Geo

I don't see why not. You would just route the neck pocket before carving the top, or else leave the top area near the neck flat.

I made a guitar out of poplar. I put a bookmatched spruce top on it from an abandoned acoustic project. It has a mahogany neck and cocobolo fingerboard, and "Golden Age" humbuckers from Stewmac. I went cheap all the way, and I love this guitar! I no longer lust after other guitars. Maybe, for each of us, there's one guitar that we're meant to be with.... Anyway, I will use poplar for any subsequent projects because it's 1) cheap and 2) works. But, I'm a penny-pincher.

Yep, it came from LMI. I really think they were cut from the same billet! Yours looks way better than your inspiration.

Cool... are you building an amp too? If so, it better be a tube amp, or I'll break your guitar strings!

If money were nothing, I would try Lindy Fralin pickups. I have never played a guitar with them, but they're hand-made I believe. But, I would tend to stay away from "metal" pickups and go with something modeled after a classic PAF.

If you find that your screws are too short for comfort, you could always route/drill 1/4" deep holes that are the diameter of the screw heads (i.e. countersinking the screws?).

Awesome... I love the shape dude! It has sort of an off-balance Explorer feel, but without the pointiness. Very cool--to my eyes, one of the best original shapes I've seen (assuming it's original). Also, your cocobolo looks eerily familiar... almost exactly like the fingerboard I put on my guitar! It's creeping me out so much, I had to put in a link: http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...t=guitar007.jpg

Thanks for the replies. I have some aluminum, so I may use that for the baseplate since it's totally non-magnetic. I suppose brass or copper would work too, but I'd have to buy that. "With your design you have an option to add a second bar magnet (substituting the metal spacer) if the output is too low with only one magnet. Thinking about it you maybe should start with two magnets. " I actually re-read Melvyn Hyscock's description of a P90 and realized it has two magnets, so I will definitely go with that. I have three more cheapo single-coil pickups with bar magnets underneath that I can canabalize if necessary. I hadn't thought about the proposed spacer taking on an opposite polarity, but duh, now I get it. I really appreciate your input on this. I've put several thousand turns on the coil after soldering the break. I won't know if the fix worked until it's done and I go to measure the DC resistance. I'm not sure what I will do for a pickup cover. I have a block of mahogany left over from a neck blank, and if I can borrow a router, I may try to make a cover from it. It will be a while before this bass is done, but I'll report on the tone when I can. I'll only have guitar amps to play it through for a while, until I build a bass amp.

Very cool. I think I misjudged the size of the body in the computer-generated drawing. It looks good in front of the Strat body.

If you do all the things you mentioned, you won't have anything left from the kit. Personally, I would just build it as is, but I would solder the electronics cuz I think that would be more reliable. It's totally free, so I would build it and use it as an "expendable" guitar. Or... build it and sell it.

I'm not sure if you're still concerned about the body shape, but here's my thoughts... I would tighten the waist and also bring the horns in towards the center-line. It looks just a little cumbersome in the current shape. Alternatively, you could keep the current shape (which looks large to me) and make it mostly hollow inside. A semi-hollow would probably do well with a large body. BTW, P90's are the perfect choice for the guitar aesthetically!

Curious... how will the two necks be different? Usually you see 6 string/12 string doubles. Different pickups? Is one strung with the highs from a set for 12string?

I appreciate the replies. I measured the DCR of the pickup on a friend's Squier P-Bass (a decent instrument I guess), and it was about 5.8k. When I saw that, I figured there wasn't anything "special" about bass pickups (look at the different shapes--humbuckers, split on a P-bass, thin single coils like a Jazz bass). Mine is sort of a P90--a wide bobbin, 8 screw polepieces. There will be a bar magnet underneath the bobbin on one side of the screw-ends, and an iron spacer on the other side to "help spread it around". A related question... what would be the effects of using a steel baseplate for the pickup? Would it "help" the magnetism or dilute it? Since it's not a humbucker (w/different magnetic poles being used by the pickup), I think it should be fine. I'm inclined to solder the ends. SwedishLuthier--thanks for the point about the size of the solder blob. I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure how far along I am. I'm not counting windings--just winding till the bobbin is full. I gave myself plenty of bobbin room, so it should have a good DCR. I would say it has between 200 and 500 windings on it now? My system is "ghetto"--the bobbin is fixed to a plate w/dowel which goes in a hand-drill chuck. The drill is clamped down to the bench. The roll of wire hangs a few inches away on a broken drumstick which is also clamped down to the board. I have to be careful with the drill speed--it got a little too fast, I think, which is why it broke. I set the drill throttle "low" so that the speed is more controlable.

Yeah, the finished product looks fantastic. Hm, I should call the Akron Beacon Journal and tell them I build guitars... get my face out there!

I'm winding a bass pickup. I have wound one other pickup, a humbucker. I got the bobbin turning a little too fast, I think, and the wire broke. Here's my question--should I just solder the broken wire ends back together and keep winding? Or should I start over? I think it will work to solder the ends. I would be sure to heat the joint for a long time so that the enamel melts, etc. If it works for soldering the start and finish of the coil to their respective leads, it should work here... but I would like some other opinions. Thanks.

That's what I thought, but didn't want to offend if that wasn't the case... It sounded good to me. What kind of amp were you using? It looked like a Blackface Fender, but I couldn't tell.

Well, I've only done two necks. The first was for an acoustic (which I may never finish ). I put the adjustment nut at the body end, so yeah, there was a "ramp" going up to the edge of the fingerboard (or to halfway under the nut, can't remember). I had to deepen the ramp a little bit I think so the rod would seat. POOR PLANNING. On my second neck (electric), I put the adjustment at the head and just sawed all the way across, so the saw actually cut through part of the headstock. The saw went a little farther than necessary, but it was fine with the headplate glued on. I then gouged/chiseled through the headplate until I found the end of the channel and made that the basis of the adjustment recesss... if that makes sense?!...

I've never used Gorilla glue, but I've seen joints with it, and I wouldn't use it on guitars....

No one has suggested using a table saw to cut the truss rod channel. That has worked quite well for me; you just run the blank along the rip fence while the blank is still square. With my blade kerf and the width of the rod, I only need two passes on the saw.

Curious... in the video, were you playing to a keyboard track? Or did you put an effect on your guitar and use a loop pedal? I heard something like keyboard or guitar (can't tell on these speakers) but you weren't playing, you were making weird faces at the camera.

The simplest thing would be a tone control on the guitar, as suggested, or turning down the treble on the amp.

Why do people overreact on this forum?

You should probably draw out a full-size plan before you do anything else. As to the truss rod, I THINK (but I am a beginner like you) that you shouldn't need any extra reinforcement since you've laminated several pieces together for the neck blank. But I don't know.

That's one huge neck tenon! Lookin' sweet.

Non-wound G strings are bad for me too... I think it's just the nature of the string gauge. On my acoustic, wound G-strings are fine. I think VesQ is right--check the nut slot?