Thatguysc85 Posted September 23, 2020 Report Share Posted September 23, 2020 Hey guys, new hear, got a question regarding starting a custom build with a diy kit. With my limited options I cant do alot of home carving, so that leaves me with coming up with solutions. In this case I want to use a kit with 2 humbucker holes but fill in the neck hole and just use the bridge. Is this viable, any input would help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
10pizza Posted September 23, 2020 Report Share Posted September 23, 2020 Hey , I see 2 options, depending on the type of finish you're aiming for: 1.If you'r going to finish it with a solid color paint job: saw a piece of pine or other easily available wood in the shape of the pickup cavity, glue it in and fill up with flexible wood filler or two-component filler and then sand absolutely flat. This will then need serious priming to make sure you don't see the glue-lines throught the finish. I've done this on a few guitars with good result. 2. If you want a see-through burst or oiled finish: glue on a new top and cover the pickup-cavity with that. This will need some more woodwork and depends on the type of kit if it's possible. I've done this on a les paul copy once where I routed approx 5mm of the top of the body and then glued on a new flame maple top. You will need then to route/saw new holes for the neckpocket, bridge pu, controls. or: option 3: make it an EVH frankenkit and just leave the neck-cavity open Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistermikev Posted September 23, 2020 Report Share Posted September 23, 2020 what kind of kit? obviously if it's a typical strat/tele you could just get a pickguard w/o the neck hole. If you are going for the 'single pickup look', well then that might require a bit more work. as mentioned by 10pizza you could add a top... or you could just do a pickguard/cover for that pickup hole. It'd be best to fill it in with wood but you COULD simply put a piece of cardboard in there and then fill it the rest of the way with epoxy. You could then do a veneer over that. the possibilities are endless! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted September 24, 2020 Report Share Posted September 24, 2020 The quality of the end result is the key factor here. You won't get it 100% perfect in any instance since the wood will always move, and having any sort of cross-grain cut (the long edges of the humbucker rout) will telegraph through any sort of finish in no time. I did a tutorial a while back on converting a trem body to a hardtail which involves routing out the area you're infilling to be rectangular, then fitting a reasonably grain matched block of wood of the same type, then filling the seams with epoxy or whatever. Still, this will always telegraph. I agree about fitting a new top (or a pickguard!). That's the only way to be entirely sure that it won't show. So yeah, it depends on how good you want it to be. It's possible to get it 90-95% perfect, but that takes significant time and work. Depends how badly you want it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
10pizza Posted September 24, 2020 Report Share Posted September 24, 2020 8 hours ago, Prostheta said: or a pickguard! haha, ofcourse! you can tell by my answer I'm not used to building with pickguards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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