Thursday, February 19, 2009

I have a plan!

So the plans for the guitar came in the post on Teusday. This is basically this huge sheet of paper that has 1:1 scaling prints of the guitar. neck, body side view, wiring, everything. Even lists all the parts the guitar is made of. Pics.

This is the body template, and how it should look after electronics are in.
Body Template Finished

This is a few neck diagrams. Tuning pegs, headstock, nut placement, radius, its all there.
Neck Diagrams

This is the body with routing and drill spots
Body Template Routs

Only unfortunate thing about the plans is that I'm doing three single coil pickups instead of two humbuckers. Also, I may do a bolt-on neck as opposed to set neck, or I may do a through neck, which basically means that the wood for the neck goes all the way down from the neck and into the body, so in a way the neck takes up a third of the body, if that makes sense.

once I figure out what neck I want to go with, I'll order the wood.
Sorry it's taking so long!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Building a guitar.

So, I'm building a guitar. At first I wasn't sure if I was doing this just as a weird little week-long obsession, but after a month of seriously thinking about it, I'm going to do it.
What I want it to be:
Solid Lacewood body. Lacewood looks like this. As you can tell, it looks awesome. It has a balanced sound, more bright than completely balanced though. If you read my last post, you can compare it to Alder. Similar tonal qualities. It obviously has a different look, and its heavier, which is why I'm getting it.
Single coils with a VooDoo Strat configuration. I know you aren't going to understand it, so I'll say this. A normal Strat looks like this. Notice the pickups, and how the one pickup at the left is angled. The lower part of the pickup is angled more left instead of being parallel to the other strings. Now look at this guitar, its the VooDoo Strat. Its modelled after Jimi Hendrix. Look at the same pickup. Notice the angle change? This will give the guitar the unique Hendrix sound. So the notes on the higher strings will be more bass, and the notes on the lower strings will have a more powerful treble. That's what I'm doing.
The body I'm going to design the guitar is the Gibson Firebird. This guitar is such an awesome, vintage looking guitar. I'm also going to put a reverse headstock on it. You won't understand this (Probably), so I'll just explain it. If you look at the top of the guitar where the tuning pegs are, you are looking at the headstock. Now imagine the same headstock shape, but flipped, so the curve and pegs are on the other side.
Now for the colour I'm planning on it being. I'm going to do one of two things, and this is where I really really need your guys' comments. Like seriously. Ok, so I can either do a clear gloss finish, so the guitar will end up looking like this. Or I can do a stained red finish, so it will look like this (But with lacewood of course). If I do this, it will be dark red. In fact, it will basically look like my Washburn guitar (Blue guitar, second post), but red and on lacewood. So please, tell me what you guys think.
The colours I'm choosing also changes other things. If I want a clear gloss body I will use gold hardware. So the tuning pegs, the tremolo bridge, and the pickup rings will all be gold. If I go red, they will all be chrome/silver.
So that's basically my new project. Now to get enough money to do it. :P
Thanks for reading, and again, please comment with feedback and ideas.