custom guitar ideas and questions

[CCR91]

Heres what I plan to do

-Carvin through-body 24 fret, 7 string neck
-mahogany wings
-posibly quilt maple top and peghead quilt maple
-string thru stop tail or something like that
-dimarzio pups
-locking tuners
-strap locks
-stained a light blue

Now for the questions. How hard would it be to make this myself? I dont plan to do anything overly fancy for the body, likely a super strat shape, not sure of that just yet. Where would I be able to find the calculations for where to put the pickups and bridge and what not? Wheres the cheapest place to get mahogany for the wings?

tia

[purple_hazer]

haha my idea rub you the right way chris?

[hartke20g]

it wouldn't be that hard. after you cut the wings and glue them on, it's mostly just staining and assembly. as for where to get the wood, i've heard lumber yards will give you pieces of wood that are too small/not perfect enough for them to use.

[CCR91]

it wouldn't be that hard. after you cut the wings and glue them on, it's mostly just staining and assembly. as for where to get the wood, i've heard lumber yards will give you pieces of wood that are too small/not perfect enough for them to use.

Sweet. Theres this lumber place my friend's stepdad works at, I could prolly get some mahogany from the scrap pile if theres any.

Hahaha ya, your idea was sweet. I figure this'll cost me as much as the ibanez as I was lookin at, plus I'll have an extra string and the colour I want it in. Wont happen for a while me thinks though.

[purple_hazer]

erik pwns at awesome-o ideas


i keep getting more serious about the project
at least htinkin about it, i have no money to even start it

[CCR91]

I hear ya bro. This isnt gonna get done till about half way through next year.

I do plan to do everything I can with the wiring

-series/parallel
-coil taps
-killswitch
-maybe this thing http://store.guitarfetish.com/cofrjatoinsu.html

[chrisroberts1989]

make sure you dont go over the top with switches, like this

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e165/chrisroberts1989/PICT0005-1.jpg

or, if you do, give yourself plenty of room for mounting them.

when mounting the bridge, i fitted the neck first, then measured the scale length, and made sure the saddles were in the middle of their adjustment, and the correct distance from the nut

i then just marked and drilled for the mounting posts.

as for the pickups, find your datum (central line of bridge/neck) and work around that, it also helps to fit the top and bottom strings, so you can get the correct positioning for the pole pieces (or use blade pickups to solve that problem)

the bit i found easiest was the pickup cavity, it helps to have a milling machine handy, then you dont need to use a router, so you can get everything correct to within thousandths of an inch, and leave it set up so everything is parallel.


hope this is useful, its the way i did my friends custom, and i'll probably do the same when i build a custom for myself (modifying a tele at the moment)

cheers
chris

[CCR91]

sweet that helps and sweet at you being a chris also lol.

I only plan to have 4 or 6 knobs and maybe 2 or 3 switches. I dont want anything to fancy. I'd prefer to have as little as possible on the body but if i have to...