Komodo's Metal Tele

[ScottR]

It definitely has an "old" feel to it....like it's been sitting on a stand in the corner for the last 60 years.

SR

[Prostheta]

It's that '59 Korina V thing going on.

[komodo]

Finished 12” fretboard radius and most of neck carve. Forgot how much (fun) work it is. Pau ferro is hell on power tools but yields to the blade amazingly well and shapes wonderfully with dragon rasps and sandpaper.

The new neck isn’t an exact clone of the old Carvin neck. I used it more as a rough guide, though it definitely looks like a clone.

[ScottR]

22 hours ago, komodo said:

Finished 12” fretboard radius and most of neck carve. Forgot how much (fun) work it is. Pau ferro is hell on power tools but yields to the blade amazingly well and shapes wonderfully with dragon rasps and sandpaper.

The new neck isn’t an exact clone of the old Carvin neck. I used it more as a rough guide, though it definitely looks like a clone.

 

 

That's a hell of a shavings generator. I've got to get me one of those!

That's a hell of an evening finisher!

I've got me me one of those....

SR

[komodo]

I’m doing my damnsest to finish this, and done a crap job on a build thread.

Final sand and polishing done. (arg) Neck is done, just drilling tuner holes and fretting. Cavities have nice copper lining, still not 100% on electronics but I’ll figure it out. Birthday is tomorrow, would love to play this thing! 

[komodo]

Fretting done.

Taste testing Cthulhu, my 14% imperial porter, aging on burbon barrel sticks, and awaiting Madagascar vanilla bean infusion.

[Andyjr1515]

Looking nice

[RestorationAD]

Very Nice. Clean lines you have there.

[ScottR]

On 12/29/2018 at 5:47 PM, komodo said:

Taste testing Cthulhu, my 14% imperial porter, aging on burbon barrel sticks, and awaiting Madagascar vanilla bean infusion.

Mmmmmmm!

The guitar is tasty too!

Happy birthday and New Year as well.

SR

[komodo]

Thanks for the bday wishes Scott but I really hate to encourage such things, ha. At this age it should be “hope you find a cure for your birthday”.

Lots of fussy crap on the guitar. Tuner holes were a tad tight so reaming those, fixing a couple small finger board edge dings (CA-ebony dust trick), fitting a rough nut - I’ll make a final one once its all setup and I’ve finetuned the trem system.

I’ve fitted the new relic covers to the new pickups. Shave parafin, heat with heat gun, smash in and solder grounding edges. Keys here are wear gloves, prefit pups to covers so you KNOW they fit, end back out screws slightly to help fitting. Getting pictures of the Pau Ferro neck is really hard. Its gorgeous wood. Not a true rosewood but more rosewood than many rosewoods.

I’ve been trying to think of a name for this, in a fictional relicy, retro, hot rod like vibe. It’s fictional manufacture is 1966 for sure (my birth year). Since it’s a hot rod in every way I’ll add the SS for super sport like a muscle car. Maybe just ‘66 Korina SS. 

Working on electronics now. Set up trem, string it and ?

[komodo]

Rough stringup.

 

[ScottR]

22 hours ago, komodo said:

At this age it should be “hope you find a cure for your birthday”.

I resemble that remark. I had a big one a few weeks ago. When folks commented on my age I just gave a fist pump and said I MADE IT!

And I agree, that is a gorgeous neck. I may have to pick up some of that.

SR

[komodo]

This is 99% done, I'll update pics as I have them.

I struggled with wiring, as I wanted two coil cuts and realized AFTER THE FACT that my neck pup is a single conductor?! Forest for the trees. Contemplating a wire swap to 4-conductor or a new pup, I wondered about that Duncan Black Winter sitting on the shelf. A 16k ceramic bridge pup as a neck?! Let's try it. I used the pup height and raised the poles to balance bridge and beck signal and holy cow I think we're on to something. The Black Winter is brighter, hi-mids, and is an amazing neck pup, and in single coil is tear inducing (good tears).

All it needs is a truss cover and it's done. It plays spectacularly (thank goodness).

[Norris]

I love the smoke/fire switch

[ADFinlayson]

That's is my favourite wiring/switching you've got there. I've gone with the same on most of my builds.

I tried out black winters recently, they did nothing for me at all. I play metal but desire a hint of vintage fatness from my neck pups. Recently I've used a demarzio liquifire in the neck, I can highly recommend that pickup and you'll be able to coiltap it without too much volume loss. I've also tried out the holcomb signiture duncans recently - They are seriously high gain if you're looking for a metal sound but the bridge pickup is just a bit thin and meh. The neck pickup on the other hand is really something else, sounds amazing when both tapped or humbucking, but there is a bit more volume loss than the liquifire. 

[ScottR]

On 1/15/2019 at 7:30 AM, komodo said:

This is 99% done, I'll update pics as I have them.

I struggled with wiring, as I wanted two coil cuts and realized AFTER THE FACT that my neck pup is a single conductor?! Forest for the trees. Contemplating a wire swap to 4-conductor or a new pup, I wondered about that Duncan Black Winter sitting on the shelf. A 16k ceramic bridge pup as a neck?! Let's try it. I used the pup height and raised the poles to balance bridge and beck signal and holy cow I think we're on to something. The Black Winter is brighter, hi-mids, and is an amazing neck pup, and in single coil is tear inducing (good tears).

All it needs is a truss cover and it's done. It plays spectacularly (thank goodness).

I totally missed the checks in the lacquer yesterday. How did you create those, pray tell?

SR

[komodo]

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

That's is my favourite wiring/switching you've got there. I've gone with the same on most of my builds.

I tried out black winters recently, they did nothing for me at all. I play metal but desire a hint of vintage fatness from my neck pups. Recently I've used a demarzio liquifire in the neck, I can highly recommend that pickup and you'll be able to coiltap it without too much volume loss. I've also tried out the holcomb signiture duncans recently - They are seriously high gain if you're looking for a metal sound but the bridge pickup is just a bit thin and meh. The neck pickup on the other hand is really something else, sounds amazing when both tapped or humbucking, but there is a bit more volume loss than the liquifire. 

I love this bridge pup, it's a Duncan SH-11 Custom Custom alnico 2. It's exactly what I was looking for. Earlier I was going to put in an old Gibson Dirty Fingers, but it's single conductor and I have another guitar I may put it in. The neck was going to be the Duncan Slash APH-2n, but it's also single conductor, and I found it was too vowely. 

When I popped this Black Winter in I was looking at neck alternatives, and the Liquifire came up as did the DiMarzio Evolution. What I;'d like this guitars voice to be is vintage high gain for the bridge, but crystalline modern for the neck. Especially the note definition in the low end of the neck on the bottom strings. If I can still play high gain power chords on the neck pup, that would be the ballpark. I'm going to try running the Black Winter tonight in parallel and see what that does. Remember it's a BW bridge at 16k, LOL.

Scott - I apologize, I've done a horrible job updating this thread. The build stretched out to long and was done in a bunch of fits and starts and lots of midstream changes., Actually I'm THRILLED how it's come together as cohesively as it has considering all of the unplanned course changes.

As I was relicing hardware, I kept thinking of how I was going to tie the finish in with the "theme". Part of it was the light burst gradient from the tinted lacquer. While I never was going to do the crazy finish sanding, dents, dings etc, I was planning on checking the finish. After doing a full clear schedule with the sand and polish out, it wasn't exactly without reservations, but  figured you have to JUMP or don't. Much research led to the freeze thaw cycles - basically wrap the thing in a plastic bag for moisture protection and put it in a freezer for a few days. Take it out quickly and watch my heated shop cause checking to appear. Rinse and repeat. I've decided to stop at this point, get the rest done and se what the finish does. You can see the checking at one angle, but it can disappear COMPLETELY at another. Many will rub thinned stain (or whatever) on and wipe off allowing the stain to just penetrate the checking and highlight them. Of course once that's done, you can't take it back so I'm holding off on that for now. I can always do it in 5 minutes. Plus, what do you use? Amber stain? Dye? Brown? Black? Testing needs to be done of course.

My boss keeps asking me why I don't sell guitars, and I keep explaining the level of build you have to be at to sell, and the ways you;d have to streamline production, etc. He challenged me to build another one of these, a replica as if it was a production model. While I don't need a #2 of this, I've still got those Trisonic pups, and a half built korina neck through with truss channel cut, carbon rods installed . . .Maybe a semi-hollow with those pups? 

[ScottR]

Be aware that wiping dye on lacquer will tint it......no wait, I'm thinking of wiping it on epoxy pore fill. You'd have to use water as a base, but you might get away with that. I'd say amber.

As far as a semi-hollow with those pups, how about something reminiscent of a Gretsch Jupiter?

SR

[komodo]

Here's an interesting article that has some pretty good detail on intentional crazing. After contemplating a bunch of stains, I'm leaning towards a tea or coffee stain. It could be controlled really well for color and transparency. Color would be great. Not sure if lightfast or not.
https://guitar.com/guides/diy-workshop/relic-nitro-finish/

Ha! The Jupiter reminds me of a car. I'm not going to do a Red Special clone, but maybe doing the Double cut LP Jr Like I was going to makes sense as it's similar to the RS. Wonder what an LP Jr with SG like bevels would look like?

[mistermikev]

I really like the checking on that.  I like that you haven't done any dings... I figure it's like a guitar that was really well cared for but checked over the years... love it as is - PERFECT. 

I'm not surprised a high output bridge pickup sounds good in the neck... I've been experimenting a lot with bridge in the neck lately.  All that I have tried have sounded great (a2pro, invader, others).  then again, what do I know... I love the seymour jb in an all maple guitar!  (You can't do THAT!)

[komodo]

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

(You can't do THAT!)

When I was considering options, that kept ringing in my head. Neck pickup shouldn't be higher gain than bridge. Why would you do a ceramic magnet with this alnico thing, blah blah. In the end, there was nothing to lose by just trying it out and boy is it interesting. The great part was googling and finding all the other people like yourself that had the same observations. Just pup height and adjusting the poles higher balanced output differences, but I'm going to try this parallel wiring tonight as it should lower output and bass some. 

Last option would be to try a neck version of the BW, or one of the Evo or Liquifires. 

Thanks for the kind words on the finish. Its great that you mention the restraint on the relicing as that was really intentional. When people do the chips and edge sanding I feel like it breaks the 4th wall and ends up just being to much. Mine is over the top aged-vibe, but was intended to be a "fictional" aesthetic from Day 1 instead of actual relic.  Another builder who does a very similar thing that I really admire is Echopark. 

[mistermikev]

3 minutes ago, komodo said:

When I was considering options, that kept ringing in my head. Neck pickup shouldn't be higher gain than bridge. Why would you do a ceramic magnet with this alnico thing, blah blah. In the end, there was nothing to lose by just trying it out and boy is it interesting. The great part was googling and finding all the other people like yourself that had the same observations. Just pup height and adjusting the poles higher balanced output differences, but I'm going to try this parallel wiring tonight as it should lower output and bass some. 

Last option would be to try a neck version of the BW, or one of the Evo or Liquifires. 

Thanks for the kind words on the finish. Its great that you mention the restraint on the relicing as that was really intentional. When people do the chips and edge sanding I feel like it breaks the 4th wall and ends up just being to much. Mine is over the top aged-vibe, but was intended to be a "fictional" aesthetic from Day 1 instead of actual relic.  Another builder who does a very similar thing that I really admire is Echopark. 

reminds me of the time my music teachers told me I had to play "THE RIGHT NOTES"... ta heck w that!  Tell me more rules so I can break them.

just throwing this out there... but you COULD take a simple trimmer resistor and put it in series with the pickup hot...(or between the two coils) leave it in the control cavity in case you want to experiment... dial it back a bit... voila lowered output.  basically a vol pot backed off a bit... you might even like it!  You could add a treble bleed to that trimmer resistor or add a hi pass via another trimmer and dial in the bass too.

cheers and keep having fun w your build - it's working for you!

[komodo]

I've considered most of what you mention, but electronics are my weakest link. I've been reading about treble bleeds all day. Last night I put a resistor in and lowered it to about 11k but it took some sizzle off and it ended up sounding muted and back to neck pickup boominess.

[mistermikev]

No expert but I know a few things... craig andertons book "elec projects for musicians" had a number of diagrams for various versions of tone controls... and was available for free somewhere... I think from freestompboxes.org?  good book if you want to learn some ground level stuff.

Anyway, just adding a hi pass filter will cut output a bit and perhaps enough?  focusing it to restrict lows only may retain sparkle (or at least perceived).  Another thing you may consider... you COULD change magnets... but that will likely change the sound of the pickup which it sounds like you are happy with.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-ab&biw=2230&bih=518&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=Mqs_XJTMGfW-0PEP5-OmqAc&q=guitar+tone+control+low+cut&oq=guitar+tone+control+low+cut&gs_l=img.3...57557.60013..60277...0.0..0.76.494.7......0....1..gws-wiz-img.08bVm9FMBHU#imgrc=2qUzgLT0jSrR-M:

adding that resistance between the coils (or to one coil if in parallel) might be a nice option too... should retain a lot of the highs for one coil anyway. 

 

[mistermikev]

https://msu.edu/~dougl126/Electronic%20Projects%20for%20Musicians.pdf

highly recommended AND my favorite price (free)!