Doing Things Wrong

Body - Built (4/4)

Sometimes the only way to get what you want is to build it yourself.

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This is the very first guitar I ever built, a hot-rodded version of the old Silvertone 1457. This guitar uses every passive wiring trick in the book. Four - count 'em - four lipstick pickups, wired in series. Six-way pickup selector, and two phase switches. The neck is from AllParts, I paid way too much for it. The finish is glittery acrylic lacquer from the auto parts store. The knobs are from Radio Shack - remember them?


This started as a vintage neck that I got on eBay. I built a reproduction body and hunted-down old-style parts to rebuild this as authentically as possible. The finish is black nitro, which is accumulating nitro damage just from existing. Someday I should strip that garbage off and re-shoot it in polyurethane.


This is my reference for guitar setups - a Japanese "E-series" Squier Stratocaster from the early '80s. This was an era when Fender-America was not doing their best work, while the Japanese models were superb.


Solid ash body, 32" neck, active electronics ( stacked tones. )


Body - Built

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I was playing around with my new welder, and eventually, I did this. That is a 3/16" round attached to a 1/4" flat - a very common joint for a truss rod. It's not beautiful, but it is strong, you can see how I tried to pull it apart. Then I sawed the end off, and you can see it is solid - no slag inclusions, just two pinpricks at the 'corners' of the round. Welding is not as scary as I thought, but it is going to take a lot of practice. My welds seem to be a matter of luck, but my luck is improving.

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