willliam_q

I had a look at the blank again and decided just to order another one, Carter guitars does a one piece poplar for £47 delivered. I’ll be able to use the smaller blank for when I eventually get round to doing a telecaster - it’s on the list of many, would like one in butter scotch blond but have a few others to build and do before then. If nothing else the wood will be well seasoned!

Yep @Bizman62 could try that too, I’ll have a look with my template this evening and try to decide what I’ll do.

The template will certainly help you and if there are markers on the template that can be good. A template it not a replacement for measuring. You will still need to measure the scale length and length of the fretboard etc to establish your nut placement. I wouldn’t rely on templates alone, I view templates that they are to get a rough shape close to where I want. Then measuring and shaping gets me the rest of the way. as you are new to this I advise looking up fletchers hand made guitars on YouTube. He has an excellent strat build series that will show you what to expect throughout.

I like it! Thanks Curtisa, never would have thought of that! Will give it a go.

I haven’t been on in a while what with new baby and all but starting a new project, just a basic 50s 60s style strat as I’m missing one in my stable. I bought a 2 piece poplar blank, stupidly without paying enough attention to the dimensions! It’s about an inch and a half too wide in one direction and an inch and a half too short in the other. The strat is going to be painted solid colour (sonic blue) so would it make any difference to cut the widest part down an inch and a half and then glue it on across the end grain to make the blank longer? It only needs to be enough to give me enough wood for the top horn. Picture below

I’m from the Uk so obviously the Australian climate is much different In my opinion the neck should never feel tight in the pocket. You shouldn’t need to apply pressure to get it to fit, but at the same time there shouldn’t really be any perceptible gaps when it is bolted together. Thats why we build for ourselves, as you’ve alluded already, the mass produced guitars sometimes don’t meet our standards. I had a similar issue with my last guitar on the next pocket, I made up a veneer and glued it in place, now there are no gaps and the veneer can’t be seen by the naked eye. The neck doesn’t feel ‘tight’ but fits like a glove.i think that should provide enough space for wood expansion. hope that helps

Looks great Scott. Yep, if you still have fingerprints when you are finished sanding...you’re doing it wrong!

I agree, love that blue burst. Is there a hint of pearl in it or is that just camera tricks?

Started work on the body. Didn’t do too much, just enlarged the trem cavity to make it uniform to fit a block into it. The block is from scrap alder from my 5150 project a few years back. the trem screws will likely be routed out or covered by the new trem so I’ll leave them unless I think it will show in the final finish. next step will be to add some wood into the swimming pool cavity to support the trem studs. I’m in two minds as to whether I should completely fill the swimming pool and the route the individual pickups or whether I should just add a strip of wood for support. Hmmm. The pickguard material arrived today, I’ve never made a pickguard before. It’s black/white/black 3 ply plastic. Any tips as to how I should cut it?

Not sure about the ‘ghetto’ suggestions above, the plan is to make the guitar better looking... I might have another problem though, I haven’t checked if the car parts shops are open. I might struggle to get paint for spraying. another covid distraction arrived today, a Mooer GE200 multi effects pedal. Looking forward to trying it out. Had to get it with a baby on the way I want to be able to practice through headphones!

A quick look on eBay and standard pickguard blank material can be got for around £15. Suitable carbon fibre material and almost 3 times that. Can’t really justify the extra given the original value of the guitar and the parameters of this project. so black material it is then ive ordered up some parts at the weekend and got postage confirmation the morning...I have to wait till the middle of June!! in the meantime I can crack on with sorting out the body routs and hopefully pickguard blank will arrive quicker than that.

My thoughts exactly. Yes can make a shim for neck angle as well. Might do that! Although I’m definitely thinking about swapping out the frets anyway as I really like Jumbos

I now need to order up a few things. the Nut with my Floyd is too wide, I need a 42mm nut. I think I’ll replace the tuners as well, there’s too much ‘patina’ on them for my liking! the Floyd Rose route will end up very close to the pickup cavity. I think I’ll need to block off the current cavity and route from scratch to allow it to sit right top mounted.

Lifted the guitar out for a first look, it’s not as bad as I thought but there will be a substantial amount of work to be done. I checked the truss rod and it’s still working. It needs a good clean first! neck isn’t as dinged up as I thought it was so will just come out with a bit of sanding. It feels surprisingly good! there is a bit of fret wear though. Still undecided if I should refret with Jumbos although the current frets look like some could be seated better. The body is very light. The moisture in the garage has definitely affected it, you can see the join lines coming through the paint. the neck fitment looks good but I noticed a hairline crack going through to the body cavity. Nothing that can’t be fixed. I don’t know what type of body wood this is, it scratches easily with my finger nails so thinking it’s basswood?

@curtisa yes it’s a budget Pacifica. The guy in music shop at the time told me the only difference was mines was made in somewhere like China vs the Pacifica being made in Korea...or something like that. Can’t remember the specifics. I’m sure the Pacifica has a bit more quality parts to it. im thinking black and yellow too. In terms of Carbon Fibre, I can get a yellow carbon fibre mat as well (on eBay) and could potentially layer black and yellow cf. when the pickguard is bevelled the yellow should show through. Could be great or it could be a mess....who knows I’ll think about where else CF could go but at the moment I think I like it just as the pickguard. And I love garish guitars, just don’t possess one yet so this will be a first

Ah man you’ve had a lot of bad luck with your build recently, but the necks are now really looking the part. Spray painting isn’t easy. I did my first guitar with rattle cans and i made that many mistakes, but didn’t sand back just over coated. Eventually I admitted defeat, and peeled off paint layers about 3mm thick! It turned out ok in the end. I really got used to spraying when I repainted motorbike fairings. That project taught me a lot. I got a compressor for that and it definitely was better but it’s a pain in the arse having to clean the gun each time. drying time is key before wet sanding, but it’s the worst time of a build as that’s when you are most impatient. I’ve definitely learned that impatience makes the job a lot longer!

New project time!!! Like a lot of people, life is affected by Coronavirus. As someone who lives in UK (Northern Ireland) the lockdown is definitely having an affect. My work is unaffected thankfully, however my wife has had to close her business. Being 23 weeks pregnant she won’t be opening up now until at least October. By then we could be in a second wave of Coronavirus and therefore another lockdown. We are very fortunate in that financially we will be ok for about a year or so, if we are careful. After which there could be lifestyle re-evaluations . So to get to the point, my last build cost about £700-£800 and there’s no way I can justify the same expenditure on a new project. The aim of this one is to use what I have at hand as much as possible. I need a project that comes with limited health risks i.e limited power tool use ( I don’t want to risk injury and put unnecessary extra pressure on health service). and is cheap. This will not be a scratch build. I have a 20yr old Yamaha EG112 which at the time cost me £120. It was a great 2nd guitar but has been unplayed for the last 15 years, and the last 5 it has been thrown amongst my construction timber wood pile in my damp garage. Needless to say it’s not in great shape. My initial plans for it are to turn it into an 80’s rock tribute guitar, it has SSH configuration and I’d hope to keep it that way. Parts I have laying in spare parts boxes: Chinese Floyd rose copy PRS Tremonti SE bridge pickup Fender Highway One neck and mid pickups new Strat wiring kit (pots and switches) reuse the existing guitar machine heads. They are crap but with a Floyd great tuners aren’t necessary. Work to be done: fix dents in the neck maybe swap the current frets for Jumbos maybe route the fretboard and install rosewood binding to hide fret ends fix dents in body install Floyd rose surface mounted swap the current pickups for some upgrades change the colour depending on options make a new pick guard I’m fairly decided on the colour but undecided on the pickguard and pickup cover combo. I’m leaning towards a black pickguard, I could potentially make one out of carbon fibre which would be a cool new thing for me to try. what you think?

Congrats on a well deserved GOTM!

Wow, glad I got mines in last month or wouldn’t have had a chance!! Great selection to choose from but made it very difficult to come to a decision. great work done by all entrants and all should be proud regardless of who wins!

I recently completed metal gear solid 5, and whilst it was a fantastic game, the end was so disappointing I felt I’d wasted all of the spare time I put into it. Such a deflating feeling, which is what made me go back to building a guitar again. I couldn’t face another winter going through with nothing to show for it! now that spring is upon us ive started playing assassin creed unity. I kinda feel it should be the other way round. I should build in summer and play vid games in winter have to save the pennies though to get through this Coronavirus since the wife had to close her business temporarily. If the government small business grants come through I might be able to do something in the cheap.

I have the same Bosch router, it’s ok but when you see newer routers coming with the micro adjustment wheel I get tempted to change. a lot of my other tools were Lidl, the belt sander and random orbital and both do a decent job. they had a band saw for £70 I think last week, looked similar to the saw I have. If I didn’t already have one I would have bought as I don’t find any limitations with my own. (Other than I can no longer find blades any more) ive taken the view that as I’m not making any to sell (yet) I don’t need and shouldn’t be buying expensive guitar building tools. If I ever made a bit of hobby money on the side from building then I could probably justify the better tools.

Looks great, love this guitar!

Yeah the Corona is making things a bit shit for everyone at the moment.

Panama is so much fun to play, and again, relatively easy to pick out by ear. I have no doubt that what I've learned has imperfections but it sounds good when played against a backing track. I don’t get too pedantic about accuracy, most artists don’t play it the same live anyway. I don’t bother to figure out if I’m on the right string either, as long as I’m hitting the right note and it feels right to play.

I’ve been playing probably 20 years+. Tough question, probably try harder in a band. I never put the effort in with my one and only band and fizzled out very quick after starting. A band would have brought my playing on leaps and bounds. I also wish I put more effort into ear training. I’ve recently started trying to learn songs by ear and find it’s improved quite a bit. my first song learnt by ear a year ago was Van Halen Running with the devil. much of the early Van Halen stuff I’ve found is relatively easy to learn by ear. Being a four piece with one guitar featuring quite prominently it’s easier to hear the independent notes and chords.