Jump to content

Build #2


pukko

Recommended Posts

Here´s my second build. This is in progress, so I´ll show what I´ve done so far...

This guitar wasn´t suppose to happen at all, but when I visited my grandparents summer house I found some nicely figured birch in my grandpas woodworking shed. It wasn´t big enough for a whole neck, so I split it in two and laminated it with a strip of oak that I found as well. Later I found a 2"x4" spruce plank that looked pretty free from knots, and it was really old and dry. I figured I could make a body out of that, so I made a two piece blank. I traded a strat pickguard for a piece of rosewood for the fretboard, and then I had all the wood needed for a guitar. Almost all of it from my grandpa, that´s pretty cool.

Here are the blanks for the project:

DSC01684.jpg

Someone told me that birch can be a little unstable, so I decided to reinforce the neck with some graphite rods: http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01691.jpg

Headstock roughly shaped, the wood on the front is being removed so the chipping doesnt matter:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01691.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 104
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

The body has been shaped. As you can see it´s some kind of Mosrite meets SG body with a slimmed down Firebird headstock, or something... The body design was made by tracing my PRS and reversing it, changing the horns a lot and so forth.

DSC01697.jpg

Fretboard glued on, routing for binding done: http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01702.jpg

Here´s what the inlay will look like, the neck is now bound: http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01769.jpg

The body has been carved and the inlay is done: http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01780.jpg

The neck has been carved:

DSC01866.jpg

Here´s some of the hardware:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01891.jpg

The body has been routed and bound, and the neck has been stained.

DSC01929.jpg

Front: http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01922.jpg

Back: http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m283/pukko2/DSC01925.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow. Amazing, simply amazing.

I'll second that for sure. Well done.

Thanks!

Xanthus Posted Today, 03:46 AM

Oh wow, that is HIGH quality! I love the colors, paint, everything! How did you do that lettering, a decal?

Thank you very much! The lettering and the dots on the headstock is spraypainted using a lasercut (I think) masking film made by a very good guitar builder who is active on the same Swedish guitar forum as I am.

It's like a piece of tape that is laser cut, and it has protective tape on both sides. You just peel off the protective on the sticky side, stick it to the headstock and remove the other protective tape. Very simple and effective. I was thinking about making a decal with a printer and decal paper, but that's hard when the headstock is black. It doesn't work with an ordinary printer, and I didn't have access to one of those special printers that I can't remember what they're called...

redwhiteandthemaple Posted Today, 05:19 AM

Simplicity at its best. I just love the flow and the touch! And how it still retains the beauty of wood.

I'm jealous you can still work outside in November, as soon as it turns about Oct., my garage turns into... well, a garage... well before it was a 'woodshop'..

Thanks! The body will be painted i solid dark red, though. There were some imperfections in the wood on the top side that I had to fill with epoxy, and I don't think it would look good to stain it then. I'm using spray cans, so a burst is also out of my league, that could have worked otherwise. The outside pics are actually from mid october, but it shouldn't be possible to work outside then either. It's been an extremely warm September/October in Sweden, lucky me since the workshop i'm using is 100 kilometers away...

fryovanni Posted Today, 05:36 AM

You hit a home run dude!. I love how you got the wood. I dig the wood combination. That body, headstock, and overall design seriously is great. Very tasteful. If I saw that guitar in a store I would want to give it a test run Great for you! I hope you are very proud of it, as you should be.

Peace,Rich

Thanks a lot! That's a good thing designwise that someone wants to try it by just seeing it, cool! I just hope it will be playable too, first time making a neck... It's going to be interesting to hear how it sounds considering the unusual wood combination, I really have no idea what to expect.

eddiewarlock Posted Today, 06:59 AM

awesome, that guitar makes me want to move to sweden even more!! simply amazing!! and that pine looks almost like ash, very clean job, BTW do you get your supplies from touchstone tone woods?

Thanks! Don't move to Sweden now though, it's getting really cold and dark now... Yes, it looks like ash, but without the open grain, not a lot of grain filling to do. Is it called pine? I'm not sure what it's called, it's the same wood as acoustic guitar tops are made of, the tree you have as a Christmas tree... The swedish variety is usually no good for acoustics though, not closegrained enough as you can see. No, for this guitar I found most of the wood around the summer house, I got the rosewood from a carpenter/guitar builder I got to know through a Swedish forum. The wood for my first build was bought from a local wood shop. Where is Touchstone located? I thought about buying wood from the US, but the shipping to Sweden gets really expensive.

Desopolis Posted Today, 07:40 AM

wow I really like the birch neck..

cant wait to see the body!

Thanks! I'm painting the body right now, I'll post pictures when I'm done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks! I'm painting the body right now, I'll post pictures when I'm done.

Yep, what you have is pine! Very nice build, especially for a second build!

Oh, and i love your design!

Edited by Maiden69
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep, what you have is pine! Very nice build, especially for a second build!

Oh, and i love your design!

Thanks! I've looked at some pine/spruce pictures, and it seems that sometimes the word pine is used (at least in the US) for the tree that I call spruce...

This is a Swedish spruce which I'm using:

piceabi4.jpg

And this is a Swedish pine:

pinusyl14.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is one sweet guitar! that is really your first neck?!?!!? very well done! the whole thing is looking retro-tastic :D

Thanks! Yes, it's the first neck I've built. On my first build I used a paddlehead neck and shaped the headstock myself, but I know now that's nothing compared to building one from scratch. We'll see if it works as well as it looks...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you very much! The lettering and the dots on the headstock is spraypainted using a lasercut (I think) masking film made by a very good guitar builder who is active on the same Swedish guitar forum as I am.

It's like a piece of tape that is laser cut, and it has protective tape on both sides. You just peel off the protective on the sticky side, stick it to the headstock and remove the other protective tape. Very simple and effective.

And also a PG member :D

Actually its cut with a vinyl cutter/plotter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you very much! The lettering and the dots on the headstock is spraypainted using a lasercut (I think) masking film made by a very good guitar builder who is active on the same Swedish guitar forum as I am.

It's like a piece of tape that is laser cut, and it has protective tape on both sides. You just peel off the protective on the sticky side, stick it to the headstock and remove the other protective tape. Very simple and effective.

And also a PG member :D

Actually its cut with a vinyl cutter/plotter.

Yep, that´s right! I didn't know your username here though until I found the Guitar of the month archive... Big thanks to JFC, he helped out with masking stuff on the first build as well.

In swedish (sorry everybody else): Jag mailade dig förut om du ville ha nåt pröjs för loggorna, men det kanske fastnade i mailkrånglet du hade. Om du inte vill ha cash så har jag har några svarta GFS-micksargar liggande om du vill ha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very very nice clean build there Pukko. It also reminds me of an ESP/LTD guitar which I wished I had bought when my wife could get crazy near-trade prices. The model is the JP-600 and can be found here -> http://www.espguitars.com/guitars_jardel.html

Yours definitely has that monochrome Mosrite vibe about it for sure. Very stylish!

Hey Slabbefusk - I didn't realise you were Swedish :-D

I'm itching to do a similar scorching technique as you did to your RG a few moons back.

To comment on the "is there a lot of birch in Sweden..." well, last time I was in Finland (visiting family) you couldn't MOVE for the trees :-D It's like, a land of trees interspersed with water and occasional concentrations of Finns who gather purely to drink beer.

Karhu-A!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah! Another swede! Välkommen till forumet! Skitsnygg gitarr!

(Welcome to the board, nice guitar etc.)

Thanks! Bugar och bockar!

Prostheta Posted Today, 05:11 PM

Very very nice clean build there Pukko. It also reminds me of an ESP/LTD guitar which I wished I had bought when my wife could get crazy near-trade prices. The model is the JP-600 and can be found here -> http://www.espguitars.com/guitars_jardel.html

Yours definitely has that monochrome Mosrite vibe about it for sure. Very stylish!

Hey Slabbefusk - I didn't realise you were Swedish :-D

I'm itching to do a similar scorching technique as you did to your RG a few moons back.

To comment on the "is there a lot of birch in Sweden..." well, last time I was in Finland (visiting family) you couldn't MOVE for the trees :-D It's like, a land of trees interspersed with water and occasional concentrations of Finns who gather purely to drink beer.

Karhu-A!

Thanks! That ESP was cool! You're right, if that was reversed it would look like mine (or the other way around, really...)

At least the Finns use the birch, they have to have a lot of it. I mean, they have to fire up the saunas with something, whipping themselves with birch twigs, drinking Karhu, Koff... He he, me like!

WezV Posted Today, 05:50 PM

Very nice build!!

Thanks!

biliousfrog Posted Today, 05:35 PM

That neck is amazing...the figure, the shape, the logo, the binding...it all works so well together. You should feel very proud, first neck & it's quite simply great!

Thanks! I'm kind of nervous about it though, what if it plays like crap? At least it has jumbo frets, so I have some material to work with when it's time for the fretjob. Starts out jumbo, ends up like a Fretless Wonder...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...