What's on your workbench right now?

[Dr Tony Balls]

Balls BF-50: Ballsmom Edition. AB165 Bassman circuit, normal channel only, added master volume. A couple of changes were made to my standard head configuration to try and keep this one as small as possible. 15" x 9" x 8.25". 23 lbs. Made for some guy in England who's really keen on the AB165.

[epizootics]

One down, one more to go!

[hulakatt]

I mean, the AB165 is a solid amp to be keen on!

[sal paradise]

Balls BF-50: Ballsmom Edition. AB165 Bassman circuit, normal channel only, added master volume. A couple of changes were made to my standard head configuration to try and keep this one as small as possible. 15" x 9" x 8.25". 23 lbs. Made for some guy in England who's really keen on the AB165.

Amazing as ever, he’ll love it

[GreenKnee]

This looks amazing! As a recent convert to the AB165 (and new owner of the amp that inspired this clone) I can't wait to hear what it sounds like!

Seriously tempted to commission one of my own cause it just looks so good. If it sounds like the original I'll be hitting you up soon

[Fiddy]

This looks amazing! As a recent convert to the AB165 (and new owner of the amp that inspired this clone) I can't wait to hear what it sounds like!

Seriously tempted to commission one of my own cause it just looks so good. If it sounds like the original I'll be hitting you up soon

I praise your quoting game highly.

Sweet amp too btw Tony.

[bodhi]

First time it's been practically possible to get to the workshop in about half a year, since I've been moving house and renovating and stuff. It was a day for templates, mostly since I had some laser-cut stuff that hadn't completely cut through (should have done a second pass, but wasn't thinking straight that day), but I also managed to pick up a vintage Framus Strato 6 on Tuesday for all of 35€....



After keeping it for 24 hours I felt it wasn't really worth messing around with, mostly because of the neck being pretty narrow and me having big hands. The nut width was 41mm, and the neck pocket is 54mm wide and a bit shorter than Fender spec. The scale length is also not quite 24,75", the bridge was missing and the pickups weren't original. I ended up feeling like I would probably just change everything, at which point it felt more appropriate to build something inspired by it instead of messing up something vintage.

The controls are master volume, tone and a bass cut. Couldn't get accurate measurements for the pot values since I didn't want to desolder anything, but I wrote down a wiring sketch. Seems to be more or less just a jazz bass control plate from what I can tell, and the holes for that was original.



The necks are made of laminated strips of birch instead of being solid wood. Should be super stable, and something typical of Framus for the time as I understand it. It has a zero fret, gibson-styled nut attachment and a strat-like headstock.



I used some low-tac tape to cover double-sided tape and some plywood strips to not need to remove the bridge posts. In this pic you can also see the narrow screw spacing for the neck screws.



After all of that, tracing it out was straightforward with the table router. The body has some carves for the forearm and belly, but they're relatively subtle compared to Fenders, probably because of the thickness being only 35mm.

I don't have any immediate plans for working on this since there's enough projects in the backlog already, but checked that building a laminated neck should be more or less the same price as a solid wood one. At least locally getting 1-1.5mm veneers didn't seem to be that expensive...

[kifla]

The most nerve wrecking part of building a Marauder type I....

...routing grooves in the guard for concealed pickups

[Dr Tony Balls]

Accidental Halloween color coordination:

[epizootics]

Tony, I'm a big fan of your aesthetics. Very 1980s consoles, and your wiring is always neat as a pin


I finished this one earlier this week:













The other one was mounted with 9-42s so I never truly knew how it sounded (I'm useless with lighter gauges). This one has 11-52s on it and it is percussive as hell. Dunno if the ebony (vs. wenge) fretboard plays any part in it.

[bodhi]

Been struggling with a telemaster project I started last weekend, working from a wonky used body I got for cheap recently. The string-through holes traveled maybe 6-8 mm laterally through the body, and it seems like the existing cavities had been cut at a slight angle... My spider-sense was not tingling properly when I read the ad, so I ended up overpaying for the body, but as I got a bunch of other parts at the same time it probably evens out.

I haven't been working on my own builds for a while, and it really shows. It's been a comedy of errors, with a lot of drilling and tweaking that's been off-by-one mm or less, which in turn forces me to plug and patch my own fixes to the original problems... I'm also using a new to me bridge design, but after plugging the first drilling holes that were cut ever so slightly too narrowly, and in the process moving the bridge back 6mm or so further, it actually intonates fine with a 1 degree stewmac shim...

As it stands, I might end up plugging the screw holes and neck pocket and cutting a new one, and fix the bridge position a bit more and a lot more minor tweaks, but it seems that I can bring it to practice on Friday to have something better than a cheap Squier strat to play on. Lot's to go here, but it should have all the bits in place for a small Christmas gig at the end of the month. And then on to the eventual refinish...

[MattK]

Looks like a beast! What’s wrong with the neck pocket?
I’m not often a natural finish fan but that one sure looks good.

[bodhi]

Looks like a beast! What’s wrong with the neck pocket?
I’m not often a natural finish fan but that one sure looks good.

You can't really make it out in the picture, but it feels like both the bridge and the neck are off by a fraction of a degree from the centerline... There's a gap between the neck and body on the upper horn side, and the current alignment makes the neck plate on the back look considerably more off than what the issues come across as on the top.

I realised that my neck pocket template that I used to tweak the original one (which was cut too short by 2-3 mm) is actually a bit oversized, which has had me gluing in slivers of wood to the side of the pockets to fix overly large gaps in other builds as well

I tried fitting the Bigsby conversion plate for the telecaster bridge pickup, and it's a bit more obvious that the bridge posts are not in the right spot, though again you might not be able to tell from longer than an arm's length away...

The finish is apparently some tinted Danish oil on alder, with tung oil on top, so should be fairly easy to achieve. I don't know the exact products, but could probably find out if someone is interested...

[MattK]

A pass-over Tele bridge plate and a cream/parchment pickguard cut to JM shape with a Tele Custom shaped accommodation for the bridge plate, would be *chef's kiss* on that beauty. The neck doesn't *look* misaligned so if you can make it work ... might be a better result than having to plug and route.

[bodhi]

A pass-over Tele bridge plate and a cream/parchment pickguard cut to JM shape with a Tele Custom shaped accommodation for the bridge plate, would be *chef's kiss* on that beauty. The neck doesn't *look* misaligned so if you can make it work ... might be a better result than having to plug and route.

Not sure if you're aware, but I think you might be basically describing Deed_Poll 's GuitarForm tele bridge pickup version of the DeluxeMaster, the CustomMaster: https://guitarform.com/product/customaster/ There are a couple of pictures of that floating around on the forum and in the gallery on the GuitarForm website and it's a design I love

Don't want to steal the idea directly, though, so thought I'd start with the basic telemaster controls and control plate. I'm not sure if I grasped your pickguard shape idea completely, but the telecaster control route is immediately not compatible with that end of a basic JM pickguard. I have some reservations about the control plate location already, but leaving it out moves away from the tele vibes more or less completely...

Measured it, and the bridge is a full degree slanted back on the upper end, which is what might be triggering the feeling of misalignment. I'll start by fixing that (third time's the charm?) and go from there...