Build number 3, my take on a PRS!

[GCmtb]

So I kinda dropped the ball on posting this one, but it's done now and I'm really happy with it so here it goes!

After finishing up my bass I still some sapele left over that was just long enough for a thru-neck blank, which made for a great excuse to start a new build. Took a quick trip to the local lumberyard and got some thin wenge to use as neck runners and a nice piece for a fretboard. The best find though was a 10ft x 7in x 1in board of quilted maple that was in a clearance bin for $25. It was too thin to bookmatch but I was still able to find some nice parts of it, plus I can probably get tops for 2 more build out of it.

The lovely clearance rack maple

Went with a very PRS-ish shape, but offset a bit and added a an arm carve, also did quite a bit of chambering which kept the finished product around 7lbs.

Aaaaand this is why I love building thru-necks, so much carving that can be done. I ended up copying the neck profile off my Schecter that I've played since I was 12 just because that's what I feel the most comfortable with, but I made it just a bit thicker. 22-24mm flat-ish C neck with a 14" radius fretboard, feels great to me. I also tried my best at getting a somewhat matching back plate, worked out ok. Inlays are just maple off cuts.

Frets went pretty good, wenge was surprisingly easy to work with though I didn't do anything hard with the inlays, decided to keep it pretty clean and simple (though really it's because I'm scared to do crazy inlays like a lot of you guys on here can do).

Color was tricky on this one, I got the whole set of crimson guitars stains to play with and I first I was thinking some kind of teal/ blue burst, but none of my tests came out quite right. This cheap maple was very soft and added an amber hue to most colors, really didn't react well with blues and greens. I ended up with this sort of red/ maroon thing that looked pretty good and I just ran with it. It's cherry red on the whole body, then royal blue on the edge blended in with a lot of water to bring out the highlights a bit more, pretty happy with it.

Body after one coat of just the cherry red

Stain done but no finish, I liked it best here, the oil I used to finish made the burst a bit less noticeable.

At this point I was really happy with how thing thing was coming along, so I decided to spend a bit more on hardware than my last few builds. Nothing crazy, whole build is still at under $400 total, but I went with Gotoh hardware and got an almost new set of Gibson 490/498 pickups out of a 2016 LP studio for $80 (these sound great). Did the switching similar to a PRS Paul's guitar with coil splits on separate mini toggles.

And here she is (with a super not staged workbench set up)!

Soooo happy with how this turned out, plays exactly how I wanted with great access all the way up the neck, and I love how the arm carve flows with the rest of the top carve. This will probably be my last build for a while as I'm going in for surgery on my left hand in a couple weeks to fix an old injury, then I head off to college in September and have to leave my shop behind, will definitely be taking this guitar to school with me though !

Cheers,

Graham

[verhoevenc]

That bridge angle looks HUGE. Does it intonate?

Chris

[mistermikev]

beauty guitfiddle.  I agree that the bridge angle looks a hair large. 

[Andyjr1515]

There are some really nice features on this build.

Through-necks certainly do give some tangible opportunities when it comes to carving options.

What weight is this?

[ADFinlayson]

Nice looking build and not a million miles away from a couple of mine. I’m a big fan of the pauls guitar wiring so my go to setup is the same 3-way toggle with two coil split switches. I did a build for someone with both pots being push pull but I keep coming back to the two separate switches.

Nice build, well made