Headless Guitar Kit Revisit (non PBG kit)

[DrNomis_44]

cool Doc, always nice to see an old project start back up again

For sure mate, and this time I'm determined to finish it so that the guitar is in a playable state.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


I just got an email from Paypal saying that the payment for the new bridge for my Headless Guitar had cleared, so all I need to do is wait for it to be sent to me in the post.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


I just checked the postal tracking for the new bridge I bought for my Headless Guitar and it's saying that apparently it has been delivered, so, I'll be expecting a parcel card to be in my letterbox today or maybe tomorrow, if there's one in my letterbox today then it probably means that the new bridge has finally arived and I'll be able to go and pick it up later on today.....stay tuned for more updates.


Update:


I decided to go downstairs and check my mailbox for any mail I might have missed yesterday, and guess what?, I found this parcel inside my mailbox, I think I know what it is, it's the new bridge for my Headless Guitar:




Update:


Yep, turns out I was spot-on, it is the new bridge, what's more, it seems to be of a much better quality than the original Overlord Of Music bridge, not only that, I only have to make some minor mods to the original body routing to accommodate the new bridge because it is almost a drop-in fit, one of my concerns was that the mounting screws for the new bridge were going to be a bit too long for the body, but I did a quick test fit and they're fine, each saddle has it's own set of two height-adjustment screws, so what you do is you first set both the 17th-fret action, and the string intonation, then you lock the saddles into position with a small allen-screw located on the left-hand side of the bridge, you can then do some fine-tweaking of the string heights like you would on a Fender Stratocaster, here's a pic of all the new bridge-hardware I received in the parcel, each string saddle has a small brass roller, this is to ensure good return-to pitch for all the strings after using the whammy bar, I also noticed that the bridge-locking lever was much more solid and substantial too:





The only issue I had with the new Bridge Hardware, and it was a very minor one, was that the allen key for locking the saddles into position was missing, fortunately I happened to have an allen key that was the right size to do the job, overall, I'm much happier with the new Bridge Hardware, it even came with a trem arm that seems to work better too.


So, this Headless Guitar build project is officially taken off the shelved projects list and it is now a go-ahead, al that needs to be done is to do all the finishing work on the body prior to installing all the pickups and etc before final setup/and stringing, stay tuned for more updates.

[Andy40]

Nice score Doc.

[wokkaboy]

new bridge and lock nut look great Doc

[DrNomis_44]

Update:


Thought it would be cool to do an update on this thread, seeing that it's been a while, anyway, I went to visit my local big green shed to buy some materials for doing some restorative work on the body of my Gold Standard Strat, and thought I would buy a couple of new tools to use while working on my Headless Guitar project, I bought a small hammer and a 13mm wood chisel because I need to remove some wood from the bridge-routing in order to be able to fit the new bridge to the body, I have roughly marked out in pencil the wood that needs to be removed, so I'll get started on it this weekend, some wood also needs to be removed from the bridge-pickup route and I have roughly marked it out in pencil too, not a whole lot needs to be done till the body is ready for some sanding, then grain-filling, etc, and then it'll finaly be ready for it's first coats of paint, will post some progress pics for you guys soon.

[DrNomis_44]

Update:

It's been a while, so I thought I'd bring you guys up to date with this one, I ended up having to chisel-out quite a bit of the wood from the body-routing for the bridge, then I realized that I went a bit too far and removed more of the wood than I should have, I ended up having to glue some new wood back in, anyway, my little mistake was fixed-up in the end, I might pop into the Big Green Shed in the morning, or maybe tomorrow, to see if they stock any 1 metre planks of wood that's 8mm thick, reason being is that I need to raise the bridge up by about 8mm to enable enough string-height adjustment, otherwise the bridge will be sitting too low in the bridge-route, once that issue has been sorted-out, I'm going to see what I can do about the routing for the pickups, since I'm going with a two-humbucker pickup-configuration, the routing for the middle single-coil pickup needs to be plugged-up with a suitably-shaped piece of wood, since I'm spray-painting the body in a solid colour (I've decided to use the can of greyish-looking Metallic Blue paint I had bought for the Hot Rod Strat, but ended up using a darker Metallic Blue on the Hot Rod Strat instead), it doesn't really matter if the wood grains don't match, or the wood-plug is of a different type of wood, it's going to be covered-up by the paint anyway, I'm going to be working on this project over the Christmas break, so at least I will be occupied.

[FrankenWashie]

Oh the old "take wood out, put wood back, take slightly less wood out again" scenario eh?
That may have happened in the FrankenLab a couple of times. So far. Never again. I hope.

[DrNomis_44]

Oh the old "take wood out, put wood back, take slightly less wood out again" scenario eh?
That may have happened in the FrankenLab a couple of times. So far. Never again. I hope.

Yep..., see, I'm learning not to do that again....the hard way....hahaha.

On the other hand, it proves that I am at least doing something, whether it can be mis-construed as being right-or wrong is wide open to debate, but, I shall leave it all up to Murphy and his well-proven Laws (note: Edsel Murphy is the famous formulator of Murphy's Law "That which can go wrong,will", but we all know that he was an optimist at best).


I had to spend a bit of time looking for all the Roller String-Saddles for the Bridge that I'll be installing on the Headless Guitar, I must learn not to separate important parts from where they belong, otherwise I end up spending lots of time searching for them, also, I must learn not to keep clumsily dropping said important parts, etc, on the floor cause it just makes me lose my temper, and I really don't want to do that, cause I hate losing my temper needlessly, I'm sure you can relate to that.

[FrankenWashie]

Yep..., see, I'm learning not to do that again....the hard way....hahaha.


I had to spend a bit of time looking for all the Roller String-Saddles for the Bridge that I'll be installing on the Headless Guitar, I must learn not to separate important parts from where they belong, otherwise I end up spending lots of time searching for them, also, I must learn not to keep clumsily dropping said important parts, etc, on the floor cause it just makes me lose my temper, and I really don't want to do that, cause I hate losing my temper needlessly, I'm sure you can relate to that.

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.