dude

Tou could do some kind of v (flying, king, Rhoads, or otherwise) with extra frets and part of the treble-side body cut away for easier access. Unless you like to play sitting down.

edit: looks like wes was way ahead of me. hooray for simultaneous posting.

Beautiful guitars, by the way, wes.

Thanks for the input, Pete. I've actually been messing around with the design quite a bit since my earlier post. You'll be happy to know that it now hardly resembles an iceman, save for the waist curves and the point on the bridge-end (my favorite part of the design). What I have now actually looks reminiscent one of Paul Stanley's guitars (no, not one of his icemen, though I would someday like to get my hands on a shattered mirror iceman). Observe:

I'm still debating wood choices at this point. My main guitar right now is an all-mahogany, set-neck, EMG monster (Schecter Hellraiser Avenger). It's a beautiful sounding guitar, but its a bit too heavy at times. That's why I wanted to add the maple laminates to the neck. I almost want to try all-maple, though. Is this a bad idea?

Hey everybody,

I never really introduced myself before, so hi, I'm dude (or Phil if you prefer). A few summers back, I joined this forum with the intention of starting my first build soon after. I bought Hiscock's book and read it through several times, but ultimately got discouraged by the cost. I kept coming back to it, though, sketching out body ideas and the like here and there. Well, I've finally convinced myself to go ahead and knock out my first build. I know it's going to be a ton of fun - well worth the investment.

Now, on to the fun bits.

Specs:

Neck: 3-piece maple/mahogany/maple neck (neck through construction - no neck angle)

Body: Mahogany body wings - see below for shape

Scale: 25 1/2"

Frets: most likely 24 jumbo-wide from Stewmac

Pickups: 2 humbuckers (probably Dragonfire Distortion pickups) - zebra bobbins

Controls: 1 volume, 1 tone, 3-way toggle (or a 5-way with some coil-tapping/out-of-phase options. We'll see.)

Bridge: Strat-style hardtail (from the same seller as the pickups)

Finish: Natural (probably Tru-Oil). I'll likely stain the mahogany darker and leave the maple pretty bright. I've always had a thing for racing stripes.

Below is my design thus far. It's VERY similar to an ibanez iceman, but with some sizable tweaks - the most notable of which are the second cutaway and the accentuated rear horn/point/thing. This image is perhaps not as good quality as it could be. It's a shrunk-down version of my actual-size diagram I'm doing in Photoshop. Still, you should be able to get the general idea. I'm still working on the headstock. It doesn't quite do it for me as is.

Here's the production plan: I have 2 weeks to finish up my design. After this, I'll have about a week in my dad's shop to do most of the heavy lifting (band-sawing and routing) before I go back to school to work. If I can get the body and neck mostly shaped by then, I should be able to manage the rest with my own tools.

Any comments, input, suggestions, words of encouragement, or general criticisms are most appreciated. I can't wait to get started! Thanks everyone!

gorgeous

Niiice. I like the PRS-style contouring. Very sexy.

Oh, I thought it was just a lefty build. That's kinda cool.

No jokes about my "router table." lol.gif It's actually solid as a rock.

The best ones look like that. It means you use it.

Looks kinda like a PRS, but a bit sleeker. I like it a lot. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

coolest f-holes I've ever seen. Can't wait.

p.s. Is that 3 p-90's you're using or are those something else?

The guitar gods smile upon you.

So there's no truss rod at all? Just the carbon fiber?

THAT is cool. Very cool. How'd you do the graphic?

I've got an 81/89 set. If you want a good example of it in action, just look for a zakk wylde solo where he plays with the knobs and switches on his guitar a lot. The 81 is the weedeeleeedeedeelee/waadaalaaadaadaalaa sounding one, and the 89 is the woodooloowoodooloo sounding one... Sorry, I think words like "warm" and "bell like" are kind of inadequate ways to describe tone lol.

I honestly laughed aloud when I read that. Seriously, that's probably the best description of their tone I've ever heard. You're right, It definitely trumps "warm" or "bell-like."

edit: I thought Wylde played on 81/85 usually. Am I wrong?

But I am stuck on shape, I am tossing up either an SG style smallish DC or a big almost acoustic shaped SC, your input on this is much appreciated.

Personally, I'd avoid the bigger SC shape, just because it'll weigh a ton if its made of hard, dense wood. But hey, if you're into heavy guitars then I'd say go for it. After all, I'm even put off by the weight of an LP.

This is quite possibly the most beautiful guitar I have ever seen. Congratulations on a work of art.

and looks better in quilted maple!

Yes it does!

Call me crazy, but I actually almost like it better flamed.

Does anyone know what kind of guitar Joe Perry is playing in the "Walk This Way" music video with Run DMC? It looks like a Jackson Kelly or an Explorer or something similar, except it has triangular cutouts in the body and the headstock.

Here's the video:

Anybody know what guitar that is?

I'm pretty sure Setzer uses TV Jones humbuckers in his Gretsches.

Can't you just use a tremolo stompbox on the square wave setting with "depth" turned up all the way? It'll give you the auto-killswitch effect anyway (though changing the rate while playing would be a bit difficult).

the black/white/beige one is sweet.

That's really cool. I wouldn't think that the more classic-shaped body goes with the more modern, wicked-looking BC Rich headstock, but it definitely works.

What's your plan for the finish, if I may ask?

got a spare screen from korg and found someone to program the midi controller.

that is VERY interesting. Sounds like an ideal solution to me. Any chance you'd be willing to share the midi secrets? How reproducable is it?

This has to be the most unusual without being gaudy guitar I have ever seen.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e82/bugl...dreRockoval.jpg

That thing is funky. What kind of electronics are those? I've never seen anything like that before.

I'd looked into the mod myself, but fell out of love with it once I realized you need to keep the base unit as part of it.

What I find particularly interesting about that part of it is that on Manson's KAOSS guitars, he installs a midi-controller xy pad into the guitars, rather than an extension of the base unit. There's a midi input on most KAOSS pads and he can then just plug it into there (or theoretically any other midi-controlled unit. on one demo video they even mention controlling lighting). So far, I haven't been able to find a single xy midi pad for sale or otherwise. I guess he must have them made specially for him by KORG. I emailed his public email to ask. No response yet (and at this point I'm not expecting one. He's a busy guy after all).

I'd be more interested in being able to use the pad as a stand-alone with my normal effects setup. Hooking up a similar touch pad to an output that could control a pitch bender or stereo fader would be sweet as well.

There is another KAOSS pad (the newest one, in fact) that might suffice in this area. The KP-mini is pretty darn small and it's battery operated (with an optional DC plugin). it shouldn't be too hard to strap one onto any guitar without even cutting up the body. I bet you could even mount it in the body without too much trouble. The only issue is that it has RCA connections for the input and output. This is easy enough to remedy with converter cables, but if you want to put the unit in your effects loop rather than between your guitar and amp, you need to run 3 different cables to your guitar. That seems a bit cumbersome. I might still give it a try though (hooray for zip ties).

i love them too, but they are very similar to the teisco spectrums that were the teisco top range model in the 60's

Wow, you're right. I'd never seen one of those before. Even the headstock is similar.

Is that pickguard material on the headstock?