LP, Tele, Jazz Mashup. "the Preacher". FINISHED on page 7.

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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LP, Tele, Jazz Mashup. "the Preacher". FINISHED on page 7.

Post by AWSchmit » Fri Apr 15, 2016 1:03 pm

After about 2 years of no project building, and being underwhelmed with the playability of my current guitarsonal I've decided I'm going to put together an awesome project based around a proper neck and not just whatever I can find on the cheap. So this morning I pulled the trigger on a CBS headstocked Warmoth neck with a maple finger board. I decided I had to buy a neck after I recently rediscovered a template that I made years and years ago but never turned into a guitar. Some of you oldbies may remember a project thread containing these pictures that fell to the bottom never to return again:

Image

Image

I will be doing a hard tail some some sort and using Jazzmaster pickups. I've been without Jazzmaster pickups for years and miss the sound. I'm curious to hear how they will sound with a hard tail. Not sure on the paint scheme, I will likely go with something completely non vintage Fender. Most likely I will buy a color I like in acrylic lacquer from the auto parts store. I may do an arm contour as well... We'll see... This project could morph, but since I've already stuck $170 into a neck I can;t not make something out of it... This is the most amount of money I've spend on myself in about 3 years since getting married and having a baby. I got a side art job that is paying actual money so my wife was almost begging me to do SOMETHING nice for myself since I never do. (Plus I'm sure she will like to use this president as a way to get something new for herself... She's slick. )

Stay tuned...
Last edited by AWSchmit on Mon May 22, 2017 5:25 am, edited 5 times in total.
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"

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Re: A long overdue project.

Post by Con-Tiki! » Fri Apr 15, 2016 1:28 pm

Yay Andrew!
(Christopher, also)
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Re: A long overdue project.

Post by AWSchmit » Fri Apr 15, 2016 7:48 pm

Thanks buddy!
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"

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Re: A long overdue project.

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:11 pm

I didn't recognize it from before (I probably wasn't around here then), but I really like the shape. It's like a LP and a Tele had a baby that was cooler than either parent. Also really love your color scheme ideas and my favorite is the red-black burst (bottom) and the blue-darker blue burst (second from top).

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Re: A long overdue project.

Post by AWSchmit » Fri Apr 15, 2016 9:35 pm

Shadoweclipse13 wrote: It's like a LP and a Tele had a baby
That's the idea. I completely stole the idea from St Blues Guitars. Mines a little different though. They do a nice job though.
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"

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Re: A long overdue project.

Post by planningtojazz » Sat Apr 16, 2016 8:47 am

this will be sick, a les paul jr doublecut is like my dream guitar. have fun with this one

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Re: A long overdue project.

Post by AWSchmit » Mon Apr 18, 2016 7:36 am

I'm so bad at updating project threads... In this day and age when I have the ability to add pictures and text while working on my guitar I have no excuse... I will try to get in an update tonight or tomorrow that includes pics, but for now, some text to read (and then be mad that there are no pics)

I'm starting off with an 8 piece (yes 8 peice) pine body that i made out of boredom late last year. Basically I had no easy/cheap access to your typical woods so I just took a bunch of old 2x6 scraps that were destined for the fire place and upcycled them. I cut them down the middle on the table saw and planed all sides. After that I turned them up on their edge and glued them together making two half a body blanks. I did this because this width will fit in my planer. After planeing each half a glued them up being careful to align them the best I could. I got close but as most you who've ever made a multipiece blank will know, perfect if had to find when clamping wood together. So there is still some sanding to do to get everything flush. But me being impatient I skipped finishing the sanding for now and went right to the cutting. I did a rough cut of the outside perimeter and then laid out my routes with templates and a pencil. After that I took a forstner bit and hogged away some of the route area to get rid of some excess material before routing. About the 8piece pine body, I figure the uglier the body wood the moore I won;t mind painting it a solid color. This has always been my motto, however in the past this has applied more to 3-piece poplar bodies than many-piece pines one. But anything that eliminates waste, fills my time, and costs my no money, is great.

After that I was pretty much at a standstill so I took to rummaging through my parts to see if I had an old top loading tele bridge I could cut down at which time I found an old Toronado bridge plate that I forgot I had. As you may know that bridge is designed in the style of the Musicmaster 2's and Duo Sonic 2's bridge from the mid-sixties. Since I wanted to go top loading this was perfect. It already had holes for the strings (these hole are meant for strat style saddles) so I put the bridge in my vice and layed out where I was going to drill new holes for a few tele style saddles. I was going to drill them but I couldn't find my new dill bit index I got for Christmas and my wife didn't know where they ended up either and with out a suitable size bit just kicking around I called it a night.

When I find my drill bits I'll finish up the bridge and show you that, and when I get a spare 2 or 3 hours I'm allowed to kill on non-house and non-baby stuff I will route the body.
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"

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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by AWSchmit » Mon Apr 18, 2016 11:33 am

A brief story and then a question:

I'm a sucker for a well-priced parts for sale thread and some time ago I bought, just for the heck of it, a set of Duncan Designed Jazzmaster pickups from someone on this site. They were cheap and I figured what the hell. Anyway, I'm thinking I'm going to use them in this guitar but with all the other labor intensive build processes and nice made neck I'm having made, will these pickups hold their own. I feel like I may just be psyching myself out though.


Anyone own a Squier VM Jazzmaster with the stock pickups and have no issues with them? Another question is, if you had to compare the sound of those VM pickups with another, more standard set, Say an AVRI set or a Pickup Wizard set, how would they differ if at all?

Thanks.
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"

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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by AWSchmit » Mon Apr 18, 2016 11:59 am

Another Question:

This will get some kind of solid color paint job. Metallic or non. But no burst or stain of any kind... Keeping that in mind, tell me (or better yet show me) your favorite body color for a guitar with a maple fretboard. Also keep in mind that this will not have a pickguard of any kind. I'm having trouble picking a color and I know how much people like to weight in.
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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by NoiseNoiseNoise » Mon Apr 18, 2016 1:05 pm

AWSchmit wrote:Another Question:

This will get some kind of solid color paint job. Metallic or non. But no burst or stain of any kind... Keeping that in mind, tell me (or better yet show me) your favorite body color for a guitar with a maple fretboard. Also keep in mind that this will not have a pickguard of any kind. I'm having trouble picking a color and I know how much people like to weight in.
Black goes with everything! :D
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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by AWSchmit » Tue Apr 19, 2016 6:28 am

NoiseNoiseNoise wrote:
AWSchmit wrote:Another Question:

This will get some kind of solid color paint job. Metallic or non. But no burst or stain of any kind... Keeping that in mind, tell me (or better yet show me) your favorite body color for a guitar with a maple fretboard. Also keep in mind that this will not have a pickguard of any kind. I'm having trouble picking a color and I know how much people like to weight in.
Black goes with everything!
I will likely stay away from black as I often do. I have a bit of a prejudice against black guitars. Since virtually every model of guitar has been available in it. And if a guitar is only available in one color, it's usually black. I guess I'm sick of seeing it so much. The bad part though is it would probably look good in black... lol

Here are the colors I keep coming back to:

An off white (And then I have to remember that my Duo Sonic is off white)
A deep red metallic
A light blue metallic
Surf Green
A deep turquoise blue (then I have to remember that I have a tele that is already that color)
And finally my wife mentioned some kind of orange yesterday... but Usually orange is outside my palette.

There are more that come in and out, but these are the main ones.
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"

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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by kdanie » Tue Apr 19, 2016 7:12 am

I would go with the deep red metallic, everyone needs a red guitar, this one has a satin clear over it.

Not a maple fret board but I think it would work:

Image

ken
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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by NoiseNoiseNoise » Tue Apr 19, 2016 8:07 am

AWSchmit wrote:
NoiseNoiseNoise wrote:
AWSchmit wrote:Another Question:

This will get some kind of solid color paint job. Metallic or non. But no burst or stain of any kind... Keeping that in mind, tell me (or better yet show me) your favorite body color for a guitar with a maple fretboard. Also keep in mind that this will not have a pickguard of any kind. I'm having trouble picking a color and I know how much people like to weight in.
Black goes with everything!
I will likely stay away from black as I often do. I have a bit of a prejudice against black guitars. Since virtually every model of guitar has been available in it. And if a guitar is only available in one color, it's usually black. I guess I'm sick of seeing it so much. The bad part though is it would probably look good in black... lol

Here are the colors I keep coming back to:

An off white (And then I have to remember that my Duo Sonic is off white)
A deep red metallic
A light blue metallic
Surf Green
A deep turquoise blue (then I have to remember that I have a tele that is already that color)
And finally my wife mentioned some kind of orange yesterday... but Usually orange is outside my palette.

There are more that come in and out, but these are the main ones.
Fair enough. How about a kind of Gunmetal Grey? Or a light shade of blue?
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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by AWSchmit » Tue Apr 19, 2016 5:40 pm

I stopped at the AutoZone today on my way home to check out their acrylic lacquer stock. I plan on going this route in order to force myself to use a non vintage Fender color and to save money. I'll also be using Watco lacquer for the top coat.

Anyway. Looking at what they had these caught my eye.

Image

Image

Image

I'm leaning more toward the last one. It has a quality that's similar to my favorite versions of IBM I've seen with out being overly silver. I want the light blue in there a lot. But I'll likely go back and forth until I actually buy it.

I also was about to sneak in about ten minutes worth of routing this evening. Not much but it's something. When you have a baby and a wife who would rather see you doing house work ten minutes is ten minutes.

Image

My templates have tele pickup routes. But I will be using my Jazzmaster templates for the pickups and neck pocket. More on that later.

Aws
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Re: A long overdue project. Les Paul/Tele/Jazz Mashup. CBS H

Post by AWSchmit » Wed Apr 20, 2016 5:47 pm

I got the bridge all fixed up. I decided to add the extra screw holes the vintage bridges had since this will actually be holding string tension.

Image

For those that aren't familiar. This bridge started out like this:

Image

And this is what I was going for:

Image
OR
Image

So with this bridge and the Jazzmaster pickups this build will have a tiny bit of Offset street cred. :P
I finally finish building a guitar, go to play it, and then remember, "oh yeah, that's right. I suck at playing... Why did I build another guitar again?"

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