Keep Me From Steppin' On My Whatzit!

[Doc]

Okay,

Now that I've cught this bug here goes.

I've cut out and sanded a walnut tele knockoff body. Got a neck from ebay. Maple and rosewood. Got a big box of stuff from Guitar Fetish.

I've routed the neck pocket so that when the bridge, a hardtail strat type, is cranked down the fretboard and bridge are the same height. Got the string through holes drilled with the backs two stepped so the ferrules are flush. I moved the string supports up about 7/8 of the way to the head and set the bridge at 25.5 from the nut.

I think I'm going to route the neck pickup so it sits 1/4" down from the fingerboard and the bridge so that it's about a 1/4 above the bridge.

I've got a curly maple plate 3/16 thick made from some outrageously curly maple and I'm going to set it flush with the face and screw it down from the back through the body.

I think I'm going to bind the whole thing with curly maple. I'd like to do abalone but that would mean waiting till it gets here from some outpost in Austrailia and I don't really want to wait.

I've got two humbuckers and all of the other electronic doodads and a seymore duncan diagram and am pretty sure I can figure it out.

Any suggestions on what guage wire to use to tie everything together and ground?

I was going to put a figured maple face on but this walnut is just too pretty to cover and anyhow I can always make another one or four. I'll finish this one with a bunch of coats of tung oil followed by wax and elbow grease. The small sample turns a great color with not much else added. Maybe a little red analine, have to see.

Anyone see any landmines that I haven't anticipated?

I really had the most fun I've had doing any woodworking in years last night when I did a preliminary screw it together and everything just fit. Most of what I've done I got from the posts here and it was great how it all went together. The neck slides in with almost no force. If you put a piece of notebook paper on one side it doesn't. Tight or what?

When I'm done I'll post some of the shots I took of setups while I was working.

[mledbetter]

Sounds awesome. I only have 3 things..

1) when you say curly maple plate.. what are you talking about? A nek plate? I thought you meant a control plate but you said screw in from the back.. so i was confused.

2) the bridge. You set the bridge 25.5" from the nut.. what part of the bridge did you measure from? You don't want 25.5" to be the end of the adjustment travel or you can't compensate. and

3) for wire.. keep it vintage.. Order a few feet of cloth wire from allparts or www.guitarelectronics.com. If you're not doing a bunch of crazy splitting and coil switching it should be pretty straight forward.

Let me know how that curly maple binding works out. I wanted to try some too. I've got some really curly red oak strips but i'm not sure I would ever get it to bend. Plus it's oak so a ton of filling would have to be done. I've put it out of my mind and decided to wait for some curly maple.

[Doc]

The plate is a control plate. I'm actually going to run a pair of 2"x 1/8"

bolts through the back into threaded fasteners. I hate little screws in nice wooden stuff. I may make pickup rings and do the same thing.

I ran the string guides up all the way towards the head, backed them back a little more than an eight inch and set it. Should have enough room to set the intonation, I hope! Should have 1/2" of travel or so.

Oak is fairly springy if you heat it. I've used it as a detail on furniture. Never bent it quite as much as the radiius we have to work with here, but heat and patience should do it.

The maple I've got is just amazingly heavily figured. I got 150 board feet for a bookcase job and there was one 10" wide 12' piece that is all figure end to end. Don't see many like that. The yard I buy my stuff from doesn't let you pick, which is bad, but they don't cull it either so sometimes you get a piece of gold or two.

[mledbetter]

Oh.. i see.. that will be neat. I'm wanting to do my necks with brass inserts and machine screws.. and get rid of the heel plate. There are a couple of builders that put the machine screws right into the maple with no problem. but the inserts would be nice for maintenance reasons..

Sound like you're good to go. Did you get your pups from GuitarFetish too? He's got some great deals.

[Doc]

I got pretty much everything but the wire and a capcitor from him. The quality on everything is really good. I don't know what the humbuckers sound like yet but they look like they're pretty well made.

The bridge is really heavy metal with clean plating. Good qulity switch and pots too.

Took three days for everything to show up.

[mledbetter]

Yeah that dude is fast. He's probably the best ebayer i've bought stuff from in a long time. He sells a TON of stuff.. He's got really good prices on humbucker sets now.. some overstock he bought.

[Devon Headen]

I just ordered one of his brass roller TOMs. Should be here in a couple days, but just from the description it sounds very high quality. And it was just under $30 after shipping. For brass and rollers! If the quality doesn't dissapoint I'll probably order a bunch of them.