zyonsdream

That guitar screams delta blues, looks likes something that you'd see on an album cover from the early era delta blues recordings. Oh, and my first guitar played like crap and sounded just as bad...my second, not so bad but that was a long time before the internet caught on to guitar building.

I use rare earth and I counter sink them into the body. I also use CA glue and I've had no issues with them coming out. I make mine tight enough that I have to press fit them into the hole though. I then use thin strips of metal on the back of the cover plate.

I'm not so much worried about string tension as I am the action at the bottom of the fretboard. The bridge is tall. Take a straight edge (or even a relatively straight piece of board that will extend from the nut to the bridge. That will give you a good indication of how high the strings will be at the higher frets. From the looks of things you will need a lot of neck angle for that bridge to work. If you take note, you notice that most guitars that use those bridges are arched topped guitars with neck angle or a relatively high set fretboard. You may find issues with this. As for using Pine... it's not too much of an issue if you are filling and painting but if you are planning on using a burst or trans stain where you can see the wood then you need to be careful not to dent it too much. When it comes down to it I personally believe that the wood does play a part in the overall tone of the guitar but on a solid body guitar most tone issues can be overcome with electronics and pickup choices. My guess...and it's only a guess, the guitar will sound warm and have a lot of bass response and it will lack in the high tone department. I'd start out with a super distortion or something bright. Something with ceramic magnets just to brighten the thing up a bit. If you've ever played a BC Rich artist series with those BDSM pickups, that's what I guess it will sound like. Throw a super distortion into that BCR and it sounds a whole lot better. Just me rambling though. Like I said, tone is so subjective. On a side note again... don't be afraid to use lesser woods to cut your teeth on. I use a lot of exotics when I build but I have no problem using woods commonly found at lowes if I have a quick project I want to work on.

I had one of those digitech voice boxes that the guitar plugged into along with a mic. It sounded like a talk box but didnt track very well. there was always a delay.

Good ol Elmer's woodworking glue, been making neck through bodies for a long time and I've never used anything but. I've also never noticed any creep in my joints. Works for Neal Moser, works for me! This is however a personal choice (sort of like pressing frets over hammering frets) so figure out what works best for you. titebond or Elmer's. I'd stay away epoxy though.

seems like a lot of work. This is what you do, cut your pickguard out of acrylic-not plexi, scuff it with 600 grit and primer it and then paint it like normal. then just hardcoat it with the same stuff you are hardcoating the guitar with. The Scuffed plexy will accept the primer nicely and will not grow or shrink like a lot of ABM plastics.

Who was it on here who did the junk wood tone post where they built a guitar from lesser quality lumber and then posted sound samples. I've always thought that pine could have the ability to make a nice tonewood given it was painted with a nice thick hardcoat to keep the body from denting easily. I've owned plywood guitars that sounded awesome and some pine has awesome grain patterns that could look really nice with a subnburst. My very first guitar was out of poplar and I'm glad I didn't kill a nice piece of black limba doing it so making one out of pine might not be that bad of an idea. It does seem kind of funky seeing a Les Paul body with a telecaster headstock but we all started somewhere and my first guitar was a true disaster.

Name: Misfit This guitar was a fun one to build. I mixed stylings from Fender, Gibson, BCR and Di Pinto along with exotic wood choices. You all might remember that I tried to sell this fret board a while back and sadly I had no takers. The comments I got were that the board looked to busy. So I set out to make something wild that really meshed well with the board. After putting a ton of wood choices against the board I settled with Padauk and white limba along with Bolivian rosewood stringers. When I started building I got creative with the design. Since the guitar is a telecaster style I tried to keep some things true to Fender. The scooped headstock instead of angled, the 25.5” scale length and the bolt on neck are all true to fender. Then I threw in some traditional Gibson stylings like the 3x3 tuners, large Bone nut, 12” radius, the 3 way selector switch located in the traditional les Paul location (something I do on all my tele’s) and the kack plate. I added to this three humbucking pickups in a Black beauty fashion but opted for red pearloid tops to give them that Di Pinto look. For electronics I went full bore using three Danelecto inspired tone/volume stacked pots along with a coil tap switch that turns all three pickups into single coils, a kill switch and a switch that turns on the middle pickup. I put drop orange caps in to get the most out of my tone knobs. The Kahler screams BCR as well. I was thinking Floyd but I really don’t like Floyds and I had this new Kahler in stock so it won out. To add to the BCR look, I used raised plastic plates to cover the controls. I guy I met on the Moser forum built me a guitar made from maple and walnut and he used a new technique for oil finishes that has really7 held up well and really makes the wood look nice. I used three coats of Danish oil on the body and neck and let it sit for 10 days. I wiped it down several times to clean up the excess that seeped out. Once it was dry I used three coats of wipe on poly and gave it an additional week to dry. I then used 2000 grit sand paper to level any high spots and then buffed it with 0000 grit wool. Once that was done I waxed it with furniture bee’s wax using 0000 grit wool as the applicator. The result is a protective finish that still gives you an oil finished look with a nice gloss. This was a fun guitar to build and is even more fun to play. Fretboard shot Full Body shot

It really depends but I generally use sold zebra wings and padauk for a neck through blank. It gives a warmer tone similar to mahogany but with a lot more weight. Most of your exotics are heavy (most, not all) but when it comes to the look, it’s worth the added weight to me. I’m currently working on a flat sawn zebra viper copy that’s a neck through solid zebra with an ebony board. Should turn out nice and have a very warm tone when it’s done. As with any wood, exotic or domestic, tone is in the ear of the listener so it’s virtually impossible to say this wood or that wood sounds like…

Loops like an LP Jr shape to me which is really cool. If you are planning on using that bridge you are going to need a hell of a lot of neck angle. I'd loose the base and mount the bridge directly to the body. Sort of like a Nashville style but use the wooden one instead.

Corian for the nut! I've used it before to match the nut with a purpleheart body. I love everything about this guitar but the inlay, just not my thing I guess. I love the tones you get from using Padauk and Zebrawood! I've used that combo a lot.

I took this BCR NJ series Warlock and turned it into a 1 pickup 1 knob guitar I plugged the hold with dowels using regular Elmer's glue leaving the dowel sticking up a little and simply sanded it flat. I then used a little wood filler to fill in any imperfections. To fill the pickup cavity and the Kahler cavity I used a piece of card stock and traced the inside lines of the cavity and transferred it to a piece of rock maple that was a little thicker than the cavity was deep. I made the pug really tight. I had to use my dead blow hammer to hammer them into place. I also used a liberal amount of Elmer's to ensure it stayed in place. I gave it a few days to dry and then sanded it flat with the face of the guitar. Once that was done, I went over it with a touch of filler to take care of any imperfections. Since it was getting a solid finish I went over the whole body with grain filler and then painted it. There isnt one person who could tell that this guitar had been modified like this. Here is a close up of it in primer When It was done, I was able to sink a BCR wrap around into the old bridge cavitiy with no problems.

block in the unused cavity so you can't tell the two singles ever existed, finsih the guitar and use a smoked acrylic sheet for a pickguard. The smoke is translucent and will make the shade of burst a bit darker. you see the guard and you see the paint, best of both worlds

If you're using nitro, chances are dust won't be a big problem --nitro flashes over pretty quickly, after 15 mins or so the risk of dust sticking in there is pretty small. Depends on how wet the coat is, but you don't want it to be so wet it'll drip anyway. Just make sure the area you're spraying in is pretty clean with no wind. You can also spray outside. I sprayed outside once and ended up turning my project into a giant fly trap... I'll never paint outside again.

Do a burts on it from black to whatever color you want (green). Hide the the bland maple and Padauk completely in black and leave the face for everyone to see WesV did a spalted burst and it turned out awesome. That would make the guitar look beautiful

for an existing neck pocket I would just shim it. Since it's a bolt on arch top it likely does not have a neck heel. You don't need to make an exact wedge to match your angle. In most cases a piece of card stock or even a dime will do. I use to "dime" Fender strats all the time to get the right angle. As for doing a pocket from scratch; i use templates to make sure my pocket is snug. I just angle the template (higher on the butt end, that way the router travels higher as I get closer to the butt of the guitar.

Now judge this as crap if you want to but I’ve heard (reading an article on bass guitars) that using individual bridge saddles and plates help eliminate vibration transfer to other strings. So, when you play a chord with open strings you won’t get residual vibration from the strings that are not supposed to be ringing. I’m not sure I buy into this as I’ve never really tested it myself but it seems some what viable. Not really one topic but it's another reason for using them besides the multiscale.

scottyd- I love the wood choices and the shape. The laminates are very well done and the fret board really sets the bass off. I also believe that I see an LED for the boost. Pretty cool stuff. The only things I saw were a few gaps between the body and the pickup covers and between the body and the cover plate. We've been seeing a lot of custom covers and very tight countersunk magnetic cover plates so grading this one on the curve it could use a little more attention to the details. RFR- I've been waiting a month to thank you for the girls and really: that should get you the win... I also love the tail piece and bridge. Having this guitar on the road with a notable band is surely a win in it's self. I've had occasion to sell to locals but never to a national act. I really liked this guitar but would have liked to have seen more of it to make a determination on the GOTM. Peterbrown- I like the vine inlay and the choice of wenge is awesome if not very heavy. I've used wenge for a top before and its a fun and challenging wood to work with. For a PRS shape, it seems to look a little off in the horns. I don't know but whenever I look at it the horns really stand out but not in a positive way. The use of counter sunk knobs worked really well though. Guitony- I have to say that this guitar was in my top three for consideration. I absolutely love the natural wood top and the wrap around bridge. I'm also a minimalist when it comes to inlay so I appreciate the lack of inlay on the board. The craftsmanship looks to be very good as well. No noticeable gaps between the body and the top! What kept it from being my choice this month? The pickups, two single coils and a P90. This is a working man's guitar but for a show piece it doesn't flow. I might like this guitar better for playing than for looking and unfortunately I'll never play it so looking at it weighs more to me. bigdguitars- I'm sure I'll be saying the same thing as a lot of others but damn, that neck looks awesome and I'd love to see in work progress of how you did the veneer on the neck. Truly a killer concept and execution. The body and finish look nice and I love the idea of a single knob. Again with the minimalist approach! daniel sorbera- Alright, I basically judge my winner by the adage "would I buy it" and this month, this is the guitar I'd walk out of the store with. It's not a crazy shape but it's unique (to me anyways) I like the trans color, the fact that it's a bolt on and that fact that the fixed bridge actually fits the design. This looks like something that Jackson would come out with. I do have one thing I would like to see improved and that's a color match headstock. Even if you don't put a logo on it, color matching the headstock will make it flow. If you leave it natural then it should have some type of logo on it just to break up the plain maple look. ' low end fuzz- This bass have a very interesting quilt top to it and the use of PH is always a good idea. The pictures likely don't do this bass justice as the background really made the guitar had to focus on.

Yup. There are two bobbins and the pole pieces are in the middle and there are 4 wires coming out of it so I'm assuming that it can be coil tapped.

thy are indeed 3 humbuckers that are voiced to sound like P90 pickups

1 switch to split all three humbuckers into single coils for a strat-ish sound, 1 switch to kick in the middle pickup and 1 kill switch. The 3 way toggle will act as a normal Les Paul type toggle between the bride and neck pickup.

Thanks guys.. I appreciate the feedback. The red tops on the pickups are actually pearloid which came with the pickups. I personally feel they are a bit bright but they dont detract from the fretboard so i'm okay. Besides, they are supposed to have the tone of p-90's and the humbucking ability of humbuckers. As for the PH rings...I'll pass on this one. I'd also like to make note of the danelectro style knobs, each pickup is complete with it's own volume and tone... just thought I'd mention it since no one on both forums I posted this one mentioned it. Just something you don't see alot of any more.

Yah, I keep grabbig up fretboards that I find for basses and I never use them. Guess it's time to start making some seriously extended range guitars! I have a bocote board that's just asking to be made.

Please God don't try and sell this guitar while you're still making it. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen anyone happy enough with thier first build to sell it. I look back on my first couple (when I can get myself to bring them out of hiding) and I would never sell them: not that anyone would want them. However, that was before the internet caught onto custom guitar building. The resources are ginormous now so good luck to you but I'd wait until you have the finished project until you offer it up for sale.

well after looking at this one sitting on the shelf for quite some time I decided it was time to finish it up. I still have to wire it, make the nut and set it up but basically it's ready to rock and roll. I applied an oil finish, let it dry for a week and then rubbed on two coats of rub on poly. I then sanded it flat and buffed it with 0000 steel wool and wax. It has a great shine and the poly adds extra protection to the body.