Shamelessly Copied from Andyjr - Semi Hollow Neck-Through

MARVlN

Excitingly it's a mid-weekend update!

New binding turned up on Thursday & glued into place. Went with a ~45° chamfer for the join, and seemed to accidentally match the pearl pattern without trying or meaning to, which is a nice result.

One aspect of the build that, er, needs refinement for the next one I try in this style, is the laminated sides. There are a couple of 'blisters' where air was trapped in (despite my best efforts), and you can get some odd patterns when you sand through a layer of veneer - the grain then doesn't match. I don't mind this effect too much, and could be limited by sanding less. That was mainly caused by using the drum sander.

The worst blister (could easily be felt with one's finger) happened to be in about the spot you'd put a jack plate. This I considered was a level of serendipity that would be foolish to pass over, even if it is a weird place to put it on a semi-hollow. One curved jack plate, and now no visible blisiter...

I went with @WezV's suggestion to go half-bevel on the scratchplates. Just did it 'freehand' with an orbital sander which produced a good result with less chance of total screw-up than if I'd broken out the router.

With the binding scraped back and all the shaping done, it was time for final sanding. Went up through the grades from 240 up to 1,000. I'm going for a finish using tung oil all over, save the fretboard. I used it on the neck of my last build, and love the feel of the finish. No point in showing the sanding process, but here's a picture with the first application to the top, 'cause it's shiny:

I applied with a brush, then went over it with a 600 grit spongy Mirka abrasive pad with some tung oil on it to work it into the surface. Left a few minutes and removed the excess with a clean rag:

The back, sides and neck had the same treatment (as did the scratchplates and tremolo cover). After application:

With excess removed:

Doing this I realised there's a little more work to be done on the sides of the 'headstock' (there's a little glue contamination which the tung oil doesn't really affect, which is pretty unsightly), so I'll tackle that Sunday morning. I need to leave a good while between coats anyway, so I'll get that tackled first thing, get a second coat done, and then revisit it during the week.

Andyjr1515

Looking great!

MARVlN

Well, this has been a while hasn't it? Such is getting the final details sorted. And as with any project, the 'final details' seem to change a lot...

I've now been playing the currently final product for a week or so. There's lots that's right, and some things I'd definitely do differently - which is the way of any good project. The next build will have to wait while I buy a house (nearly there!), but it's amazing how fast after 'finishing' a project one's mind immediately is considering what to do next.

Anyway, to pick up where we left off, I began working on the electronics. Semi-hollow guitars are traditionally a pain with no internal access. This was mitigated somewhat with the addition of a small access panel, but I hate soldering in small cavities. The pickup cavities were deliberately routed deep, and the pickup wires were Strat-length and so a bit short, my plan was to use good quality connectors for the pickups that could sit in the cavities. Went back to my roots in playing around with R/C stuff and went with some micro-Deans.

Pickups (Alegree Sub-Zero Strat-sized P90s, although I can't really remember why I didn't just go for P90s in the first place) done:

Cavities:

I then needed to fix the pickup covers to the pickups. The 'P90's are taller than normal Strat pickups, and the covers therefore a little short. I decided to melt wax into them then press the pickups in place, then solder a short lead from the cover to the -ve for grounding.

After four (five? I can't remember...) coats of Tung Oil, I applied some wax (Monty's) to protect the wood that little bit more. This also went on the otherwise unfinished fretboard:

With the wax buffed (see special actually clean cloth) and pickups in place:

Roland

MARVlN said:

. There's lots that's right, and some things I'd definitely do differently - which is the way of any good project. … it's amazing how fast after 'finishing' a project one's mind immediately is considering what to do next.

The most valuable thing you get from a project like this is not the guitar, but the knowledge and experience.

MARVlN

Next thing was considering wiring. This was meant to be a bit of a do it all guitar (not sure why as the trem makes that almost impossible), so I had a Brian May style switching system lined up, using four 4PDT switches for individually switching pickups on/off/out of phase, then a master series/parallel switch. That's four holes and switches to place.

Then I was going for just volume/tone until I read about a bass cut control. I used to own a 3 P90 Reverend which had that, and it could do a good impression of a Strat with some bass removed, so that added to the spec list. Subtle, this isn't.

Naturally I considered long and hard where to place the controls. You'll probably hate it, but it works well (when I'm not breaking the switches, have gone through 3 as they're so weak) and is incredibly versatile. I very quickly decided I didn't like any of the out-of-phase sounds, so have changed the wiring scheme. Each pickup is now series/off/parallel and the fourth switch is a 'bypass/solo' switch which allows a single switch to go to the bridge pickup and bypasses the volume/tone controls. I like this setup a lot, but the switches are still too fragile (keep breaking them when installing them). The middle switch is currently only held together by friction... I'd say the result is 'workmanlike' and definitely not beautiful. Oh, and the knobs are going. Hate them - slippery and don't look great either. Got some black dome knobs with o-rings coming.

Have some extra-large images for the 'final' pictures. Shortly after taking these (the same afternoon) my pliers slipped off the trem spring and struck a 10cm gash into the back. I've not got over it yet. Haven't decided whether to sand it back flush and refinish, or just apply some finish to the 'wound' to minimise the visual impact and call it character.

In conclusion, it's been a really cool project - learnt an awful lot, experimented and tried new things to me. I'm genuinely pleased with the end result - it plays really well (specs below for anyone interested), the neck is fantastic, the action is low, string bends are easy and it sounds great. The P90s are brilliant for pretty much any genre I play (classic rock and blues through to 'classic' metal), and the controls make it incredibly versatile. Balance on a strap (only play standing) is great too. Main flaw when playing is that the lower bout impedes access to the upper frets for my massive hands. I can get my hand in there no trouble, but something I didn't consider when 'dry testing' this is how I move my hand when doing string bends and vibrato up there - not much room above the 17th fret, but doable.

Could be a lot worse than that!

Scale length: low E 670mm (26.4"), high E 660mm (26.0")

String spacing: 54mm bridge, 38.5mm at 'nut'

'Nut' width: 45.75mm

Tremolo system & locks: Nova Guitar Parts. Locked to dive only.

Switching system:

4PDT switch per pickup: parallel/off/series

4PDT switch master: 'solo' mode - bridge pickup bypassing all volume/tone controls

Controls:

Volume (CTS A250k, treble bleed, 1nF cap in parallel with 150k Ohm resistor)

Tone Cut (CTS A250k, 0.047uF cap)

Bass Cut (CTS B500K, 2nF cap)

Strings:

D'Addario EXL140 10 - 52 Light Top/Heavy Bottom

Tuning:

E Standard. Can't be arsed to faff around with the trem with anything other than Drop D at a push.

Weight:

3342g. Not as light as my initial aim (~3kg), but I could (and will when I can be bothered) remove a good amount from the oversized solid brass trem block which will probably take ~100g off that.

Thanks for coming along for the journey, and thanks for all the advice and encourgament along the way - I'll update from time to time as I inevitably change bits (coming soon, another switching scheme...)

PeteC

What a great build and a lovely looking geetar !! 

Nice to see some great skills on display during your build too    Enjoy it! 

WezV

That is really cool and different

DartmoorHedgehog

That's really nice indeed. I'm not much of a fan of headless guitars but I think I could make an exception for that one.

roberty

Amazing

longjaw

Very unique, look great!

Andyjr1515

Beautiful guitar.  Great build.  Top marks! 

TTony

Great work, and a really wow result.  Congratulations.

And thanks for sharing all the little details.  It's often quite inspiring to read these threads and see what people have done with their builds.  It then gets me thinking about what I could adopt to make my builds that bit more interesting.

MARVlN

Thanks all - having played it for a couple of weeks now, I'm really happy - the neck is especially good (thankfully!). Main 'problems' are with the trem floating it doesn't return to centre well, and the lower horn does impede access to upper frets more than I'd like. I've now made the trem dive only, and it's very stable. Will try one of the trem-setter style things and refloat, and will also remove the sharp edges from the saddles to prevent string hang-up. I'll also lighten the trem block whilst doing that.

I've also revised the control layout. It now goes:

4PDT switch master - 'solo' mode for bridge pickup (bypassing all controls), normal, 'solo' mode for neck pickup (bypassing all controls)

A250k push-pull volume potentiometer per pickup - switches each pickup on/off and allows blending. Wired Jazz-bass style so each volume is independent. Each has a treble bleed network.

A250k CTS Master Volume

A250k CTS Tone Cut

B500k CTS Bass Cut

It is a touch complex, but more resilient than the multi 4PDT switches, and I found I wasn't using the series switching at all. Most of the time the individual volumes are on full, but I do like being able to blend a bit of one of the other pickups in - to add a little more treble to the neck or add some bass to the bridge.

The bass cut is also incredibly useful - can get some pretty Stratty sounds, and is also great when playing metal with lots of gain - it tightens the bottom end up really well. I think all guitars should have this passive 'two band EQ'. Could be done on a concentric pot easily enough.

Any recommendations for a trem-setter device?