komodo

Sweet. Love that you had great weather for spraying, Color is kickass!

Yeah, that was on my mind when I decided on the three minis though there are redundant switch positions. I haven’t calculated how many I do have, there’s people like you that can do that for me. The ones available are certainly all one would need. Each pup by itself, two or three all in phase, and all the combos of out of phase. As BM did, I’ve already got a couple go tos, one os a thick humbucker like sound with plenty of gain and rich with harmonics. Another is the whispy single coil sound that is so different from a typical out of phase. This sounds more delicate, not icepicky, full of harmonics and has a cocked wah type sound. It’s really fun to play. So fun that I haven’t even really used the tremolo yet. It’s set pretty stiff right now, I’m gonna lighten that way up and see what delicacies it has to offer. I’ll try to record something if I can.

Was trying to get good pics but never got a good straight on shot. Color went all wonky. But the shape really changes depending on the angle. I've been playing it a lot and the sounds are so Queen that it's spooky. One setting and it's a pretty great fat single coil sound, and then a flip of the switch and you have this delicate whispy sound that isn't really thin cause it's so full of harmonics. If you play something like mellow Zeppelin, it's great. But if you play something like White Queen, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!

I've been telling people that there are two kinds of people in this world: people who will build a guitar during the pandemic, or people who sit on their couches and watch Netflix. I'm proud to be in the former group with you all! The Black Queen Woods: - Macassar ebony neck and body core, and tremolo cover - Swamp ash wings, quilt maple top, - Gaboon ebony fret board with silver wire starfield inlay, and pearl 'planets' Scale length: 25" Special bits: Authentic Trisonic pickups hand-made by a gentleman who builds Red Special replicas and uses the spare parts bought from the Greg Fryer restoration of the Red Special and replica builds for Brian May. Replica Red Special tremolo from RS Conversions. Hardware: Sperzel open back tuners, Electronics: Three mini switches that control phase-off-phase of each pickup. This gives a very usable approximation of May's different voicings without the field of switches. I've lost count of what I've built, I expect it's in the 15-20 range depending on what you count as a build. My first was at 16 in high school and I've never stopped. That one was a full V build of my own design and custom chrome parts that I made. People always ask "are you going to sell it?" and I say NOO!! I build these for myself to play, and they usually have some new technique I want to try or something my other guitars don't have. I build in my shop that is supposed to be a 2-car garage but has never held a car, much to my wife's dismay. This particular build was inspired by the Red Special and May's building of his own instrument. That was a large influence for me and I've always loved the sound of that guitar. I wasn't interested in building an exact replica though, and wanted to use my own design. The end result plays beautifully and sounds way closer than I thought it would. Build thread:

GAH! I love the star guitar. One of my first guitars was an explorer that I cut a huge chunk out of to make it into a star.

Not to completely derail your thread - I shot photography for a long time and used everything from 4x5 to pinhole. Now I only use a simple Panasonic GX7 mirrorless with adapters for vintage manual lenses. After trying a billion lenses, the best are old Olympus Pen F half frame lenses, and Swiss lenses made for 16mm Bolex movie cameras. The Swiss lenses are sharper than a scalpel, and the color is better than any lens I've ever tried. The Oly Pen lenses have ridiculously cool bokeh second only to some Zeiss.

Photographing any angle of a guitar, anything on a guitar, anything about guitars, is so hard. Lens distortion, perspective, color, reflections and shine, curves, and size all make it nearly impossible to capture what you see in person. And you always pickup the fine scratches, dust etc instead of whats beneath. It is a great way to identify stuff that needs addressed! Great job on this build so far @Prostheta

Hey Zeke, nice to see you back! And would you just look at that. Love the torsion box design. Should be really stable.

This one is such a great build. Especially love the elongated scroll carve. I think we've both been on PG for quite some time. Think I remember you from waaay back? 2007ish or before was probably when I started.

Thanks buddy!

Thanks @ScottR and @ADFinlayson !

RE: the scarf seam - I worked at getting it somewhat straight. It's a consequence of the compound angle cut with the router jig and then gluing the head atop that. I'm pretty sure I did that because of the length of the board, but I'd have to go back and look. I'm pretty sure I'll keep these tuners on so I need to get the screws installed, which is not something I'm looking forward to. Tiny screws into cocobolo! You can also see the saddles hitting their limit as I was intonating. I might have to reset the bridge a bit farther back. There's room to elongate the string through holes, so it's not a huge issue, just annoying after planning so much. Final weight is right at 8 lbs.

Well I think this one is done as well. I’ve installed brass inserts in the pup cavities for these bolts, oiled and waxed the neck, etc. I put on some Hipshot tuners cause the Sperzels were breaking strings (3 at once!). I’ve filed the post holes a bit, but these have a better gear ratio. They are also 3 ounces heavier and cause a little neck dive when sitting. I’ll see if a strap changes anything. I cut a fourth (!) pickguard, and crap if I didn’t get the neck opening off, plus a tiny nick. But the rest looks so good I guess I’ll do it again. But not today lol. There are no side dots, I wanted to keep it clean. But, I gotta say that the tentacle loops don’t really scream at you when you are looking over the top of this board and navigating the two extra largest strings. So, I’ll probably do that sometime in the future. The thing sounds like a dream, the notes ring forever. The combo of the coco neck and active pups really make it really sound alive. I’ll get some proper pics soon. My shop lighting is bright but horrible for pictures.

Thanks @ScottR Besides the ridiculous thinness of the planet tips, the rest was easy. Drill the star holes and pop them in. Actually, the curve of the planets was the hardest. Your eye sees any deviation from round, immediately. Also, that fiddly detail crap by the star flare, which is a mess, but also so small you can barely see it. I'm still pondering how that could be done differently. Neck is great. After danish oil, I use Renaissance wax polish, it's used by museums for restoration. Real wonderful stuff. That brings out some color warmth and really shines it. It does make ebony get almost plasticky which gets closer to a painted finish than a textured wood finish. My favorite ever is still rosewood. That makes a killer, fast neck. That Renaissance wax isn't cheap, but I found a big stack of them at a flea market once for 50 cents a can and bought all of them.

Ha! I've got them, but almost never put them on as I pretty much play sitting down in my basement. "The place where old 80s rockers go". hahaha Despite the pointy bits, I've never really thought of this as a metal guitar, probably because of the pickups....that said, metal will likely be 80% of it's diet. @RonMay No fear sir, I'm proud. I'm finishing the other one today and then you'll see some beaming.

For sure. I've got the truss pushing a little to make sure it goes the right way lol. As is, it can get so low you can't tell if you are pressing down or it's already touching the fret. My preference is low, but still some feedback, esp for hammer on/pull offs etc,

It's been a pain in the ass, but a great learning experience. Lots about nitro repair, further inlay study, and purfling. The whole thing is just a host for these pickups which are really cool. It plays really well, though I don't think the neck has any give at all, hopefully that won't create any relief issues.

Well, it sounds exactly as it should. Pretty hard to play anything other than Queen on it. LOL But ripping out some Bon Scott ACDC, old Priest, or Sabbath takes on a whole new tone. Plagued with a grounding issue but I think I have it.

Put together day. Lots of fiddly bits. Lots of flaws on this one but lots of good. I’ve throw in the towel on chasing the finish. At first I thought it was wet sanding but there are further stress cracks as it cures, also the Cellusolve reaches the dye layer and discolors areas. Someday I may strip it and do it again with a thinner nitro layer but no time soon. My day job has kicked my ass with pandemic stuff, and I just want to play it! Thanks again to @curtisa and @mistermikev on wiring, it fired up first try.

I've got a Bosch 1613evs for my hog, and then some older medium and small routers that have followed me home from garage sales. Also a Porter Cable trim router, I probably use all of those equally. I've built temporary base plates to allow mounting upside down in the WorkMate, jigs like the scarf jig, and a pin router like thing, but none of that would beat a great table as you are doing. But let's not derail your build. You've inspired me and I will now start furiously drawing up plans for **** furniture.

Maybe missed the Ikea sarcasm? Clearly yours is one step above an Ikea router table. I'm really jealous of it, because I have 4 routers and no table.

So, it's an Ikea router table? I don't own anything Makita, but always lusted after a 3620 router. It's a perfect guitar building size, kinda in between a trim router and a big hog.

This is gold. On my last I used pinstripe tape and DNA dye and kept getting tiny little bits of bleed. It was also black on clear ash. Hindsight is always 20/20 so sealing wouldve been better. Next time I’m going to try @killemall8 s acetone/ dye trick. Does it lift shellac? I’m sure it does. EDIT: Holy bajeeezuz I’ve been so busy at work (marketing at a major university trying to get the kids to wear masks) that I missed your dye post. You totally killed that. It’s perfect!

The earlier jokes reminded me of this: I once made my sister pull into a gas station and ask if they could check her muffler springs because “her brother said that’s probably whats making that noise”. We sat in the car and watched the mechanic try to hold it together until she exploded.

Man you smoked me. I just did them my hand one at a time after it was fretted. It certainly doesn’t look like it was done with a machine, but math woulda been tricky with the multi-scale frets.