evolution of an OLP

[willow13]

well with the forum crash things have been quiet around here so I thought I would add some colour....

some may remember the OLP I got of some bozo....



Hated the green so added a veneer and did this...




well I have never really liked the sound of the guitar that much so it kinda just sits there gathering dust for the most part (hence the reason I have put it up for sale a couple of times). Then I thought about selling it again so decided to put a nicer veneer on it and try to flick it ....... but after gluing the new veneer on a gap opened up in the middle



so it sat for another month. Then I got to play a US wolfie and totally feel in love with it (but sadly to hamished to buy it)...but it gave me the idea to copy the wood eddie uses for his (basswood with maple cap). So I took out the saw and cut 5mm of the top of the basswood body


then drew the body on some maple


cut it out, glued and clamped



then strip old finish off


carve the maple

[alanp]

Didn't know EVH uses basswood? I thought it was a poor man's body, ala squier (them of the bad spelling, it's squire) and epi?

Damn nice looking woodwork, I wish I could do that.

[willow13]

Didn't know EVH uses basswood? I thought it was a poor man's body, ala squier (them of the bad spelling, it's squire) and epi?

Damn nice looking woodwork, I wish I could do that.

thanks .... yeah eddie is a BIG fan of basswood. When fender were prototyping the EVH range the builders made a guitar with alder/maple instead of basswood/maple without telling eddie, then they gave it to him to play and apparently with seconds of picking it up eddie said "WTF have you done with this.....and a second late, is this alder?? sounds like shit"

To me basswood his a mahogany vibe to it with a scooped kinda mid range

[willow13]

.....and after much sanding, filling of gaps and more sanding it was time to think of how to paint it. now luckily I didn't take photos of the various "looks" I thought I might want because I really couldn't decide what I wanted, mainly because I was "stuck" with the orange bird inlays (didn't want to start sanding fretboards). So I ended up painting it grey...but found it looked cool but was boring as hell with out binding and again I wasn't about to start routing for binding so I zoned out, put some paints around me and just started moving my hands and arms.............and ended up with this





I went for a rough "canvas" look by using a roller on the primer coat, going in lots of directions to get texture...then a little airbrushing and hand painting, then some clearcoats and bam..done

[Bg]

Looking good so far

Nothing wrong with basswood as a tone wood, its used on lots of high end ibanez too.

[willow13]

As far as tone goes I couldn't be happier....the maple has done exactly what I was hoping it would do. The guitar is now fat as F#*k (mind you when you add 20mm of maple that will happen) with tons of bite and slightly scooped fizzy mids (its kinda hard to explain really )...I went with dimarzio megadrive in the bridge (mainly because when I was looking for a pick up for an all maple guitar I have the megadrive seemed to hit the stop in terms of fattening up a bright guitar while keeping the bite) because I have read it gets close to a "brown" type of tone and a humbucker from hell in the neck. I had the HFH in another guitar and it sounded very single coily for a humbucker...but in this guitar it sounds fat and creamie so I think its safe to say the body wood has made a huge difference.

This will keep my EVH GAS at bay for a little while.....look forward to taking it to a tronfest and comparing it to the wolfies that are usually there

[Hot_Grits]

Yeah basswood has that rep for being a guitar used in cheap guitars but it's used by EVH, EBMM, Tom Anderson, Tyler, Suhr and pretty much every high-end fender-style guitar maker. You can easily spend north of 4k on a basswood guitar.

Next step Willow would be a trem with a proper block. Any strat trem guitar with a pot metal block comes alive if you drop in a proper strat trem. Gotoh's one is great, and Wilkinson do affordable bridges with proper blocks. Of course, you could whip up a block if yer metalworking skills are onto it...

[willow13]

Next step Willow would be a trem with a proper block. Any strat trem guitar with a pot metal block comes alive if you drop in a proper strat trem. Gotoh's one is great, and Wilkinson do affordable bridges with proper blocks. Of course, you could whip up a block if yer metalworking skills are onto it...

yep thats an option......I am seriously thinking about getting a floyd for it with a big block

[Hot_Grits]

Next step Willow would be a trem with a proper block. Any strat trem guitar with a pot metal block comes alive if you drop in a proper strat trem. Gotoh's one is great, and Wilkinson do affordable bridges with proper blocks. Of course, you could whip up a block if yer metalworking skills are onto it...

yep thats an option......I am seriously thinking about getting a floyd for it with a big block

Nothing wrong with that. Though the advantage of the MM headstock is it has such short distances from string to nut, making it easy to keep a non-locking trem in tune.

Perhaps do a Carvin and go Floyd with no locking nut...

[Ironbird13]

nice work. you cut the top of the body off with a handsaw? (thinking off doing a similar, as in recapping, to my samick warlock. but think i'll router the top down)

Perhaps do a Carvin and go Floyd with no locking nut...

wouldnt the strings fall off the nut when you divebomb?

[Hot_Grits]

nice work. you cut the top of the body off with a handsaw? (thinking off doing a similar, as in recapping, to my samick warlock. but think i'll router the top down)

Perhaps do a Carvin and go Floyd with no locking nut...

wouldnt the strings fall off the nut when you divebomb?

Yes, full DOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPGHHHHHH will not be an option.

[jeremyb]

Wow, can't believe you did it with a hand saw, nice work!

Should try something similar with my tele body and chamber it!

[willow13]

nice work. you cut the top of the body off with a handsaw? (thinking off doing a similar, as in recapping, to my samick warlock. but think i'll router the top down)

yes ... well only part of it because the saw started to go to deep so I ended up plaining most of it off

Though the advantage of the MM headstock is it has such short distances from string to nut, making it easy to keep a non-locking trem in tune.

Perhaps do a Carvin and go Floyd with no locking nut...

I actually have one of those floyds that don't have fine tuners, was gonna fit that but the routing was a little to big so it didn't cover all the hole...I could have moved it further away but wasn't totally sure if there was enough adjustment in it to keep intonation ok...might drop it in in the new year

[willow13]

Wow, can't believe you did it with a hand saw, nice work!

see below (well above this post) ........ it was easy to saw...basswood is overly hard so it cuts almost like pine