Geo

Yep. It's easy: attach your neck pocket template at the appropriate angle and route. You can establish this angle with the carve of the top, or by supporting the template at the proper angle. Of course, doing a flat neck angle and recessing the bridge should be just as easy. Just make a template around the shape of the TOM, and route to the appropriate depth. Of course, as already mentioned, all of this will be planned precisely on paper before you start cutting your expensive wood.

A small white pickguard would be cool (assuming the final color of the guitar will be similar to the natural color of the wood). If you use the small SG pickguard, you won't really cover that much wood. I think it's worth it if it ties the guitar together.

Yeah, I think the general rule with TOM-style bridges is to first position the bridge correctly, perpendicular to the centerline, and then angle the bass side back 1/8". If you check out Stewmac, they have a bridge position calculator.

That looks amazing! Kudos on making pickup(s). It's very rewarding.

It feels far, far superior to what I used on other projects. I used to use a mix of linseed oil, miniwax gloss and turpentine. This stuff is fabulous and the depth it brings out of boring wood is incredible! One more random tip... if you have an oily wood like cocobolo: seal it with shellac first. Tru-oil doesn't take to cocobolo very well.

The picture of the axe reclining in the lawn chair creates a stunning optical illusion of a twisted neck! What a beautiful guitar!!!

Here's the page where I bought it. If you're not in the States, it might be more of a hassle. I bought the 32oz and it was about $23 with shipping... much better than 3oz for $8.10 from LMI! http://www.birchwoodcasey.com/sport/index.html (click on wood finishing) I just noticed you joined the day after I did!

It's amazing to me how "right" the flipped Tele headstock looks. It doesn't jump out at you like a flipped Strat headstock. The flipped Strat looks cool but seems "wrong" to me, while this just flows out of the body. Yet more evidence that the Tele is a fantastic achievement of simple aesthetics!

On the subject of Tru-oil... you can buy it straight from the manufacturer at a much cheaper unit price. Just passing it along.

I think if it were level, all other factors being in the right range, you wouldn't have buzzing frets. Frets can certainly be properly crowned without being leveled properly first. I would level the frets and recrown them.

I thought of that... but it seems that over the length of that neck tenon, a small shrinkage would not change the neck angle much, as the wood still has a solid surface against which to bear (the top). I could see, though, that the tenon expanding while out of the body would be a big problem.

For a first project, I wouldn't worry too much about the "tonal properties" of wood. Not to discourage you, but for a first project there are a lot of other things that can go poorly that will change the sound or playability of the instrument more than not having a maple top. Of course if you want maple, go for it, I'm just saying there's cheaper wood out there that is easy to work and structurally sound (poplar).

That is certainly doable. Some thoughts: A split humbucker is a cool sound but you will NOT get a "normal Strat sc sound" by using one coil of a humbucker. The dimensions, magnetic field etc. are different. I don't know if that was your intention, but thought I'd mention it. Pickup phase ... First off, "phase" only matters when you are talking about two coils. This could be a single humbucker or two single coils. There are two kinds of phase to consider: 1) magnetic 2) electrical. Pickups with the same magnetic polarity (say they both have magnetic north pointing up) are magnetically in phase. Pickups are wound "start to finish". One end of the coil is start, the other finish. When you connect two coils with the starts as hot and the finishes as ground (or vice versa), they are electrically in phase. If the start of one coilis hot and the start of the other is ground, the coils are ELECTRICALLY out of phase. If they are connected electrically out of phase in series, and the coils have opposite magnetic polarity, you have a humbucker. This diagram explains it all much more simply than I can. http://www.1728.com/guitar1a.htm Practical answer: if you have two coils that are electrically and magnetically in phase (say both north up, both start as hot), you can make them out of phase by swapping the leads on one coil. I imagine you could create the same effect by flipping the magnetic polarity on one coil and leaving the coils electrically in phase.

In my experience, you get a good classic rock sound with warm pickups (P-90s or humbuckers) overdriving a Marshall-esque tube amp. Here's a sort of stupid song I recorded. This is a guitar I built, with homemade P-90's (underwound). The amp is a 5w tube creation using a classic Marshall Plexi preamp overdriving a single power tube. The parts cost me about $50 I think. Amps like this allow you to control the amount of overdrive with your fingers and pick attack--a very exciting and musical way to play. http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=1081529&t=8496 Anyway, there's some thoughts for you. The classic Zeppelin heavy guitar sound is basically my favorite overdrive (well, that and Hendrix), so I thought I'd chime in with a way I found of making a SIMILAR sound.

Yeah: "guitar disassembles for storage or travel!" Except... the neck is just as long as the guitar itself. Still doesn't fit in my suitcase!

Oh, I love your design! It reminds me of off-kilter 60's guitars (maybe weird vintage Asian guitars too?), but it preserves the ES-335 feel. My one suggestion is that the headstock follow the same "off-kilter logic" as the body. The headstock looks pretty traditional and symmetrical to me.

Blasphemous? Psh! I built a guitar with a pine body and a homemade humbucker and it had a lovely, "fragile" tone. Of course, it was my first attempt and it was utterly unplayable, and its tuners are going onto my acoustic... Pine seems like a good wood for experimental/prototype guitars. The thought even occured to me the other day, could you build an archtop guitar out of pine, just to learn the techniques and so on without spending hundreds on thick wood?

The radius and the bridge are the same question! Don't do a 4" radius and get a 12" radius TOM! With nine strings and an intense radius, you might want individual string bridges, if they make those for guitar... then you could make "radius steps" on which to mount them. I still think you need to hear from one of the experts here before you use that walnut for a neck.

You know, if the neck tenon slid perfectly into that slot (no gaps at all), I don't think you'd need glue OR screws. Think about which direction the strings are pulling in, and which direction the neck must move to fall out... and with the torque of the strings, the tenon is so long that if the top-to-body glue joint never fails, the neck will never move at all (but you could slide it out with the strings off--pretty cool!!!)

If you stain or paint the wood, you can use any boring cheap wood that you want for a practice build. Poplar is cheap at Lowes, but beware, it may not be fully dry. General tips... 1) Buy or draw an accurate full-scale plan 2) Follow it exactly when shaping wood 3) Buy Melvyn Hiscock's "How to Build an Electric Guitar". Read it through and then read each appropriate section again before you begin a particular task, and reference it constantly as you go. 4) Have your tools set up properly and be careful 5) Have fun.

Assuming you mean a U of space around a solid core (never know for sure ), then I don't think you need any bracing and your top could be as thin as you want. That solid core, stretching from the neck joint to where the bridge is anchored, is going to bear all the load of the strings. In a sense it's a neck thru, and the hollow stuff on the sides has no structural function. Dude, you don't want to build an archtop?! Wouldn't that be the greatest challenge ever?

If you leave a solid center block and mount the bridge to it, I imagine you could go a lot thinner without needing braces.. I have a semi-hollow guitar I built. The top is probably between 3/8" and 1/4" thick in different places, unbraced, with a large solid centerblock. Of course, if you're really building an archtop guitar, I think they usually have two lengthwise braces like a violin-family instrument.

Heh, well I would attribute most of the sound to the wood, bridge and pickup placement, since your guitar is unusual for a solidbody. Do you play jazzy riffs on that thing?

I don't know how wide that log is, but it doesn't look suitable to me. If you look at where the grain "radiates" from, you can see how much quartersawn wood you can get out of that... IF you want it to be quartersawn... and it's already checked on the end there. I would hesitate to use it because I don't know how deep those cracks go. That said, I've always used stable blanks that I've bought already planed. I've never resawn wood or anything. On a side note... the shotgun shell endcaps for knobs is a great idea. Are you going to plug them with wood? They're hollow, I don't see how you could get them to stick on a pot shaft.

It's significantly thicker on the treble side/thinner on the bass side - ie, a Wedge guitar a la Linda Manzer. Makes the bit that goes under your arm feel smaller. Oh, very cool. You're right, that would be pretty easy, and fairly impressive-looking. I don't think the picking direction would be an issue. I think my hand picks based on the plane of the bridge that it's resting on. Think about when you move the guitar around; your hand sticks to the bridge (or mine does I think).