Headless Guitar Kit Revisit (non PBG kit)

[DrNomis_44]

Yes, like when you've gathered together all of the little fiddly parts for a mechanism and you pop them on the counter while you just flick some dust off the counter and then WHOOPSIE!
You accidentally knock said fiddly bits on to the floor, where some of them stop dead and others ricochet off into the distance.
Under the workbench.
Behind the wood stack.
Swooped on and carried off by the Cat that you could have sworn blind was fast asleep on the rug.
Helpfully bury themselves in the predictably large pile of swept up wood shavings I hadn't yet dust panned into the bin.
Across ten feet of concrete slab, missing every potential restraining or diverting obstacle to drop cleanly through the relatively small apertures of the floor drain grate.

Relate? Why yes, I think I can.

Even worse is when you're handling delicate parts, and you feel that irresistible urge to sneeze, and then after you've sneezed at least several times in a row, you realize that you dropped the delicate part, and you have to go search for it, you eventually discover it in a pile of dust....which makes you sneeze a few more times.

[FrankenWashie]

Even worse is when you're handling delicate parts, and you feel that irresistible urge to sneeze, and then after you've sneezed at least several times in a row, you realize that you dropped the delicate part, and you have to go search for it, you eventually discover it in a pile of dust....which makes you sneeze a few more times.

There's definitely a correlation between the delicacy of the part being handled and the ferocity and repetition of the sneeze.

[DrNomis_44]

There's definitely a correlation between the delicacy of the part being handled and the ferocity and repetition of the sneeze.

Yep, the ferocity, and repetition of the sneeze tends to be inversely-proportional to the object's delicate-ness, also, an object's lose-ability is directly proportional to it's importance, or in other words, an object's visibility is inversely-proportional to it's importance, that's something I have found to be so true.

Another theorem states that the distance that an object will travel, when dropped, will increase exponentially in proportion to the object's importance, and how much it is needed.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

Just did some experimenting to check the alignment of the new Bridge with respect to the centreline of the neck, here's what I found:


* Raising the Bridge by 8mm is going to result in me being able to have plenty of adjustment to get the action buzz-free.

* Positioning the centreline of the new Bridge right on the centreline of the neck will result in both of the E-Strings being equidistant from the edges of the neck.

* The new Bridge is not going to create any issues with string-spread, and both the two E-Strings will be parallel to the edge of the fretboard, that was one of my concerns, but it seems that it was un-founded.

* One of my other concerns was not having enough adjustment-range for intonation, but, there is really not going to be any issues since the saddles can be easily reversed and will still work as they should.


So as far as I can see, I think the new Bridge should work fine, I just needed to modify the original Bridge-Route to accommodate the new Bridge, all I need to do now is buy some 8mm timber from my local Big Green Shed, cut it down to size, and shape it to fit the Bridge Route prior to gluing it in place, once the glue has dried, I will be able to drill all the holes for the five Bridge mounting-screws.

I have also decided to hold off doing anything about the pickup routes till I buy myself one of these from my Local Big Green Shed:

https://www.bunnings.com.au/dremel-p...hment_p6373700

As it turns out, I happen to have a variable-speed Dremel Toll with a flexible drive-shaft attached, which I remember buying from Jaycar Electronics, I think that if I can fit my Dremel Tool to the Router attachment, I will have the perfect tool to re-shape the pickup routes without risking any breakage, as I probably would if I tried to chisel out the unwanted wood with a wood chisel and hammer, and anyway, it's about time I invested in some kind of routing tool, I know that the above router-attachment might not produce pro quality results, but it will be better than nothing, hopefully if I receive some bits and pieces I ordered for the HotRod Strat in the post tomorrow, I might see if I can organize a visit to my local Big Green Shed on Thursday, I'll keep you guys posted on my progress.

One thing I will need to do to the body, prior to spraying it with primer, is to fill in some dings to get the surface flat, there's a fairly deep one adjacent to the bridge pickup route, I was thinking of using some Cyanoacrylate Super Glue gel to fill it, but maybe some putty made from Maple Timbermate might work better in the long run, I think I have plenty spare, but can buy some more though.

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates......

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

I was feeling a bit bored and couldn't get to sleep, so I decided to go ahead and see if I could get the re-shaping of the neck pickup body-route re-shaped to accept a full-sized humbucking pickup, as it turned out, I was able to get it done, I also did some re-shaping of the bridge pickup body-route too, although I needed to shape and glue a small piece of wood into the bridge-pickup body-route, all the re-shaping work has been done, the result is that I can now install two full-sized humbucking pickups (a neck and a bridge-humbucking pickup), all that is left to do now, prior to spray-painting the body, is to cut and shape a piece of wood to fill-up the middle pickup body route, and to glue a suitably-shaped piece of 8mm thick timber in the bridge body route.

I'll post a pic so you can see what I've done later on, stay tuned for more updates.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Hi everyone, sorry I haven't done an update for this thread for a while, I literally wasn't able to get online since last Sunday morning, I'll tell you why shortly cause there's a bit of a story involved, anyway, while I was offline I did manage to make some more progress on my Headless Guitar, and have finally gotten the new Bridge mounted on the body, I did a quick test by stringing it up using some old strings, and the results are that the Bridge is working well, and I will be abler to get the guitar finished over the Christmas Holidays, the pieces of wood I glued into place seem to be holding-up pretty well under the tension of the strings, I tuned them roughly up to pitch by ear, anyway, it's all good.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

After a bit of hard work getting a functional mock-build done on the Headless Guitar, I finally managed to get the guitar to the point where it was playable.....and then the B-String broke, so I can't record a demo track till I get some new strings, cause I'm all out of strings.

Might see if I can post a few pics of the guitar later on, so stay tuned.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

At last, here's a pic of my Headless Guitar as it is currently, it is in a playable state, but I need to put a new set of strings on it, the pickups are an Infinity 1 (neck), and an Infinity 2(bridge), they came out of my old Ibanez S420WK guitar, they are a bit too "Boomy" for my liking, so I might replace them with either a couple of Entwistle HDNs, or a couple of Darkstars, I'm still debating that in my head though, anyway....enjoy, and let me know what you think:




I'm going to spray paint the body later on, once the middle pickup route has been plugged-up with wood, using the same colour paint that I used for my HotRod Strat.


The little holes in the body, next to the volume control and pickup selector, will also be plugged up with wood prior to spray painting.

[FrankenWashie]

Cool doc! How is the new bridge?

[DrNomis_44]

Cool doc! How is the new bridge?

The new bridge seems to be pretty good, although the trem-arm is a bit limited, it's not as extreme as a Floyd Rose, it's a bit more subtle, but at least it got my Headless Guitar to the point where it is playable again, I just got back from buying some new strings to put on it so I might see if I can record a demo of it a bit later on, I'm going to try swapping out the two Infinity pickups for a couple of pickups that came out of my old PRS SE Custom 24 guitar first before I do the recording though.


I just found my two silver PAF-style Entwistle HV58 pickups that were in the Chibson SG, I'm going to install them in the Headless Guitar because one of the PRS pickups needs some new shielded wire soldered to it, so, this could get very interesting, worth a try anyway.