gpcustomguitars

Hi!

My son informed me the other day that Santa said I should build him a guitar...

Well, he's half my height so i figured an 1/2 guitar looking like my own LP should be just right.

I picked a piece of pine, turned it against the grain for the stripes to look like maple stripes, got another piece of quartersawn pine for neck, a walnut scrap that was darkish enough for fretboard, and here goes.

All pics taken with the phone, sorry, as I'm doing this while moving the shop to the new (bigger ) room.

http://www.samsvojmajstor.com/portal/sites/default/files/fotografija0103.jpg

http://www.samsvojmajstor.com/portal/sites/default/files/fotografija0104.jpg

Sanded, one coat of nitro as sealer on. Colour changed a lot, very nice texture.

Glued together.

And, this morning:

I need to shape the final body outline today, refine the neck shape, also today, and start sanding. Got some hardware already, some is in the mail, so far so good, aprox. 15 days of 2-3 hr work a day.

More pics soon.

Radiused (12'), inlayed w ABS, fretted.

Channels drilled, upper marks where an pup will be, will route when i get it, it being an Artec EB style hum, lower is for bridge ground.

Hstock roughly routed. Some sanding to do.

Neck shaped half way, needs some refining.

Some mockups, made most of the pickguard pieces in spare time, also got some hardware.

Fboard trimmed, glued on and bound.

Heel shaped roughly.

Hstock drawn.

The profile.

Blank fretboard, routed hot rod channel, trimmed.

Hi!

Some pics of my new bass in progress!

I bought a log of walnut some years back, along with the stumps of several large walnuts, and resawn them.

This is one of the pieces, cut and thicknessed.

I chose this piece for the center section. Rest will become a bunch of Firebirds probably...

Roughly cut hstock angle.

Managed to saw off a piece of the back to get close to body thickness, and not waste a nice piece of walnut, will probably use for wing lams on something...

Body portion routed to final thickness.

Great! Thanks a lot!

Very nice! I'm making a bass that should have a pickup like that, and have found only one source so far... Could you tell me more about them?

Rechecked, sorry - http://www.guitar-parts.com/categories/34/...-Tailpieces.htm

I just LOVE it! Retro funky nice! I also love the material you're using - I'm gearing up to do a hollow copy of Saturn 63 with solid core and 4mm poplar plywood top & back. I'll probably use the faux chrome car stripes, like on the originals.

Looking forward to more pics!

Thanks Traveler! The Vibrola is new, found it at Allparts.

Thanks! The Steinbergers are great!!! Too expensive to use on all my guitars, tho... If I make more FBirds, I'll definitely use them again.

Hi!

It's been finished for a while now, but I just got around to taking some pics!

Sounds great, very light guitar, very resonant and alive. I LOVE it! We tested it trough VOX 30W and H&C 50W combos. It nails the Clapton's Crossroads sound when overdriven, and sounds a lot like strat neck pup on clean channel.

No neck problems with red fir so far. Strung it with 9s. Pickups are GFS Little crunchy Minihums.

Cheers!

Goran

Thanks guys!

Here are the new pics - finished filler sanding, stained with vintage amber & dark tobacco, sealed with nitro, bursted with rattlecan black, sanded flat and left to dry completely. It's as good as polished, only thing left to do is one coat of poly. I like it a lot!!!

Thanks! They are kinda bulky, but I just didn't want to compromise with changing the headstock to standard tuners. It's a big part of Firebird appeal for me, and also I didn't want to spend unreasonable kind of money on very hard to find original tuners just to have tuning problems they are famous for. The decision to go with Steinbergers was made after seeing a pic of an Firebird with them on StewMac. They don't look that big on it IMO.

BTW we seem to have the same favorite band!

Hi,

This is my almost finished Firebird, should be done in a few days. I'm at the filler/sanding stage, hope to stain it and give it first coats during the weekend. Will finish it in poly for extra durability.

I opted for the non standard tuners, as on originals, but instead of banjo ones I'm using Steinbergers. It will have 2 mini hums, slightly hotter than standard and LP wiring.

Ebony fboard, 12' radius, abs inlays, hot rod, and the wood is red fir. This was a sort of an experiment, I like fir and want to see how this will work. Center piece is laminated from 3 pieces for stability, and the wings are not. VERY light guitar, cca 2kg without the metalic parts. Made it for my wife

Cheers!

Helge, that's a very nice cab! Mono / stereo sounds very nice, I can imagine a few interesting uses right away! What kinda cloth did you use for the front? Or is it a net?

Jer, I'll take some pics later today, but for now, it's handbuilt by a guy called Andrey Ostap. 3 channels, clean, very fenderish to me, overdrive, goes from clean to crunch nicely, and a little switch called high gain which I rarely use, which results in REALLY high gain. I'm still getting to know it, cause I've switched to it recently, but I like it a lot so far.

Russ, nice cab, how about a front pic? What's the thickness of the material that you used? I think mine looks big because of the completely black panel, it kinda stares at you. I was thinking about adding a simple white line around the baffle board, it could make it seem a bit more finished and take some of the effect of the black off, but not for now...

I might add some wheels to it, but it's not that heavy, I used 12mm plywood and the braces are pine.

Thanks guys!

No formula there, it's an open back cab, so no math is needed. The size is just right, I left ~4cm on the either side of the speakers L-R-wise measuring to the openings. ~3cm in between.

2 x 12'=approx 61cm. The general measurements were taken from an existing cab.

http://www.spimagehost.com/pic.php?u=226d5FMj&i=11500

The pics:

http://www.spimagehost.com/pic.php?u=226d5FMj&i=11585

http://www.spimagehost.com/pic.php?u=226d5FMj&i=11586

Here's my first custom cab, 2 x 12. Speaker's are Eminence Beta12LTA's, 225Wrms each, sounds very nice to the whole band. On it I have a custom made (not by me) head, 50W, and some of the guitars I've made and kept around. L-R: Red Special copy, a sort of a PRS made for my brother a few years back, and a recent hybrid LP made to look faded.

When I set the stuff together for taking the pic, I had a grin I couldn't take off of my face for the rest of the day...

BTW, on the rehearsal last saturday, we're playing It's All Over Now, and I'm using this amp for the first time, sound's great, we're really cookin', and close to ending, when we did that last abrupt stop, the whole neibourghood loses power completely, the same second We're really a smokin' band

How do you like it? (not the story, the cab)

Very nice!!! I like the color a lot! Any construction pics?

OK, next batch of pics:

http://www.spimagehost.com/pic.php?u=226d5FMj&i=3010

http://www.spimagehost.com/pic.php?u=226d5FMj&i=3011

http://www.spimagehost.com/pic.php?u=226d5FMj&i=3012

I've routed out the neck pocket and the electronics cavity, and also recessed the bridge and the areas for the knobs. I've always had this feeling that the metallic knobs stick out a lot more on those flat bodies, so I decided to sink'em half way.

It still misses the pup cavity, maybe today, but Bill Wyman & The RK are in town, so, not likely...

Started the neck too, no pics for now tho...

I'm wondering about the finish myself, nitro or tung? I think covering those natural cavities would be easyer with nitro. Tung seems nice too, but then, I want neck with nitro because of the light coloured wood, cause oiled maple necks tend to get dirty and darken with use. Dunno, but there's still time to think it over...