bancika Posted February 2, 2017 Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 finally finished! Took over two years, mostly because of the issues with finishing. I designed the guitar and my father helped build it from scratch. It's heavily inspired by Kotzen Telecaster model, but made a bunch of changes: headless design based on Hisphot system, 20% smaller body (alter + flame maple), quartersawn maple neck with asymmetrical soft V profile (23mm tick at the nut), Dimarzio Chopper and Fast Track 1 pickups with LP switch and split-coil push-pull volume pot, EVO gold jumbo frets. We don't have equipment to do finishing ourselves, so we are at the mercy of people who do it, and they stalled it for years doing bigger jobs that pay more. But happy to report that it's done and loving it so far. It’s portable and light (weighs only 2.6kg or 5.7lbs) and even though it’s not as loud played unplugged as my other guitars, it sustains as good or better than my other guitars. Hipshot headless system works pretty well. Chopper and Fast Track 1 are perfectly balanced and work great on their own and combined. The sit right in the middle between Strat, Tele, LP and modern guitars. There’s more power than Strat/Tele, but not too much. They are not harsh, but also not honky or muddy. Enough output to push the amp hard, but still can clean up nicely. Very usable sound that can be shaped to do pretty much anything. Splitting the coils roughly halves the output and adds some sparkle to the tone, so it can be used as a clean/drive or rhythm/lead switch. for more info and more photos from early stages of builing visit http://diy-fever.com/guitars/kotzen-travelcaster/ Few clips, guitar into interface, S-Gear VST with Plexi-style factory preset. No additional effects or adjustments Cheers, Bane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jdogg Posted February 2, 2017 Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 (edited) I absolutely love this build... but the threads on that switch stick out like a sore thumb.... put some washers under the switch until it's at the proper height plz. Edited February 2, 2017 by Jdogg nevermind... should have read first... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bancika Posted February 2, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 Thanks. I'll see if I have some big enough washers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pan_kara Posted February 2, 2017 Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 wow, cool build! Sounds great too! funnily enough I have a Kotzen Tele planned for the next round too (but with much fewer mods, probably just angled headsock and different heel design and maybe slightly different woods). Doest the original use EVO gold too or was that your addition? I love how gold frets work with gold/brown guitars, I was also thinking to go with these. Did you use any special trick for doing the binding channel over the armrest? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bancika Posted February 2, 2017 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2017 thanks. He doesn't use EVO gold, I wanted to do something special and these seemed like a perfect cherry on the cake As for the binding...no special trick, I'm afraid. The part around the armrest is done by hand. My father is really good with fiddley woodwork. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pan_kara Posted February 3, 2017 Report Share Posted February 3, 2017 18 hours ago, bancika said: My father is really good with fiddley woodwork. ah, so that was the trick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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