What electric guitars have you built because you couldn't buy it?

[Michiel Wildenberg]

This one is a copy of a Rickenbacker 650 Dakota. Worked out pretty good and sounded likewise, made mainly out of leftover parts and woods. I sometimes regret selling it.

Maple neck-thru construction with Walnut wings, greenheart fretboard, Gretsch filtertron pickups and a stainless steel pickguard.



EDIT: oops I see now this is an old thread

[Matthew Lau]

Hey Michiel,

Handsome dude, and handsome guitar. I think I like it better than the "real" Ricks.

I've been pondering this thread a bit because I feel like a lot of times I'll get carried away, obsess about something, and find out that it's sold on Amazon/ebay/aliexpress/etc for cheaper than the cost of my hardware.

That being said, I've never found a good lightweight bass guitar with excellent ergos, passive, and good hardware.
That's my current project. Might try to improve it via a neckthrough in a future build.

YOu'd think someone will have built it already? Eh?

[Matthew Lau]

I'm hoping to mock up a possible build with some scrap lumber sitting around.

Sorta psyched!

[Freeman Keller]

[Barry Daniels]

.

[JC Whitney]

Barry - PLEASE post more pictures of that funky thing.

[Matthew Lau]

Man, you all are talented.

I especially like Beate's archtop

[Barry Daniels]

Here you go, JC.

[JC Whitney]

Wow - that’s wildly fun. Thanks again for sharing.

[Matthew Lau]

You just blew my mind, Barry.

[Barry Daniels]

Here is a fact that might surprise you. I built that guitar in 1984.

[JC Whitney]

Oh, and the pickup slides to and fro! It just keeps getting better and better.
(my apologies to all for sidetracking this thread)

[Philip Donovan]

I built an electric fretless guitar for use with an Ebow, only.

I suppose I could have gust bought any fretless and hoped for the best but, there were a few elements I wanted to be specific to this guitar. But, to be fair, I did not build the neck. That was a custom order with Tommy from USA Custom Guitars.

I did however design and build the entire body and electronics, along with some very specific brass appointments.

When I finally built this guitar, I really didn't even know it it would work with and EBow the way I had hoped or imagined that it would. Fortunately, it exceeded my expectations although there are a few limitation. I deal with them. The biggest fear was that having soft finger on one side of the string coupled with wood on the other side would end up damping the string to an unplayable state. But, the Ebow does manage to excite the string decently although a little more slowly on the attack of lower notes.

The neck was ordered with a nice hard ebony fretboard and I had the luthier set the action with a straight neck (no relief) and as low as possible short of any "maauu" that many fretless players look for.

In search of a pickup, I seeked a humbucker for Series/Parallel/cut coil that was noted for having the most extended highs, as to compensate for any expected damping that might occur. much to my surprise, a great deal of the responses at the popular guitar/pickup forum's recommended was the Seymour Duncan Dimebucker. Oddly enough, for being known as a metal pickup with a DCR of 16K, the resonant frequency is upwards of 5.5K even in parallel humbucker configuration.

I find playing with good intonation to be very difficult, as I've been spoiled rotten by frets for many decades. But, starting to develop better intonation and string like lyrical expression. Its a fun trip and very happy with what was really an experiment with no promises. Someday I plan to have generated a little list of tunes/songs to showcase the weird instrument.
Best,
Phil Donovan

[Barry Daniels]

Photos?

[Philip Donovan]

I seem to fail every time trying to figure out how to get pics up on here. Need to learn that, and I will not give up.

Phil

[Barry Daniels]

I can help you with that. The main thing is that all pic files are too large and you need to compress them down below 3 MiB with a photo processing app. I use "Multiple Image Resizer" on my mac. Then when you are ready to post, go to "Full Editor & Preview" button next to the Submit button. Then post a message and click on the Attachments tab below the window. Click "Add Files" then navigate to your compressed pic file.

[Philip Donovan]

Lets try this

[Philip Donovan]

Hi Barry,
I wanted to mention that I haven't avoided trying to place photos up. I have been using a work computer and I believe it is not allowing me to do this at least the way I've been trying. It goes through their server which has very tight and rigid cyber protection. I'm not done trying though,
thank you for your help and patience!
Best,
Phil Donovan

[Jarno Verhoeven]

I've built 5 string shortscale basses, these days you can buy them, but 10 years ago this was not the case.
Also now, 5-string "shorter then shortscale" bass.
And, a long time ago, a cross between a Rick and an Ashbory

Ash body, sapeli (from builders store) neck, purpleheart fingerboard, abalone dots, original ashbory bridge and tuners (treble side winding drums are pinned in place, lest they spin off). It has the newer polyurethane strings meant for bass uke's, work A LOT better than the original silicone ashbory strings.

[Nick Kitchener]

Still in the build (and a while to go), but testing the neck with it's first set of strings at the moment.

28.625" scale length 7 sting, through neck and fixed bridge.