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over the past month or two me and dad have been looking at a heap of different custom guitar gear websites and then we decided to make our own. mine is a custom shape which was originally going to be a starcaster shape which was derived from a les paul however it instead turned into something quite different. and dad is doing a roadcore/ jazzmaster shape. at the moment for mine we only have the template jig sawed out and sanded so that there are no bumps on the side.Attachment 18662
good stuff Matney, looks like a distorted jazzmaster shape !
dad reckond it looks stratish which I kind of understand where he's coming from when I look at at the horns
you should place a neck over the neck pocket area and get the angles and width of the neck pocket correct. I still think the bottom needs a bit more reshaping make the curve more consistent. But that's only my opinion
Hey Wokka,
I agree the bottom curve needs a bit of work, but he seems to like it, ordered a neck last night so we can do exactly as you said.
sounds good D.K. Once the body blank is cut he may end up massaging the shape a bit to his liking
Looks very similar to a reversed Mosrite body shape.
always cool to make your own - enjoy the process
today we cut up the 19mm meranti for the body. why meranti? because it's cheap and it's our first at this. we glued the pieces together and we're just waiting for the glue to dry. Attachment 18676 Attachment 18677
dads is coming together okay as well despite of a few small router bit failures Attachment 18678
looking good Matney, so what is the thickness of the body blank ? Hope it's at least 2 layers of 19mm thick so 38mm ?
The shape cut looks much better than the original template
yeah we will be making a front and a back and then laminating them together. thanks Wokka but the cut one is dads not mine :(
no worries Matney, good plan. Your dad did well routing the shape. Once the 2nd blank is glued and the front and back are glued together he will be able to use the top part for the router bit to follow.
today we progressed a fair bit from where we were before. I was messing around with the template for close to half an hour nutil I got something that I liked a bit more than the old one.
Attachment 18701
then we routed out the cavity for the semi hollow body part for both the top and bottom.
Attachment 18702
and then we made the sound holey bit that hollow bodies have.
Attachment 18703
Attachment 18704
and then we routed a line for the pickups' wires to go to the control cavity.
Attachment 18705
and then we glued both the top and bottom together.
when everything is routed out and ready to go I am intending on using a cherry red stain or one similar to that with a black grain pop as well as binding on the top. i'm hoping that there will be enough room for a bigsby style tremolo with a roller bridge. for pickups I am going to use GFS Dream 90's for the neck and bridge pickup with a gold foil single in the middle, also GFS. and for the neck I am going to have a maple fretboard strat style neck with locking tuners.
yesterday we took the guitar out of the clamps and it looked a bit like a guitar.
Attachment 18730
then we routed it down to the template and started to sand down the sides so that all the little imperfections were gone.
Attachment 18731
I know what I want to do with the wiring for the pickups but I'm just not sure whether it will work or not. so I want to have it so that all three pickups are always active and you have to change the volume on or off for whether you want them on or off because there will hopefully be no switch however when yo have the switch in the middle on a three-way switch so that both pickups are on and you turn one volume all the way off it doesn't work.
You can wire it that way, so the volumes alone will control the pickups independently (like a Jazz bass), it just requires changing how you connect the volume pots. But, there are trade-offs. Having all the pots always in the circuit will affect the sound, both through how they interact will the pickups and potential treble loss through the pots to ground. That doesn't mean it will sound bad, just different, and larger value pots can help counteract some of the effects.
Is there a specific reason why you don't want a switch, or is it just for looks?
I'm mainly doing it as to have all three pickups active at the same time however I am also doing it because I think it would look pretty cool to have 4 knobs and no switches ( 3 volume, 1 tone )
Essentially, you just need to wire it like a Jazz Bass, but with one extra volume in the chain. I'd try 500K or even 1M pots to even things out.
Thanks wierdbits good to know that the wiring will work also thanks for the tip with the pots.
Today I did some sanding on the horns, oh what fun.
so yeah didn't really do much today except buy some wood for dads new scratch build, some sandpaper and a vacuum from the big green shed and do some sanding on the horns.