Guitar Build Project

Roomic Cube

So I had an old SX strat copy, standard black, decided i'm going to give the whole thing an overhaul make it into a bit of a project....

gave the electrics a bit of a check they are alright, but i'll probably replace them

in the process of sanding the body


so I'm thinking of a light varnish for the body just to seal it, anyone recommend me any products to use? based in waterford....

also anyone know anywhere good for picking up electronics and some alright pickups, or maybe even a loaded pickguard or something!

possibly thinking of putting a tele style neck on the strat body, not sure yet, if any of you have ideas for me or your own build projects post! I couldnt find a thread for this type of thing....

paddylonglegs

would love to do this...

haven't even played an electric in quite a while though so would need to alot of research again to get myself back into the structure of an electric.

Just finished building a coffee table and tv stand though recently and used Woodoc's varnishes.I gues its like a french polish or whatever but got a great finish and the grain really popped out. I'd say give the lads in woodcraft a shout on this.

When I had to buy a low budget electric I used to just change the pick-ups to a higher quality one to get a better sound.would be intereste to see how you get on with this though

wild turkey

Heres a few parts suppliers

http://store.guitarfetish.com/

http://www.axesrus.com/axecart.htm

http://www.axetec.co.uk/axetec%20guitar%20parts%20spares%20pickups_102.htm


http://stores.ebay.com/The-STRATosphere__W0QQ_nkwZguitarQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_ipgZQQ_sasiZ1?_kw=guitar&_fcid=99&_localstpos=&_sasi=1&_sid=105525814&_sticky=1&_stpos=&gbr=1

Have fun


heres a bit of inspiration

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=1252015

Roomic Cube

thanks for those, i'll probably buy the electrics kit from there

punchdrunk

for finish i'd say sand it back a bit,if it's alder you can skip the sanding sealer
then either use danish oil rub on finish for a quick and easy solution which looks well

or if you want something harder wearing then just get a can of spray varnish from halfords,if you do go the halfords route then use 1200 grit wet and dry sandpaper between coats and build up 4/5 coats for a far better looking and longer lasting finish

Roomic Cube

punchdrunk wrote: »

for finish i'd say sand it back a bit,if it's alder you can skip the sanding sealer
then either use danish oil rub on finish for a quick and easy solution which looks well

or if you want something harder wearing then just get a can of spray varnish from halfords,if you do go the halfords route then use 1200 grit wet and dry sandpaper between coats and build up 4/5 coats for a far better looking and longer lasting finish

yeah i've read about that rub on finish stuff, is it any good? im sorta going for the non gloss look so maybe that'd be the right way to go,

trying to get hold of a telecaster neck, proving rather difficult

punchdrunk

just so you know the heel of the strat and tele are a different shape
a tele heel is more square and would need a bit of a mod to work

eh I've used danish oil on a squier neck and it was silky smooth and turned out a nice satin colour!

Roomic Cube

its funny, the slot for the neck on this body is rather square, the neck that it came with was more rounded at the heel, you can see the shape in the pic actually

bitta dremmel/router action would sort it out though

think i may put a neat toggle kill switch in there

kranog

You can check out the work I did on my old strat copy.
I got all the parts from eBay for very little...200 blips all together and they were al very high quality parts.
The guitar plays and sounds like a dream!
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055683092

I think a place called Dragonfire or something made tehe strat pot harness for me...it's excellent.

Roomic Cube

awesome i'll take photos as i go, and i had a look at some site called dragonfireguitars, might come in rather handy cheers!

FruscianteFan

Well first off well done for taking that poly finish off, thats tough stuff!

I have used teak oil on my guitars and found it great. Its really easy to get, b&Q, homebase etc. It gives a nice sheen to the wood where it actually feels like wood, not plastic or anything!

Be very careful with the neck pocket as if you remove wood you will change the distance between the nut and saddles and change the scale length. Depending on how much you remove you might not be able to compensate for it at the bridge. You would probably be better off getting a strat neck and just cutting the tele headstock shape into it!

Looks great so far though! Its probably a basswood body so I think you should be all right without sanding sealer, if you are doing an oil finish you wont need it anyway! You could also use tru-oil on it but that would give more of a glossy finish!

Roomic Cube

yeah that sounds cool, im not looking for gloss, more of a satin if anything, just something to coat the wood give it a nice smooth finish

Roomic Cube

so one question I have is what are the ramifications of using a strat body/bridge with a tele neck, will the nut and bridge match up ok etc, any info i should keep in mind?


so i picked up this little thing today, its a 2 way mini toggle, so im going to use this as my killswitch


I want to wire this in the position it is in the lil pic below, im going to create a little cavity and holes for wiring and a little hole in the pick guard.


I'd like to wire in this kill switch without using the input jack, how do I go about it, anyone have a decent diagram, or change my one there

landsleaving

Just an aside, but would a momentary push button switch, rather than a large toggle not work better?

As in this video:

Roomic Cube

it's just personal preference, i dont like the buttons, i prefer the morello style setup

68 lost souls

THe one problem I see is that you are not connecting to ground when switch is off you are just breaking the circuit and leaving it open, this will give you problems including buzz/hum.

Roomic Cube

well the off would be going to ground, either a separate new ground, or the ground on the bottom of a pot

68 lost souls

That circuit is not broken though because it is wired in parrelel. The diagram you need is more like this.

Or you can have a spdt switch and have the hot output on the top lug and leave out the right hand side. You only have 2 lugs on that switch which means it an on/off switch rather then an on/on and it breaks the circuit by leaving the circuit open rather then wiring it to ground. This creates essentially an antenna and will give you hum when turned off.

Roomic Cube

so if i was going to go with a mini toggle, id need three lugs? they had one with three, it'll be cheap enough to get

68 lost souls

I cant remember if Ive gotten away with a spdt switch before, gimme a while to figure out the wiring. The other option you havve is one of these which are great.

http://www.shadow-electronics.com/viewart.html?id=309&search=1

In theory an spdt on/on should work. The hot output to the jack goes to the middle lug instead of the jack, the left lug goes to the hot tip of the jack and the right goes to a ground. That would then mean that the live signal would be going to ground and completely die. In theory, should work.

Roomic Cube

ok cool, keep me posted anyway, electrics are on their way now and the body has been fully sanded

Roomic Cube

so my guitar electrics arrived today, got one of the wired pickguards from guitar fetish, i'll post up pics later

im going to remove the wiring to the jack that comes with this, the wiring on the jack i have is proper clothed 22 guage

Edit:




thats where i'm at so far, body is ready for a coat of oil or varnish now....

Roomic Cube

drilled the holes for the killswitch today

landsleaving

Sorry to hijack the thread a bit, but I'm installing a killswitch as well, as I said in another thread, and just want to confirm the exact wiring before I go ahead if anyone can help.

I have this switch:

Is this ok? I believe its a DPDT, but I can't remember because I threw out the little packet it came in

And if so, do I wire it like this?


Where the black is where the lugs are soldered to each other, the yellow goes to the volume pot/ground, the green goes to the output jack ground and the red to the output jack hot.

Finally is this wire ok?:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=6187&OrderCode=BL85G
Or would I need something a little thicker/stronger?

Overature

i would give that wook body a nice polish with bees wax

Roomic Cube

thats alright lands, this is info im going to need anyway, although, I got an SPDT switch so I'm also wondering what the diagram for that would be like, or if i'd be better off just getting a DPDT instead