The second from last part! - Part three continues with routing in the form of pup pockets, goes on to the drilling of various holes and the test fit of all parts. It's getting there.
Click on the read more link to see the full post
So onto the pup routes - having marked out the neck and bridge positions in the previous part this allowed me to accurately locate the pockets.
After this a long drill bit was purchased and used to link up the various cavities for wiring, through the neck pocket all the way to the bridge pup route, and then diagonally for the control cavity. Subsequent holes that were drilled include the neck pocket holes, jack socket hole, bridge mounting holes and string through holes. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures of this part of the process, so please excuse my laxity.
Once all this was done it was time to bolt and screw everything together to check everything fit properly before finishing. Below is the result:
Next step, finishing!
Wednesday 19 September 2007
The Tele Build - Part 3
Monday 17 September 2007
Taylor releases their own Solidbody Guitar!
Almost as strange as Bogner teaming up with Line 6, Taylor guitars is poised to release their own solidbody electric guitar range. Well, not so strange possibly, considering the raging success that was the T5 - it would seem the lessons learnt from that are being applied in the making of a more conventional style electric.
Seen to the right, and apparently fully designed by Taylor from the shape of the guitar right down to the control knobs it definitely looks promising, and I'll certainly be attempting to check one of these out once they hit the stores with their major launch in Jan 2008.
Friday 14 September 2007
Restringing aint a buzz
I've always changed stringed on my guitars fairly regularly, I can't stand the sound of a dull guitar and love the jangle a fresh set of strings gives. Not all people are like this however, if fact my experience is that the majority of people will leave strings on their guitars until they break...
Whatever your habits are, changing strings eventually gets to be a giant pain the the proverbial backside, especially when you have more than one guitar to change. Recently I had the pleasure of changing four guitars in one marathon session, and what topped it? Blasted 12 string guitar! The damn thing is an absolute nightmare to restring and subsequently tune, and took as long as the other three alone.
Regardless of all this it was completely worth it, each guitar now sounds brilliant (There's nothing like the sound of a freshly restrung 12 string). So all you people who like to wait until it becomes absolutely necessary to change your strings, try doing it more regularly, and hear the difference.
Wednesday 12 September 2007
The Tele Build - Part 2
Having brought the body to its final shape in part 1, part 2 will cover the routing of various pockets, such as the neck and control cavity routes and also the alignment of the bridge and neck.
Click on the read more link to see the full post.
The first route to be done was the neck pocket, this is so that the pickup pockets and bridge mounting holes could then be located accurately from the neck alignment. Careful measuring means that this isn't actually necessary, however for the sake of caution I decided to do it this way.
After attaching the neck pocket template to the body using double sided tape the body was ready for routing.
This was achieved once again using a template bearing bit, and using several passes until the pocket was at the required depth. This process was made longer by slight splinter out on the treble side that required re-gluing and then subsequently re-routing more carefully, luckily this quick repair turned out great, and is not visible!
Above you can see the neck sitting in the pocket after I was done. Routing then continued with the control cavity pocket as this was located on the same template.
The next step was to locate the bridge, once the appropriate scale length had been marked out on the body, cotton thread was used in conjunction with the bridge to act as "outer strings" , this allows for easy visual alignment and ensures the the bridge is located dead on for the neck.
Once visual alignment was confirmed accurate by measuring the distances from the outside "strings" to the edge of the fingerboard the bridge mounting holes were then drilled.
Next up, pup routes and beyond!
Friday 7 September 2007
Guitar related updates
I've updated the blog links on the right hand side to include various guitar blogs I like. Most of them are related to building/repairing in some way, and are all worth a visit!
Tuesday 4 September 2007
Die Guitar!
Before people start accusing me of heresy and attempting to stab me to death with an over-pointy BC Rich of some sort I'd better qualify exactly what is meant in the title...
How careful are you with your guitar? Do you treat it like a piece of priceless china? Or thrash the hell out of it, smack people in the face with it, and generally do everything but directly attempt to destroy it?
I've been known to bend my acoustic neck in order to get a trem like effect at times, much to the horror on friends and family "It could damage the guitar, the neck might snap!" well, the neck has already done so once, though not as a result of me bending it (Clean separation along the scarf due to a bad glue joint). In any case - Depending on what guitar I'm using I'll end up treating them completely differently, the Telecaster gets knocked around a fair bit whereas the PRS gets mollycoddled, and there'll be hell to pay if I find out it has a scratch!
My personal philosophy on the matter is that it all depends on the guitar, and exactly what you're trying to do with it. The perception of an instrument, while not affecting the musician in any direct or physical sense is something that helps the player to become comfortable using it.
