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Welcome to Chordie!

  Lots of good folks hanging around here who should be along to join me in welcoming you aboard.  Enjoy the forums and all the good music linked from here... visit often and make yourself at home.

Take Care;
Doug

Greetings from the Great Northwest (Pacific Wonderland... Oregon)

  Twelves are great for a wide variety of music, but yeah the tuning is different.  Only the B & High E are tuned the same on the doublets, G, D, A,& E on the base side are tuned with the small strings an octave above their doublet paired string.

  It is not uncommon to tune down to D to reduce the tension on the strings and like posted above, capo up as needed to get to standard tuning.  As the number of strings is doubled so too is the tension on the bridge and neck when everything is up to pitch.
Hence all that good advise.  Most instruments are fully up to handling the added tension at standard pitch, but some reports of cracked braces and lifting bridges have been seen... including one of mine.

It is always possible to string it with only 6 strings if you want until you get used to the slightly wider neck and jump that other hurdle later at your option.  The silk and steel strings can be a little softer on your fingers, but I have had good luck with Thomastik Enfeld strings as they tend to need less tension to come up to pitch.  But it always is good to try other brands and guages to find what is comfortable to you.  A proper set-up goes a long way towards a better experience so you are not "fighting" to make your chords.  Most times a luthier will include a new set of strings with that service and is well worth the meager fee.

Take Care;
Doug

Hey, I remember the Band!  And I recognize the location where that photo was taken... 3rd street on the Southwest side.  Cameron's Bookstore is still there.

Doug

Good Choice DJ...

As for the flying, last time I went up with Guitar in hand it didn't even count as a carryon (bonus)!  Plus, things were a little tight in the overheads so my axe wound up in a vacant overhead in the underbooked First Class Cabin.  Darn thing didn't even have a ticket and had a better seat than I did!

Take Care;
Doug

Gotta Love the USA!
  One place where law-abiding folks jump the hoops and take the classes, get permits, and the criminals don't care.
Spent the Winter in Arizona, where they got it right... If you can Legally own a gun, you can Concealed Carry without any permit. There are exceptions for Public Safety However, gunpowder and alcohol don't mix so no firearms in Bars or Restaurants where alcohol is served.
  They have a lot of gun related deaths, but overall crime is down.  If there's a possibility Granny's Packin', it don't make sense to grab her purse!

The following is an actual 911 recording I heard on the news this last Winter:

An 83 year old lady that never fired a gun in her young life, took the safety class and bought a handgun to protect herself.

"911 what is your emergency?"

"There's a suspicious man in my back yard."

"I am dispatching Police to your location now."

"Thank You!.....  I think he's trying to get into the house!"

"Help is on the way Mam..."

"Don't you dare come in here!  I will shoot you! ... Should I shoot him?"

"Uh no Mam that wouldn't be a good  (BLAM!) idea, Police will be there shortly."

"He's still moving... should I shoot him again?"

"NO (BLAM!) !!"

"he's not moving.... I think he's dead.........................  I hope it's not somebody I know..."

LMAO!!!

Take Care;
Doug

Hi again Russell,  auto enamels can be worked within a few hours (because of the catalyst) but standard air dry enamels need more time to fully harden (the surface dries trapping the solvents into the earlier coats).  Seems to me that the nitrocellulose lacquer I used on Jeff's guitar required something in the realm of 150 hours prior to any wet sanding or polishing, so try not to be in too much of a hurry and check the hardness of the total finish thickness somewhere like inside the PU recesses.  Like you say if you go through the top layer and get into something gooey beneath, it would not be good (remember the  pick guards?).
My sanding preference is nothing coarser than 800, and you can easily polish out 1200 grit scratches.... go slow and keep it really wet but you might be surprised how quickly 800 cuts when it's new and sharp!
Another thing is that if you have any texture in your finish (orange peel) a lot of it will pull flat as the paint dries the rest of the way and you may not have that much sanding to do after all.

Looking pretty good there!
Doug

Okay Mike I'll tip a glass in your honour on the 31st under the hot Arizona sun for you.  While you're up here sloshin' in the NW mud, I'll be toasting in warmer climes down south.  Might just wander up to the Desert Bar in Parker for Holloween....  or not, like Russell I quit the strong stuff many years ago, but would an "iced tea" be good enough?

Take Care;
Doug

So Badeye has got Thursday covered... and I've got Friday (10/21) !!

That'll get everybody's weekend started out fine, but don't blame us if your Saturday chores list doesn't get done (OK you can blame us if you want... but we WILL not be responsible for your Bar Tab).

Take Care & Happy Birthday y'all
Doug

Yes!  Nice little setup once installed. 
The only trick to putting them in (other than the tight space working by braille) is to make a template out of cardboard or similar material to properly center each transducer between each pair of strings under the saddle.  What I do is cut a piece and write "UP" on it and then using the outermost bridge pin holes as index points, punch the cardboard so that it can be fitted over the pins from beneath.
While set in place on the outside, draw a line across in line with the bridge, and three "X"s at the centerline of each of the string pairs.
Temporarily affix the transducers on each of those marks with double-sticky tape (clear so you can see your marks) with the surfaces to be glued to the guitar facing up.  Trim off any excess cardboard that might run afoul of any bracing etc that you feel inside.

Then all you have to do is to insert two of your bridge pins to align the guide you have made, apply the adhesive and get it all inside through the sound hole.  Align your template to the pins and press them in place before the glue dries.  You can tuck a folded towel or sponge in there if you like to hold it for awhile and after the glue is set, gently peel your cardboard guide off the pickups and route your wiring to the strap pin/plug assembly.

When drilling the hole for the plug, I use a "brad point" drill bit, although a Forstner would also cut cleanly.  I suppose a brace bit of the proper size would do as well if you wanted to do it carefully, but either way you would like to keep your feed pressure low to prevent grabbing and splintering the exposed wood grain. Hence the drill bit that cuts the perimeter of the hole first makes a nicer cut.

Take Care;
Doug

We kept our fingers crossed and a prayer or two for all you friends in the path of the storm the last couple of days.  Pleased to see that mother nature decided to wind it down a bit before it got around to the major metro areas. 
Still feeling sorry for all those that weren't as fortunate and have a bit of cleanup to do and are grieving for those few who were lost in the path.  It could have been a lot worse.

Check in everyone as soon as you are able and let us know how you fared.

Take Care;
Doug

Yup, a lot like pro-tab or that windows equivalent.  You must be running Linux or some variant thereof, have been running Ubuntu on my laptop for a few months and also installed tuxguitar.  Seems to work well, although the really helpful "help" files are not so useful.  Experimentation is the trick (and a good memory for what you did last time that worked).

Free is always a good price and a fair reason to play around with Linux.  I have found a few applications though that don't really work as well as represented without a bit of fiddling with the programs, for which a small understanding of writing software is helpful.

Take Care;
Doug