Post by bowyn on Sept 5, 2012 15:46:36 GMT -5
This is the very first guitar I ever built and it was quite a learning experience for me. I'm absolutely in love with the thing:
First a bit of background info... I saw a Telecaster knock off on ebay for $99 and took a shot. I figured for that price no matter how bad it sucked, I wouldn't be out much.
The picture shows a blank headstock, but when received, it's branded "Harmonia"
So, anyway, it kind of sounded like crap. Tuners were serviceable, but that's about it. Neck was unfinished to the point that the headstock contours were actually a bit rough. What really p
d me off it that the frets were so unfinished at the edges that it would have cut my fingers to play it.
The bridge was on crooked as well.
So, for about 6 months it sat in the corner. Then I decided to make my own guitar.
The neck came off first. Instead of tossing it, I kept it, figuring I could probably do a fret job on it myself at some point (I gave myself too much credit on that).
Pickups came out. Control plate and wiring came out. I planned on reusing the control plat, but it turns out the pot holes were too small for the new pots I got. Being pretty new at this I tried using my drill to make the holes larger. This resulting in it slipping out of my hand and going "Helicopter" on me. I'm probably lucky I still have 2 functioning eyeballs. Needless to say, that control plate is in a drawer somewhere to possibly be used later... bolted to a 2X4 first
So, what I was left with was a very heavy, but actually very nice body. Okay, so it seems nice... and I'm a cheap-butt.
I took the bridge off and filled the screw holes, let it set, and then added a neck I got, a Fender big head with maple fretboard with a beautifully aged color (not vintage amber, but more of a "been around a while" natural maple color).
I used some sewing thread from the E saddles to their tuners to straighten the bridge (did I mention I'm cheap?).
Here's where it got fun. I knew virtually nothing about pickups at the time. I knew of Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio because everybody in guitar land knows about SD and being an Ibanez owner I had heard of, but not owned, Dimarzio pickups.
I went on Ebay to see what they had to offer. Being cheap (did I already mention that?) I started looking for pickups that #1 had a US presence and #2 had some reviews I could read somewhere and #3 cost as little as possible while still making me feel good about my purchase.
One of the brands I came across was DragonFire. I bought a DragonFire Tele Rails bridge pickup after reading some reviews. I think I paid $15 for it. I went ahead and got a DragonFire Texas Blues neck pickup while I was at it for $12.
Now I was expecting to make a "serviceable" Tele-Beater with these. I wasn't expecting greatness. I went ahead and got a new pickguard, control plate and pots from them. Eventually I replaced the 3-way switch as well.
After reading some stuff online, I found out about Series vs. Parallel. No sense in wiring this myself and not taking advantage of 4 wires. So one of the pots I got was a push/pull type.
In the end I managed to get the bridge on straight, neck on straight (and DAMN this neck is so fine to play!), bridge HB wired series/parallel switching and all the rest of it working properly.. and even managed a happy accident by using 500k pots for both VOL and TONE which makes the neck pickup sound just freakin amazing. I've had very little luck with neck pickups. They're always muddy sounding to me, and that stems, at least in part, to having a few earlier guitars with muddy cheap humbuckers in the neck position. This thing made me completely rethink neck pickups. It's brighter, of course, than with a 250k pot, but it's still got a sort of plucky sound to it like it's softer at the edges, more soulful than the bridge and still warmer without being muddy.
Let me plug DragonFire pickups for a sec here... I'm amazed at how good these things sound. My absolute favorite is bridge + neck with the bridge HB in parallel. Holy Mother of butt. The bridge just growls. Cleans up nicely, has a beautiful jangle in parallel, thickens up just right in series. I already mentioned the neck pickup above... just sweet sweet sweet sounding. Even now, after I've gotten to know my stuff a bit better and have built guitars using much more expensive parts and bigger brands, it's still one of my very favorite guitars to play.
And just to note, I am not affiliated with DragonFire in any way. I've even had some issues with them at times, but I cannot knock their pickups.
If you've actually read this far, here are the pictures (later on I got more into taking pictures of the "build in progress" but this was before I got addicted...):
Inspection:
"It is a little known fact that the ancient Egyptians used Cats to check out all of their musical instruments before performing for important figures such as the Pharaoh."
Executive Decision:
Scooter-Cat decides this one is a keeper.
All put together and strung with D'Addario EXPs:
The neck is not quite that dark. The lighting is rather bad and the photo-editor's "auto-level" had to work hard to bring out the purple in the picture:
A lot of people don't like the big 70s CBS era Strat headstocks. I'm not a super-fan, but I do like. I got this style specifically for this Tele because I like the way it balances the "slab" of Tele (not to mention this Tele body is unusually heavy, so it helps there too):
Ordered a Violet Mirror type pickguard, got sent the pearloid one instead, realized I liked the purple pearloid a LOT better after they sent me the replacement Mirror one. I liked it so much I nearly flipped when I saw that they offer control cavity covers cut out of matching material:
Contacted my agents in Beijing, China... actually I just used Ebay, but anyway, I saw these and even though they're a little bit cheesy, I just love them on this guitar. Also, though you can't really see them well, I added old Gibson style nickle position indicators under the knobs. You can see it between 3 and 4 on the left-most knob:
Both Volume and Tone pots are 500k CTS pots with a .047 orang drop capacitor on the tone. The switch is an AllParts three way open style with a Strat tip on it.
DragonFire "Texas Blues" Tele Neck:
Bridge Pickup: DragonFire Tele Rails
I opted for a humbucker in the bridge position, since I like to play like a caveman with power-chords... and since I've got so much 60-cycle hum where I record.
Topped it off with a Fender neck plate in chrome:
(This has actually been changed out for a custom one at this time, but this is the one on it when I initially finished it.)
It's a little silly, but I had these laying around and since I've got skull and crossbone knobs on this guitar, I thought I'd have a little fun:
These are Wilkinson EZ Lock Tuners which I'd never used before. Again, I had them lying around to be used in this or that project.
Lucky for me, the internals fit with the slot on the skull buttons. I actually opened up tuners from about 6 sets of tuners looking for the right shaped shaft:
Having not used these Wilkinsons before, I wasn't sure about the tuning stability, but it seems to be fantastic. I might stick with these for future builds (without the skulls )
Anyways, that was my first build.
First a bit of background info... I saw a Telecaster knock off on ebay for $99 and took a shot. I figured for that price no matter how bad it sucked, I wouldn't be out much.
The picture shows a blank headstock, but when received, it's branded "Harmonia"
So, anyway, it kind of sounded like crap. Tuners were serviceable, but that's about it. Neck was unfinished to the point that the headstock contours were actually a bit rough. What really p
d me off it that the frets were so unfinished at the edges that it would have cut my fingers to play it.The bridge was on crooked as well.
So, for about 6 months it sat in the corner. Then I decided to make my own guitar.
The neck came off first. Instead of tossing it, I kept it, figuring I could probably do a fret job on it myself at some point (I gave myself too much credit on that).
Pickups came out. Control plate and wiring came out. I planned on reusing the control plat, but it turns out the pot holes were too small for the new pots I got. Being pretty new at this I tried using my drill to make the holes larger. This resulting in it slipping out of my hand and going "Helicopter" on me. I'm probably lucky I still have 2 functioning eyeballs. Needless to say, that control plate is in a drawer somewhere to possibly be used later... bolted to a 2X4 first
So, what I was left with was a very heavy, but actually very nice body. Okay, so it seems nice... and I'm a cheap-butt.
I took the bridge off and filled the screw holes, let it set, and then added a neck I got, a Fender big head with maple fretboard with a beautifully aged color (not vintage amber, but more of a "been around a while" natural maple color).
I used some sewing thread from the E saddles to their tuners to straighten the bridge (did I mention I'm cheap?).
Here's where it got fun. I knew virtually nothing about pickups at the time. I knew of Seymour Duncan and Dimarzio because everybody in guitar land knows about SD and being an Ibanez owner I had heard of, but not owned, Dimarzio pickups.
I went on Ebay to see what they had to offer. Being cheap (did I already mention that?) I started looking for pickups that #1 had a US presence and #2 had some reviews I could read somewhere and #3 cost as little as possible while still making me feel good about my purchase.
One of the brands I came across was DragonFire. I bought a DragonFire Tele Rails bridge pickup after reading some reviews. I think I paid $15 for it. I went ahead and got a DragonFire Texas Blues neck pickup while I was at it for $12.
Now I was expecting to make a "serviceable" Tele-Beater with these. I wasn't expecting greatness. I went ahead and got a new pickguard, control plate and pots from them. Eventually I replaced the 3-way switch as well.
After reading some stuff online, I found out about Series vs. Parallel. No sense in wiring this myself and not taking advantage of 4 wires. So one of the pots I got was a push/pull type.
In the end I managed to get the bridge on straight, neck on straight (and DAMN this neck is so fine to play!), bridge HB wired series/parallel switching and all the rest of it working properly.. and even managed a happy accident by using 500k pots for both VOL and TONE which makes the neck pickup sound just freakin amazing. I've had very little luck with neck pickups. They're always muddy sounding to me, and that stems, at least in part, to having a few earlier guitars with muddy cheap humbuckers in the neck position. This thing made me completely rethink neck pickups. It's brighter, of course, than with a 250k pot, but it's still got a sort of plucky sound to it like it's softer at the edges, more soulful than the bridge and still warmer without being muddy.
Let me plug DragonFire pickups for a sec here... I'm amazed at how good these things sound. My absolute favorite is bridge + neck with the bridge HB in parallel. Holy Mother of butt. The bridge just growls. Cleans up nicely, has a beautiful jangle in parallel, thickens up just right in series. I already mentioned the neck pickup above... just sweet sweet sweet sounding. Even now, after I've gotten to know my stuff a bit better and have built guitars using much more expensive parts and bigger brands, it's still one of my very favorite guitars to play.
And just to note, I am not affiliated with DragonFire in any way. I've even had some issues with them at times, but I cannot knock their pickups.
If you've actually read this far, here are the pictures (later on I got more into taking pictures of the "build in progress" but this was before I got addicted...):
Inspection:
"It is a little known fact that the ancient Egyptians used Cats to check out all of their musical instruments before performing for important figures such as the Pharaoh."
Executive Decision:
Scooter-Cat decides this one is a keeper.
All put together and strung with D'Addario EXPs:
The neck is not quite that dark. The lighting is rather bad and the photo-editor's "auto-level" had to work hard to bring out the purple in the picture:
A lot of people don't like the big 70s CBS era Strat headstocks. I'm not a super-fan, but I do like. I got this style specifically for this Tele because I like the way it balances the "slab" of Tele (not to mention this Tele body is unusually heavy, so it helps there too):
Ordered a Violet Mirror type pickguard, got sent the pearloid one instead, realized I liked the purple pearloid a LOT better after they sent me the replacement Mirror one. I liked it so much I nearly flipped when I saw that they offer control cavity covers cut out of matching material:
Contacted my agents in Beijing, China... actually I just used Ebay, but anyway, I saw these and even though they're a little bit cheesy, I just love them on this guitar. Also, though you can't really see them well, I added old Gibson style nickle position indicators under the knobs. You can see it between 3 and 4 on the left-most knob:
Both Volume and Tone pots are 500k CTS pots with a .047 orang drop capacitor on the tone. The switch is an AllParts three way open style with a Strat tip on it.
DragonFire "Texas Blues" Tele Neck:
Bridge Pickup: DragonFire Tele Rails
I opted for a humbucker in the bridge position, since I like to play like a caveman with power-chords... and since I've got so much 60-cycle hum where I record.
Topped it off with a Fender neck plate in chrome:
(This has actually been changed out for a custom one at this time, but this is the one on it when I initially finished it.)
It's a little silly, but I had these laying around and since I've got skull and crossbone knobs on this guitar, I thought I'd have a little fun:
These are Wilkinson EZ Lock Tuners which I'd never used before. Again, I had them lying around to be used in this or that project.
Lucky for me, the internals fit with the slot on the skull buttons. I actually opened up tuners from about 6 sets of tuners looking for the right shaped shaft:
Having not used these Wilkinsons before, I wasn't sure about the tuning stability, but it seems to be fantastic. I might stick with these for future builds (without the skulls
)Anyways, that was my first build.
