Insomnia Cured

I've been working on one of my guitars. It has a few interesting (to me and other guitar geeks) modifications and stuff, and I thought I'd share them with you because sometimes people need to be put to sleep through boredom...

The body style is called a Non-Reverse Firebird. Which, I admit, sounds like saying "Un-different."

When I got it, it was raw wood:So I stained it:That picture of Jesus used to hang in my grandmother's kitchen, that's why.I stained the guitar but didn't clean up my room. 'Cos I'm all grown up and no one can make me:It looks like the aftermath of a David Lee Roth suicide bombing.Then I started to spray nitrocellulose lacquer on it, one coat at a time:You have to build it up slowly, so it stays smooth.

I shielded the control cavity with copper tape:Someone I know helped me with the electrical diagram for this guitar. It will have a 'dummy coil' because the two pickups, called P-90s, are 'single coil'; they sound really good but they also 'pick up' 60-cycle hum.

Like fluorescent lights, and neon, and all the other stuff that illuminates Hong Kong.In this guitar, the dummy coil will go in the middle hole of the three on the face of the guitar:I still have to drill for all the knobs and switches, but I want to wait until I get all the parts first.

The inset picture of the neck is there so you can see the original color. Considering the neck and body came from two manufacturers (but they are both mahogany), I am happy with how well the color matched.

The neck was a special order from Warmoth.I actually have them saved in my mobile phone, I call them so much. This neck has an ebony fretboard, stainless steel frets, and it is HUGE. 1 7/8" wide at the nut (1 5/8 is standard) and a 'Fatback' neck shape to fit my big fat hands.

But it helps the guitar sound fat and huge, so we make a nice couple.

The two pickups that will go in the outside holes won't be here for another 4-8 weeks, because when I called Warmoth last night to order them, I said "F@#$ it" and ordered a whole other guitar too, which will take 4-8 weeks.

That guitar will already be painted, so when it gets here I can just put it together. It will look like this:Pretty...But that guitar will have special tuners that make it possible to leave off 'string trees.' When a string passes over the nut on its way to the tuner (you're sleepy now, huh?), it has to break over the nut (ouch) at a minimum angle in order to stay in place and to sound clear and loud.In this photo, the nut is the black thing on the left (it's parallel to the first fret, visible on the far left), and the string trees are those two black and silver things to the upper left of the Warmoth logo. The tuners are the six things with strings attached to them.

One way to avoid string trees is to use 'staggered tuners'; they get progressively closer to the surface of the headstock. In this photo, the tuners get lower from right to left.But I already had a set of tuners.

If I call Warmoth back to buy tuners, I'll buy a whole f@#$ing guitar again.

Not that I'm a bad person for that.

So what's a man to do, especially when he's alone on a Saturday night?

I did that, washed my hands, and went into my workshop.

I had some brass strapping (?) around 1/16 (1.5mm) thick, 1" wide.

I cut a piece of brass and drilled four holes. Actually I drilled the holes and then cut the piece, because it was easier to work with that way.

Then I drilled two holes in a shorter piece (half as long, yes) and cut that off.

I put them on the back of the headstock beneath the four tuners that hold the D, G, B, and E strings, and are furthest from the nut:The low E and A, on the right, don't need any more break angle than they already have, so no need for them to be lowered.

I put the shorter, 2 hole piece on the back of the headstock under the B and high E string tuners (the two on the left) but on top of the first piece of brasss:I'm not gonna win any metal working awards, but the concept was sound.

Now the tuners, which are all the same height, are staggered on the face of the headstock:You can see how the brass makes the tuners lower.

It also helps the guitar to sustain more by putting more mass in the headstock.

This way, I won't need string trees for this guitar.

I'm happy, and you're probably sleepy.Thank you and good night.