Guitar-building Project: Getting Started

Cafe Society
41

[QUOTE=WordMan]
Okay - first snag!

  • You see the color I want for the body, that Heritage Cherry.

[/QUOTE]

There is a way to get that colour without tinting the nitro or acrylic lacquer topcoats, and I suspect this method was used by Gibson and Epiphone in the '60s.
Obtain some alcohol soluble aniline powder stain. I have some Campbell's Red Mahogany that used proportionally will yield an exact match to your desire (on mahogany). I'd add other tints for Ash or bright wood. 
Obtain de-waxed flaked shellac, preferably blonde, though the amber will suffice. DO NOT USE PRE-MIXED shellac.
Obtain either high proof grain or de-natured alcohol to blend the foregoing.

 Dissolve the shellac flakes in the alc. Putting the flakes through a reduction speeds dissolution (spice mill,coffee bean grinder, mortar&pestle ). Otherwise it will take a couple days for tincture.

  You'll need some scraps of wood you intend to stain. Measure an amount of shellac mix and measure the amount of pigment addition so you can scale up a batch when you attain satisfaction.

Try your samples two ways; one with a "stop" coat of straight shellac prior to colour, the other with direct application. Stop coating is an aid to getting an even colour throughout, as wood grain and density varies. In any event, the shellac penetrates wood and itself just like lacquer "burn in".

Note that additional coats will deepen the colour and that judicious usage can blend lighter sapwood areas into heart, if your plank is so cut.

This can be done with a brush or by spray and is relatively non-toxic compared to lacquer though aniline powders are the nasty. Every coat can be de-nibbed and will act as grain filler, gives a very deep finish. Of course the aniline will do the same thing with lacquer, and you should topcoat with lacquer, especially if you perspire heavily.

  I am leaving on a trip of several day's duration and won't be able to respond to any questions should you have them but am quite willing to render assistance upon return.
42

[QUOTE=Carson O’Genic]
There is a way to get that colour without tinting the nitro or acrylic lacquer topcoats, and I suspect this method was used by Gibson and Epiphone in the '60s.
Obtain some alcohol soluble aniline powder stain. I have some Campbell’s Red Mahogany that used proportionally will yield an exact match to your desire (on mahogany). I’d add other tints for Ash or bright wood.
Obtain de-waxed flaked shellac, preferably blonde, though the amber will suffice. DO NOT USE PRE-MIXED shellac.
Obtain either high proof grain or de-natured alcohol to blend the foregoing.

 Dissolve the shellac flakes in the alc. Putting the flakes through a reduction speeds dissolution (spice mill,coffee bean grinder, mortar&pestle ). Otherwise it will take a couple days for tincture.

  You'll need some scraps of wood you intend to stain. Measure an amount of shellac mix and measure the amount of pigment addition so you can scale up a batch when you attain satisfaction.

Try your samples two ways; one with a "stop" coat of straight shellac prior to colour, the other with direct application. Stop coating is an aid to getting an even colour throughout, as wood grain and density varies. In any event, the shellac penetrates wood and itself just like lacquer "burn in".

Note that additional coats will deepen the colour and that judicious usage can blend lighter sapwood areas into heart, if your plank is so cut.

This can be done with a brush or by spray and is relatively non-toxic compared to lacquer though aniline powders are the nasty. Every coat can be de-nibbed and will act as grain filler, gives a very deep finish. Of course the aniline will do the same thing with lacquer, and you should topcoat with lacquer, especially if you perspire heavily.

  I am leaving on a trip of several day's duration and won't be able to respond to any questions should you have them but am quite willing to render assistance upon return.

[/QUOTE]

Three comments:

  • Awesome - thanks!
  • I have no idea what 50%+ of the above post means. :stuck_out_tongue:
  • I will, however, share this with my paint guy, Bill, and see what he says. His current plan is to use ReRanch Gibson Heritage Cherry from a spray can. I am sure you know this, Carson, but others may not: if you don’t have a spray booth and a good airbrush system, quality spray cans can do a great job. Now, my guy is a professional woodworker, but I saw a Gretsch Country Gentleman where he replaced the neck from scratch and I couldn’t tell, so he knows how to work with spray cans…

Anyway, Carson, that it his current plan, which is pretty straightforward to my knowledge. The real question is what wood I end up wanting to go for. With ash - currently looking possible now that I am over my affair with pine - it is pretty neutral and should take the color pretty well to get that medium-red color, no?

Any and all insight would be very much appreciated!

43

Shoot, missed the edit window: I see in your post that you might add other tints to get that shade on ash - any thoughts? And, I guess the real question is this: what are the pros and cons of your recommended approach vs. what Bill is planning?

Nothing is happening for a while - I haven’t even ordered a body, and delivery’ll be 6 weeks unless I stumble across something at Stratosphere on eBay (a seller who buys huge volumes of Fenders and then parts them out…).

Thanks!

44

Rapid randomness ensues.
Yepper, I’d nix the pine too.
Nothing wrong with spray cans. Guns offer economic and custom blend advantages along with fine adjustments to delivery.
There was a question upthread about using oak. It is a very similar wood to ash, and I’ll betcha most laypeople could be fooled one from the other. Not necessarily heavier either.
Traditionally, coarse grained woods like that don’t get highly finished, possibly because they require lots of filler to obtain plane, and quick build fillers contribute to opacity. One does see startling exceptions, i.e. black epoxy or metal filled grain with clear topping.
I assumed you were looking for the see through finish that the SG standards seem to typify. If you are talking a solid colour then my prior post should be disregarded.
A fleeting thought was to laminate an ash body with mahogany skins, easy enough to do given the right equipment but perhaps hard for you. Would give the best of both worlds. Use a rigid glue, not aliphatic resin ( ala Titebond).
I get a Tele sound out of my standard (humbuckers). Each p/u has separate output and can be phase swapped.
Gotta go.

45

[QUOTE=Carson O’Genic]
Rapid randomness ensues.
Yepper, I’d nix the pine too.
Nothing wrong with spray cans. Guns offer economic and custom blend advantages along with fine adjustments to delivery.
There was a question upthread about using oak. It is a very similar wood to ash, and I’ll betcha most laypeople could be fooled one from the other. Not necessarily heavier either.
Traditionally, coarse grained woods like that don’t get highly finished, possibly because they require lots of filler to obtain plane, and quick build fillers contribute to opacity. One does see startling exceptions, i.e. black epoxy or metal filled grain with clear topping.
I assumed you were looking for the see through finish that the SG standards seem to typify. If you are talking a solid colour then my prior post should be disregarded.
A fleeting thought was to laminate an ash body with mahogany skins, easy enough to do given the right equipment but perhaps hard for you. Would give the best of both worlds. Use a rigid glue, not aliphatic resin ( ala Titebond).
I get a Tele sound out of my standard (humbuckers). Each p/u has separate output and can be phase swapped.
Gotta go.
[/QUOTE]

All good - thanks. Will keep you posted about the wood choice, in plenty of time to consider finish issues.

I have never really considered buying a body made of a base wood with a veneer/laminate of other wood on top. Dunno why - just not my thing if it is just for visuals. If it is for the sound - like the obvious example of most Les Pauls, made with mahogany + a maple cap - then sure. But heck, even my main Les Paul, Gracie, is a 1-piece mahogany-bodied Custom, not a maple-capped Standard…

As for pickups - yeah, clearly there are many paths to get to the Fender-AND-Gibson space:

  • My approach: design basically for Fender, but have controls that enable you to dial-in Gibson. Kinda.
  • Buy a Gibson (dual-coiled) humbucker that enables coil-splitting, so you can flick a switch, shut down one coil and have something close to a Fender single-coil pickup. Kinda.
  • Buy a digital-modeling guitar, like a Line 6 Variax, which takes your strummy/picky inputs and puts them through a digital program where they can assign tone profiles from a wide array of classic guitar and amp sounds. Kinda.
  • Use effects - stompboxes or something on your amp - to put a layer of tone influence thick enough to “override” the original tone and impart a more Gibson-like tone - as **An Arky ** said, that is the direction these things tend to move - take a Fender and impose a thicker Gibson sound on it. Kinda.

There are other approaches, too - so, do you get the idea that being able to access tone versatility out of a single guitar is a sort of Holy Grail that we player-types have been messing with since the invention of electric guitars? :wink:

I am sticking with my option. Why?

[ul][li]Well, the digital approach won’t cut it - I am not building a digital guitar (and wouldn’t want to, anyway). [/li][li]Using effects in the way I describe above - to slather on a layer of tone not present originally - well, obviously I don’t look too favorably on that. Pedals can add spice to a fundamentally great tone, but to depend on the spice to carry the whole entree? That’s asking too much of your pedal. (nice shmushed imagery, I know…)[/li][li]Buying a splittable humbucker - well, this is a very attractive option. To my knowledge, **Crotalus ** is contemplating this approach for his build. Fundamentally, it comes down to whether you want to work from Gibson towards Fender or from Fender towards Gibson - either because that is what you want from THAT guitar, or because you feel one solution meets your playing needs better. There are countless reports on line and in recordings done by top players which prove that a coil-split humbucker is a great approach.[/li][/ul]

I think I am sticking with my approach because, for some reason, I am more comfortable twiddling knobs than flicking a switch (insert appropriate Beavis and Butthead reference here! :stuck_out_tongue: ). I have the knob-twiddly, single coil set up on my first project Tele and it does achieve what I want, and the tonal variations I am looking for feel, to me, like the changes I am making in neck scale, fingerboard, and maybe body wood will get me where I want to go - more than changing to a different Gibson-to-Fender strategy will. Also - well, I have gotten to enjoy rockin’ it old school - the touch-dynamic responsiveness of tweaking the Tone control a hair - well, it’s cool. You know how a wah pedal sounds as you rock the pedal through the spectrum? Well, I love listening for that wah-like “Ow” sound as I tweak the Tone control to dial in a sound that speaks to me today. And yeah, I am trying to design a guitar that is responsive enough where you can really hear that subtle, wah-like transition, as opposed to rolling off the tone and just hearing sludge.

Gotta run…

46

Actually, no I don’t - my meeting is late!

One other key point: the phrasing “Fender to Gibson” is obviously short-hand - what I am really saying is a “thinner, brighter tone to a thicker, mid-rangier tone” - well, humbuckers deliver that thicker tone - but they are NOT the only way to get it. Many other pickups can deliver it - **An Arky’s ** Rickenbacker has completely different pickups; Pete Townshend used a hollow-bodied Gretsch Chet Atkins through Hiwatt amps for Won’t Get Fooled Again; Billie Joe of Green Day and Mike Ness of Social Distortion use P-90 soapbar pickups for their thick-slabbed tones. At this point in my playing, I am not looking to humbuckers a lot - in much the same way that after playing a Strat exclusively for 15 years, I am going through a prolonged period where I am not interested in picking one up. So my head is not in humbucker land right now - which is another reason I am not looking at the the coil-split approach…the thicker, mid-rangier tone I get from a rolled-off single coil is workin’ for me…

oy, could this be any geekier…

47

Hi all. I have nothing much to contribute to this thread - while I like to think I have a pretty solid base of knowledge regarding playing the guitar (although YMMV, of course), I can readily concede that I know jack shit about actually building one. As such, this thread is utterly fascinating to me - I’ll probably mostly stick to lurking on this one, but wanted to step in briefly to give mad props to everyone involved in this discussion. And now, I’ll step back, and let you folks educate me further…

48

[QUOTE=unstrung]
Hi all. I have nothing much to contribute to this thread - while I like to think I have a pretty solid base of knowledge regarding playing the guitar (although YMMV, of course), I can readily concede that I know jack shit about actually building one. As such, this thread is utterly fascinating to me - I’ll probably mostly stick to lurking on this one, but wanted to step in briefly to give mad props to everyone involved in this discussion. And now, I’ll step back, and let you folks educate me further…
[/QUOTE]

Cool - if you have any input on ways this could be more…whatever - interesting, I guess - just let me know. For now, clearly I am just lying on the Freudian Guitar Design Couch and spilling my guts (“well, Doc, I think my need for a more versatile guitar all started when I was a kid…”)…

49

Wow. I read this thread just after it started and then lost track of it. It’s gruesome! I mean, it grew some!

I told this to WordMan already, but here’s the sitch: As you all know I’m a novice on the electric guitar, and I recently bought a '93 Fender Tele. As it happens, I found a nearly-identical Squier. I thought it might be a good idea to have a spare/guest guitar so that if any guitarist friends come over maybe they’ll teach me something. Besides, it was cheap. To complete the ‘twin’ illusion I replaced the maple neck with a new Squier rosewood one. (I also put on a Fender three-ply pick guard to replace the single-ply one it came with.) So now I have an extra maple neck. Obviously I don’t need another guitar (though I’d like to have an Epiphone Les Paul like this one), but I like putting things together and I have this maple neck…

So I’m thinking I might build a Tele. I think I’ll paint it red, since I like it and I think it will look good with the maple neck. But dark purple would be nice too. It would look good next to the Fender, and through coincidence my first motorcycle and my first new car were purple. Red would be easier to find than ‘just the right shade’ of purple though.

I’m thinking of putting a four-position ‘orange drop’ switch assembly and SCN pick-ups in it. Not that I have any clue whatsoever, but I’ve heard good things about them. On the other hand I’ve heard a couple of people say SCN pick-ups are crap. What do I know? I’m a novice!

I’m not in any hurry, so I won’t be posting a thread like this. But I’ll be following this one. :wink:

50

[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I’m thinking of putting a four-position ‘orange drop’ switch assembly and SCN pick-ups in it. Not that I have any clue whatsoever, but I’ve heard good things about them. On the other hand I’ve heard a couple of people say SCN pick-ups are crap. What do I know? I’m a novice!
[/QUOTE]
Here’s what WordMan said in the guitar shopping thread re SCNs:

I have SCNs on my Tele, and they sound very nice. What they are not is high output pickups – they’re very clean, very twangy IME (and very noiseless, no hum at all for me), versus louder, warmer pickups you can also buy for a Tele, such as this one by Seymour Duncan, as well as various others.

51

Go for it Johnny! And as I mentioned when we spoke, heck, if Eddie Van Halen used Schwinn Bicycle Paint and masking tape to paint his various Frankenstrat’s in the beginning, I am sure you can find the cool purple you need!

What type of music do you think will be played most on your project guitar? As I mentioned to you behind the scenes, but worth a mention on this thread - you might consider a “Keith Richards” mod - i.e., swapping out the neck pickup for a more traditional pickup, such as a humbucker. Here’s a pic (link to photo on web I found). A Tele’s standard neck pickup is, well, different - it is a bit of throwback, weak in output, originally designed to support that “muffle setting” to fake a bass guitar in a pinch (heck, Leo Fender hadn’t even invented the electric bass when he came out with a Tele, so he had seen the need for a louder, electric bass tone when he came out with the Tele…). Some folks really like the Tele’s stock neck pickup, but a lot of folks think of it as “cute but not as versatile” - so they swap in a new pickup. Given the body rout, a more standard Fender single coil can fit, but Keef put a humbucker into his beloved “Micawber” (yes, his guitar has a name) and that has become widely repeated. My first project Tele has a humbucker-sized pickup in the neck - it is not really a humbucker, but that is another story…bottom line is that I get a big, full, rich tone that I used regularly, both clean and crunchy.

If you are looking for a body, a great place to get knowledge and maybe a purchase is eBay. As **River Hippie ** (hey where is he? and Crotalus, for that matter - I know he just got back from being away…I gotta bug him!) there is an eBay seller called Stratosphere (may be spelled cute) - here is the link to eBay’s listings for guitar bodies…you will see plenty from that seller and tons of others - many are real businesses, like Stratosphere, but you can find TONS of single listings, where someone is parting-out their guitar, etc. Obviously be careful with anything you buy off eBay but if you can find a good you, it is a super-easy way to go - and they have every pickup rout you can imagine - or you can buy what looks good, then enlarge the neck rout.

One point about bodies: weight. I care about how heavy the final guitar is - about 9 lbs is the max I like. That is light-to-medium (heck in the 70’s that was a feather weight, when the belief was that “heavier guitars sustain longer”). Tele’s typically run 7 - 8 pounds, which means the body is about 3.5 to a bit under 5 lbs. So if that matters to you, check the weight - many sellers list the weight, but they definitely have to be able to anser the question…

52

[QUOTE=WordMan]
What type of music do you think will be played most on your project guitar?
[/QUOTE]

As I’ve said, I strum a Classical guitar. What do I play on it? Some folk tunes, some Pogues, some Michelle Shocked, Bob Dylan, Violent Femmes, various New Wave tunes, Green Day’s Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)… Whatever I like and think I’ll try to play.

For the electric I want to learn some classic Blues/Rock, Surf Rock, maybe some Ska and Reggae. My tastes are eclectic. Not really into Metal (though I listen to it sometimes).

I did think about a humbucker before your email (I forgot to mention that), only I was thinking about the lower pick-up since from what I’ve seen there’s not so much work. But as I said, I’d like to get a Les Paul somewhere down the line and it has humbuckers. I have an idea it would be good for Blues.

I was thinking about the purple on the way to work this morning. I don’t have a compressor, so I’ll have to have a spray can (as in the link River Hippie posted for the Vintage White). Not really sure where to find lacquer. Enamel is all over the place, but on the occasions I’ve looked it seems lacquer is more limited. I figured I’d use an automotive primer and then the lacquer on top. Can you tell me about nitro?

But first, I need to learn how to play the thing! I practice the scale, and then slide back into strumming. The neck is narrow, so I have a little problem with a Blues A progression. I don’t know the proper name of the chord but it starts out with an A (third fret, 3rd, 4th and 5th strings). Then add 3rd fret, 6th string followed by 4th fret sixth string and back. I can make the A, but there’s not much room. It’s more difficult to fit my pinkie on the 6th string than on the Classical, so I just sort of roll my ring finger over. But then I have to move my pinkie to get the 4th and 5th frets on the 6th string and I’m not used to the movement because it’s already there when I play the Classical.

Sorry for the tangent. All I meant to say was that I think I’ll try to become comfortable with the Tele and take some lessons before I start building one. (Might gather parts in the meantime though.)

53

I’m nearing the end of the beginning of my first Telecaster project, meaning I have acquired nearly all of the parts. This project was actually triggered by WordMan, who needed to sell a nice (but not quite light enough for his purposes) body in order to finance his current project. Here’s the body . He also sold me the pickup I will use in the neck position, a Seymour Duncan humbucker with a bit of history behind it. I’ll tell you about that later, unless WordMan jumps in to tell it himself.

The neck arrived yesterday from Warmoth. It’s a Vintage Modern maple neck with maple fingerboard, with a compound radius and small vintage fret wire. As near as I can tell without strings, it’s my dream neck. The bridge pickup will be a Bill Lawrence L-290TL, a noiseless single-coil. I’ll be using a 5-way switch and splitting the coils on the humbucker.

I’m using Schaller locking tuners. I found a nice bridge on ebay from a seller named kelstrin1. It’s got three brass saddles which can be cocked or slanted for better intonation. The same seller also had some screws I needed.

That’s all I have time to report right now. I’ll post more in this thread (let’s keep it alive!) as I begin to assemble the guitar, and post pics of the progress on my Flickr account.

54

WordMan told me I could post his story about the humbucker I bought from him.
[QUOTE=WordMan]
I was in Santa Barbara at college, working at a book store (so it is about 1982) – it was either there or a guitar store, right? Anyway, a guy walks in with an obscure guitar t-shirt; I comment on it, we get to talking and it is Seymour Duncan, who is based in SB. He invites me to tour his factory, so I book time and head over there a week or two later. Very cool. While I am there, we go into this R&D room that is just littered with parts, measuring devices, tools, etc. While he is showing me around that room, I ask him about some pickups he was making for Jeff Beck – I read in Guitar Player that he had come across an old supply of some Alnico magnet material or something – heck, I don’t remember. Anyway, he reaches behind an oscilloscope and picks up two pickups – “oh, you mean these”? Turns out he made a batch, just like Guitar Player said – but when he was potting them (dunking them in paraffin to keep the wire coils from vibrating and causing feedback), he left those two in the wax a second too long so the plastic bobbin part of the pickup has a little visual something on the surface – a blem, I guess. I asked him what he was going to do with them and he just gave the two to me – how cool is that? They sound excellent - the one I have in one of my guitars is wonderful.
[/QUOTE]
The pickup is a 4-wire humbucker, which will allow me to use it as a single-coil or as a humbucker, using the 5-way switch. I can’t wait to hear it.

55

[QUOTE=Crotalus]
… and post pics of the progress on my Flickr account.
[/QUOTE]

I ‘contacted’ you in Flickr so I could follow the progress.

I talked with the coworker yesterday about his project. He agreed that pecan would probably be too heavy for a body. So, when I get a chance, I’m going to try to saw some thin slices of pecan into a “bookmatch” that he can use for a top.

I don’t know doodly about guitars, but I’ve always been fascinated by the bookmatched backs of violins, expecially when they’re curly maple or tiger-striped maple.

56

[QUOTE=Tully Mars]
I ‘contacted’ you in Flickr so I could follow the progress.

I talked with the coworker yesterday about his project. He agreed that pecan would probably be too heavy for a body. So, when I get a chance, I’m going to try to saw some thin slices of pecan into a “bookmatch” that he can use for a top.

I don’t know doodly about guitars, but I’ve always been fascinated by the bookmatched backs of violins, expecially when they’re curly maple or tiger-striped maple.
[/QUOTE]
Warmoth makes laminate-top bodies to make use of pretty woods which are not great tone woods. Check out their site.

57

crap - I got a few minutes, typed out a bunch of replies and lost the post - damn hotel connections.

**Crotalus ** I can’t wait to hear more.

**Johnny L.A. ** Google Stew Mac (Stewart MacDonald) they are a guitar parts supplier and sell lacquers by the can; don’t know if they have purple…

**Tully ** if you like bookmatched woods, Google for pics of Gibson Les Paul sunbursts and guitars by PRS, Thorn, McInturff and a few others - there is massive guitar porn out there featuring bookmatched woods…

58

This thread has made me pull out my tele and finish the shielding. Texas Specials are a bit buzzy.

Also check out http://www.mimf.com/ lots of info there.

59

Tell me about shielding.

60

Its needed if you get in a guitar fight with a Klingon battle cruiser.

More seriously, to avoid hum, you need to make sure all the wires have some sort of shield, and/or you may need to line some of the areas of the guitar with thin metal grounded to the common gruond, or have a pickguard with thin, grounded metal on the back side. Also the bridge and any other metal on the guitar body should be grounded to the shield of the guitar chord. Or various other measures – I haven’t had a guitar apart in a while, someone else will have more specific advice. Clear as mud?

ETA: if you’re building a guitar, you can wire it up as best you can, make sure things like the bridge and controls are grounded to each other and the ground on the guitar input. You may be fine, and you can always add more grounding measures if you have hum issues.