Peavey T-Caster

[tattoosfromhal]

I play a Peavey T60 and recently purchased an ECG aluminum neck for it, leaving my original T60 neck lying on a shelf. I've always wanted a semi hollow to have as my second guitar so thought building it would be fun. The neck is 25 1/2" scale and apparently fits tele's no worries (aside from the neck plate screws being placed differently), so I've purchased a TL-1TB made from Ash, without the neck holes drilled. I have that thing in the back of my mind I want to be able to restore my t60 to original so really don’t want to dowel and redrill the holes in the neck.

Having the Peavey branding on the neck and using a needing to use a Peavey neck plate (so I don’t have to redrill) i thought I may as well fully dress it as a Peavey and get a T60 bridge, knobs and pickup. The t60 bridge has unique routing required so I ordered no routing on the bridge. I never use the neck pickup so i think I'll end up with something like a semi hollow Esquire. But ima call it a T-Caster for now.

Here’s where I start from;



Now I’ve got things in front of me there’s a few things I’m realising;

-drilling holes through the body to match pre existing holes in the neck is gonna me a nightmare, I know the holes through the body are big enough for the screws to slip through though so hopefully that gives me a little forgiveness in measuring?
-without either the neck OR the bridge positioning being locked in place the geometry of this thing is up in the air, like, I’m assuming I should attatch the neck then use that to find the right spot to put the bridge?

Before anything else I wanted to get the painting going cause I know it’s gonna take forever. In fact a few days in and I can see the appeal of a natural finish haha. So I know I’ve still got a the bridge routing and through holes to sort out, and the pickup cavity needs a little squaring off to make way for the t60 pickups, but here’s a couple layers in;

[Sonic Mountain]

Cool project!

I'd make a template of the back of the neck to get the hole alignment, use some tracing paper or something and then use that in the cavity to make sure they all line up. And yep, get the neck on first and then measure for the bridge. If you temporarily install both e string tuners and then use a piece of regular string through them to the bridge you can quickly work out the centre point. Then you jsut have to make sure there is enough room for intonation adjustment. You want 648mm from the inside of the nut to the high 'e' saddle as a base starting point. All the thicker stings will be slightly longer so allow for that adjustment.

If you have a look about half way down this page you can see the string trick in action when I lined up the neck on the Sonicaster

http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...?t=8291&page=4

[tattoosfromhal]

The last piece of the puzzle to arrive was the pickup, which prompted me to think about -and attempt to educate myself- on wiring. I found this schematic which suits my purposes;

I want this thing as a live guitar hence the killswitch (I live in a world of squeals and feedback), only problem is this; the Peavey pickup has only 4 wires, RED, BLACK, WHITE and BARE. Examining a couple of diagrams of a t60 wiring holds some clues though,

Now I’m a bit of a techno-idiot, but am I correct in assuming this will work?

[Sonic Mountain]

Weirdbits is the resident wiring guru, so I'm sure he will be along to confirm, but I think that looks right.

[WeirdBits]

Your colours are correct, but to get the ‘1. No Output, 2. Outside Coil, 3. Coils in Series’ you’ll need to swap the two red wires on your switch. So, red from pickup goes to the lug beside the green and red from volume to goes on the end lug.

The first diagram in your previous post looks incorrect to me, with DiMarzio wiring the position 1 would actually give ‘Inside Coil’ rather than ‘No Output’, hence the red wire swap above.

[tattoosfromhal]

Weirdbits - Overlord of music - My Lord and Saviour!

many thanks dude!! I cant remember where i dug up that wiring, i think from the tele forums? Hopefully whoever used it figured out whats up.

obviously i wont connect the pickup or jack yet but ill post a picture of my wiring later tonight... hopefully i dont blind anyone with my offensive soldering hah

[tattoosfromhal]

thanks for your advice on the neck holes sonic, im still painting but it will be first thing i do! I've also found flat headed screws that drop easily into the holes drilled on my neck, ive done a couple of testers with wet paint on the back of the screws and the sitting it into the pocket, with the wet paint marking the hole positions. I think ill use both methods to be 100%

[cork sniffer]

Please keep this thread updated.
Being a fellow T60 fan I'd love to see your alloy necked guitar.

[tattoosfromhal]

Cork I posted some photos for you on my original welcome thread, sorry for the delay!
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ead.php?t=8737

[tattoosfromhal]

So i ended up loosing sleep and attacking this thing, theres a few little things that have gone wrong in finishing but im not that worried, good learning experience. I've just strung it up and it plays good but i'll have to loose a little off the heel i think, the peavey neck is sitting just a little too high for the bridge/body, perhaps because of its thinner veneer? i thought i checked the heights of things but i must've screwed up. To be honest i've never even set my own intonation before haha, but i get the principles. It only needs 2-3mm but im super hesitant to get into the heel. im gonna do it tomorrow. ill take proper photos including my glorious mistakes and upload them when i can. in the meantime heres some progress shots!