Building a twin neck guitar - part 6: Placing the "bits"

I finally got around to placing the "bits" of the guitar on the body to make sure everything fits and is OK. I had thought about it before but had kept putting it off. This was prompted when a friend asked if I had checked that things were OK and fit as expected before making changes to the necks ....cheers Alan :)

Anyway ... the bits fit. I'm not happy how the pickups look (or rather, will look) but that will be a temporary thing.

Here we go! Looks pretty cool in my opinion.

The chrome parts work really well in terms of aesthetics. The bridges are surprisingly good and will stay. The only issue I have here is the pickups. Covered pickups would look better. If you disagree let me know ;)

That wiring is going to be TIGHT! The switches don't fit right for me. As they sit now (as in the only way they fit), they go neck to bridge, and that just doesn't work. I'll need to route out the body out a bit so that the switches can sit so they work top to bottom (as they sit when you play).

I have a feeling this may be a wee bit of a challenge ;)
This is the cavity where I want to put the potential third switch as it's the one in the middle of the two necks. When I can get the switch in at the preferred angle it would mean that I could get a new switch in with a little routing, BUT there will be quite a few wires going in there.

But this one will be easier :)

Random input pic. Just making sure it fits.

Hopefully I can get the paint in the next week and can get started .... just trying to find the right wiring diagram. I don't want to paint until all the right holes are in place.

Building a twin neck guitar - part 5: Fixing the Neck Cavities

One of the biggest surprises, and indeed disappointments I found when the kit arrived was the fact the neck cavities were ... and pardon my French ...shit. (I've never understood that phrase. What's French got to do with profanity?)

The angle on the cavity was shocking. Here's one of the pics from the un-boxing ...

I swear it feels like I've spent as much time on these bloody cavities as I did the shaping of the headstocks.

Anyway, after shaving away with the shiny new chisels I bought I've finally got them level. The necks aren't perfect and the cavities still have some space at the top edge, but that's hide/fixable. I lightly screwed the necks in place to see how it sits. Two screws out of the four, just screwed in enough to hold the necks in place.

Just a flash-less shot to show the pickup cavities a wee bit better.

You can see here the gaps at the top. No great biggie as long as the screws are tight in and I've "tweaked" the cavities enough. I'ts such a soft wood that it'll take a wee bit more time to get it right ... even then it won't be 100%.

NEXT!

OK, so there's a few things to do now. First up I've decided to skip the graphic for now. I was always going to do a base colour on the whole body before adding the graphic. I'm going to paint the whole thing in a dark night blue colour. I'll add the graphic later and do another lacquer layer afterwards.

So, I need to wait for some good days to hang the body out back to paint it. Will take a few layers ... BUT FIRST! ..... I need to find the right wiring diagram.

The electrics that came are enough to get the guitar working but there's a bit missing for me. There's one volume, one tone and one pickup selector for each neck, which for the most part is fine. Not for me though. I want a third selector switch. Just a simple two way switch so I can select which neck is active. Problem is the wiring is already going to be tight in the space available, so I need to lay everything out and decide where to route a wee bit of space to add the third switch in the middle of the body. Will need to add a new backing too, but that's OK.

Slow going, but I can't wait to get this bad boy up and running!

So! To Maplin to buy electronics stuff and to Halfords to buy Automotive Spray Paint!

Building a twin neck guitar - part 4: Woodwork 2

OK, so I forgot to put this up .....

I'm about to pick this back up, so here's what I hadn't posted a few months ago after doing the head-stocks.

I left it at the point where I decided I needed to safety up a bit .... and here's the result:

So yeah, I touched up the 12 String head a bit. Just sharpening and rounding off a bit:

Next up, the 6 String head

So, I started with a pencil drawn outline on the head-stock

I took off the main bit of the right hand edge and started to "blade" the edge

I sterted to round off the top edge with a view to having a point, or bird beak type end

I very quickly decided the "wavy" top was ridiculous and I would either make it look shit, or screw it up to the point of ruining the head-stock. So I just rounded and smoothed the top edge and balled the bottom left corner

So, yeah that pretty much it.

Just started fixing the neck cavities in the body. I need to level them out.
After that I'll place the electrics to make sure all will fit and make any adjustments if needed. Then? Then ... we pain! Going to do a bass lighter midnight blue before adding the Eddie graphic.

I'll get there eventually.

Building a twin neck guitar - part 3: Woodwork 1

So I started doing the shaping of the 12 string head-stock.

This was my starting point. I had the initial head-stock with the pencil marks for a rough guide.

I put the neck all set up ready for me to shape it as I please :)

I've taken an edge off the point to help with the pointing of the curve at the top left.

I also rounded off the left-hand bottom point to improve the aesthetics a bit. It was all too square. I decided to "ball" the corner as it just seemed to flow better.

Same goes with the right-hand bottom corner.

I thought at this point I'd show you how I pointed the top point and was getting ready to do the big work on the 6-string, however .... I decided all the things saying to wear safety goggles might not be a complete waste of time, as I ran to the bathroom to wash out my eyes.

I'll stop here until I get my eyes protected. Will look great when it's done .... promise :D

Ross

Building a twin neck guitar - part 2: customisations

So, I've started looking at the bits of my guitar build that need/want to customise.

Here are the quick mock ups of the body graphic and penciled head-stock ideas so far. More will come. This is just day one! :)

EDIT!

Here's a few more body ideas. This is a massive decision, so there will be more of these.

Building a twin neck guitar - part 1: Out of the box

Building My New Guitar

So, I'm going to build a guitar. I might as well blog about it.

For the start I might as well go over the starting point .... what arrived in the box.

I decided to do this for three reasons. The first is because it's be a good project to keep me away from my PS3 and computer. The second is because the young boy my wife and I are hoping to adopt would be really interested on how the guitar would be put together and how it works. Hopefully it will be a bonding thing. Thirdly ...... I WANT A TWIN NECK GUITAR!

So what's in the box?

The Two Necks

My comments would be the same for both the 6 and 12 string necks. They are very surprisingly nice. They have what seems like really playable surfaces. They are really good, apart from the Nut. Obviously very cheap and set WAY too high.

The edge of the neck at the nut is a bit rough, but I'll smooth that out when I replace the nut.

It may be that I end up replacing the necks, but they seem good enough for me :0)

12 String Neck

6 String Neck

The Body

One word: stunning!

It may be just because it't the body of a twin neck V, but the body just works for me. There are a couple of small issues with it. The cavities for the electrics seem pretty snug. Also, the neck inserts are at an angle, so I'll need to level them out. No biggie. Was going to extend one of the cavities to put in a third switch anyway. 

The Metal Bits

The metal/chrome parts are surprisingly better than expected.

The bridges are actually pretty good. They'll do the job. I expected light tinny bit's of crap, but no ... they're OK.

The machine heads are OK. No better. They seem OK enough. Again .. they'll do the job for now.

The strap nuts seem too small. They will definitely be getting replaced! I don't trust 'em.

The neck plates come with rubber backings, which is great for such a soft wood. The actual plates are quite light and tinny. Will probably be replaced by custom jobs.

Electrics

Yeah ... the electrics ... m'eh.

The pickups will NEVER get anywhere near my new guitar. 

The pots MIGHT be OK, but I'll see. The capacitors will be replaced by Orange drops.
The switches seem good, so will put them in and see how they go. They are very tights and should work well.

The jack sockets looks like it's OK.

Other Bits

The pack came with a few other bits. There's an audio cable; will never be used. There's cavity covers; may be used. There's strings; will be used for setting up. There's rod covers; probably replaced.

So ....

There we go. That's what's in the box. There's everything you need to build a working guitar. Needs tweaked a bit, bit hopefully will turn out OK.

The next part will be marking out any changes needed to the woodwork,

Ross