JackyB

Ibanez has some decent entry-level hollows/semi-hollows. But get what you think will sound best. Don't get something that other people tell you to get, or you think will look cool. Pick a guitar that sounds and feels right to you.

Wow, that looks AWESOME. Nice work man. I love spalted maple.

Yep, that's the one...aw shucks... Here's what I'm thinking about your design below. *read above post for the rest* Excellent, excellent ideas. I think what I'll do is tear apart the pocket amp and make my own casing for it with some wood. Then I can rearrange the controls so they're all on accessible from one side along the outside of the case. Then I can create a cavity on the side of the guitar (Maybe along the top) to slide that case in, then have a few latches hold it in place. And yeah, I changed my plan of building the body myself. I think I'll get a tele kit from Torres Engineering (It's like $100 for the body, neck, pickups, hardware, etc.) And if I'm feeling like I'm up for a challenge, I might make the volume and tone knobs that come with the kit control the volume and distortion on the pocket amp. It'll take some figuring out to get them hooked up to the pots, though. I'll have to figure some things out as soon as I order the amp because I'm not sure how all the components work. Maybe I could even modify the pickup selector (since there will only be one pickup) to control the power to the speaker. I love your idea of putting the speaker under a transparent pick guard. I think it would be awesome to have the speaker under the strings, but under the pick guard so it won't be in the way. I"ll have to figure out a way to shield the pickup from the speaker's magnet, though. Or I could just put it elsewhere (Towards the tail of the body) and just cover it with plexiglass or something. I don't know how having a pickguard/plexiglass over it will effect it sonically, though. Maybe I can drill some holes in the plexiglass around the speaker cavity so some of the sound can get out. These are all great ideas, keep 'em rolling! edit: The more I'm talking about this, the more I want to get started right away!

Sorry I can't answer your question, but damn that is a nice guitar.

Wow, that Les Paul with the spruce top looks amazing. I want to know what it sounds like. It's very unique looking, I don't think I've seen anything like that before.

Okay here's a very rough sketch of how a few things should fit together. A few small notes: 1.) I'll rout out a small cavity in the side of the body so the amplifier can be removable. This will probably be the only way to adjust the volume without wiring up a few pots to control the volume (and whatever that other dial on the side is for.) 2.) There will have to be a switch to control the power to the speaker so I can turn it off manually if I want to use headphones. I don't know how hard it would be to have it turn off automatically when a set of headphones is plugged in. Now that I think about it, there will probably have to be some sort of splitter that would control the output from the pocketamp to go to both the speaker and maintain a connection to the headphone jack at the same time. I can figure this all out later with the help of the electronics guys. 3.) I'm guessing since there is such a small speaker and amplifier, it would be a waste to use any sort of decent tone wood. I'll probably just make the body out of plywood. Probably the most expensive component on the entire guitar will be the neck (which I'll have to purchase because I don't have any fretting tools.) There's still a lot of planning and figuring out to do, but I think I'm at least on the right track. I'm going to put together a solid plan before I start ordering stuff.

There's a great idea...get yourself one of those Danoelectric headphone amps --the built in distortion is pretty good...and it's a real small box, it'd be easy to get that into the guitar body....especially if you took the case off.... it also has a line out, so your wiring would be simple --just take a stompbox jack to the line in of the dano, then position the dano's line out jack as the jack for the guitar... I have one, I'll have a look to see if the line out works without the unit being on... it also has a little 50s still echo One of these: http://www.zzounds.com/item--DANE15 ? That looks PERFECT and will save me a lot of trouble. You know would would be even cooler? If I could make like a "pocket" in the guitar body that could hold the pocketamp inplace. That way the controls would still be accessible, and if I wanted to, I could take it out at any time to replace batteries and whatnot. I wonder if it would be hard to hook a speaker up to. Great idea man, thanks!

Like, just put in a headphone jack and ditch the speaker entirely? Practically, that would probably be better, but I'm doing this for three main reasons: 1) novelty, 2) a challenge, 3) to do something different and a little creative. However I do want to include a headphone jack, so if I do end up using it in a portable situation I don't annoy everyone around me . After I get that wiring schematic diagram to work off of, I will make another post in the electronics forum for help specifically on the electronic components. I made this post here just to get some input about the whole idea in general. Thanks for the helpful information and links.

I just e-mailed Pignose and they're sending me a schematic chart. That'll at least get me started in the right direction. I'll scan it up once it arrives if you like. I think I might just make my own amplifier if I can figure it out. I'm just worried I won't be able to get a distorted sound. If all else fails I can buy a pignose amp like you said and tear it apart.

You said you're a righty? To make the cutaway more functional you'll have to add more of a "scoop" to it on the under side. Also, a good rule of thumb for single-cutaway guitars is that you don't want your cutaway "horn" to extend any further than the side that isn't cutaway. Look at a Les Paul or even your pictured Ibanez. You'd either have to shorten the horn quite a bit, or extend the side that isn't cutaway, or a combination thereof. If you leave it like that, that horn will get in your way and you'll feel the urge to saw it off.

You can start here: http://projectguitar.com Hundreds of tutorials on each aspect of making a guitar. edit: Am I the only one that thought the thread title said "A Good Fag for Newbies"?

I'm not really worried about tone at all. I just want something that can create a distorted sound without worrying about pocket amps, cables, etc. Just something I can throw in a gig bag and take on a vacation with me.

Instead of going all-out on my first project and attempting an SG copy, I thought it would be cool to be a little creative and do things my own way. I remember when I was a kid I saw a guitar with a built-in speaker under the strings in a Sears catalogue. Recently I got the idea it would a pretty neat thing to have to warm up while I'm backstage, or to screw around with while I'm on vacation or something. Here is a preliminary list of features I'd like: Lightweight body (material doesn't matter... Something cheap) Built in amplfier (Just a simple, small wattage amplfier. Anywhere from 1-5W is fine) Built in speaker (Placed where the sound hole would be on an acoustic) Headphone jack 1/4" output jack Single coil pickup (one, at bridge position) Hard tail bridge (with adjustable saddles) One "volume" pot (since 1-5 watts won't make much volume, this will be more of a natural gain control) That's pretty much it. The amplification would probably be powered by a 9V battery or something. Do you think it would be very hard to incorporate a small amplification system? Would the wiring be too hard for a beginner? Having an amp, speaker, and headphone adapter would add some wiring, but only having one pickup would remove a lot of potential wires. What do you guys think? I'll start putting together some rough sketches and maybe start figuring out some wiring schematics. Obviously tone is not a big issues with this project. I just need something I can fiddle around on.

Hmm, yeh, i dont personaly see the atraction to SG's, there hidious IMO. I'd go with a tele, but each to his own i spose. That's pretty funny because I used to hate the style of Tele's, although now I'm pretty accepting. I like SG's because they have a certain "radical" look to them, but they're not over-the-top like Explorers.

Okay the SG sounds like a go. I also considered doing a Tele-shaped guitar with SG components (mahogany body, SG pickups, wiring, etc.) But I really like how SGs look. I think I'll just order a mohogany blank and maybe I'll be able to make up my mind before it arrives. Where would be a good place to check for SG templates?

Or should I just order an SG body from warmoth?

That's exactly what I usually do, but I got confused because it's been a long time since I've strung a guitar. And when I wind it I let it wind once above where the string enters the post and the rest below it.

Some poly dripped over onto the fretboard. I attempted to sand it away, and failed. This is to show that the pick guard isn't level with the face, even though it's screwed down. I don't know what happened because it wasn't like this before.

Hopefully someone can learn from my mistakes... I'm thoroughly disappointed in almost every regard the way this guitar turned out. Granted, I wasn't expecting much to come out of this. I've found that the best way to figure stuff out is to figure it out for yourself. I went into this project with a neglected Fender Newporter I bought for $40, an electric sander, some polyurethane, a paint brush, and my basic knowledge of woodworking from helping out in home improvement projects. My initial plan was to disassemble, clean and polish all the hardware, sand down the current busted finish, and refinish it. Sounded simple enough, yes? After procrastinating for almost 4 months, I finally cracked down to business. I bought some gloss polyurethane from Ace Hardware and a small paint brush. After I sanded everything down, I started to apply the poly with the brush. I quickly found out that this wasn’t going to work out the way I wanted. The brush marks were clearly visible even after it dried. I wet sanded it down and tried again. Same results, only a little better. My girlfriend tells me that you’re supposed to apply poly with a rag for best results (She thought I was still trying to stain it.) I figured this was worth a shot, so I tried applying it with a rag. I put on several (5-6) very thin layers of poly and I was still not satisfied. When I came in out of the sun, I noticed several small white specs in the finish. Several small fuzzies came off of the cotton rag my girlfriend gave me to use… There was also lots of drippage along the side. And the whole thing sanded unevenly because the whole body was warped from being in a moist climate. At this point I didn’t even care anymore, the whole project seemed FUBAR. I was simply tired of sanding and refinishing and not seeing any good results. Things to fix before my next project: I need to come into the project with a better attitude. Impatience was probably a bit setback for me because I took a lot of short cuts that I really shouldn’t have. I also learned that it’s far too difficult to get a mirror finish with a brush. Next time I’m going to spray it. I think spraying would solve a lot of the problems I faced with the poly. I'll be selling this on ebay, so I'll post a link to the auction if anybody's interested. Here is a link to my original thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...wtopic=8481&hl= As promised, here are the pictures: Over view of the face. Doesn't look too bad. The huge crack actually looks better than it was before, even though it's sanded unevenly. Lighted view of the back. Notice the waviness. The white specs are pieces of cotton from my rag I used to apply the poly. Another overview of the back just to show how bad it is. The back of the headstock. It actually turned out okay. (The only thing that turned out okay.) I'd like to point out that the tuners are useless and it was a pain in the ass to string. Overview of the fretboard. Angled view to show my sloppy job on the headstock. It makes me want to cry, too. A good view of the drippage, and some more white specs. I didn't tape over this, so there's poly all over it.

I just use turtle wax (The same stuff I use on my car) and it works quite well.

I know, I just threw it in there.

I made this rough sketch in photoshop. I'm in the midst of making a tele-style guitar and I wanted to make a ocean/surf-themed finish on it. I'll probably do some inlay work inbetween the two pickups with some blue-colored pearl. I'll be using basswood for the body, so it'll look cleaner. I also plan on making a strat-style headstock. Anyway, if you have any cool ideas to add on, I'm completely open to suggestions.

That's a really damn cool idea. Maybe one of the PG artists will pick up the idea.

It depends on your playing style. For instance, I wrap my thumb around the neck, so I would feel them dragging every time I moved my hand up or down the fretboard. However, if you don't play like that then it shouldn't be a problem. I don't see why it wouldn't.

Wow, it looks really nice with the spruce top, but I think it takes too much away from the Newporter's distinctive (ugly) style. I'm going to try to keep the mahogany top and the gold pick guard, but I might paint over the pick guard. I'm still undecided. It's nice to see some other Newporters still exist, I haven't seen too many around before.