WezV

its a through neck like all JB's. The pickups have a swimming pool route that starts about 1" past the neck. also the extra controls will make it difficult to move the bridge back on the exisiting body ( i was considering just adding a baritone fretboard) as the bridge studs will be too close - its another large route around the main controls

some of you may remember this one http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=44254&hl=%20john%20%20birch&st=0 well that is now one of my main guitars. still with its old dimarzios. but another john birch has found its way to me. this one is a much earlier and rare john birch - its also a massively flawed design. and its just been swimming in the recent Hoboken floods. Possibly the first or second V built by john birch, and it shows its design flaws unfortunately this one isn't mine and i cant keep the pickups for my JB les paul anyway, after its recent swim the lacquer has started to come away and the fretboard is lifting, pots are very scratchy but everything is still working it needs serious surgery. but we are going a different way. essentially i will build a new guitar exactly to john birch specs, but with more sensible design decisions to solve some of its flaws. the hardware will then all be transferred over reasons for going for a whole new build rather than restoring the existing one: 1)set the neck further into the body. this is the main issue really, it will put more space between the pickups for greater tonal variation and will improve ergonomics a hell of a lot 2) increase neck angle, far too low at the moment. 3) go for a wider neck, its currently 39mm at the nut other benefits for me. I was never quite sure mine was wired correctly, i can now compare one with its original wiring to see - they are very odd. also, the pickups have to come out for a while, so i may as well test them in mine. It will allow me to see if its worth me searching out an original set for it, not found any so far and i like mine as it is. but the fact i was waiting to find some originals stopped me ever completely finishing mine

just focus on the top left corner

kit seems good value to me - certainly compared to other body/neck kit combos and given the price of the actual flaxwood instruments. certainly not expensive I have heard of them before, been around a while now. I remember a rather positive magazine review. never played one though. that material can look great when finished and shiny. couple of questions. Are the kits for finnish only? How do you finish it, just polish it up or lacquer as normal? How does the neck attach - glued in? Do they supply you with the inlays? some are non standard size

ah, its been a while. might have to dig the box set out

got the plate cut its clear so it can be painted half black/white on the back not perfect yet but getting there it meant i could transfer control locations and route the control cavity. also added a rout to the side of the lower fin for a strat style jack socket

its easy to rig up a switch to change caps and decide for yourself. There are some good videos on the internet, but the guy who does then does not compare actual values. I did this a little while a go, comparing ceramic disc, orange drops, and various vintage caps. The biggest problem with the ceramic discs was that they were consistently at least 10% under valued and a few over 20% below. the orange drops were much closer to the mark and just as often above as below. obviously the vintage ones were all over the place. but once i had 3 different .02 caps i wired them up to a switch to do direct comparisons. tone on 10 = exactly the same. tone on 1 = exactly the same. this makes perfect sense, they were wired to the same pot and have the same rating so electrically nothing different is happening in these positions. the tone pot is either seeing .02uf in the circuit or its not I did find the sweeps were different though (not going to say better or worse). So I assume the different materials are doing the same thing in slightly different ways my view. try different pots and caps to find what you like, but if in doubt go for orange drops, they are reliable and consistently close to stated value, and i like the sweep

I dont think there is any need - 80% of the joins on top are covered by the scratchplate. i would have if it was a non-scratchplate version, mainly to hide the plug for the middle pickup route, but the scratchplate makes life a lot easier - dont even need to both plugging that route anymore

neck angle geometry is the trickiest bit - draw it all out and if you are confident you can cut it then go for it. also dont forget things like wiring channels, as ripthorn said - you have to get the order of operations right. I did a through neck as my second build and it went well. well enough that i also did it a lot after that

yes, you have answered your own question. if you were happy with the sound before why would you not be now you know its 17 pieces? we could argue it might sound better if it was less pieces, but what does that matter if you like the sound as it is some pics would be good though - just because i dont quite believe it

depends. generally i would say no but if its fairly solid it may be ok. i have done oiled spalted beech a few times but that is generally more stable with no real soft sections cut a bit of and see if it will do what you want

if we are going to do trivia lets at least get it accurate Of the 4 JEM style guitars currently made by Ibanez 3 are made with basswood bodies, 1 is made with and alder body. but i will admit the one using alder is probably the most JEMish http://www.ibanez.co.jp/products/eg_series12.php?series_id=62&area_id=3&year=2012&cat_id=1 and stop repeating what i said! I say: you come back with: ah well, at least you agree

I did say sealer was worth using, the point was whether they need grainfiller before the sanding sealer - its quite a big difference between the two woods JEM's are usually all basswood, IIRC they use a basswood veneer to disguise the joins which can appear as paint sinks in over time. basswood in another wood with another set of unique working properties. It drinks finish and can be a bit fuzzy when you put the first coats on. using a high build sealer coat on it reduces the amount of lacquer you need on subsequent coas

same difference really. multi piece body especially, unless you want glue lines to show through paint apart from the tonal difference (which is a debate for many other past threads) there is also the massive pores you get on ash which are non existent on alder - obviously this affects the finishing procedure quite a bit luckily in this case it simplifies things. one of the reasons leo fender switched from ash to alder was apparently easier finishing so no need for grainfiller but a sanding sealer is always a good idea, it depends on the finish you are using.

the body is alder

i did a video of this - boring but some people did not get what i was describing finished result was about 95% filled - could have got more with a repeat but it did not really need it

its also a bit legs akimbo I have used obeche for the body on this. not used it before but I know PRS have been using it one some cheaper models for a while with good results. I chose it because a) i had some, and its lightweight. but its also really easy to work with which made the centre slot go a lot easier than it could have done Also, I am saving the fold out leg rest from the hohner to go on the bottom edge. should actually be a V that is comfortable (possible) to play sat down on a sofa

scary bit done

its a 3 piece maple through neck with alder wings

Ok, so first step is to turn the hohner into even more of a cricket bat. edges trimmed off and body thinned down from the back then i will be making a whole new body for this to slot into - not just glueing on new wings - started a quick pine mockup to get a better idea of size/shape. the actual body will be obeche lots of chips around the existing finish, but its all got to come off anyway

here is the donor notice the single coil and switch holes have been covered - looks like it was done with the self adhesive acoustic scratchplate stuff - quite a neat job actually and the requested finish

yeah, its staying headless and the neck will be pretty much untouched. got the guitar now and stripped it down. the cavity placement on the back is making me lean towards the slotted body idea even more - the line i want to trim it down to cuts right through the cavity. body is 1 3/4" thick and the deepest route is 1 1/4" - that is the trem spring route under the bridge. so after trimming the body wings off I will route the whole back of the body down by half an inch till i just reach that spring route. might actually fit through the planer just fine but it might be better to use the router thicknesser for this. then i make a new 1 3/4" thick body and route a section 1 1/4" deep for the neck through to slot into. shouldn't be too delicate if its still 1/2" at its thin section and then wont be delicate at all once glued up

If you're seriously thinging about going that far, it'd be easier to just use the neck & hardware and make a new body from scratch. read the first sentence of the thread. I wouldn't suggest i was going to do something without a clear idea of how i was going to do it, and a clear idea of how difficult it will be. having said that I will always welcome suggestions on how to do something, maybe somebody has a better idea than mine. but work on the assumption I already have an idea and I am happy with its difficulty level