# Hywel's Home Depot Challenge 2016 Build - Semi Hollow Baritone



## Hywel (Jan 24, 2016)

I started planning this build (as a 25.5" scale 6 string) since XxJoshxX posted the feeler thread back in November 2015 but it wasn't until I heard the demos of the PRS SE 277 Semi-Hollow Baritone that I knew I needed one in my life. I just didn't want to pay much for it so this thread could also be titled...
*
Building a 28" scale Semi-Hollow Baritone 6 on the Cheap *​
The plan is to build an instrument primarily designed to play low tuned ambient clean stuff, learn how to make a semi hollow single cut and do it without paying much.

So I came up with the specs below.



5 piece meranti body with 5 piece meranti top
 White binding on body, neck and headstock
 Bolt on 3 piece meranti neck with a thick carve
 Maple fretboard, 22 vintage nickel frets, 28" scale, 12" radius
 Side block inlay markers
 Bone or oak nut with a 0 fret
Uber cheap tuners

 Home-made oak and brass acoustic style bridge with piezo and pre-amp

Heavily modified HSH Ibanez INF pickups with fancy wiring
 Black top, natural back and sides, danish oil/Briwax finish. Wooden knobs.

If everything goes to plan this should end up costing me £61.71/$88.04

My local Homebase (home depot equivalent) provided much of the finish, fixings, binding, cavity covers and inlay. BPS Dorline (a builders merchant/door shop) provided the oak and meranti. My parents floor provided the fretboard and eBay/China provided most of the electronics and tuners. I'm also re-using some spare parts from old builds (mainly neck screws and grub screws). I have bought some brass bar from eBay for the bridge since it seems to be available in US stores easily but no DIY store over here sells it in any form other than shaped door handles. 

The main wood is light red meranti (AKA lauan or Philippine mahogany). It kinda looks like mahogany but is much softer, shorter grained, cheaper and a completely different species. It's mostly used in windows and doors from what I can tell. No idea if it's any good for instruments but I didn't fancy pine and my back didn't fancy oak so it's what I ended up with. 

Anyway. You all just want pictures so here are a couple to tide you over until Feb 1st.

*The Plan*​






(Yeah it's based on a PRS S2 singlecut)*

The Parts*











(Yes the bucket is getting used and the BKP boxes are for storage. This isn't getting BKPs yet...)

I'm really pleased with the fretboard. I was originally going to use oak dyed black but I uncovered a small stash of spare maple flooring from my parents house as I was helping them move so I took it with me. Its quite scratched, has nails in and is covered in some kind of thick poly but with some sanding and trimming it should work nicely! I do have a plainer piece in case anyone finds that offensively figured for a Home Depot build.











*The Pickups

*I'm going to be using some Ibanez INFs I took out of my S771PB. I did some searching to see if anyone had done any mods to them and found Frank Falbo of Seymour Duncan/Fishman fame had made a forum post detailing his modifications and it sounded worth a go so I tried replicating his work. 
 
Essentially the plan was to swap the magnets between the neck and bridge to give alnico V in the neck and ceramic in the bridge, make hybrids of both pickups with the stronger bridge coils towards the neck, add 4 conductor wiring and air mod both pickups.

I'd already had a go at the bobbins to remove the INF silkscreen and polish up the poles.






I changed the coils and wiring.






Half aired the neck pickup.






And "Vari-Aired" as Frank put it, the bridge pickup. It's basically angling the magnet with wedges.






I put them back together with some snazzy open frame black covers but they put me over budget so they got removed again.






In my walnut/sycamore build they sound thick and warm in series mode (kinda like an SD '59) but excel in split modes with very different responses between the coils. The strong neck side coils are almost P90-ish whereas the weaker bridge side coils are much more strat like. I'm looking forward to seeing how they sound with the 28" scale. I also haven't added a cost for the pickups as they've been sitting in my cupboard for a couple of years and were never going to go in anything but an HD build.

*The Piezo

*I bought some cheap 20mm piezo discs to embed in the bridge and a cheap acoustic guitar preamp/eq to power them. The preamp isn't going to fit in the control cavity though so it had some surgery.
















Basically I trimmed all controls down, cut off the battery box, unsoldered the on-board volume pot and replaced it with a new guitar sized pot on a lead so it can go next the the volume and tone knobs. Hopefully it'll fit but if it doesn't then the metal shielding is going. It's going to get its own separate output jack and I'll mix the piezo and magnetic pickups in my DAW if I want a blended tone. Total cost of the piezo system is £7.45/$10.63. 

And that's all I've got so far. Anything else was to close to actual building so I'll have to wait until Feb 1st for that.


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## posmaster (Jan 24, 2016)

Wow - a lot of similar ideas as to what I've been pondering... especially as far as the electronics and modding some cheapass OEM pickups for better sound.


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## Hywel (Jan 24, 2016)

posmaster said:


> Wow - a lot of similar ideas as to what I've been pondering... especially as far as the electronics and modding some cheapass OEM pickups for better sound.



Haha, I was thinking mine was worryingly similar to Serratus's. Maybe everyone's in a more vintage mood at the moment.


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## BlackMastodon (Jan 25, 2016)

This is way too cool. I can't wait for this contest to kick off, really excited to see what everyone comes up with!


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## jwade (Jan 25, 2016)

I thought the idea here was to stick to a specific start date of Feb 1st. Seems like a lot of people are already doing a lot of work on their projects well before the start date.


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## Hywel (Jan 25, 2016)

jwade said:


> I thought the idea here was to stick to a specific start date of Feb 1st. Seems like a lot of people are already doing a lot of work on their projects well before the start date.



Sorry guys. I didn't think tinkering with pickups and soldering really counted as starting a build. All the wood's still in one piece and unmarked.

If I've jumped the gun then I'll bin those bits and use something else.


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## jwade (Jan 25, 2016)

I'm not trying to be obnoxious, I'm stoked to see this guitar come to life, but the way I see it, if it goes into the guitar, it's part of the build. Obviously, I'm not in charge but that's the way I interpret there being a starting date for a project.


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## Prophetable (Jan 25, 2016)

I think nitpicking about this kind of thing is petty, personally.

Cool build and I look forward to seeing it come to life during the challenge.


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## Hywel (Jan 25, 2016)

I can see how it might be seen as starting the build early so I think in the interest of fairness and the spirit of the whole thing, I'll leave these modded parts out of the build and use a spare set of Epiphone pickups with the unmodded INFS1 middle and wire the piezo to the jack directly.

That'll leave me with a clean slate to start with on the 1st and shouldn't make too much difference in the end product. It was going to sound crappy anyway so I might as well make sure it's fair and crappy. 

If anyone else is using a set of INFs in their build, it might be worth giving Franks mod a go. It's worth it if you're into coil splitting. 

Edit - Oh and taking out the preamp brings the price to £55.86/$79.49


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## Hywel (Feb 6, 2016)

It's been a slow start but I made some templates.






And started work on the bridge while I wait for a new saw accurately cut the body and neck laminates.

Routed a 1/4" slot in some white oak






Cut it to shape on the bandsaw and cut/shaped some brass bar for a saddle






I radiused the top of the bridge to 12"






I also radiused the brass saddle and drilled and tapped some holes for M3 grub screws so it'll be height adjustable. Added the string through holes and it's pretty much done. I'll stain it black nearer finishing time.











If this bridge fails (and it might under tension), then I'll be using a top loading short tele bridge instead.


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## Serratus (Feb 6, 2016)

Good work!


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## Hywel (Feb 25, 2016)

This fell behind schedule a bit for a variety of reasons. I've had to make some changes but I'm much happier with how I think this'll turn out now.

The main change is that I'm now going to use more of the reclaimed maple flooring as a 6 piece maple top rather than try and resaw the meranti. It's full of nails and needs a lot of trimming but should hopefully come out ok. I might even try a sunburst finish.






The other change is I'm scrapping the wooden bridge as I really don't fancy it flying off into my face the first time I get it to tension. I'm replacing it with Wilkinson saddles on a steel baseplate with a piezo transducer mounted into the body underneath the bridge. It's a bit less home made but should work well.






With the changes my cost is now at £66.15/$92.35.

Anyway, I finally got around to cutting up some wood.

I got the meranti beam sawn up into a 3 piece body and 3 peice neck with a circular saw and jointed them with a hand plane. Never managed to get the plane to work before but I've finally figured it out!











I made a mess 






I'm going to make the knobs from some meranti off cuts. Used a 22mm hole saw to get them roughed out.






Hopefully I'll have everything glued and ready for routing and scarf joints this weekend. 

Oh, and on an unrealated topic, I made this thing from a botched template and a cheap eBay neck and top loading bridge. Kinda handy for messing around with pickups. Actually sounds ok but I wouldn't want to gig it.


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## pondman (Feb 25, 2016)

I'm loving this one


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## Pikka Bird (Feb 25, 2016)

Question: Why would the bridge fail? I've seen quite a few acoustics with that kind of setup, and they're under a lot more stress than you'd have on an electric. Do you think the oak will give out faster than rosewood or ebony bridges?


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## Hywel (Feb 25, 2016)

Pikka Bird said:


> Question: Why would the bridge fail? I've seen quite a few acoustics with that kind of setup, and they're under a lot more stress than you'd have on an electric. Do you think the oak will give out faster than rosewood or ebony bridges?



I made it top loading and I didn't fancy gluing it to the guitar top like an acoustic bridge so I think it'll crack around the screws. I'll probably test it on the MDF thing at some point and see what happens.

I also just kinda fancied having adjustable intonation and I've found the Wilkinson saddles/baseplate more comfortable than a Hipshot so I thought I'd go for it. It certainly helps I won an auction for the saddles for £3.


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## Pikka Bird (Feb 26, 2016)

Hywel said:


> I made it top loading and I didn't fancy gluing it to the guitar top like an acoustic bridge so I think it'll crack around the screws. I'll probably test it on the MDF thing at some point and see what happens.



Hmm, I suppose even after testing it out on that MDF you couldn't be sure of what it'll do in the long run. Anyways, do you think having the grain running across the bridge would be better around the string holes than going parallel with the strings?

Also, I assume you'd have made little ramps in the brass piece so the strings don't sit on a flat plateau...

In any case, I think this one is coming out fab!


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## Hywel (Feb 26, 2016)

Pikka Bird said:


> Hmm, I suppose even after testing it out on that MDF you couldn't be sure of what it'll do in the long run. Anyways, do you think having the grain running across the bridge would be better around the string holes than going parallel with the strings?
> 
> Also, I assume you'd have made little ramps in the brass piece so the strings don't sit on a flat plateau...
> 
> In any case, I think this one is coming out fab!



Cheers 

I think if I'd made it string through and glued on like a acoustic it would have been fine. I actually accidentally made one with the grain in the other direction and it was much, much weaker. I'm tempted to try one in african blackwood which would look awesome and be plenty strong enough but sadly none of my local DIY stores stock that. 

I was planning on mounting the bridge for approximate intonation and then using thick wire over the top of the flat saddle to find the exact intonation points under tension. After I'd found those, I was going to file it to a smooth point, kinda like a jazz box bridge.


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## Hywel (Feb 27, 2016)

Got the meranti for the neck and body jointed and glued. Both 3 piece, both with the central piece flipped in case the DIY grade wood decides it gets bored of being flat.
















Not as much glue squeeze out as I would have liked on the neck but after planing I can't see anything problematic.






Next job was to sort out the maple top. Since it used to be flooring it's been tongue and grooved along all 4 edges and each piece has 1-2 flat nails driven through it at an angle. I tried knocking them out but they wouldn't budge and they were flush with the surface so I had to take a saw to the surrounding wood and pry them out. They're a good 7mm below the surface so the top and fretboard should be ok but I might see one of these holes again on a bevel, in which case I'll probably dowel it. 











I got 2 jointed before calling it a night. The other 2 have massive splits or chunks coming out so they're gluing back in overnight.






Next job is to glue the top together and get everything flattened.


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## Hywel (Mar 7, 2016)

Well that took longer than expected. The top was a pain to get jointed, glued, thicknessed and generally made suitable for a guitar rather than a floor but it's done. Normal service can be resumed.

First job was to trim the tongue and groove joints off the floorboards, joint the edges and glue them all together.






Turns out I only just had enough to make a top so some trimmings got turned into ears to make sure I had enough width. It's going to pretty tight when it comes to bandsawing though.






I decided I needed to get rid of the mess left by the nails. The original plan was just to use wood filler but I thought I could do better so I found a cheap forstner bit in my collection that matched the diameter of the plugs cut by my smallest hole saw. I filed off the forstner bits tip so it would leave a truly flat bottomed hole and glued some maple plugs where the nails were previously.






Once they were sorted I needed to plane off the text/wavy bits from the bottom and get the top to a suitable thickness. I made a much bigger router planer jig to do the top and body. The 18mm MDF sled flexes a bit in the middle but adding 1kg lead weights to each end counterbalanced it and got it pretty much flat.











Got the body flattened and fretboard trimmed/thicknessed while I had the jig out.











Finally, I got the scarf cut. I cocked it up first time around but luckily I'd left plenty of spare wood so I corrected it with a belt sander. There's a few mm to spare each end so all's good (although its now 13.5° rather than the 12° I'd planned).






That's it for woodwork so far. However, I did spot this funky Chinese hand cranked coil winder with counter on eBay for £30 and I'd fancied having a go at pickup winding so I bought one. Got some 42AWG and 43AWG poly coated wire as well. My plan is to try and rewind the Ibanez INFS1 single coil I was going to use in the middle position down from it's stock 43AWG/8.7k to 42AWG/~6.5k to hopefully get something that'll pair well with the Epiphone humbuckers and learn a bit about winding in the process.






The plan next time is to get the body cavities routed, F-holes cut and top glued.


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## pondman (Mar 7, 2016)

Great work.
Your building this in your bedroom


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## Hywel (Mar 7, 2016)

pondman said:


> Great work.
> Your building this in your bedroom



Close! It's a tiny spare room that used to be a bedroom. We're mainly using it to store all the landlords furniture we're not using, I've just appropriated it as a workshop (much to my housemates dismay!). 

I'm not sure the dust is ever coming out of the carpet and curtains though.


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## pondman (Mar 7, 2016)




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## Serratus (Mar 7, 2016)

Looking good


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## pettymusic (Mar 8, 2016)

Now I feel spoiled. I build in one half of our 2 car garage. The wife and kids complain everyday about the saw dust. I keep correcting them about this too: "It's not saw dust, it's left over art." 

Looks great though, Hywel!


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## CaptainD00M (Mar 8, 2016)

Man even in the UK you guys get decent wood at home depot. In NZ all we get at Bunnings Warehouse or Mitre 10 is every cut of wood you can imagine, so long as its pins radiata or MDF XD

This is great stuff hywel!


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## pondman (Mar 8, 2016)

How many people are in the running for this now ?
A thread with the entrants would be a good idea ?


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## Hywel (Mar 8, 2016)

pettymusic said:


> Now I feel spoiled. I build in one half of our 2 car garage. The wife and kids complain everyday about the saw dust. I keep correcting them about this too: "It's not saw dust, it's left over art."
> 
> Looks great though, Hywel!



I'm definitely using that next time someone complains about the mess. 



CaptainD00M said:


> Man even in the UK you guys get decent wood at home depot. In NZ all we get at Bunnings Warehouse or Mitre 10 is every cut of wood you can imagine, so long as its pins radiata or MDF XD
> 
> This is great stuff hywel!



Homebase and B&Q suck a bit but luckily there's a few smaller places around still that stock some basic hardwoods. Anything other than pine, oak and occasionally meranti seems to be the domain of specialist timer merchants though sadly. The guys in the US/Can defiantly seem to have it good though!



pondman said:


> How many people are in the running for this now ?
> A thread with the entrants would be a good idea ?



I think we're up to 5 now. There were a few more planning on starting with the warmer weather too I think. I've put the threads below for easy copy/paste. Apologies anyone I've missed, this is just what google spat out.

Serratus - http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu...erratuss-2016-home-depot-challenge-build.html

Hywel - http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu...6-build-semi-hollow-baritone.html#post4547119

DandHcostoms - http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu.../307269-nates-home-depot-challenge-build.html

XxJoshxX - http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu...306396-xxjoshxxs-2016-hd-challenge-build.html

MikeNeal - http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/lu...eneals-home-depot-challenge-build-thread.html


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## jwade (Mar 8, 2016)

Yeah I'm still on hold until it gets a bit nicer. I've been doing work on things I've got kicking around that were already glued up or in progress, but until the weather is a bit better (april hopefully), I'm holding off on doing any gluing or anything beyond carving/sanding.


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## pondman (Mar 9, 2016)

I may just have a go, when is the dead line ?


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## Prophetable (Mar 9, 2016)

pondman said:


> I may just have a go, when is the dead line ?



Does it really matter? You crush out a full guitar in two days.


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## Serratus (Mar 9, 2016)

pondman said:


> I may just have a go, when is the dead line ?



31st July


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## MikeNeal (Mar 9, 2016)

yeah im going to get seriously cracking on mine near the end of this month, i have all the templates made, and wood glued. but im not going to start cutting untill after easter most likely.

gonna be hard to compete with builds like this though. haha


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## Hywel (Mar 16, 2016)

So the scarfs glued and truss rod slot routed. I've now decided that using 2 2.5mm drill bits as location pins is my favourite scarfing method ever.

















Glued some ears on for the headstock and block planed/sanded them flush.











And then my router decided it was a good time to be ....ty. The ratcheting depth adjustment started slipping so I took it apart and found a stripped plastic gear. It's 2nd hand and at least 5 years old so I'm not too surprised it developed a problem. Good news is the replacement part is £1 and should be arriving tomorrow so it shouldn't delay me too much.






Since that was broken, it seemed like a good time to do something not wood based. I was going to do a zero fret/wooden nut but I've gone off the idea and since Homebase don't sell Graphtech stuff, I bought a bone.





(Plastic nut for scale)

A decent chunk of tibia/fibula for 99p should do nicely. I boiled it with some detergent for a couple of hours to remove some of the soft tissue and grease and gave it a soak in mineral spirits to get the last of it off.






The fibula was too porous so that got chucked out but the tibia came out decently so after a couple of days drying I cut it up into some nut blank sized blocks. The workshop still smells like an orthopaedics theatre .











I don't own nut files so I'm going the slot it with a mixture of welding tip cleaners, an X-acto saw, old strings and a small frame saw. I bet it's going to suck. 

I'm not sure how I've got this far and not actually managed to make anything guitar shaped yet but I promise I'll have the body hollowed out and rough cut for the next update!


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## mnemonic (Mar 16, 2016)

I never considered using a dog bone for a bone nut, good idea! Hopefully it comes out decent quality. 

Speaking of nut files, I just picked up a set off amazon for £15. Absolute crap, poor quality, weird-shaped edges (square or concave), and they're all pretty much the same size, thus making them useless for anything thinner than the D string. 

Welding tip cleaners and needle files are probably the best bet. Your plan sounds like it will work if you take your time. Some high grit sandpaper to smooth out the slots probably also wouldn't hurt.


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## Hywel (Mar 16, 2016)

It certainly looks the biz and sands nice and smooth so fingers crossed it should work well. Not so sure about 10 years down the line but I can probably make a new one when the time comes. 

Good to know about those cheap file sets. I was getting tempted to try them out but I'll give them a wide berth instead.


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## Hywel (Mar 20, 2016)

As promised, it's now roughly guitar shaped.

I added some location pins to the template, top and body so everything would line up and stay lined up when gluing.






Cavities got hollowed out with forstner bits and a massive chisel.






Cleaned up with the router and template.






F hole drawn.






Roughly cut out with a jigsaw table (e.g. a metal plate with an upside down jigsaw on it). Cleaned it up with some sandpaper and files.






I dyed the cavity and F hole edges black to smarten them up a bit. Unfortunately, the thin water based dye was taken up by the end grain at parts of the F hole and shows as small black streaks on the top. They're pretty much full thickness so I'm just going to live with them. Maybe the finish will hide them. Either way, lesson learned. 











Glued the top on.






And rough cut the body and neck on the bandsaw.






Hopefully tomorrow I'll get them routed flush to the templates and some of the top routing done.


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## pondman (Mar 20, 2016)

This is looking excellent.


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## Hywel (Mar 22, 2016)

pondman said:


> This is looking excellent.



Cheers! There's still plenty of time for me to ruin it with the carved top yet though. 

Mini update. I bought some white PVC edging/angle from Homebase to use as binding. £4.49 for 6 guitars worth? Bargain!






After trimming everything on the router table to neaten it all up, I cut the PVC strip down to suitable binding sizes on the bandsaw and routed channels in the body and headstock.






Bent it a bit with some heat and glued it on with some thick CA.






And a couple of hours later I scraped it flush with a utility blade.






The joints aren't exactly invisible but I think it came out alright. I'll do the same to the body and fretboard at some point.


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## CircuitalPlacidity (Mar 24, 2016)

I love the design dude. Fantastic start so far! Keep up the good work.


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## Hywel (Mar 26, 2016)

CircuitalPlacidity said:


> I love the design dude. Fantastic start so far! Keep up the good work.





So the body binding took me ages. I wasn't happy with the first attempt so I cut it all off and did it again. Big improvement second time around but the joint at the lower horn still sucked so I cut that bit off and did that again. Finally managed to get it satisfactory and gave it a wipe with some mineral spirits to clean it up.






Next I hogged out most of the pickup cavities before routing them to the template.











Neck joint time. I tried using a laser level to get everything lined up this time and it seemed to work alright. Joint came out nice and tight and hopefully in line. I made the neck pocket deeper than the pickup route this time to give the neck a solid lip to butt up against and stop any chance of it being pulled towards the bridge.











Drilled the neck bolt holes and recessed ferrule holes. I found these fancy brass "screw cup washers" to use instead of proper guitar ferrules or flanged screws and washers like I've done previously. Should look swanky.






I did a 45° bevel on the back as I've found it much more comfortable than a round-over after trying it on my fanned 8.






However, everything was going really well until the router table and I had an argument. I really need to buy a proper bevel bit rather than the ones I got from Aldi. 






I'm going to fill that with dust and glue. It's going to be visible when finished but there's not much I can do about it. It wasn't going to be a perfect build after the F-hole dye thingy anyway. 

Got the fretboard glued before calling it a day though.






Next time I'll get the top carved and probably damage something else beyond repair.


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## downburst82 (Mar 27, 2016)

Hywel said:


> However, everything was going really well until the router table and I had an argument. I really need to buy a proper bevel bit rather than the ones I got from Aldi.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Just slap a strictly 7 logo on it...naaa even with the flaw no one would ever believe stictly could put out something that nice  


Seriously though things are looking amazing so far, great work!


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## pondman (Mar 27, 2016)

Looking great  If you turn that bevel into a curve on the back you'll get rid of the router damage.


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## Hywel (Mar 27, 2016)

downburst82 said:


> Just slap a strictly 7 logo on it...naaa even with the flaw no one would ever believe stictly could put out something that nice
> 
> 
> Seriously though things are looking amazing so far, great work!





pondman said:


> Looking great  If you turn that bevel into a curve on the back you'll get rid of the router damage.



Cheers guys. 

I'll have a go at making it disappear with some carving but if I can't get it hidden enough, I think I'll stain the back black. Hopefully that should hide it nicely and look pretty good with a burst top.


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## Hywel (Mar 27, 2016)

After a superglue/dust fill, deeper bevelling and a quick sanding the damage actually came out ok. It's still visible but nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be. A quick wipe with mineral spirits showed it blends in fairly well with a finish on.






I got the top marked up for carving but I thought I'd better do the controls next while the top's still flat.

I drilled recesses on the face for the 3 main control knobs and recesses for the mini switches and blade switch in the control cavity. Used a 2.5mm router bit for the blade switch which was scary stuff but it came out fine. I'm going to mount it with screws inside the cavity rather than through the top so it should look a bit neater.











Finally I trimmed and flattened the fretboard ready for slotting. Mockup time!






Maple-y! Not bad for old flooring


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## Serratus (Mar 28, 2016)

Looking really great!


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## thinkpad20 (Mar 28, 2016)

Looking pretty amazing! Curious as to whether you considered painting the guitar after the few wood-related mishaps.


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## Hywel (Mar 28, 2016)

thinkpad20 said:


> Looking pretty amazing! Curious as to whether you considered painting the guitar after the few wood-related mishaps.



Cheers!

My current plan is to try a natural back/side and tobacco burst top with the thought that if it doesn't work out I can just stain everything black (which was actually the original idea anyway!). 

I don't currently have the gear or knowledge to do proper solid colours and clear coats so I'll stick with oils, waxes and stains for now.


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## Hywel (Mar 28, 2016)

I've not done a bevel or carved top before so today was a fun learning experience.

I got the depth limits marked on the sides and top and started joining the lines with the Shinto saw rasp on the convex surfaces and a half round microplane on the concave bits. The Shinto was way easier to use but I don't think they make half round ones sadly.











Once I'd got the shape roughed in all the way around I switched to planes, scrapers and sandpaper to get everything smooth.






I'm really happy with how it came out. It wasn't actually as hard as I thought it would be and it's much comfier than a flat top. 

Got the fret slots cut as well in preparation for radiusing and binding when I get around to it. I printed the template off from fretfind2d, stuck it on over masking tape and used the ruler and knife to mark the slots. Once they were all done I switched to the fret slotting saw and got the slots cut properly. It's a neat saw that keeps a constant 2.5mm depth (even with a radius) but I really think I should get a mitre box if I'm cutting many more boards.


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## Hywel (Apr 3, 2016)

Spent some time getting the neck finished this weekend. It needed binding and I was going to use the black bucket I picked up from Homebase but it's proven useful as a bucket and I didn't fancy straightening it out to use as inlay blocks so I picked up a cheap seed tray instead.






A quick pass on the bandsaw and trimming with a sharp chisel and it's ready to use as binding. I thought I'd try a blank board and two tone binding as markers since that would save me buying anything to use as dots. 






Finished the binding and scraped it flush. I finished the board with danish oil and wax before fretting it.






I found some nibblers for £8 from Rapid Electronics and I converted them to a fret tang nipper with a groove filed in the top. They worked great!






Got all the frets glued in and bevelled.






Finally I did the neck carve. I trimmed the excess off on the bandsaw and set to work with the Shinto and Microplane rasps.











It came out at [email protected], [email protected] with very soft V shape. I tried the blend the heel nicely.






And I gave it a wipe with some mineral spirits so see how it looks.






And that's most of the woodwork done. I still need to make the bridge and cavity cover though.


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## BlackMastodon (Apr 4, 2016)

Looking great, man.

Could you give some more info on the homemade fret nippers? I'd love to know how to convert a pair of sheet metal nibblers into a very useful tool instead of Paying StewMac more than $60 for a pair and having them break on me in a year.

Was this the original tool you used? http://www.amazon.com/Hand-Sheet-Metal-Nibbler-Cutter/dp/B000T5FV4Q


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## mnemonic (Apr 4, 2016)

I really like that binding/fret markers. Fingerboard looks really nice too. I'm a big fan of blank boards. 

I also like how you blended the heel to the body. Most manufacturers seem to leave a lip of about 1/4" and I think it looks kinda meh. Flush looks nice.


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## Hywel (Apr 4, 2016)

BlackMastodon said:


> Looking great, man.
> 
> Could you give some more info on the homemade fret nippers? I'd love to know how to convert a pair of sheet metal nibblers into a very useful tool instead of Paying StewMac more than $60 for a pair and having them break on me in a year.
> 
> Was this the original tool you used? Hand Sheet Metal Nibbler Cutter Tool - Sheet Metal Tools Hvac - Amazon.com



Thanks. 

RVFM HT-204 Nibbler Tool | Rapid Online is the tool I bought but your link looks pretty much the same. All I did was file a groove in front of the cutting jaw thingy for the fret crown to sit in. I used a triangular diamond file which seemed to work well but the Stew-Mac one has a square groove so I don't think shape is too important. If you feed frets in from the labelled side on mine and cut about 1/2 the jaws width at a time it cuts cleanly. Here's my modified version vs. an unmodified version of the tool.








mnemonic said:


> I really like that binding/fret markers. Fingerboard looks really nice too. I'm a big fan of blank boards.
> 
> I also like how you blended the heel to the body. Most manufacturers seem to leave a lip of about 1/4" and I think it looks kinda meh. Flush looks nice.



Cheers! It almost got the 1/4" lip but it got in the way of my thumb at the highest frets so flush it was.


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## MoonJelly (Apr 4, 2016)

Dat heel


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## Hywel (Apr 8, 2016)

Time for another slight change of plans. My budget is super tight at the moment ($99.89) so I've dropped rewinding the middle pickup for the moment since I can't afford the wire. 

Not particularly exciting but I made a truss rod cover from some maple off cut and a jack plate from some left over seed tray binding (nothing but the finest materials here! ).











Told you it wouldn't be exciting.

I got the neck finished with danish oil and some stain on the headstock. I also attached the worlds worst tuners. Seriously, they wobble like crazy and stop turning occasionally. They were however £4 for 6 so I'm not suprised. 






Added the TRC and my sticker to make me feel like I've actually managed to finish something. Sadly the white binding doesn't melt in acetone so I couldn't make any gloop to hide the joints.






Made the bridge but not before breaking 2 taps. I'm not sure if I suck at tapping or my taps suck at tapping. Either way, it's done now. It just took a lot of swearing. 

4mm mild steel plate left over from my 8 string build and some Wilkinson saddles I won on eBay for £3.50. Bargain!






Got all the mounting and string though holes drilled. Everything actually lined up first time!






I made a string ferrule template since I got bored of wonky ferrule holes and it only cost £10 to have it laser cut. certainly got the job done here nicely.






Finally, I routed the slot for the piezo transducer. I have no idea it this is going to work but I'm going to have some neoprene rubber pushing an acoustic under saddle transducer into the bottom of the bridge plate to hopefully pick something up. I kinda doubt it'll work well but it might be a laugh finding out. I'll stick some piezo discs in the pickup cavities if it doesn't work.


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## MoonJelly (Apr 8, 2016)

This build looks better all the time.


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## ROAR (Apr 8, 2016)

This is absolutely incredible.
I've been contemplating getting wood and what not from a Lowe's or something
just to build something for fun and learn about luthier work.
You have inspired me with your build, and I look forward to future updates!
Great job m8!


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## Serratus (Apr 9, 2016)

Looking great m8!!


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## Hywel (Apr 12, 2016)

Thanks for the kind words guys. I'm glad people are enjoying the build thread. 

The last couple of days haven't quite gone to plan though.

I spent a day or two researching hand rubbed burst finishes, watched a few Youtube videos, practised a bit on some scraps and decided to give it a go.






It didn't go well. I'm not sure if it was the dyes I tried using or just a lack of experience but it wasn't working for me. I tried a couple of times but the end result always looked shoddy. I think the water soluble dye I had was more like a paint than a dye so it produced very uneven results and was really hard to properly blend.

So that was the first set back. Luckily the dyes didn't penetrate too far and were easy to sand off so I got everything back to it's original state fairly easily. Before I found the maple, I'd originally planned to have a black front and natural back (hence the white binding). I thought I'd give that a try. I borrowed a leaf from Pondman's book and tried Dylon fabric dye which was much better than the Liberon stuff I had.

The Dylon worked really well and produced a good solid black that still showed the grain and birds-eyes if you looked closely but I was undecided whether I wanted to keep it solid black or go for all natural or a black burst. I tried some sanding but the black dye had sunk much further into the grain than the other stuff and had gone into some patches of end grain, looking like the issue I had with the F holes earlier in the thread. Basically, unless I wanted to see black streaks around every piece of end grain on the body, it now had to be a fairly solid dark colour. So back to black it was.






I do actually like the black front look, it just seems a bit of a shame to loose a bit of figuring one of the planks had. You can still see the bird's eyes but only if you're up close.

Anyway, I finished it with a bit of Danish oil and Briwax.






The last couple of jobs left on my list are a cavity cover and the knobs. I cut up an offcut on the bandsaw and sanded it roughly to shape for the cavity cover. I had to glue some extra blocks in the cavity for the cover screws to bite into since the lip by itself was too thin. Normally I'd use magnets and templates but since Homebase don't really sell magnets, this builds getting screws.











I switched to maple for the knobs so I re-cut them and drilled 4mm holes roughly near the centre and glued in a dowel. Hopefully I can use the dowel in my drill press chuck so I can sand and shape the knobs on a sort of lathe style arrangement. Once they're sanded and shaped I'll dye them and re-drill the centre hole for the pot shaft.


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## Spicypickles (Apr 13, 2016)

Quite the skillset sir, looks clean!


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## pondman (Apr 13, 2016)

Who'd believe this is a Home Depot build  Absolutely excellent work.
I really like the black finish


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## Hywel (Apr 13, 2016)

Cheers guys. 

The finish is growing on me but I stripped off the Briwax as it marked way too easily so it's going to be many coats of Danish oil instead.

I made some knobs. Once the dowels I put in yesterday had dried I chucked them up in the drill and smoothed the out with some 120-400 grit sandpaper and domed the top with some 80 and 120 grit stuck to 2 halves of a 50mm tube I cut up. I just kinda pressed the sandpapery tube halves into the top and it formed a nice smooth radius.







Drilled some 2.5mm holes, tapped some M3 threads and hardened them with CA glue. Going to use the M3 grub screws from some spare bridge saddles to secure the knob to the pot shaft.






Dyed 'em black, gave them a coat of oil and wax. An hour on the magnet drying and they're good to go.











Hopefully I can get this finished next week since there's pretty much just the wiring, nut, fretwork and setup to do.


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## jwade (Apr 14, 2016)

God damn.


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## neurosis (Apr 14, 2016)

Wow. So much progress. It does´t look like a Home Depot guitar at all. Mad skills here.


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## KnightroExpress (Apr 14, 2016)

Just looking at that last pic, I'd have never guessed that was a Home Depot challenge build if I didn't know already. Well done, man!


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## MoshJosh (Apr 14, 2016)

Loving this build


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## Hywel (Apr 14, 2016)

Thanks guys! 

This Home Depot challenge has been great fun and it's been a perfect time to try out new techniques and I've learnt loads. If the guitar works at the end that's a nice bonus. 

It's almost finished. I did the fretwork today. A quick levelling and rounding off of the ends. It's not going to win any prizes but it's level and the fret ends aren't going to draw blood.











I also shaped and slotted the nut. Ended up using a mixture of welding tip cleaners, old strings and a thin saw blade in a jewellers frame saw to do the slots. It's probably way too high but I'll lower it when I do the final setup.






And I also got some shielding in the control cavity. Yet again Homebase came up short and didn't sell graphite paint and the copper tape was far too expensive for my remaining budget so I grabbed some aluminium foil from the kitchen and glued it on with spray adhesive. To make it look a bit neater I've cut out some black card and stuck it to the bottom. I also wrote what each components function is on in silver pen because it looks fancy. 






All that's left is to do the wiring, attach the bridge and do a setup so I should hopefully be ready for a NGD early next week.


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## pettymusic (Apr 15, 2016)

You freakin' genius! All the way around, awesome work. I can tell you had a great time building this. It really shows in your results. Thumbs up, my friend!!


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## dankarghh (Apr 15, 2016)

Maaaaan this makes me wanna do a home depot build so bad. I actually got all the wood months ago but keep telling myself I should work on my 'real' builds.. 

Awesome work here man.


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## High Plains Drifter (Apr 15, 2016)

Well great. Who's build am I gonna follow now? They're all awesome in their own right but this one was exceptionally exciting to witness. Win!


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## M3CHK1LLA (Apr 15, 2016)

great job...

...was really fun to watch.


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## Leberbs (Apr 15, 2016)

Dude! Those knobs! NO WAY!
Coolest thing I've seen done. Ever.


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## pondman (Apr 15, 2016)

You god, your like a runaway train on acid 
I see a career for you my friend. Amaze balls


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## jwade (Apr 15, 2016)

Hywel said:


>


I would really love some further detail on the binding. I'm planning something very similar. The Iceman I'm working on has white abs binding, and I had a misfire on the 24th fret side dots, so I was thinking of cutting it off at the 12th and 24th frets and then swapping in black abs sections.


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## Hywel (Apr 15, 2016)

You're all too kind! 

I can't make it into the the workshop this weekend sadly but I'm dying to finally get it strung up.

I'll do the Home Depot challenge NGD ASAP and then I have some upgrades waiting since I don't think the dodgy 90's Epiphone pickups and £4 tuners are going to quite cut it.



jwade said:


> I would really love some further detail on the binding. I'm planning something very similar. The Iceman I'm working on has white abs binding, and I had a misfire on the 24th fret side dots, so I was thinking of cutting it off at the 12th and 24th frets and then swapping in black abs sections.



I don't have any other photos but I started at the nut and cut each piece roughly to length with some fret nippers before trimming it using a sharp chisel. I found a square, flat piece of MDF and held the binding along one side and sliced off small shavings with the chisel against the end to keep it at 90° to the binding. Length wise I just kinda aimed for the middle of the fret slot each time. Each piece was glued on with high viscosity CA glue. A minute or 2 of pressing them in place got them secure enough to move onto the next piece.

For the 12th I think I just cut the 2 black blocks at the same time to get them equal and then trimmed the white bit in the middle to fit. Let me know if that doesn't make any sense and I'll try and get a photo up.

I bet it would look swish on that Iceman.


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## jwade (Apr 15, 2016)

Did you do anything to blend the joints, or are they fairly flush?


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## Hywel (Apr 15, 2016)

Nothing extra. The chisel gave good clean joints and I made sure they were tight before gluing. Acetone might work well to hide any gaps if your binding melts in it (mine didn't).


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## MoonJelly (Apr 15, 2016)

Really looking forward to seeing it assembled on the NGD post. 

That bridge came out looking stellar--I can only hope my build comes out this clean...


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## Hywel (Apr 23, 2016)

*Build Complete!

*












































Ok so things have changes a bit since the first post but the final specs are...



3 piece meranti body with 6 piece maple top
 White PVC binding on body, neck and headstock
 Bolt on 3 piece meranti neck ([email protected]1, [email protected])
 Maple fretboard, 22 nickel frets, 28" scale, 12" radius
 Side block inlay markers
 Bone nut

Uber cheap tuners

 Home-made 4mm mild steel bridge with Wilkinson saddles

90's Epiphone ceramic humbuckers and and Ibanez INFS1 single coil

Tru-oil and Danish oil/wax finish. Maple knobs.
The mini switches are for coil splits (sadly available on these pickups but a big thing on the replacements) and to add the bridge pickup to any other combination. The string through holes just have M3 washers in them since I couldn't afford ferrules and the same goes for the neck.

A clip I recorded to give you an idea of how it sounds. 1st section is neck and bridge pickups, 2nd is neck and middle. EQD Afterneath is in the chain since this pretty much why I have it. 

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/slj76/baritone[/SC]

Final cost was £64.03 or $92.22 (according to Google) and the parts list is below to see how I got that figure

Body and neck wood £32.24
Top wood £3.35 (reclaimed maple from my old floor. Priced at 1/2 retail as per rules)
Truss rod £5.49
Frets £3 (~£7.46+P&P for a 5m coil)
Neck joint fixings ~£1
Fretboard 84p (reclaimed maple)
Bridge ~£5 (£3.33 for saddles via eBay and some spare steel plate)
Tuners £3.99
Nut 99p
Binding £5.48
Electronics £3.43
Pickups - Old spares. I haven't included the cost since they're worth pretty much nothing.

I seem to have broken the Piezo transducer so I've left it out. A replacement is in the post. It did work for 5 min and it sounded ok with some volume differences between the strings.

There was also a slight delay while I re-finished it in Tru-oil rather than Danish oil since that seemed to let the dye though onto skin whereas the Tru-oil stops it.

It's currently set up with the cheapest heaviest strings I could find ("Johnny Brook" £1.99 11-50s) and with everything attached it weighs ~4kg/8.8lbs

And that's it. I do have some new pickups and other bits waiting for install so I might do an update when that's done but otherwise, thanks for reading!  

​


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## jarnozz (Apr 23, 2016)

Damn hard to beat this! looks great and sounds nice too!


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## pondman (Apr 23, 2016)

Jeez that is just stunning


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## pondman (Apr 23, 2016)

And its a Home Depot build


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## mnemonic (Apr 23, 2016)

Damn, that looks really nice all shined up and in natural light. Its crazy how you built that guitar for that price. 

Are you planning on replacing the tuners/pickups/etc with higher quality stuff later on down the line, after the contest is done? 

I hope it plays as good as it looks.


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## High Plains Drifter (Apr 23, 2016)

I think I went down a wrong way street at some point in my life. 

Unreal... the skill, the attention to keeping it on the cheap yet not sacrificing details. Love the contours at the neck-heel area as well.


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## Hywel (Apr 23, 2016)

Thanks guys! 



High Plains Drifter said:


> the attention to keeping it on the cheap yet not sacrificing details



This was actually one of my favourite parts of the build. I really like working out how to keep things as cheap or light as possible while still keeping functionality and aesthetics. I did a similar thing with the ultra lightweight travel guitar I built and I really enjoyed that one too. 



mnemonic said:


> Are you planning on replacing the tuners/pickups/etc with higher quality stuff later on down the line, after the contest is done?



Yep. I've got replacement locking tuners and CTS pots ready to go. It's getting a Seymour Duncan P-Rail in the neck and a BKP Ceramic Nailbomb in the bridge (both bought used from eBay). The 3 mini switches will hopefully function like a triple shot mounting ring giving me coil splits, series and parallel options for some serious versatility.


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## Cloudy (Apr 23, 2016)

Damn dude! if thats a home depot build you've got me fooled, looks amazing.


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## MoshJosh (Apr 23, 2016)

Seriously love this build, one of my favorites I've seen. . . And it's a Home Depot build!!!


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## TamanShud (Apr 23, 2016)

That is just stupidly amazing dude! Nicely done


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## MoonJelly (Apr 23, 2016)

How to beat this.....can't be done


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## Prophetable (Aug 2, 2016)

Any chance this thread will be updated with the images hosted elsewhere?


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## XxJoshxX (Aug 2, 2016)

http://m.imgur.com/a/9jjWH

Pics are still in the imgur album


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## abeigor (Aug 2, 2016)

Sweet merciful crap...this is incredible.


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## Hywel (Aug 2, 2016)

Thanks abeigor!

Sadly the Imgur blocking took all my build and modification threads with it but as XxJoshxX said the original album is hosted at this link.

Since the thread got bumped I might as say I got the piezo system working (turns out there was too much pressure on the transducers) and with a decent amount of off-board EQ in my DAW, it sounds really good. The blended tone is really nice and the new pickups are a massive improvement over the old ones. I'll stick up a sound clip and an updated photo if I can.


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## exo (Aug 12, 2016)

That neck hint is amazing, dude! Your level of craftsmanship here is second to none!


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