undersaddle piezo is another of my mods. The sticky "learn to play" sticker marking positions is yet another of my additions that I am "proud" of. It has a mellow acoustic and bright electric sound- the full bodied Hora sounds a bit heavy metal-ish but the active piezo I'm cooking will cure that.
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metalmerchant
Squier-Nut
Nice one Axel.
I never thought of electrifying a violin. As it happens, I own a nice little Yamaha which I have neglected for years in favour of guitar. I have a few piezo pickups left over from my cigar-box build.
Thanks for giving me the idea, as it would be great to breath new life into my violin and resume playing it again. I can't wait to discover the results of going through my pedalboard!!!
I never thought of electrifying a violin. As it happens, I own a nice little Yamaha which I have neglected for years in favour of guitar. I have a few piezo pickups left over from my cigar-box build.
Thanks for giving me the idea, as it would be great to breath new life into my violin and resume playing it again. I can't wait to discover the results of going through my pedalboard!!!
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AxelMorisson
Squier-Nut
Very nice! It really opens up possibilities, electrifying. But it dearly needs a buffer. Direct piezo to amp is not nice usually - because of the impedance mismatch. Piezos can get voltage of up to 3-4 V no problem, up with the big guys but they can't do current. Like, at all. So they need a friendly buffer to pump all the needed current from some battery somewhere into the amp... or if you happen to have an ACOUSTIC amp laying around then fine. This term puzzled me greatly, I mean weren't guitar amps meant for electrics? Well- acoustic amps are designed for electro-acoustic instruments such as acoustic guitars with piezos and without preamps- like they did build them years and years ago- or indeed violins where every gram on the soundboard matters. I mean they have the buffer installed inside in the preamp section and can freely take great output impedances and they do not load the piezos at all. That is equivalent to saying they preserve the low end. As you have seen from the pic, my violin is not exactly stellar quality- quite the opposite in fact. So it does not mind the rather large Shadow buffer/preamp stuck on there. Fancy ones like yours may get preamps that are small enough to fit in a tailpiece button or even on/in the chinrest and do not add more than half a gram overall and not on the soundboard but on the edge frame that's loaded anyways (tailpiece ties articulates on it, the chinrest is on it already etc). The Shadow has a flexible thin foil that goes underneath the bridge without scratching anything ( the top is precious in a violin, after all it's there for generating the sound and not just for looks and it's usually dangerously thin spruce bit). So good luck with amping the violin and let us know how it goes!
PS: take a look at these
https://www.bluestarmusic.com/Barcu...iezo-Bridge-Only-Jack-Not-Included_p_122.html
and others like it- it is the "professional standard"in electrifying violins. Mine- one was already a solid body and designed to be electric from the get-go and the other was ..well.. a good building/modding platform (yes there are violins out there one can use to learn the basics of luthiery).
PS: take a look at these
https://www.bluestarmusic.com/Barcu...iezo-Bridge-Only-Jack-Not-Included_p_122.html
and others like it- it is the "professional standard"in electrifying violins. Mine- one was already a solid body and designed to be electric from the get-go and the other was ..well.. a good building/modding platform (yes there are violins out there one can use to learn the basics of luthiery).
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That's awesome. My daughter plays cello and I have threatened to find a way to run it through guitar effects. So far she has resisted.
I picked up guitar as a pandemic hobby. My neighbor has been my "pusher/mentor". It started with a free amp and then a tailspin ensued. Now, I have bought and sold a few guitars, rebuilt the electronics on two and made a pedalboard from scratch. I have a fuzz pedal kit coming my way this week.
I also picked up wood turning. My oldest friend got me hooked on that. I make pens, rings, bottlestoppers, opener, odds and ends.
I haven't really found a way to combine the two. Except that I did recently finish a guitar-inspired pen made from mahogany, maple and ebony as a gift.
I also picked up wood turning. My oldest friend got me hooked on that. I make pens, rings, bottlestoppers, opener, odds and ends.
I haven't really found a way to combine the two. Except that I did recently finish a guitar-inspired pen made from mahogany, maple and ebony as a gift.
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AxelMorisson
Squier-Nut
I did that a while ago- back in college days on the way to school we passed a music shop/repair shop. And they did have parts for mostly everything. Including cheap replacement cello necks, tailpieces, endpins, bows... you know, the works. A girl I knew was just getting started in a jazz band and kept telling me about the upright basses, how nice, how expensive, how large and fragile but what a nice sound etc. I kept telling her get a f*** ing P- Bass and it would be cheaper lighter better faster. She went on yes but no, the style, the subtlety of some passages is lost etc- and I was like : okay didn't you say... modern jazz? Subtlety? Okay lemme see that coming (from you). I was much nastier a long time ago, hehe.
Long story short and a happy girlfriend in balance,we entered the store and went to town buying spare cheap parts: a neck, an endpin, a fingerboard, a bridge, one large plank from a large shipment crate and the owner's benevolence. With this he left us alone with a cheaper student model cello and we measured the heck out of it and figured out the geometry , the neck angle etc. Went to a furniture shop and made the CNC operator an acquaintance with some old presidents (not too many, local currency) and we had a body! Took heavy inspiration from Yamaha, their weird full solid body electrics just hit the market that year and we were drooling profusely. Slapped everything together. Did not paint. Did look.. interesting to say the least. But for the sound I initially went with a typical magnetic overwound pickup . We found replacement parts for locally produced P-Bass copies...cheaply.Not very nice sounds... The guy at the store said we would better go piezo- seeing the whole animal we built he took pity on us and installed a cheap piezo stack under the bridge...
It has been 25 years now. I recently ran into this girl.. now a respectable mom of three. She laughed a lot remembering those times and said her eldest daughter inherited the " Axel Morisson Special no. 1" - or as we called it at the time, the "stupid plank".She's into classical but did bring that thing over to her teacher's studio just to see her face. And it was on the floor...as it should have been. Time/money well spent.
and PS : @Clockwise : try BASS effects
Trust me, I know, hehehe.
Long story short and a happy girlfriend in balance,we entered the store and went to town buying spare cheap parts: a neck, an endpin, a fingerboard, a bridge, one large plank from a large shipment crate and the owner's benevolence. With this he left us alone with a cheaper student model cello and we measured the heck out of it and figured out the geometry , the neck angle etc. Went to a furniture shop and made the CNC operator an acquaintance with some old presidents (not too many, local currency) and we had a body! Took heavy inspiration from Yamaha, their weird full solid body electrics just hit the market that year and we were drooling profusely. Slapped everything together. Did not paint. Did look.. interesting to say the least. But for the sound I initially went with a typical magnetic overwound pickup . We found replacement parts for locally produced P-Bass copies...cheaply.Not very nice sounds... The guy at the store said we would better go piezo- seeing the whole animal we built he took pity on us and installed a cheap piezo stack under the bridge...
It has been 25 years now. I recently ran into this girl.. now a respectable mom of three. She laughed a lot remembering those times and said her eldest daughter inherited the " Axel Morisson Special no. 1" - or as we called it at the time, the "stupid plank".She's into classical but did bring that thing over to her teacher's studio just to see her face. And it was on the floor...as it should have been. Time/money well spent.
and PS : @Clockwise : try BASS effects
Trust me, I know, hehehe.
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