First build

[Manisk]

I have taken an interest for guitars recently, never played anything before except piano

I had plans to buy a gibson les paul as a starter guitar, that seemed a bit to exessive so i built a guitar for myself using mostly handtools, it turned out better than i expected

Im not here to brag though, i want to share some problems that came up during the build and also be informed by you of potential details i've overlooked in the build!

Finding a slab of oak, scandinavian


Getting the body shape


Carving the neck, from the same slab of oak



Checking the fit


Fretting!! definately the biggest hurdle for me as i didnt spend the extra time really getting the fingerboard radius and level correct, had to remove all frets and reclaim a sufficient surface after buying a 10" radius sanding block



Also for some reason i ended up chosing larchwood for the fingerboard, i also glued the neck to the body using epoxy resin, i bought emg zakk wylde pickups, which to my surprise required batteries, i got to learn about active and passive pickups tho ;D



The guitar in its current state


I've chosen to utilize most of the string lenght by moving the tailpiece away from the bridge to have more possibility of symbiotic resonance or a reverb, and can be used as a harp i run a schaller roller bridge, perhaps not the most suitable as im looking a good sustain. Scale lenght 650mm, 21 frets, heavy! above 4.5kg The nut is made from elk horn, not really finished yet, need some filing

If you have any suggestions for me id be glad to hear it, even if you think i have no idea what im doing, because i dont

[Ricky]

Hi Manisk and welcome to the forum.

Top marks for jumping in at the deep end - really deep end!

Being oak it is going to be heavy as you say and with an oak neck you may suffer some neck dive so you will need to play around with the strap button positions.
Did you earth the bridge? I could not tell from your wiring photos.

My only concerns are as follows.
The distance from the bridge to the stoptail looks excessive. The reduced break angle is likely to reduce your sustain. (I am also not sure that the sympathetic resonance will work to your favour).

Larchwood as a fretboard is unusual. Larch is a pine - albeit a harder one. As such it will be prone to easy marking (dents and fingernail marks) which is why maple, ebony and rosewood tend to be the favourites to use. There are several methods that can be used to harden the surface that may be worth investigating.

However, none of these things are critical and the guitar will play and probably quite well. Adjustments can be made. We all do and there is no single 'correct' way to build a guitar.

I will be interested to hear how you get on with the active pu's. I have never used them.

Building from scratch is a big job and congratulations on getting this far.

Cheers
Ricky

[Manisk]

Thanks Ricky, yeah i didnt experiement with strap placement yet since im always sitting down to play, need to learn to sit before i can stand ;D
About earthing the bridge, apparently it isnt necessary accoring to the manual when using the pickups that i bought, i dont know if that applies to all active pickups?

Yes i was looking to have something harder such as rose or mahogny, i thought it would look too dark in contrast to the body though, so i went lighter, i liked the way it looked before i treated it with a dark hardwax oil like the rest of the body, i will most likely sand away most of the wax from the fingerboard and use some kind of clearcoat instead to bring out the light stripes in the larch


Thanks for adressing my biggest concern which is the tailpice to bridge distance, i will absolutely experiment by making adjustments to increase the break angle either by moving the tailpiece forward or perhaps install some kind of hardware that breaks the angle but maintains the lenght of the strings, perhaps a tremolo, which im thinking of integrating into a new build

My thinking is = more string under tension in the system will ease with bending strings and increase symbiotic resonance, but i realise now that if the extra amount of unplayed string doesnt vibrate within a precise frequency it wont be symbiotic, it will most likely do the opposite most of the time.

Thanks i will record a couple licks and compare to when i make adjustments, ill post it here in time

[Manisk]

This is how it sounds right now using the bridge pickup, no amp simulation

[WARNING LOUD] and i am not brian may!
https://soundcloud.com/manisk-498789189/guitar-crapsody

[Fretworn]

How do you find using those “stealth” knobs? Won’t be doing any pinky volume swells.