Post by DarKnight on Dec 29, 2008 16:32:26 GMT -5
Ok so this is something I finished in october. My first project and it's been under development for over four years. Partly, cos I haven't had suffiecient time or will to start it. Building took about three months and I tried not to rush it, cos I knew I would prolly make some catastrophic mistakes if I did. I think I pulled it out quite well. Sorry that there are quite a few pics - I had so much fun building it that I forgot to take the camera with me. 
So let's cut to the chase:
My idea was to go for something 80's heavy metal -styleish guitar. So two humbuckers, bright colours... Weird shape... Pointy things... Something that looks fast and such... So there was a bunch of ideas on my mind and I let some of the ideas cook and proceeded as I had found things that I liked.
As being my first project I was a bit concerned about my woodworking skills and decided not to build the neck. So I stumbled across this cheap sevenstringer and I got one from B-stock which had been dropped on the floor and the headstock was missing a small piece. Nothing I couldn't fix. So here is the donor guitar:
So I took the neck, lock and the tuners from this guitar. I was going to refret the whole neck and give it a full scallop. I also flatted it out and made it thinner. It's quite similar in thickness to Ibanez Universe -necks... So it's quite thin. Pics of that later.
So my next step was to build the body and I had gone thru numerous designs thru the years and now I had found something I liked. I had copied the "waist" of the body from my cheap BC Rich Warlock which had, in my opinion, wonderful body for playing in sitting position. After sketching on the paper I transported my work to Inkscape so I could print it later on. I also had thoughts about wiring at this point and my final plans was to use slightly modified HBD wiring found on this forum. Here is link to the wiring I used, hope there is no mistakes: Wiring
Here is the rough Inkscape-plan:
I planned to make a bolt-on neck with some heavy duty bolts, ended up using five. I also made so called all access neck joint and it seems to work really well. Easy thing to do.
The body was made out of finnish birch. Laminated from around ten pieces, so it's quite hard and sturdy, weighs a ton. I cut out the rough shape with a saw and then cut out the final shape with router and a template. I made template out of plywood with my inkscape-drawing. As a side project I decided also to build a hard case for the guitar. It seemed to be a good idea to have something to do while glue or paint dries... Or you need a break from the main project. Here's the pic of raw materials so far:
The case is also made from birch and sides will be plywood, so it will be also quite sturdy and heavy, but it turned out to be relatively light considering the materials. We'll return to that case later on.
I spent lot of time sanding and routing the body. I decided to bolt pickups straight to the wood. I had strat-style bridge for this seven stringer so I also prepared the body to accept that. Neck joint was made to accept that slightly asymmetric donor-neck perfectly. I think that is one very important thing when building a guitar. It came out snug and tight.
Next I it was time to refret the neck. That was a bit scary, but it was quite easy actually. I started out by taking off the old frets which were quite badly installed in the first place. So I thought I couldn't make things MUCH worse... I sanded neck flat with belt-sander and then made new fret slots and pounded new frets in. Then I spent some time filing the frets level and in to shape. I had no proper fret file, but I managed to get them in decent shape without.
Then I proceeded with the scalloping. I took a round file and went straight down near the fretwire on both sides and when got to the desider depth, took a flat file and sanded out the middle. It seemed to be quite a good way. I went thru neck markers, so I went for Brian May-style marking for better visual aid. So there are three dots on the 12th and two on the 7th and vice versa.
Here is the neck with scallop, new frets, markers glued in and waiting for finishing. Still have to rout back cavities for the body and holes for the pots and such. At this point I had a silly grin on my face that I might accomplish something.
Close-up on the neck, it's quite a deep scallop...
Ok, then I got to the point where I could start painting. I had many colors to choose from and first I ALMOST made a mistake and paint it black. Luckily I found this cool color... You'll see it later, but first I'll jump back to the hard case for a moment. So I had built it and the two halves had just got the primer:
And then I found this color from local hardware store (couldn't believe they actually had one...
Now add some locks and handles... (warning, freaky pants on the top left corner, bell-bottom jeans with huge wide pink stripes, and pockets, I might add.. sad...)
And paint a girl on the side with a scene... Tada! (the other side is just blank)
I finished the case first so I could store the unfinished guitar in it.
Away from humidity and bumbs and such. I had internals made such that the guitar will sit there snuggly.
So now back to the guitar itself. Primed the thing and started painting. Main color would be green and hardware and the back of the neck would be black. So here it is in the mid-way... You can see cavity cover peeking on the left. Covered in black fake-leather and some cushion in it.. It is quite comfy.
And after some more layers and adding some hardware.
After these pics there was still some tweaking with the frets, intonation and such. Wiring still missing from that pic... The guitar has since seen few gigs and many hours of playing and is still alive and kicking. I'd say it plays fantastic, which surprised me! It's quite fast and scallop gives it a whole new feel. I put in DiMarzio X2N and Air Norton -buckers and those work great. I like using Air Norton alone or then mixing it with X2N so I can get some high end shrill to that. Considering the looks there ARE quite a few cosmetic things, but nothing serious. Considering that I had no proper equipment I did fine. And the sound matters right? I'll post something more recent in following days if I get a chance.
The Body
Finished!
Huge thanks goes to this community and particularly to ChrisK, Sumgai, JohnH, newey... can't even remember all... but you know who you are! This was a great exprience and I look forward to start a new project.
And drop some questions if you have any and I'll also update given answers to this post if I've forgotten something. I wrote this in quite a hurry.
Cheers
Dark
So let's cut to the chase:My idea was to go for something 80's heavy metal -styleish guitar. So two humbuckers, bright colours... Weird shape... Pointy things... Something that looks fast and such... So there was a bunch of ideas on my mind and I let some of the ideas cook and proceeded as I had found things that I liked.
As being my first project I was a bit concerned about my woodworking skills and decided not to build the neck. So I stumbled across this cheap sevenstringer and I got one from B-stock which had been dropped on the floor and the headstock was missing a small piece. Nothing I couldn't fix. So here is the donor guitar:
So I took the neck, lock and the tuners from this guitar. I was going to refret the whole neck and give it a full scallop. I also flatted it out and made it thinner. It's quite similar in thickness to Ibanez Universe -necks... So it's quite thin. Pics of that later.
So my next step was to build the body and I had gone thru numerous designs thru the years and now I had found something I liked. I had copied the "waist" of the body from my cheap BC Rich Warlock which had, in my opinion, wonderful body for playing in sitting position. After sketching on the paper I transported my work to Inkscape so I could print it later on. I also had thoughts about wiring at this point and my final plans was to use slightly modified HBD wiring found on this forum. Here is link to the wiring I used, hope there is no mistakes: Wiring
Here is the rough Inkscape-plan:
I planned to make a bolt-on neck with some heavy duty bolts, ended up using five. I also made so called all access neck joint and it seems to work really well. Easy thing to do.
The body was made out of finnish birch. Laminated from around ten pieces, so it's quite hard and sturdy, weighs a ton. I cut out the rough shape with a saw and then cut out the final shape with router and a template. I made template out of plywood with my inkscape-drawing. As a side project I decided also to build a hard case for the guitar. It seemed to be a good idea to have something to do while glue or paint dries... Or you need a break from the main project. Here's the pic of raw materials so far:
The case is also made from birch and sides will be plywood, so it will be also quite sturdy and heavy, but it turned out to be relatively light considering the materials. We'll return to that case later on.
I spent lot of time sanding and routing the body. I decided to bolt pickups straight to the wood. I had strat-style bridge for this seven stringer so I also prepared the body to accept that. Neck joint was made to accept that slightly asymmetric donor-neck perfectly. I think that is one very important thing when building a guitar. It came out snug and tight.
Next I it was time to refret the neck. That was a bit scary, but it was quite easy actually. I started out by taking off the old frets which were quite badly installed in the first place. So I thought I couldn't make things MUCH worse... I sanded neck flat with belt-sander and then made new fret slots and pounded new frets in. Then I spent some time filing the frets level and in to shape. I had no proper fret file, but I managed to get them in decent shape without.
Then I proceeded with the scalloping. I took a round file and went straight down near the fretwire on both sides and when got to the desider depth, took a flat file and sanded out the middle. It seemed to be quite a good way. I went thru neck markers, so I went for Brian May-style marking for better visual aid. So there are three dots on the 12th and two on the 7th and vice versa.
Here is the neck with scallop, new frets, markers glued in and waiting for finishing. Still have to rout back cavities for the body and holes for the pots and such. At this point I had a silly grin on my face that I might accomplish something.
Close-up on the neck, it's quite a deep scallop...
Ok, then I got to the point where I could start painting. I had many colors to choose from and first I ALMOST made a mistake and paint it black. Luckily I found this cool color... You'll see it later, but first I'll jump back to the hard case for a moment. So I had built it and the two halves had just got the primer:
And then I found this color from local hardware store (couldn't believe they actually had one...
Now add some locks and handles... (warning, freaky pants on the top left corner, bell-bottom jeans with huge wide pink stripes, and pockets, I might add.. sad...
)And paint a girl on the side with a scene... Tada! (the other side is just blank)
I finished the case first so I could store the unfinished guitar in it.
Away from humidity and bumbs and such. I had internals made such that the guitar will sit there snuggly.
So now back to the guitar itself. Primed the thing and started painting. Main color would be green and hardware and the back of the neck would be black. So here it is in the mid-way... You can see cavity cover peeking on the left. Covered in black fake-leather and some cushion in it.. It is quite comfy.
And after some more layers and adding some hardware.
After these pics there was still some tweaking with the frets, intonation and such. Wiring still missing from that pic... The guitar has since seen few gigs and many hours of playing and is still alive and kicking. I'd say it plays fantastic, which surprised me! It's quite fast and scallop gives it a whole new feel. I put in DiMarzio X2N and Air Norton -buckers and those work great. I like using Air Norton alone or then mixing it with X2N so I can get some high end shrill to that. Considering the looks there ARE quite a few cosmetic things, but nothing serious. Considering that I had no proper equipment I did fine. And the sound matters right?
The Body
Finished!
Huge thanks goes to this community and particularly to ChrisK, Sumgai, JohnH, newey... can't even remember all... but you know who you are! This was a great exprience and I look forward to start a new project.
And drop some questions if you have any and I'll also update given answers to this post if I've forgotten something. I wrote this in quite a hurry.
Cheers
Dark
Yes, that is one long, pointy thing and the bass player already complained about it. 
Guitar definitely sounds very bright with those high output buckers... I can get a lot of twang out of splitted Air Norton.. I'll try to record some samples when I got time... 
