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Thin-body neck through


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She's pretty! The basic design is similar to a couple of my builds but your interpretation is way more sophisticated. The ramp towards the bottom slot enhances the grain beautifully, the slot and the angled hidden jack are very nice details as well. You've even managed to get the horns look unique without changing the visual balance. I'm waiting to see her finished!

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On 4/19/2020 at 10:11 AM, Bizman62 said:

the slot and the angled hidden jack are very nice details as well.

The jack was pretty tricky to pull off. The wall inside the cavity where the jack pokes out has to be angled, 90 degrees to the audio jack (so I couldn't just route it out). And drilling/sanding the hole was another challenge (built a small wooden rig so I can start trilling with the bigger drill from the top, after drilling from the cavity outwards first with a smaller bit).

All in all, took a good 4-5 hours to get it right, but insanely happy with the result:

ljYC2fi.jpg

Edited by Gogzs
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7 hours ago, Gogzs said:

All in all, took a good 4-5 hours to get it right, but insanely happy with the result:

The result makes me happy as well, nice to see someone turn a common task to a challenge! 😄

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Thanks everyone for the kind words, tips and tricks that brought me this far :) But well, the credits for the jack position doesn't belong to me, Ibanez does it that way on the S series. I looked at a few other thin bodied projects, and the compromises some make to fit the jack in a more traditional place on the side made me uncomfortable... so it was either make it or go down in a blaze of glory haha.

I'm waiting for the wipe-on poly to arrive, in the mean time I was drawing up the wiring diagram and realized I didn't drill the hole for the toggle, so did that today and fit everything to see how little/much space I'll have in the cavity when it's all in. It's not much haha...

FwzF216.jpg

m6ce3ji.jpg

Now waiting for the postman and looking for wood for a second build :D

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I finally got the wipe-on poly delivered on thursday. So far I only did 2 layers, sanded lightly with 1000 grit inbetween layers letting them sit for 24 hours. 

HnEfZDj.jpg

Here's a little comparison. I really love how the grain pops and the contrast, way better than I expected. 

QV9b11q.jpg

h14wPR4.jpg

Can't believe how nice it looks after 2 coats... I'll sand this one lightly as well, put one more coat and then polish it. 

7UKfbFO.jpg

I don't wanna add too many coats, I want these pores to stay visible. I like this shiny but raw wood look... feels great to touch, and the hands glide nicely on the neck, so I'll keep it this way... hope I can put it all together by the end of the week :D

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Can't stop looking at the jack hole. Lol
Somehow I missed you were using X2N. I've got one of those in my first build, and holy wow is it hot. Great pup.

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Last few days were fun, setting everything up was a breeze, it turned out beyond my wildest expectations. So here's what was missing:

5Cchmii.jpg

I pressed in tin foil to get the shape, removed it while preserving the shape, put on a thin layer of glue onto the cavity and pressed the tin foil back in. This was the simples way to do the shielding without having to wait for conductive paint to be shipped here. No weird humms or noises, so it's doing its job correctly.

NqSvuJj.jpg

I like the way this "sating" finish on the back side turned out, I can imagine one day waking up, stripping the guitar down and sanding the front to such a finish as well. It's just so nice to touch. 

ucjm4XK.jpg

I noticed the furthest parts of the jack hole didn't get the last layer of the wipe on poly... you really have to look directly inside from this angle to notice it... but since everyone (not just you guys here) is obsessing over the jack hole, I might have to get back at it and fix it... otherwise super satisfied with the front finish. The lines seen around the knob are reflections from the closet drawers, not scratches in the finish... 

YRFoxZd.jpg

Action turned out awesome, nice and low with no fret buzz... I did put on two sets of cheap strings while dialing everything in, but was totally worth it, the playability is amazing. Had to screw the pickups a bit lower than normally, they are really screaming haha.

tf5trx3.jpg

String trees installed, headstock nice and shiny, frets polished...

JG0hIOV.jpg

Body turned out nice and thin, really like how it feels.

2r44YCQ.jpg

And here it is in all its glory. Huge thanks to everyone for their input, be it in this thread or other threads where I read some tips and tricks, without those, this wouldn't have been possible! Cheers guys! Now off to enjoy the long weekend, and sketch up some plans for the next build. Damn it, this was so satisfying :D

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That's a beautiful and well executed build--period. Not really good for a first build, but really good period.

You've got a lot to be proud of!

2 hours ago, Gogzs said:

Now off to enjoy the long weekend, and sketch up some plans for the next build. Damn it, this was so satisfying

I told you it was addictive.:D

SR

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I've already spent my superlatives with this build, well done anyways!

The tinfoil trick is clever! Getting the tape in right can be a nightmare especially in tight spots if you can't be sure that the glue is conductive. And you can't beat the price!

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22 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

The tinfoil trick is clever! Getting the tape in right can be a nightmare especially in tight spots if you can't be sure that the glue is conductive. And you can't beat the price!

Yeah, when I saw the prices of conductive copper tape I remember high school (graduated as radio communications technician). Some of the field equipment we used for testing needs to be calibrated without any outside EM noise, so we would use tinfoil and plastic lunch boxes to make a faraday cage. If it's good enough for the sensitive electronics, it should be more than enough for this :)

19 hours ago, mistermikev said:

those inlays... very fetching.  alvarez dana scoop inspired?

Had to look it up haha, yeah looks pretty similar. I actually built and fretted a fretboard other than this one. At first I wanted to go with normal dot inlays, but once I put the fretboard on the neck I felt like it's a pity to cover the pear stripes that go through the neck. So I made a new fretboard with the pear wood inlays, to make it look like the stripes are going through the rosewood. You'll notice they are on the fretboard exactly above the stripes. 

But now I'm actually bummed I didn't do it inverted... I should have put two pear stripes along the whole fretboard and just intterupt them on 3-5-7-9... etc. would have looked much better, but oh well, I'm not gonna tear this down and build a third fretboard :D 

Thanks everyone for the kind words, I'll try to get a few clips of it playing these days, super happy with the sound. 

Oh, some tech info:

The mini switch is an on/on/on kind, I use it to pick between bridge/both/neck pickup, and the volume knob (closer to the pickups) is also a pull push, when pulled it splits the coils (on the bridge it selects the closer to the bridge, on the neck it selects closer to the neck). So all in all, 6 configurations are possible. 

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2 hours ago, Gogzs said:

Yeah, when I saw the prices of conductive copper tape I remember high school (graduated as radio communications technician). Some of the field equipment we used for testing needs to be calibrated without any outside EM noise, so we would use tinfoil and plastic lunch boxes to make a faraday cage. If it's good enough for the sensitive electronics, it should be more than enough for this :)

Had to look it up haha, yeah looks pretty similar. I actually built and fretted a fretboard other than this one. At first I wanted to go with normal dot inlays, but once I put the fretboard on the neck I felt like it's a pity to cover the pear stripes that go through the neck. So I made a new fretboard with the pear wood inlays, to make it look like the stripes are going through the rosewood. You'll notice they are on the fretboard exactly above the stripes. 

But now I'm actually bummed I didn't do it inverted... I should have put two pear stripes along the whole fretboard and just intterupt them on 3-5-7-9... etc. would have looked much better, but oh well, I'm not gonna tear this down and build a third fretboard :D 

Thanks everyone for the kind words, I'll try to get a few clips of it playing these days, super happy with the sound. 

Oh, some tech info:

The mini switch is an on/on/on kind, I use it to pick between bridge/both/neck pickup, and the volume knob (closer to the pickups) is also a pull push, when pulled it splits the coils (on the bridge it selects the closer to the bridge, on the neck it selects closer to the neck). So all in all, 6 configurations are possible. 

I think often times you think of how you should have done something... and it makes what you have seem inferior to you... but 9/10 that only seems that way to you.  I've always loved those inlays because they are simple... but look elegant.  I don't think you could really improve on that altho I'm sure your other idea would look great too... just as great.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Incredible results! Loving the design and, well pretty much everything going on. If you scratch this up when plugging in or if it slides off that dresser its propped up on I'll never for give you :P

On 5/1/2020 at 7:40 AM, Gogzs said:

I pressed in tin foil to get the shape, removed it while preserving the shape, put on a thin layer of glue onto the cavity and pressed the tin foil back in. This was the simples way to do the shielding without having to wait for conductive paint to be shipped here. No weird humms or noises, so it's doing its job correctly.

Question, what type of glue did you use? I'm going to steal your method, so I want to steal it properly. I'm assuming this'll work on the pick guard as well

Edited by JayT
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1 hour ago, JayT said:

what type of glue did you use?

I can't tell what he used, but I know that spray glue works. Epoxy most likely as well. Wood glue will not stick to flat metal (or the plastic of the pickguard) but it may still work as it can grab the wrinkles on the foil cup. Construction glue should also work. Even paint/lacquer might work as it sticks to both metal and wood. After all we're talking about a very lightweight "wallpaper" inside a closed space with no mechanical stress involved.

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6 hours ago, JayT said:

Question, what type of glue did you use?

 

I used universal glue from Pattafix but just like @Bizman62 said, I'm pretty sure lacquer would be enough as well, just give it a bit more time to cure and it'll be hard to peel off. It's not like the shielding will be put under lots of stress and stuff, so any decent universal glue should do the trick.

Edited by Gogzs
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