ThePearDream's Project Thread

[ThePearDream]

This one is coming together finally. I'm working on the nut and it needs strap pins and a knob still. Starting with a really dense piece of Ash, it's the heaviest one in this shape so far (by a good margin), and it's still well under 8lbs. This will be a great shape for using some heavier woods then. Walnut or un-figured Maple, would look awesome!

[copacetic]

This one is coming together finally. I'm working on the nut and it needs strap pins and a knob still. Starting with a really dense piece of Ash, it's the heaviest one in this shape so far (by a good margin), and it's still well under 8lbs. This will be a great shape for using some heavier woods then. Walnut or un-figured Maple, would look awesome!

that color is HOT!

[ThePearDream]

I had originally written about this in my Artemis & Apollo thread, but it was off topic there, so I'm continuing it here.

I was working on going through a pile of junk in the corner of my shop. I pulled out this neck blank that I had screwed up. Other than that little divot on the bass side, it was fine though. So I decided to rescue it from the trash and try something weird.

I measured the nut for a new narrower width of ~1-3/8", to remove the router slip. The tuner locations were already marked, so I drilled the middle four and reshaped the headstock accordingly. I glued on an un-slotted, un-radiused rosewood fretboard blank, that had kept finding its way to the bottom of my stack, due to streaky grain on one end. The shaft of the neck is still roughly shaped and will get refined this weekend. I'll sand the fretboard to either 7.25" or 9.5" radius. No frets, so technically, the scale can be whatever, but I'll put it on a 25.5" scale body.

So what is it?
My plan is to tune the strings in fifths, an octave below a tenor guitar (C2-G2-D3-A3), which also happens to be Cello tuning. I'll use a standard guitar bridge already installed on whatever old body I use, for closer string spacing. Kind of like a fretless Bass VI, but a Cello IV, if that makes sense.
So it's a fretless, electric cello conversion neck.
Like I said, I wanted to try something weird.
I'm going to try some other new things on this one and could still mess it up again. This is just for fun though.

So, I did mess that neck up. So I grabbed another from the pile. That one was a little longer and the only prepared wood I had that would work for the fingerboard, was a piece of walnut, so I used that. This was supposed to be a short scale baritone conversion neck, but it had some tearout on the ball of the Jaguar headstock. Also, I opted to fill the truss rod slot with a strip of pau ferro, rather than use a rod on this experiment of a neck. I had a few goofs on this thing, but whatever, it's for fun. I had already taken apart the jig I made for doing headstock transitions, so I did it freehand and accidentally put in a swoopy bit at the end. Also, my radius routing template wasn't designed to work on a fingerboard that was already glued on, and I tried to adapt it to do that by adding some risers that got caught up, leading to a gouge in the surface that I filled with walnut dust and CA glue. The radius is 7.25", with heavily rolled edges. I left the neck really thick to compensate for the loss of width (basically 1/8" from each side). I based it on a 59 LP carve. I gave the neck a quick finish with some oil & wax finish that I'd been meaning to try.




For a body, I had an old prototype sitting around, so used that. I routed out some extra wood under the pickguard to bring the weight down, previously it had a P90 rout. I also made a new pickguard to fit a cheap Firebird pickup, so I wouldn't have to worry about the string spacing over the neck pickup.



The scale for this is ~28.5", so about an inch longer than a real Cello, and with a lot more neck. I used some different string tension calculators to estimate the right string gauges, and ordered some D'Addario Chromes single strings that came closest (0.080, 0.052, 0.035, 0.022). A set of used Squier tuners showed up today, so I got it strung up. I did have to drill out the rear body string ferrule, to get the ball end wraps of that 0.080" string to fit, but the hole in the tuners was big enough.




I have no idea how to play it, but it sure is fun. I think I may replace the smallest string with a 0.020 since it's a bit tight. The neck seems to be holding up okay to the string tension though. I'll keep an eye on it and dial in the setup this weekend.

[epizootics]

Oh, you went unlined? That's really brave And it looks really cool, I've always loved that design of yours.

How does it sound with that Tele bridge pickup?

This is where mine is at -



I don't really want to spend too much time on what I strongly suspect is not going to become my main instrument and thought I'd make a single-pickup guitar, but I'm not too sure where to put it - neck? bridge? center?

[efiug]

Oh, you went unlined? That's really brave And it looks really cool, I've always loved that design of yours.

How does it sound with that Tele bridge pickup?

This is where mine is at -



I don't really want to spend too much time on what I strongly suspect is not going to become my main instrument and thought I'd make a single-pickup guitar, but I'm not too sure where to put it - neck? bridge? center?

maybe a Grabber style sliding picking, though maybe that ends up just as much work as multiple pickups haha.

[ThePearDream]

Oh, you went unlined? That's really brave And it looks really cool, I've always loved that design of yours.

How does it sound with that Tele bridge pickup?

This is where mine is at -



I don't really want to spend too much time on what I strongly suspect is not going to become my main instrument and thought I'd make a single-pickup guitar, but I'm not too sure where to put it - neck? bridge? center?

Yeah, unlined. I'll probably use an online fret location calculator and my digital calipers to mark out the first 5-7 frets along the side. I tried to resist any temptations to make it more complicated than necessary, since I also know it won't be my main instrument and I have plenty of other work to do. I looked up some Cello chord charts, to find some finger shapes that I can move around the neck. So far, I'm liking playing it with a guitar finger-style technique, versus a pick or bass style.

The tele pickup sounds good, but also like a Tele (no surprise), so twangier than one might want for playing Beethoven . It's much brighter than the FB, which sounds a bit darker, the middle position is really nice though, really kind of 3D. The right position would probably depend on the pickup you use though, and its character. I don't normally like middle pickups, but I like the idea of a single pickup in the middle, if it's one that can provide the sound you'd want.

I really like the shape you have for yours. Though I pretty much like all of the designs and aesthetic choices you make.

[epizootics]

Yeah, unlined. I'll probably use an online fret location calculator and my digital calipers to mark out the first 5-7 frets along the side. I tried to resist any temptations to make it more complicated than necessary, since I also know it won't be my main instrument and I have plenty of other work to do. I looked up some Cello chord charts, to find some finger shapes that I can move around the neck. So far, I'm liking playing it with a guitar finger-style technique, versus a pick or bass style.

The tele pickup sounds good, but also like a Tele (no surprise), so twangier than one might want for playing Beethoven . It's much brighter than the FB, which sounds a bit darker, the middle position is really nice though, really kind of 3D. The right position would probably depend on the pickup you use though, and its character. I don't normally like middle pickups, but I like the idea of a single pickup in the middle, if it's one that can provide the sound you'd want.

I really like the shape you have for yours. Though I pretty much like all of the designs and aesthetic choices you make.

I can say the same thing about your work! Your Artemis & Apollo designs are an absolute success

Have you tried using yours with a bow? That body shape, combined with the 7.25" radius, make it look quite feasible.

I think I know what you mean with the 3D sound of the middle position - that's something I've noticed on guitars with an agressive bridge pickup and a round, bassy neck pickup : the middle position seems to have less of a drop in volume and you seem to get the best of both.

maybe a Grabber style sliding picking, though maybe that ends up just as much work as multiple pickups haha.

Don't tempt me!

The middle pickup idea came from the sound of fretless P-Basses, but a good part of that sound comes from the 34" scale length (where anything closer to the neck can sound a bit muddy). I am half tempted to make a very flat pickup (about 5/16" thick) and move it around until I find the sweet spot, then screw it down in place.

[ThePearDream]

I had a chance to work down the nut slots and improve the setup. I ended up tuning it down a half step to B and that gives it just the right amount of neck relief. Then, remembering that this tuning is basically drop D everywhere, I plugged into a few dirt pedals and played some chugga-chugga type stuff, which was just super fun. Muff type pedals work great, my favorite was my Manx Loaghtan clone, with the Bass knob turned all the way up. I feel like I could give this Cello-guitar to a complete novice in the morning, and by the afternoon, they could be playing in an awesome heavy/doom/sludge band.

[Steadyriot.]

This one is coming together finally. I'm working on the nut and it needs strap pins and a knob still. Starting with a really dense piece of Ash, it's the heaviest one in this shape so far (by a good margin), and it's still well under 8lbs. This will be a great shape for using some heavier woods then. Walnut or un-figured Maple, would look awesome!

That colour! With the open pores!

[ThePearDream]

This one, posted in some other threads, is wrapped up, and I'm posting it here for completeness sake. I didn't make it (it's a Squier), I just made it way better. This is one of those refurbed jobs that has the back of the headstock stamped "USED" and has a replacement serial number on a sticker.

The neck got a much needed fret job (roll edges, level, crown, dress, polish), new bone nut, new Gotoh tuners, new SS neck screws. I deepened the pickup routing to make room for a pair of G&L S-500, and removed extra wood while I was at it. The original weight (missing vibrato arm) was 7lb10oz., the new weight, minus the wood, plus copper shielding and the massive G&L pickup magnets, is 7lb11oz.



The pickups are wired to the black slide, as a pickup selector. Then the signal goes to the red slide, which is a two stage strangle (I used 0.004uf for C5 and 0.003uf for C4). Then the signal goes to a 250k volume/500k tone setup, per an old G&L wiring diagram.


I kept the CV bridge and upgraded the vibrato to a MIJ unit.

I had a strap from Mother Mary that I never had the right guitar for. I had ordered a different strap, but it turned out to be out of stock, so they sent me this B-stock strap with a grandma fabric, for free. It seems like a good fit for this guitar though.




It fits in my guitar color wheel/spectrum perfectly!
(Blue is missing and I need a better green)

[ThePearDream]

I have my Jaguar parts back from copaceticcustoms. You better believe I'm excited about this one.




This color is going to be impossible to ever capture though, it's warmer and more tropical feeling than in the picture.

[GilmourD]

I have my Jaguar parts back from copaceticcustoms. You better believe I'm excited about this one.




This color is going to be impossible to ever capture though, it's warmer and more tropical feeling than in the picture.

Fuuuuuuuuu...

[Daitong II]

Just wow.

[Shadoweclipse13]

Damn That's amazing. Copacetic does such amazing work!!!

[theremintheme]

This one is coming together finally. I'm working on the nut and it needs strap pins and a knob still. Starting with a really dense piece of Ash, it's the heaviest one in this shape so far (by a good margin), and it's still well under 8lbs. This will be a great shape for using some heavier woods then. Walnut or un-figured Maple, would look awesome!

Stunning! What are (as detailed as you like, but brief is fine) the steps and products you use to get that breathtaking finish?