Wednesday 7 September 2011

Adding brass and wood

Got the steel box straightened and reinforced plus the arm rest, leg support and strap horn carved from scrap mahogany. It's all in a very rough state, but I expect it to be ready for neck, bridge, tuners and pickup in a week or so.

It's very easy to adjust or move the wooden pieces to allow for different playing positions. That can be useful when making other, less modular, bodies at a later time.

I'm considering a rustication process for certain areas of the wooden parts, but I have to get the guitar playable first.

9 comments:

rolf said...

Awsome rough look! Mahogny?

Unknown said...

I neither have the talent nor the patience for anything _but_ the rough look ;-)

Yes, mahogany scrap kindly donated by the local staircase factory. The pieces were not much bigger than the components are now, so the random shape of the scrap imposed some limitations on the design. I hope to get my hands on some cheap scrap of other interesting wood speices... walnut, wenge, birch burl, elm.... heck, even OSB could be fun to try.

Unknown said...

Btw, Rolf, I thought about oiling the wooden parts to protect them and give them darker and prettier color. But would that be a bad idea, considering that I'm probably going to shape them further with flapdisc, rasp, file, etc. Would the oil make the pieces less workable?

Kåre said...

This is good. Reminds me off something, but i don't remember what, maybe a machine of some kind.

Unknown said...

A shotgun or rifle? That's the style I'd like to go for, with (planned) walnut wood parts, blued body and the forearm rest of the guitar resembling the cheek rest on a gun stock.

But first, I'm putting a gun strap and swivels on it instead of the normal strap buttons.

rolf said...

You guitar looks awsome! Grats!
About the oiling - yes, it will make them less workable. But if you wait untill the oil has dried, it should be ok. You can clean your tools with an iron brush.
Looking forward to play this monster :)

Unknown said...

Thanks for the advice. And I look forward to your opinion on it.

Nick Zen said...

hi. nico from jakarta. awesome creation!! ive been thinking of grabing a saw and do sumtin to my old S type like custom guitar. its been hanging in my head for quite sum time now. i want sumtin like a headless neck , but with modified body. a f\very simple form comsist only a neck and bridge, without head and body ^^. urs is almost exactly like what i have in my mind! bbut without the body ^^. i think i want to try to build 1 ,taking sum of your ideas if u dont mind ^^. the ideas is : a very sumple guitar, d\that can be carried in our back using a kind of strap, very light, able to make an acoustic sounds too, but still got a pick up(s) with it.
but i've come up with a creation sumtime about 6 years ago. my "other" old guitar - a yamaha GRX , have been modified to only have 1 pickup; but its slideable , so it can be use as the bridge PU, or a neck PU ^^. it works kinde funny though ^^. some of my friends were awed seeing that thing :p .

Unknown said...

Hi Nico

It sounds like you're after something like a Steinberger, i.e. mostly a stick. A nice idea - easy to bring when travelling, and easy to play in a casual setting.

Be careful if you decide to cut op your strat, that you leave enough wood around the pickup cavities for the body to be able to bear the pull of the strings.

Please use any of my ideas. And let me know how it works.

/Alex