MIMF

I figured I'd share some build pics from this latest idea. I followed my wife on a work trip to St. Lucia, and had some spare time to draw. I came up with a full size plan for this guitar, which is inspired probably by many guitars, but I think mostly by certain Rickenbackers.

This one is a Mango top (island inspired!) on a mostly Alder body I've had hanging around for a while. I had to add a walnut stripe down the middle of the alder to make it wide enough.

It's chambered on the treble side only, to allow me to carve as much as I want on the bass side. It has a maple/walnut/maple neck with a birdseye maple fretboard. Weirdly enough, this is the first time I've ever used a maple fretboard on one of my builds, but I thought it went well with this guitar.

Two things I'm still trying to decide:

1. Stick with 2 P-90 style (actually more like jazzmaster pickups, they are going to be Novak "narrow range" P-90s.), or add another middle P-90, for looks, and for possible cool combo sounds.

2. Do the pickguard look, or the bare bones look?

It's going to get an amber burst finish, with the natural mango color in the middle, fading to red to darker brownish around the edges.

Thanks for any input!

Here is the back so far...

Cool! Go with the pick guard and one soapbar in the neck position.

Thanks Jason!

I've already got it routed for two soapbars, and also I'd miss having at least a bridge pickup...

I'm with you on the pickguard too.

Now the question is just to add a third soapbar, or not... I think I want to.

You can use a clear pick guard, then the wood shows thru.

Thanks Art, but the reason for the gaurd on this one is purely aesthetic, so I want it to be either wood (birdseye or curly maple) or maybe a cream plastic or something else.

Here is a very bad (sorry!) pic of the guitar with a maple pickguard I just made...

There will be much more contrast when it's finished with the burst...

Groovy Dan!
I like how the pickguard mirrors the upper horn.
Nice design!
Dan

Thanks Dan! Yea, that's what I was going for. And something about this design seems to look not quite right without the guard.

I did a nifty spin on an Explorer.
Your design does reminds me of a Rick variant, cool lines!
Dan

Yes! Love the multi wood top and the angles on that! Very cool. How do you like those Filtertron style pickups on there? I had a jazz instructor buy one of my semi-hollow guitars with Filtertrons and he loved them. They were a little too "revealing" for my playing skills, haha.

Dan

These are Guitar Fetish pickups.
I like them, they have a gutsy, full sound.

Love that explorer

I have't gotten too far this week, but I did decide to go with the 3 pickup configuration. I don't have too much left to do on the body, which I want to finish first this time, since I'm spraying lacquer on it, and sticking to the Tru-Oil finish for the neck, which won't take very long. It's going to have a volume, tone and 5-way mounted on the pickguard, and I think I may make the tone a push-push pot to enable additional pickup configurations. I was thinking maybe having it engage the bridge in series, so that I can get neck-bridge in series and middle-bridge in series.

Cheers,

Dan

A quick shot of the nearly final back carving...

Look's great Dan!
Are you using a Jaguar wammy bar bridge?
The look matches the guitar vey well.

Thanks Dan,

The bridge is a Schaller roller bridge, which I like when I use the jazzmaster trem like I'm using. I add some weights in the form of heavy washers to the underside of the part of the trem that moves, and I find that that plus the roller bridge helps it stay very stable and in tune. Plus a smoothly slotted nut of course.

I've wanted to try the new-ish Mastery jazzmaster style trem, but it's way too expensive to justify whatever it's trying to fix, in my opinion...

I really like the direction you're going here. Maybe it is the Ricken-ness of the shape, but it instantly has a familiar vibe going on.

And you're going to burst it? Are you sure you don't want to try mint green or creamy yellow? Eh, save it for the next one.

Haha, thanks Jason!

Yeah, a subtle burst on this one, I think it will go well with the already amber/yellowish Mango.

I have a nice curly maple top set that I think I want to try the whole bleached maple/green or blue burst thing on, maybe on the next one. That should be a fun experiment.

And the body with the mango-burst on it!