Chuck's "Reverse Nashville" scratch build

[Chuck]

Probably way to early to put something up, but somehow starting a build diary makes you focus. Not that I don't have enough going at the moment with three other builds!!

After scoring a reverse headstock strat neck from Ponch I decided to do something that would suit it. First step was roughly cutting out a reverse Jazzmaster body shape...



It's okay, but that lower horn just wasn't right, so a bit more cutting and I've got something I think I can work with...



And so to the plan. I stumbled across this Tonefiend piece on three pickup "Nashville Tele" wiring and it looked interesting - so that's the wiring/pickup plan. I'm undecided on whether to go a hardtail bridge or a Jazzmaster trem unit but I don't have to worry about that yet I guess. I want to keep this one reasonably simple so a solid colour finish and no tricky stuff should be the go. Anyway, don't expect too many updates for a while until I finish the others but at least it's underway!

[wokkaboy]

cool idea Chuck, the double reverse - body and headstock. Looks cool. As long as you can reach the 21st fret ok ?
Good score on the Ponch neck that spent some time behind his workbench I think !

Has Ponch put pau shell dot markers in or is that your handy work?

[Chuck]

cool idea Chuck, the double reverse - body and headstock. Looks cool. As long as you can reach the 21st fret ok ?
Good score on the Ponch neck that spent some time behind his workbench I think !

Has Ponch put pau shell dot markers in or is that your handy work?

Pretty sure the neck came with those dot markers, and yes, that's the "behind the workbench" Ponch neck!

21st fret? I don't think I've ever been there on a guitar! Heck, I barely get past the 12th fret!!

[Andy40]

Is that body Ash?

[Chuck]

Is that body Ash?

It's good old dressed pine from the Green Shed - five pieces of 90x45 glued together. Whenever I'm in there I check the stock of 1.2m lengths and if there's a nice straight one or two I grab them (something like $7-8 each). I've got a few blanks glued up ready for when I come up with a crazy idea...

[wokkaboy]

Hey Chuck, that's what I used to do early scratchys. If there were a couple of straight pieces without too many knots and cracks I'd glue up a blank.

[dave.king1]

Are you going to set up with Nashville tuning as well ?

[Andy40]

Have you got a planer and thicknesser? or did you do by hand?

[Chuck]

Are you going to set up with Nashville tuning as well ?

Ha! It was actually while searching for stuff around Nashville tuning that I came across the Nashville wiring thing. I've actually strung up my Gretsch 5120 with Nashville tuning and I find it really interesting, so probably don't need two set up that way. That said, it would be kinda cool to go Nashville all the way on this one!

[Chuck]

Have you got a planer and thicknesser? or did you do by hand?

I built myself a router sled Andy. It's not perfect but it does allow me to knock 5-8mm off the body thickness and deal with little bits of movement in the timber when it's glued. Once I've given both sides of the blank a run through the sled it's flat enough to finish by hand using a large sanding block.