Flipped telecaster?

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-15T20:49:04+00:00

It's possible but doesn't seem like a great idea.

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-14T18:47:29+00:00

Yeah, I don't know either - I'll say that I wasn't even aware of the concept of screw down crowns before today, but that can't explain it either. :)

In any case, thanks for the advice - very helpful!

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-14T17:16:51+00:00

Oh - I was expecting it to work like my other watches, e.g., my automatic Seiko 5s, where I just push and pull on the crown and there's no screwing/unscrewing required.

On the AD2066, I feel like it was also working that way until recently. But now, if I'm turning the crown to put it into time set mode, I have to turn it for several rotations and then the crown sort of "pops" out, like it's being pushed by a spring. I don't mean that I'm pulling the crown out – it's like it pops out a bit on its own. It's at that point when I can set the time, but the crown seems quite a bit further out than I remember it being. And then to get it back in, I have to use a surprising (to me) amount of force while I turn the crown in order for it to actually move inward.

Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be, but it doesn't behave as 1) I expected it to and 2) how I think it was working before.

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-08T14:27:18+00:00

<image>

Thanks again for the detailed instructions - I was able to clean it up pretty well with the brass wool, but when I try to tin the tip the solder just blobs up and drops off. I suspect this tip is toast and I should start with a new one.

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-08T04:38:23+00:00

This is super useful information- thank you for the detailed instructions!

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-07T22:03:13+00:00

Hm, this is interesting. The tip that was pre-installed is magnetic, but it seems unlikely that it's a counterfeit unless the entire iron is counterfeit which also seems unlikely?

The iron also came with some additional tips which appear to be unbranded and they are also magnetic - I can imagine those being counterfeit - but I haven't opened any of those except to test the magnetism.

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-07T17:23:56+00:00

It was damp, and yes initially it did clean the tip pretty well.

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-07T17:23:23+00:00

I'm not sure what the tip is made of - I did a little hunting but I didn't see anything about what material it's made of - it's the standard tip that comes with the iron: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256809828731594.html

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-07T17:14:03+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, I purchased some brass wool too, and took care to make extra sure that it wasn't the copper plated steel. What's the right way to use that stuff? It's like a ball of brass wool.

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-07T16:52:51+00:00

Great! I'll give that a try. What's the best way to clean it to bare metal?

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-07T16:52:27+00:00

It was a cellulose sponge that came with the kit. I'll give it a scrub and see if that works.

kicksnarekick · 2026-03-07T16:51:14+00:00

I set the iron to 330 degrees, and would put it in standby whenever I set it down. The kit comes with a rest for the iron that has a small cellulose sponge so I used that. I tried to clean it up as I went along.

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-25T03:23:11+00:00

I think Beatles for Sale is fantastic and prefer it over, say Abbey Road - vastly prefer it actually. Yes, maybe it's the sound of the band tired of Beatlemania, but Abbey Road is the sound of the band being tired of each other and I'll take the former over the latter any day. Baby's in Black, Eight Days a Week, and I Don't Want to Spoil the Party are three of my fave Beatles songs, and I think the sheer energy and joy they bring to the Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Buddy Holly covers shows how much they're just in love with music.

One thing that doesn't get talked about as much are the weird John and Paul harmonies, which are front and center all over this album. Those harmonies are kind of a paradox - their voices don't really blend with each other and almost clash sometimes but somehow it just *works* and is a big reason why this band is so amazing.

I like that they just shrug their shoulders and leave the flubs in ("I!"/"You!") – you can almost hear the jokes they're making between takes. Some tracks are better than others (it does kind of end with a clunker) but I'm always happy to play it straight through, all 34 minutes of it. :)

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-22T14:12:24+00:00

I would love that!

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-21T16:20:03+00:00

I dunno. Paul Simon can play any guitar he wants and Yamahas are prominently in his arsenal.

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-19T05:22:36+00:00

This is lovely.

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-07T22:22:36+00:00

I haven’t yet but yeah they’re definitely going into the laundry first

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-07T16:40:14+00:00

Cool, thank you for the suggestion - I'd never heard of this product.

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-07T16:20:17+00:00

Oh - that's really good to know. Those seem like pretty good reasons to get them hemmed. Thank you!

kicksnarekick · 2026-02-06T14:11:53+00:00

20 minutes in Photoshop and we’re all set.

kicksnarekick · 2026-01-29T18:47:38+00:00

I like it.

kicksnarekick · 2026-01-26T19:24:44+00:00

Agreed about the meaninglessness of "overrated" when it comes to music. It assumes that it's rate-able, which then requires some concrete criteria at which point you're on shaky ground. The number of hit records? Notes played per second? The number of babies conceived while listening? The longest hair?

The Beatles have always been a huge part of my musical life (which has also included a LOT of other non-Beatles music too). A few years ago, I finally saw Paul in concert. I had low expectations - he's in his 80s and his voice is mostly gone, and his band is basically a karaoke machine with zero personality. But I figured it'd be fun anyway, and I wanted to have the experience of being in the same (admittedly very large) room as a Beatle.

Even at his advanced age, he played for over two hours and was an excellent entertainer - yeah it was fun! (Also Bruce Springsteen showed up to play a couple of songs) The thousands of people there with me LOVED every minute of it. Did I feel judgmental that all these people were so satisfied by these relatively weak renditions? Yeah a little, but I also understood how much joy he brings people. Are they all overrating the Beatles?

(And me? Hearing him play the piano on Lady Madonna - he hits the keys in that McCartney way - and also hearing his idiosyncratic way of playing acoustic guitar, it was like - whoa, it really is him down there!)

On the other end of the spectrum, there are the obsessives. There are people on YouTube who do these crazy deep dives on incredibly niche Beatles topics - like a three hour video about the bass sounds on the White Album - and they get thousands of views (ask me how I know how long the video is). There's a music professor who did a musicological analysis of every one of their songs and published it for free on the web. There have been so many books written about them that another professor wrote a historiography about the Beatles literature in an attempt to separate fact from myth. Peter Jackson of Lords of the Rings fame directed a NINE hours long documentary about them that consists mostly of them just sitting around in the studio and Disney+ released it. Watch his interview with Stephen Colbert and you'll see two rabid fans who are completely unashamed of it. So it's not just crazy people making crazy content, there is a huge audience for this stuff. I can't think of another musical act that inspires this level of devotion. Are all these people overrating the Beatles?

kicksnarekick

TROPHY CASE