my second build, offset strat/tele thing [REVISITED]

[noisepunk]

Wow, seriously, that's cool. What an excellent design and what great execution.

[gishuk]

thanks man

sun shining today, so i took some photos of the finished thing. ought to come up with a name for it really rather than 'thing'. ive done the setup on it too, plays really, really well. small frets with a modern compound radius is actually a really great combo, all the nice slide about play-ability but with no problems bending on a low action. the rosewood neck feels SO good to play, im a bit surprised its not used more often on production guitars. smells nice too

theres a couple of things that arnt so great, the string ferrules are a bit wonky, though considering i did it freehand drilling i guess its not too bad. the worst thing is the pickguard though, i hate making them with a knife and some plastic, really need to make a template and do it again properly with a router. the bridge pickup is kinda wonky but its purely because of the pickguard.

[idiotbear]

Man, this is seriously great. It's so good to see a new shape that's actually really pleasing to look at - so many original designs end up looking arse-ugly, but this is beautiful. Kind of reminds a tiny bit of a Venus, but much better proportioned and - by the looks - better balanced as well.

Good job!

[Britfingers]

Wow..the grain on the wood is outstanding. Great design

[Britfingers]

Just realised your in the UK, where did you get the ash from?

[gishuk]

Man, this is seriously great. It's so good to see a new shape that's actually really pleasing to look at - so many original designs end up looking arse-ugly, but this is beautiful. Kind of reminds a tiny bit of a Venus, but much better proportioned and - by the looks - better balanced as well.

Good job!

thanks man! youre right on about the balance too, it balances perfectly when playing seated, doesnt want to move anywhere, very comfortable. i was a bit concerned that with the rosewood neck being a bit heavier that it would be a neck diver, but it isnt at all.

Just realised your in the UK, where did you get the ash from?

thanks!

as for the wood i got it from http://www.tonetechluthiersupplies.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
they dont show any one piece medium or large swamp ash blanks at the moment, but i guess it depends what they have in stock.

[Britfingers]

Cheers, I actually looked at the tonetech site yesterday.....think I shall give them a call.

[andrewdoeshair]

Awesome grain on the neck AND body. Excellent shape, too. I'm all about this. Very inspiring.

[gishuk]

Time passes, can't believe this was 10 years ago now!

In those years I've built a lot more guitars, got better at it (now I make new, exciting and different mistakes instead of the same ones!) and this guitar got taken apart after a couple of years. The neck has been around a bit and is currently on my Starblaster build and the body has been sat in a box in the shed.

I came across it again a few months ago and had forgotten what a lovely piece of wood this was made from. The build left a bit to be desires by my current standards but I thought it was worth a go at bringing this back to life. I still really love the shape of this too.

I set about fixing the parts of the body that weren't so great, starting with the string ferrules. They were rather wonky, I didn't have a drill press when I made this guitar, so I removed them (not easy) and made a channel over that area. This looks like a rather ugly hack job (because it is) however it is covered by a ferrule bar which will make that area look clean. I also wasn't happy with the belly contour, so that got deepened and sharpened up on my spindle sander (another tool I didn't have at the time which makes things a lot easier!), and generally tidied up all the edges, deepening the forearm contour too and routing the swimming pool deeper just to take some more weight out. Finally I plugged the pickguard screw holes and the strap pins. The strap pins however decided to snap both screws in half in the body, really bloody helpful. Those were frankly more hassle to remove than it was worth so I just filled in over the ends of them

After all this it was time to decide what to do with finishing. As some holes had been plugged a natural finish probably wasn't going to be the best option and I wanted to use this build to try and learn something else, as I've pretty much nailed the whole stains and tru-oil finish method at this point.

But I didn't want to lose that amazing wood grain and then I saw Novo Guitars doing awesome looking metallic finishes over open grain pine. I think they sandblast the wood to accentuate the grain before painting, and it looks epic. However the grain on this body is so crazy and deep that I thought that may just work and decided to try it (without sandblasting!). Figured if it didn't work it can go back in a box for another 7 years

I think its worked very well.







This is shoreline gold nitro over arctic white nitro (as they didn't have any actual primer). I'm not planning to shoot any clear over it as it looks good already and I want it to be a very thin finish that wears quickly.

First time spraying nitro since my first build but this went far, far better.

Need to decide what to do with pickup options now, and design a pickguard. I think this might get the solid rosewood neck back on it and I'll make something else for the Starblaster. It has a compound radius and never worked that well with a mustang bridge to be honest.

[s1m013]

How many coats of white and gold did you do for this gishuk?

[marqueemoon]

Sweet.

Funny, I tried to do a natural refin of my bass and it looked like crap so I sprayed it gold.

Yours looks good both ways.