# Ultra Lightweight Headless Travel Guitar Build!



## Hywel (Jun 9, 2015)

So this is build 2 of 2 (1 of 2 being here) and it was born out of the realisation that it's really difficult or expensive to take a full scale, normal guitar on a plane to Aberdeen. Initially I set about faffing around in Illustrator again, prototyping ways of making a very compact and light weight guitar that I could fit in a suitcase and not have to pay silly amounts of excess baggage charges. I tried Martin Backpacker style designs (couldn't get on with the lack of a body) and very odd shaped ergonomic designs until I realised Ola Strandberg had pretty much got it right and produced the only headless guitar design I actually liked. I sent him an email and asked him for permission to use the Boden body shape under the creative commons license he generously provides. After a quick conversation permission was kindly granted and I started to plan the build (mainly in Aberdeen's Brewdog bar, fuelled by Dead Pony IPA).

Initially I played around with folding bodies and more drastic cutaways until I settled on using the standard Boden shape but at ~95% scale and with an Olympic sized swimming pool route/pickguard and some swiss cheese style weight relief.

I also realised there wasn't any point in using a lightweight body design and the 5.5KG ash body blank I had lying around so I started to research the lightest weight woods I could find. Many spreadsheets and density calculations later I ended up with the specs below.

Boden body shape @~95% scale licensed from Ola Strandberg
~40mm thick Paulownia body, Spanish Cedar neck, Rosewood fretboard
6 string, 24" scale, 24 2mmx1.2mm frets
Carbon fibre non-adjustable truss rods (explained a couple of posts below)
Black/White/Black 1.5mm 3 ply pickguard
ABM Headless tuners/Locking nut
Single Lace Deathbucker at the bridge
Black stain/Wax finish












Paulownia is an asian wood that's kinda similar to Balsa. It's incredibly lightweight (at ~280Kg/m3 compared to say basswood at ~415Kg/m3) but still a hardwood and has been used for centuries in Japanese instruments and more recently in surfboards etc...

Spanish Cedar (not actually a Cedar) is a hardwood that's sometimes used in acoustic and classical guitars with a character similar to mahogany. Again, is lightweight (409Kg/m3 for my blank vs. maple at ~700+Kg/m3) but still stiff enough for use in a neck. To ensure it doesn't move too much I'll be adding carbon fibre to reinforce it.

So, as before, the Illustrator templates were sent to Razorlab to be laser cut and then transferred to 15mm MDF.











And for some reason I thought I'd make the pickguard first. 

The 1.5mm HIPS laser engraving sheet was rough cut to the template on the bandsaw and then routed flush on the router table. A bevel was added with a 45° router bevel bit but...






I got excited and forgot to put the bevel on the right side of the plastic  (I was working night shifts at this point so that may have had a hand in this!). If anyone wants a left handed 95% scale pickguard for this body shape let me know!






Luckily the sheet of HIPS I had was big enough for 2 so the next one came out in a more usable shape.






Next the blank was sanded flat and smooth and the outline cut out on the bandsaw






The complete blank weighed ~1800g (~4lbs) before cutting and now the body is down to...






760g (1.67lbs) before any routing . Not bad.

So, disclaimer wise, this build is a bit of an experiment. I'm fully aware there are some odd choices of wood and hardware so if it explodes into splinters when I put strings on it I'll chalk it up to experience and try again with something more conventional. On a related note, this is my version of a Strandberg Boden guitar, designed by Ola Strandberg, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license. My modifications to the original design are free for you to use under the same license, please contact me if you have any questions or would like a link to the template files.

I hope you lot like learning about the weights of guitar bits because there's going to be a lot of that! 

Next time I'll hopefully get the body routed and maybe start messing with a neck blank.


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## KnightroExpress (Jun 9, 2015)

Very cool! I love seeing bold and unusual wood choices. My only concern is the lack of adjustable truss rod... your neck will definitely be stiff enough to hold tension, but you need that adjustability for a proper setup. I'm not trying to rain on your parade or anything, just offering (unwarranted) advice


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## Hywel (Jun 9, 2015)

KnightroExpress said:


> Very cool! I love seeing bold and unusual wood choices. My only concern is the lack of adjustable truss rod... your neck will definitely be stiff enough to hold tension, but you need that adjustability for a proper setup. I'm not trying to rain on your parade or anything, just offering (unwarranted) advice



Thanks for pointing that out, I forgot to explain that bit in the original post!

I've thought quite a bit about the truss rod situation and I've currently come to the conclusion that I tend to like my necks fairly flat so I was thinking, if I make the neck stiff enough it might naturally have an acceptable relief. I mainly got the idea from old Martins and Vigier (although they have way more carbon fibre than I'm using). I'm not a great player and I don't really notice much difference in neck relief as long is it doesn't buzz like crazy near the middle or doing something equally annoying. Of course I might build this and end up with something resembling a banana in shape and a swarm of bees in sound so I'm planning on leaving the centre of the neck where a truss rod would go untouched so in the future I can remove the fretboard and route in a truss rod if needed.

The other reason I'm trying truss rod-less is weight. My usual double action metal rod weighs about 135g I think which, while not a vast amount, does add up and would likely make the guitar more neck heavy and throw it off balance a bit.

I definitely expected someone to point that bit out and I'm kinda expecting to have to add a rod in the future but I thought it might be interesting to see what happens without one.


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## ElRay (Jun 9, 2015)

Hywel said:


> ... I've thought quite a bit about the truss rod situation and I've currently come to the conclusion that I tend to like my necks fairly flat so I was thinking, if I make the neck stiff enough it might naturally have an acceptable relief. ...



There are a fair number of other builders that just make their necks as stiff and flat as possible and don't worry about adjustability.


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## KnightroExpress (Jun 9, 2015)

I'm interested to see what happens and really hope it works out well for you


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## Deegatron (Jun 10, 2015)

Im in love with this build! I always wanted to build a travel guitar like this...
My suggestion for the non adjustable truss rod. 
- Build it stiff as balls.
- fret it and string it up.
- let her settle for a few weeks then check the relief.
- If relief is unacceptable - remove frets, sand some relief into the fretboard - refret, level and crown (being careful to maintain the relief). and then your golden.


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## Hywel (Jun 10, 2015)

Deegatron said:


> Im in love with this build! I always wanted to build a travel guitar like this...
> My suggestion for the non adjustable truss rod.
> - Build it stiff as balls.
> - fret it and string it up.
> ...



I'd definitely wait to see if it works before you get too excited 

Sounds like a solid plan for the relief adjustment too.

Minor update, got the outline routed out.






But I had a little tearout on the back end which was filled (initially with CA glue/sawdust until I remembered I was going to stain this and switched to a stain-able filler). 

Paulownia seems like it might be a bit prone to tearout. I think it's mainly due to it being really quite soft but it's hard to say for sure. The bits were cleaned right before and after and the following black limba went without a hitch so I guess it's just one of those things. 






Now it's to shape on the outside we're down to 705g/1.55lbs. Should be plenty left to loose from the central cavity!


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## Hywel (Jun 12, 2015)

Started work on the neck today.

Marked on the layout for the reinforcement.











Routed in the slots for the CF rods (which weigh about 20g). Couldn't clamp the blank to the bench as it got in the way of the router so I hot glued it down. Rock solid, worked a treat!






Unfortunately I routed a little too far. 






No problem though, filled it in with grain matched offcuts and glued it in with titebond. Came out nice and solid once it had dried and been cut flush.











Once the rods are in and epoxied in place I'll set about cutting the outline and putting the fretboard on.


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## Hywel (Jun 16, 2015)

I've been a bit busy so things are a bit slow but here's what I've got so far.

CF rods are glued in.






I also installed the T-nuts. Much cleaner this time with the drill press rather than the hand drill. 











Templates attached so everything's ready to be cut to shape but the landlord is visiting tomorrow (and has no idea I've turned his old bedroom into a workshop) so I've been doing jobs that don't make any dust. 






I got the pickguard shielded but since the cheap copper tape turned out not to have conductive adhesive I dropped some solder on the seams. Installed the Deathbucker just to see what it'd look like. The pickup cutout looks a bit oversized but it was sized for a standard covered humbucker in case I fancy a change in the future. I also rethreaded the mounting holes for M2.5 so I can use some black hex bolts to match the rest of the build rather than the silver #3-48 screws which stick out a bit.











Finally I had a go at some finish options on an offcut. I tried oiling and sanding back but open grain with 2 coats of black water based stain and a couple of Briwax over the top won out. I used Briwax on the top of my router table and it's proven fairly hard wearing and very easily repairable. Any scratches just disappear with a new coat over the top as the solvent re-melts everything back to a nice flat sheen. Any dings (and there will be a few, this wood is pretty soft) can be removed by taking the wax off with mineral spirits and steaming them out before replacing the wax over the top. Easily repairable is definitely a bonus for a travel guitar!


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## Knarbens (Jun 17, 2015)

Cool project! I'm in ...


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## Hywel (Jun 17, 2015)

Landlord's inspected the place and didn't have a problem with my "tool storage room" so with that sorted, I tried to make up for lost time and instantly undid all my cleaning .

First of all, the neck was cut to shape and routed flush.






Then the main cavity and neck pocket were hogged out with a forstner bit and chisels before being routed to the templates. Little bit of burn in some areas but its all going to be opaque black so .






I used 3 wraps of electrical tape around the router bearing to make a good tight fit (DistinguishedPapyrus's thread reminded me of that one). Passes the test with the MDF template still attached! 











Time for a weigh in!

Body alone - 583g/1.29lbs
Neck alone - 251g/0.55lbs
Both together...






(aka 1.83lbs)

Time to add some round overs! It's at this point I start to think paulownia hates routers since there was plenty of fuzz and tiny bits of tearout but nothing that cant be fixed with a bit of sanding.

1/4" on the back






1/8" on the front






Since it's a good excuse to cut more wood off I rasped in a belly cut and forearm contour. 
















Forearm contour ended up a bit too rounded for my liking but its very comfy so I'm not bothered by it.

Might as well cut some heel off while I'm at it!






With all of that lot done I weighed it again to find I'd saved a whopping...






38g/1.3oz 

Still, brings the running total down to 796g/1.75lbs for the body and neck so not too bad! It'll go down a bit more when I use some forstner bits to add some weight relief holes under the pickguard. Still hardware, fretboard and neck carve to factor in though!

Turned out to be a productive 4 hours (I love these templates!)

Next time I'll try and stick a fretboard on it.


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## Hywel (Jun 23, 2015)

Update time!

I'm still looking to cut more wood off so I added a carve behind the lower horn.






And took a couple of forstner bits to areas that are going to be hidden by the pickguard. Saved a further 29g/1oz. 






And as promised, I glued a fretboard on. It's a nice piece of rosewood pre-slotted to 24". 

Previously I'd glued the rough cut board to the neck blank and routed it flush but this time I had an overhang past the 24th fret so I cut the fretboard separately, routed it to its own template and then glued it on. I used 1mm drill bits through the fret slots to hold it in place and it worked really well so I'll using that technique again in the future.
















Adding the fretboard brought the neck weight up to 370g/13oz. Maple might have been slightly lighter but I wanted a dark board.






Time for some inlay! 3mm white ABS dots with a glowing core everywhere. I seem to have ended up with the same inlay design as the Strandberg OS line but that wasn't intentional (used the same layout on my last build). More templates to help get everything in line on top and on the side. Not a drunken dot in sight. 
















Filed the dots flush and radiused the board to 16" (since that's the only radius block I have)






Time to carve the profile in. I learnt starting with a full thickness blank was a bad idea on my last build and I have a slightly asymmetric profile (round 1-9, flat 10-18) as a result so this time I used a bandsaw and some offcuts (to level the blank back out again) to thin it down to a proper thickness.






Of course the blade leaves a bit of a mess so a quick block planing cleaned that all up and got me to my desired thickness of [email protected]@12






From there it was an afternoon of spokeshaves and microplane rasps to carve in the profile. Didn't have anything in mind when I started but it's ended up as fairly "C" ish





















I made sure to try and blend the heel nicely.






The carve removed 78g/2.8oz bringing the neck total down to 285g/10oz

Drilled the required holes for the nut/string lock. I'm trying a cheap height adjustable locking nut as a string lock but if it fails I have a lump of aluminium and some grub screws ready to make something more appropriate.






I also made sure everything was still lined up to the template for bridge mounting. It was 






Latest weigh in with everything up to this point (minus the nut) is at 801g/1.77lbs






Next time I'll add some frets.


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## thedarknightshreds (Jun 23, 2015)

dude, I want one! Keep up the good work!


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## TamanShud (Jun 24, 2015)

This is just so incredibly clean. Top stuff man!


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## BlackMastodon (Jun 24, 2015)

Loving everything about this. Super clean work, keep it up!


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## pettymusic (Jun 24, 2015)

So awesome!


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## Hywel (Jun 24, 2015)

Thanks everyone! 

Small update, I decided to delay the frets until tomorrow and get the staining done since the weather was nice. Couple of job to do first however!

First off I needed to get the bridge holes drilled. I ran CA glue into these holes to try and harden the crazy soft paulownia and make the bridge nice and stable. Used a couple of strings to get everything lined up.






Since I'm using single piece bridges, I needed a way of grounding the strings without being able to see anything connecting the bridges together so I ran a hole from the cavity to one of the screw holes. Continuity is provided by the metal locking nut.






Next up was adding the top strap pin. I'm using plastic pins to save a couple of grams but I didn't like how far the design stuck out the back so I recessed the felt and base with a forstner bit so it was slightly below flush with the back of the guitar.






Finally, after a LOT of sanding (up to 600 grit) the body was ready for staining. This is another one of the areas paulownia is proving a bit more difficult to work with than I expected. It's really easy to work because it's so soft but that also means it's really easy to take off far more material than you expect so I was messing up smooth roundovers with light sanding as fine as 320 grit. Anyway, it came out ok after a couple of issues and I set about making it as black as I could. 











Once that's dried it'll get the cavity shielded, body waxed, bridges mounted and the pickguard positioned. Hopefully finished around the weekend


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## Hywel (Jun 25, 2015)

Frets are in! 
















They're glued with titebond and pressed in with a caul and drill press. The dots are marking any slight high spots so when I get around to levelling and dressing them in a week or so, I have a quick reference. I'm also using a narrow 2mm size fret to compensate for the shorter scale.

With the stain dried, I sprayed some conductive paint for cavity shielding and put on a couple of coats of the Briwax and it came out in a great semi-gloss sheen.
















Time for a quick test fit and weigh in...











Turns out 24 frets and a stain/wax finish weighs 29g/1oz

Gave the neck a coat of Tru-oil






And screwed in the bridges, ground wire and block terminals for a solderless pickguard removal!






The spacing isn't perfect on the bridge pieces and one required re-drilling to get a decent alignment but they're not too bad now. Lesson learned - make the holes on the template the same size as the pilot drill bit, not the hole in the bridge. 

With any luck, it should be finished very soon. I'm not going to properly do the fretwork or setup until it's had a few days (at least) to settle down and adapt to string tension. Once I know how it reacts I'll set it up appropriately (or set fire to this neck and build one with a truss rod).


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## Alex Kenivel (Jun 26, 2015)

Can't wait. Excited to see what happens


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## Hywel (Jun 27, 2015)

Time to add some electronics!











That nest of wires is...

250k Vol mini pot, 250k Tone mini pot, 0.22 uF tone cap
Coil Split Switch
Switch-able Treble Bleed (500k trim pot set to ~130k with a 1.5nf cap wired in series)

And it all fits in the terminal block in the body for easy removal.











Almost there!

I added 2 webbing loops at the headstock. One covers the ends of the strings and provides a bit of impact protection, the other is to hang it from anything that takes my fancy.











With that done and a couple of other finishing touches, it's finished! 











(ignore the hand prints on the back! Forgot to wipe them off )











And of course, the important bit.






1.31Kg/2.89lbs in total! I was only aiming for <2kg so I'm pretty happy with that.

The pickguard assembly, bridge and nut added ~483g/1.06lb.

Bridge was ~230g/8.1oz by itself (the .Strandberg* bridge would have saved a further 158g/5.6oz but cost waaaaay more).

Pickguard/electronics are about 245g/8.6oz.

Overall I'm very happy how this build came out. It feels noticeably more polished than my previous attempt and I've learnt a lot of new techniques and skills. If I were to do it again, I'd make the body slightly thinner (down from 40mm to ~36mm) but keep pretty much everything else the same.

I'll update this thread after I've had time to see how the neck responds to string tension, do some fretwork and get used to the headless hardware.

Thanks for joining me everyone, I hope you like the results.


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## lewis (Jun 27, 2015)

Hywel said:


> Time to add some electronics!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Absolutely stunning!!!!  I want one haha!!. Amazing build man.

All thats left now is some sort of tone test so we know how that stuff fairs as a tonewood. Its light but does it sound good?. Also how well does the thing resonate?. I bet acoustically its quite loud?


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## Hywel (Jun 27, 2015)

lewis said:


> Absolutely stunning!!!!  I want one haha!!. Amazing build man.
> 
> All thats left now is some sort of tone test so we know how that stuff fairs as a tonewood. Its light but does it sound good?. Also how well does the thing resonate?. I bet acoustically its quite loud?



Thanks .

I'll try and get a sound clip up in the near future but so far it sounds fine, tending towards being quite warm in tone. The wood and deathbucker combo works really well for high gain stuff and copes ok with cleans if the volume's rolled back a fair bit.

It resonates very well, I can feel the string vibration very strongly through my chest when it's on a strap. Acoustically it does seem louder than anything else I tried so I'm thinking the big cavity and thin pickguard may be helping there.

I didn't realise it was quite as light as it was until I tried a normal guitar for comparison. Even the Ibanez S seemed to weigh a ton by comparison


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## Alex Kenivel (Jun 27, 2015)

Jeez, the weight on that! Great job sir


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## fogcutter (Jun 27, 2015)

Awesome, awesome build! Thanks so much for taking the time do document and post this thread.


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## Deegatron (Jun 27, 2015)

Clean build. I love everything about this. 

Not sure if your aware, Stew-mac sells black toggle switches. you could replace the 2 chrome ones.


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## darren (Jun 28, 2015)

Under 3 lbs?!  

I've got a featherweight headless build in progress right now, and it's currently around 4 lbs. all in, but that includes more conventional pickups and a StewMac Hot Rod, which might be the heaviest single part on the whole guitar, after the bridge. I'm trying to wrap my head around a way to make an adjustable carbon fibre truss rod that will allow for some relief adjustment. 

Nice job!


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## TamanShud (Jun 28, 2015)

Absolutely staggering job dude. Please do not stop building!


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## Hywel (Jun 28, 2015)

Thanks everyone!

I really enjoyed building this one so I'm glad you lot enjoyed it as well.



fogcutter said:


> Awesome, awesome build! Thanks so much for taking the time do document and post this thread.



I learnt most of what I know from really detailed build threads on SSO so I'm happy to do the same for everyone else!



Deegatron said:


> Not sure if your aware, Stew-mac sells black toggle switches. you could replace the 2 chrome ones.



Cheers! I'll order some if I ever get around to ordering from Stew-Mac. 



darren said:


> Under 3 lbs?!
> 
> I've got a featherweight headless build in progress right now, and it's currently around 4 lbs. all in, but that includes more conventional pickups and a StewMac Hot Rod, which might be the heaviest single part on the whole guitar, after the bridge. I'm trying to wrap my head around a way to make an adjustable carbon fibre truss rod that will allow for some relief adjustment.
> 
> Nice job!



Thanks very much! That build (and everything else you do) looks awesome. Love your stuff. 

I saw the guy over at Cycfi Research has designed a single action carbon rod that looks pretty nice. He might be able to help you out. 



TamanShud said:


> Absolutely staggering job dude. Please do not stop building!



Cheers! I've got one more in progress and one in very early design stages so I'm carrying on for a bit longer. 

Very minor update on the build, the neck seems to have settled overnight with ~0.3mm/0.012" of relief with 11-49 strings at E standard. The locking nut had some minor slippage first thing but has been stable since. At the moment the action is sitting at [email protected] I'm happy with that but it should come down a bit when I get around to levelling the frets.


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## DROPZCHUGGA (Jun 29, 2015)

This is a really cool build. Absolutely love it. Body shape looks really comfy. Great work dude.


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## Mehnike (Jun 29, 2015)

That weight! Curious as to how it balances with a strap. Does the neck seem to level out or does it sit at a nice angle? How much heavier is the body compared to the neck or at they about equal?

Awesome build.


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## Hywel (Jun 29, 2015)

Mehnike said:


> That weight! Curious as to how it balances with a strap. Does the neck seem to level out or does it sit at a nice angle? How much heavier is the body compared to the neck or at they about equal?
> 
> Awesome build.



Thanks 

The balance has worked out ok. On a strap it sits naturally at about 45° with the centre of gravity around the 26-28th fret. Neck is much lighter than the body (~285g vs 1028g) with a lot of the weight centered around the bridge at the tail end so it naturally pulls the neck into a decent position. I'd be interested to see if a truss rod changed that much.


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## lewis (Jul 1, 2015)

Hywel said:


> Thanks .
> 
> I'll try and get a sound clip up in the near future but so far it sounds fine, tending towards being quite warm in tone. The wood and deathbucker combo works really well for high gain stuff and copes ok with cleans if the volume's rolled back a fair bit.
> 
> ...



Thats killer. I imagined it to to so thats great to hear. You could easily roll these out as a business dude. Loads of people would love the idea of a very very very light guitar for travel. And hey if it sounds great then why couldnt this also be a gigging guitar!?!. No more back ache.

I excitedly look forward to some sort of sound demo in the future. Great job again though mate. Bravo


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## blindsagacity (Jul 1, 2015)

Holy ...., man! This build looks great, and I'm really impressed with the weight.

Where did you find those single string tuners? And how do you like them?


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## Hywel (Jul 1, 2015)

blindsagacity said:


> Holy ...., man! This build looks great, and I'm really impressed with the weight.
> 
> Where did you find those single string tuners? And how do you like them?



Cheers 

The tuners/bridge are ABM 3801B's from Thomann.de. So far they're been very stable and easy to fine tune but a little fiddly to string up initially with the nut I'm using (the ball ends pop out of the holders really easily unless there's tension on the string and I have to do 2 strings at once due to the nut). They are also a bit of a pain to set intonation on as well as there isn't a spring/screw to control the saddle, just a set screw that holds it in place. 

Once it's all set up its rock solid, fairly comfy and I don't have any real complaints, just take a bit longer to get it going in the first place.

I would have loved to have used the .Strandberg* hardware but the price was much higher (never thought I'd see ABM being the cheap option!). Technology for Musicians also make a good option but they had a fairly long lead time when I asked and the Hipshot system doesn't seem to exist in the UK so I ignored that.


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## vkw619 (Jul 1, 2015)

Amazing build sir. I've never been a fan of headless guitars but I love the look and the pick guard!

You have a talent many of us only dream off. And for that we envy you.


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## jeremyb (Jul 1, 2015)

Wow dude, serious great work!! I have a paulownia telemaster that I put together, great wood, guitar is really loud acoustically as well


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## Hywel (Aug 10, 2015)

I finally got around to doing that sound clip I promised and thought I might as well do a sort of long term review while I'm at it.

The neck has been nice and stable and settled down to 0.4-0.5mm relief with 11-49 strings in standard tuning. It's a little bit more curved than the 0-0.3mm I was aiming for but it's hardly a big difference so I'm happy with that. I'll try 10's or 9's next and see what happens.

The cheap floyd style locking nut as proven to be fine as a string lock with no slippage when tightened down enough.

The ABM bridges have grown on me quite a bit. The tuning is crazy stable and they are very easy to fine tune if I need to. A dab of TriFlow PTFE lubricant on the screw threads made them much easier to turn. The saddles needed notching like a TOM and they do ring a bit with heavy palm mutes but the usual fix of foam under the strings sorted that out.

Things I'd change if I were to make another one of these would mainly be the volume knob placement, It needs to be a fraction further back to be properly out of the way. I'd also like to make a plate and use a normal mono jack rather than a barrel jack as the barrel jacks always seem to fail much faster and I can't easily repair them.

Sound wise you can judge for yourself. Sound clip is a little bit of high gain mess followed by some finger picking stuff with the coil split engaged. All controls were on 10. There's a DI and amped version in the Soundcloud playlist. Signal chain for high gain was guitar, TS/OD pedal, NG, Laney IRT-Studio lead channel. Clean was guitar, delay, IRT-Studio clean channel with a bit of reverb. 4x12, V30, SM58 IR for both.
,
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/slj76/travel-amped?in=slj76/sets/travel-guitar-sound-clips[/SC]

It currently lives on the back of my bedroom door hanging off the coat rack 






Cheers for reading through everyone.


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## ctgblue (Aug 11, 2015)

Wow, you guys and your actual tools and space. what, about 3 weeks build time. 

I can't get one assembled in less than several months. (4 people, one toddler, 16 pets, no time)

Good job. Looks awesome.

Question; if you wanted a travel guitar, why did you go full body?

I had to go with a Steinberger design so I could carry mine on the plane several times a year. (about 12 planes total).


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## Hywel (Aug 11, 2015)

ctgblue said:


> Wow, you guys and your actual tools and space. what, about 3 weeks build time.
> 
> I can't get one assembled in less than several months. (4 people, one toddler, 16 pets, no time)
> 
> ...



Thanks!

I'm pretty sure I won't be able to build one quite as quickly in the near future. I was just lucky to have a bit of free time around then.

I went full body as I tried some smaller designs like the Martin backpacker and I couldn't get on with the lack of somewhere to put my forearm and the the difficulty of playing them without a strap (although I could probably have just coped with a strap now I think about it ). It's a bit smaller than a normal Strandberg so if I take the neck off I can cram it into a suitcase without too much difficulty. I was originally planning on removable sides but decided against it eventually. Maybe next time.


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## russmuller (Aug 11, 2015)

Hywel said:


> Since I'm using single piece bridges, I needed a way of grounding the strings without being able to see anything connecting the bridges together so I ran a hole from the cavity to one of the screw holes. Continuity is provided by the metal locking nut.



This is pretty clever! The only down side is that if you break that string, you lose continuity (and output).


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## Hywel (Aug 11, 2015)

russmuller said:


> This is pretty clever! The only down side is that if you break that string, you lose continuity (and output).



I hadn't thought of that 

Output would be ok as the bridge ground just joins onto the common ground at the terminal block but I would lose the string grounding. Next time I'll do it to the low E rather than the high E since that's far less likely to break!


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