Landa Park

Improvements have been made recently.

 Historical!

This is still a great park. Nothing like it in Lubbock, not even remotely. Lubbock does not have the WATER!

Water sure makes a difference.

Cool, clear, water. Lubbock and the surrounding area used to be considered "semi-arid". It's tending more toward arid, lately.

To be fair, I must say that the humidity in New Braunfels is hard to cope with. The heat index during the summer months is unreal. And you never get any relief. It stays hot and humid all night. You sweat like a hog and the sweat won't evaporate. Easy to get heat stroke. Nasty. Sticky. And then you've got the mosquitoes...

More of Landa Park and New Braunfels next time.

New Braunfels, Texas

Yes, at various times we-- now I-- visit New Braunfels. I wanted to take a lot of photos this time, and I got more than I bargained for. The next series of updates will feature this town in the hill country.

First thing we examined was the site of a project to protect the headwaters of the Comal river. It was at one time an industrial site, but it will be a park.

This is where the Comal River begins.

New Braunfels is lush, and green! It is the very opposite of Lubbock. It was settled by smart people who wouldn't put up with German militarism and conservatism.  They believed in education and reason. They weren't afraid to think. They weren't narrow-minded bigots. 

 Lots of deer roam freely in the city limits.

 This area is right on the other side of the street from the headwaters project. There's a herd of deer in the shadows under the trees.

 And just down the street is the Landa Park golf course. We found deer in the rough.

 We parked the car and one of them approached us, looking for a handout. We could have patted its cold, wet, nose.

But we didn't have anything for it and it's not a good idea to feed the wildlife. These animals are completely tame.

We drove on, heading for the Landa Park entrance. We'll look at the park next time.

Guitar Overhaul

The goal was to make a Squire Mini-Strat look like something more vintage and off-brand. It ended up looking like a 70's Harmony I used to have. But, of course, with a 22.7 inch scale length and a better fret job and better electronics than the Harmony. I did not see any need to upgrade the mini-strat's electronics or hardware. This job was done for the sake of appearance only.
 So, this was what I started with:

Taking the guitar apart was no problem. I removed the tuners because I was not sure whether I would want to refinish the headstock. Instead of unsoldering the wires shown here, I simply cut them. After I removed the bridge I discovered that I did not need to cut the black ground wire. Oh well. And, cutting the thicker gray wire created a little complication when I had to solder things back together.

 Too late now.

 That ground wire was not soldered to the bridge.

 Parts!

 I could have pulled out the ground from the other end.

Note the shielding on the backside of the pickguard.

 I did not expect to see a neat control/PU cavity in such a cheap guitar. Or the shielding.

 The horns are marked for cutting.

 The horns are cut. I used a Skill saw for the rough cut and then a sureform tool for the first rough shaping.

I had to get a sense of what it would look like. Still undecided about the body color and headstock.

There were several stages of sanding by hand with coarse paper, priming, sanding, etc. Then some painting and finer paper. 

 I thought about leaving it like this, for that "distressed", or "worn" look.

I removed the logo with acetone and applied Tung oil to the fingerboard and neck. The logo can still be seen faintly. 

At this point I was tired of sanding and decided to paint it black. I remembered the old Harmony, and it was black.

 First I had to do something about the pickguard. I cut it to shape with a jigsaw and beveled the edges.

 Black paint hides a lot. 

 It turned out to be a semi-gloss finish. Looks old. Looks somewhat "distressed".

 All finished and restrung with Ernie Ball strings, .011 to .048.  When I resoldered the wires I had cut earlier, I found that the thicker gray wire was coax. It had an outer layer of strands and an inner wire with white insulation. All these needed to be sorted out on both ends and soldered correctly. A little tedious.

 I like the way it looks. It no longer looks like a midget strat.

I'm kind of considering doing some mods on a bullet strat. The pic above is retouched to indicate the shape I want. If I find one very cheap in a pawn shop I might try it. I would put more effort into the finish and reshape the headstock.