Project completed. Thank you thread

Talk about modding or building your own guitar from scratch.
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hillerheilman
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Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by hillerheilman » Wed Dec 12, 2018 3:08 pm

Hey all. I've been inactive on the forum for a long time, but a little over a year ago I started this project to design a guitar that's comfortable for me to play seated due to a disability. Anyway, after all this time, several techs(some of whom tried to pull shenanigans unfortunately), pickup changes and LOTS of money, I think I finally got it close to where I want it. Once I have something better than my current barely functional squier bass amp to work with I'll try and put up sound clips, but for now I'll get you guys some pictures.

Specs are:
Roasted maple/ maccasar ebony neck from Warmoth (, 24 inch scale, 12 inch radius, 6150 SS frets, Fatback profile)

Pickups all from Jamie at the Creamery (baby 71/ classic 53 p90/ baby 71)

6 way rotary selection (all standard strat combinations + neck and bridge)

Triple shot switches on the humbuckers for split and series/parallel

Push/push phase switch on neck humbucker

Mastery trem and staytrem bridge

And of course the custom body, pickguard and control plate, made for me by user Deed-Poll.
Image

Image

Image

Image



I'd like to thank Deed-Poll from the bottom of my heart for this. It really is perfect. Sure, I had to put in work to get it there, but without him this wouldn't be a thing. So if you see this, thank you so much, sir. I'm very grateful.
I'd also like to thank Shadoweclipse13 for the help he offered with the wiring. I should also thank everyone who commented and gave help/feedback on this in general, as well as the people who run the forum for making it possible for me to get in contact with the fine folks who made this possible.

I'm seriously grateful, everyone. I'd buy you all a drink if I could.
I'm gonna go put this thing through it's paces now.

~Hiller

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Deed_Poll
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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by Deed_Poll » Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:46 pm

Hey Hiller! Great to hear from you again :)

That really came out fantastic. I love the finish, it really works with the tortoise guard perfectly. Is it like a Mary Kay / Butterscotch Blonde sunburst?

Man it was a pleasure to work on it with you from start to finish, I am likewise always grateful to the wonderful people like yourself (and Shadoweclipse13 as well, among others!) who have allowed me to do what I love. So a thousand times more thanks back at you :)

Luthiers and guitar techs are sadly a mixed bag eh! They're like car mechanics though. You might have a few misses at first but once you find a hit, one you like and trust who's on the same wavelength, you'll never go to anyone else and never have to worry about it again! It doesn't help that people look for different things and setup is all very subjective, which isn't to say there aren't good and bad guys out there (there definitely are!) just that it adds another variable that can be hard to peg down.

All the best to you as well, sir! I hope she serves you well :)

Cheers!

Dan
Owner Operator of GuitarForm - Custom Offset Guitar Bodies
www.guitarform.com ◈ @guitar_form

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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by HNB » Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:50 pm

Lovely looking guitar. Glad you have one that works so well for you, :)
Christopher
Lilith Guitars

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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by Shadoweclipse13 » Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:46 pm

Love it! Glad everything worked out for you! Anytime, on the wiring help buddy ;)
Pickup Switching Mad Scientist
http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=104282&p=1438384#p1438384

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hillerheilman
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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by hillerheilman » Thu Dec 13, 2018 3:10 pm

Deed_Poll wrote:
Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:46 pm
Hey Hiller! Great to hear from you again :)

That really came out fantastic. I love the finish, it really works with the tortoise guard perfectly. Is it like a Mary Kay / Butterscotch Blonde sunburst?

Man it was a pleasure to work on it with you from start to finish, I am likewise always grateful to the wonderful people like yourself (and Shadoweclipse13 as well, among others!) who have allowed me to do what I love. So a thousand times more thanks back at you :)

Luthiers and guitar techs are sadly a mixed bag eh! They're like car mechanics though. You might have a few misses at first but once you find a hit, one you like and trust who's on the same wavelength, you'll never go to anyone else and never have to worry about it again! It doesn't help that people look for different things and setup is all very subjective, which isn't to say there aren't good and bad guys out there (there definitely are!) just that it adds another variable that can be hard to peg down.

All the best to you as well, sir! I hope she serves you well :)

Cheers!

Dan
Yeah, I was going for a sort of mary kay/ blonde type thing. I didn't remotely know what I was doing at the time, but I think it turned out okay. Although it's not anywhere near the quality of some of the finishes I've seen on the forum. I didn't have any spray equipment, so I used a bunch of preval spray cans. After I filled the grain with black filler and sealed it, I sprayed it with clear nitro mixed with white pigment from StewMac. Weirdly, while the body was white, it turned the grain this sort of bright baby blue color. To rectify that, I took some vintage amber dye and diluted it way down with lacquer and did a few coats, then several clear coats. That gave me what you see now. My hope is that over time it'll yellow naturally to something closer to what the p90 is currently.

Totally get what you're saying about techs and luthiers. The last guy I took it to before it was actually completed told me he could get it playable, held onto it for six months, did nothing except ruin several components (including a pickup :fp: ) and then just gave it back to me after I protested being charged anything.
Fortunately though, I ended up replacing the original duncan bridge and middle pickups with the current ones from The Creamery as a consequence, so it all worked out in the end. Ended up taking it to an older local gentleman who got it done very quickly, and offered to do anything else I needed done in the future upon request.

Once again, thank you so much Dan. I'm very grateful, Especially after not having anything to play for so long, it really is a joy to play this thing. I'm sure it'll be a breeze to work off the rust and re learn how to play after all this time.
HNB wrote:
Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:50 pm
Lovely looking guitar. Glad you have one that works so well for you, :)
Thank you! I'm very glad as well of course.
Shadoweclipse13 wrote:
Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:46 pm
Love it! Glad everything worked out for you! Anytime, on the wiring help buddy ;)
I appreciate it! I really hope it'll be awhile before GAS kicks in and I wanna start another project, for the sake of my wallet. :D I'll certainly keep that in mind though.

As a side note for anyone interested, I was worried about the p90 in the middle being a nuisance, but it actually gives me quite a nice spot to rest my hand. Surprisingly, positions 2, 4 and 6 are actually my favorite, even through my beginner bass amp I had laying around. Speaking of, I'm going to hop over to the amp section and see if I can't get some recommendations for something better.

Thanks all!
~Hiller

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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by AcrylicSuperman » Sat Dec 15, 2018 10:06 pm

Looks like a sweet axe!

I am currently on a disability guitar quest myself. Definitely a pain when what is considered normal is no longer normal for you. I'm glad it came together for you.

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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by hillerheilman » Mon Dec 17, 2018 5:25 pm

AcrylicSuperman wrote:
Sat Dec 15, 2018 10:06 pm
Looks like a sweet axe!

I am currently on a disability guitar quest myself. Definitely a pain when what is considered normal is no longer normal for you. I'm glad it came together for you.
Thank you! I can definitely relate to that. Being both disabled and left handed myself, finding something that works can definitely be one royal P.I.T.A.
I don't know how much help I can be with this since I don't know exactly what your situation is or how far along you are with the project, but I'll try and offer what advice I can from the experience.
The first thing I'd suggest if you're trying to come up with a shape that works is to take some cardboard and try to cut it into a shape that sits the way you'd want it to(assuming you're playing seated) and then layer more cardboard to get the thickness you like, add contours, and so on until you get something comfortable. This, I think, is what Deed_Poll initially suggested I do to get a rough idea of what I need.
After you get something roughed out body wise I'd start thinking about what other ways your particular disability will affect your playing aside from the body not being comfortable in whatever position you need it. Again, I can't give specific advice for your situation, but here's what I found.
In my case, I have spastic triplegia due to cerebral palsy. Basically partial paralysis of my legs and right arm. As a consequence, I can't extend my right arm nearly as much, I have trouble rotating my wrist very much, and I have less use of my fingers than a normal person to the point where I basically can't use my ring and pinky finger for fretting. To solve the arm extension issue, I simply went with a shorter scale (24 inch) so I wouldn't have to reach as much. This also plays into the rotation issue a bit. To solve the rotation issue I needed a body design that was comfortable for me, and when seated would balance so that the neck ends up at more of an angle (not as much as playing in classical position would give you, but not parallel with my lap either) than normal to avoid having to rotate my wrist so much. I found that a shorter neck helps to achieve that balance.
The fretting issue was a bit trickier to pin down. I looked into people like Django Reinhardt and Tony Iommi for a bit of inspiration. I wound up experimenting using open tunings so I could get various chords with one or two fingers anywhere on the neck. This got me into slide guitar, which pretty much eliminated the fretting issue since the slide does most of the work for you so long as you're accurate where you place it, then the rest is up to muting/picking well with your other hand. Settled on open E so far. I can play scales further up the neck with it, which helps to further alleviate the extension issues.
Another thing I'd think about is how much you care about how it looks as opposed to it's functionality. I was fortunate to get something that looks pretty nice, but some of the ergonomic designs I've seen doing research look like something straight from a Dr Seuss book. This came into play for me when choosing a body wood. I ended up choosing ash because I wanted the finish to show a cool grain pattern, but it's pretty light. It definitely still works, but if I were to have it done again I'd choose a significantly heavier body wood to help even more with the neck angle.
My last piece of advice is to think hard about what you need pickup/wiring wise. I decided I wanted to cram as many pickup combinations and variations as possible in this thing, and I don't regret it since the in between positions are actually my favorite on this thing, but it was a real pain to find someone to wire it the way I wanted. It cost me quite a bit in the long run. I'd say I spent around $3000 ish in total, and about $700 of that was tech charges + various replacement parts when they screwed up. So yeah, if you want it complicated then be sure to find a good tech first. ;D
Anyway, I don't want to volunteer him for anything, but once you get an Idea what you need, if you can't find a way to get it done maybe try dropping a line to Deed_Poll. Again, I don't mean to volunteer him, but I'm sure if you compensate him he'd be more than willing to help you refine your ideas and come up with something when his schedule permits. Working with him really was a joy, through the whole process. He provided me with far and away the best experience I've had as a customer by miles. Seriously, I cannot possibly sing his praises loud enough, and I very much hope to work with him again in the future. Just goes to show that not all heroes wear capes.

Sorry for the long winded post, but I hope it helped. And once again, a huge thanks to Deed_Poll. I can't thank you enough and I really hope we can do another one in the future.

~Hiller

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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by AcrylicSuperman » Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:13 am

Thanks for the advice!

My injury is kind of a combo of things. I was a pedestrian that got hit by a car on Spirit Lake Hwy in Washington state. I managed to live to tell the tale and I am grateful to be alive, but I haven't been the same since. I have one disc in my neck that is pretty messed up. Weight and balance seem to be a problem for me. If a guitar is more than 7 pounds, it starts bearing down on me. If it is body heavy, it irritates that disc. If it is neck heavy, it causes my fretting hand and arm to go numb. It leaves me with very limited options. Another problem I have is that my picking hand got caught up in a freak explosion (it was a tire). My thumb managed to get the worst of it, followed by my index and middle fingers. Without describing it in detail, from the nail to the knuckle of my thumb, there is no longer bone structure in there, just really small splinters and fragments. It is also shorter than my other thumb by a quarter of an inch. I've had to learn hold a pick again, which was something the doctor said I'd never be able to do again. In fact, before the explosion, I was playing the orange .60mm tortex, but they are too thin for me to hold, so I've taken to the green .88mm picks, keeping them thick at the grip and been carving them down to about a .60mm thickness. I've become more of a finger style player now and because of the way I have to hold my hand to the strings seems to require some type of relief where I rest my arm, I just haven't figured out how to best make a contour for that situation. It has been a lot of study on how to make things right and a ton of experimentation too, but I think I am getting close. Just trying to fine tune a couple details left.

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Re: Project completed. Thank you thread

Post by hillerheilman » Tue Dec 18, 2018 7:58 pm

AcrylicSuperman wrote:
Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:13 am
Thanks for the advice!

My injury is kind of a combo of things. I was a pedestrian that got hit by a car on Spirit Lake Hwy in Washington state. I managed to live to tell the tale and I am grateful to be alive, but I haven't been the same since. I have one disc in my neck that is pretty messed up. Weight and balance seem to be a problem for me. If a guitar is more than 7 pounds, it starts bearing down on me. If it is body heavy, it irritates that disc. If it is neck heavy, it causes my fretting hand and arm to go numb. It leaves me with very limited options. Another problem I have is that my picking hand got caught up in a freak explosion (it was a tire). My thumb managed to get the worst of it, followed by my index and middle fingers. Without describing it in detail, from the nail to the knuckle of my thumb, there is no longer bone structure in there, just really small splinters and fragments. It is also shorter than my other thumb by a quarter of an inch. I've had to learn hold a pick again, which was something the doctor said I'd never be able to do again. In fact, before the explosion, I was playing the orange .60mm tortex, but they are too thin for me to hold, so I've taken to the green .88mm picks, keeping them thick at the grip and been carving them down to about a .60mm thickness. I've become more of a finger style player now and because of the way I have to hold my hand to the strings seems to require some type of relief where I rest my arm, I just haven't figured out how to best make a contour for that situation. It has been a lot of study on how to make things right and a ton of experimentation too, but I think I am getting close. Just trying to fine tune a couple details left.
Yikes! That sounds pretty awful. I actually live a few hours from spirit lake. I think I know the highway you're talking about. I don't know what advice to offer on the contours. From what I think you're saying maybe some sort of external rest would help? Sort of like how violins have cheek rests usually. Good luck though. Hope it works out.

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