Our Souls inc.

Last year i built an experimental bass to test out a new neck joint and a theory of mine. A year later and it's still holding up so I thought i'd post up some pics.

It's a Carvin swamp ash body with a trussless ebony neck.

I painted it black and pore filled over that with a burnt orange. Looks evil and halloweenish. To me....

anyway-

here's some pics.

I have yet to get a battery door or the string ferrules....... The bridge works as a top-loader too so......

Maybe I'll get to that one day. lawl.

I like the design. I do see familiar design elements, but it flows well and looks comfy. Before you cut the headstock, have you checked for string clearance on the D and G strings? With a curvy side like that, it may pitch the last tuners out a bit too far. *may* .

I notice you have two knobs off the pickguard too. Are you going to back-rout as well as PG, or do you have some other nifty trick up your sleeve?

You should use RADs latest pup in this build. It'll keep with the 'forum members' parts compilation and it just happens to have killer tone. I'm guessing that a super-thin maple body will sound just that- super thin. I forget the model name ( I was calling it "the beast" ) but it has great bass tone. I used it on a Maple/Elm strat and love the chunkiness of it. Mad props to his pickup building skills !

FWIW ,I utilize the 5th fret as the perp most of the time for the reasons stated above. In playing position, it feels very natural.

What kinda bridge you using??

Keep it rolling, this is gonna be stellar when you get it complete. Can't beleive all the neck whoopers you had to endure. If it's any solace, I have two necks sitting in the shop that have snafu's that rendered them useless. Both of them had BM'd coco fretboards. Nicest looking necks I have attempted to date and I killed 'em.

Hope you get this one all ironed out. That gap may appear smaller once you clean up the wood a bit.

Thanks Scott. I used the same camera as always, just the outdoor light filtered through the trees is different. Having that old truck for a backdrop don't hurt either. It's just sitting in the woods slowly going back to the earth.

The pup route isn't that bad ( IMHO ) , i think ( hope ) it's the shadows making it look a bit off. Looking at it here, it passes my test.

I have a few more coming out of finishing I'll be posting up soon.

Happy birthday indeed! Scott, this guitar is looking absolutely stunning. It's very unique and equally as gorgeous. If it sounds like it looks, you have a definite winner on your hands.

One piece genuine mahogany.

oh happy day. Thats sweet.

What a Bich'n build. Looks great! Whats that brown strat body made of ? Sapele?

Howdy Muzz ! I don't snip the ends, I thread them in from the tuner posts down to the bridge. [insert evil villian laugh here ]

As far as contact surface, there's really no more than your average hard-tail. The fine tuners being the only advantage . As for string height- that took some careful planning ! My version is literally a FR with the block removed, not like Mr. 'Knots version, where you can adjust the height.

My hat's off to you sir ! This is an incredible looking guitar.

Thanks for the nice words. I am happy with it, but made my share of boo-boo's during the build.

Rad- real glad you like it. The neck isn't all multi-lam'd out, but I like the tone of a flatsawn maple neck. I blame my early guitars.

John, i found this.

http://www.ibanez.com/ElectricGuitars/Series-mtm << that dude liked my idea so much he stole it and Ibanez let him.

I'll do up a video clip of the rad-o at work. Its a very bassy guitar. Detuned a bit anyway but it does have a J-lo like bottom end. Very large and round but somehow quite fitting and pleasant, with enough going on up top that it's not too lop-sided..

I can't believe you screwed down the top part of a Floyd to use as a hard-tail. Sorry buddy, but that's just ghetto.

I got a pass, it's cool.

JK, but this is only like the 8th time I've done this. Sorry you just noticed.

I like the simplicity of the install myself.

As for two screws, its showing no signs of weakness ,it'sjust a bit ugly. I'll probably add a third just for aesthetics. It was more of a test to see if two would do. I thought about only one, but felt a little nervous.

your new friend has a very nice collection !!

The neck is looking stellar- nice work so far.

Did you do this one with the soldering iron too??? You have some major skills man !

Very artistic.

Feel free to criticize or ask questions.

It's been a coons age since I finished anything, but one got done today.

This was a simple strat build but I talked to Brett at guitar logistics - Aka Rad from this forum - and he recommended his latest high-output pup for this build to get the tone I was hoping to acheive.

After talking to him, I decided to utilize his "minimalist" approach on this build. I went with a single pup, single volume pot and not much else. I managed to use the output jack cavity to fit the volume pot in thus negating the need for a cavity cover.

Since it was inspired by him and sports one of his pups, I dubbed this one the Rad-o-caster .

Here are the specs:

Maple back with a one-peice spalted Elm top

Maple neck with a wheel truss nut

Rosewood FB

24 medium frets

25.5" scale length

Hard-tail Floyd Rose style bridge for fine tuning abilities.

Guitar Logistics humbucker

500k volume pot

two neck screws.

low gloss clear on the front , gloss finish on the back.

Hand polished and buffed.

As usual for me, no templates were used in the making of this guitar.

On with the pics:

You are welcome sirs.

Glad to help.

Make a donation and become a contributor. I do it annually.

........ I question if I'm wasting my time trying to build guitars and I wonder if I'm playing at a hobby where I should just give up and leave it to the professionals.

Anyone else have similar thoughts or other sorts of self doubt they normally wouldn't talk about?

I think the thing to consider is this : is it a hobby or a profession? I can honestly laugh at my mistakes because it is a hobby. I have several builds that I started over a year ago that hit a snag or twelve during the build and they got shelved. Often if the mistake haunts me, I'll abandon progress on that build until my life is in a different state. None have been burned or destroyed, but a couple hang on the wall to remind me of my short-comings.

Self doubt will only hamper progress, and even Tiger Woods has a bad day now and then.

Mistakes can be a great teacher, begrudgingly or not. :D

IMO,wood will still move, even after months of 'sitting'. As soon as you carve more off, it releases tension in other spots that *can* help it move.

I attach the top before carving, but then again, I attach the FB before shaping or radiusing. We all have our own ways of doing things......

To make a real comparison you should have compared them to some decent pickups... Invaders don't come even close to "good" category and they'll make anything compared to them sound brilliant!

Not even close to good, huh ?

Seems that millions of paying customers disagree with you, including myself. A company doesnt make and sell as many $80 pups as the invader if they sounded like bunk. At 16.7K, its a pretty hot pickup as far as output goes, which is what the warhammer is, high output. I have a Dimarzio X2N but its in a different guitar, so the comparison wouldn't be fair.

Since we seem to have different ideas of a good pickup, whats your suggestion ?

Every species has its positive and negative aspects as does oak. Most hardwoods are suitable for guitar construction, but not all hardwoods are used for guitar construction...

Words of wisdom right there.

I concurr with the above opinions. It is more of a Glam-rock Tele ( C.C. DeVille would grow FACIAL HAIR for that guitar!! )

A "Metal Tele" would be what Jim Root plays.

Or maybe flat black with one pup and some spikes. Yeahhhh........

Pickups lined up - done - RAD's pickups by the way, they look pretty good.

If those are the 'warhammer' pups, be prepared to be thrilled ! I just got mine in and did some studio sound tests with it and a Duncan Invader. Rad's Warhammer has a higher output, less harsh highs and much more middy growl. The Duncan has a good tone too, but the Warhammer just has a very precise yet chunky drive to it.

I like the "metal grate" idea on the cavity cover ,too. Maybe a "top secret" type sticker on the inside or something fun.

Love the double carve on the back.

Yeah, I thought I was being real clever until I went to add a control cavity

Whats the problem? add three interior pillars to the cavity and make the cover rest on those..........

Unless its something I can't make out from the pics....