This is my first thread on this board, although I have been keeping an eye one the goings-on for quite a while. I am a French musician and I initially turned to building guitars out of necessity - I needed a decent instrument when I got back to playing guitar with my band after a five-year hiatus during which I was playing the saxophone full time, but didn't have any money to buy one. My dad is retired a cabinet maker and I had access to all the tools I needed in his workshop. The result was this:
...a Strat/Jazzmaster hybrid, with a Strat pickup in the neck and a P90 in the bridge. I had an awful Squier with a decent neck knocking about, which provided the neck and bridge. The body was made in rock-heavy mahogany.
I liked the building process so much I decided to do it again (classic story of addiction!). I also learnt how to wind pickups in the meantime - one of the few perks in being an unemployed struggling musician is that one has a lot of time on one's hands.
Onto the Anthony Paine part now. I hope he won't mind my fanboy spiel here, but Harvester Guitars have been an endless source of admiration and inspiration for me since I discovered them. His designs are incredibly well thought and fun, and his approach really was a big part in my deciding to take the step and build my own instruments. I also like the fact he shares a lot of his thoughts and processes on the internet. I plan on ordering my own Harvester as soon as I have the funds for it, but in the meantime, I borrowed his Kay-inspired headstock shape and blending of materials for this build.
So. The body was based on the Fano PX6, with the neck pushed inwards a bit and the horns shaved accordingly. I am still really scared of making my own necks, so I used that of a nicely-made but godawful-sounding and -looking Blade Durango Standard. Everything else was pretty much homemade - a couple of Jazzmaster pickups, slightly overwound for more overall sweetness (8.3k in the neck and 9k in the bridge), a Dano-inspired triangular bridge of my own design (welded by my dad's metalworker neighbor in exchange for a bit of roofing work on his house) with three Wilkinson compensated tele saddles, and stainless steel pickguard with matching neckplate and headplate (more on this later). Pots are 1K with a DPDT switch for pickup selection as well as a TDPT switch for series wiring of the pickups. My dad convinced me to try apricot wood for the body, as he had a stash of it that had been drying since the 80's in a corner of his workshop.
(sorry for all the pictures!)
Starting point:
The bridge...
Neck pocket and pickup slots routed...
Leftover stainless steel from the neighbour for the scratcplate...
Taking a breath of, well, not so fresh (116°F) French countryside air outside the shop:
Neck and bridge adjusted:
Control cavity routed:
Finishing the pickguard:
Drilling that apricot wood felt like drilling metal -
Fashioning of a table router iron for the contouring:
Reshaping of that ugly headstock:
Making the head plate:
Body contoured & fitting of the scratchplate + electronics:
Mattress foam under the pickups:
And...voilà !
And the inevitable footshot:
It is a bit on the heavy side - that apricot wood wasn't very light to start with - but it's completely manageable. It has a nice, medium-heavy resonance when unplugged, and a really cool array of sounds once plugged in. The saddles worked nicely at sweetening the 1k pots, and sustain is really good. I'll post a video as soon as I get around to recording one.
Sorry for that very long first post - I had a lot of fun making this one, and I can't wait getting started on the next (shortscale bass, and I'll be making my own neck this time)!
S.
