Another custom guitar

[Citizen_2]

Oh no, not another one, I hear you cry! Anyway, seeing as one or two peeps liked the pics in the luthiery thread, here are some more. Had intended to wait for some good weather and take some outside, but seeing as we're obviously not going to get any this year, you'll have to live with the duvet.

 

 

Wanted something with a fixed bridge that'd rock out a bit more than my Strat, hopefully to the point of producing some Matt-ish sounds, while also being versatile enough to dial back nicely. Had a bit of spare time over the summer, so this is what's occurred.

 

Had a really good idea what I wanted (and didn't want), but as I hadn't built a guitar before, opted to get hold of an unfinished ash t-type body and an unfinished maple/rosewood paddle head neck. Figured this would minimise the chances of screwing up and also saved a bit of money on tools - primarily fingerboard radiussing and fretting. In the end the body and neck were a lot better quality than I'd have expected for the money so I really went to town. Ended up making so many modifications to get it all how I wanted it that starting from blank would almost certainly have been quicker, but the result sounds triffic and, IMHO at least, looks the nad's. Anyway, less words, more pics:

 

 

The bridge is Gotoh, pickups are MBK2s and the pots are CTS 500s with a .47 cap. I wanted as versatile a range of tones as possible, so after a fair bit of testing, and modifying a Fender super-switch, pickup selection's like this:

 

5: Neck

4: Neck & bridge inner coil

3: Neck & bridge, both coils in parallel

2: Bridge in parallel

1: Bridge normal

 

And yes, there's a built-in FF. It was either acoustic saddles or a fuzz, and I already had the fuzz. Saddles can easily be added easily in future tho, holes from the bridge are already drilled and there's plenty of space in the cavities for the preamp and controls.

 

More in a minute!

[Citizen_2]

 

The raw neck turned out to be pretty good. Fingerboard radius looks to be 12" and the maple's actually got some nice figuring, which isn't shown to best effect in these pics.

 

The neck itself was a bit thick, so I reprofiled it to match my Strat's. Both the heel and the neck pocket needed trimming to get the heights and angles right, but that's just part of building. The included nut wasn't so good, but that's been replaced with the Fender one (expensive nut, but no need to shell out on nut files). The frets aren't the best but they're more than good enough for now.

 

 

The laquer on the head is buffed to full shine like the body, but the neck's been taken down to satin. Tuners are Schaller staggered/locking. A bit heavier than some but they work great and the guitar still balances nicely, thanks in part to the heavy brass control knobs.

[Musemaniac#2]

man thats awesome

[Guest bshuker]

I really love the quality of that, also I like the headstock, copy of the Suhr style headstocks right?

 

But yeah, that looks like a really well put together guitar, I likes.

 

Just don't like the Fuzz factory and pickup combination

[Neil.]

looks awesome. nice work. perhaps a pic in general luthiery to add to that thread?

[Citizen_2]

 

I made routing templates to cut both the cavity covers and the recesses they're sitting in, so they all fit in really nice. Still not sure whether tortoise is the nicest colour for 'em, might make a set in black and see what that looks like. The one up by the top horn is empty, but I put it there and drilled through purely to save the need for serious surgery should I want to add anything to the guitar in future. Could be a killswitch, could be piezo controls, who knows?

 

 

The body was stained before five coats of nitrocellulose, then rubbed and buffed up. Really pleased with the finish.

[Musemaniac#2]

ehh love the guitar, not keen on the tort back plates, black would have been fine

[toff]

THat finish is fucking ossum. I like how you kinda strat-ified(lol) the mansons tele headstock, looks neat.

[Citizen_2]

ehh love the guitar, not keen on the tort back plates, black would have been fine

 

I'm not about to disagree with that! , Never been 100% happy with the current ones. If it was a bit darker and matched the body red that'd be one thing. When I get round to it I'll do some in black.

 

As for the fuzz, well it doesn't spent that much time switched on. It may or may not stay in there when I get round to doing the acoustic stuff. Pickups too I thought quite a bit about before jumping for the Manson set. However, I really like both of 'em, and the neck/bridge slug coil option was a really nice surprise, gives a Tele-type twang that I wasn't expecting to get.

[toff]

I would honestly buy that guitar off you for good money.

[Neil.]

same here. if i had money.

 

i doubt you'll sell it for €20

[Citizen_2]

same here. if i had money.

 

i doubt you'll sell it for €20

 

Cheers both! Funnily enough I took it into ye old local guitarre shoppe the other day to try and get a case for it, and yerman behind the counter had a small amount of difficulty believing it wasn't commercially made, which I took as a big compliment. As for selling it, not for any money. Having spent all the time making it, it's just far too nice to play!

 

Here's a few in progress pix to round up:

 

 

Here's a fillet of wood, taken out of the FF control cavity, about to be cut into the front to fill in the gap in the tele pickup rout that would otherwise have existed between the bridge and the humbucker ring. I did the same for the control cavity, cutting the bottom of the cavity out, trimming the resultant piece to exactly the right size and then setting it into the front to fill the existing hole. Got a really good grain match this way. The standard tele pickguard holes were filled in with plugs made from scrap wood I got from cutting the bottom horn down. You've got to look really close at the finished guitar to see any of the fills.

 

 

Here are the cavity cover templates. Took a bit longer doing these than it would have to rout the body freehand, but it was safer this way and I can use the templates again in future.

 

 

Here's the near complete body ready for the binding to be applied

 

 

And there it is in place. Wasn't sure how easy or otherwise it'd be to bind round a forearm cut, but in the end it was fine. You can just about see the difference in grain where the control cavity has been filled, but with the finish on, it pretty much disappears.

 

 

Here's the back just prior to build-up. I managed to get hold of a free sample of some really nice silver-loaded industrial shielding paint. It stinks like hell, but goes on really nice and doesn't come off on your hands (and so need laquering over) like the carbon-loaded stuff. Works really well too.

 

 

This is the switch, after modification. Spot the difference!

[gunnerthekiwi]

That thing is stunning. Possibly the best looking guitar project I've seen on here, kudos.

[Phill]

great work. that's really impressive!

[cheddatom]

Yeh i'm impressed! I agree on black cavity covers though.

[Mad_Clown]

that guitar is hot...hope your taking notes zooropa! :LOL:

 

Yeah, sort the cavity covers out mate, apart from that, i would buy it for decent money. £500 or so.

[coffee_and_tv]

congrats on that! especially the finish - looks lovely

 

on the cavity covers: it really doesnt matter unless you plan on selling it tbh. whenever you play it, theyll be out of sight, so its kinda irrelevant innit?

[Phill]

that guitar is hot...hope your taking notes zooropa! :LOL:

 

Yeah, sort the cavity covers out mate, apart from that, i would buy it for decent money. £500 or so.

 

£500 isn't decent money though, it probably cost more than that in parts alone!!

[Citizen_2]

£500 isn't decent money though, it probably cost more than that in parts alone!!

 

Aye, Mansons want that for a frickin' Squier Tele with an onboard FF, and without wanting to sound too big-headed, mine's a bit higher class than any Squier you're out to find!

 

And yep, overall bill of materials, if you include the Fuzz, is a few quid either side of £500, without even thinking about the work that went into it. I ain't gonna sell it, but if I did, it'd be for a lot more than that.

 

As for the cavity covers c&tv, believe you me, it does matter! Pretty much every time I catch sight of them, something in the back of my head goes "hmmm, not quite right". It's just a few minutes' work to cut another set, so I'll do it sooner or later for my own piece of mind. Just need some suitable material and an excuse to get the router out.

[Pluginbabydoll]

As for the cavity covers c&tv, believe you me, it does matter! Pretty much every time I catch sight of them, something in the back of my head goes "hmmm, not quite right".

 

As a girl, I have to second this. They look hideous but overall the rest of the guitar looks sooo gorgeous. You did a really good job with it!!! I'm not a huge fan of the headstock but I think it's more that the burst colour looks to extreme than the shape of it.

 

I'd love for you to put up some demos so we can hear how this baby sounds

[coffee_and_tv]

As for the cavity covers c&tv, believe you me, it does matter! Pretty much every time I catch sight of them, something in the back of my head goes "hmmm, not quite right". It's just a few minutes' work to cut another set, so I'll do it sooner or later for my own piece of mind. Just need some suitable material and an excuse to get the router out.

 

yeah, fair enough to want to make new ones if they bother you. was just thinking from the point of view of an audience member in a gig

[iwantamanson]

black cavity plates are boring though.

id so keep those! they look pretty good!

[cheddatom]

You can get black tort can't you? Either way the red tort is clashing with the finish. If you like them you're obviously retarded.

[musecasters]

your routing is perfect, very impressive mate, a beautiful guitar

[Citizen_2]

Thanks Musecasters, it's the great work guys like Phill and yourself did that inspired me to have a go, and showed what can be achieved, so to get some kudos back means a lot.

 

As a girl, I have to second this. They look hideous

 

Right, that's it guys. The minute a girl says they suck, something's got to be done!

 

The tortoiseshell blight could have been worse. I made the template for this at the same time as the plates. I was always hoping that I'd never need to use it, but it was there as a backstop either if the finish didn't work out, or if the lacquer proved a bit prone to pick marks:

 

 

Definitely better off without! I'll get some recording done and post some samples up once my fingers are back in the habit of playing rather than making!