Keegan

Oh, that burl isn't as big as I thought. I was under the impression that the grain would go the other way. Looks like you managed to line it up well though.

Hmm, I just think chrome will make it look kind of cheap. What about satin chrome?

Just trying to get an idea. I have two strat pickups, a humbucker, and tele controls I want to drop into a different body eventually. The controls are for two coils, so I want to stick with that.

Erm...sorry, I was inspired.

I like the cut though. Keep it. If the burl is situated so that the right side of the picture is the tail of the guitar, it will blend really well.

Either body blank is great. It just depends on how busy you want the back. I'm tempted to say the first because the burl is so insane and deserves it.

And use a wraparound tailpiece so you can show off more of that burl. Gold, of course. Rosewood knobs, gold tuners, misc gold hardware.

Good stuff, I like it

Hey is this what you used?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FIEBINGS-EDGE-KOTE-B...%3A1%7C294%3A50

I think he means this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TANDY-LEATHERCRAFT-F...8QQcmdZViewItem

Stewmac sells Fiebings Oil Dye, not leather dye, no idea what the difference is though

Maybe a 25.5" maple neck with lots of headstock hardware(locking nut, retaining bar) wasn't such a good idea on a tiny body with no tailpiece and minimal electronics =P

Looks good though, nice work.

Walnut or ash for the body, maple or walnut for the neck, maple or walnut for the fingerboard.

Both your lightest-weighing and darkest-sounding would be ash/walnut/walnut, the heaviest and brighest would be walnut/maple/maple.

For what you're aiming for I'd say ash body, walnut neck, walnut fretboard.

Yes. The 3-way toggles for guitar work kind of oddly though, so it'd have to be wired like this

edit: Or you could just use SPDT, unless you want to get all your parts from stewmac.

edit: Revised options

You can hook up piezo passively, but it needs a high impedance volume pot(the Graphtech Ghost system recommends a 5Mohm pot with a 330pf treble bleed). Other than that you just treat it like any other pickup(see the manual for specific instructions).

With the preamp it can be on the same volume as the magnetic pickups though.

I'm not sure how well the volume levels will match without the preamp. I assume the piezo will be pretty damned quiet. The Graphtech manual shows the passive piezo hooked up onto the other channel of a stereo jack, making me think that it won't balance well with the magnetics and should be run independently to an external preamp of some sort(like the house PA system).

As for the blend pot, no you couldn't, because the impedance on the piezos is so high. All of the piezo sound would leak off to ground no matter where you had the pot turned, making it into just another volume pot for the magnetic pickups.

I know that LPs are mahogany/maple duh...

The point is, I don't want to end up with extremly bright guitar, but now I see that mahogany is 75% bright, same as walnut.

I could go for a try, walnut back, maple top, and maybe walnut neck (if I don't find suitable flamed maple for it)

No, mahogany is around 75% warm, or 25% bright. It's the exact opposite of walnut.

You can't really go wrong with something simple like Alder, or Walnut if you prefer. And then if you use something besides maple for the neck you should wind up in the right territory.

Don't fret too much over the woods. Bring it into the right neighborhood and the pickups/scale length/strings/hardware/electronics will do the rest.

Use pickups you think will balance well with whatever wood you choose, then adjust the electronics(pot values, cap values, treble bleeds, pickup selections, etc), strings(pure nickel wound if it's too bright, steel if it's too dark, iron/nickel if it doesn't have enough attack, nickel-plated steel if it's balanced), and hardware(aluminum/steel for more attack/treble/sustain, brass for a more balanced sound) until you get the sound right. Then there's also the amp and speakers you use.

There are so many other variables that wood winds up being almost insignificant except for looks.

Maple is insane. I've stripped steel inserts trying to tap a hole in a strat neck.

Maybe some of the components in the emg preamp are dead?

That's what I'm thinking. It sounds like a failing component. Like a resistor losing its resistance to ground. He said it shows plenty of resistance though, so maybe it's a transistor or something, but then you'd think that the volume would be the same as before with the battery unplugged...

It's pretty easy to avoid putting oil in the neck pocket. I didn't put any in any of the routes in my body. It can't hurt to get some in there though. The worst than can happen is you have to sand it a little.

The 7-piece lamination is good too if you want to be more careful. More than that and I doubt you'll be able to put enough relief in the neck to play it, haha.

Option 1 for the neck because it'd be the easiest to tune and also looks cool.

Option 2 for the pickups on the fixed bridge, but I don't like the HHH on the floyd. SSH, HSH, or HxH for the floyd.

I wouldn't use two truss rods. You'd probably only be encouraging warping with that because it would be hard to make sure you had both truss rods at the same tension.

I vote for what you have in the first picture with 1 truss rod and 2 carbon fiber rods. As long as the grain is a mirror image it shouldn't warp.

1. I would say a Rhoads, because it looks more comfortable out of the two. I wouldn't go for either one personally, but the Rhodes seems the better choice. You can get plans for a Rhodes body with a floyd here http://www.guitarplansunlimited.com/Customs.htm

2. Mahogany is probably your best bet for its weight and darker tone. Wenge if you want even more weight and brighter attack. Walnut for more brightness than Wenge. Maple if you're insane(will probably give you an ear-piercing treble sound, but if you adjust your tone controls right you'll just get extra bite in the bass/mid).

3. I would pair an EMG 58 with the mahogany and an EMG 85 or 89 with the brighter woods or if you want more of a focused bassy sound. The 58 has sort of a P-90 tonality, mean and thick. The 89 is similar to the 85 but it has the added option of being splittable(very good clean sound).

Here are some good clips of the sound of each

EMG 85

EMG 58

I'd stay away from the 81 since it's really thin and trebly.

4. I'd stick with a pre-made neck if I were you.

What tools do you have available? At the very least for a body you're going to need a band saw(or some sort of saw you can cut the outline with), router(to clean up the outline and to route controls/pickups/neck pocket), and drill press(or hand drill if you're careful). A spindle sander is also handy for shaping your template, but not required(I only used our crappy band saw and just hand sanded from there). If you don't have the tools, you can go to Woodcraft and rent their tools to cut/sand the outline. I had to go there to get my wood jointed and planed for my guitar. The router you're going to want to own, because you'll be spending a lot of time with it.

You can also always just go with a pre-made body if you don't want to buy tools, especially if this is a one-time thing. A floyd could be a lot for a first-time builder. Warmoth does Rhodes Vs at $230 for Mahogany.

I'm not saying the little ones don't sound good. They're just mostly too loud for bedroom playing(5 watts into 112), distort too soon(5 watts with an EL84 power tube), or don't have enough control(like just a volume).

The Gretsch Champ-clone combo looks like it would be the best if only it had more control. http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product...-Amp?sku=481874

If you don't mind not having a decent clean you can do any 12AX7/EL84 amp. I have a Blackheart 5W and love the overdrive sound. I can't seem to get a clean sound at a good enough volume to make the speaker sound good though. I have to crank the treble to make up for the muddiness at lower volume.

Of course, it would help if I had a smaller speaker and a lower output guitar to get the clean sound. This Junior isn't built so much for the cleans.

My cheap Fender solid state does cleans very well, but god forbid you overdrive it.

I have a 5/3 watt into a 112 and it's still way loud for playing in a bedroom. The 3 watt setting is a good volume but the tone blows.

You aren't likely to get a good tube amp that'll do bedroom levels.

Very nice. I like the creative neck join. How's the sustain with it?

IMO, if you're building one, it'd just be a waste of money to buy a PRS bridge. You'd be spending more for less quality.

I'd get a pigtail aluminum wraparound bridge with tonepros locking studs. There you're sitting at only $140-150 for way more sustain(more than the standard tonepros combo even, especially if you get steel studs) and less weight.

Hmm, just found out about USA Custom Guitars. They have more back shaping options(C, U, V, or asymmetric in any thickness from .750" to 1"). Cost a bit more than Warmoth though, and they only deal in common woods. They also do a neat 7-1/4" to 9-1/5" compound radius neck.

It probably wouldn't even be worth it to buy that template to make a seven string. I think you'd be better off getting plans instead of templates, and just for the body, like the explorer one here http://www.guitarplansunlimited.com/Body%20Templates.htm

Also that makes it so you can build a bolt-on, which would be an easier first time endeavor, or not build a neck at all. And you can modify the body to accept a 7-string neck.

You'll need to make your own templates either way, the plans just give you more flexibility and save you some money.

Electronics ordered and on the way. Now all I need is a bridge, nut, tuners, and strings and it'll be ready to go. I'm just going to re-use the neck off my MIM strat that I took apart. Tapping the heel gives a nice tight percussive vibration. Not quite as much sustain as my Junior, but better than the MIM the neck came off of. I have a feeling it's going to be very quacky.

edit: Electronics all wired up and working, woo.

Audio engineering is completely different. Electrical engineering is designing circuits, not what electricians do. I don't think being an electrician even requires college, maybe a vocational college. Make sure your school has Electrical Engineering courses applicable to audio though.