My two custom sort-of G&Ls
Tue Nov 07, 2023 1:58 am
Here are my two. Both handmade, by myself and my partner's Dad (they were a project together the first time we met, so I think all went well 
)
The first is a T/ASAT-style, semi-hollow, single pickup, no controls and pickup wired directly to the jack.
The top is ash, the back mahogany. The pickup is a G&L Z-coil, with the coils reversed.
In retrospect I would've liked to lightly flame-treat the top to make the grain really pop, but it's still lovely as it is.
The bridge and neck came from a G&L Tribute ASAT special; I was going to order a custom neck from Sound Guitar Works but this one played very nicely and the tuners had been upgraded to Schaller locking tuners, so I've kept it for now.
The top gets down to 3.5 mm thick for most of the area either side of the centre, so it's got great resonance. The downside is there's a bit of neck dive, so I'm looking for ways to make the neck lighter when I make a neck for it.
The little block of wood at the base of the neck is an "oops" turned into a feature. We routed the neck pocket too long, and my partner's Dad suggested shaping the fill-in block of wood to look like a feature. We've both signed our initials on it, so now I really do have my own "signature" guitar :icon_lol:
It plays wonderfully and sounds fantastic. It's like with fuzz faces, having fewer things in the "signal chain" means that everything that is there is proportionally more important. String choice, pickup height, and the condition of your nails or plectrum make big differences.
I grew up playing classical guitar, so I wanted something that would be very responsive to playing dynamics and articulation, and this does just that - except that a classical guitar goes from whisper quiet to sort of loud, and this goes from loud to "ow! That's loud!" with an amp with lots of headroom.
The second is a 12-string, semi-hollow, Starcaster shape
The top is oak, the back also mahogany.
Pickups are G&L jumbo MFD single coils from the same donor ASAT special (I sold off the body and made back a few dollars
).
The controls are wired with individual volume pots (Gibson "50s style" so that they'll blend without the guitar going silent if one is zeroed), and master treble and bass for the other two pots (a-la G&L PTB; I had to put a 250k resistor across the output jack to get the right impedance for the bass control to work).
The neck is from a Pitbull guitars kit, and so far has been just great. It's 48 mm wide, so the string spacing is nice and comfortable.
The pickups are perfect for a 12-string, heaps of clarity and chime, and the volume/tone circuit gives a huge amount of flexibility for individual or blended pickup sounds. I can play this through an acoustic amp to approximate the sound of an acoustic 12 string for recording, or an electric guitar amp for some 12 string rawk
)The first is a T/ASAT-style, semi-hollow, single pickup, no controls and pickup wired directly to the jack.
The top is ash, the back mahogany. The pickup is a G&L Z-coil, with the coils reversed.
In retrospect I would've liked to lightly flame-treat the top to make the grain really pop, but it's still lovely as it is.
The bridge and neck came from a G&L Tribute ASAT special; I was going to order a custom neck from Sound Guitar Works but this one played very nicely and the tuners had been upgraded to Schaller locking tuners, so I've kept it for now.
The top gets down to 3.5 mm thick for most of the area either side of the centre, so it's got great resonance. The downside is there's a bit of neck dive, so I'm looking for ways to make the neck lighter when I make a neck for it.
The little block of wood at the base of the neck is an "oops" turned into a feature. We routed the neck pocket too long, and my partner's Dad suggested shaping the fill-in block of wood to look like a feature. We've both signed our initials on it, so now I really do have my own "signature" guitar :icon_lol:
It plays wonderfully and sounds fantastic. It's like with fuzz faces, having fewer things in the "signal chain" means that everything that is there is proportionally more important. String choice, pickup height, and the condition of your nails or plectrum make big differences.
I grew up playing classical guitar, so I wanted something that would be very responsive to playing dynamics and articulation, and this does just that - except that a classical guitar goes from whisper quiet to sort of loud, and this goes from loud to "ow! That's loud!" with an amp with lots of headroom.
The second is a 12-string, semi-hollow, Starcaster shape
The top is oak, the back also mahogany.
Pickups are G&L jumbo MFD single coils from the same donor ASAT special (I sold off the body and made back a few dollars
). The controls are wired with individual volume pots (Gibson "50s style" so that they'll blend without the guitar going silent if one is zeroed), and master treble and bass for the other two pots (a-la G&L PTB; I had to put a 250k resistor across the output jack to get the right impedance for the bass control to work).
The neck is from a Pitbull guitars kit, and so far has been just great. It's 48 mm wide, so the string spacing is nice and comfortable.
The pickups are perfect for a 12-string, heaps of clarity and chime, and the volume/tone circuit gives a huge amount of flexibility for individual or blended pickup sounds. I can play this through an acoustic amp to approximate the sound of an acoustic 12 string for recording, or an electric guitar amp for some 12 string rawk
Re: My two custom sort-of G&Ls
Tue Nov 07, 2023 5:49 am
It is a shame the pictures are small. I had to open them in another tab to get a fair look at them. Great work! That Esquire-esque with the Z-Coil is something I wanted to do also, and I must compliment you on the aesthetics - cutting the trough to fit the z-coil just looks sooo lip-biting good.
The other one is another one I have thought of putting together - at least with regards to the pickups. I don't have a twelve string anymore, the one I had was an old Ibanez double-neck 12/6 sg style. It was early on in my experience - about 35 years ago - and I didn't have the hand strength to play it properly, and hadn't yet developed the ethic of overcoming such difficulties by practice, practice, practice. Nevertheless, now that I am older if I had one, I'd probably play it a lot just to strengthen my hands, but I don't really the same GAS for 12 strings as I do for 6 strings.
But I will say this - THAT is pretty sweet looking finished product. I bet it is a tone monster!! I picked up a raspberry burst "Inspired by Gibson" Epiphone 335 about a year ago, and I love playing it. At first it felt huge, but now it feels "just right". I love the tone I get out of it, but have seriously thought of dropping in jumbo MFDs, which are frankly, my favorite pickups.
Thanks for sharing those!
The other one is another one I have thought of putting together - at least with regards to the pickups. I don't have a twelve string anymore, the one I had was an old Ibanez double-neck 12/6 sg style. It was early on in my experience - about 35 years ago - and I didn't have the hand strength to play it properly, and hadn't yet developed the ethic of overcoming such difficulties by practice, practice, practice. Nevertheless, now that I am older if I had one, I'd probably play it a lot just to strengthen my hands, but I don't really the same GAS for 12 strings as I do for 6 strings.
But I will say this - THAT is pretty sweet looking finished product. I bet it is a tone monster!! I picked up a raspberry burst "Inspired by Gibson" Epiphone 335 about a year ago, and I love playing it. At first it felt huge, but now it feels "just right". I love the tone I get out of it, but have seriously thought of dropping in jumbo MFDs, which are frankly, my favorite pickups. Thanks for sharing those!
Re: My two custom sort-of G&Ls
Tue Nov 07, 2023 11:41 am
Very nice work Patrick! 
Both seem to be a success.
I really like the ASAT design for obvious reasons, but a “Signature” ASAT-Esquire type Z Coil is the cat daddy. Post clips of both when ya can.
Both seem to be a success.
I really like the ASAT design for obvious reasons, but a “Signature” ASAT-Esquire type Z Coil is the cat daddy. Post clips of both when ya can.
Re: My two custom sort-of G&Ls
Fri Nov 10, 2023 5:56 am
Patrick
Nice job on the Z to S conversion. The worst part of Z Coil mods for me is getting the cover off w/o breaking a coil wire.
Both guitars look great. Good work.
As an amp nut I couldn't help but notice the ampware in the background of the S Coil guitar. Yum!
Keep up the good work.
I'm slowly getting started on my S-500 Alt Mag guitar. I'm removing the base plates, magnets and adjusters on the S-500 pickups and instead I'm using 1/8" diameter neodyium magnets with NSNSNS orientation (SNSNSN for the hum canceling middle pickup). Switching will be complicated - 3 DPDT switches which allow any combination of the 3 pickups on or off in phase or out of phase. I also am installing a 4P5T Strat Superswitch to give any two pickups in series with 1 position with the Neck/Center series pair being out of phase, all with the pull switch option to add the third pickup in series.
The pull switch can also be used to provide a series option with the 3 DPDT switches. So there's some redundancy in the switching design at this point. I maybe able to redesign the switching to have a bit less redundancy but the 3 DPDT switches and the Superswitch are already purchased.
Nice job on the Z to S conversion. The worst part of Z Coil mods for me is getting the cover off w/o breaking a coil wire.
Both guitars look great. Good work.
As an amp nut I couldn't help but notice the ampware in the background of the S Coil guitar. Yum!
Keep up the good work.
I'm slowly getting started on my S-500 Alt Mag guitar. I'm removing the base plates, magnets and adjusters on the S-500 pickups and instead I'm using 1/8" diameter neodyium magnets with NSNSNS orientation (SNSNSN for the hum canceling middle pickup). Switching will be complicated - 3 DPDT switches which allow any combination of the 3 pickups on or off in phase or out of phase. I also am installing a 4P5T Strat Superswitch to give any two pickups in series with 1 position with the Neck/Center series pair being out of phase, all with the pull switch option to add the third pickup in series.
The pull switch can also be used to provide a series option with the 3 DPDT switches. So there's some redundancy in the switching design at this point. I maybe able to redesign the switching to have a bit less redundancy but the 3 DPDT switches and the Superswitch are already purchased.
Re: My two custom sort-of G&Ls
Thu Nov 23, 2023 8:19 pm
Thanks everyone!
Sorry about the image thumbnails, I've cross posted the image links from another forum because it's easier to add images in that forum, I haven't worked out a simple way to attach or link to images in this one. That image hosting platform defaults to thumbnails in the post, and the larger image in a new tab when you click on it.
Creating the routing template was a little fiddly, but it worked out surprisingly smoothly when we got to cutting it.
The MFD single coils are just fantastic on the 12 string. The wider neck helps with playability, and I've tried getting around the string tension issue by using a standard gauge set of strings and tuning down a half step. I could try the next lighter gauge set of strings, but I'm happy with the playability at the moment.
Yeah, I was soooo happy when it worked out so well. And it was incredibly gratifying when something that I'd only really designed in my head turned out to do what I'd hoped
Will do!
Absolutely, I was very lucky that it survived a lot of handling after getting the cover off, too. The Z to S conversion doesn't do as much tonally as I'd initially thought, at least not in the bridge position, but it's great for that extra custom flavour.
Ah, the amp and hardware is special! I was very lucky to pick up the RE-201 second hand for relatively very cheap, and it had just been serviced. Love it.
The amp is one I designed and built myself, and built the cabinet for, too. It used a 6GH8 input valve with the triode pushing the pentode, single treble control in the triode's bias circuit so it's lossless, a pot turn the pentode to triode or "ultralinear" (pentode is my preference, triode mode is good for Champ-like blues noodling, "ultralinear" is great for the 12-string), and EL84 output tube for about 5-8W (I haven't measured it).
That's a heck of a lot of options for your S-500!
DanDoulogos wrote: The other one is another one I have thought of putting together - at least with regards to the pickups. I don't have a twelve string anymore, the one I had was an old Ibanez double-neck 12/6 sg style. It was early on in my experience - about 35 years ago - and I didn't have the hand strength to play it properly, and hadn't yet developed the ethic of overcoming such difficulties by practice, practice, practice. Nevertheless, now that I am older if I had one, I'd probably play it a lot just to strengthen my hands, but I don't really the same GAS for 12 strings as I do for 6 strings.
Thanks for sharing those!
Sorry about the image thumbnails, I've cross posted the image links from another forum because it's easier to add images in that forum, I haven't worked out a simple way to attach or link to images in this one. That image hosting platform defaults to thumbnails in the post, and the larger image in a new tab when you click on it.
Creating the routing template was a little fiddly, but it worked out surprisingly smoothly when we got to cutting it.
The MFD single coils are just fantastic on the 12 string. The wider neck helps with playability, and I've tried getting around the string tension issue by using a standard gauge set of strings and tuning down a half step. I could try the next lighter gauge set of strings, but I'm happy with the playability at the moment.
sam wrote:I really like the ASAT design for obvious reasons, but a “Signature” ASAT-Esquire type Z Coil is the cat daddy. Post clips of both when ya can.
Yeah, I was soooo happy when it worked out so well. And it was incredibly gratifying when something that I'd only really designed in my head turned out to do what I'd hoped
Will do!
Rodney Hamblen wrote:Nice job on the Z to S conversion. The worst part of Z Coil mods for me is getting the cover off w/o breaking a coil wire.
As an amp nut I couldn't help but notice the ampware in the background of the S Coil guitar. Yum!
I'm slowly getting started on my S-500 Alt Mag guitar. I'm removing the base plates, magnets and adjusters on the S-500 pickups and instead I'm using 1/8" diameter neodyium magnets with NSNSNS orientation (SNSNSN for the hum canceling middle pickup). Switching will be complicated - 3 DPDT switches which allow any combination of the 3 pickups on or off in phase or out of phase. I also am installing a 4P5T Strat Superswitch to give any two pickups in series with 1 position with the Neck/Center series pair being out of phase, all with the pull switch option to add the third pickup in series.
The pull switch can also be used to provide a series option with the 3 DPDT switches. So there's some redundancy in the switching design at this point. I maybe able to redesign the switching to have a bit less redundancy but the 3 DPDT switches and the Superswitch are already purchased.
Absolutely, I was very lucky that it survived a lot of handling after getting the cover off, too. The Z to S conversion doesn't do as much tonally as I'd initially thought, at least not in the bridge position, but it's great for that extra custom flavour.
Ah, the amp and hardware is special! I was very lucky to pick up the RE-201 second hand for relatively very cheap, and it had just been serviced. Love it.
The amp is one I designed and built myself, and built the cabinet for, too. It used a 6GH8 input valve with the triode pushing the pentode, single treble control in the triode's bias circuit so it's lossless, a pot turn the pentode to triode or "ultralinear" (pentode is my preference, triode mode is good for Champ-like blues noodling, "ultralinear" is great for the 12-string), and EL84 output tube for about 5-8W (I haven't measured it).
That's a heck of a lot of options for your S-500!