Homebuilt Guitar Appreciation thread

[iamsuperdan]

44 minutes ago, atomicholiday said:

That looks killer Jeremy.  Also, thanks for reviving this thread.  I’d never seen it before.  Some great looking stuff has been posted!

I’ve been building guitars since the mid 90’s.  Here’s my last build from about a year ago.

 

Holy moly. That Jackson is a beauty! 

[Ace-Garageguy]

I haven't touched a guitar since my mahogany/rosewood flattop Spanish acoustic Goya left home with one of my exes way long ago, and I know zip-zero-nada about electric guitars, but I sure enjoy seeing you guys restore and build these things. Most excellent.   

Edited February 14, 2024 by Ace-Garageguy
TYPO

[atomicholiday]

3 hours ago, iamsuperdan said:

Holy moly. That Jackson is a beauty! 

Thanks Dan.  A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this one.   At one point, I almost scrapped the whole project.
I spent three weeks hand-applying the polyurethane finish to the body.  30+ very thin coats, sanding everything level after every fifth coat.  Then I let it cure for six weeks.

After the sixth week, I unbolted it from the stand it was attached to so I could start wet sanding.  Turned around and lost my grip on the body.  On the way down, the body hit the metal corner of my bench, gouging it in two places, and then came to rest on the concrete floor, causing still more damage.

To say I was upset would be a huge understatement.  I tossed it on my bench and wouldn’t even look at it for two weeks.  Then after calming down,  I assessed the damage and started drop-filling the gouges.  Believe it or not, you can’t tell anything even happened now.

Total time to get the finish done ended up being around three months.

[NOBLNG]

I know less than zero-zip-nada about electric guitars, but I love what can come out of them in skilled hands. My wife started playing guitar a few years back and just bought her first electric. I felt like you guys were speaking some foreign language in this thread so I googled this article to get some basic knowledge and didn’t realize how deep, deep, deep this rabbit hole could be.? Carry on boys…your creations are beautiful and rewarding!?

https://www.gearank.com/articles/electric-guitar-types

Edited February 15, 2024 by NOBLNG

[KWT]

On 2/14/2024 at 8:34 AM, atomicholiday said:

That looks killer Jeremy.  Also, thanks for reviving this thread.  I’d never seen it before.  Some great looking stuff has been posted!

I’ve been building guitars since the mid 90’s.  Here’s my last build from about a year ago.

Got into amp building several years back too.  I built this Mojo Tone 1 watt amp last.  Love this thing!  It’s like having a 1watt Marshall JCM900

 

 

Thank ya much!

Mighty fine looking gear you have there yourself

[Fat Brian]

I just need to post these pics so I can link to them on another forum I can't post pics on. I'm having some wiring issues.

[iamsuperdan]

42 minutes ago, Fat Brian said:

I just need to post these pics so I can link to them on another forum I can't post pics on. I'm having some wiring issues.

 

I'm not great with wiring, but that looks complicated. Lots going on for a Tele.

What's with the paint job? At first it looked like white paint over a crackle finish. But then that original finish doesn't quite look like crackle. I LOVE crackle finishes.

[KWT]

Sooo many wires... I wouldn't even know where to begin. If it's more that a 3way and 3 lug pots, I don't what the heck I'm doing. I dig that paint job though.

[Fat Brian]

11 hours ago, iamsuperdan said:

I'm not great with wiring, but that looks complicated. Lots going on for a Tele.

What's with the paint job? At first it looked like white paint over a crackle finish. But then that original finish doesn't quite look like crackle. I LOVE crackle finishes.

The diagram I'm working on uses two coil split-able rail humbuckers, a five way super switch and two push/pull pots to give you seven total pickup options. Here's a link to the original post with some notes about a couple changes that need to be made.

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=1748&page=16

For the paint, the goal was a to make a guitar that looked like it have been through several revamps over the years. I started with what would have been the original finish, a two tone sunburst. Then I used a crackle stensil and applied the metallic red paint, I wanted wider cracks because I wanted the sunburst to be recognizable under the white top coat. The white was actual crackle paint and most of it fell off immediately and left way more of the red exposed than I had intended. At that point I was kind of over it so I covered what was left with polyurethane. Here's a better pic of the body.

[KWT]

I dig it. nice job

[atomicholiday]

That finish is just killer.  Very original idea too.  Love it!

[Camaro lover]

I built this two years ago. 
 

 

Edited March 17, 2024 by Camaro lover
Forgot to add link

[1972coronet]

Just to preface : I couldn't play an instrument if my life depended on it. Likewise, I know little to nothing about the technical aspects of instruments (let alone being able to read / understand music) , so I'll defer the nitty-gritty to the accompanying link.

With that out of the way - here's one of the coolest guitars EVER : the White-Parsons B-Bender . I've seen countless videos of the late Clarence playing his invention (innovation ?) with The Byrds. Then I saw Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives (fantastique band ! Forget about it !) on 15-4-2022. Now, Marty owns/curates the original B-Bender as owned by Clarence, purchased from White's widow in c.1980 by Stuart.

B-Bender - Wikipedia

 

Edited March 17, 2024 by 1972coronet
*TYPO*

[Fat Brian]

God that thing looks heavy, my back hurts just looking at it.

[Fat Brian]

Evidently I've decided this is going to be a guitar building year. Once I finished the tele I started on a Jazzmaster/Jaguar thing. It's a Jazzmaster body but I used a Jaguar pickguard with all of the control plates. Pickups are P90s and it's wired like a 50s Les Paul but under those plates is where things get weird. The small lower front plate has an active treble boost that can also act as a cocked wah. Under the upper plate is an onboard fuzz pedal that lives between the pickups. The body has a Strat style route so I bolted a Strat sustain block to the bottom of the bridge and the spring cavity holds two 9v batteries to power the boost/wah circuit and fuzz. I also threw in a kill switch just because.

[iamsuperdan]

I think you need more switches. ?

A friend of mine has an old BC Rich Bich with the Neil Moser electronics set up. Good grief. Need an instruction manual and a university course to figure that thing out.

Love the Jazzmaster shape.

[thatz4u]

What??!!! no Lefties???!!!

[Fat Brian]

59 minutes ago, iamsuperdan said:

I think you need more switches. ?

A friend of mine has an old BC Rich Bich with the Neil Moser electronics set up. Good grief. Need an instruction manual and a university course to figure that thing out.

Love the Jazzmaster shape.

Yeah, I need to go back and label everything while I remember what it does. I tried to get the treble boost down to one switch but I couldn't figure out how to make it work and be true bypass, maybe I needed an on/on/on switch instead of on/off/on but wiring isn't my specialty. 

[OldTrucker]

All I can show is what I have here as the body and neck are an hour away in a shed with paint curing.

Bought better electronics than the kit offered.

My soldering skills are wanting but it all tested out good.

 

[Fat Brian]

On 5/9/2024 at 5:12 PM, OldTrucker said:

All I can show is what I have here as the body and neck are an hour away in a shed with paint curing.

Bought better electronics than the kit offered.

My soldering skills are wanting but it all tested out good.

 

I've been looking into building a P bass myself. I want one of the 51 P basses with the single coil pickup but with the standard pickup in the rear position. 

[KWT]

On 5/7/2024 at 10:34 PM, Fat Brian said:

Evidently I've decided this is going to be a guitar building year. Once I finished the tele I started on a Jazzmaster/Jaguar thing. It's a Jazzmaster body but I used a Jaguar pickguard with all of the control plates. Pickups are P90s and it's wired like a 50s Les Paul but under those plates is where things get weird. The small lower front plate has an active treble boost that can also act as a cocked wah. Under the upper plate is an onboard fuzz pedal that lives between the pickups. The body has a Strat style route so I bolted a Strat sustain block to the bottom of the bridge and the spring cavity holds two 9v batteries to power the boost/wah circuit and fuzz. I also threw in a kill switch just because.

It looks good... far too complicated for me... but good!

[OldTrucker]

On 5/9/2024 at 4:12 PM, OldTrucker said:

All I can show is what I have here as the body and neck are an hour away in a shed with paint curing.

Bought better electronics than the kit offered.

My soldering skills are wanting but it all tested out good.

 

Got the body and neck back home.

A little too white for me, the first two paint coverings was a bit more yellow, aged looking but my son threw away the paint cans and when he needed another coat guessed at the color.

If I'm lucky it will yellow a bit with age, of I could leave it at my sister in laws for a few months and let her chain smoking do the job! LOL

Now a little fret work and try oil the neck before assembly.

[OldTrucker]

Getting there.

Have to wire the pickups and the output jack yet.

The color is really more offwhite than shows.

[Tim W. SoCal]

9 hours ago, OldTrucker said:

Have to wire the pickups and the output jack yet.

Does the bridge pickup have a coil splitter switch?

[OldTrucker]

2 hours ago, Tim W. SoCal said:

Does the bridge pickup have a coil splitter switch?

Instead of wiring it with two volume and two tone pots per the instructions  I wired it with three volume and one tone.

That split the bridge pickup.