SiZi

Ah! I was wondering about that! Let me try this. Thanks so much for the suggestion

I’m having a strange grounding issue with my build. I had been using a wireless cable all this while and there was no hum from the pickups. But then I decided to try a wire analog cable to check difference in tone and there was serious hum. I think I have identified the problem - it’s my ground wire from the vol pot to the bridge. It’s a tele style bridge and pickup and so I thought I need to ground the wire such that it rests under the bridge in contact with the bridge right? This is how I’ve done it on previous guitars. But on this build it’s not working! I touch the wire to the guitar wood, the bridge, a copper shield pressed against the wood and even bridge, etc. but nothing. The hum only stops when I hold the wire against my fingers. This tells me that to solve the problem I just need to ground the wire somehow but I can’t figure out how. See pic below for the wire in question. Thanks for your help!

Such a fantastic build! I can only hope to reach this level of skill someday.

Thank you so much! I think the Fralin option hits the spot - I found what I was looking for

Thank you so much for the great ideas! I’ll look into these

Thanks for your input. I too am suspicious about how different they will sound from my vintage spec PUs. I saw some videos that showed lace sensors to be quite different in their build and this the physics of how they work and so I wondered if that might translate to something tangibly distinct while playing. I have been looking for what else is out there as a single cool option for a Strat. If nothing I’ll probably just settle on Lace Golds. Let’s see…

Hi All, I’d love your opinion… I’m on my second build, this one is a Strat. I am wondering which pickups to try. I have a bunch of vintage spec Strat single coil guitars already, and vintage Ibanez and Tokai humbuckers too, and a P90 on my last build. So, I want to try something new on Build#2, something I don’t have. I was thinking Lace Sensor Gold. Any thoughts on this, or any other suggestions for me to try? I play SRV, Jimi, Mayer, type stuff. Thanks so much! Sia

Thank you for clarifying. Let me read more and think about this. Thanks again!

Thank you. Your persepctive on point 3 is something I did not think of ie headstock angle and how that plays into the symmetry of contour in terms of aesthetics

Yes I had similar calculations. The inlay goes all the way up the 7th fret - there is a large wave and then a smaller but longer one. So, at the narrower end of the fretboard (like 50mm width) the amount of material at the edges is VERY tiny (since this inlay goes quite close to the edges). This would still be Ok if I had confidence in the precision of my work. A little here and there and it could be the difference between .3mm and zero material left (this is what happened to me the last time I tried the same inlay- though that was with a 9.5 radius). The thing is I also don’t know how many mm I would need to shave off to get from flat to 12 inches. And so the depth of the inlay is another issue (I don’t want to route after radius- this was a bad experience the last time because the MOP didn’t sit flat and eventually cracked). Basically, the steps I would need to follow are first routing, then radius. And with how close the depth calculations are I feel I will mess it up - it will need to be trial and error to some extent even after all calculations. And this is why I need back up fretboards for this particular task.

I’m thinking I will carve the top 15mm (0.6inch) of the body. And I will put 7mm binding after that. So, if we measure from the bottom of the body width, the binding will start at around 23mm (0.9inch) from the bottom and then the contouring will start from 30mm (1.18 inch) from then bottom, and the bridge will sit at 45mm (1.77 inch) from the bottom. does anything sound off here?

Based on my calculations a 12 inch radius doesn’t look feasible. Even 16 inches is close. The inlay is only 1.5 mm. I think it might be better suited for 16 inch or flat radius on an acoustic. I will try this out on my 3rd build, where I will use a two piece neck (separate fretboard) so that if I make a mistake it’s only the fretboard that is wasted. My current build is a one piece neck so I don’t want to risk it all. thanks so much for the help! Does anyone have suggestions about the contouring depth? I am wondering how deep I should route at the edges in order to contour from the top of the body like a PRS or Les Paul. The body measures 45mm (1.77 inch) thick at present. Thanks!

Wow super helpful. Let me give this a shot!

My previous build was a tele body, so this time I am thinking of a Strat body. Walnut body and neck. Also, I want to learn a few new things so the neck will be a one piece. For the body, I am thinking of trying binding + contouring the top like a PRS. Body colour I’m thinking black under and shell pink on top. Heavy relic to show off the grain of the wood in key areas. For the fretboard, I am considering a rather large MOP inlay of a large wave. Questions for the more experienced builders on this forum, if you might be willing to share your perspective please: 1. Considering the rather large MOP inlay, I feel like I should make the radius 12 because I am worried a tighter radius will make me sand into the MOP at the edges - will 12 be OK? Or should it be flatter? Any thoughts? 2. For pickups I was thinking of 1962 replicas made by General Vintage Tone. Not cheap. Does anyone have experience with their pickups? Worth the price? 3. the body measures 45mm thick. What do you suggest is a good thickness to which I should drop the body around the edges and contour from the top down to that height? Thanks so much!

Wabi-Sabi xCasterThe idea of someone like me (with zero woodworking experience) being able to turn planks of wood into an actual functioning guitar seemed absurd. Then I came across this fantastic tutorial (link), making it seem possible. I had to give it a shot! The build started off with clear direction. I wanted to make a plain old vintage-spec Surf Blue Esquire. But, I was thrown off course during the 18 month build journey thanks to overambitious design plans coupled with very limited knowledge, skills, raw materials, and tooling…The build was done in a small spare room in my apartment! It was made with 100% hand tools at first. I am too embarrassed to reveal precisely how many total hours I invested in completing the first iteration - a surf blue Esquire. But, it was completed in 3 months and I was shocked and pleased by the results. My pride didn’t last too long though because I started noticing serious mistakes everywhere. Disappointed, I gave up. Then, a few months later, I decided to give building another shot. I stripped the guitar down and started redoing virtually everything. Several months later, success! Why “Wabi Sabi”? This poor guitar went through more cycles of iteration than any musical instrument should endure! I decided to celebrate the scars it had collected through the process, rather than hiding them apologetically. This idea fit well with my original theme of Wabi-Sabi (侘寂), which I interpret as being a celebration of the reality that nothing is perfect and nothing lasts forever. This guitar has picked up dings, gouges, scratches, and markings from drilling/filling/re-drilling holes and removing/adding wood for patch up work. These scars paint a picture of my journey from knowing nothing about woodworking to eventually building a guitar that I am proud of. Also, I have intentionally stripped some of the paint work and protective coating off the screws, body, etc. to give the natural ageing process a head start. I have added some copper elements to the guitar because of their patina-prone properties, to make further visible the effects of time on the guitar. The idea was to make a guitar that seems to live and breathe, organically changing over time as it grows older. Why xCaster? Well, it's a Strat but also a Tele, depending on which angle you look at it from. I love the slabiness of the Tele body, its minimal two-pickup system, and its character-filled bridge pick up. But, at the same time, I like some of the contours of the Strat, and I prefer its headstock design. So, I mixed all these elements up! I also added some unique features of my own. Specs: String-through-body bridge Body - European Ash Color: Matte black nitro/poly blend spray can, top coat is matte clear 2k spray can. Neck - Maple with ebony fretboard, Neck is stained brown, and finished with boiled linseed oil. Measures 0.98 inches at the first fret and 0.85 inches at the twelfth fret, with a soft V shape (like ‘57 Fender). Radius is 9.5. Vintage clay dots. Pickguard - 99% copper Total weight - 10 lbs Scale length - 25.5” Truss rod - I made a slot in the body and pickguard, along with a custom length Allen key to be able to adjust it without removing the neck or pickguard Headstock - I used a ‘60s strat template. The 2mm rosewood inlay was in fact a cover up! I had messed up inlaying my logo into the maple fretboard previously, and so routed that part out and put in some rosewood instead and then successfully put my MOP logo on it. The copper name plate on the headstock was laser etched and then made to pop with some Laskin’s engraving filler Nut - TUSQ Tuners - Gotoh SG 381 Pickups - Bridge has a replica of David Gilmour's 1955 Esquire. It is wound with period correct Heavy Enamel AWG42 wire, wrapped with 8 strand white cotton string, and has been wax potted. The pick up has a copper plated steel baseplate, raised D and G magnets, and North up polarity just like the '50s original. It presents around 6.9k Ohms resistance. For the neck, I had a '50s style P90 made precisely to pair with the bridge pickup. It presents about 6.7k Ohms resistance. The pickup has a nickel silver baseplate, rough cast A4 magnets, and single shielded push back wire. The pickups are supported by two 250k Fender pots with a treble bleed network that I made. The control plate has a three way switch and one tone and one volume knob. There is a lot of backstory to every design choice but it was too much to include here. You can visit my website and read more about it if you like (link). Here is a video of how the neck pickup sounds clean with only reverb on a 1W tube amp volume turned up a little past 3 quarters of the way…

I had the same issue and the copper tape was the culprit. Took it out of the control cavity and everything worked fine.

Yes that is definitely a good point - I’ve used the multi to check pick up resistance but I don’t know how to check for continuity here. One on the lug and the other should go where?

Yup, it worked Thank you all so much!

Wow this is very different from what the regular switches require. No wonder I have been struggling! Because I have successfully wired up much more complicated set ups and was shocked that I couldn’t manage this simple 3 way switch! I’ll try these tomorrow morning and report back Thanks so much! If Curtisa manages to share a diagram I’ll try that too. I’ll keep everyone posted.

I think the fact that my switch is different is causing me confusion. Yes I would greatly appreciate a diagram whenever convenient, thanks so much for the offer!

ok, here is how I have rewired it. But now none of the pickups work in any position. The neck and bridge only work if I revert back to connecting CDEF with F also connected to the pot lug (but still none of pick ups work in the middle position)

So I should remove ground and connect BDEG? Let me try that and report back. Thanks

Just to clarify… are you suggesting that I should not connect CDEF with each other, but instead connect BDEG and connect the ground to BDEG? just FYI, I tried to connect BDEG (with ground at F (as it was) but that didn’t work. Sorry, if these are silly questions, I just don’t understand the logic of how this wiring stuff works in spite of watching many videos

And here is a pic of the exact switch

Thanks for the suggestions. Here are pics of the control plate, as well as diagrams to explain what I’ve done (because the pics are tough to see through clearly). I’ve also attached a diagram of what my switch and it’s lugs look like and named each lug to help you with suggestions. I truly appreciate the support!