From the Home of Tone bench
Building a custom hardtail Strat body
I wanted to feature something a little different to the usual content on the blog, so have decided to document my process of making a guitar body. I'll may follow on with more like this if it's of interest! Within this article I'll be making a hardtail Strat body for a project, there are of course some superb pre-made bodies available these days, including custom specs but when you've got a workshop full of tools they need to be put to use don't they! So let's get busy and I suspect as a result the final product will be more meaningful too. I have a few spec ideas that will make this body a little unique, something that has been bouncing around my head for a while so will be nice to bring it to life.
A tidy up for this very cool Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro
Wrapped up the setup on this cool Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro today (Photos were taken after the initial rough in of the setup the prior day). It has had some Duncans fitted previously, and with their open cover style and no pickguard look on the guitar, gives it a cool vibe for sure. Wiring needed a look over as there were some tone pot issues, seems that was just wires touching places they shouldn't so tidied that up and it sprung to life. New control knobs will be on via the owner I'm sure. Frets needed some TLC with multiple high spots, but overall this one came out great and looks ace too. Custom requested a low action set-up on Rotosound 10s, and thanks to the fretwork and good neck angle/alignment that was all achievable. Nice guitar!
Left handed Custom Shop '59 Relic Strat for a re-wire
Tonight I carried out a pickup swap on a nice 2021 Custom Shop '59 Relic burst strat. The owner also asked if I could double check it's wiring specs as he has a project in the works and wanted to replicate it. Seems from the factory it had true to era 0.1uF tone cap installed, but with a more modern tone pot configuration. The neck pickup having the tone closest to volume all to itself, whilst the 2nd tone pot controlled both middle and bridge pickups. There was also a 2200pF / 100kOhm parallel wired treble bleed mod on the volume. So we'll be recreating those specs for the new guitar when the time comes via one of my harnesses.
Gibson Les Paul Standard - Full Set-up
This week saw a nice, pretty new Gibson Les Paul Standard through the workshop. This one came in for a full setup, and I supplied some Stringjoy 10-48 gauge strings for it from the shop. Final finish and general feel of this one was great, lovely Les Paul overall so was looking forward to getting stuck in.
On initial inspection, everything was quite good indeed overall. I did notice on closer inspection a couple of high frets, and that the fret leveling radius was a little out from it's optimal 12" radius. So I corrected those first of all, and a re-crown polish saw me move onto the setup adjustments. Nice relief at .008", and a low action at around 1.6mm at the 15th for the basses and around 1.2mm for the trebles at the 15th. Intonation quickly settling via the Stringjoys which are proving to be a very consistent product for accurate setups here. String slots at the nut slightly adjusted and depths set from .008" through to .004" from basses to the trebles. Lovely guitar and a pleasure to work on it!
On initial inspection, everything was quite good indeed overall. I did notice on closer inspection a couple of high frets, and that the fret leveling radius was a little out from it's optimal 12" radius. So I corrected those first of all, and a re-crown polish saw me move onto the setup adjustments. Nice relief at .008", and a low action at around 1.6mm at the 15th for the basses and around 1.2mm for the trebles at the 15th. Intonation quickly settling via the Stringjoys which are proving to be a very consistent product for accurate setups here. String slots at the nut slightly adjusted and depths set from .008" through to .004" from basses to the trebles. Lovely guitar and a pleasure to work on it!
