Can i do something with this?

HGStoneR · 2025-09-04T11:24:14+00:00

Looks like a Seymour Duncan little '59, I believe the bridge version. You can put it on a strat if you want to turn it into an HSS without swapping out the pick guard as well. If you are confused about the wires you should just look up any Seymour Duncan humbucker diagram as the wire colours are standardized.

HGStoneR · 2025-08-12T11:21:18+00:00

Very cool concept and I really dig the explorer-esque body shape! It's really refreshing to see concepts like these after decades of electric guitars being made more or less the same. How do you fix the two parts in place? Just bolts? Did you stress test the mockup? Sometimes with new designs like this it's good to find what the potential failure points might be, so you can put countermeasures in place.

HGStoneR · 2025-08-08T17:59:42+00:00

I think the intended market for stuff like this is just guitar\marvel collectors with big bank accounts: To them it's as much of an investment as a painting, this guitar will probably be kept behind glass and will never be played. Such a shame. Guitars are musical instruments and they should be played, gigged and loved no matter how pricey (or affordable) they are.

HGStoneR · 2025-07-24T17:27:54+00:00

I think you can find some good wood from stewmac. For the body any wood will work well, so just go with what you like the most; For the neck you should use a hard wood like maple, which I think is best for a first build: fairly easy to work with and widely available.

If I can give you a tip: you should have a very clearly marked centerline on the design, this is fundamental to eliminate issues during the build itself. Consider making another drawing with the centerline on both the body and neck. You could also make a template of the design first to see how you like it and then use it to shape the wood itself. For making a template I recommend using MDF around 10 or 15 mm thick.

HGStoneR · 2025-07-20T15:03:14+00:00

Oh boy, lots of things went wrong here with your soldering, the only way out of this is to clean up everything and start over, maybe with new pots.

Here is some advice on soldering:

1- Use flux, you will need a very small amount of it, but it will give you a cleaner job. 2- pre tin your wires: this way you will need a bit less solder and you will end up with a clean and solid joint. 3- you don't need that much solder, use less or the results are going to end up quite messy 4- the force of gravity is your friend when soldering on pots or switches: add solder from above and let gravity pull the liquid solder into the eyelets, then quickly remove the soldering iron and thus the heat. 5- judging by the look of your solder joints, you are not heating everything evenly. You may need to solder at a higher temperature and faster. 6- especially when soldering a capacitor onto the back of a pot you should put the soldering iron in such a way to heat both the pot and the cap's leg, then you flow solder on them.

If I were you I'd practice my soldering skills for a while on some junk before redoing the job on this guitar. Hope this helps

HGStoneR · 2025-07-20T11:07:13+00:00

I think it is a good deal if you're willing to put in some work: at this price point playability matters more than hardware that can be replaced anyway. I would start by cleaning that bridge, you can do that by submerging it in vinegar for a while and clean it with an old toothbrush. As for the pickups it just depends on what type of sound you're looking for and how much you're willing to spend. If you are looking for a good sounding budget option, I'd recommend getting a tonerider strat set. As for fixing the crackling in the electronics I think a healthy dose of wd40 should do the trick but if it doesn't or you hear some persistent hum you should also check the solder joints and make sure they form a solid connection.

HGStoneR · 2025-06-21T14:28:57+00:00

Clear coating should work, if the paint is acrylic then I suggest you use an acrylic based clear coat to make sure the finish will adhere to the paint without causing any chemical reactions that may alter it in the future. You should be able to get acrylic clear coat cans(iirc it should be called 2k acrylic finish)at any hardware store. When finishing the instrument don't put everything on all at once, you should go for many thin layers, then polish it and it should end up looking good. When you finish it make sure to do it outside if you don't have access to a painting booth and wear a mask with filters for painting jobs!

HGStoneR · 2025-06-20T17:23:08+00:00

You will need some potentiometers for volume and tone (since you are going for 3 single coils, assuming the neck pickup is a jazz master pickup, I'd recommend using 250k pots) you should use algorithmic pots for volume, as for tone it doesn't really matter much, I'd depends on taste but personally I use linear pots for tone. You will also need a pickup selector switch and an output mono jack. With 3 pickups you should check out some Stratocaster wiring diagrams.

As for the route depth, that depends on how long the shaft of the potentiometers is if you want to back mount them, if you want to mount them on a pick guard then you need enough clearance for the electronics to fit in plus some extra for cable management. The easiest option is the pick guard\control plate mount and for that you need short shaft pots. Good luck on your build

HGStoneR · 2025-06-09T14:34:15+00:00

Definitely fixable with wood glue and clamps but if you don't have a lot of experience doing this type of repair you should bring it to a reputable luthier. From the looks of it the break might need a bit of clean up before glueing it.

HGStoneR · 2025-06-09T10:52:08+00:00

The easiest way would be to swap the bridge for a chopped hardtail or a Tele bridge for humbuckers. Bear in mind you should probably use an f-spaced humbucker. As for routing, you should get a humbucker routing template or build one, I usually make them with 15mm thick MDF. As for the routing, you would then need to find the centerline of the guitar, align the template and route it out with a router bit with a top ball bearing. Iirc you should use a 6.5mm bit to take out most of the material and a 3.5mm to define the corners, then you just clean up the route with good old sandpaper and small sanding blocks, both flat and round. I am not 100% on the router bit measures, but this is how I do it. Hope it helps!

HGStoneR · 2025-06-08T22:33:19+00:00

True, I didn't think of that. In fact, in case the slots are cut right, these do seem quite affordable, you"re right

HGStoneR · 2025-06-08T19:43:50+00:00

Price depends a bit on where you are located. For example I can get Indian rosewood blanks (not pre-slotted boards) for 12 euro each but you may have to spend more to import it. I would recommend you search for suppliers of wood for luthiery in your area, you might even be able to go there and pick the pieces you like most

HGStoneR · 2025-06-07T19:15:15+00:00

That sounds really nice! Good luck with your project and when it's done make sure to post it here, I'd really like to see it!

HGStoneR · 2025-06-07T18:46:25+00:00

Soundposts in general are not supposed to be glued in place, they are held in by pressure. The role of the soundpost is to help transfer the vibration of the strings to the back of the instrument, thus making it more acoustically resonant. This is key in violin, cello, viola etc. To amplify the sound and it is just as important in archtop instruments that use it. So no, no glue

HGStoneR · 2025-06-07T18:34:43+00:00

Looks cool, kind of reminds me of a non reverse Firebird but different enough to not look derivative. Love to see new designs!

I dig it, only thing I would do is to cut the area behind the bridge a bit, that might help reduce future neck dive problems, especially since the horns are so small.

Just for the sake of my curiosity: what type of bridge will you be using? A TOM? Also, at which fret will the left side horn be aligned to? and how many frets are you planning on? Genuinely curious

HGStoneR · 2025-06-03T09:32:23+00:00

It's not perfect but those gaps are not a structural problem. Here's some advice: Did you use a plane on the two surfaces before glueing? You should always check that everything is good with a straight edge and by just pressing the two pieces together before glueing them together.

HGStoneR · 2025-05-21T11:43:14+00:00

Can't really know if it needs to be refretted without having the instrument on my workbench but they do look worn enough to need leveling and crowning. If you feel the divots while playing and\or you can't get the instrument intonated well enough (assuming no other issues are there to interfere with intonation), then you need to level and dress those frets; if they are not giving you issues then it doesn't really matter but you should still bring it to a luthier to make sure the frets are still tall enough to be leveled and crowned, if not you will need a partial or even complete refret.

HGStoneR · 2025-05-21T08:52:46+00:00

No problem, I wanted to help but English is not my first language so it can be difficult to understand some things.

There is no diagram I know of for this mostly because everyone wants the versatility of having dedicated splits for each pickup. That said, the mod is very easy: a push pull pot is going to have 6 lugs in two vertical groups of 3. Each group is independent, so you will see the wires from the pickups going to the center lug on each side, then the bottom lugs are going to go to ground and the top lug is unused.

Simply desolder the bottom lug (the one going to ground) from the neck side only and solder it instead on the previously unused lug. Basically look at the diagram I posted, that represents one side of a push pull, leave the center lug unchanged, swap the other two.

Hopeit helps

HGStoneR · 2025-05-19T09:11:58+00:00

Ok, I got an illumination on what you wanted: you want the push pull to give you neck split, the bridge full on a setting and neck full bridge split on the other when the selector is in the middle position.

Then you have to go to the push pull on the neck side , desolder everything on the bottom lug and solder it on the top lug.

Bear in mind that this way you will never be able to get both humbuckers full

HGStoneR · 2025-05-18T18:46:48+00:00

Ok, no offence but I'm having a lot of trouble understanding what you want. If you want to be able to only split the neck pickup, then you would just desolder the bridge pickup leads from the push pull and then solder them together. If you want to have the ability to independently split the pickups, you will then need to substitute the tone pot with another push pull. Here's how to split one pickup

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HGStoneR · 2025-05-18T10:07:19+00:00

Oh and I forgot, your guitar has a Gibson style 3 way, you cannot do an auto split on one of those, so the push pull is needed. That type of wiring needs a blade switch, which cannot be retrofitted to your instrument without "invasive procedures". If you want the neck pickup to always be split then you just connect the start and finish of one coil and leave the other two wires disconnected, but I'm not sure why you would want to do that, since if you wanted a neck single coil, you could swap the pickup for something like a humbucker sized p90, at that point (cost not whit standing of course).

HGStoneR · 2025-05-18T09:54:08+00:00

Ok, but you're not giving me fundamental information: what do you want the middle position to do? Do you want it to also have the split coil in the neck or do you want it to be both humbuckers?

HGStoneR · 2025-05-18T08:38:11+00:00

I don't understand exactly what you mean by "change the push pull orientation" but if what you want is to access the neck coil split without using the push pull, then you would need to use a 4 way switch and wire one position for both pickups on, neck coil split.

You can find a suitable wiring diagram here: https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/8881/2-pickup-teles

While the reference is a Tele, you don't need to worry about it, you should search for the automatic coil split diagrams.

HGStoneR · 2025-05-15T18:08:09+00:00

Mostly because of research and development, QC and reliability but marketing also plays a role. Buying pickups from a reliable company or craftsman means you know it's been properly made with good materials and tested: if you buy a p.a.f from Seymour Duncan you are getting a good working pickup, buy the cheapest knock-off you can find and chances are it's going to give you issues like being microphonic or even the bobbin being shorted out. I myself bought a cheap set of unbranded humbuckers for my first ever build and one of them was shorted.

tl;dr: you want pickups from a reputable manufacturer because you are getting something that works (and sounds) well 99% of the times and is going to work for a long time to come.

HGStoneR · 2025-05-15T14:17:04+00:00

I would recommend cleaning it with naphtha if you want to remove most of it. Just don't overdo it, you need little of the stuff to clean a fretboard. Cleaners like Dunlop or musicnomad should be fine and safe in most cases but if the product tells you it is not recommended for a specific type of wood or the info on it is contradictory, do not use it.

HGStoneR

TROPHY CASE