rashbre central: time to squeeze the orange guitar (pt 9)

Sunday 10 February 2013

time to squeeze the orange guitar (pt 9)

its starting to look like a guitar
I've been playing the mostly assembled guitar today. The last few pieces come together quite quickly.

I must admit it sounds rather good.

There's a few tweaks to apply. The capacitors I've used are probably too high in value which means the tone control mainly works between 10 and 7.

The multiple push-pull switches for the various modes of serial, parallel, one coil, two coil all work brilliantly and the result is a superb range of tones. I've also reversed one of the humbuckers so that the now inner rails have hum cancellation. It seems to work, although I've no idea what it would have sounded like if they had been the official way around.

The 'everything on' setting is deep and growly and the lead guitar setting is surprisingly clean and clear. Plus there's a whole gamut of in between settings. Not to mention adding back in some pedals and reverb.

I've only put some temporary strings on it at the moment to test it and later I'll be adjusting the heights of strings, humbuckers and string intonation (although at the moment it seems remarkably good with proper harmonics bang on the 12th fret). For tuners I've used the locking type, which are also very simple to use and seem to keep the strings rock solid.

Quite a few people making guitars will copy a specific model. Contrariliy, I think it's given me the freedom to use anything I feel like, so although it may be hybrid, it's also unique.

It's quite a pleasing project and one where I feel I'm learning quite a lot about how guitars work. With hindsight it might have been easier to start with a Fender style because they use separate plates for most of the controls. Fender's stratocaster shape is also mainly 'open-plan' as well, which would make the wiring and so forth much easier to get at.

I've still got to add the scratch plate, the bits to hold the straps on, some plates to cover the gubbins at the back and generally fiddle around with the setup.

There's a few dinks in the finish from when I was wiring it, and so I may just have another look at the paint job, although it's probably about as good as I could get it for a first attempt.

Now back to February Album Writing Month, with a dangerous musical instrument to accompany my lyric writing.

(Building a guitar? See also parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

2 comments:

OldLady Of The Hills said...

CONGRATULATIONS! I can't believe you have almost finished it....I hope you will give us a sampling of the sound of your finished product....!

rashbre said...

Naomi Thanks - I'm very aware that with my usual craft skills this could have gone in a very different direction.

I must admit it's been rather fun and surprisingly inexpensive. I think the cans of spray paint were the single most expensive item.