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would love your honest first impression...


mistermikev

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still kind of working out some details (as always!).  Specifically - the headstock... would love your honest impressions good or bad.

the concept here is going to be a modern strat.  I'm going to do a angled headstock, set neck design... but with a long and wide tennon that will reach the two neck pickups... so I can (hopefully) achieve a neck-thru-like neck transition.  I'm thinking I will actually mount the two neck pickups in the neck wood, as well as the trem tension screws - so I'll have sort of a paddle at that end that will cover the width of the pickups.  (Why, i dunno, cause I think it will be cool)  The two neck pickups will be in a hollow chamber, the two bridge pickups in a solid block... to hopefully get a solidbody and hollowbody sound in one guitar.  will be heel adjust via a wheel in a small opening between frets, but with a faux truss cover at the headstock to tie-the-room-together.  Thinking I might try to do the top at a slight radius.  All of these things should be a considerable challenge for me... hoping to push my abilities beyond their current limits.

 

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I love the giant F-hole. And the headstock. I like the curved fretboard end, but think a flat one looks better when butted up against the pick-up. It might work better for me if there was a little space between the board and first pickup. The four pick-ups throw off my visual expectations, in other words it's not what I expect to see, but that doesn't hurt the design. And trust rod adjustment slots in the fretboard have always seemed odd to me, but that's just me, a personal taste thing.

All in all, I think this works quite well.

SR

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7 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I love the giant F-hole. And the headstock. I like the curved fretboard end, but think a flat one looks better when butted up against the pick-up. It might work better for me if there was a little space between the board and first pickup. The four pick-ups throw off my visual expectations, in other words it's not what I expect to see, but that doesn't hurt the design. And trust rod adjustment slots in the fretboard have always seemed odd to me, but that's just me, a personal taste thing.

All in all, I think this works quite well.

SR

thank you sir!  I am very thankful as always for your thoughtful feedback.  afa fretboar... what do you think about a straight end but butting right into the pickup?  Might try that and see what it looks like.

was hoping to hid the truss hole.  perhaps even put a magnet piece in there.  I'm not married to it but I A) want more frets! B) prefer heel adjust - just seems to be more stable for tuning and neck adjusts.  Plus I've never done one.  I take you advice like gold so... perhaps I'll think about hiding it really good. 

once again, thank you sir!!!

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8 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

what do you think about a straight end but butting right into the pickup? 

That's my preferred route to go. I think curved ends can look awesome, especially when they are reflecting curves found elsewhere in the design, but I think they need a little breathing room to look their best.

SR

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My 2 cents, if you're still after opinions:

  • I'm with Scott regarding the truss rod adjuster 'window' in the end of the fretboard. Looks a little unusual with the scroll-like fretboard end just behind it. Do you put a fret either side of it and leave a void underneath the playing area at the last fret, or do you leave an overly-large gap at the end of the last fret before the adjuster window and fretboard end? For all I know it may work, but it just looks a little odd.
  • I dig the 3-a-side tuner arrangement, but the oversized truss rod cover (which I assume is a dummy one given that you're adjusting the truss rod at the heel) on an undersized headstock visually clashes slightly. What might be cool is if the blue flame maple cover is increased in size to encompass the entire headstock and is actually inlaid into the headstock face, with the darker wood creating a faux-binding effect.
  • What about a 4x2 tuner headstock, which may ease the spacing a little on the treble and bass sides? At the moment the treble tuners are packed in pretty tight, whereas the bass tuners are quite gappy.
  • F-holes aren't really my cup o' tea, but FWIW I reckon the oversized one could be shrunk a bit. Maybe 75 - 80% its original size?
  • 4 singles - interesting choice. My gut instinct is to space them in pairs; push the two inner singles further apart leaving a wider gap in the middle.
  • Gold trem with a silver jack socket is a cardinal sin ;) What happens if you ditch the traditional front-mounted oval Strat jack socket and install an edge mounted one? With four pickups, an F-hole and a curvy fretboard end it looks pretty busy, and might benefit from a little 'de-cluttering'?

...but that's just me. :)

 

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all very good and useful feedback curtisa.  I very much appreciate it.  will take this to heart as I work my re-design. 

afa 4x2... really fighting this urge.  it's harder to find 4x2 tuners sets... but I guess that's no reason to compromise.  Can def special order them.  The odd spacing is to facilitate the angles that end up with the nod to a strat.  I admit: wrestled with that odd placement a lot!

f-hole... might omit it altogether.  just can't find anything that ties in better.

the even spacing on the pickups - to get more 2 vs 4 sound as opposed to humbucker.  that said: I'm going to play around with that a bit and see what I can come up with.

gold vs silver... remnants from switching between the two colors.  final will be one or the other. 

thank you again for your response: I really do appreciate it!  As always: you guys are the best!

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I'll have a proper look and think when I get a bit of time later, but immediate thoughts:

  • I like the headstock.  It has a passing nod to the big F but with the practicality of a triangular seagull acoustic.  Just make sure that the rake angles allow for the string runs to be all straight. (Edit - just seen your response above and clearly you have already done that :) )
  • Visually, I like the truss rod cover because it balances it all out.  However, I agree with @curtisa that it is a bit redundant.  Maybe consider a rethink and go for an angled headstock and headstock trussrod adjustment?
  • If you stick with body trussrod adjustment, I have seen guitars like this (including ones where there is a slip fit plug over the hole) but also you could have the adjustment slot at the back?
  • The paddle idea.  Worth doing a cross-sectional drawing in terms of where the back, top, fretboard neck heel, neck length and paddle all sit in relation to each other.  Can't see how this works at the moment...
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32 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

I'll have a proper look and think when I get a bit of time later, but immediate thoughts:

  • I like the headstock.  It has a passing nod to the big F but with the practicality of a triangular seagull acoustic.  Just make sure that the rake angles allow for the string runs to be all straight. (Edit - just seen your response above and clearly you have already done that :) )
  • Visually, I like the truss rod cover because it balances it all out.  However, I agree with @curtisa that it is a bit redundant.  Maybe consider a rethink and go for an angled headstock and headstock trussrod adjustment?
  • If you stick with body trussrod adjustment, I have seen guitars like this (including ones where there is a slip fit plug over the hole) but also you could have the adjustment slot at the back?
  • The paddle idea.  Worth doing a cross-sectional drawing in terms of where the back, top, fretboard neck heel, neck length and paddle all sit in relation to each other.  Can't see how this works at the moment...

thank you sir!  very much appreciate it.  I'm torn right now because I want to start cutting stuff, but I know it's not "right" yet.  I got some feedback on another forum too... pretty brutal!  I think it is healthy tho.  Your/their feedback has pushed me a bit to rethink some things... and only good can come from that.

paddle idea: yup, on my list is just a simple outline of the shape.

cheers and thanks for the feedback!

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so... some revisions of a number of minor details but for the most part: changed the heel dist to pickup, removed truss cover, removed f hole, added rosewood binding... did my hollow cuts and 'paddle' elevation(purple)

am I going in the right direction anyway?

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StratProto.jpg.0fbfbb8691d620900fd2aded48ad3b07.jpg

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3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Ah - OK.

So the paddle is set into the back and is fully visible from the back?  And then becomes the heel?

If so, I can't personally see anything functionally wrong, although getting the fit right will be challenging....

 

well, close.  the floor of the hollow chamber(gray areas) will be 1/2" thick.  the paddle will fit above that at 5/8" thick.  the overall body will be 2" thick... so the pickup will be inset 5/8.  so... it will sit on top of the floor of the hollow chamber.  nothing revolutionary... just thought it might be cool if my neck pickups mounted into my neck.  won't be visible.

3 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Ref the weight relieving chambers, don't forget for the top one that it needs to get progressively shallower towards the top edge to ensure you don't break through into the back belly relief....

 

yup.  my plan was to step that area up by 3/8" increments.

thank you very much for the replies!

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13 hours ago, mistermikev said:

so... some revisions of a number of minor details but for the most part: changed the heel dist to pickup, removed truss cover, removed f hole, added rosewood binding... did my hollow cuts and 'paddle' elevation(purple)

am I going in the right direction anyway?

I'll miss the F-hole and the faux truss rod cover, and others won't. I think the breathing room between the fretboard and pick-up helped.

Never lose sight of the fact that your vote weighs more that all of ours combined.:)

However you end up arranging the minor details, this will end up being a great looking guitar.

SR

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the thing is... i feel like the feedback helps me see it how I might see it in 6 months.  Somewhere insdide myself I felt the f hole didn't "tie in" to the rest of the guitar.  Just wasn't quite 'satisfied' with it.  I still may revive it if I can work that out!  sm with truss cover.  I feel like perhaps the symmetrical nature of it doesn't fit.  still working on my design today!  I'm told that you should more time designing than developing so... not sure that really applies well to building guitars (6 months desiging????!) but certainly feel like the end result is directly proportional to time spent thinking it out.

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2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

the thing is... i feel like the feedback helps me see it how I might see it in 6 months.  Somewhere insdide myself I felt the f hole didn't "tie in" to the rest of the guitar.  Just wasn't quite 'satisfied' with it.  I still may revive it if I can work that out!  sm with truss cover.  I feel like perhaps the symmetrical nature of it doesn't fit.  still working on my design today!  I'm told that you should more time designing than developing so... not sure that really applies well to building guitars (6 months desiging????!) but certainly feel like the end result is directly proportional to time spent thinking it out.

With designing or developing, I find that the ideas need to simmer like a good stew in a slow cooker - so the more time taken, the better will be the final result 

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having just completed my redesign... there are about a million things that likely would have gone wrong had I tried that!

for instance: I started this design by using a well circulated 1960 strat document.  Decided to cross reference that with a number of others as some things I saw didn't make sense... turns out the orig doc was 5% small!  doh!  Happy accident - I like the small dif in the body, so I'm keeping that.  Made a number of minor tweaks... I think this is my final version: pencils up!

having a really hard time finding a spoke wheel truss other than china (not happening) or stew mac hot rod...(too heavy too deep) so I may be going neck-adjust unless someone can point me to a better direction!  is it possible to combine a truss rod from X and a spoke wheel from Y?

 

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5 hours ago, mistermikev said:

having a really hard time finding a spoke wheel truss other than china (not happening) or stew mac hot rod...(too heavy too deep) so I may be going neck-adjust unless someone can point me to a better direction!

I use truss rods from these guys. They have gotten pricey since they took over production themselves--used to be done in China to their specs--but they are very good and they do have spoke wheels.

https://alliedlutherie.com/collections/fretwire-trussrods

SR

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57 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I use truss rods from these guys. They have gotten pricey since they took over production themselves--used to be done in China to their specs--but they are very good and they do have spoke wheels.

https://alliedlutherie.com/collections/fretwire-trussrods

SR

funny i went there looking for wheels but didn't see them (don't ask me how).  thanks for pointing that out!  def doing that

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