Andyjr1515

Hopefully . Pity that both Jane and my brother in law are quite a bit younger than me, otherwise I could have asked her to leave it to me in her will....

Just finished in time and with the smell of varnish still lingering - I present to you the Swift Lite Mark 2 This is the latest incarnation following my personal curiosity about 6 string electrics. That is, do electric guitars have to be so heavy to play well and sound good ? I'm a hobby builder and I've been modding and refinishing guitars and basses for 7-8 years. I did my first scratch build around 6 years ago. I do occasional commissions, generally for fellow band members and friends / family, but sometimes build requests that interest or intrigue me Having gained a bit of a reputation in two or three bass and guitar forums for being a teeny bit crazy and willing to try anything (at least once), I ended up with some really interesting and unusual build commissions. And some of those have led me to question my acceptance of some of the long-standing 'conventions' your see in features of many electric guitar designs - one being that they tend to be so heavy! I've also got to that 'certain age' And I've realised how many guitar players I know personally who have given up because of neck, back, shoulder issues and just can't stand with that weight for a full gig-length anymore. Over a couple of builds, I have used the combination of thru-neck and slimness to reduce weight. This has given an unplanned but very welcome additional benefit of eliminating the usually abrupt encounter of the playing thumb with the heel and body when playing the upper frets. This particular build has sought to exploit that with full access up to the 24th fret, including a thumb anchor point for three or more semitone bends at the top frets. And Mark 2? Well, the original Swift Lite - same basic construction but quite different in shape and other aspects - I built at the back end of last year for my own use. This one, the Swift Lite Mark 2, I have built for Jane, my sister-in-law. In the build I have incorporated a piece of an oak mantlepiece rescued from her late mother's recently demolished house. Here is the spec: 25" Scale; 24 frets Amboyna top; oak back Maple/purpleheart laminated thru neck Macassar ebony fretboard Tonerider Alnico IV Classic humbuckers Master tone / master volume and three-way toggle, wired '50's style' Total finished weight 5lbs 4oz Home-made knobs (oak and macassar) The full build thread is here It balances beautifully both on the strap and over the knee. I'll try to post some sound clips before the entry closes but trust me - it will do anything and everything! And here it is:

And finished! I think Jane will be well pleased with it. It is spot on 5lbs 4oz, it balances and sits great on the strap or over the knee, it sounds excellent with a HUGE range of tones and the neck has worked out really nicely. I'm well pleased with it - it never bothers me to hand over a build...but I would have loved to keep this. I know slim guitars and guitars with fancy tops aren't to everybody's taste, but this will be one I will persnolly miss when it's gone Anyway - here it is: As always, folks, many many thanks for your encouragement and help along the way

Yes - I was staggered just how different and flexible it was on my LP junior double cut when I installed it and have since installed it on a double humbucker 2tone 2 vol setup for someone and it was just as much a transformation. Pleased to say that with two humbuckers and 1 vol and 1 tone it seems to be the same flexibility coming out. The only difference to the 'standard' circuit diagram I use is that I prefer using a linear pot for the volume (although on Jane's at the moment it's a tapered one because I ran out of linear pots!)....I find that makes it much easier to find the sweet spots of the combinations. And those sweet spots include being able to go from smooth jazz to acoustic jangle to crunch to full overdriven without pedals and without going anywhere near the amp settings. Remarkable, really.

Four jobs left: Tweak a couple of high spots on three of the frets Finish scrape to final shape and slurry and buff the neck Fix the hatch and trussrod cover with magnets Fit the strap buttons Jobs recently completed is basically the electrics - it is now fully playable and sounds (to my biased ear) great I've stuck with a simple master volume and master tone pluse three way switch: Mainly because Jane is a complete beginner and I doubt would have her learning experience greatly enhanced with coil splits, etc. Having said that, I've wired it '50's style' - so actually, she would be able to get pretty much any sound she likes if she turns out to be a fast learner! The hatch and truss rod cover will be held on by neo magnets and, for the former, I'll carve out a more obvious thumbnail access at the left hand side: The home-made knobs look pretty good Probably the prettiest one I've done so far. Certainly the lightest - 5lb 4oz before the final wood removal from the neck

Apols, @Prostheta - I worded this badly (no change there, then ) What I meant to say is "when I fret down at the 1st fret, the string buzzes against the 2nd fret". While the fretboard itself was very straight and evenly radiused (yes..I know...I don't usually achieve that) and the frets were well seated, I'm pretty sure I didn't tighten the truss rod enough to straighten the neck itself properly before I levelled. I use a full length beam so I think it would have done this (exaggerated just a touch!): The curve of the neck will have amplified the amount of material removed from the 1st and 24th frets. Anyway - sorted. I've replaced the 1st fret and just polished it rather than levelling and crowning it and all the buzzing has stopped . The 24th fret is probably also lower than the 23rd but that, of course, doesn't matter. Nonetheless, there is a lot of very useful info in your post that I will squirrel away and, when everyone has forgotten who it came from, I will declare bits of it from time to time as Andyjr1515 wisdom and guidance

Definitely just the second fret. It buzzes on all strings and no other buzzes on any of them all the way up to the 24th. And this is the point. Normally, I would use the rocker and conclude that the 2nd fret is high. And once I'd filed that down, I would probably find that the third fret had mysteriously gone high . How I did it in the end was check the 2nd to 4th with a rocker to check for daylight under the 3rd and the 3rd to 5th with a rocker, then laid a 6" rule edge on across the 1st to 5th and pressed down over the 1st fret. Sure enough, it rocked (and not in a good rock 'n roll way )

...and I think I've worked out how to easily do it (and my 1st fret is too low). But I'm still interested what other folks do

One of those "I've meant to ask this rookie question since...well...since I was a rookie" questions The first fret - high or low? In the perfect world when you level a fretboard, you straighten the neck, then level until the levelling beam is just starting to work on the lowest fret. This means that all the frets are now as level as the beam itself. But, as you know, my world is not perfect. And sometimes it is clear the neck isn't completely flat, and the levelling doesn't quite get to the lowest fret. Because of the geometry, the result will be that the first fret and the last fret will be ground down disproportionately. But once it is all strung up to check all of the action and line-ups, etc: ...and the strings buzz at the second fret when the first fret is pressed down (but nowhere else)... Is it the first fret that's too low or the second fret that's too high? Either case is easily fixed...but you do need to know which one it is! So how can you check? Normally I would use a three-fret rocker, but - for rocking over the 1st/2nd/3rd frets, that's not going to work. Yes - it will rock, but you still won't know whether it's the 1st fret low of 2nd fret high. Answers on a postcard, please, marked "Rookie" in the top left hand corner. All suggestions gratefully received

This will be a very interesting project to watch, Norris. I can feel tap-tuning coming and all sorts of other acoustic sorcery heading this way

Looking really, really good

Wow...

It's getting close. Busy week this week - and the end jobs always take an age - but I'm pretty sure it will be finished this week. Putting everything left to fit onto the digital scales, it's looking like the final weight will be below 5 1/4lbs

Note the router bit-shaped gouge. No idea how that happened with the bearing bit fully inside the chamber. And the only thing I was routing was the bottom of the chamber - theoretically there was only a bearing anywhere near the sides...and this isn't a bearing gouge! AND I've been doing this for some years now and apply all the normal precautions against slippage, moving the router before the bit fully stops, etc, etc, etc. Happily, this is intended for standard black metal humbucker rings that will just cover the gouge... Does that make you feel a bit better about your remarkable and impressive climb up the learning curve @beltjones ? And maybe it explains better my oft-repeated statement 'I hate hand routers'

The body on this is destined to be gloss finished, with a satin slurry-and-buffed neck. Being not overly sure about the gloss version of Osmo (in the trial and recent build, it seems to be more a glossy satin than a true gloss and so doesn't pop out the full depth of the wood figuring) I've reverted to my old method of wiped-on standard household polyurethane varnish. The varnish manufacturer has recently changed the formulation to lower the volatiles (of course a good thing) but I do now have a few issues with it - mainly that it doesn't take a lot of thinners very well and its self-levelling is not so good. Nevertheless, with my now usual method of a slurry and wipe tru-oil combined grain fill /primer followed by (this time) three thin wipes of slightly thinned varnish using a budget soft micro-fibre cloth, just three elapsed days from the sanded wood state has got me to here: And, actually, I'm not going to go any further - just a final polish with Meguiars Ultimate Compound in about a week's time. In the meantime, it is already perfectly tough enough for normal handling so I'm going to see if I can finish the build over the next few days

When I get to my desktop, I'll post pics of my latest build...with a slipped router and dig out in the pickup pocket....and that was with a bearing bit inside the absolutely square and flat chamber! I generally use pickup rings for pickups with the standard humbucker-type l-shaped brackets for practicality and for the number of sins they generally hide...

Well - I think I'm on the home straight on this To save another couple of oz I decided to have a go at making my own control knobs: I got some inserts and a cheapo diamond tile hole cutter Then drilled and cut a slice of oak offcut: Then cut a plug of the macassar offcut. Glued them together, added a MoP dot and rounded the top: Then it's onto the finishing. The amboyna needs high gloss, so I will do the body in polyurethance varnish and the neck as tru-oil slurry and buff silky smooth. I'll actually finish the neck profile again once it's stringed up and playable and then finish the slurry and buff at that stage. However, for the body some of you will know that I use the tru-oil slurry and buff approach as the base for the gloss varnish. This is almost ready for the varnishing stage: Total weight of what you see here is 3lbs 10oz

For smaller screws this usually works well. It will be a bit more challenging with such a large screw but the theory is the same - you hold a soldering iron bit firmly against the broken face for enough time for the screw end to become very hot. The screw expands and forces the gripping wood back. It is then left to fully cool. The screw contracts again, leaving a tiny gap between it and the wood, basically breaking the friction seal.

Beautiful job

Some really clever thinking in this build. Fascinating

This is still bounding along. I'm sure there will be a big boo boo sometime soon but 'so far so good' (actually there is a small fixable one that I will confess shortly). Pickup chambers. Hmmmm....and my aversion to anything relating to routers. Trouble is, when you need a flat bottom in a deep chamber, and you've only got a maximum of thickness of 5mm left at the end of it, there aren't that many options. So I did it the same as the last few times: Started with drilling the corners, taking especial care with the depth: Then Forstnered them: Then chiselled down to the top depth around the pencil guide lines. Then used a very short bearing guided router bit to straighten the sides without routing any of the depth Then used the resulting substantial and square bearing-guiding sides to safely guide the router bit deeper, a couple of mm at a time, to the final depth, leaving around 5mm wood short of break-through: And then the inevitable premature mock-up: On many levels, I'm really pleased with this one so far. Oh...and the boo boo? OK - do you remember me saying I was going to have this as a single pickup guitar? Well, I changed my mind in the end and decided to go for two humbuckers, three way and master tone and volume. The boo boo? When I stuck the top on, there wasn't going to be a neck pick up. And so there wasn't the need to cut a cable routing into the back wing from where the pickup up chamber would be to where the control chamber was going to be.... But happily, I have a VERY long drill. One long enough to go through the jack hole, into the side of the control chamber and all the way to the neck pickup. I think we've all said - when new builders are super deflated at having made an error - that many of the more experienced builders regularly make silly errors too (certainly, I do). We probably are just a touch quicker at finding work-rounds to fix them

Great build and well deserved GOTM win!

Or in my case, 'Ah jeez Rick. If I produced this cut, I'd be patting myself on the back for doing a great job.' Great job, Rick.

I have...and don't really want to again!

This is going to be the absolute dogs whatsits. Remind me not to enter a GOTM when this one goes forward....