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kings_x

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Posts posted by kings_x

  3. Guitar Plans

    in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat

    Posted

    Here's a thought: to me, 335s are very bulky. Since you're doing the single coil thing, you could downsize the body and streamline it some, like a CS336 or an Ibanez AM series guitar. I'm a little biased (this is my site)

    I was wanting something a little bulky, I may make it a little thiner though.

    I'm going with single coils because I want something different. I always play humbuckers.

    In the drawing, it looks like there is no neck angle, and as a result, the fretboard sits very high above the body (The 335 copies I've had all have an angled back neck). In fact, it looks like you might have bridge height problems if you build it as shown - the string height measures 0.88" at the bridge, while the tunomatics on my guitars are 5/8 to 3/4.

    I wasn't planing on using a tune-o-matic. The original drawing I worked off of had an angle built in. Since the fretboard is so high, I might go back to the angled neck and use a tuneomatic. Or I may leave the top flat and lower the fretboard height. I'm just thinking out loud right now. Trying to get some ideas and look for pitfalls before I start.

    Mike

  4. Guitar Plans

    in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat

    Posted

    WOW, that's one killer guitar. Though I'm pretty sure they could safely shape that heel even smaller than this.

    How small could I make the heel? Lets say I use Mahogany with two strips of bubinga, jatoba, ebony, wenge, or purple heart (like krazyderek mentioned).

    BTW, those pictures are close to what I have in mind. My body design does not come up to meet the heel. The body goes straight across the top.

    Mike

  8. do woods change the sound of an electric?

    in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat

    Posted

    I know this might be blasphemous to say, but it is my deeply held belief that when dealing with electric guitars wood matters less than pickups.

    The wood is the foundation that the pickups build on to get the final sound. If you start with crapy wood, a good pickup will make it sound better but you will not get a great sound. I know because I tried to get a better sound out of a junk guitar of mine and I could not get a great sound no matter what pickups I put in it.

    Mike

  10. Guitar Plans

    in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat

    Posted

    Here is a guitar design I am considering. I got a CAD drawing for an ES335 off the web and modified it for a neck-thru design, Strat style bridge and 3 single coil pickups and a smaller neck heel to allow better access to the higher frets. I plan on having a carved maple or walnut top and a chambered mahogany body.

    1) Will the neck be strong engough at the heel? This is my biggest concern. I'm not sure there is enough wood between the "ledge" where the fretboard stops and the back of the heel (going diaganal down through the wood). It is about 1 1/3" in my drawing. Is that enough? (does this question make sense without seeing the drawing?) I might have a maple/mahogany lamenated neck.

    2) What about using single coils with a chambered body? Good idea, bad idea?

    I was going to post the dwg somewhere but can't find a host.

    Mike

  12. Stewmac Through-body Neck

    in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat

    Posted

    kings_x: Nice guitar!

    Thanks, man.

    1. How adjustable is the TOM given that it's sitting in a cavity? I'd like to go with a TOM [by far my favorite bridge] but without the carved top [which I'm too much of a beginner to try], it seems impossible. The cavity sounds like a nice solution but looks like it would be hard to adjust.

    Its not very adjustable at all. I have to take the strings off or at least loosen them all the way to access the adjustable posts. If I were to do it again, I would have built in the neck reliefe when I glued on the wings and sanded all the wood flush. If I were to route out a cavity for the bridge again, I would try making it quite a bit wider than the bridge and then sanded it to smooth out the ridges on each end (make it sort of like a ramp) to allow acccess to the posts without having to remove the bridge.

    2. The radius on the fretboard is 15", but most TOMs I've seen are 12" radius. Did you file down the notches in the TOM to compensate?

    The bridge is a Michael Christian piezo pickup so I have not touched the saddles. Not sure what it would do to the output of the piezos. I haven't had any trouble setting up the action (other than having to remove the strings to adjust the bridge :D ).

    I'm very excited right now because I just ordered the neck and a set of mahogany wings. I'm going to be pestering you guys to no end in the following months.  B)

    Keep me posted, sounds cool.

    Mike

  13. Stewmac Through-body Neck

    in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat

    Posted

    Here it is. In hind sight there are several things I would have done differently such as spaced the tuning pegs a little further appart and reshaped the heel of the neck so I could have put the wings on a lower to allow full access to all the frets. Those will be things to keep in mind on my next guitar.  :D

    Mike

    also keep in mind some people are on dial up so crop your images a bit before you post them, as beautiful as that empty wall space is B)

    I thought about that as I uploaded the image but was in a hurry. I'll fix it :D

    Mike

  17. Stewmac Through-body Neck

    in Solidbody Guitar and Bass Chat

    Posted

    Okay, now another question. Assuming that I get this through-body neck, I need to make some wings. I was planning on getting walnut ala the Rickenbacker 650D, but anyone have other suggestions? I'm looking for a darker colored wood as I would like to have the natural look.

    I just discovered this board and this is my first post here.

    WOW! What a coincidence! I just finished my first guitar project and I used the StewMac neck and my design is based on the Rick Dakota. Cool!

    My original idea was to build my own bolt-on neck out of mahogany but I ran into some beginner problems and bailed on that idea and bought the StewMac neck. I already had the body done which had two pieces of bookmatched mahogany running down the center and birdseye maple wings on the outside. Like this:

    [birdseye] [mahog] [birdseye]

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    |-----------|\\\\|////|-----------|

    Once I decided on the new neck and since I was going from a bolt-on to neck-through design, I had to cut out most of the mahogany. The end result is birdseye with two strips of mahogany on either side of the maple center.

    Another problem I ran into was the fact that I was using a tune-o-matic bridge with a non-angled neck. I discovered the problem with that when I first tried to put a string on it and had a 1 1/2 inch gap between the 12th fret and the string. I fixed that by routing out a recess for the bridge. Its a feature not a flaw :D .

    It has a Michael Christian piezo bridge and two Schaller Golden 50 pickups. I built my own on-board pre-amp for the piezos and it sounds great. The mags give it a cross between a vintage Les Paul sound and a Rick sound. In my original design, I was going for more of a Les Paul sound but I like the sound I ended up with.

    Anyway, I'm pleased with the end result and have gotten may complements on the looks, playability and the sound.

    I would love to post a picture here. How do I do that.

    Mike

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