#13 Telstar
This one features a profiled Telstar body with Bill Lawrence Keystone
pickups,
USACG US1 24.75" scale neck and a standard tele hardware set. At
this stage the hardware
set including the case is already in. The 4 way switch is ordered and
on its way.
The rough sawn southern myrtle board before cutting the pieces fior
the blank.

The boards have been machined and sanded to size. Two edges have been
carefully
end grain matched and jointed ready for glue up. Even tough this body
is destined for a
solid colour I like to do the job properly. One day the body might
get stripped and
whoever does it will find the tiimber properly grain matched but a
little plain looking.
For a clear finish i would use a droptop of figured maple or similar
to set the job off.

This isn't the body blank but this pic illustrates how the boards
are glued and joined in a set of cramps.
The body is shown after coming off the bandsaw. You can see the texta
outline of the
template I cut to. I leave very little work for the router its just
a tidy up really.
That's stage one finished. The body outline is machined and the next
step will be to cut the
body cavities. I like to do that when the neck is ready so I can get
a good fit to the neck
pocket. The neck is due in any day and there is a pick up slip in
the mail today for a package
from the states, most probably the neck.
Heres the neck that arrived from USACG today. As usual its perfect
in every detail. That
fingerboard sure has plenty of the wow factor.
getting ready for the cavity template. Cut some of the waste with
a 20mm forstner.
The less work for the router the less mess there will be. The blue
squares are double stick
carpet tape. Sticks real tight.
Got the template on and its ready to rock n roll.
So there we have 2 telstars. I cut a second body out of white mahogany.
Very light and
the big thing with this guitar is weight. Its built for a petite young
lady and she wants it
as light as possible so we will choose the body that feels the best
to her.
Ok it's now got its colour. very very white and I think we are going
to knock that back a
shade or two in the direction of cream.
Headstock logo stuck down and sprayed in
All done bar the assembly and set up.
So there she is. Lucky #13 very cool looking with a bit of a retro
vibe. The colours
were chosen by Mandy, the owner. Mandy also designed the spec for
the neck amd
chose her pickups and guard shape. She chose well as not only is it
a fine sounding
guitar it looks very smart.
Shot from the rear showing the forearm contour. I also sports a tummy
cut
Theres a closeup of the body. The Bill Lawrence Keystone pickups in
this guitar sound real good. A big warm punchy sound.
Hotrod Mk2 -
Just started a pair of Hotrods which will be a little different to
the last one. Keep following
the build for more info. I aint gonna give it all away in the first
5 minutes :)
There's the rough blanks ready for machining. Using northern mahogany
for the core of these two
It is a fairly dense heavy timber with a bright tap tone so will be
expecting a ringing sustain.
There's one of the boards getting a facelift. :) Very simple but effective
jig for machining
a flat face on roughsawn boards.

There they are all layed ready for matching, jointing and then the
glueup.
There's one of the blanks glued up. Man what a colour. Pity its gonna
be the back.
But wait till you see whats going on the front.

So I've traced the chambers template on the blank and hogged out most
of the waste. Its a
boring job especia;;y with a hard timber like this as you have to
push through slowly to
stop the 20mm forstner bit from burning

Next job is to screw on the chamber template and cut the edges. The
template then comes
off and you can then Clean up the floor and rout to depth, which in
this case is 5mm. Quite
thin as generally its more like 7 to 8mm for a guitar of this type.
Got the 2 tops cut, bookmatched and glued. Both necks have arrived
and ready for final fret
level, pollish and finish prep. The one on the left needs a bit of
fret work, the one on the
right is perfect. the walnut looks a bit plain at this point but will
really come alive when the
lacquer hits it.

Theres the finished blank marked out reaady for the bandsaw
Cut out as close as I can go to the line - 1/16" and under
Got the template screwed down nice and tight now its ready for machining
the body shape.
Theres the first of the two with a wipe of metho over it to pick up
the colour of that walnut.
In fact I did two bodies. I like doing two at a time because once
you set up one of the
machines for any cut during the process, its only a few more minutes
to make a second cut.

The coulour looks a little weird in this one but you get the idea.
I have run around the body
with a rabetting bit set up in the router table and taken it around
the whole body
to take some cream binding.
Theres a closeup showing off the nice grain in the walnut top.
There's the binding glued down with piles of masking tape holding
it in place. Its a tricky
procedure getting started and then you gotta try hard not to get glue
all over the freshly
sealed body and at the same time make sure its sitting tight onto
the body so there's
no gaps between the binding and the body. I like to seal the body
first because the glue.
when it hits the raw wood, stains it real bad and its a royal PIA
to get it off without
wrecking the nice neat binding job
Starting to look like a guitar now so I took this snap to give an
idea of the finished effect.
I got the control rout and the F hole done. At first I was very sus
on using gold hardware
but mam o man it looks real nice on the walnut with the cream binding.
Its a hybrid Thinline
which I think the big "F" released a very few of initially
before they bought out the texas
[huge] pickguard style that adorned Thinlines and Customs till the
present day.
I will be using a guard on this one but not sure of the shape just
yet.
There's the body almost complete - just need to drill the wiring holes.
output socket recess
and route the pickup cavities. You can see the back binding chanel
routed.
There we are, all setup to cut those pickup cavities
Pretty much ready now for prep and spray.
Fitted the neck to the pocket and you can start to get a feel for
the finished guitar.
Had a lot of trouble with the binding mainly due to fiddling a bit
too much with it here and there.
Actually had to redo it twice and strip the guitars edge back to bare
wood 3 times.

Heres another shot. Shes had a fair few filler coats by now, The walnut
and mahogany have
deep grain lines and take a lot of sanding sealer [filler coats].
Nearly ready to start on the finish coats.
The camera flash has really made the label under the F hole jump out.
Final coats are on and while it cures i will work on the guards. Heres
idea 1 pretty much a
direct ripoff of the stewmac thinline guard. I like it but its up
to the client to choose

This is another idea and this one shows a bit more of the wood at
that time I was hoping
he would choose the other. The guards will be done in mother of toilet
seat. I know how I
am doing the hardtail guard so will save that till the end :)
You can see here a bit of a run on this side. This and all the other
imperfections will be
filled and levelled out as i get into the sanding.

The tele shape has a couple of challenging areas when sanding and
the worst is the recurve
down to the neck pocket on the upper bout followed by the area the
sandpaper is in.
You can see the high tech sanding cauls I use. Note the mask out of
the pocket. I got
that pocket fit real snug and i dont want to make life hard by making
it smaller with lacquer.?
All up including sanding sealer around 20 coats went on these bodies.
I will get a mirror
finish on these guitars.
You can get mighty finicky in this area as every lil dimple. pinhole,
discoloration needs attention.
It depends a lot on how good you are with the gun and how clean the
spray area and the
lacquer itself is. I tend to do a lot of the surface prep when in
the initial stages of grain filling
and sand/sealer. If you got it right there the final sand and buff
is a snack and a real pleasure
as you watch the finish come alive with that "knock yer eyes
out" mirror gloss
I will start the final sandout with around 600 and go to around 1500.
After that i will use a
medium cut meguires followed by swirl remover which will bring a pretty
high gloss. Finish is
with a high quality car polish which will bring up the final shine
and show all the boo boos.
I use a little 1/4 sheet makita OS which saves me arms quite
a lot of work.
Once we got the go ahead on the guard i will cut it but meanwhile
theres plenty to do and
usually about now I will wire up the control plate, sand and buff
the necks and fit off the tuners.

Mext jpb is to get the neck holes cut. As there usuually is a little
wiggle factor I always line
things up pretty good with a laser to ensure the holes in the neck
match the holes in the body.

Clamp it up so nothing moves

Punch a set of marks on the neck.

Everything looks good to go so I can pull the neck and go over to
the drill prees and cut the
screw holes.
T here's the punch marks. I always use a screw that goes almost to
the fretboard and
cut the holes accordingly. The first tighten down is done carefully
as you dont want that
stainless screw breaking off as it will be a real pain to remove.
Once these holes is cut
the neck is ready for sand, buff and polish.
There we go #11 all done ready to rock

Heres #10
#10 rear view
#10 tailpiece

#10 controls
Close up of #11

#10 again
Both these guitars are stunning players. Very light and responsive
to play with a very comfy
feel on the 7.25" radius board. The light build has contributed
a lot towards the "alive" feel of
these guitars. I got to keep #11 and #10 went to Brent who said a
couple of days after he
got the guitar:
"mate, my fingers are red raw from playing this beauty - I can't
put it down - simply awesome"
The Telstar - ex workshop end of march 08
This one started life as a standard tele body but i kind of
like an offset body.
I was working on 3 tele bodies at the time and decided to get a bit
experimental on one.
I got stuck into it with the bandsaw and and tidied it up with the
old robo sander. The
offset body and modded lower horn looked kind of cool to me. Got a
nice pair of OC Duff
vintage wound tele pickups and the usual gotoh hardware set.
This one will be a twang machine but with a back to basic approach
to the finish, look and feel
I want the player to be able to feel the texture of the wood and not
a hard glassy finish
that belongs more on a car than a musical instrument

Above - body cut to shape ready for routing
Smoothing in the belly cut after
blowing off the roughout with a flap sander
This one is a featherweight - weighs just 1.6 kgs or 3.5lbs
- ideal for a tele
I am going to finish this one in danish oil
and carnauba wax - I must admit
i am a bit over
all the fuss and fadoodle with a high gloss and am going for a more
natural look with this one.
The neck is in poly and will keep that gloss but i want to
be able to feel the body wood when i play this one
Laid out and find issues with the neck pocket fit. More work
but it will come out
pretty good in the end. Also the fret hieghts are all over the place
so a good solid
dressing is required. You can see the
laser light i use to line her all up.
1st coat of Danish and I like it a lot. 1 or 2 to go and finish
off with carnauba wax polish.
Way more sympathetic to the wood than poly which sits on the surface
and can chip off.
The finish is part of the wood and it feels like wood to the touch.
Here you can see the profiles and the soft warm sheen of the
oil finish starting to
develop afte just 1 quick coat. I have sanded it up to 1500 grit and
may sand to 2500
after the final coat and before the wax. Or I may just hit it with
swirl remover and buff
that out before the wax polish. I have
kept the roundover radius to a traditional 1/8"
radius so the profiles are clearly defined
The texture of the wood is quite evident in this shot. I am trying
get a much more
woody kind of feel. Even though the neck is a high gloss poly I reckon
its a nice
contrast. I've taken a less is more approach
with this one and the matte black guard will
set it off nice.

Side shot of the profile cuts

Cavities ar carefully shielded with copper foil and earth wires
are soldered from each to a
central point in the control cavity.
The controls and pickups will be soldered into a loop
that termintes there as well. [star grounding]

Using an Electro socket on this build

Setting up the control plate components
for wiring.

Control plate wired up ready to go into the body.

mmm dunno whether i like that black guard - Its a cut down standard
50's style guard
[5 screws instead of the usual 8] I am thinking I might go for a different
colour.

Roughed out a blank in 12mm MDF and stuck the guard on with DS tape
and blocks of 9mm
ply to give a bit of claerance for the router

Taken most of the waste now to tidy up the corners and rythm rout
with a 1/4" bit.

There is the freshly cut master template.
You can see the ply blocks still stuck to the old guard.

Ok I had a pice of laminated guard material in "aged" white.
I would like mother of toilet seat
but don't have any so "aged" white will do. It will look
pretty nice I reckon.

Roughed out the blank on the bandsaw stuck it down to the master with
DS tape and here
you can see I have just cut the bevel which shows the laminates up
pretty good
Poke through some 1/8" holes

Viola! nice "aged" white guard.
There she is in place and everything seems to line up pretty nice.
Next job is to buff out the headstock and clean up the overspray.
I will fit the graphtec nut,
drill the screw holes and bolt the neck on next. After that I can
string up and get the neck relief
right. I am used to a headstock trussrod adjuster so doing it with
a heel adjuster is new to me.
Can't really load the rhythm pickup until the neck is right. I could
mount the rhythm pickup to
the body trad style. That way I can finalise the electronics and set
up at the same time.
Doing it that way I can slide the guard in last. Doing it that way
I gotta get the rythm pickup position
lined up perfect with the guard before I screw it down. I usually
have the rhythm pickup mounted
onto the guard with 3mm adjusting screws so you can change it any
time.
Theres a pic of the finished guitar. Plays very nice actually and
the body is so comfortable.
Its very light to carry. The OC Duff hand wound pickups sure sound
sweet. It's a real players
guitar this one. Its plain looks bely its beautiful sweet tone. Sounds
great through the 5E3 and
really sparkles through the 5F4
Twin Teles
The story of Fatman and Myrtle - Due
ex workshop Jan 08
I sold my main tele in September 07 and the guy who bought it has
a twin brother who wanted a tele as well .
So i began two new projects. A tele for the twin brother and one for
me to replace the one I just sold.
Heres the blank for the southern myrtle tele

Template on Fatman blank for markout

The blank all glued up and marked out ready for the bandsaw
The Myrtle bandsawn
Body shaped routed and ready for cavities
Cavities cut and hardware laid out and everything measures up pretty
good

Cutting the profiles is almost done - next step roundovers - always
a PIA - in some ways I would rather
bind a body
Theres the neck with its shader coats

One coat of sealer down and the neck masked and ready for the gun
At this stage I always wonder about spraying colour over the grain.
It's not a eyeball knockout job
but would be a very nice understated look if left natural - oh well
There they are with the last coat of vintage white applied - The clear
will be shot in about 2-3 days
Myrtle laid out with basic hardware in place - The gloss has been
shot and curing now for 12 days
I will look at buffing it out in about a week or ten days. - as usual
there is a bit of fine tuning the fit here and there.
The body looks offset but thats just parralax from the camera angle.
All in all a smart looking tele. I am glad
I did one for me in this colour. A mate of mine though is starting
to nag me for it already.
Looks like I will need to build another one straight up. I usually
dont use solid colour so for me these two are a bit
unusual. Solid colour is more challenging for me tryning to get that
dead right over 100% of the body.
Myrtle body buffed out, shielded and the control unit ready go in.
Waiting for the Seymour Duncan
Broadcaster & Vintage Rhythm pickups to arrive. This one will
be a TWANG monster.
Fatman body all done bridge in we just gotta fit the neck. Its called
Fatman because it has a big fat neck and
A pair of Duncan Hot Tele pickups for a FAT tone, Just right for a
fat old dude like me LOL.
This one's gonna be mine. HOPES!!
Getting a final fret dress and polish.
Heres Fatman ready for the road - shes very light with a real kickarse
tone - spot on for
blues, rock whatever - the boat neck profile is kind of like a 59
roundback, 1" thick at the heel
and the nut. If you like a big sound and a big neck get one of these.
I am going to keep this
one as a demo for a few months then it will probably go up for sale.
This is the Myrtle ready for sale. Peter is picking it up in a few
days
And thats the end or the beginning of the story depending on who's
looking at it.
Ex workshop workshop in late August 07
Tele style Thinline
It started off with this bookmatched maple imported from Vedder Mountain
in Chilliwack Canada
Thinline Tele
Mahogany with Big Leaf maple cap.
The chambers have been cut, 1/4" Big Leaf maple cap
glued down tight, body shape routed and sanded pretty fine. It's
now ready for the neck pocket, pickup and control routs to be
cut. Then comes the binding and the "F" hole also needs
to be cut. See below for a mock up layout.
That maple cap looks pretty cool. It should give quite a beefy
sound with the Duncan 1/4 pound lead and STR-2 or 3 rhythm pickup.
I have a chambered maple tele I use quite a bit that has a P90
in the rythm position and it sounds killer. I might do the same
with this one. Tossing up whether to go the whole hog and put
a modern Tele bridge instead of the cheesy trad pressed steel
number shown in the mockup below.
Not sure whether to rear cut the control rout or use the normal
steel plate with a stewmac thinline guard. These look cool and
a bit different to the acres of plastic used in a standard thinline
guard. |
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| There she is, all laid out ready for
marking up the body routs bridge holes etc. That neck by the way,
is a Warmoth compound radius, Rosewood on birdseye maple. It's
a standard thin profile with a single action vintage truss rod
adjusted from the peghead. The Gotoh kluson copy tuners are already
installed. It is finished in polyurethane. The body gets a tinted
colortone guitar lacquer finish. I will probably use the Vintage
Amber I put on the swamp ash tele in thefor sale area. I will
probably use a bit more red on this one to warm the colour up
a bit. |
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| Put some strings on to test the intonation and string
relief. It sounds pretty nice accoustically. Bright with plenty
of ring and sustain. I think this one will be a great guitar when
finished. I got some Seymour Duncan Hots STL[R]-2 so she will
be a sweet little arse kicker. Now for the final routs, purfling
and binding. I put the bigsbyon there to see what it looked like.
It is a little too big with that long brass Gotoh bridge. I will
save the Bigsby for another project. So as not to hide too much
of that flame I will use a cut down guard, maybe even a clear
one. |
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| Just trimmed out the cavities and next step is the
binding channels |
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| Just gone past the router to cut the binding chanels.
I used to do this with a hand held dremel [shudder] |
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| You can see we got a bit of burning on the end grain.
This bigleaf maple is damn hard. It will clean up good with some
paper and will be just fine |
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| Lookin like a refugee from casualty, shes got the
binding in place and all taped down to set up real good for a
day or two |
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| Binding in and I have shot the shaders onto the
back and sides now for tape up and shoot the top. |
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The mahogany back has come up a real treat. You
can see the neck all taped down ready for the gun just behind
the body
.
I have thought a lot abot the pickups and will use Seymour vintage
stacks. I got a gotoh hd steel and brass bridge and will use a
set of Kluson tuners. |
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Wow!! that honey blonde shader really makes that
top come alive . This is gonna be one real pretty looking tele.
Couple more coats of clear then its into the drying room for month
before I buff the finish.
The neck below has been signed and I will put the final clear
coats on that today as well. In the meantime I got to finally
decide on the pickups and get in the hardware. I decided on duncan
hot stack lead and vintage rhythm stack |

The neck all done |
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| Neck bolted down and caivities are well sheilded
with copper foil. Time to set up the hardware and electronics |
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| There she is ready for the road - actually it is
a pretty hot guitar this one - really in your face with the Duncan
Hot Stack bridge and a sound as big as the Tanami dersert on the
Duncan Vintage Stack neck. |
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Seafoam Tele
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Heres how she finished up . I used Duncan Broadcaster lead and
vintage rythm pickups. During a build I think a lot how a guitar
will end up and sometimes its different to what I imagined. Sometimes
I go back over the notes and think "Oh yeah I was gonna do
that" or "mm I'm glad I didn't do that". Sometimes
I will use the discarded ideas on the next build. This one turned
out pretty nice and ended up using it for around 18 months as
my main stage guitar. I got some crazing on the back of the body
were I rubbed it out too hard and the finish crazed when it cooled
off. I used hat as an excuse to hang onto it plus I needed a good
solid tele at the time |
Pics
from the build
Solid 2 piece Myrtle body. Myrtle is kind of like Alder in many
respects. It is tight grained and light with just a little more
pink than alder.
The neck is again a Warmoth Rosewood on Maple, compound radius
neck which is dream to play on. It has a standard thin contour
with 6150 [jumbo] frets. The bridge there didn't end up on the
guitar. I ended up using a Gotoh HD with stainless saddles
Repro gotoh heads are planned
You can see the forearm contour and it also has a tummy cut
to accomodate my fat belly. I will probably finish this in either
a Brit Racing green or a deep bottle green. It will have a customised
strat style Vintage pearl guard.
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Pickups at this stage will probably be Seymour Tele stacks. Although
I have a few spare hotties lying around waiting for just such
a project. This one is gonna be the hotrod tele I always wanted
but never owned. |
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| You can just make out the reshaped headstock
in this pic. |
| Finish is on!
After a couple of weeks in the office it will be ready to buff
and pollish.
Wow, love that seafoam green. I always wanted a guitar in this
old Fender colour. I cut a uni rout at the neck. You can get
a mini, humbuck or P90 into that rout if you want to swap out
the SD STR2 that is going in there. The guard will be a custom
job. Tele-esque but a liitle different.
Got to strip off the masking over the pocket and the neckplate
rout on the rear. Still need to finish the steel slab neckplate
on this one. The front needs cutting and the plate is still
to be pollished and plated.
Colour is commercial acrylic with clear colortone water based
guitar lacquer on top. Got the SD ST2's and all the hardware.
This one will bo heading out the door in the 2-3 weeks |
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Solid
Mahogany - Based roughly in the Gibson Blueshawk shape
Here's some pics from the build
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| String up test - The Schaller Roller bridge and
Grover locking tuners make this guitar very stable. I had the
intonation and setup done within 5 minutes and it sounds very
loud and ringy accoustcally. A very good sign that this one is
going to have the "tone of doom". I have a pair of Seymour
Vintage P 90's for this one. Next job is to pull it down and prepare
the neck and body for spraying. |
| Had some bits of Mahogany left over out of
the slab I bought last Autumn so I lammed up a 3 piece solid
blank and cut this body. You can see one of the the joins on
the bottom bout. You cant see the glues lines on the rear so
will leave that as is and prolly go over the front with a 50's
style car colour maybe Brit racing green or a deep plum colour.
Will use a white mother of toilet seat guard. She will look
pretty smart sporting the Schaller roller bridge and SD Vintage
p90's.
Got a Warmoth strat maple/rosewood neck to go on this one. The
stock was a big old 70's CBS slab which I cut down a bit to
make it balance with the small body better. Man those CBS Strat
stocks are big. I reckon they only look good on a big old Jazzmaster
or Jaguar body.
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Neck pocket Routing
All set up ready to cut the pocket. You can see there is no
chance of anything moving as it is down real tight. Before clamping
I use DS tape to sit the template down so it don't move when I
apply pressure on those clamps. Got a routing mat down so we don't
pick up any dags off the bench top when it is tightened down.
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Pocket cut. Damn! the binding pulled up when the cutter
hit it. Restuck with masking tape holding it in place pretty
tight. There is always something new and fun in work like this.
oo
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Patterns
Just cut the patterns to make the templates for routing the
control and pickup cavities. The guard is done as well. Next comes
the tricky bit of making it up into masters out of 9mm ply. From
them I will cut 12mm MDF working copies. I don't like working
with master templates cos if you wreck it you gotta do the whole
thing from scratch again. ooo
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She'll look something like the above.
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| Hawk Junior
Thinline
Another killer Big Leaf Curly maple cap from Vedder Mountain,
Canada, on a Mahogany body. That kind of swirling flamey pattern
towards the front of the quitar is known as spalting and makes
very cool patterns when you get in close. Some of it will get
covered up by the pickups and guard.
The design is based on the old Gibson Blueshawk with a string
through body, Hipshot "Hardtail" bridge. I will use
Seymour p90's with cream covers. There are 3 single coils to
choose from trad, hot and very hot and a few humbucker options
as well. Probably will go for hots as the trad style can be
a bit nasaly and bright. Although with all that mahogany around
them, trad's might be pretty warm
I have a real nice Warmoth mahogany LP Style neck with a cool
curly maple laminated headstock I am going fit to this guitar.
The resemblance to the gibson ends here as it is a bolt on 25
1/2" scale. The wiring will be quite different to its antecedent
as well.
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Warmoth neck
Rosewood on Mahogany with curly maple laminated headstock.
Compound radius 10" - 16" with 6150 frets [jumbo's]
Scale length 25 1/2" and its a bolt on job |
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Next stage
Neck pocket cut and binding in. Just went over the top
face with my brand new veritas cabinet scraper. Suer beats
the hell out of sandpaper. Still a few small details to take
care of before the initial string up. Cut the neck bolt holes,
mount the Hipshot Hardtail string through bridge. Next is
to finally decide on the pickups, cut the routs, design and
cut the custom guard. I am more and more leaning to using
min humbuckers in this one. I really the cutting ballsy tones
of the Old Gibson Firebirds and Seymour Duncan have a vintage
model I can try. Maybe Dimarzio's plain mini might look better
without that big g "S" stamped onto the front of
the SD unit.
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| I must catch up with this project and
get some more shots up. I have done quite a lot since the above
shot was taken. Here you can see that I have cut the control electronics
access port. |
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Below
are some shots of the finished guitar
Ive missed out most of the finishing, strinup testing etc pics
on this build.
I ended up using seymour 59's instead of P90's I must say that
this one has surpassed my expectations on sound and feel. It
is a beautiful guitar to play and has a bright vintage jangle
and excellent sustain. It has a warm sweet tone from the neck
to die for and a raw, ball busting rocking blues tone from the
bridge. I love this guitar and its going to be hard to say goodbye
when she goes
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