I have official approval to buy!!

[corsair]

The Exchequer has given the go ahead to purchase a kit that I really like the look of, with the proviso that it be a birthday gift, so this is really a place holder for my proposed FTD -1M. With a few upgrades, it should be a bottler! Roll on, April!!

How about a P90 at the neck with a Tonerider Octane at the bridge, with a 5-way?!? Suggestions as to a finish? I dislike wood finishes and will paint this, so anything is fair game..

Woo hoo...

[JohnH]

Nice! I can’t help much with suggestions, but I’m glad you’re getting a kit lol

[Simon Barden]

How about a P90 at the neck with a Tonerider Octane at the bridge, with a 5-way?!?

Good news on the buying approval!

I'd just look at the kit and have another think about that 5-way. It's a semi-solid guitar, so all the controls need to go in through the f-hole. It wouldn't be easy to fit a five-way switch through with all the wiring attached. You really need to fit one to a scratch plate or a guitar with a rear-routed control cavity.

Also, a standard P90 doesn't offer any wiring options with its braided single core connection.

This would make it hard to come up with clever wiring options with just a standard 5-way switch - you may need a much bulkier superswitch for that, which would be even harder to fit through the f-hole.

If you go for a humbucker + P-90, then you could keep the normal 3-way toggle and then fit a DPDT On-On-On switch for the humbucker to give you serial, parallel and split wiring for it. You might be able to fit a switched pot in the body if you just wanted a coil tap or parallel mode, but it could be tight as they are quite deep and quite bulky.

You'd need to make sure the right coil was tapped for single coil mode on the humbucker as you might find that in the 'both pickups on' condition, the single humbucker coil and the P-90 are out of phase and you'd get a really thin nasal sound.

Don't forget that if you want any custom options with regards to control holes (or pickup routs), it's at least a 3-month wait so you'll need to order now for a good chance of getting it in April. As these kits are from a different factory, if you want a non-standard kit, it would be worth asking Adam now if this factory does custom orders.

[Dedman]

How about some dynasonics in it? or a bucker size P90? saves going down the custom order road. I have a LP with bucker size P90's and I don't play it much, I picked it up the other day and wondered why the hell I don't!
Paint it candy red with lots of hot rod inspired pin striping

[corsair]

There we go, fellas - already useful info! Thanks for that, Simon - I had indeed not quite thought that one through! I do like the idea of a P90 + a h/b, though; I shall have re-think how I shall make it happen! Yep; thanks Dedman; I had always envisaged a h/b sized P90 in there, eh!
Red sounds like a plan.... goodness; options up the ying-yang!!

Question for the collective who know about semis....

... why can we not have an access panel on the back side of a semi, a la a solid body control cavity? It would make life easier and - to my mind - wouldn't affect the sound too much??

Inquiring minds wish to know...

[Simon Barden]

There have been a few semis with rear control plates, but it's quite time consuming to make a control plate to fit an arched back (or front). So that would probably put the cost up more than people would pay. the Gibson Midtown is a 'semi' with a rear control plate, but it's got a flat back and is really a hollowed-out piece of mahogany with an arched top stuck on the front. Also the Gibson BB King Lucille model (as that has no F holes). And the ES-333 (Custom Shop only though there was an Epiphone Tom Delonge 333 model).

It's going to affect the sound a bit, the back won't vibrate in quite the same way. You'd need to either use very thick ply so you could rout a lip into it for the plate to sit on and still have enough depth of wood for a screw to grip (very unlikely it would be done that way), or you've got to cut a hole in the back and then stick a rim around it before everything is assembled. It would make sense to me to make this rim from metal, so that it didn't have to be too thick to be string, but could also take tapped screw holes for fixing the cover on.

Generally people don't like rear covers on semi-hollow bodies unless they plan to do lots of mods to their guitars, which is a very small proportion of the people who buy them.

[Andy40]

WEll done mate, half the battle is getting approval

[FrankenWashie]

There have been a few semis with rear control plates, but it's quite time consuming to make a control plate to fit an arched back (or front). So that would probably put the cost up more than people would pay. the Gibson Midtown is a 'semi' with a rear control plate, but it's got a flat back and is really a hollowed-out piece of mahogany with an arched top stuck on the front. Also the Gibson BB King Lucille model (as that has no F holes). And the ES-333 (Custom Shop only though there was an Epiphone Tom Delonge 333 model).

It's going to affect the sound a bit, the back won't vibrate in quite the same way. You'd need to either use very thick ply so you could rout a lip into it for the plate to sit on and still have enough depth of wood for a screw to grip (very unlikely it would be done that way, or you've got to cut a hole in the back and then stick a rim around it before everything is assembled. It would make sense to me to make this rim from metal, so that it didn't have to be too thick to be string, but could also take tapped screw holes for fixing the cover on.

Generally people don't like rear covers on semi-hollow bodies unless they plan to do lots of mods to their guitars, which is a very small proportion of the people who buy them.

I have this very conundrum to get around with the ESR-1 I picked up. The control cavity is routed but the cover plate is flat, and the
profile around the cavity follows the contour of the guitar back, which is very 335. I have at the very least 4 guitars to think of a way around the challenge.