I have done so little work on this!!

Ok today, I routed the pickup cavity for the single H/B thats going in, and rough cut the scratchplate.

Maybe I'll get a little more focus!

 

Ok, replacement sander belts have arrived, so, a little more work on the neck.....

Fingerboard......  Now ebony traditionally is black, but it's nearly always STAINED to actually make it black.  this blank is solid, but really lightly coloured.

a little tickle with the sander and it's really pretty.  I MAY stain it, I may leave it like this......

 

then a handy website calculates the fret spacing for a 430mm scale length......

 OK, this neck.......

pull the frets first.  they really were all over the show!

Then, sanding off the nasty fret slots first.  A purist would, of course, have a beautifully sharp jointing plane.

I've got a belt sander!

a guideline to aim for.......

and off we go!

surprised to see that the marker dots are actually inlays and not just paint......

sadly, when I'd got this far, the sander belt ripped so I'm stuck until the replacement arrives in the post.  

Winter project 2020

 Too early for a winter project?  well this year has already lasted about 32 months so I don't care!

I was considering building a valve amp from a kit, but then I remembered that I'd been given this little beast.........

so.... its a mini electric guitar.  with a built in amplifier and speaker.

and, I've just realised, it's the same colour as my last winter project started off!  and, like last year, 

THIS WILL CHANGE!!!!

OK, so the scale length is 17", which means its the same as capo7 on my strat.

good points?

well, there are no serious dings

the bridge, strap buttons, jack and jack plate, neck plate and knob are all reusable.

bad points.

the colour, clearly, but that was always going to be going.

the tuners are really nasty open cog things.

the neck is really chunky for such a small instrument and there is no truss rod.

and the frets are in the wrong places!

yes, after measuring carefully, and making a template for 17" scale, the red dots show where the frets SHOULD be

ho hum!

so the plan.

remove the frets, plane down the fingerboard and either cut new fret slots in the front of the neck, or go further, route a truss rod slot, add a truss rod and the top it with a rosewood or ebony fingerboard.

fill that speaker cavity, re-rout for a humbucker, use the switch hole as a coil split and the single knob can be concentric volume an tone.

and paint it a more sensible colour.

no hurry, so....... here we go!

under saddle piexo, strapjack preamp and bone saddle in a Yamaha 12 string

First venture into video production!