Ripthorn Posted September 17, 2011 Report Share Posted September 17, 2011 Let me preface this by saying that for a long time I was never a fan of Fender guitars. That was because all my experience was with those lousy ones that didn't have rolled fretboards or any of the ergonomic or aesthetic things I wanted in a guitar. All this experience was in a small guitar shop in the middle of nowhere, so they were all unexciting solid colors and I am a big fan of seeing at least a fair amount of wood grain. Several months ago, I decided to build a tele, then thought "Well, I should probably build a strat, too, since I don't have any single coil guitars". After that, I decided I wanted a Jazzmaster. However, I didn't want to just knock them off, I wanted to reimagine them somewhat. I stuck to the body shapes, it is mostly the woods, electronics, and a few other things that I took liberty with. Tonight, I completed the first one (the tele). I call it the Filtercaster. Why? you may ask. Well, I am a physicist and all my research at the university was in acoustics. As such, I did a lot of circuit analysis and filter design. So instead of just having the normal low pass tone control, I stuck in about a gazillion switches, 5 caps and an inductor. Now I have high pass, low pass, band pass, and notch filters available to me. How useful will they be? Only time will tell. As for the rest of the electronics, there is a neck phase reversal and series/parallel options as well. All of this was crammed into a standard control cavity. The body is solid northern ash (the unfinished body came in about 7 lbs.!) with shellac finish, the neck is curly maple with satin lacquer, the fretboard is unfinished monkeypod. Nut is bone and the board dots are mother of pearl both in the face and on the side. Pickups are Bill Lawrence Keystones. So far, it sounds awesome. Of course, I haven't dialed in the relief of the neck or intonated it, as I angered the wife very quickly upon completion (apparently she can hear my playing two floors above). You may also note the lack of string trees. That will be remedied shortly, as they are badly needed. I also need knobs and one more strap button, but other than that, this thing is good to go. I'm pretty pumped. I will post pictures of the others as they are finished. The other two have finished necks. Jazzmaster body is being finished currently and the body I built for the strat I decided didn't match the amazing neck I built for it, so I will have to do one from scratch (after I finish building the two mini guitars for my kids for Christmas). Anyway, here's what you really wanted. I'll try to get some pics with better light after I get knobs, etc. Enjoy! Closeup: Back: Control panel closeup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avengers63 Posted September 17, 2011 Report Share Posted September 17, 2011 I've made a couple of guitars from northern ash. It's heavy, but it sounds terrific! I've taken to chambering it, just to lose some weight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpm99 Posted September 17, 2011 Report Share Posted September 17, 2011 That's a lot of toggle switches! Nice guitar though. I wonder why more people don't use high pass filters. I think they're pretty useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripthorn Posted September 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2011 I've made a couple of guitars from northern ash. It's heavy, but it sounds terrific! I've taken to chambering it, just to lose some weight. I hadn't made any prior to this from northern ash, so I didn't know exactly what I was getting myself into (thought more weight would be lost in the shaping/routing part). If I were to do it again, I would do horizontal chambers with a forstner bit before glue up. Also, this thing sustains until just a few seconds shy of forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripthorn Posted October 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2011 Well, time for some updates here. I promised some better pictures of the tele when it was all squared away. So here we go: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripthorn Posted October 29, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2011 Additionally, I just finished guitar #2 in the Trio for Leo. This is the Jazzmaster. Fairly straightforward: - Poplar body with silver pearl finish over white base coat - Custom Tortoise pickguard - Ebonized walnut neck with trapezoidal profile (all credit to Rick Toone for the profile) and profiled heel. - Monkeypod fretboard, bone nut - P90 pickups with series/parallel switch (I used the tops of dual concentric knobs for the smaller size, I really liked the look) - String-through, recessed TOM bridge I am still getting a feel for the EmTech EM6000 lacquer that I used on this guitar, meaning I sanded through the pearl finish to the white base coat in a couple spots. Couple that with one small blemish due to the soldering iron and it looks like it is "case-worn" as one of my coworkers put it. All in all I am quite pleased with it, despite a few small aesthetic errors. Now, the part you really want, the pics: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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