covering a hole left by discarded onboard preamp

[Riakstonic]

Do you any wood working tools ? The port idea is a good one was going to do it on a Epi masterbilt .

I was going to get a piece of sonething maybe rosewood or maple or mahogany , cedar heck even pine will work depending what's available in your area .

Just measure the preamp as guide for screw holes and to get the lip size use the side of the guitar to trace the shape or the preamp but guitar would be better . Then start carving .

It might be fun and very relaxing to shape the wood sand it drill the holes and stain . Not hard take it slow

If you feel the hole is to big you have the option of making a lesser opening but in my case there was no difference with my preamp out or in as far as the Mics cared .

[ft85915]

Any one have any idea as to how much a Luthier would charge to patch the hole?
I would love to remove the preamp from my Faith

[Addisonbrady]

Well if I was seriously considering it, I'd get some luan 1/4 inch plywood,I'd either heat it or soak in water to get the bend you might want parallel to the slope of the guitar. Lay the guitar on its back and trace it to get the right angle you need. You could also cut several slits on the backside of your patch maybe a 1/16 or 1/8 deep, this will allow you patch to flex. I'd make it slightly narrower than the opening. You can glue wings on to the sides of your patch on the underside. Attach a fisheye screw for you to have something to hold onto to pull it tight when you glue it. Stain to match.

Yes it's a lot, not bad if your handy with tools etc

Good luck.
Addison

[TBman]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Good idea. Can you countersink those screw holes and use flat heads to get them flush with the surface?

[CaffeinatedOne]

Originally Posted by sam.spoons

Yes, finally got around to looking at the pics...... No it's not an ideal place for a sound port is it.... If you don't want to replace the electrics (which I get BTW) I'd probably just go with a blanking plate made from suitable material, scratch plate plastic, thin wood laminate, brass or stainless or some such. Whatever you do it ain't gonna be completely invisible but the guitar isn't pristine either from what you say so don't worry too much and just enjoy the guitar for what it is.

I'll second this suggestion. Don't try to hide it - just install a simple plate and stop worrying about it. If you want to try out different materials for a cover, use gorilla tape on the inside to hold it in place temporarily until you find something you like. This area is not critical for the sound of the instrument, so anything you do (within reason) will probably be an improvement over the preamp block, as long as it doesn't rattle.

[joeguam]

This is probably the cleanest implementation of a soundhole conversion I’ve seen so far. It looks like they used 3-ply pickguard material.

[Tony Burns]

I wondering why a simalar type of wood same thickness couldnt be bent on a heated bender iron - cut a little bit bigger with clips to pop in the hole .
Sounds simple and not to hard to make -

[oldwasichu]

How about some wood grain duct tape?

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Duck-Tape-...grain/40623989

[Monsoon1]

Originally Posted by MikeD

Anyone else see the face?

[Brent Hahn]

I reckon that old set list taped to McCartney's Hofner bass is there to cover up the hole where the preamp used to be. Works for him, and he could afford a brand new Hofner if he wanted one.

[sevargnhoj]

Very timely thread for me.

I have a Takamine GB7C that I picked up well used several years ago because it played so well and sounded so good unplugged (not to mention it was a steal because of its cosmetics). Plugged in, it quacks like a duck.

The Tak doesn't get much playing time around the house now because I found "the one"(Kolaya Carmen 13) a couple of years ago and I can't put it down. The Kolaya has a K&K in it and I'm really happy with its sound plugged in as well as unplugged.

Anyway, this weekend the Tak got to go on a boyz weekend and I reconnected with it. I'd forgotten how well it sings unplugged.
Had been thinking about getting rid of it and looking for something that could go on questionable outings and sound good plugged in, but I may explore some of the options being discussed here.

Thanks AGF!

[menhir]

Timely for me, too.

I recently removed the old, troublesome MicroEQ from my Seagull M6 in favor of a simple Woody Pickup.

The MicroEQ can hardly be called a barn door so the hole is small, about an inch and shaped like a guitar pick. The guitar doesn't have a deeply rounded waist either, so it's essentially flat where the hole is..

I've considered enlarging it and rounding it off into a real sound port. As it is now, the hole is really too small to make much of a difference in how I hear the guitar.
It just looks weird. Before I do anything, I'm waiting to see what other suggestions show up here.

PS: Suggesting that I should have bought the guitar without onboard electronics many years ago won't do much good as my time machine doesn't work anymore either.

[joeguam]

Originally Posted by Tony Burns

I wondering why a simalar type of wood same thickness couldnt be bent on a heated bender iron - cut a little bit bigger with clips to pop in the hole .

Sounds simple and not to hard to make -

Unfortunately, you’d still have the 4 screw holes to deal with. Additionally, most of the cutouts I’ve discovered have not been cut cleanly with straight lines. Even guitars from the factory where they normally use cutout templates and routers had poorly cut lines. You’d have to address this by cleaning the cut lines in order for a pop-in piece to fit. It could work for some cases but it would also be a challenge for others.

[Dirty Bill]

I have closed the hole with Kydex,glued in from the inside. if your guitar has wood side panels you can lay some wood on top the Kydex to match the wood as closely as possible,sand smooth,stain and finish to match.

[Brent Hahn]

You could stick a GoPro in there to get good video of your nostrils and chins.