I finally finished a guitar last night using Danelectro fabrication techniques for the body (masonite sandwich). I posted a brief writeup, plus a PDF of some pictures at my site (http://hammer.ampage.org). Some of you folks might be interested. If you want a fast build that can look and play half decent, this is the ticket.

The great thing is that the bodies are dirt cheap to make. Ever wanted an Explorer, a Jazzmaster, a Vox Teardrop? A weekend of work and you've got one for maybe $20 and the electronics.

Looks sharp, Mark

What's ironic is that when I went to try it out last night, my equally beloved tweed Princeton let me down for the very first time in 28 years.  Nuthin, garnicht, squat.  Changed all the tubes, and they all light up, but still nuthin.  Prior to crapping out there was volume wavering which I *thought* was some intermittents from the patch cords.  I'm guessing there is a cap somewhere who was visited by the grim reaper.  28 years and I've never had to recap or retube (except for taste).  I guess it has to happen eventually. :cry:

Simple question - where do you get the masonite, Home Depot?

Bill

Simple answer.  Yes.  Same for the formica.

The core was simply two hunks of pine with a centre-joint.  Danelectro uses poplar, which is harder stock.  I suspect it yields a better neck/body joint as well.

The bolt-on neck from an older Ibanez LP is held in place by some beefy brass wood screws and brass ferrules that I picked up from Lee Valley Tools near where I live.  Sink a hole (well, 4 of them) into the butt of the body under the neck heel for the ferrule, drill a smaller hole to free up some room for the screw, and the ferrules will do a nice job of providing a good resistant grip for the screw heads that lets them be flush with the body.  So, no neck plate.

The PU's are some Mighty Mites I picked up for $30@ last year.  If I was playing through a real amplifier instead of the little dip-chip with a dying 9v battery I was forced to use, I could tell you whether they sound any good.  The bridge is a LP Jr wraparound I got from Stew-Mac (with posts).  the Bisgby is something I traded a tailpiece to a guy for.  I suspect it is from an SG or similar since it says "Gibson".

What you may or may not be able to tell from the pix is that it isn't especially symmetrical.  The string axis is a just a bit off, tending towards the lower/controls side.  The volume control is at a nice distance, though, and the toggle and tone control stay nicely out of the way.  Very simple electronics.

The side edging was a real bugger to put on, though the fault is mine.  The edging itself comes in a width *maybe* a 1/2" wider than the sides of the guitar.  If the sides were square with the top and back, it would have been a breeze: lin eit up, heat and apply, and trim off the excess.  Unfortunately, I cut the body out with a hand-held jigsaw so the side cut itself was not always perpendicular to the top/back, and the sanding drum I had for my drill press was not big enough for me to sand the entire side - top to back - and MAKE it square.  As a result, there were little visually negligible slopes here and there which would would impose "drift" in the edging as it snaked along.  Making it turn corners at the cutaway and such was trickier, and there were a few false starts when fractures occurred.  Fortunately glue that can be melted by heat is as eaily removed as it is applied, so I could just remove the edging and start over again.  Once the edging is successfully applied, you can just get a decent file and round off the edges of the top and back to form a smooth transition between formica and edging.  It's a whole lot easier than it looks....IF you don't make stupid mistakes like I did.

Very cool, Mark!

Mark,
    That is awesome!  Especially for the amount of time you put into it.      
Nice pics!
Speaking of making your own guitars:   I have a "V" Shaped body at home, no electronics, (but I do have some old pickups out of a les paul copy to use) also no neck.   How do I go about getting the correct size neck?
   I know that you can buy necks, I just wouldn't know which one to purchase.  Do I need to get dimensions of the body and distance from end of neck slot(closest to pickups) to where the bridge goes?

I am lost on this topic!

Peace!
Arn C.

It doesn't happen every day, but people DO bring their instruments into repair shops to get the neck changed, and those necks can sometimes stay at the bottom of the heap with the luthier.  The one you see on the Dano-Paul was from an Ibanez LP that I bought for $40 at a vintage place.  No electronics, or bridge, and the tuners needed some tightening.  The body turned out to be more trouble than it was worth so I just figured $40 for a neck was a good deal and ignored the body.  If you want a new neck, you'll probably have to spend in the neighbourhood of $100 or so anyways, in which case keep your eyes peeled for otherwise rejectable guitars with usable necks at pawn shops, 2nd hand places, garage sales, etc.  as long as you don't do anything to strip the screw holes, no reason why you couldn't have a bolt-on neck shared by two or more bodies, depending on which sort of guitar strikes your fancy that week.

There ARE neck scale issues to consider, but at the cheap end of the market, less wood means less manufacturer cost, so shorter scale will be more typical, especially if its a much older model.  A Tele-type bridge is particularly useful for taking a crapshoot on necks, since they have so much leeway for adjusting string length.  I used a one-piece bridge with cast saddles.  I'm not so sure that was optimal for intonation purposes and may even switch the Leo Quann bridge you see on the Coronet over to the new instrument, and the LP Jr bridge (which is what was there originally anyways) over to the Coronet to buy me some improved intonation on the new one.

The sensible thing, though, is to not decide where your bridge will go until you have a neck.  Of course, if the body is already there in anticipation of a neck, you need to decide on scale, and use that to figure out suitable distances.  So, if it is a 25-1/2" scale, you fiigure out where the octave would be, and calculate the distance from the 12th fret to the spot where end of the neck would butt up against the body in the socket.  Either measure that distance and carry a ruler, or cut yourself out a little piece of cardboard that length so that if you come across an inexpensive neck, you can compare it against how long the critical part needs to be and decide if it will fit or not.

I have another Strat-type gutar I'm working on that has been hampered by having mated a really nice (but long scale and low profile) Aria neck with an okay body that likely anticipated a shorter scale neck with more fingerboard height.  If it was a hardtail, that would be one thing, but this has a tremolo bridge/block which needed to be mounted at a different distance and lower down.  You don't want that headache.

Note that with a core+top/back construction technique, it is possible to easily make cheesy semi-acoustics.  Indeed, what you can't see on the Dano-caster is that it originally had an F-hole on the bass side of the bridge.  I did a lousy job so I just covered it up with the formica.

Quote from: Mark HammerWhat's ironic is that when I went to try it out last night, my equally beloved tweed Princeton let me down for the very first time in 28 years.  Nuthin, garnicht, squat.  Changed all the tubes, and they all light up, but still nuthin.  Prior to crapping out there was volume wavering which I *thought* was some intermittents from the patch cords.  I'm guessing there is a cap somewhere who was visited by the grim reaper.  28 years and I've never had to recap or retube (except for taste).  I guess it has to happen eventually. :cry:

no hum at all?

check bias supply voltage and HT at their source - are they ok?

Looks very cool!

In case you were wondering about the Mighty Mites, I installed some for a friend and then played through my amp (couple hours total) and they sounded very nice for the price.

I love it Mark. Nice shape and all.

Looks great with the vibrato...

I would be curious to hear how it sounds.

The thinline that I built a few years ago sounds... thin. I want to add a P90 at the neck to help the Fender noiseless that is installed at the bridge.

So I was wondering how the material affects the sound on yours.

;okug