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Looking to build my first guitar from scratch


Dub-T-123

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Very awesome job Dub - now, all you have to do  is relic the crap out of it and market it as a faithful copy of a Junior home build by a dude back in 1959  getting instruction, advice and encouragement from people he never met via some weird pen pal system. Henry J would love the concept! [thumbup]

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The glass idea is cool but I don’t know anything about working with glass! That’s not an avenue I’d want to go down right now but if someone gave me a glass pickguard I’d be stoked. Another idea is metal.

 

here’s a pic of the guitar strung and wired up. I used a CTS “vintage taper” 500K volume pot, CTS log taper 250K tone pot, and an NOS PIO Russian .022uF cap I’ve had laying in the parts drawer forever. The pickup is a Lollar P90 and the bridge is a (stupidly expensive but beautiful) “mojo axe” intonated wraparound 

 

JkLTfL1.jpg

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That really looks the business man.. Well done.. Much better result than my first build =D>

I always use PIO caps too in my builds. I have no way to prove it one way or another and it may all be in my head but I am sure you get a much warmer sound with them.

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Thanks man! I couldn’t be happier with the first build so far. I’m just so excited that everything pretty much came together the way I wanted. I’ve got a little different idea for how I’m gonna build the second double cut with the Floyd rose and whatnot and I’m really excited about that one. 

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Well things are a bit different these days. Sooo many videos and tools available, plus in my own defence that was the first wood work I have ever done since school so it was quite a learning curve...  Second build was playable but I wasnt that happy with it.. It was my third build that was the one. And I sold that last year too 🙂 The guy is very happy with it..

You should try a fancy cap and chamber it out a bit..  I have done that but not done an F hole yet.. That will be on my next build when I eventually get around to it.... At some point.. Im sure  😄 

But none of that is to put down what you have achieved there..  Really excellent job..  Now you can have any guitar you want [thumbup]  (im still happy with my 336 purchase though :rolleyes: ).

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Like  (now I am really going to tempt you)

Curly Ambrosia maple drop top / lam top for electric guitar AMT14E | eBay

SPALTED FIDDLEBACK MAPLE electric guitar drop top luthier #103 spf-EMA egdt | eBay

Quilted maple guitar drop top. 3A figure | eBay

Bubing, African rosewood 1/4 sawn bookmatched guitar drop top, beautiful figure. | eBay

I will tell you what though.. In just having a quick look it seems the prices for this sort of wood especially the flamed maple has shot up since I last looked for US wood. You can still find some interesting stuff though.

 

Edited by Rabs
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Thanks man! Your last posts didn’t go unnoticed. I’ve been really busy recently 

 

definitely really curious about pretty much everything you mentioned 😛 namely the chambering/semi hollow and bookmatched tops

 

here’s the thing. I wanna do a top like that but if I do that I’m gonna want binding. I’m finding the binding on the Tele to be a pain in the *** with scraping the color coat. If the binding were on a natural finish it would be really easy. 
 

as it stands for the next build I’m thinking simple round over on the body and 5 piece maple/walnut neck. Maybe paint the body black and leave the neck natural. 

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The guitar building quest continued a bit today 😛

 

I made a neck blank for the Floyd rose double cut build I’m planning. It’s a 5 piece flame maple/walnut thing. This is sortof the same idea as the first build where I didn’t have a large enough single piece that was appropriate for a neck blank. I want to spin that disadvantage into something that can be seen as a positive and I think the 5 piece neck will be really nice. 
 

I wasted a lot of time trying out different ideas to thickness the walnut without a drum sander. In the end I just spray glued the walnut pieces to a piece of plywood and ran it through a planer, then cleaned the glue off with acetone. 
 

I also cut the body out today but didn’t take a pic of that. 
 

also also.. when I got home tonight I got the Rothko and Frost decals in the mail but I’m pretty disappointed. The decals all have seams in them and look pretty unusable. I basically paid $40 for trash. Probably won’t buy from them again.  
 

FouyapO.jpg

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Thats sad to hear about the decals.  But I am not sure what you mean by seams?  

All of the decals I have got have always been great even though in saying that maybe they have changed the way they do it which would be a shame.

And yeah, I have done some three piece necks before.. Not a 5 piece one though, but not for any reason, just another thing to do one day.. Even after all these years theres still loads of things I want to try.

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They have this disclaimer on their site. 

Please note: We print using ribbons and there is a visible line where the ribbons meet in some designs. On most decals this is not noticeable. The effect is more pronounced on larger blocks of metallic colour.

I’m not sure how much will translate in my pic but it looks worse in person. There’s something wrong with the top edge of the capital “T” in their Gibson type font and the lines from the seams appear visible from any angle in person 

xriYnUt.jpg

I don’t think the clear coat will do anything to hide the seams but should do a test before I complain. Maybe it’s small enough that I’m the only person who would ever notice anyways. What do you think?

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30 minutes ago, Dub-T-123 said:

They have this disclaimer on their site. 

Please note: We print using ribbons and there is a visible line where the ribbons meet in some designs. On most decals this is not noticeable. The effect is more pronounced on larger blocks of metallic colour.

I’m not sure how much will translate in my pic but it looks worse in person. There’s something wrong with the top edge of the capital “T” in their Gibson type font and the lines from the seams appear visible from any angle in person 

 

I don’t think the clear coat will do anything to hide the seams but should do a test before I complain. Maybe it’s small enough that I’m the only person who would ever notice anyways. What do you think?

I'm not very fussy about detail at all, but I wouldn't be happy with that. You make all this effort only to be let down at the decal stage.

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41 minutes ago, Dub-T-123 said:

I don’t think the clear coat will do anything to hide the seams but should do a test before I complain. Maybe it’s small enough that I’m the only person who would ever notice anyways. What do you think?

Yeah I can see what you mean.. That is disappointing....  My experience with Rothko and Frost has been odd over the years. I think they had a third party guy doing it. I used to mail him directly when I wanted decals but then I got mails from R&F asking me to make sure I order through them..

At that point the decals were like £9 each.. Expensive but all sort of part of the cost... The last time I ordered from them I think I paid like £25 and they sent me a sheet of 30 of them?? It was very odd.

But as I say that was years ago now and I havent ordered anything since. I get the impression they have someone else doing the decals now and obviously no where near as good as they were.. I will have to have a look at that last sheet they sent me but I dont remember seeing any issues like that.

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Actually after my last post I had to pop over to my mums to sort some stuff and thats where I keep a lot of my guitar stuff.. So I went and looked at the decals..  Not 30 of them, 16..  But still cheap compared to what they were charging at one point.. But no lines in the print at all

i9psAes.jpg

Also possibly of interest.. I popped in to the wood shop yesterday and grabbed this London plane neck blank...  Nice, such beautiful wood.

wP8TiFr.jpg

jiFFMhK.jpg

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