bokchoi77

1 minute ago, Lwguitar said:

It was hard not to vote for that Tele, but that was just to nice of an acoustic. 

I felt exactly the same!

4 hours ago, Mr Natural said:

it was fun as all hell doing that carve wasnt it? I had a blast doing mine- not sure why but it was oddly satisfying. 

I noticed it looks like you didnt have the screw (for the rotating pick up housing) thru the body when you routed the back- did that move at all on you when you carved the back? I may have gone overboard screwing mine down but I was a bit nervous doing the back. 

It was good fun, though I was a little tired of it by the end!

Pro tip I found was to rub the rails with a bit of soap.

I did the front first and used a bunch of double sided tape as well as the wedges so it was solid as a rock while the back was flat. when I flipped it I used the screw holes in the neck pocket and the battery cavity to snug it down. 

I'm going to try and nut out a solution for the pickup without the hole in the back, I don't really like the look of it personally.

1 minute ago, Andyjr1515 said:

A lot of my builds incorporate these kinds of curves - I'd LOVE to emulate this type of jig.  Sadly, my teeny workspace is too small to fit it in but it's got me thinking...

Many thanks to both @Mr Natural and @bokchoi77 for the details

Great build!

Wanna buy one? Only used once on a Sunday....

But seriously @Mr Natural saved me all the head scratching on this jig. just the measurements for stuff like this are gold.

Well, today was radius day, I can report the same as @Mr Natural above - the process felt safe and solid with the jig.

it took quite some time, doing 1.5mm per pass but I had zero chip out - other than a little at the start, I changed technique and went around the edges from a better direction before doing a linear pass to remove the rest.

All in all the process was a success!

Small update, Today I put together the radius jig - based on @Mr Natural 's details above. I'll probably need to trim the points a bit when I get the base setup, I have some 20mm pipe for the jig to run on.

So a little more progress on this one over the weekend and this evening.

I've routed the control and battery cavities, they still need some clean up after the radius but are looking tidier.

I made up a battery cover from Merbau and ebonised it, which worked very well. Time will tell if it will be ok post radius but should be able to fettle it.

I got the fretboard slotted and glued on and trimmed down. I ebonised that as well.

Starting to come together!

5 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Looking good....and looking quite heavy too.

SR

It's actually not too bad at all, it's quite small, smaller than it looks in the pics and a large amount of it will be carved away from the font and the back.

More work on this one...

I routed the pickup cavity and the angled neck pocket as well as the plane on the body.

I've hogged out and chiselled the battery compartment and the control cavity in the back. Bit of a clean up on those with the router and I'll be ready to radius the body!

Definitely an interesting shape, look forward to seeing this come together!

Hi All,

I'm throwing this one to you gurus of building and wiring!

As detailed in my thread in the build area, I'm putting together a replica of a Turner Model 1.

The wiring for it is a bit of a sticking point, while I'm quite experienced in electronics and putting things together as well as reading diagrams etc I'm a bit lost in how to replicate the features on this one, a lot of which seems to be proprietary wizardry!

So anyway, the specs I've gathered are:

• One high output humbucker pickup (Turner makes these in house I understand)
• Passive Volume and Tone controls
• Pickup can be run in passive or active via a toggle switch
• Boost control for active mode
• "Semi Parametric" EQ control (This is the real head scratcher)

Any ideas or suggestions? I'd like to get as close to genuine as I can.

Thanks folks!

Spent a bit more time on this one today, got the truss rod sorted and the neck trimmed down and radiused the fretboard.

Wow these are incredible, amazing wood too!

I think I'm a bit OCD with dust, I tend to have to stop everything and clean up before doing the next job... 

2 hours ago, curtisa said:

Nice job The first one that just clicks is always a keeper. Trouble is this guitar building malarkey is a slippery slope.

It surely is, I'm well into my next one....

A bit of progress on this one this weekend, body glued band sawn and routed.

And with a wipe of mineral spirit:

My entry is my double humbucker tele shaped build, I'm calling it Fat Myrtle as she weighs in at 4.3 Kilos!

Specs:

• Body - Blackheart Sassafras top with Tasmanian Myrtle back.
• Neck - Tas Oak neck with a Merbau freboard
• Frets - Jumbo extra hard
• Pickups - Two gretsch style humbuckers
• Wiring - Les paul standard wiring with push pull pots on the tones to flip the humbuckers to parallel mode.
• Hardware - Gold hardware, black pickup rings.
• Finished in Polyurethane

Link to build thread

Thanks for looking, and good luck to other entrants.

Hi All, hope I'm not too late for this month (1 day to go here in Aus!) 

My entry is my double humbucker tele shaped build, I'm calling it Fat Myrtle as she weighs in at 4.3 Kilos!

Specs:

• Body - Blackheart Sassafras top with Tasmanian Myrtle back.
• Neck - Tas Oak neck with a Merbau freboard
• Frets - Jumbo extra hard
• Pickups - Two gretsch style humbuckers
• Wiring - Les paul standard wiring with push pull pots on the tones to flip the humbuckers to parallel mode.
• Hardware - Gold hardware, black pickup rings.
• Finished in Polyurethane

Link to build thread

Thanks for looking, and good luck to other entrants.

On 9/29/2018 at 12:46 PM, thaumgarrett said:

Sounds great!! 

Always good to see a project come to fruition.

Thanks man!

Well this one is finally done and dusted save a few tweaks down the track no doubt.

After some test setups I went ahead and relocated the bridge, as I just wasn't happy with the location. I also routed another 3mm from the neck pocket to seat the neck a little more nicely into the body in relation to the bridge.

I had to pull one fret and re seat it and then gave everything a good level and crown, I can now get the action to where I want it.

All in all a fun build with a lot of lessons to take forward to the next one.

26 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I'm running without sound right now, and I'm sure the mobile devices will butcher the clips. Good to hear (or not?) you got it all up and running though!

Look forward to hearing what you think.

Yup wiring went smoothly and worked first time. Funny, I've been soldering for 30+ years or so now give or take and I still manage to sizzle a finger EVERY. TIME.

30 minutes ago, ScottR said:

That sounds nice, good stuff! I like the song you were working on a while back as well.

SR

Thanks! I'm pretty pleased with the sound.

Oh I should have mentioned above -  the song is a Silverchair cover, for anyone that isn't familiar with it.

Ok so I found some time to wire this one up today, I went with the wiring as I posted above, and I'm pleased with it, when running the coils 'split' (Actually Parallel but I refer to it as split for some reason!) It has quite a Strat style tone to it, and you can do some interesting thing mixing in split and unsplit etc.

Anyhow I made a quick recording. The first one is a similar progression running through Neck -> Neck Split -> Bridge - Bridge Split -> Neck + Bridge -> Neck + Bridge both split -> Neck + Bridge neck split -> Neck + Bridge bridge split.

And this is plugging it into a song I was working on a while back, just a small section. I played both guitar parts on this guitar.

Hopefully the clips work ok!

Yeah I was thinking something like this:

16 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

I've been watching this with interest over the last couple of weeks, but not really had chance to concoct a proper response what with being on mobile devices instead of a real keyboard. She looks like a real success, and that black stripe meeting up with the switch cover was pure serendipity.

You're correct in that the bridge should be placed according to where the saddle witness points are in their maximum forward position. Intonation only ever needs to lengthen the string to compensate for bending notes sharp when fretting. If it intonates right now, that's what matters. Don't go opening a can of worms re-placing the bridge unless the look of the saddles in their current position or the tighter break angle over the saddles to the string through holes bother you that much.

I think she's fantastic as she stands. The only thing that I think I would have done differently is to have slightly more defined transitions around the heel and volute. That's just me though, as I like those parts in sharper definition. Absolutely nothing wrong with it as it stands of course.

So what's the thought process on the wiring so far? I reckon a vintage Les Paul style rather than the modern equivalent would be a nice fit. There's all manner of options open to you with a three-way and two-pots-per-pickup.

Thanks man I appreciate the kind comments.

I think I'll take your advice, if it aint broke don't fix it etc, I simply went with an incorrect assumption on the bridge placement, a lesson for the future, luckily not a breaking one.

As for the neck carve, yeah I think that's definitely something to be refined, I was honestly gobsmacked that it came out so close to the money on a first go, I had purchased a neck for this project but the trial scratch built neck was such a success (in my view) that I pushed on for a fully hand built project. 

There are a few little bits to be fettled here and there, a couple of slightly high frets and I'll check the neck etc after being strung up for a day or two. It's definitely a 'first build' in that there are plenty of lessons here and there.

Wiring process I was thinking a fairly standard LP setup with a parallel switch on each pickup via push pull pots. But I have enough pots etc for a standard setup as well, I'm open to suggestions.

It's an interesting play, feels really solid kinda like an older LP, but thick in the neck like a Tele as well. I like it, but I'm not sure I'd love it on stage so much after an hour or so it weighs in around 4.3 kg.

Thanks so much @Mr Natural this info will be so helpful to me and no doubt others attempting this build!

I'll probably bend your ear about wiring at some stage too

So over last night and today I got this assembled and strung up for the first time. 

So far so good, managed to get it intonated but I may need to relocate the bridge as I'm pretty tight on adjustment. I read the rule of having the saddle all the way forward long after I set it in the middle when locating the bridge... oops. Still it's intonated for the moment and we'll see how it goes.

It's a heavy beast, I'll weigh it later on and see what it comes in at...

Wiring TBD next!

It was a pretty grey day today so I'll take it out when the sun shines for some better pics.