Ben

No-one asked for it, but if anyone is interested, here is guitar #1:

The photo is old, the wierd flame maple veneer control plate things I made round the neck pup and pot have been converted to a large metal washer and some carefully cut CD cover plastic respectively.

And heres more photos:

Album

Admire my precise master-craftsmanship!

the other guitar in the pics is another project I started..and then got bored of. I'd made too many mistakes and cut corners.

I'll finish it sometime, but I am more into this new project now.

Edit, looking back at this post; If I ditch the pickguard it'll look almost entirely like my first guitar!

I like explorers, so I took the basic shape, stole the lower horn off an iceman, then played around with the design for a while until I came up with the curved back bit. The top horn (the one that looks slightly sg-ish) was suggested by someone else, I was going to go with a more angular one, but this one looks better in my opinion.

I still cant make my mind up about the pickguard...

Decisions........

If anyone is interested I could dig up a pic of my very first guitar which I built in this shape. (it was more of a half-build really, I bought the neck and it was a very imperfect guitar)

I know its similar!!!

I saw that guitar on here a while back AFTER designing mine, and was shocked by how similar it is!

If thats his first in that body shape I can prove I did it first! (my first project was the same shape as this one)

I was surprised by the surprisingly nice figuring on the oak actually... considering its from a beat up old table, I didnt expect it to have any.

Shame that in my current design the best of the figuring will all be covered by the pickguard!

Kinda makes me want to ditch the pickguard.. but I think that the pickguard shape its-self is pretty cool, and they make the wiring more convenient too. There'll still be the grain pattern on the back I suppose.

Thanks

Loving these smilies BTW, dont get them on other forums I've been on

Pictures!

Took some photos today, there all in the album;

Guitar album

They're not great photos, but my camera is crap, and its a dull day.

This project is all being done on the cheap, I have very few tools, mainly cheapo hand tools, so I'm not expecting 100% perfection on this project.

I saved some money on a fretsaw today, I made my own!

FRETSAW

I was lucky and had some coping saw blades that were the right width to cut a nice fret slot that the frets will fit in (with a little persuasion) and stay in. I just glued it to a bit of a metal rod thing.

If you are confused by the different coloured woods when I said it was all made of oak, its because I played around with some wood stains on the body wings. They are still unsanded so it will be sanded off during the finishing process.

Another ditto on black cavities!

I thought he meant put a t-shirt in a sock, then dab black paint on the green coat.

I agree, Hiscock's book is very good.

If you want to get straight into building something though, you might want to look into Saga kit guitars. Thats how I got into building my own stuff (I'm still not that into it really, just a couple of projects underway).

The Saga kits are cheap, (and if you are American, VERY cheap), and will familiarise you with all the bits and pieces. They come unfinished so you can customise them too.

Here's my one:

THE BACK

I still play this one, in fact its probably my favourite out of my 4 guitars.

I also bought a tele kit, but scrapped the body and built my own.

Some people have complained about the necks having high frets on saga guitars. Mine were fine, but I may have been lucky. Even if it did have a couple of high frets, I suppose you could get some practice at levelling them!

To quote myself

(I know its heavy, its mainly hollow, and weight doesnt bother me that much anyway)

It is practically a hollow-body its chambered loads.

Also the real body wings (which I will photograph soon) are smaller than the ones in the plan, so the overall body size will be smaller and therefore lighter.

Glad you like the design too!

Thanks,

I'm building the sustainer myself, see the 84 page thread in the elcetronics section of the site.

A few people there have built them with good results, so I'm going to give it a go myself, definitely cheaper than buying one!

Holy crap, that is looking awesome! I am not usually a fan of flames painted on anything, but that looks really good

Exactly my thoughts!

Ok, I fixed it, it was the same as on yahoo anyway, just a bigger image. Thanks for pointing it out!

Latest design

Dont expect this to be regularly updated, It wont be!

I'll try to update it occasionally.

Heres the album with a few of my many, many design ideas and design revisions. This keeps changing all the time, the most current one is the one named "copy of new"

Guitar folder

Please dont tell me you prefer one of the older designs, its too late.

I have already started this project, made the neck (not the fretboard though), and body wings, and a few other little odd bits.

I will try to get photos sometime soon.

Anyway, The specs are:

• 25.5" scale
  
• Neck Thru
  
• Oak neck and body, all salvaged from an old table (I know its heavy, its mainly hollow, and weight doesnt bother me that much anyway)
  
• 1 vol, 1 tone
  
• Sustainer on top of neck pickup
  
• Possibly a speaker, just for the hell of it, powered by same circuity as sustainer
  
• switching is with a rotary switch, idea stolen from gutarelectronics.com, "5 sounds from one humbucker", but instead of the humbucker I have 2 RWRP singles
  
• Multiple heat pickups, Idea is again stolen from someone on another forum
  
• Winding the pickups myself
  

Neck Pickup will have the alnico bar magnet down the centre, and a taller, thinner coil for a more stratty sound.

Bridge pickup will be a P-90 clone.

The wiring is going to be INSANELY complex, I've drawn a layout for it, and it is pretty crazy.

The reason I'm going so overboard on my first decent attempt at building a whole guitar is because I want to do everything myself for practice for future, and I also want every switching option under the sun, so that in future I can refine it down to just the ones that work well and sound good.

Any thoughts/ opinions appreciated!

The ideas on this guitar I intended to carry over onto the next one, this being just a prototype. The eventual guitar will be far simpler but still have a lot of these functions.

Exactly my thinking with my guitar! Mine has (or will have) a ridiculous amount of switching options, so that I can test all the settings, keep what I like and ditch what I dont, and make my future guitars have all the best settings.

OK, drawn up some ideas.

Good luck understanding these!! they are pretty crude, I drew them all on paint, and theres quite a few wires!

Sustainer switching drawings

My favourite is "another solution", which uses a 3 way 4 pole rotary switch (readily available) and has the 3 positions wired as

1. Normal; hot to vol/tone, power off, bypasses sustainer stuff,

2. Fundamental Sustain; hot to fetzer/ruby thing, power on.

3. Harmonic Sustain; same as position 2 with driver wires flipped.

The only downside is that the pickup selector switch MUST be in position 4

I'm no electronics expert, all I know has been absorbed whilst reading this forum and other forums, so there may be mistakes in there

The "stuff to play" pic is just everything layed out, ready to be connected.

What do you think?

Thanks loads, Pete! you deserve some sort of award for what you have contributed to this thread, 516 posts!, so much information here, its great!

I will make and test it externally before I fit it, as you suggest.

I also may just go with the two mini-toggles like you have, if the rotory switch thing doesnt work out, they look very compact and convenient.

you will need very easy access to change it

Ill use one of those flip-out battery boxes then.

There really is a strong argument to actually put together a "sustainer guitar"

I have thought about that for my next guitar, this one is pretty complex already. I think I'll have a mess around with it on this guitar, and if I can get it to work well, I might make a dedicated sustainer guitar. (with a clear acrylic body!) next.

I will draw a wiring diagram for the switch and post it here, glad your interested!

Thanks again!

WOW!!!

Leave it like that!!! its perfect

That looks amazing!

I wouldnt dare burst the outer edge, I woulnt want to hide that figuring. Maybe a small thin burst but no more. Of course its your guitar, so whatever you chose to do, good luck!

Looks great so far!

Wow! I love it, but I do agree that it doesnt quite suit this guitar. On a more curvy guitar it would look great, but explorers are all angular and call out for a more complimentry inlay design IMHO.

You can buy almost identical things, that may be more compact from some electronics suppliers:

eg:

http://www.rapidelectronics.co.uk/rkmain.a...73834&XPAGENO=4

http://www.rapidelectronics.co.uk/rkmain.a...73845&XPAGENO=3

Theres loads more available, (some better ones if you look harder) even things that make animal noises :-)

Thanks Pete.

I have been doing plenty of thinking, I need to, the wiring on this guitar is insanely complex already!

If I ditch the sensitivity control, does that mean it will only have an on/off switch and a harmonic switch? just two switches? no pots? or have I missed something?

The switch I have is 4pole, 6way. As far as I can figure, I can use it to switch the power on, turn the bridge pup on, and the neck one off... I just cant do the bypass as well.

The other 5 positions are taken up by the "5 sounds from one humbucker" thing off guitarelectronics.com, : http://www.guitarelectronics.com/product/WDUH5R0001

Im using two RWRP singles instead of the humbucker.

The LED idea seems like a good one, what sort of batterry life do you get from the sustainer?

I am very seriously considering making one of these for my guitar, but the knob and switch count on it is high enough already!

Could I use a spare position on my 4 pole rotory pickup selector switch to turn the bridge pup on, the neck one off and the battery on, and then use a push/pull pot for the sensitivity (gain?) control. Pulling it would switch to harmonic mode.

Thanks!

What would happen if I added a switch to run the normal pickup signal through the preamp, then out of the guitar, to the amplifier? could it function as a pickup booster too?

Also, is there any way to use the preamp circuitry for the sustainer as a piezo preamp too?

That might be complete crap, forgive my ignorance, I know little about impedence..etc. :-)

Thanks!

Or here is another idea...

From my limited understanding, and my reading of this thread, you need a pre-amp (to match the impedence or something?), then an amplifier...

So what about buying one of these premade preamps:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...preamp&doy=28m3

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...preamp&doy=28m3

then putting it before one of these pre-made amplifiers:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...lifier&doy=28m3

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...lifier&doy=28m3

If that would work, that would be fantastic, I'd definitely give it a try.

Thanks

I think he mean he doesnt know absolutly everything, but does know the basics. A comma would help, as in:

"not really everything, but the basics"

Thanks Pete.

I think that since I cannot really afford to perform experiments that will not work, I may be wisest to copy a sustainer design that someone else has built and got to work successfully. I have been reading bits of this thread for a while now, I know the basics; short, fat coil, thicker wire than normal..etc, and I understand the principle behind the idea, so I will most likely give it a shot in the coming weeks. I shall post any results.

This looks so similar to something I built a while back. Elongate the top/rear bout and make the curve on the iceman horn a little sharper and I swear its identical. VV nice guitar BTW, yours is way better than mine!

Theres a preamp pedal called the "Behringer PB100 Preamp Booster pedal", could I gut it and stick its innards into my guitar, and use that to drive the sustainer that I want to build?

Thanks.