pukko

A little progress has been made. The logo has been inlayed into the headstock and the neck has been fretted.

Head: http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC04287.jpg

Fretboard: http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC04278.jpg

I also tried staining a burst on a piece of scrap flame maple, seems like it should be possible to do on the guitar.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC04259.jpg

>>eddiewarlock

Wow, thanks a lot! That´s really nice of you! I get influenced by a lot of stuff, Hagström has some really cool guitar designs so I´m sure I´ve been influenced by that. I like these old quirky guitars from the 60´s-70´s too, guitars from other countries than USA. Old Japanese guitars can be really odd but cool, and so can Italian guitars and stuff from eastern Europe. I mean, this one started out with an idea I got when I saw an Ibanez acoustic (a new one, though), it´s not that obvious now but I can see it clearly...

>>thirdstone

Thanks a lot to you too! I'll do some burst testing on some scrap wood first too see if I can get anywhere near what I want, if not I´ll do some other colour.

>>TemjinStrife

Thanks! Glad you like them! I still have problems seeing pickup rings that don´t look "normal", I guess I´m so used to the regular kind that it´s hard to accept anything else.

>>Mattia

Thanks a lot! I´ve never played a baritone so I´ll have to wait until it´s finished to agree on the rock part...

>>TheIRS

This mockup was mostly a test to see how it would look like with a burst and to see how the pickguard would look in tortoise and in black. I definitely like the tortoise better than the black, at least with this type of finish. I also tested how it would look with covered humbuckers, the ones I bought are without covers but I might get some later on if I can find covers with the right polepiece spacing.

I started thinking about a pickguard when the router broke and made that nasty gouge in the pickup cavity. A normal pickup ring wouldn´t cover the hole, so I had to either make a pickguard to cover it or make custom pickup rings that were a little wider. Now I´ve done both...

>>hooglebug

I´m sure blue would work too, there are a couple of PRS finishes that look really good with blue tops and natural backs. "Blue matteo" and the Modern Eagle "Abalone" finish (which admittedly is some mix of blue and green, but it looks good!).

>>kenggg

>>hooglebug

>>capello

Thanks!

>>Maurits

Thanks! This is the first time I´ve ever worked with pearl, so I was kind of nervous about the whole inlay process. Turned out pretty OK, though. I´m doing the logo now, much more work to do on that one...

>>CrazyManAndy

Thanks! I´ve been really unsure about what finish it should have, but lately I´ve almost made up my mind... I´ve been thinking about blue or red, but now I´m thinking about finishing it in a colour that matches the mahogany and wenge a little more. Since I don´t have access to a spray gun I´m going to clearcoat it with nitrocellulose spray cans this time too. I always thought: No spray gun=no bursting. Well, I´m going to try a burst anyway... I´ll try to stain a burst by hand, I saw a tutorial (Myka´s I think) about doing that and thought I might give it a try. Here´s a mockup of what I´ve been thinking about:

This also shows an idea for a pickguard. I've already made one from tortoiseshell pickguard material, but I don´t know if I´ll be using it or not...

Wow, excellent stuff!! I love how uncomplicated it looks, yet there is so much to it, thats not an easy balance to find. One quick thought for the cavity cover would be to maybe add a very thin layer of pearloid between what ever other layer you decide to use, which would give a similar effect to your 12th fret inlay. With such small portions of pearloid showing, it would look nice I think, anyhow just a thought. I loved those pup rings, cool shape and match perfectly. It all worked so well together, congrats and a super build. Best wishes and look forward to seeing more and more of your work. J

Thanks a lot! That´s a great idea for the back cover, I´m going to try that if I can find some material for it.

>>Maiden69

Thanks! Yeah, I can see what you mean about the upper area...

>>CrazyManAndy, TheIRS, rob tart

Thanks!

>>Jonathon

My grandparents have nice grass, my lawn looks like a buffalo herd ran over it... I guess the accidental wood acquirement was meant to be.

>>Sabu2k1, PTU 7´s

Thanks!

>>aidlook

I got both the wenge and the mahogany from E A Nilsson Trävaror i Bro. http://www.nilssontravaror.se/

Made some pickup rings from some leftover flame maple:

Closeup:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC04071.jpg

The pickups are Seymour Duncans, one Custom 5 and one Jazz. Hipshot bridge.

Here´s the headstock with one of the inlays done. I got some ebony tuner buttons too:

Closeup of the inlay, as you also can see I´m considering putting black washers on the tuners to avoid too much chrome on the headstock:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC04033.jpg

12th fret inlay:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC04034.jpg

A pic of the whole neck:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC04036.jpg

I made a control cavity cover from some leftover wenge that i bookmatched to get sufficient width. I´m going to put something on the back of it, don´t know what material yet. Maybe aluminium...:

Closeup of the cavity:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03928.jpg

Here are the inlays for the headstock. The logo needs more work, i just put them on to see what it looked like:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03977-1.jpg

Loooong time since I updated this...

Everything is glued and I´ve added binding to neck and body:

The headstock got an ebony cap, and I made a truss rod cover that matches the body (flame maple and two layer binding):

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03914.jpg

The routing for the pickups was a lesson in "Don´t buy the cheapest crappy router you can find", the depth lock broke while routing the neck pickup cavity and I reacted to slow. This is the result...

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03901.jpg

Some more work done... Fretboard radiused, fret slots cut, shaped like the neck. Headstock shaped and drilled for the tuners. Neck attachment fixed. Maple top shaped.

All the parts, the wenge fretboard is something I got from cutting the neck. It won't be used on this guitar...

And put together, nothing glued yet...

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03604.jpg

A very dark pic, but you can see the flame maple pretty well.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03612.jpg

Neck attachment:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03591.jpg

>>Prostheta

Thanks! I was actually thinking about an ebony headstock cap to match the fingerboard. Maple binding would be cool too, but I´ve already got the plastic binding now so I´ll go with that for this one. I´m doing a two-ply binding on the body, 1,5 mm white binding with a 0,5 mm black contrasting line on the inside.

>>GregP

>>Inisheer

Thanks! It´s hard to tell without the neck on. It feels ok, not comfortable like a strat but still ok.

Well, I guess I had to have something to do for the summer vacation... I "accidentally" won an auction for a bookmatched flame maple top a while ago. I hadn´t planned to build anything, but as soon as I got the top I had to start drawing something out. I got inspired by an Ibanez EW20 acoustic since I liked the cutaway, so I took my first build and traced the body contour. After that I added the same kind of cutaway as the Ibanez, and moved the curves on the lower bout a little to get a little more asymmetric look. I tested to make the cutaway rounder and liked that more, so that´s how it is now. After a while I went to buy more wood. I chose mahogany for the body. I´ve always wanted to have a neck made from some dark dense wood like rosewood or something like that. The wood supplier didn´t have any good rosewood so I chose wenge instead. So there I was with these bits of wood:

The wenge and mahogany pieces have obviously been planed in this picture, the maple top was planed when I got it. The flames aren´t really visible in this pic...

Here´s the body, cut out and routed.

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03436.jpg

And here is the top with a cutout body outline on top:

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03321.jpg

And the neck, still lots of work to do...

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/pukko3/DSC03445.jpg

This is a mockup I made, it´s not really with correct spacing but you get the idea. The headstock will not look like this, but something similar I think. It´s the headstock shape from my first build but slimmed down and rounded off. Any suggestions what color it should have? I don´t really know if I should make it "modern" or "classic" looking. I´m doing it with rattle cans once again so bursting it is out of the question...

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/puk...testnatural.jpg

Here´s a "color chart", some more likely than others to actually be considered...

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z35/puk...collagecopy.jpg

Any ideas, suggestions...?

>>GregP

Thanks!

>>Ben

Thanks! I would build more if I had more money and time...

>>Prostheta

Thanks, that´s nice of you to ask your friend about it! I´ll have to try and find those things in the camera then! I´ll try experimenting with the light as well, it always seems to be easier to get good pics in (not too bright) daylight though...

>>CrazyManAndy

Thanks! That would be the slowest production ever if I'm going to do it myself...

>>Mattia

Thanks! I didn´t really know where to go for the plating either, I got in touch with the guy who does it for me through a Swedish guitar forum. I think he works at some industrial paint shop. I guess someone who paints cars should know where to get things plated, especially people who are into vintage cars or motorcycles. Cool that you´re getting a mill, making your own bridges/hardware?

>> oblaty

Thanks!

Here´s a family pic of both my builds:

>>BNichols

Thanks!

>>mattharris75

Thanks! Yeah, the edge routing is kind of unusual, it gives a little more depth to the design. The maple on the neck is actually flamed birch, the center strip is oak. Classic and modern in one design sounds nice! I guess you´re right, it wouldn´t look too strange with EMG´s and a Floyd either...

>>Xanthus

Thanks! You´re right, the neck pickup is a kind of P-90, it´s a GFS Mean 90 and the bridge pickup is a GFS Fat PAF.

I have put all the pieces together now, still a lot of work to do on it though. Fretwork, soldering the electronics, filing the nut, general setup stuff...

Here´s what it looks like now, the pics are kind of crappy because I did the photos at night, and since it seems impossible to get a good picture with the flash on I did it without. Why is it so hard to get good pics of red things anyway?:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02935.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02916.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02946.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02918.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02919.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02923.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02957.jpg

>>rob_tart

Oh yes, very shiny... And a grease stain nightmare. I just have to look at the pieces to get fingerprints all over them...

>>BNichols

I was thinking about leaving them unplated for a while, but the aluminium is so soft that it's too easy to get ugly scratches and marks.

>>Xanthus

Thanks! I'll try to speed up the process now, I've been waiting for these parts for a while. The guy who plated it for me did it free of charge, but he had to wait for his company to get enough stuff to plate until he could do mine. They won't start up the whole process just for my small pieces...

I finally got the things I had sent away to get nickel plated, the phone is just there to enhance the mirror effect...

>>NJD

It was easier than I thought actually. Of course it took soe time, but the aluminium is really easy to work with.

>>gplayer50

Thanks!

>>tim_ado

It's a righty.

>>Slabbefusk

Thanks! Where in Uppsala?

>>Dylan

Thanks! I will have them chrome plated, the aluminium is pretty soft so I think there will be lots of scratches and marks if I keep them unfinished.

>>goat

He he, I wasn't allowed to build the guitar unless I colour coordinated it with our living room... You should see my hair by the way, not too far from Hagars. Not intentionally though, I was unfortunate to be born that way. Thanks!

>>ben

Thanks! Sorry that it took so long...

>> NJD

Thanks! I just cut them out with a handheld electric saw, and then used some small files and sandpaper to get the edges right.

No updates here for a long time, I haven't done too much with it for a while but now I've started again. Here's what it looks like now:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02514.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02515.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC02520.jpg

Wow those are really nice.

Thanks!

Not much new to report, made a jackplate in the same style as the rings.

Can't really make up my mind whether I should keep them like this or do something more to the design...

Man thats looking good. I love how you think about all the details. It's what seperates the good builders from the great builders. and your deffinitly on your way!

I'm liking the guitar so far. The only thing I would have done diffrent is to spray the stain onto the back of the neck insted of wiping it on. It makes it look far less blotchy.

Thanks a lot, glad you like it!

About the stain: I don't have access to a real spray gun, that's also why it's painted with rattle cans. Another reason to why I wiped it on is that I used a darker stain first, sanded that back a bit and then wiped on the lighter stain. The stain does look a little strange i the picture of the unfinished neck and body, especially in the middle laminate. I added some more stain after that pic, and now it looks like this, clearcoat added, crappy photographer: