Monday: Cloudy, chance of rain. Top of 20C

It feels like just yesterday that I was doing these reports. Big hand to Jay for an interesting week, and for generously giving away so many copies of his book. I’m sure we all have GAS just a little worse that before, I know I do – those Thornton guitars are bee-you-tea-full.

Lunch today was some left over curry sauce from last night. All the meat and potato got eaten so I had it with some nice crusty bread. Lovely.

This week I’ll be finishing a parts-o-caster off, something I’ve wanted to do for years. In the last six months I’ve collected all the parts I need for a guitar with the exact specs I want, and will be painting it with the finish that I want. I am still waiting on a few little parts to arrive so I can finish it – things like a pick guard, tuners, pots and a nut.

Here’s what I've been doing:

First thing I did was to superglue the binding on. I put down a primer layer of glue and allowed it to harden before I stuck the binding on. To hold the binding in place I used 100 mile an hour tape....


...which leaves an awful sticky mess everywhere.




To remove it I shaved it off using a utility knife blade. This also levels out the binding and the wood of the body. I wiped it down using lighter fluid, which removes the thin layer of sticky stuff from the tape leaving me with this.




Then, after taping the binding up, I shot a primer coat. To prevent painting the inside of the f-hole cavity I stuck an ordinary plastic shopping bag in there, it works a treat.




That's where I'm doing the painting - in the back yard with the guitar hanging on the washing line. I wish I had a shed. I was using a rattle can primer and as I was getting ready to apply the second coat, I wiped down with some turpentine to remove any surface dust and it took the primer off, ruining the fantastic filling and sanding job I’d done I've removed it now and will be shooting the first coat of good quality primer this afternoon.

Big thanks goes out to Darwin who has provided me with some great advice in the actual finishing process

Who else has a parts-o-caster? Get some pics up, I want to see them. Anybody else want one? Or making one?

Nice work!

I have a 30+ year old DiMarzio tele body that needs a neck to complete the build. The early DiMarzio bodies were made by Wayne Charvel! The bridge and bridge pickup will be from a G&L, Asat Classic. The neck pickup will be a '72 Gibson humbucker.


Sprinter 92

No partcaster here but I am curious on how your project will progress. Once, as a teenager, I dreamt of building my own in the wood workshop at school just like my older nephew. But it never came to be. Instead his self-built guitar is the root cause of this terrible G.A.S. affliction I have

Thanks for picking up the LR duty blarg.

- Jos

Nice looking project Jamie – it will be interesting to watch it come together.

I do have a partscaster that I put together a few years back as a double for a pre CBS fender that I stopped taking to gigs.

I have another in progress at the moment using bits and pieces I’ve accumulated over the years. It’s a solid S body with trans blond finish over swamp ash. Its heavily road worn and I tossed up whether to do a refinish, but it looks pretty cool as is so I’ve decided to leave it as a relic. It has a Callaham vintage bridge and trem, and a set of vintage Kluson tuners.

It’s been on the back burner for a couple of years ‘cause I’m a bit indecisive on what to do with the pick ups. The original plan was to use a set of Fralin’s a friend gave me, but there are a couple of issues. First, the bridge pup has a base plate which makes it too deep to fit the rout. I have thought about routing deeper but I’m not sure there’d be enough wood left between the pup and trem cavities. I keep meaning to have a good look to see how the base plate is fixed – waxed I think ….. err hope … and maybe I’ll just remove it.

The other issue is that the Fralins are Steel Poled 42’s for the neck and middle and a Steel Poled 43 in the bridge. With the 42’s delivering 6K Ohms and the 43 running to 10K, the set is probably going to be too unbalanced to live with. So I need to decide whether to give it a shot … or change one … or two … or maybe all three of the pups.

…. All I need is some spare time and to bite a few bullets and decide some stuff. Yeah, yeah, I know, just get on with it and I can always swap things out later ... but procrastination is part of the fun LOL.

Cheers, Robbie

Cool Project.

I made by one and only "partscaster" back in the 1960s in High School shop class. Took a Kay carcass and then threw in three Teisco gold foil pickups I snagged from the parts bin at the local music store. Routed the body and wired it all up. Lo and behold the sucker worked. The guitar just vanished through the decades but I wish I still had it.

That guitar looks great. However, every time I tried to spray a guitar body outside I ended up with an orange peel. I guess you have to sand and spray multiple times... That auto painting idea I heard a while back seems good too.

No parts guitars, just some needed restorations on my list this year: 1) to complete my Hondo Fame project, 2) put a new top on my "old" F**der acoustic.






Cheers,

Will

Nice partscaster, the binding just makes it.

Other than my old ’78 Boggie Bodies the only partscaster I have is Marla the SC1/Tokia. The neck is an maple ’83 SC-1 with a nice flat profile and medium frets. For years it had a maple ’91 SC-3 neck but the radius was too tight and as much as I liked the guitar it hurt my hands to play for long periods of time. I swapped necks about 2 months ago and it’s become one of my main live axes. The pickups are from the ’91 SC3 though I had to drop in a Duncan TB-4 to cover some of the dirtier stuff I play (wish I had a white one laying around) and the bridge is the vintage Strat style off of some donor long since forgotten about. Local luthier-to-the-stars Mike Lull routed the pocket to accommodate the G&L neck and I found this old pickgaurd that I had routed to fit as well. The body (Mike’s best guess) is a late 70’s early 80’s Tokia, relatively heavy but the contours are accurate and the guitar sustains for days. Whole thing came together very nicely. Totally has the vintage vibe but the versatility to play heavier stuff with a humbucker. I kept the 3-singles pickgaurd and third SC-1 pickup in case I want to go back to 3 singles down the road.

Some cool projects. I am interested in hearing/seeing about your neck plan, blarg.

Like others said, the binding looks great on there.

Nice job on the binding Jamie! can't wait to see how it comes together!

No partsocasters yet, I've thought about it many times and even put aside some 100+ year old 2"x6" pine boards a friend salvaged, just in case I come across someone who can glue two together and then cut/route out a body for me

It's just a matter of time now though, I've already got the bug

-Dave

I have built a number of guitars, and a parts-caster or 2. You can see them at http://www.stormriders.com/guitar/telecaster. There are a couple of G&L projects in there, as well.

It's been fun, but I have WAY too many guitars now. So no more building for me.

Later,

edg

That guitar looks great. However, every time I tried to spray a guitar body outside I ended up with an orange peel. I guess you have to sand and spray multiple times...

I noticed the same thing - despite my efforts to spray light coats I have ended up with orange peel. It's going to receive a good sanding today to level it out.

GuitarEd - those guitars are beauties, particularly 'The Orange Guitar', what a stunner! Look at it people!




Spot - Looks like a really neat guitar and is obviously much loved. I like heavy bodies too, the one I'm making is heavy, despite being a thinline.

That's a great looking project, love the dark binding.

I recently pulled this one out of the closet to finish, I took it apart three years ago! 82 S-500, This is what it looked like when I bought it. Every thing was origional except for the Duncans of course. and since the pickup routes were altered to fit the duncans I figured it's value was diminished so it would be a good project to re-finish.


After the final sanding]


And here she is with three coats of hand rubbed Tung oil. I've read a lot about the lack of a heavy finish opening up the tone of the wood, we'll see if that's true. And since she was already routed, I routed the control cavity a bit so I could move the controls down one hole, I always hit the volume knob when I get into some heavy strumming, so I drilled a hole in the side to accomidate the jack.


My only problem now is deceiding what pickups to install and how I'm going to wire it up, The Duncans are out of the question, when I got her and plugged her in I didn't like the pups at all. I have a set of NOS squared end pups that would be origional to the design but I already have two other 82 500s so I've got that covered, I have a set of NOS blades I could install and turn it into a S-500 special and the last option I'm thinking about is getting a set of vintage Strat pups from Jason Lollar and wire her up in the basic Strat configuration, of course I'd have to have a custom guard cut as the strat style pups look terrible sitting in the wider holes cut for the origional pups. Decisions, decisions, decisions, it may take me another three years to decide!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a great post!! Most interesting projects & ideas. Really got me going.

Nice start to a week. Looking forward to more of this.

Jay