new guitar

[Unfinished]

Meet the new gat. Same as the old gat. Only it's not. It's completely different.

Parts:
- Ebony fingerboard
- Kwila neck, 5 laminates, one piece construction.
- Sapele body
- Cheap and nasty Gotoh tuners. They do actually have Gotoh stamped into them, but that doesn't excuse them from being cheap and nasty.
- Gotoh 103T bridge, 101Z tailpiece.
- DiMarzio Bluesbucker neck, Virtual PAF bridge pickups.

It's completely different to my other guitar, even though it looks the same. I guess it's the Gibson version. Despite having to hide many mistakes, it seems to have come out better than the first guitar.

The action is as low as I care to have it without fretting out or buzzing. The sound quality can be described by all the usual adjectives. There are guitars that I like to play and guitars that I don't like to play. By combination of various attributes, this guitar is one that I like to play.

I emptied three cans of clear acrylic lacquer onto the body, and didn't manage to sand through anywhere. The neck is danish oiled. The transition between the two finishes doesn't look too bad, although I might have bursted it instead of a straight cut. I'd list all the small things wrong with it, but I don't want to.

Oh yeah, and the pickups are fantastic. I don't know what a humbucker sounds like in the neck position from first hand experience, but the Bluesbucker seems to do a reasonable job of staying out of the mud. I'd place it closer to the single coil side of the P90 fence. Virtual PAF is as Ash says it is.


Here's a couple thousand words:

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[Tsuken]

That looks good Clean, simple, nice.

[Azza]

Sweet. Very shiny.

[Bg]

very nice mate, and its not pink

[raz]

Nice work. I like the lines.

[Phildo]

Awesome looking Axe man, did you make the body? Quite unique looking, very nice.

[Capt. Black]

Love it. It totally suits you.

[slash-ed]

I like the body shape... unique, but not so different as to be weirdly ugly. Kinda reminds me of the non-reversed Firebird.

The wood on the back looks amazing also.

[hamo]

Love the colour on the top and the unfinished look of the headstock. Nice!

[Jenesis]

Good jaaaaaaab!

[GrantB]

I assume you built that thing!? If so, all I can say is awesome....man that thing looks cool - like the design...yeah, it's got a Gibsoin feel....almost a Moderne sort of thing going on...except the Fenderish headstock. All up, very nice and a good job. So, you got all the tools for fretting, truss rod stuff, shootin' lacquer etc? Well done...and so finished

[GrantB]

1700 posts...oh feck, that last 100 took a freakin long time...

[GrantB]

A Moderne without a can opener...which leads nicely on to hand me the next bottle ....

[Bg]

Good jaaaaaaab!

prrrraaaaaperrrrr jaaaaaaab!

[Unfinished]

yarrr i built it.

Fretting tools? No. 5 plane with sandpaper on the bottom. I bought a $60 medium sized crowning file and medium sized frets, but it was too big, so I didn't bother crowning, just rubbed 600 grit on them to smooth it out a bit - didn't need much leveling anyway this time.

I wanted to spray it like Mr. Bean, but instead i used spray cans. They just need more leveling afterwards.. Buff out with brasso. It doesn't leave a scratch free finish but the first thing you do to a gat is cover it with scratches anyway..

The neck turned out right once string tension was added.. It's an interesting process. Alternately eliminating foward and back bow until you get the right amount of relief once it' strung up.

My earlier guitar is the same shape. It looks like a firebird, SG and strat all in one, but I can't take credit for the design - some random Fernandes artist model that's discontinued. Somehow I don't really care about copying Japanese guitars...

I corrected the intonation today and almost ran out of adjustment. stink au. I put the bridge so the saddles would be in the middle of their adjustment range, but a few strings wanted more range.I reversed the saddles and all is now well.

As for the pickups, I can't say enough about that Virtual PAF.

The Bluesbucker is from what I've read from DiMarzio's site a heavily wound single coil (a bluesbar even) with a dummy coil next to it to cancel hum. I'm never sure if it's my imagination or not but at least with the cleanish sounds I play with it does the note definition quite well - picking out notes in a chord.

It's probably a combination of everything but I (just) prefer the single coil in my other guitar. That is an SD SSL-1. A vintage strat pickup. It's lovely. Anyway, perhaps it's because the Bluesbucker is a heavily wound single coil in a mahogany-ish body.. Still, this is a good thing, the more variety the better.

Again, more experimentation required.