al heeley

Do these fixing screws allow any pickup height adjustment, or do you just have to get the routed chamber depth correct?

Not unless your name is Fender or Gibson. If you sell a home-made guitar strat-alike as a Fender Strat then you get a smacked botty.

Comments and noises of encouragement much appreciated!

I actually posted 4 separate posts, each with 1 pic on but the forum cleverly joined them all together for me. So sorry about that.

Unfortunately the craftsmanship on the small details leaves a lot to be desired, I'm learning lots of stuff 'on-the-hoof', and making quite a few mistakes on the way. (no close-up detail pics!)

This body is heading for 2 x P90's I'm afraid. I guess if I don't like 'em I can slot in a couple of PAF humbuckers later.

I built a hardcase recently for an ebay strat project. I used stategically placed strips of cut-up Karrimat (you know the denser 5mm foam pads you roll up to sleep on when you're camping lite?) and got some squares of foam from a local furniture/carpet/curtain shop for about £1 each for 18" sq by 1" thick.

I then got a load of fake acrylic black fur from a textile stall on the local market to line the insides.

Good luck to you, Calum, this is a great build, I'm fascinated to watch your progress. Very ambitious for a first build project, and great craftsmanship.

Plain headstock looks better imo, but the guitar horns are a terrible error! Please reconsider. They are so ugly, the beautiful lines of the guitar are ruined and they will snap off if you are not careful.

this may seem like a really dumb n00b question (for that is what I am...) but how do the P90 types actually fit into a guitar body? This will have no pickguard, I'm looking at the plain standard cream P90 blocks, not the dog-ear ones. I'll rout out whatever cavity is needed but how are they secured and height-adjusted?

I think the reverse headstock looks really cool.

A nice piece of ash or alder, stained dark but just translucent would be great. Can't advise on pickups, your choice seems perfect.

Yep, roundnose bit + router after drilling pilot holes thru from underneath.

Thx for the comments, btw!

I got the recess ctrls idea from my prs I'm afraid.

I will have a pair of conventional gold knurled metal tele knobs for master vol and master tone, with a gold les-paul type toggle switch for pup selection instead of the normal 3-way tele slider switch.

Came across a big slab of really nice mahogany from a fireplace surround ripped out when we moved house. It sat in the garage forgotten, for the last three years. Decided it was about time to move up from ebay partscasters.

The plan is a chambered thinline, mahogany body, maple top, maybe piezo saddles, P90 soapbar pickups.

Here's the start of the project. Big mistake number 1: cutting out the shape before sanding away all the crap, oops grain goes across the body width and not longitudinal.

http://www.niw-files.com/alheeley/music/woody4.jpg

With only a basic set of tools available, I started on the body chambers with a drill and chisel. Hard work.

More prep for the back, a few coats of tung oil, some wet'n'dry 600 grit, more tung oil, the back is starting to build up a nice rich shine. Here's my two strips of flame maple top I just ordered, ready for gluing together and sanding down.

http://www.niw-files.com/alheeley/music/woody3.jpg

Got myself a decent router, getting slowly used to working with it and the importance of good template prep.

After a week's hols I spent all day on her today, got the body chambers finished and stuck the top on.

http://www.niw-files.com/alheeley/music/woody6.jpg

Shaved all the sides flush so the top fits perfectly. (well as perfectly as I can...)

A few more coats of red mahogany stain and dark oak stain, more sanding, smoothing and the control cavity routed in the back. Also made a start on the neck pocket.

Wow, this project is mopping up hours and hours. The maple top is just about finished, tomorrow I'll start laying on the Tru-oil.

The back needs some work, it's been bashed about a bit with all the routing and sanding.

Thanks for the replies, that sounds perfect, Tony. I see you can also just buy the saddles and use an existing bridge (my tele will have a strat-type hardtail), its just what I am looking for.

Hmm, I'd not put any skin care product on my fretboard, no matter whose guitar the pro has bought

Lemon oil is based on lighter fluid (naphtha, a cut of petroleum distillate) which makes it an effective degreaser, skin care oil is more likely to be an emoillent which puts grease on.

If you only put on a drop then buff it off you have to question what it is achieving. Dan Erlwine uses a bit of spit and a rag and some elbow grease 95% of the time.

I'm in the middle of a new build project at the moment, need some advice on pup selection. It's a chambered mahogany tele body I'm putting together with a maple figured cap. I really want to put a P90 soapbar pup in the neck for a really warm bluesy sound, and was thinking of something at the opposite end of the spectrum for the bridge pup, maybe a hot rails tele pup with coil tap. This guitar will have a conventional maple tele bolt-on neck. Any views/advice much appreciated.

Piezo bridge

I have this chambered Tele / thinline project underway, I'd like to investigate what would be involved in putting a piezo bridge in place so I can mix standard pickup output with a piezo pseudo-acoustic tone.

Do I need a specially designed bridge? If so, where can i find one?

Would it need a pre-amp to balance the output signals?

Anyone with experience or advice on fitting a piezo system to an electric guitar?

Many thanks!

Al

do you go round licking people's necks?

Am I correct in understanding that tru-oil (or tung oil) if applied with wet'n'dry (400 - 600 grit) will act as a sealer itself, combining with dust and filling the pores?

thanks for the llink, perfect!

I'm having a think about the top. I could use another sliver of Mahogany, (cut the right way) but I've also been looking at burr veneers on ebay. If I glue a 0.6mm veneer to a suitable top, would it be too delicate to damage/delamination?

Not having much luck so far finding a decent maple cap in uk, say 1/8" - 1/4" thick. Would most timber merchants be able to slice off a suitable thickness of the Mahogany for me? Sorry for all the newbie Q's but this is my first 'scratch-build'.

Note: The longitudinal lines aer the remains of saw marks now sanded out. The grain runs width-wise. Is this going to be ok or have I created a turkey?

Yeah, do the headstock upside down, express your creativity and individuality!

If you print this out it should be exactly to scale

A neck shim is your best option. Snip a piece of tin from a coke can or similar, maybe 2 pieces together to raise the neck up a little.

You can always take it out again, no harm done.

Thx, much appreciated!

Same dilema here, been searching round B&Q and Homebasae DIY sections for grain filler for a mahogany body. The only stuff is wood filler putty, a bit like flexible polyfilla.

Any advice on where to go and specifically what to ask for in the UK would be appreciated! Getting fed up trying to explain to the B&Q staff what I'm looking for, a lot of blank faces!

What sort of epoxy is used? Any advice also on a suitable dark dye?

Many thanks in advance!

I came across a big slab of what I'm told is probably mahogany at the back of my garage yesterday, there's enough for 4 guitar bodies. It was part of a big old shelf unit next to a fireplace we ripped out when we moved into our house 3 years ago. I had completely forgotten about it. It's 38mm thick and so I attacked it with my jigsaw to start on a thinline tele project I've been thinking about for the last few months. I cut a couple of blanks from it and started cleaning it up.

After sanding the paint off it appears I've cut the body with the grain going across the guitar and not along it.

Is this likely to be a problem with stability later? I'm told its more likely to warp/curl in this direction.

Have I commited a carnal sin?