The wide neck guitar criminal!

Iamnobody

JookyChap;204969" said:

Great thing to do @funstuie and @TheGuitarWeasel, but I quite agree, it 'has' to have the traditionally placed Tele pickup at the neck

Indeed and I'm sure @TheGuitarWeasel has the skills to execute an aesthetically pleasing installation which might just give old Butcher Phillips some motivation in his own bodgifications...

mike_l

A colleague (not a guitarist) saw the pics Jim54 put up and said "what the fuck has he done, that looks like shit"

Kind says it all.

 

@TheGuitarWeasel ; I have a couple of LP pots I'd like to donate for the FunStuie guitar build, can you PM me an address for me to get them to you.

ICBM

JookyChap said:

Great thing to do @funstuie and @TheGuitarWeasel, but I quite agree, it 'has' to have the traditionally placed Tele pickup at the neck

Agreed. For the purposes of scientific research to see if the concept has any validity if executed properly, it does need the Tele bridge pickup in the neck.

usedtobe

chrispy108 said:

You should make it a 5 string....

Damn - I was gonna say that..!

OilCityPickups

ICBM said:

JookyChap said:

Great thing to do @funstuie and @TheGuitarWeasel, but I quite agree, it 'has' to have the traditionally placed Tele pickup at the neck

Agreed. For the purposes of scientific research to see if the concept has any validity if executed properly, it does need the Tele bridge pickup in the neck.

I actually want the thing to make money for the forum ... I'm happy to put a Tele bridge pickup in as a test ... but if we actually want to get some cash for it it should be done with an eye to sanity ... and a proper bucker with a coil tap should replace it for sale.Somebody will be getting a set of top flight hand wound pickups ... probably from my new 'Professional' range (not actually for sale to the public yet) and a properly set up instrument ... probably for not a mahoosive amount of money. The least we can do, is do it properly.
The aim is to show how a beater can be a good player, and a worthwhile beginner's instrument with simple tools and techniques. I could use Irongears or Artec, but my own pickups are laying about ... I think it's sensible to use them.

ICBM

OK, what about a certain hybrid dual single coil humbucker which might contain something a bit like a Tele bridge pickup? ;-)

ThePrettyDamned

TheGuitarWeasel;204683" said:

Okay, I think enough electrons have been wasted on this thread. Something good is going to come out of it: @funstuie is sending me his Avon Les Paul copy for me to improve and 'mod' into something that will be sold for forum funds. I will limit my tools to those easily found by beginners, and try and create something that might conceivably be have been done by me in the late seventies. I was working as the tech in a guitar shop then, and regularly was called upon to 'hotrod' Columbus, Avon, Antoria etc etc. It usually started with a pair of  of 'Uncle Larry's' finest in the pickup compartments ... so this lucky beast will get one of my prototype 70s style distortion humbuckers in bridge duty ... and perhaps something of a PAF disposition in the neck.

Anyway I will start a thread for it when it arrives and although it may take a while, as I will have to fit the work in around making pickups, you will get a look in over my shoulder so to speak, as I try to work out what I've gotten myself into!

Nice! I've often wondered just how awful these copies actually are as I've never picked one up.

Normally because the neck was warped

TheGuitarWeasel;205138" said:

ICBM said:



JookyChap said:

Great thing to do @funstuie and @TheGuitarWeasel, but I quite agree, it 'has' to have the traditionally placed Tele pickup at the neck





Agreed. For the purposes of scientific research to see if the concept has any validity if executed properly, it does need the Tele bridge pickup in the neck.










I actually want the thing to make money for the forum ... I'm happy to put a Tele bridge pickup in as a test ... but if we actually want to get some cash for it it should be done with an eye to sanity ... and a proper bucker with a coil tap should replace it for sale.Somebody will be getting a set of top flight hand wound pickups ... probably from my new 'Professional' range (not actually for sale to the public yet) and a properly set up instrument ... probably for not a mahoosive amount of money. The least we can do, is do it properly.

The aim is to show how a beater can be a good player, and a worthwhile beginner's instrument with simple tools and techniques. I could use Irongears or Artec, but my own pickups are laying about ... I think it's sensible to use them.

Oh my, a 'professional' range?

As if your regular ones are anything but...

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

Nice! I've often wondered just how awful these copies actually are as I've never picked one up.

Usually pretty awful.

Plywood bodies, the arched-top ones usually with a sheet of thin ply stretched over a block in the bridge area, bolt-on necks but made from soft fibrous 'mahogany' so the screws strip even if the neck doesn't twist as well, badly fretted with nasty thin fretwire, unevenly and with sharp ends, binding that comes off, crap machineheads which also strip their screws due to going into the same soft wood, crumbly alloy bridges and tailpieces, and horrible pickups - often very poor single coils inside humbucker casings.

On the plus side, they do burn well . My "just put another Les Paul on the fire" incident involved half a dozen of them (already stripped of any usable hardware).

Adam_MD

TheGuitarWeasel;205138" said:

ICBM said:



JookyChap said:

Great thing to do @funstuie and @TheGuitarWeasel, but I quite agree, it 'has' to have the traditionally placed Tele pickup at the neck





Agreed. For the purposes of scientific research to see if the concept has any validity if executed properly, it does need the Tele bridge pickup in the neck.










I actually want the thing to make money for the forum ... I'm happy to put a Tele bridge pickup in as a test ... but if we actually want to get some cash for it it should be done with an eye to sanity ... and a proper bucker with a coil tap should replace it for sale.Somebody will be getting a set of top flight hand wound pickups ... probably from my new 'Professional' range (not actually for sale to the public yet) and a properly set up instrument ... probably for not a mahoosive amount of money. The least we can do, is do it properly.

The aim is to show how a beater can be a good player, and a worthwhile beginner's instrument with simple tools and techniques. I could use Irongears or Artec, but my own pickups are laying about ... I think it's sensible to use them.

Professional range? You can't just leave it at that! Any idea when you're spilling the beans?

Evilmags

ICBM said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

Nice! I've often wondered just how awful these copies actually are as I've never picked one up.

Usually pretty awful.

Plywood bodies, the arched-top ones usually with a sheet of thin ply stretched over a block in the bridge area, bolt-on necks but made from soft fibrous 'mahogany' so the screws strip even if the neck doesn't twist as well, badly fretted with nasty thin fretwire, unevenly and with sharp ends, binding that comes off, crap machineheads which also strip their screws due to going into the same soft wood, crumbly alloy bridges and tailpieces, and horrible pickups - often very poor single coils inside humbucker casings.

On the plus side, they do burn well . My "just put another Les Paul on the fire" incident involved half a dozen of them (already stripped of any usable hardware).

Anyone under the age of 40 is probably too young to remember just how shite some of those things were. I went through a fair few (and a Nice Aria Les Paul which went and had a fretboard delamination) before I got an Ibanez RG550. The Ibby was just a different world in terms of quality and playability. Just totally better in every way.

imalone

TheGuitarWeasel;205138" said:

from my new 'Professional' range (not actually for sale to the public yet)

Hmm, does this mean I should hang onto my order for a new tele bridge till they are?

ICBM

Evilmags said:

Anyone under the age of 40 is probably too young to remember just how shite some of those things were. I went through a fair few (and a Nice Aria Les Paul which went and had a fretboard delamination) before I got an Ibanez RG550.

It makes me laugh to see some of them being sold as "Made In Japan Lawsuit Model" now - although the irony is that the reason Gibson and Fender eventually lost some of their trademarks is because they *didn't* take action against these copies early enough, since they were so appalling they weren't considered a threat.

I had a Hondo Les Paul - at that point I already had a quite decent Aria RS Strat-ish copy, but I really really wanted a Les Paul, so I bought a nice-looking black one. When I got it home I was shocked and puzzled to find that it sounded thinner and weaker than the Strat - at least, until I took the pickups apart and found out why… and saw how the body was made at the same time.

Yet oddly, they still have a certain charm - or maybe it's just nostalgia for that era - so I will be interested to see how this project turns out!

DamianP

JonathanWesson1 said:

this thread needs to die now - it is a pretty pathetic show from the forum tbh - a bunch of grown men taking potshots at a really easy target from behind their keyboards. certainly not the kind of thing I visit this place to see

+1

I`m hugely disappointed by the whole thing.    It provides nothing of any value, focussed as it is on accentuating the negative rather than promoting the positive.     Unfortunately that seems to be something of a recurring theme.

OilCityPickups

imalone said:

TheGuitarWeasel;205138" said:

from my new 'Professional' range (not actually for sale to the public yet)

Hmm, does this mean I should hang onto my order for a new tele bridge till they are?

The new range will be all humbuckers initially, and there is a fair bit more to do on finalising their look and packaging before they go on the market :-)

It'll be pure nostalgia for me upping the game on a old 'Jap-Plank' @ICBM I used to set up dozens of the bloody things for the music shop I worked for as a teenager. No two ever alike ... and the strings they used to come in new with were a disgrace to bailing wire!

kelvinburn

ICBM said:

Evilmags said:

Anyone under the age of 40 is probably too young to remember just how shite some of those things were. I went through a fair few (and a Nice Aria Les Paul which went and had a fretboard delamination) before I got an Ibanez RG550.

It makes me laugh to see some of them being sold as "Made In Japan Lawsuit Model" now - although the irony is that the reason Gibson and Fender eventually lost some of their trademarks is because they *didn't* take action against these copies early enough, since they were so appalling they weren't considered a threat.

I had a Hondo Les Paul - at that point I already had a quite decent Aria RS Strat-ish copy, but I really really wanted a Les Paul, so I bought a nice-looking black one. When I got it home I was shocked and puzzled to find that it sounded thinner and weaker than the Strat - at least, until I took the pickups apart and found out why… and saw how the body was made at the same time.

Yet oddly, they still have a certain charm - or maybe it's just nostalgia for that era - so I will be interested to see how this project turns out!

I was recently given a CMI Les Paul that a friend had in his loft for 30 years. It suffers from many of the issues listed above. It still has a certain charm though despite being comically bad in some areas. Before it was "retired" he fitted it with a Super Distortion bridge and Mighty Mite neck pickup so it sounds surprisingly good, particularly for Kyuss type space rock stuff.

I have been mulling over whether it would be worth upgrading the hardware as I have grown fond of it. It has the resale value of a dunked biscuit though

GuitarMonkey

DamianP said:

JonathanWesson1 said:

this thread needs to die now - it is a pretty pathetic show from the forum tbh - a bunch of grown men taking potshots at a really easy target from behind their keyboards. certainly not the kind of thing I visit this place to see

+1

I`m hugely disappointed by the whole thing.    It provides nothing of any value, focussed as it is on accentuating the negative rather than promoting the positive.     Unfortunately that seems to be something of a recurring theme.

Reminds me of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies

GSPBASSES

    Now most of use have made comments on the appalling work that @mdphillips1956 has done on guitar nuts and bridges and the way he totally F**KS up guitars but I have not read any think about the fact the 7st come 6st guitars that the B G D A strings miss the pole pieces on the pickups almost completely. Now I point this out so we can have lots more comment's on this to make sure this post THE WIDE NECK GUITAR CRIMINAL dose not stop yet and become the War and Peace of all forums.

By the way I do make few wide neck guitars in fact I’ve made a lot over the years not just for my customers but for other custom builders. I should write a post on how I do it. 

NB I said how I make a wide neck guitar and not how it should be made as we don’t want another War and Peace started do we.  

imalone

DamianP said:

JonathanWesson1 said:

this thread needs to die now - it is a pretty pathetic show from the forum tbh - a bunch of grown men taking potshots at a really easy target from behind their keyboards. certainly not the kind of thing I visit this place to see

+1

I`m hugely disappointed by the whole thing.    It provides nothing of any value, focussed as it is on accentuating the negative rather than promoting the positive.     Unfortunately that seems to be something of a recurring theme.

Probably unavoidable; the reaction from the people who are seeing those pictures for the first time is as you'd expect, the only positive response possible is to try and offer constructive advice, which is rebuffed, so where do you go from there? The "Einstein was a genius and they laughed at him." argument is pretty misguided.

In better news:

TheGuitarWeasel said:

imalone said:

TheGuitarWeasel;205138" said:

from my new 'Professional' range (not actually for sale to the public yet)

Hmm, does this mean I should hang onto my order for a new tele bridge till they are?

The new range will be all humbuckers initially, and there is a fair bit more to do on finalising their look and packaging before they go on the market :-)

How do you know it's not going to be a tele humbucker bridge? :P
PM to come once I've checked a couple of things.

TheOtherDennis

p90fool said:

frankus said:

I'm not supporting this guy - I'm trying to see the good in the people on this forum - else why bother coming here?

Exactly my stance  -  and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed.

I hoped this forum was a little more civilised than others, and indeed it is in the main, but I've gloomily perused ten pages of schoolyard nonsense and won't be opening this thread again.

It takes the same form as any other cliquey display of almost-bullying, the big guns (ie, the knowledgeable, experienced luthiers and techs) entering a reasoned, logical debate, while their less-knowledgeable, sniping little arselickers pile on with all the "Yeah, see? My mate says you're a knob" stuff just to feel part of the group.

This place is above all that usually, it's well-moderated and friendly, but unfortunately the two threads about this Mark guy are probably the most active on here which is more than a little depressing tbh.

"Less knowledgeable, sniping little arse lickers"? And that's supposed to be a positive contribution to the debate?

GSPBASSES

I think your wrong in this case the more times @mdphillps appalling work is mention the more likely the un-knowing will find him on a google search and that might stop some one getting rip off.  

 

JonathanWesson1 said:

this thread needs to die now - it is a pretty pathetic show from the forum tbh - a bunch of grown men taking potshots at a really easy target from behind their keyboards. certainly not the kind of thing I visit this place to see