JouniK

Congrats. That is some awesome work. Looks stunning.

Have you considered Fishman Fluence lineup? I am fitting Tosin Abasi 6-string set in to my headless build. Cannot wait to test these out.

I was also thinking of doing a simple 5-way switch / killswitch configuration with only hidden trimpots to control bridge+neck pickup balance on one switch position.

In the age of midi controllable pedals and effect/amp modellers you would not need either tone/volume knobs on a guitar. You could control the input tone/filters and signal volume by making a preset to control the sweet spot of both. If you are in a punk/hardcore band you would go full volume all the time.  This will of course depend on your needs and the set of devices you work with.

Today painted pickup and control cavity with graphite shielding paint. Sealed the the control cavity shielding with spray varnish only leaving the recess, potentiometer/input jack washer and switch area raw.

Made neck shim to correct slight angle deviance. About 0,6mm thick maple veneer was enough to correct it. Sanded the slope.. As this was only I had to do, filing the neck pocket was a bit too risky. Painted the exposed side of shim with black permanent marker to not show so obviously against black body..

Bridge placement measurements and drilling pilot holes for it. At first Aligning the bridge with threads I found that when tightening the neck it tend to go slightly off the center line. This threw off the pickup alignment. I was about to freak out. Found out that I had to slightly hold the neck in place hugging the longer side of the neck pocket when tightening the neck bolts. Thankfully this was solved so easily. Center line was now only about 1mm off. I can live with this. Atleast the neck and bridge are aligned and pickups are blades so no hassle about aligning the pole pieces

18 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

are they cnc or hand

by hand ofc

Time has passed since the last update. At last the body seems to be hard enough for the final wet sand with 2000 grit and then waxing.

During the cure time I finished my pickup rings. First attempt was to stain those black and then coat of Z-Poxy finishing resin. Well those looked really nice but I did not get the resin to leave a smooth surface and had to sand those back and forth and everytime sanded through the epoxy somewhere. So I quit that approach and ended up using a Maston 100 (332) spray varnish for the finish on these. I decided that 1 coat is sufficient for me. I am now in a point I am giving up on the look I wanted to get this finished.

So ended up buying the spray varnish. I had no place warm enough to spray so decided to build my diy spray booth at the office buiding garage. Professional isn't it? 

Loved those staining and oil finishing youtube videos so much so decided to merge and upload the videos I recorded during my finishing process. The session where I was doing the bursting was so long that my phone battery ran out of juice and I lost the whole video. But here is the rest of them.

Body finish has now been curing about 2 weeks now. Ended up putting total of 6 coats. It is curing nicely but still some thinner fumes coming out. But not so much anymore. I have to smell really close to get any. While body curing I have been sanding and finishing pickup rings and back plate. Messing with epoxy to get a smooth and durable surface. Trial and error.  

Just ordered a small batch of Carnauba wax, Beeswax and fractionated Coconut Oil. Going to do my own mix and try that after all is done.

15 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

I don't know what the 3 right side wires on each fluence are... I would assume perhaps it's a live, a neg and a series connection between the two coils?

This from Fishman:

Pin 1 – “Voice-2” Select – This contact selects Voice-2 when connected to ground via switch. If open (not connected) the pickup defaults to Voice-1. This is a control pin only, so there is no signal present. Therefore, it can be combined with Voice-2 control pins from multiple Fluence pickups on the same switch contact if need be without interaction. (This can help simplify switch requirements in some cases.)

Pin 2 –“SCO” and “NCO” – These stand for “South Coil Out” for the Bridge pickup and North Coil Out” for the Neck. These are used on Tosin’s switch position-2 to connect the inner coils together while feeding the signal through the Bridge pickup in Voice-3 Single Coil mode.

Pin 3 –“Single Coil” Voice-3 Select – This contact selects Voice-3 Single Coil mode when connected to ground via switch. If open (not connected) the pickup defaults to Voice-1/Voice-2 as selected by the Voice-2 pin. Voice-3 Single Coil mode overrides the setting of the Voice-2 pin when activated. In Voice-3 Single Coil mode, the active coil is the one closest to the neck for both Bridge and Neck pickups. In the same way as the Voice-2 pin, “Single Coil” Voice-3, it can be combined with “Single Coil” control pins from multiple Fluence pickups on the same switch contact without interaction.

7 hours ago, mistermikev said:

your second half of the switch is doing anything because there is nothing going to common

Do you mean the bottom 2 sequences all together or only the sequence marked as red?

I have now been staring this sequence for few days now and trying to understand it. Now when I read the Fishman definition I have come to a conclusion that this is only connecting the inner and outer coil outs of neck and bridge together and signal is then going out through the bridge hot wire at the position 2 of the top right sequence

Hi,

I am starting to plan my wiring scheme for the build I am making. My first pickup wiring attempt with these 5-way superswitches. I got a wiring scheme from Fishman but I am using Schaller Megaswitch M instead of Otax so I need translate and add 2 volume blend trimpots.

Here is the document from Fishman: https://www.fishman.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Tosin_Abasi_Install_Guide_Fluence_WEB.pdf

Plan is to use the same "Tosin Abasi preferred wiring diagram" but replacing the switch. So 1 master volume and the same pickup configuration. Difference is that I want to add 2 volume blend trimpots at the position 3 for bridge and neck pickup.

Would this work:

To this: (note that I mistakenly drew bridge and neck PUs other way around)

Looking very nice. Where is that bridge from?

19 hours ago, mistermikev said:

catching it now you have lots of options to correct

What do think would be the best way? Should I file/sand the neck pocket at an angle to correct this? I thought finishing the body so I can mount the bridge in place and then with a string or a thread check the current situation and matching angle?

Watched this today and seems a good and feasable way. Thoughts?

https://youtu.be/J_3t6rMpd38

15 hours ago, mistermikev said:

looks great with that color on it.  Not being critical, and perhaps it's the pics.. but is that neck sitting reverse angled in the pocket?  I know sometimes perspective gets warbled looking at pics on here... but couldn't help but notice. 

edit- I think it's just the shadow at the bottom making it look like that to me.  ROCK ON. 

Now that you mention it really seems like that way in the pic...and hold it in my hand there is slight positive angle in there, but could be that the neck is not bolted in and neck is not dead straight. I have to bolt the neck in and adjust the truss rod and check that again. I do not know where that have changed cause I planed the whole blank and the template was level to it when I routed the pocket. Did I sand the body unevenly?  Oh gosh. Fingers crossed.

1 hour ago, JayT said:

Looks fantastic! Is that “headstock” the finished shape?

Thanks. Yeah, the shape is. It is still missing the string locking headpiece and some finishing touches.

9 hours ago, willliam_q said:

I’m just going to coat mine with danish oil

That was my first option but read that these smell for a quite some time so went and bought Crimson Penetrating oil. I read online and tested that the oil will soak in endlessly into poplar burl since it so porous wood. So I went and bought a little can of natural resin, linseed oil and tung oil -varnish. I will mix these 2 products together with some mineral spirits so it will be somewhat like danish oil.

9 hours ago, willliam_q said:

How do you find the Crimson stains?

They are ok. I got their already diluted water based stains....not the shots. These were very bright which was good. I have no experience with the mixed colors.

Staining. This was very enjoyable moment.

Sanded down.

Version 1,

Version 2: Needed more darker hue. Finished staining. This will be finished with Crimson Penetrating Oil. I plan on mixing the Penetrating Oil with some natural resin strengthened linseed oil/tung oil mix to get more durable finish.

Glued some left over poplar burl to the head and filled the tuner holes with epoxy.

.

Started making my own pickup rings from my left over alder. Rough cut. These needs to be fine sanded and stained with black water based stain. Probably will cover these with finishing epoxy to make them more durable.

Found some magnets from a decoration shop. First I thought on simply use screws but these will be cool.  Those will keep control cavity plate in place.

First tests on the colour scheme. Used water based stains from Crimson Guitars. Some yellow, red and brown. Bought some black water based stain because the brown was not dark enough. This was also the first time I blended stains and never stained a burled wood. Did not have any experience how poplar burl would behave when stained or how to get the way I wanted.

Spot burl void filling. I decided to fill the biggest voids with the same recipe than the fretboard dots using the the syringe.

Then off to sanding.

Filling the fretboard inlay and side dots with epoxy. Fretboard dots I filled with Z-Poxy Finishing resin mixed with black pigment powder. Side dots with the same epoxy but with orange luminous powder. I think these are mainly used by fishing lure builders.

I started with filling the side dots. First try was to use Z-Poxy 5min formula and the powder using the widest injection syringe I got from pharmacy. I found that this mixture was too thick to come out of the syringe so this attempt was a failure. Tried this a few times but no avail. I ended up filling the side dots with the powder and few dabs of CA glue on top.

Dots were filled with Finishing Resin mixed with black pigment powder. These were left to cure for a few day. Then scuffed with utility knife blade. I taped the blade to lift it a bit and to protect the fretboard.. Then sanded them flush individually with 400-600 grit sandpaper and water. I think it worked out pretty good.

I think I have to sand the fretboard a bit more and add some black stain. Also I need to work the frets with steel wool.

Looking good. Keep up.

Liking the design of the headpiece.

Shaping the body (arm/neck heel contour,bellycut) was at this point of the project the most rewarding time...atleast after the initial fear of ruining the whole thing with these files. Actually I was very pleased how it turned out. The belly cut in all the guitars I have played has always been very odd and felt that it is in the wrong place and too drastic. I moved the belly cut a bit to the right and made it wide and shallow.

These pics were in the middle of the work. This was rough filing and finished with course sand paper and random orbital sander.