Second Home Made Guitar, 2000?

Solid Bubinga body made from 3 segments of the same 8/4 thick 7” wide quarter-sawn board. Neck is again a Warmoth factory second, and in fact that’s why the body is Bubinga… to match the neck I bought cheap. Pickups are PRS McCarty’s. They’re sweeter and softer than most modern humbuckers, but they have no problem sparkling through Weezer songs on a mesa dual rectifier. I put the 3 segments of the body onto a scale before glueing them together to make the body and realized I was quickly headed for a 10 lb guitar, which is crushingly heavy. That’s why I took the left body segment, turned it on its side, and using a drill press with a big forstner bit I hollowed out two large chambers into it. I then drilled into the face of the body the 4 and 3 holes you can see on the top. So you can stick your pinky into the biggest of the holes and feel the chamber. It helped a very, very little… the guitar is still a bruiser. Rear control cover is zebra wood, truss rod cover is a piece of neat figured wood I ripped off a pallet at work at the time, died with clear black analyne die.

What you get for all that weight, though, is killer sustain and a very tight, balanced tone. Not as sweet as mahogany would’ve been, closer to the bright slap of maple. Also it would make effective body armour in the event of a mass shooting. Nut is graphite, and this time I filed out the string chases myself by hand – first nut was already profiled, and I couldn’t find another one so I had to. Tuners are again sperzels, and there’s a lot less profiling on the body because after about 2 weeks of shaving and shaving and filing and sanding that rock hard bubinga I just fucking gave up. I wanted softer corves and deeper profiles, but that shit was just too strong and I eventually said Good Enough.


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Note the cover plate at the bottom of the neck... after I'd cut the neck pocket I realized I'd done the math wrong, and the bridge was too close to the neck. Scale would've been way off, too far to compensate for with the bridge saddles. Had to slide the neck out half an inch or so, which left a gap I had to then cover. AWHOOPS.

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"...I guess I'll just put my initials on it..."

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After sliding the neck out of the pocket, I felt better having 5 bolts instead of just 4, since the bottom 2 were barely all the way into the neck wood. Warmoth stamp is now peeking out like a tramp stamp. Hey grrrrl wasup.

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Tim: "Make a jig."
Me: Naw fuck it I'll just eyeball it or s-
Tim: "Make a jig."
Me: ...yeah ok.

He was right, shit came out nice and tight. I just free-handed this on paper, then went to thin ply, and then an inside/outisde collar jig for a hand held router.

DSCF0525 by gordopuggy, on Flickr

Thought it would be cool to draw a tele shape, but with no "neck" to the outside line at the neck spot, just a straight uninterrupted curve.

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Sorry for all these, last one coming up. Also I couldn't find one guitar, the mexi strat, I think it's under the guest bed or buried in a closet.

Ernie Ball Stingray Bass, 1991

At a back yard party one night in Athens in about 1997, I knew maybe 2 people: A guy named Nicky who also worked downtown, and a girl whose boyfriend was the occasion for the party. He had just graduated from Landscape Architecture school, and was moving to the west coast. I nursed cheap keg beer in a plastic cup for about an hour, kept to myself and wished I knew more people there. Finally, I overheard Architect saying to Nicky “hey man you want to buy it?” several times. Nicky kept saying “no.” Architect kept asking. Finally I leaned over and said “if you don’t mind me asking, what’s for sale?” A bass. What kind? Ernie Ball. Stingray? Yeah you know what those are? Sure I do – one humbucker or two? (1). Optional midrange knob or just the volume bass and treble? (no mid) How much? And here he thinks about it and says "I bought it new for $800, I have no idea what they go for now used, how about $350?" I kept a straight face as my brain happily announced “those are worth at least $600 used” to itself, clapping like a little girl at Disney Princesses On Ice. I asked a few more questions, and he said “actually if you have cash, I’d take $300.” Where do you live?

So the next afternoon I went straight from work to an ATM to his house. While I’m there he says “hey you want an amp too?” What kind? Galien Krueger, 400RB. Brain: “Worth $400 used.” Him: “I’d take $200 for it.” Be right back… ATM visit #2, got both for $500. I passed up on the 90’s fender 2x15 cab and the VW Microbus.



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Case Candy galore: here we see the bill of sale, the factory inspection sheet, the factory spec sheet, the hang tags, AND the salesman's card. ... So we know it went through factory inspection in San Louis Obispo on Feb 12, 1991. And less than 2 months later, he traded in something worth $77 bringing the sales price down from $800 to $723, on April 8th 1991.

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It's slightly greener than this in person. Evening light fooled my white balance and made things slightly bluer.

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Big, solid, original tuners stamped with their logo.

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Lovely birdseye figure on the whole neck.

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Poplar body, like my 88 strat. This is why most people don't use it on clear finish bodies - it's green/brown streaky.

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Felt pads can be raised up to mute strings, not unlike on 60's jags and jazz masters. A feature I would guess 0.00003% of buyers ever needed or used.

DSCF0557 by gordopuggy, on Flickr

Don't apologize dude. This has made my day.

yep.

yeah, don't apologize this is awesome and I specifically asked for it.

The snot Tele is out there as well...

Having been across the stage from these guys on many occasions, I think I agree with you that the blue Tele is my favorite: A tremendously versatile and great sounding guitar through almost any amp in almost any situation. The sunburst U.S. Strat will always hold a special place too because it + my old P Bass = our "sound" for a long damn time.

If I had to pick the guitars though that I wish existed as lefty's and lived in my garage I'd have to go with the Scroll and that one knob Jap Strat.

I think I've got some decent picks of the first homemade guitar when it was green clear coat. I'll try and track them down this weekend.

Also, re: your homemade guitars: No one with hands even slightly larger than yours could tolerate controls that close together, haha.

god i love guitars

I feel like my guitars go out of tune quicker than other guitars I play, is it possibly because I put the strings on wrong? Is there some obvious trick of the trade I don't know?

Do you stretch them out after you put them on?

I do, but I suppose I could do this more.

On bass I usually tune them up and then stretch the hell out of them. On guitar, I do that with the three low strings, the high strings i tune about half way then stretch. In all cases, after stretching once, I stretch again just for good measure.

I have no idea why or when i started doing this, but my guitars have always stayed in tune.

Stretching usually takes 95% of the problem out of strings. Other things that can still cause you problems:

- Binding in the nut slots. If strings stick in their slots as they go over the nut up in the headstock, then they will "hold" a state of tension after being bent sometimes. As you push down on strings and or actually bend notes, the strings need to slide through those slots back and forth. If they can't freely slide through there, then you get a problem.
- Slipping in the tuning heads. How do you wind up there? I assume you don't have any locking tuners, so how do you wrap strings? I feed through and leave enough slack that the finished product is goint to have made appx 1.5 rounds around the tuning key post down on the low E string, and I wrap them more times and the strings get smaller, so that the high E makes it around about 3 or 4 times. Also the path needs to be clean, where the string never doubles over itself on the post, it should wrap cleanly from the hole down around the post like screw threads, and "exit" the post at the bottom of the wrap (my opinion).

Oh I didn't tell you what to do about #1 if that's an issue... next time you change strings, take the end of the B string and use it to clean out the plain string slots. Shove the sharp end of it carefully through there and scratch / push out any crap. For the wound satrings, I just take the old string itself and "saw" it gently through a few times, being careful not to actually deepen the slot. Then drop a tiny bit of whatever oil you've got around in it.

PS - Here's the deluxe plus and the amp I built. Had to keep it quiet, daughter was napping. But a homebrew or two in I thought "I should see what it sounds like on video."

great stuff, thanks for the advice. I think I wind them too many times around and they totally criss-cross on top of each other on the high strings.

Yeah that might do it. As they get tugged on, the windings would slip and release some tension. Wind too little, though, and they can pull back through the hole! Especially high E.

I've only been playing guitar since 1989, so forgive me that I don't yet know the basics.

ha ha, me too. Lemme see, I guess yeah exactly 1989, when I was 13. I still learn new shit every year, and I also still have some bad / lazy habits. You wouldn't believe how many people don't wind strings well. Locking tuners help a shitload, too. Just 1 turn around the post and lock it down, clip off all but an inch of the loose end of the string, bend that loose end with some pliers so it doesn't poke anything, tune up and you're done in like half the time.

My parents bought me a undersized classical for Hanukkah in 1989, two of the tuning pegs no longer work but it still sounds kinda awesome with an open tuning on the remaining 4.

I gave up on my first guitar, also a classical, also with stripped tuning pegs. I threw it into a dumpster myself. I was sad, but I wanted to mvoe on.

Biking back from the polls I passed a new shop that appears to be boutique guitars, amps, and pedals. Blinds were down but I could still make out a double neck SG, a buncha strats, and something VERY custom with a P90 bridge and a mini-bucker turned at an angle in the neck.

Those bodes ill for my finances.

I have been saving up for my 69 reissue Tele Thinline for a while now. But the shop is getting a few of these things in and they are just too damn pretty not to check out.
Dayum.