Geo

Mostly, I have 3 pieces of Cocobolo measuring 2.5"x2.5"x24" that I planned to turn chess pieces from.

Is cocobolo suitable for a neck? I know PRS makes rosewood-necked guitars. With all that wood, you could figure out a way to sacrifice one piece for head pieces etc. and cut the other two up for four neck blanks.

If you have a craft or art supplies store near you, they should have brass plates.

Nice job. I personally think poplar is a cool looking wood (if you find a piece with minimal mineral streaks...say that five times fast.) I'm liking the shape, too.

Cool, thanks. I tried to pick the best grain with the two boards I had for the top. It's definitely plain, but has a nice slab-sawn look.

The shape reminds me of a hollowbody PRS. I wasn't thinking of that when I drew it, but now I think it would work well for six-string too, without modification (other than carve/bridge placement).

I'm sure you're aware of this... but if you paint the pickup covers, the paint will wear off from the guitar pick. It's a cool look if you like that.

I know very little about this... but I imagine if you were doing a set-neck, the glue wouldn't hold as well in the sides of the pocket, since that would be endgrain on the body.

My advice to you is to jump in and make a neck (unless you don't have the tools). It isn't that hard and is amazingly fun. But I understand the desire not to waste money on inexperience.

Here's a quick update:

The body is assembled and carved, ready for cleaning up.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_5140.jpg

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_5139.jpg

I finished winding the pickup. It measures 12.35k DC resistance--yikes! I wound it hot because I wasn't finding polepieces with good magnetic transfer. Well, I doubled the magnets under the bobbin (a total of four cannabalized single coil pickups), and now the polepieces are nice and magnetic. They feel as strong as on a normal pickup. This thing is huge and heavy.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_5131.jpg

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_5130.jpg

I also cut and glued the scarf joint and rough-cut the headstock shape. I ordered a custom truss rod (21.5") from LMI cuz I couldn't find the right length from them or Stewmac. Once that gets here (in a month?), I'll table saw/route the channel and then start carving the neck. I'm really liking the grain of the poplar on the top!

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_5138.jpg

I don't know of any way to fix this problem. On another forum someone theorized that actually, your body is an antenna gathering radio noise and spewing it into your guitar, and when you touch the strings, YOU are grounded. Assuming that the strings are connected to jack ground and the guitar cable is good, the guitar is completely grounded when plugged in whether you touch the strings or not... so I don't think it's something you can fix with wiring.

My solution is to keep my picking hand resting on the bridge. You're anchored for picking, and you're also ready to mute or palm mute.

You can get shielded cable. I've never looked at Radio Shack, but any place online that supplies guitar parts should have shielded cable. It's also called "coaxial" cable because it has two conductors, one in the center (used as "signal") and a knitted conductor that surrounds the inner conductor. The center conductor is always insulated, and I think the outside conductor usually is too. The outer "braid" is grounded and grabs the electrical junk in the air, sending it to ground. Hence, less hum/buzz.

I've never shielded an entire cavity. My first guitar had single coils and hummed a lot, so I just ignore it. If you shield the cavity, shielded cable is probably irrelevant. Plus it just sucks preparing pieces of shielded cable.

I would use 500k pots since your pickups are probably a little on the darker side. Basically, 250k will be darker, 500k will be brighter. I imagine it's a very small difference.

Usually you would use .022-.047 uF for a guitar tone cap. You might get several values and see which one you like best.

From what I have been told (and please do correct me if I am wrong) when pickups are described as out of phase, they are out of phase with another pickup? - Hence the last 2 combinations...

Also other than a soldering iron, vol + tone pots, jack plug, wire (any particular sort of wire?) and the already mentioned stuff, is there anything else i will need?

Coils can be out of phase. So, two SC's can be out of phase, or the coils of a humbucker can be out of phase, or two humbuckers can be out of phase with each other...

There is an electrical element and a magnetic element to "phase". It gets very confusing. For example, with a humbucker wired normally, the two coils are electrically out of phase, which cancels hum, and WOULD cancel signal too, except that the coils are also of opposite magnetic polarity. So, the "two-out-of-phase"s add up to in phase, loud output.

You also need solder. If you have hum issues, you could use shielded cable, though it's a pain to prepare short pieces of shielded cable. If you're doing a tone pot, you need a capacitator.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with all the out-of-phase sounds. It's a lot simpler to just wire them "normally". You'd probably end up using only two or three of the sounds. That's my guess, but whatever.

thats what i thought to. i just got set back another week because i couldnt find the bits i needed at the stores around me i ended up ordering them from stew mac and paying way more than i needed to

Aren't they overpriced? It drives me crazy! I'm in northeast Ohio and I hope to pick up some stuff from them in person on the way to DC (skip the shipping). They have a lot of great stuff, and they're helpful. But I signed up for their "trade newsletter", and it's basically one big ad cycling through the stuff in their catalog. I just delete it now... but they have great service, etc., more positive than negative.

I think you measure the string spacing at the bridge saddles.

If I was unable to get "normal" guitar woods, I would try making a neck out of beech. It is a hardwood, I think?

Cool. Free is ALWAYS better than paying! I'm not certain it's red oak. It just looks like red oak to me.

Wow, that's fantastic. The F-holes and lower bouts remind me of an ancient Greek lyre or something. Darn right you're finishing that natural!!!

What more can I say!?!

Looks like red oak. I guess that was in the other thread, but oh well. Kudos for going with a non-traditional wood. (I assume you did so cuz it was cheap. That's why I use poplar.)

If you're just wiring for one pickup, I don't think it matters which of the two leads you wire as "hot" (unless one wire is also connected to some internal shield or something).

I'm wondering if the higher value pots will muddy the highs too much for a tele sound.

I believe the higher pot value will make it sound brighter. The reason is that with the pot all the way up, the pickup sees 500k between it and ground instead of 250k. Highs are weak, so they "leak" to ground with the 250k and won't as much with 500k or 1Meg.

Thanks for the replies. I'm thinking I may have to order a custom length from LMI. They state that there's no extra charge for a custom length, but that it can take a while. It'll be a while before I need it, so that's okay.

I'm building a bass with a 30" scale. My ideal truss rod would have a total length of 22", which is the length of my fingerboard. LMI and Stewmac have 18" and 23" rods, but nothing in between. I could order a custom rod from LMI, but that might take a while...

My guess is that it would not work to use an 18" rod, leaving 4" at the headstock end without a truss rod. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Wow, fantastic work. I'm a LONG way away from the quality of your first project. Rock on!

It's better to plan things from the top down than the bottom up. So rather than thinking, "more pickups with complete volume controls = ultimate flexibility" (design being translated as purpose), you need to think "What can I do to get ultimate flexibility?" Of course, that's assuming that flexibility is your goal. And if flexibility IS your goal, there are many better ways to achieve it. 5 single coils with individual volumes is a kludge. But a funny one, so if that's your intention then go for it. !

Exactly. I would rather play a good guitar with one pickup through a good tube amp than mess with multiple pickups, preamps, tone knobs, phase switches, etc. I can barely handle having four tone options on my guitar!

Great minimalist look. I'm also building a bass, though it's a shorter scale so my little guitarist-fingers can learn.

I think he means the thickness of the neck--the part that's usually around 3/4" with the fingerboard. I'm pretty sure that THAT taper is totally up to you. As long as you don't go too deep, it won't affect the structural parts of the guitar that've been planned on paper.