More parts on order

I ordered a superswitch and some push/pull pots for the tracer re-wiring. Not sure if maybe I want to go with adding series/parallel switch for the humbucker to see what that sounds like.

Wiring Plans

Been looking at the wiring plans at GuitarElectronics.com and at some of the info here at 1728.com  I think I have settled on some plans. One of the interesting things I ran into on my travels was the "guitar solo switch" to be found here, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for and if it sounds good I'm going to try and use it in all my wirings.

Epi Les Paul: Nothing changes here for now, keep the look the same and put a coil tap/split on each knob. If I don't find much use for splitting the neck, i might rewire for the solo switch instead later on. There are a bunch of other things to try here.

Peavey Tracer: This is my old hair band guitar from the late 80's.

Pretty much exactly as shown. HSS with a 5-way and a coil tap for the bridge. The fairly cheap floyd rose is a bit of a pain and really needs to be setup properly again. It was a damn good guitar for getting  any sound for any style when I played 7 days a week and got to know it like the back of my hand. But now that i just sit in my basement and play a couple of times a week it's not so much fun. hence the search for a simpler LP type guitar. So I have decided to open it up and practice some wiring on it. I'm going to go with this. I get to play with a superswitch and I think I'll add the guitar solo circuit for the mini toggle. This wiring will give me most of the sounds I liked plus a neck bridge i never had. Later I'll think about adding an sc rail humbucker at the neck. More practice for the LP.

Pink Strat: I'm ordering a pre-wired sss harness for this so I think I'm just going to make these changes and add a 2nd pp pot for the guitar solo circuit. I am imagining this will help me get my Hendrix fix. I might have to buy an amp to really get the feedback going.

LP: With all the practice I build up from the above projects I'm hoping not to have any trouble building the full Jimmy Page from scratch. Also I'm going to be in NJ for a week in July, so I'll probably have the stuff shipped there as it will save me $70 buck or so in shipping.

So those are the plans for now, I'll see how long I can keep them.

Potential Change of Plans

The wife was bugging me that if I was making a guitar that I wanted she wanted me to make a pink guitar for her (even though she doesn't play). I had noticed a pink LP on magic dragon before but then i noticed this. Now pink is not my favorite colour, not by a long shot, and I would have no interest in playing a pink LP, but it got me thinking. You get a lot of stuff for free with this body (i guess they didn't sell, imagine that!), and I can build a strat for about 2/3 the price as one of his LPs. At the same time it's a hell of a lot easier to wire a strat than a LP, and I can mess around easily with a lot of different wirings and learn some things. This isn't that bad, especially if I get to put 3 humbuckers in it.

Well if I'm sitting in my basement I guess.

Parts on order

The pickups and the pots were ordered today. Went by A1 electronics, obviously I'll be able to get what I need there but I better go with a list and looking for help.

Parts to be ordered

A set of Wilkinson Zebras and some push/pull pots are going on order this week, very exciting, so the Epi LP Special II will soon be getting some new sounds if I don't mess it up. Lots of pictures of the original wiring to be taken, and I've got to get some shielding supples and a soldering Iron. A1 Parts is supposed to be a good local source.

Also on the lookout for a cheap used strat copy for a test bed idea i have and a cheap source of sc pickups.

Wiring Thoughts

Since I've chosen to do no finishing myself, the only really big single part of the project where I can really have some fun is wiring. So I've looked into the options and am seriously thinking of trying out the "Jimmy Page Wiring" where all 4 pots are push/pull and give you all kinds of crazy options - 20 some odd in total I think. At first this seemed pretty daunting, but then I found this page at the New England Luthiers site. It's pretty much every step laid out, and they have even modified the standard layout so you aren't grounding to the backs of the pots, which while apparently the traditional method is not the best method.

Now I have never wired a guitar, so I don't think I'll make my first attempt this project. I was planning on putting some of the Zebras I want to use for this project into my son's Epi Les Paul Special II. So why not add a couple of push/pull pots in and make them splittable? I found a cheap source for the pots on ebay, and a wiring diagram at GuitarElectronics.com. They actually have a ton of free diagrams with all the options nicely listed. Including the Jimmy Page.

So it looks like I'm ordering some zebras and pots this week to get started on a nice little mini project! Will probably be doing some shielding on the Epi as well so I can get started on practicing that.

Where things stand April 18, 2010

I've already done a lot of work and been through a lot of options and I believe I have a plan. I'm not going to go through what I have what I have investigated and rejected, just what the plan is today.

Body and Neck: magicdragononline Dragon Mountain Les Paul copy

This guy has pretty decent looking finished parts available for Les Paul, SG, Flying Vee, Stratocaster and Telecaster copies. Finish choices aren't huge but pretty variable. Apparently he shuffles through different ones. There is no separate webpage I can find only the ebay store linked above. There are some reviews at various places online and nobody really has anything bad to say. In fact most comments seem to be "Surprisingly good despite x/y/z". Parts are finished which is good because i don't have the patience or space to do a proper finishing job, and I'm not going to pay somebody else to do it.

I have settled after much discussion with the wife on a non-traditional bound glossy burgundy body with a matching neck. I'm going to go with basically ivory plastics and black hardware, which are all available from the same source and are guaranteed compatible. Using this online utility called Kisekae by Yajima String Works I've been able to put together what I think is a pretty good idea of what it will look like:

This is actually a really good utility. You can adjust pretty much everything but the gloss as far as I can figure out. There even several are options to build your own finishes and components.

Electronics: Wilkinson Zebras

I love that classic look, think it goes well with the design and they are pretty readily available on ebay at a really good price. Dragon Mountain doesn't have Zebra pickups available, and the ones available from the bigger name companies are pretty expensive by comparison. Again I can't find many reviews, and what I do find is very positive. Also they are a 4-wire model so I can mess around with tapping, splitting, phase etc...

Now that I have all that worked out I just need to get everything on order, got to wait a little bit for that. When you order the Dragon Mountain stuff the body and neck are shipped separately, so you are going to pay for shipping each time, though the small parts ship free. This is actually ok as you can order the body, get it all done, and then order the neck.

Next i need to figure out what I want to do for my next project after this one. I'm thinking a strat copy with rail single coil humbuckers...

Welcome to the dPc Do it Yourself Guitar Blog!

I have always wanted to build my own guitar, as I've played (poorly) for years and never been able to afford quite what I wanted. Recently I wanted to get my son playing so I started looking into cheap electrics. As well as discovering that cheap instruments are a hell of a lot better than they were when I was a kid, I have also discovered that in the internet/ebay age the idea of building your own guitar isn't as scary/expensive as it once was. There are lots of options to get the parts you want, and lots of places to learn about what you need to do.

Keeping track of all the information I was collecting was turning out to be a little difficult, so I thought why not start a blog. I can keep track of all the information I'm collecting as well as keep track of my progress. And if I can get some pictures into this thing it might even be valuable.