Project #2...aka Blue Murder is done!

[cynical1]

Well, after dumping the ex-wife, losing the farm...and much other unrelated procrastination...I have finally finished Project #2, aka Blue Murder.

Here she is:












Obligatory Headstock Decal Shot.


The original plate from the GTX33 body.

The finish is just an indigo automotive lacquer with multiple clearcoats, then wet sanded and buffed out to give it the shine you see above. The neck is clear poly on the headstock, satin on the back of the neck and matte on the fingerboard. The neck was also sanded and buffed out.

HISTORY:

The body is an old GTX-33 basswood body I scored on eBay for $25.00. I never took any pictures of the actual body, but this is what it looked like when it showed up:





Pretty fugly, ain't it... I don't know what type of paint they used, but it was like sandblasting cast iron to get it off.

It was originally routed for a Floyd Rose...but since I'm not much of a fan of either Mr. Floyd or Mr. Rose I decided to make it a hard tail. I routed out the body in a similar fashion to what I did on Project #1. I didn't have any alder left, so I just cheaped it out and used red oak. It was tougher to sand and re-route for the slanted pickup routings, but it was all I had laying around. Again, I didn't take any pictures of the actual work, but thanks to Google I found some sample shots to illustrate how the body was rerouted, filled and re-routed for the single coils:

TOP:



Both of these large routings were filled with a 1" piece of white oak. The straight routings for the single coils were cut at an angle that escapes me at the moments, but it matched what I found in an old Fender blueprint, then reversed to put the high end closer to the neck.

BACK:



This was routed down about 3/16" and filled with a 1/4" piece of white oak. This leaves a small chamber in the back where the springs used to live.

It was designed for a 24.75" scale and and the Tele neck is set for a 25.5" scale. I toyed with the idea of moving the bridge pickup routing down, but the more I looked at it the more I wanted to see how it'd sound with the bridge pickup so far up from the bridge. I've never been a great fan of the bridge pickup tone "so shrill it makes dolphins cry" anyway. This meant the neck and middle pickup would be squeezed, but the angled routings helped with the pole alignments. This is a very ballsy full sounding guitar. Using only one pickup is sort of like keeping the Ferrari in second gear...you really lose its main design advantage in doing so.

The neck was a $35.00 partially CNC'd one piece maple neck I scored on eBay. I left it thick like a baseball bat as I intended on using the heaviest flatwound strings I could find on it. It's strung with a 13-56 ga. set from Webstrings. The fingerboard markers were in, but there were no side markers. I couldn't find my bag full of marker stock, so I went out to the barn and cut some 10 ga. solid copper wire pieces, drilled the side and used them as side markers. They have the unique property of looking dark when in ambient lighting, but they also shine when a light is aimed at them, making them quite effective in low light conditions.

No direct light	Slight direct light	Direct light

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The frets are profile 6105, leveled, crowned then buffed with a little rubbing compound on a Dremel polishing wheel. The nut is a standard Tusq Fender style.

The tuners are a set of Wilkinson vintage tuners. The neck was predrilled for a vintage set and the Wilkinsons are nice tuners for the money...especially on eBay, and the extra weight helps balance out the guitar. I think they look better on a Tele headstock than the sealed tuners anyway.

The bridge is a Schaller 475, pretty much my "goto" hardtail bridge. It's gold because that's what came up on eBay that day. Plus, it came out of New York City, which seemed to go with that whole Blue Murder theme...

Even though this is a basswood body, by the time you add up the oak filler pieces, all of the electronics, the Schaller bridge, the thick neck and the vintage tuners I tossed on to counterbalance the body, it weighs in at a respectable 7-3/4 pounds. (3.4kg) Slightly more than a JEM, about equal to an alder Strat...but still several pounds less than a Les Paul.

You can read all about the trials and tribulations of working out the switching on this beast here at OK, somebody look over my shoulder here......only for those with a strong constitution...

Here's the details on the pickups:

	SCREW	POLE	COIL (S)	SLUG	COIL	POLE(N)
Winding/Polarity	Start	Finish	Polarity	Start	Finish	Polarity
Seymour Duncan SSL-1	N/A	[N/A	N/A	White	Black -	North
Rio Grande Halfbreed RW/RP	N/A	[N/A	N/A	Gray	Black -	South
DiMarzio DP197 Virtual PAF (Bridge)	Green -	White +	South	Red +	Black -	North

For reference, here's the wiring diagram:




So, what's it sound like, you may ask... Well, JohnH calculated that this guitar has a potential of 544 tonal options. I'm still playing with the original 40...

This is what they look like:



This is what they do:

Point and Click tone Options:

1) Neck *
2) Neck & Middle +
3) Neck & Middle *
4) Middle *
5) Middle & BridgeN +
6) Middle & BridgeN *
7) Middle & Bridge Humbucker + (Humbucker in local +)
8) Middle & Bridge-Humbucker+ (Humbucker in local *)
9) Middle & Bridge-Humbucker* (Humbucker in local +)
10) Middle & Bridge-Humbucker* (Humbucker in local *)
11) Middle & BridgeS +
12) Middle & BridgeS *
13) BridgeN *
14) Bridge Humbucker + (Local)
15) Bridge Humbucker * (Local)
16) BridgeS*
17) Neck & Bridge-N +
18) Neck & Bridge-N*
19) Neck & Bridge-Humbucker+ (Humbucker in local +)
20) Neck & Bridge-Humbucker+ (Humbucker in local *)
21) Neck & Bridge-Humbucker* (Humbucker in local +)
22) Neck & Bridge-Humbucker* (Humbucker in local *)
23) Neck & Bridge-S+
24) Neck & Bridge-S*
25) Neck, Middle + & Bridge-N +
26) Neck, Middle * & Bridge-N+
27) Neck, Middle + & Bridge-N *
28) Neck, Middle * & Bridge-N*
29) Neck, Middle + & Bridge Humbucker+ (Humbucker in local +)
30) Neck, Middle +& Bridge Humbucker + (Humbucker in local *)
31) Neck, Middle +& Bridge Humbucker * (Humbucker in local +)
32) Neck, Middle +& Bridge Humbucker * (Humbucker in local *)
33) Neck, Middle * & Bridge Humbucker+ (Humbucker in local +)
34) Neck, Middle *& Bridge Humbucker + (Humbucker in local *)
35) Neck, Middle *& Bridge Humbucker * (Humbucker in local +)
36) Neck, Middle *& Bridge Humbucker * (Humbucker in local *)
37) Neck, Middle + & Bridge-S +
38) Neck, Middle + & Bridge-S*
39) Neck, Middle * & Bridge-S +
40) Neck, Middle * & Bridge-S*

Sound samples are in the works. I'm working on putting it together in the same format that JFP uses combining sound clips with a video so you can actually follow what the switching is doing. This may take a while...

If you made it this far, I applaud your determination. Hope is was worth the 20 minutes you invested.

Finally, I want to give thanks and credit to where it's due. This guitar was in the back of my mind for years, but without the patient assistance of ChrisK, JohnH and Asmith I never would have been able to pull this off. I 'm sure Chrisk was looking over my shoulder while I was doing this one...smiling to himself and thinking, "wait 'til he finds out he wired that switch backwards..."

Happy Trails -

Cynical One

EDIT: Edited picture of controls to make it clear exactly what the Hell they are.

[newey]

Cyn-

Not only is the guitar spectacular (I love the back-slanted pups), but this post is the epitome of what a Gallery post of a build should do- a thorough-going exposition of the project, start to finish! +1 for the thread, and can't wait to hear it.

I know you had this sitting there when asmith and I were there, but we were busy playing with Project #1, and I confess to not paying much attention to #2. Glad to see you got it off the "project list" and into playing form.

[JohnH]

Outstanding work! +1!

Are you finding any unexpectedly interesting tones in amongst all the switching options?

[cynical1]

May 9, 2013 15:19:49 GMT -5 JohnH said:

Are you finding any unexpectedly interesting tones in amongst all the switching options?

As you might guess, having only had in finished for a week it's very much still a learning process.

I will say that the separate bridge volume, N\HUM\S split and the bridge on switch make for some very interesting and subtle tone variations. The guitar is very quiet and even the combinations that are not hum cancelling work well.

I was very happy with the way the Seymour Duncan, Rio Grande and DiMarzio pickups all work together. I'm still tweaking the pickup heights, but they balance and blend quite nicely.

I can say that this guitar can go from soft, bright and articulate to loud, dark and just plain evil in short order.

I've found that flipping the series\parallel switch to series for the two single coils automatically turns both the neck and middle pickup on, regardless of the 5-way position. Makes sense, and is intuitive, but you've got to remember to switch it to parallel if you want to combine just the bridge and middle or neck.

Another anomaly is the series\parallel switch to combine the bridge and middle or neck pickup. In the parallel position it works like it says on the box. With it in series you get the bridge and middle pickup in the loop regardless of where the 5-way is set. The middle drops out if the S\P switch for the two single coils is to set parallel, but you have to physically turn the volume down to zero to drop the bridge pickup out of the loop.

It was a bit confusing starting out, as moving the 5 way seemed to have no effect. Again, these are no biggies. A little switch discipline and they're all non-issues. I would rather have the range of options available versus trying to fix these issues and potentially lose a combination.

Either way, this thing really begins to show its versatility when you ramp the volume down. Playing with the ranges between 4-8 on the volume, dropping the tones to around 7 and mixing and varying the pickup selection and S\P settings allows for some of the finest tweaking of the tone I've ever played with.

I'm still trying to come up with a simple format to put up some sound samples. I haven't found all 500+ tones you calculated out for this guitar, but I have found everything from slight twang to dark jazz...if I could only remember where I found them at...

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[JFrankParnell]

Dude, that thing is rad! Good luck on the video, my rig only had what 10 or so tones ;D

[Deleted]

Impressive job! Also, the paint/wood/lutherie job looks superb.Lets hope for some demos.
Man, my Carvin when we will get this ready will only have ..... 2 sounds

[stringbean]

An amazing piece of work.

Congrats on a fine build oh Cynical One, and a great presentation here on GS. Looking forward to a demo !!

[haydukej]

Nice one Cyn. Looks like when life hands you lemons, you make a sweet guitar. The switching options are too much for me to think of this morning. Happy playing.

[ux4484]

At first glance, I'm reminded of ChrisK's photoshopped (or was it Wolf's) pic with all the extra switches pasted on it.
I love the chunky headstock, almost looks like a Tele bass neck.
I'm curious to know your methodology for the switch layout. After all this time working on it, do you have them memorized?

[sbgodofmetal]

Holy flyin monkees batman is that a guitar or a spaceshuttle control panel with a neck and strings?

Can't wait to hear this beast although personally id of used push pulls to avoid an over crowded control cavity but that's just my opinion, love the back slanted pickup configuration though.

[cynical1]

Jun 13, 2013 10:07:12 GMT -5 ux4484 said:

At first glance, I'm reminded of ChrisK's photoshopped (or was it Wolf's) pic with all the extra switches pasted on it.

Yeah, it does look like a flight simulator at first glance.

I love the chunky headstock, almost looks like a Tele bass neck.

I got lucky with this neck. I found this on eBay a few years ago for around $35.00. It was CNC'd to a rough shape, tuner holes located and drilled, nut slot and fret slots all located and cut. I just sanded a longer radius on the top of the headstock and left as much wood as I could on the back to accommodate the heavy strings.

Like SG, I always liked the Tele headstock on a Strat style guitar. Never a big fan of the Strat headstock profile.

I'm curious to know your methodology for the switch layout. After all this time working on it, do you have them memorized?

The methodology was to have everything work in crescents top to bottom.  By this, anything for the neck is at the top of the crescent and it just work down ward to the bridge.  The S/P switching works pretty much the same way.  The coil split for the bridge is at the bottom of the outside crescent just below the bridge volume, so I don't bump it, but can still locate it quickly.  The local S/P switch for the bridge is stuttered off line a touch, and uses a smaller paddle, again, so it doesn't get bumped.  The Bridge On switch is up at the 5-Way 1-2 position, because that's about the only time it's going to be on, so why not have it close to where you're going to use it?  The Free Woman Tone mod switches are located between the volume and tone pots of the zone they control.

That's the Cliff Notes on the method behind the madness.  I was very lucky with this body as it has a control cavity big enough to grow geraniums in, so locating everything was very easy.  I could probably toss a phase switch in there if I wanted to.

Believe it or not, the layout is fairly intuitive. This was largely worked out under ChrisK's methodology of designing in modules, so, if you think of the controls within their respective modules it's actually a pretty quick study. There are some idiosyncrasies in series mode, which are detailed above, that might make it tricky to use live in the heat of the moment, but for recording or just banging around it's no problem.

I really need to get some sound samples up on this guitar... Slacking is.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[ux4484]

I had been considering some additional switching for my Modern Player Marauder, but have been stymied by additional switch placement. I want to keep in line with the look of the guitar, but also want to keep the stock switching operation intact. I ran across this abomination from Awesome guitars earlier this year, but it's too much (yes, I said TOO much), and it's horrendous switch placement for my aggressive rhythm playing. The only things I originally wanted to add were the rear coil of the triplebucker by itself, and possibly mixing it with the neck. I really only need one switch for that If I run the triplebucker through a mini toggle or push pull on one of the controls (off standard, on rear coil only), I'll get that neck/bridge combination with the 5 way switch position in 4, but I figure if I'm going to do that, I should break out the middle coil as well, and what the heck, why not S/P them as well (as I like S/P so well on my '51).
I should just baby step it and go with the push/pull for now. I'm kind of dedicated to keeping things on the control plate (though the body does have a wide swimming pool route).

This guy put a Roland GK-KIT-GT3 in his Marauder, and put the SW1/SW2 controls right where it sits on your leg!! (and chipped the paint something awful in the process). I don't want to be THAT guy.