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Yep, as a dual wick/coil set up in a Kraken clone, works really well for me but seems very juice thirsty compared to silica.

Nice work piper1.
That's how old machinery should look, nicely worn in and shiny.

I'm not going to be popular over this but hey............

Many 'name' guitars are frankly shite, I say this not out of any particular prejudice, but as someone that has repaired loads of 'famous' instruments over the years.
Out of the big two electric guitar manufacturers I'd put Fender in front of Gibson every day of the week, why?
Because Leo Fender looked at designing a guitar from an engineers point of view, he considered repairability as well as esthetics, you can tip a Strat or a Telecaster on it's arse and be fairly sure the headstock won't snap off, try doing the same to a Gibson Les Paul, I've lost count of the headstock repairs I've had to make to Les Pauls.

Personal prejudice aside, factory instruments are in the main, overpriced and badly made. Every now and then one might come out of the factory with the magic combination of tonewoods plus hardware but that's a rarity, I've handled custom shop guitars retailing in the thousands that have a finish that could have been applied by a six year old with a pot of coloured varnish. I kid you not.

Believe it or not, one of my 'go to' guitars is a Cort X6 that I took in for a re-fret years ago and the client never came back for it. It ticks all the boxes, it's comfortable to play and whilst I'm not a huge fan of Floyd Rose trems this one behaves itself. The Cort was probably around £250 off the shelf for whoever bought it and it out-performs most guitars.

Spending thousands on an instrument is no guarantee of quality, as many disgruntled Gibson owners will attest to.

Free kit from the NHS?
Hmm, that'll be something along the lines of a recycled old brass paraffin blowlamp fitted with a dynamo that powers a torch lightbulb that you are meant to use as a dripper.

I accidentally strayed into the 'sub ohm' universe this morning after making a new coil whilst half asleep. The subsequent throat searing result brought me spluttering into consciousness PDQ.

Looks like an example made from uber rare Adamantium to me, if so hang on to it cos it's worth a bomb. If it turns out to be run-of-the-mill copbrassnikeloid, just ignore my ramblings.

Yep, but in my box of assorted taps I have nearly every metric and imperial size I could possibly want, except an M7.5 because it's not a common thread pitch. M7.1 however are two a penny but too coarse for 510 connectors.


Solved it by cutting a small groove at 90 deg to the threads on an old clearo 510 connector and using that as a tap for the Delrin insulator.
This is an old trick I've done before to cut threads in plastic, file a groove in the bolt you want to use and use it as a tap, works for wood and plastics, might even work on ally.