Sing The Body Electric - Building a Parter

[Jim]

E,

As we PM'd you know that I'm in for doing this build with you.

A local high school technology teacher, a former student in my department at Ball State, has been working with the Purdue guitar building course and workshops. He has a few CNC bodies and I'm gonna buy a single cutaway body with neck and other stuff from him. No electronics with this body.

In the hallway of his High School is this display case and the bottom right one is "my" guitar body.


I'm pumped to do this. I have never built nor played an electric guitar, so I'll need all the information about what parts to buy, and how to put them together. If that's asking too much for you or others, please say so.

Jim

[Eben]

Yuppers and very cool Jim!

Nope, ain't even close to askin' too much, we'll do 'er.

You're body, BTW, is a take on the venerable Gibson Les Paul, lauded in song and story, and rightfully so. While most of the variations on the LP are carved top solid body axes, but not all, (The LP Studio has always, to my knowledge, been a flat top axe).

The traditional LP electronics set up is a 3 way toggle switch in the bass side upper bout, and 4 pots on the treble side lower bout; that would provide lead/both/rhythm pickup switching and individual volume and tone knobs for each pickup as well.

Now I call yours a variation also because I see;
standard LP twin humbucker pickup configuration
a three hole control set up below the bridge, and I can't see a switch slot or hole, (But there may be one). A fairly common variation on custom built, parter LPs is to employ the standard Strat switching and control scheme, wherein you have 1 volume and 2 tone controls, and 5 way switching for two humbucker pickups. In any case there are myriad variations we can do, so no biggy either way.

So, Jim, the only questions I see for the builder thus far are:
1. Did he has cut that neck pocket to receive a Fender style neck or a Gibson LP style neck, (The diff being that the LP neck has a roughly 4 degree backset angle in the heel of the neck and are glued, not screwed to the body, while the Fenders have no backset and are screwed), and
2. What fret scale is this body cut for, (LPs are typically 24.75" scale and most Fenders are 25.5")

Cool, let's rock!

E

[Jim]

Eben,

Here's his answer, along with a shot of the back:

"The guitar, while certainly Les Paul-esque in shape, is its own beast. A Fender neck will not even come close to working, but is similar in principle and essence.

"Regarding the neck: The guitar is 25.5 scale like Fender, but 24 fret. The heel end of the neck stops pretty much underneath the 23rd fret. There's enough extra wood on the fretboard beyond the 24th fret to cut a radius on it that looks like the 22-fret stratocasters, or you could do some other profile with it, like the curly brace end of the fingerboard on a Gibson L-5. The bridge is a strat hard-tail with string ferrules in the back, and mounting hole pattern uses a set of strat screws and strat style neck plate. The neck pocket is parallel to the top of the guitar, no angle. The neck proper has a little bit of a slot for the nut, and the fretboard is cut off flush at the backside of the nut. Plenty of gluing surface for some diluted white glue or some superglue to glue the nut in. I would have to check on the nut size, but it is a standard size blank. The neck is designed for a StewMac 0982 18 inch hotrod truss rod with the 1/8 hex head adjuster, and adjust at the headstock end. The neck slot is approx 1/4 wide and runs out the end of the headstock. The necks I have incorrectly stop short, so I will either need to rout it out the rest of the way, or swap with my source for a correctly slotted neck. While the headstock is intended for Fender 6-in-line tuners with the cast-integral alignment posts (which just drop in and tighten the hex nut). Some past participants have plugged the holes, veneered the headstock, and cut and drilled the headstock for 3x3 tuners.

"As for the body, there are three holes to mount a Les Paul type toggle switch, a master volume, and master tone. The holes are pre-drilled as part of the 3D design file, and I don't have any control over that (yet). It stands to reason one could drill two more holes to have two volumes and two tones, and a toggle switch to work like a Gibson ES guitar or Les Paul. But they'd all have to be located in that general area. The attached image is a cropped picture from the Purdue workshop, and you can see the rear cut-out area for the electronics. There's a kidney-bean shaped piece that covers the rear cavity. I don't have any of these yet.


"I like to think of this guitar as sort of a Les Paul Jr with a Fender bridge.

"Depending on the bridge, it may or may not fit. The top of the body is routed with a slight recess for the bridge and the pickups. I saw one guy last summer scrape and sand the top until the recesses were gone. Fender bridges and some of the 3rd party bridges have plates that are a little different footprint from each other. Usually the 3 mounting holes that screw the plate into the body are on the same spacing, it's the perimeter of the plate that can vary...Doug"

I put all this in because I don't understand it. I hope over the next few weeks and months(?) that I will learn it all and then some. I have the latest Musician's Friend catalog, so I'll look up Les Paul, Gibson ES, Gibson L-5, and 22-fret stratocasters.

Jim

[Eben]

What it means is that he's thought everything out just fine, thank you!



Looks like he's got you in good hands to get goin' with - That answered every question I had - VERY COOL!

E

[Jim]

Eben,

I picked up the body, neck, fingerboard and a list of recommended parts last night. The neck is maple, I think, and the body is willow and soft maple. Certainly paint grade. He gave them to me at cost ($30) of materials, and maybe just a little bit for the CNC work. We met at a restaurant that was nearly deserted so we had the whole back wall to bring out the parts, his last guitar, and my BRW, still not together, but in its case. I bought the meals, as was only fair.

We sat and talked for about 2-3 hours without anybody's interruption. I knew him as a student, now he's becoming a good friend. It was a good learning experience for me, and some for him, too. He's never built an acoustic.

Here's the list of parts he recommended. He gave me parts numbers and prices, which I'm not including.

Strat style hardtail bridge
strat-tele string ferrules
black blowout humbucker pickups
Tuners 3x3
500K potentiometers
Knobs, chrome, split shaft tele, pair
Toggle switch
Strap buttons
Strat neck plate w/ screews
Oval jack plate w/jack
Capacitor .033 microferads
Nut bone blank
Hot rod truss rod 18" 2-way
Back side dot material 1/16" dia
Fret wire, 2' (I'm not sure what size wire to use--Eben?)

And he gave me a 1/4" or larger black rod for fret face markers.

An estimated addition of the column of figures comes out to about $130.

So whaddya think?

Electric Jim

P.S.: If this comes out OK, and I want to make another one, he now has a grant for a CNC and will be able to let me glue up a body blank out of anything I want!

[Eben]

Hey Jim;

Well sounds good and your list looks good;

Not knowing what brands you're looking at and where makes it harder to judge the cost, but overall that looks very reasonable to me. As I mentioned somewhere above, the stuff you don't want to skimp on ever are switches, pots and wire; make sure you get good quality stuff there. Bridges, pickups, tuners, all of that can be switched out later if you end up not liking what you have.

As for fret wire, you may well have what will work fine! I use the StewMac 148 as my standard, for me and for builds, unless somebody specifies otherwise - It goes .084" wide, .039" crown, and .055" tang and is easily one of the most popular sizes for electrics.

E

[Jim]

Eben,

All my parts have arrived. The hard-tail bridge is just slightly oversized but I think I can carve the cavotu out just a bit on each end.

I'm not over-anxious as I'm trying to get the finish on my Bouchet copy. Don't like what's happening with the Tru-oil. And I'm also working on the Uke. But I'd like to get going on putting it together. Don't fret (that's what I did tonight on the Bouchet ) about getting info to me rapidly because I'm gonna work on getting the neck to fit the slot first, just to see what it looks like in one piece. I also think I'll make the outside shape a little smaller, but I gotta go look at some of the electrics in the local music shop. Maybe they'll let me photograph or copy...? I'll ask first....all the guys there are bigger than me!

Jim

[Eben]

Well, I need to make a neck for mine, which I'll try to get to in the next week or so!

E