After years of making my own Strat clones, my father and I (he is 78 and I'm 57-- in case anyone is wondering) are starting an offset guitar project!
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A little history on this: Back in about 1973 or 1974, when I was a young teenager, my dad found (what we believe to be) a Hopf Telstar in a pawn shop. It had some damage to the body and it was $20. That was a lot of money for my dad back then, but he bought it. At first (and for many years, we didn't even know what brand of guitar it was; it had no name on it at all. The only clue was that under the pickguard, everything was written in German. It had 3 Schaller single coils, switches and roller knobs everywhere, a mute on the bridge, zero fret ebony fretboard, laminate neck, Fender Strat-ish style headstock, and was extremely cool. For years, my dad thought that it was a Framus, because that was one of the two German brands that he knew of. Framus and Hofner. Well, the only Hofner he knew about was Paul McCartney's bass, and this guitar certainly looked nothing like that, so he concluded that it was a Framus. (Since then, with the advent of the internet and looking at literally thousand's of German made offset guitars, we have concluded that it was a Hopf Telstar - BUT it was different than ANY Telstar that we have yet seen. Different control layout and a couple of other things...
Then about 1980 or so, my little brother decided he wanted to learn guitar and borrowed it from my dad. While in my brothers care, it was stolen from him. My dad was heartbroken. He has scoured the pawn shops religiously since then (yes, he's been to every pawn shop in the area pretty much monthly for 37 or so years) and he's NEVER seen it again.
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As I've said, we've looked on the internet and have looked at many many German offset guitars, with the intention of buying one to replace it, but now, the prices are higher than my dad likes, SOooooo we decided to build one.
We found a First Act Strat style (ME-300) guitar and are using that as a donor. When I disassembled it, I was pleasantly surprised that the body (while crudely routed) was not plywood and is actual real wood! And the neck is pretty solid in it's own right! The electronics are junk (as expected), as are the tuners, but we can re-use the bridge (non-tremolo) and a few other odds and ends.
OK, on to some photos:
Here is what we started with:
Here are a couple of drawings of what we're looking to accomplish:
The exact pickup choice has yet to be determined. We are thinking about using an H-S-H arrangement, and have kicked around the idea of a Filtertron in the bridge, some sort of single coil in the middle, and a DeArmond style pickup in the neck. But we are (or should I say, my dad is) changing that on a daily basis!
Regardless, there will be Jazzmaster style roller knobs/pots above each pickup that will be Volume for each pickup; in the upper horn area will be a 5-way switch; below each pickup will be an On/Off slider switch; Strat-esque 3 knob arrangement that will be Tone for each pickup; and in the lower "horn" area will be a Master On/Off. Wiring is going to be a bugger, because I know of no guitar that has this exact arrangement, so if any of you wiring gurus can help me out on that, I'd be grateful!
Anyway, here's what we are up to and any comments or suggestions are welcome!
