How can I improve my guitar?

[aeli]

I think that I built a guitar that not many people would build-at least the way I built it. Imagine a four cm thick chestnut. Then bandsaw it to a shape like the Jackson Kelly, but rounder and smaller and double cutaway. Next take a chisel and hollow the thing out leaving the top. Afterwards open a curved double lightsabre shaped soundhole withe the same chisel.

Cut a 5mm backplate from chestnut again. Break it. Then make ona again. Oversand the edges. Do it once again.

Then cut a neck from the same wood. Buy a preslotted fingerboard. Stick the neck so that the glue messes up the neck angle you tried so hard to give.

Install the hardware: tuneomatic bridge, ONE dimarzio FRED Humbucker, a mini switch, 500K voulme & tone and so on.

Result:

The action is nearly half a cm. The intonation is ok. The tone is aggressive and dirty. Not much highs. But what I like is that I dont have to plug it in, I can play it like an acoustic If I strum hard enough. It is extremely lightweight, perfect for performing if the tone was better. Too little sustain and the neck isnt very stable I can say. There is also a lot of hum???

[MzI]

pictures, we'd like to see some pictures

MzI

[bizzare]

Yeah pics would be pretty cool.

[Otter]

get the camera out!

[Cory]

a picture would help us in helping you. it will let us know what can be done, what your problem may be, and how to make it better.

also what is your guitar made out of? one thing is that you need the right pickup for certain woods.

the first thing i would for the lack of sustain is buy one of those brass sustainers that clip onto your headstock to increase neck mass. this will enhanch sustain.

also, can you describe the tone of your guitar more? is it warm, bright, thin, etc.

what is the pot value?

the hum may be caused by something you forgot to ground. also, inside the cavities there needs to be special coats of paint to eliminate hum and feedback. i don't know what it's called, someone on here wil know more about it than me.

there is a lot of things that may be wrong and can be fixed. but also keep in mind, you can't expect a big full tone from a very thin and lightweight guitar. what is it exactly that you are wanting out of this guitar that you aren't currently getting?

[Devon Headen]

As much as you're gonna have to do from the sounds of it, you're probably better off building another guitar learning from the mistakes on the first one.

[aeli]

Well I'll be borrowing my friends camera soon hopefully.

The wood is chestnut. The tone is warm but there's something missing it seems to be the sustain. I heard that glued necks cause much less sustain.

I used 500K pots. I will redo the grounding.

[MzI]

glued in set necks dont have less sustain then say a bolt on or a neck thru, if the connection is good and solid then they all are gonna have good sustain

MzI

[Devon Headen]

Shielding the cavity will help a lot too. Just do a search on the forum if you don't know how to do it. There are several different ways. That's probably the biggest problem with hum unless you didn't get good ground.

As for the sustain, a glued neck is just as good as bolt on. In fact, it's probably easier to get good transfer with a set neck, because there's more wood to wood contact. My guess is that you just don't have enough mass in your body. To have a body that thin/light, you're gonna have to sacrifice something.