Something stirs in the FrankenLab

[TZK321]

looks great

[Simon Barden]

As the two humbuckers will be pushed that bit closer together by having 24 angled frets, you'd probably want to pick pickups with different characteristics rather than having two of the same type, otherwise you'll notice a much smaller difference in sound when switching between the two positions.

You may want to space your control knobs and selector switch out a little bit more as they look a little bit tight to me.

Also, the volume knob is a fair way back, so isn't placed for quick volume adjustments with your hand. All depends if you find the volume knob position on a Strat useful, or you find it gets in the way and you keep knocking it. At the moment it's roughly equivalent to the neck volume knob position on a Les Paul.

Your bottom E string doesn't look like it will have the straightest string pull over the nut. Top E looks pretty straight, so having the strings bunch up a bit at the headstock will look a bit odd. I'd suggest checking the string paths and maybe moving the lower tuners to the right slightly, and widening the headstock appropriately.

The bridge looks a bit too offset with respect to the centreline. The difference in radius between say a 0.010" string and a 0.048" string is 0.019" or 0.5mm, in order to get the strings running parallel to the sides of the neck. Your offset looks to be nearer 1mm. You'll undoubtedly position it empirically, but you may as well get it right now, in case it does affect the overall guitar geometry slightly, as you are using the sides of the bridge for the neck layout.

Can you show the neck pocket outline and confirm the neck shape at the pocket end? To me, assuming it's a fairly standard bolt-on neck, the pocket doesn't appear to provide much support on the treble side, and you could probably only fit one screw on that side unless the neck itself was elongated beyond the end of the fingerboard. Or is that whole centre section up to the bridge part of the neck and it''s all bolted in, with the bridge fixed on the end of the neck?

If you made the hook part of the headstock out of steel, you could use it to take the caps off beer bottles.

[FrankenWashie]

As the two humbuckers will be pushed that bit closer together by having 24 angled frets, you'd probably want to pick pickups with different characteristics rather than having two of the same type, otherwise you'll notice a much smaller difference in sound when switching between the two positions.

You may want to space your control knobs and selector switch out a little bit more as they look a little bit tight to me.

Also, the volume knob is a fair way back, so isn't placed for quick volume adjustments with your hand. All depends if you find the volume knob position on a Strat useful, or you find it gets in the way and you keep knocking it. At the moment it's roughly equivalent to the neck volume knob position on a Les Paul.

Your bottom E string doesn't look like it will have the straightest string pull over the nut. Top E looks pretty straight, so having the strings bunch up a bit at the headstock will look a bit odd. I'd suggest checking the string paths and maybe moving the lower tuners to the right slightly, and widening the headstock appropriately.

The bridge looks a bit too offset with respect to the centreline. The difference in radius between say a 0.010" string and a 0.048" string is 0.019" or 0.5mm, in order to get the strings running parallel to the sides of the neck. Your offset looks to be nearer 1mm. You'll undoubtedly position it empirically, but you may as well get it right now, in case it does affect the overall guitar geometry slightly, as you are using the sides of the bridge for the neck layout.

Can you show the neck pocket outline and confirm the neck shape at the pocket end? To me, assuming it's a fairly standard bolt-on neck, the pocket doesn't appear to provide much support on the treble side, and you could probably only fit one screw on that side unless the neck itself was elongated beyond the end of the fingerboard. Or is that whole centre section up to the bridge part of the neck and it''s all bolted in, with the bridge fixed on the end of the neck?

If you made the hook part of the headstock out of steel, you could use it to take the caps off beer bottles.

Good point, I haven’t done a lot of research on MS specific pups as yet.

I will continue to play with my knobs, I’m not entirely sure if I am going to retain the in line arrangement.

There is some tidy up work to do on bridge alignment, yes, I am still playing with this as my Adobe skills are not quite there yet.

im pretty confident on the string pull over the nut, that seems the line up quite well in the full plan.

The pocket profile is going to be similar to the IB-5 I have underway. It will bulge out rather than go square as a traditional strat. The lines between the bridge and neck are indicators only, it will be a “Traditional” bolt on arrangement.

Bottle opener eh? Hmmmm.....


all good points, this is a reduced diagram, the actual AI document has the neck pocket mapped out with four ferrules. There will be epoxy mounted threaded inserts in the neck heel for the M6 Button head capscrews.

[Simon Barden]

I will continue to play with my knobs

I presume the multiplicity is is all down to Igor, whilst the fun is all down to you.

[FrankenWashie]

Back to build(s) present, rather than build(s) future.

So with the family equipping the lab with a band saw, we have made rather short work of roughing out the mahogany body. It left me with little more than 3-5mm to get down to shape for sanding.

I had template mounted, and proceeded to start a couple of router passes.

I went top down across the template to start with, this got me about 25mm down the body side before I ran out of depth on my plunge.

I flipped the work piece around and changed out to a brand new 2” x 1/2” follow bit, and started to remove the remaining 10mm lip.

Then, DISASTER..



I went a little too far in the cut before coming back the other direction and it grabbed quite badly. You can see the splintering, and the minor surgery I did to circumvent the problem.



As I’ve oodles of offcut from the same blank I decided that trying t glue chips in and fill was gong to be painful, so I am going to graft in another chunk of similar grain.
The plan was always to paint the rear of this body, so now that’s a no brainer.


There was one other incident. When routing, with a unit that has a plunge or depth locking lever, double check your depth, and the lock with every cut.

As I rounded the top horn, the lock slipped, the bearing retreated and left me with this,



I can adjust it once I have the body finalised and the tenon final routed, but there were many bad words uttered. Many many bad words.

So it is slowly coming together, next trick is to shape the heel and tenon on the neck, then jig up for routing the body mortise.





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Sonic Mountain]

Man, routers huh? I feel your pain. The are awesome until they really aren’t. Shame it ate the template as well.

Still, looks like you’ll recover ok.

[FrankenWashie]

Man, routers huh? I feel your pain. The are awesome until they really aren’t. Shame it ate the template as well.

Still, looks like you’ll recover ok.

Yes, better the wood, and the template, than any part of me......
I have another full body template of this PRSish style, I’d not cut an MDF template as I’d been concentrating on the chambering. Probably should have done.
I am going to investigate the locking mechanism on my router, but standard process now will be double check settings after every cut and plan bout cuts better.
Still, it’s an opportunity to try out something else I’ve seen Erlewine do, and see if I can get it to work for me. The body back and sides were always going to be a dark colour anyway. Is all an experiment anyway!

[Andy40]

Dude, I just tried to rout my headstock and had a tear out too, many many bad words.

[Brendan]

Alternative - recessed controls off the face of the guitar? From the look of it, they would be on the top of the guitar as you look down while playing...

[Simon Barden]

Time for some Japanese Kintsugi and making a feature of the errors?