meatloaf

This looks very interesting and I'll be following this build for sure, I'm hoping that this turns out to be a killer.

On ‎18‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 11:57 PM, KempGuitars said:

 

The pickups in these are just cheap units I bought (Irongear's)

I am thinking of using irongear pickups in my next project, I don't want anything expensive as I don't really play, I just need some 4 wire humbuckers that I can experiment with different wiring options and hopefully end up with a guitar I can practice with, I have read some good reviews of their pickups, what's your opinion of them?

Just love that inlay, it's the dogs boll bits

@Andyjr1515 thanks I appreciate those comments.

21 hours ago, Prostheta said:

It was a solid -11°C yesterday when I drove into work. First job of the day, start a big ol' fire to heat up the shop.

It's only dropped to about -4 here and that is cold enough for me  

My mini spray gun arrived today, too cold to spray outdoors as I value my tackle too much but this uke body is quite small and it fitted in my airbrush booth. Several coats of paint followed by several coats of clear, I'll never make a pro paint sprayer but pleased with the result. Still got a fair bit to do but it's looking like I'll get it finished for Chtistmas. Not my choice of colour but he wanted olive green so thats what he's getting.

7 hours ago, Norris said:

 

By heck the garage is cold though - progress is slowing down. We've had a few cold nights recently, and given a choice between freezing my bits off in the garage or sitting by a roaring log fire - I'm afraid the fire has won

I know what you mean, I've been using my unheated  conservatory as a workshop and yesterday it managed to get to a stagering 9 degrees, as the light faded and the temp dropped I just had to get warmed up, so I joined the rest of the inmates.

The slow boat from China has docked at last and I can get back to the build. The neck is almost  finished now but I need to decide what finish to use on the mohogany.

After more than one attempt I finally managed to make the pick guard and get the colour just about right, my son wants this uke to have the same colour sceme as one of his motorbikes but he has sold it now but I think I got about the same colour as the custom made saddle. Those chrome screws will have be replaced by black ones.

My biggest holding point is the mini spray gun that I ordered which is taking an age to come,  I really need to get the body sprayed asap as I'm not sure how well I can do it with my first attempt, My son had his bike panels spayed where  he works and they make really expensive sports cars as well as F1 cars, as you would expect they did a really good job, so no pressure there then

That is one nice looking bass Andy, you deseve to be well chuffed - congrats

Nice videos and a nice looking guitar, well done, thanks for sharing

Yesterday my fret cutting saw arrived so I started on the neck, it's a one piece neck made out of mohogany that I've had laying about for over 30 years that I salvaged from an old building that I worked in before it was demolished. After reading various Uke forums about Uke necks it became obvious that everyone concidered that truss rods were not required.

I made a mitre box out of some off cuts that I had and stuck my shaped neck to a piece of mdf that was a snug fit in the box, making sure that the centre line of the neck was parallel to the box, then I could slide the neck along and make the cuts. A bit crude but worked quite well.

I fitted the frets after I shaped the neck profile and used a radius block on the fret board, Ukes usually have flat fret boards but it did'nt look right and it is meant to look like a strat.

After routing the neck pocket I just had to fit the neck just to see what it looked like, well it's sort of strat shaped but a bit stange as it's so small

Today some of my hardware arrived on a slow boat from China, this cheap bridge turned out to be too small but it only cost £4 but my plan was to replace the base plate with a custom made one anyway, so time to go looking for something suitable.

I recently dismantled an old trailer that I made 30 odd years ago that I havn't used in years but it still waiting to go to the dump, and the tow hitch connector just looked like it wanted to be used on a guitar ( honest).

So after a bit of a clean up I started cutting it up.

Drilling a few holes.

After a bit of elbow grease.

Now I have a bridge with 14mm string spacing, after I've sprayed it black it should be ok.

My  body blank arrived on Monday, three pieces of saple which was already glued, not the best wood for guitars but was a bargin on fleabay and from what I've read online should be fine for this project.

On Tuesday I cut out the body with my jigsaw, I am really crap at using a jigsaw so had to go over the edges with my belt sander before routing the body using my cheap router bit, really chuffed with the result although I found routing the horns a bit of a bum clenching moment

Today I used my spoke shave to round over the edges and then spent a lot hours sanding and then more sanding.

Nice job Andy

To be honest I wasn't planning on building an other strat but when my lump of kitchen worktop turned into a strat body my son jokingly suggested that I make him an electric uke based on the strat design to go with his collection of uke's. As I already had a couple of ideas in my head for another build I ignored him ... but then I got thinking. Using my best friend google I did a bit of research and found that quite a few people have built solid bodied uke's based on guitars with various degrees of success, I downloaded a 1962 strat body drawing and after a bit of trail and error managed to print a copy just the right size to make a template but had to revert to pencile and paper for the neck.

most uke builders appear to use guitar pickups but I think that looks a bit naff but I've found at least one source of a pickup designed for uke's, can't find a bridge with 14mm string spacing at the moment so I may have a go at making one. I'm planning on using a piece of mohogany that Iv'e had laying around for 30 odd years for the neck, just need to go shopping for some tools, I'll have a go at making a miter box but I'll have to buy a fret saw and a radius block but I'm not sure what else I will need. This will be my second build but it will be the first neck, I can see a learning curve ahead

I wish I had artistic talent like that, I've got a couple of ideas in my head for future projects but with my lack of artistic talent I'm afraid thats where they will stay.

That is looking very good

I was never allowed to take the family photos as I always cut the top of the heads off , anyway here is take 2, I guess it looks a little  bit like a Strat

22 hours ago, ScottR said:

That came out looking damn fine!

SR

Thanks, it's by no means perfect but I'm pleased with the result.

On 19/10/2016 at 7:45 PM, Prostheta said:

Thing is, the hardest step is getting to the point where the instrument is stringable, tunable and playable. The rest is just cosmetics. Do you think this will be the only instrument you build? I mean, it's a lot of skills to take on and master just to use on one build!

TBH I was only going to build one but during the build I found the whole thing quite relaxing even with sharp pointy thing spinning around at high speed and all that noise and dust and when things went wrong enjoyed working round the problems. When I was only a short way into the build I had ideas going round in my head about the next one, I may even try to make my own neck, already been looking on the GW web site looking at tools, just got to decide what I actually need  as opposed  to what I would like. Just got spend some time gutting and refitting my sons bathroom and then I'll be planning my next build.

My nut came today so after fitting it I put the whole thin together.

I'm pleased with how it's turned out, did I make mistakes along the way? - of course I did, is it perfect? - no of couse not, can I do better next time? - thats the plan. I've learned a lot during this build mostly from you guys that build some amazing guitars and found the whole experience relaxing and enjoyable. Now I just need to set it up properly and learn how to play - I used to play a bit of folk (badly) way back in the 70's but have never played an electric guitar in my life but as they say " its never too late"

21 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Looks good! Rub the rails with a tealight or candle (paraffin wax) and it'll be like butter. Or at least, butter that tastes bad.

Double-sided tape is great for items that will sit flat, otherwise you can use hot melt glue to anchor it to produce a flat surface. Then tape.

Thanks. tea lights why didn't I think of that, I've got loads of those laying about just waiting to be used for something and of course I would't be without double sided tape. I forgot to say that I built this after I read your post about making a  thicknessing jig, seen a lot of these on the  web but yours was the most helpful.

OK I just had to try it out, I've got one piece of mohoany left that I salvaged from an old office that I worked in way back in 1983, managed to pull it out beforet the building was demolished for redevelopement, been kciking around since then. It worked a treat but I think I need a more suitable router bit, suggestions would be more than wecolme.

On 16/10/2016 at 11:03 PM, steve1556 said:

Cheers buddy, getting there slowly but surely.

 

I was tempted to use the belt sander by my dad said it was rather brutal on removing wood so I decided not to use it. Which Strat copy are you using for reference? Would you recommend the belt sander technique?

I picked up some files yesterday, and also some needle files, although now I've got them I'm not 100% sure sure I'll ever need them, but it's good to have just in case. I forgot to pickup sanding sheets so need to go back tomorrow to get them.

Didn't get time to do anything yesterday as I went to see the greatest band ever, Steel Panther! Satchel must have liked my t-shirt as he chucked his plec at me, so it's a nice addition to his signature model guitars that I've got (Had to order both colours!).

On 16/10/2016 at 11:03 PM, steve1556 said:

 

I was tempted to use the belt sander by my dad said it was rather brutal on removing wood so I decided not to use it. Which Strat copy are you using for reference? Would you recommend the belt sander technique?

 

I used my belt sander as that was all I had to use but it worked really well, I did a trial on a piece of scrap first and when I started on the body I keep a keen eye my pencil lines to make sure I did'nt take too much off, It didn't take very long before it was ready to finish off by hand but it is very messy saftey googles and a good marsk are a must and I recommend that it's done outside..

My son's Strat copy is a Yamaha Pacifica and there has been no attemt to blend those carves in and looks quite bad but then it is a cheap copy.

Been a bit of a prat, this project has come to a halt because I forgot to include a nut when I ordered my bits but hopefullly it wont take too long to arrive.

So I thought I would make one of these with what I had handy.

That decking was a bit left over from a garden project a couple of years ago and has been inside since then and the rest of the timber is recycled cheap furniture that a freind was throwing out. You can see that I made the slot in the MDF too long but  fortunatey the guide bush acts as a stop so the rails should be safe. Not sure yet how I'm going to hold the work pieces in place but I'll think on that. All in all I'm pleased with the result it's stable and moves freely in both directions.

Coming alone nicely, I used my belt sander when I did mine but had to be careful that I did'nt over do it as they do tend to take out wood at an alarming rate. I did finish off with a lot of hand sanding untill I was happy with the shape, not sure how it compares to Strat but it's a lot better than my sons copy that I have been using as a reference

OK change of plans, my sons bathroom has been put on hold for a while which is probably a good thing as I feel like crap at the moment.

I did manage to do a little bit today, first I fitted the pickup covers and knobs on to the pickguard that I sprayed the same colour as the body.

I then wired it all up, struggled for a while as my 5 way switch is apparently what is called an import (something else I've learnt) and most of the wiring diagrams I found on the interweb thingy as based on the original Fender switch but after a bit of searching found the info that I needed,

It would appear that most of my wire stock has grown legs and walked so I had to make do with what I had. I did a quick test by plugging it into an amp and holding up against another guirtar while I strummed the strings, As luck would have it it all seemed to work as it should.

I also marked out the headstock ready to shape it.

I really wanted to get the headstock shaped today but I had to give up as I had no energy left and needed to get my feet up and rest.

Bloody daughter in law passed on some bug she's got. But it will give me a chance to get the ideas that I've got going around in my head for my next two guitars down on paper - I know this one's not finished but it seems like I'm not alone in planning more guitars while still working on the first one - and yes I was only going to build one