It's been a while since I've built anything, but the hunger has returned. What started out as a plan to build a classic Tele quickly spiralled out of control when I discovered the baritone necks on the Pit Bull store. I love the look and sound of Lzzy Hale's pewter Les Paul Studio Baritone, which has a 28" scale length, and on suspicion that a 27" will be not baritone enough, I started researching and designing around a 30" scale length. I've reassured myself that I can string it and tune it from B1 or A1 rather than the E1 of a Bass VI by watching some youtube clips of people who have done so with the Squier Bass VI reissues from a few years back, and plotted in detail how it's all going to fit together.
So having done all that, I pulled the trigger last week, and yesterday this beauty arrived in the mail:
Looks good on inspection. There's a bit of tear-out around the drill holes for the tuners, but nothing that will be visible in the end product. I'll be using this method (link) to route the neck pocket - but before I do that, I need a body blank to build on. At risk of causing some consternation:
I've gone with the tone-iest tonewood I could find. Then I chopped it up, roughed up the flat bits and glued it together to make it even tone-ier. At last count, I spotted 25 tonewoods, each more vibrant than the last. And of course, we've had nothing but stormy weather since the glue went on, so I'm going to have to let it cure for a long time.
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