Nekul

I gotta be honest, the drill press was a cheapo. I figured for the amount of use it was going to get it might as well just be useable, not abuseable. I got it from Repco of all places. Its called Polar (some cheap Asian import no doubt). It was $199 with a set of laser cross hairs that arent worth a cent. They are housed in a plastic contraption that moves every time you knock it. Needless to say the drill press works fine, the lasers dont. I invested in a Robo sander so I dont need to worry about tear out anymore. Havent used it yet but will soon. As soon as the fretboard turns up. Im still waiting to hear about that. As for which one if for me, my mate is in a metal band called Mortal Sin. He wants the ebony one, so do I. But its going to see way more stages with him using it than if I was so I think the rosewood is mine. Theres always more time to build another one later if these 2 turn out OK. As for flying the flag for all things Aussie, my hotrod (unfinhsed, like most of my guitars) is a 1930 FOrd Model A roadster, all steel. THat comes home this weekend. Hence my apprehension about getting the rest of the shed set up. I will keep you posted on the progress.

Yep, thats the one. I was actually thinking about rebating a Hemi or something into one just to see what it looks like. Now that would be a gimick. The body is Silky Oak (of course. You just have to love free timber). I am actually building 2, one with a 25.5" scale rosewood board and the other with the 25" Ebony board. Both will have bound fretboards and 3mm MOP dots on the neck. I am in the process of setting up my shed/workshop at the moment so guitar building is not happening much. I built about 4m worth of benches, got a new drill press and 14" band saw the other day and am just getting the space ready. Once that is done these things will be full on for a few weeks. I also have to fit my hotrod in their at some stage. Luke

I am building a Caparison style guitar for a friend of mine (and one for me at the same time. No point in making all those templates for nothing right?) and he toyed with the idea of the 27 frets like on their Horus model. Using jumbo frets and 25" scale that would surely just be for cosmetics, right? I don think my fat fingers would fit. Years ago another friend of mine was going through his grunge/drop d phase and was complaining about not having 2 octaves for soloing in D using the good old pentatonic box shape. My question to everyone who cares to answer is this? Do you think having 25 frets is worth having a go at or is it just going to be like a gimick? I have already ordered a 25 fret ebony board and have the body almost ready for paint. I think it will look cool and maybe slightly useful. What does everyone else think? Luke

Dave, I am really impressed with what youve done here. It seems you have access to similar timbers to what I tend to use. I get lots of Silky oak, a lot o flocal stuff and also some Queensland silky. I havent tried jarah yet but have used brush box once and also forrest oak for a nice neck through. They worked fine but I still favour the silky oak, its so good to work with. Its great to see another aussie enthusiast. I am currently putting together a couple of projects, one being a silky oak strat from one piece and another based on a caparison Horus. Im thinking at the moment that I might go down the Applehorn route and sink some sort of design into the top of the body. Im thinking maybe a big Hemi or something, not quite sure yet. Keep us posted with the build. Luke

Ive been seeing Caparison's name crop up a bit lately and their Apple horn model looks pretty cool with ebony fretbooard and those clock inlays. Anyone ever actually played one? I have only seen reviews on harmony central and I just dont trust those reviews at all. Luke

Thanks, I will keep at it. I played it this afternoon and it was much b etter. I reckon a slight tweek of the truss rod, dropping the nut again, lowering the bridge slightly and resetting the pain-in-the-tail intonation on a floyd and it'll all be sweet. Thanks for the help. Nice to see a little human kindness. I love this place. Luke

4 -6 hours, ouch. Thanks for the heads up. When I first checked the relief I used the string capoed at the first fret and held down past the 22nd fret. That gave me almost no relief at all. Your right about meaning nothing. I should have known better but frustration got me. Once I loosened the strings and adjusted the truss rod then put the strings back on it was better but I get you about meaning nothing without any tension. Anyhow, it is more playable and I will play with teh setup until I am more happy. Might take me a while longer than 4-6 hours. We'll see.

I ran a straight edge over the frets with teh strings off and it was a little over trussed. THere was very little relief, not the .008 I set it at a few months back. Apart from teh weather nothing else has changed. Anyhow, I adjusted the truss rod again today and let it settle for a few hours. It is better but there is still a little buzz. I will go another small turn and leave that for a few days. Any more help would be appreciated. Thanks

Yep, did that first. Maybe I didnt do it enough. I wont worry about putting the nut back to where it was, it was real low anyway. I will give the truss rod another 1/8 of a turn and wait. THe relief is set at .008 though so I shouldnt really have problems there. It just seems wierd that it is only in those first 4 frets.

Hope you guys can help. I am sure it is the heat but for some reasons my beloved Recycled Flying V has developed a buzz when playing in the open positions, it stops around the 5th fret. I raised the nut slightly, it was really low anyway and that helped but really that is just a quick fix. How do I save the neck? Do I need to relevel the frets or what? I dont want to stuff it up. I HATE stinking hot Australian summers! link

Nice job with the paint scheme. Just about every guitar these days is symmetrical but this works beautifully. Again, great job. Luke

I forgot to mention, the decals you have look fine but if you want them to flow with the edges of the headstock do a search on Ebay for "stargodz". These guys sell decals for reverse headstocks so the stickers go with the curves. Peace.

I often thought about doing the whole "buy 2 and swap em around" trick. I am a sucker for a reverse headstock. I just got a strat pretty cheap and made a new body out of silky oak (1 piece). I used the Fender neck on that body, along with the pickups and bridge etc. Actually the only thing on the strat I kept was the body itself. I got new EMG SAs, new gotoh bridge with string saver saddles and am almost finished a reverse headstock neck. As for your question about filling the holes, in my opinion you should fill it with a dowel, preferably hard wood, maple if you have some. Previously I have cut some maple scraps roughly to size, put them in my drill press and turned them down to size with sandpaper. A bit of glue and a light tap and alls well. Just wait for the glue to dry and then use a sharp chisel to level the dowel then sand smooth. Good luck. Luke

Just wondering how come your arent going to have a go at this guitar on your own? Also, was it CAD you used for your design and seriously, I would love to build one like that. That is a really nice design, congrats. Luke

No! Man, how can you wait that long? I know patience is important but that is too long. Let me know when you start this, I want to see how it turns out. I would love to build that thing myself. I think once I am finished the 2 strats I am working on then another V will be the order of the day. Luke

That V looks sweet. I was never a big fan of V's in general until I got an old beater for my 30th birthday. I will post pics of it when I get it back home. I am a teacher and it is my "school guitar". I left it there when school broke up. Again, sweet design. A nice nod to Dime. Well done. Luke

I remember years ago I had an N4, I loved it, dont know why though. The horns on that guitar seemed so off balance. It was a great project though, I pulled it apart, made templates then made 2 of them out of Silky Oak (lacewood). Nice! ANyway, they had a push/pull pot in them and like Sambo says, keeping the tone in teh volume was the problem. I seem to remeber when I bought mine they were using some sort of "Tone memory" spiel in their ad campaign. Not sure this would have worked though. Again, dual concentric is the way to go. Luke

Ive only ever used push/pull pots for splitting coils. Probably your best option would be to use a dual concentric pot. It is just one pot but has two knobs, an outer and an inner. As far as I know that is really the only way to get a tone and volume in the one control. As for wiring diagrams, this site is pretty comprehensive: http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/category/wiringresources Good luck.

I think its time you pulled that old RG apart and ventured into the world of template making. Just take it all apart (remember where all the wires go, or take photos) and use the body as a template for some MDF templates. Use a flush trim router bit to make exact copies, write all route depths on the templates for future reference and get yourself some decent timber for the body. All your existing parts will fit right back into it, provided you take care to be acurate. I got a left handed RG that was about as beet up as yours and I used it to make some good templates. I used some brazilian mahogany for the body and it is great. It is currently being sprayed, now that I know everything fits. Good luck!

No worries. Like I said, at the moment it is just a slab and with an impending wedding it may take several months. By the way, I got that Flyng V done and man it is awesome. I will borrow a digital camera and post a pic at some stage soon. I gotta thank you for all your help. I had almost given up on this hobby but I am loving it now. I ordered those templates from Ronny and cant wait to get em. I have picked out my piece of timber from my stash of silky oak. One piece, nice grain. It will hopefully look slick. I am considering a similar finish to your tutorial strat but maybe going purple to match one of the family hotrods. I cant seem to locate any epoxy filler though. Is the water based stuff as good or no? Luke

Last post. I got it right! Finally. I have set it up with .006 relief, height at the nut is .011 on the high E and .017 on the low. The action at the 17th fret is about 1.2mm. The thing rocks and if nothing else at least I am satisfied and love playing this thing. Peace.

Cool. Thanks for the pics. I have done it similarly before except not so accurate. I originally used a plane to get the front contour done and then rounded the edges by hand sanding. As for the back I have usually just sat the original body on top, marked the edges for the end of the carves and then marked similar depths with a pencil as a guide. I gotta tell you that I got really inspired by your strat tutorial. That thing looks a million bucks. I bought the copy carver plans and am now ordering a set of strat templates, although I am ordering both the small and large headstock neck templates. I also got a laminate trimmer and all the bearings. My only problem with the copy carver is that at present my shed is just a bare slab, no walls yet. I would love to know what your recommendations would be on how to set up an awesome workshop space. My shed slab is 4.2 by 9 metres (sorry, Im metric). I have only ever done my work in a small garage before and so this shed is going to be dedicated as guitar workshop and hotrod storage. Thats it!

I have done lots of googling and looking on Ebay (one of the biggest collections of strat styule bodies I ever saw). The 50s strats look to be by for the most attractive (at least to me). So if logic serves me, by being reasonably inaccurate and then finishing with a belt sander (ala factory workers) I am actually following original procedures. I just looked at Guitarfrenzy's website and saw how he did it with a cheapo copy. I think I'll just go the traditional method.

Having owned several strats (American, Jap and Mexican) and being recently inspired to attempt that 22 fret reverse headstock (large of course) strat I always wanted (thanks for the inspiration Guitarfrenzy!!) I have been looking closely at strat bodies. Whats the deal with the contours? I know that the CBS era strats had reduced body curves due to cost cutting but if you look at some of the bodies around now, even on REAL strats, there is massive variation. For the front contour some start on the top of the body almost inline with the back edge of the bridge and others start way in front of that. THe bottom of the carve usually seems to stop at the centerline of the guitar, near the strap button, but sometimes it stops a few inches above that. This means that there is so much variation in just the front carve alone. So what is RIGHT? I know it is a matter of personal taste when building your own but I still want it to look good. Any thoughts or measurements to help me out?

Hopefully he does and I've pointed out the obvious (again). Didn't see it mentioned so far and so often the simplest of answers is usually the correct one, at least in my experience. ← That's probably why I'll never be a VIP.. lol ← I did put fall away on the upper frets, sorry I didnt mention it. I havent actually measured how much though, perhaps that is my biggest mistake. I am obviously not the most practiced of builders but I have been doing it for about 7 years. Up until I found this forum I havent really been given much advice or help. I have relied on trial and error and a few books as a guide. THe fact that you guys know so much and are so willing to share makes me get inspired to keep going (both with this setup and planning the next project). Now that I have some reference as to how much fall away to use I will measure again and see what I put on there. THanks again, much appreciated. Nekul