-CB-

Ya know a bigsby arm kinda sorta looks like a flush handle... I wish I could get another pickup in there and "maybe" a dogear at the neck, surface mounted, or barely inlaid. The aluminum plate extends a little past the end of the neck and prohibits getting anything set into the "body" (lid).

The lid is screwed to the seat. The neck is inletted into the lid. There is also a 1/8 thick aluminum plate inletted under the lid in the neck area. That plate is screwed to the lid from the underside. The neck rests on the plate, and two screws go through the plate and into the neck, and two go through the seat and plate then into the neck. The plate, being fastened to the lid and spanning the inletted area is very rigid, and supports the neck very well. There is a 5/16 birch plywood back on the underside of the seat. The bridge is hardtail strat, and the pickup is a no-name ubber death metal/mondo-distorto type. And, amazingly it don't play half bad (sounds like .. well it sounds really harsh). The neck is a no-name fender clone, and it had the decal on it when I got it.

Guys, thanks for the warm welcome. I'm EXTREMELY envious of all you totally build from scratch types, whereas, guitar hacks like me get dangerous when trying to combine and massage ideas into reality. Mostly what I do is find instruments that give me some sort of inspiration, then rework them accordingly... routing, refinishing, rewiring, changing things around. And of course, if you want a good Tele, ya just have to bolt it together yerself. That goes without saying.<ggg>. However, I thought y'all might get a chuckle out of this, which I built after I saw "Jammin Johns" online a few years back. I said, hey if he can do guitar shaped toilet seats, I can do a toilet seat into a guitar. So without further pontification:

Aw Greg... your opinion matters to me! Its just different than mine As for the break angle... why make it severe? I know the low stop bar school of thought says "better sustain!". I find the claim... unconvincing in my own experimentation. Certainly bending, is easier with the bar higher, and subsequent tuning stability is more positive. Perhaps a bit softer toned as well. That is - ever listen to a Tele with a Bigsby? They're not as smart in the attack. There's still lots of quack, but they lose a little of what they had. Maybe thats part of it too, just a bit softer. Whatever is is, I tend to keep the string angle to something less than 20 degrees and it seems to be an enhancement _for me_ rather than a drawback.

Ben, yes it started life as a Les Paul BFG. It was purchased, new, with the intent on total renovation of the instrument. It started life sorta like this (seen with partial finish removal... to see if I'd need a strong stripper. I didn't, just lacquer thinner.) Greg said: ....it looks like you didn't calculate enough of a neck angle to use TOM + tailpiece. The TOM might be within acceptable parameters, though to me the ideal is to have'em all the way down in their bushings. The stop tailpiece seems hella high, though, no? Well blame it all on Gibson. My own thoughts though, are to leave about 1/8 inch yet to drop, when the strings are at proper playing elevation. On the stop bar, I try to go for about the same break angle as is on the nut, and to hell be damned the "must be low" mindset types (present company excepted of course). There's about 160 or so lbs pressure pulling on those studs. The body is hollow. I did it my way! The pickups are the stock P90 and BB-3, now with covers, bridge with mounting ring as well. The controls are volume, middle, and treble. The middle control is a direct rip off of the very nice L6s middle control. The "varitone" is not a varitone. What it is, is a 3 pos. rotary switch, that selects between both pickups in series, either singly or both pickups in parallel, and both pickups in parallel semi out of phase with a phase delaying capacitor inserted (again, as the L6s does). This way you get all the great "normal tones" plus two additional "special tones". One being very phat with no loss of highs, the other being a very "Strat-like" tone when a Strat is in its #4 position (except this one is a bit phatter being HB and P90).

Well, I tend to not like uncovered pickups (the P90 there has a cover now), and I tend to like pickguards on LPs. I wanted a clear one... but searched and they were outrageous in price, so I got a black one for a LP Deluxe inbound. Clear would have solved everything... but I'm not spending close to $50 for a pickguard just because its clear. Even Dasbootzman was really expensive. Must be something about clear that makes it tough to work with.

Just found this place, looks cool, thought I'd join, and send a picture of the latest (done except for pickguard). Anyway, there it is.