# New "Ibanez S" styled build



## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Been working on this for a maybe 2 weeks on every odd day.

The body is a padauk/basswood bottom, and a padauk cap. The guitar is heavily chambered. The neck will be made of maple, and a ? fretboard. I was planning on making a fretboard but I don't have the right tools for it at the moment. I'm thinking of getting a slotted ebony fingerboard from stewmac. 

The electronics consist of:

- One "golden age" high output humbucker, nickel cover, for bridge placement. (12k ohms)
- One "golden age" single coil pickup, for neck placement (6.6k ohms)
- 2 volume potentiometers, one for each pickup. Each pot is 1000k ohms; for an untapered pickup tone. Volume from each pickup can be blended in and out at the user's discretion, should give a lot of tone versatility.

There's no holes for the second pot or single coil because I only recently decided to add them. Originally it was only one pot and one bridge pickup.


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

Good start man..Very good. what's the tickness of the body?....the neck pocket almost looks like around 1/4, but could be the angle..


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Yeah, I found that quite odd. the neck joint is actually about 3/4 of an inch deep. The body is 1 3/4 " thick.

almost sort of an optical illusion because of the basswood stripes.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

TOM?

If it's TOM'd can I have it?

Looks great so far!


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

TOM..?

I don't know what that is. 


Edit:

Oh, tune-o-matic? No, it's just a basic hardtail, sorry ;D


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## gtrguy (Jul 6, 2006)

Looks like the thicker 'SZ' body as opposed to the really thin Sabre body?


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I'll take it so long as it's not a floyd rose style bridge haha


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Great! do you have $800 - $900 to spend on an experimental guitar ?


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I can come up with $800, oddly enough haha.

Is that going to be bolt-on or set neck?


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Just a bolt on. Truss rod is adjusted from the base of the neck.

I'd probably post videos and maybe sound clips of how it sounds, I want to be sure whoever buys it likes it.

Unfortunately, I'm not a fantastic guitar player, but I guess you don't really need to be to just give a tone demo.


Also, I've decided on using a maple fretboard. I'm not going to lie, but it's because I don't have a lot of money right now. But I can't complain, I like the sound of a pure maple neck 

Here's a more recent shot of it.


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Did more work on it today. All the body hardware fits now and is ready to be screwed in. The back contours are almost done, and It should be ready for finishing soon.

I decided on doing a set in neck this time due the the lack of a good bolt on system at the moment. Since it's set in, I'm going to contour the heel so everything is a lot more shapely and less cumbersome around the heel. As you can see I've also tapered the fretboard. After thinning the headstock, The neck should be ready for epoxy with the fretboard.



I'm trying to decide between a High Gloss Lacquer, a Satin Laquer, or Danish oil. I'm thinking the latter two would probably be better because I'll be using the same finish for the entire guitar. Satin lacquer would be a bit more high maintenance and delicate, but the oil always leaves sort of a residual smell that never goes away (the padauk has a very pleasant smell but the maple is sort of raunchy). Decisions, decisions..


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Got back from northern BC, and I have my new camera :smile:




















Excuse the sock, needed to find something suitable for propping the neck up since it's not on the body yet.

I've decided to do a high gloss finish.

The back and sides of the guitar will be painted either matte copper or glossy chrome, top will be left natural. I want to cover up the basswood because it absorbs lacquer like a sponge and doesn't look very nice anyways.


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Did the first couple coats of lacquer on the top. I've decided the back and sides will be painted white.
I'm surprised, it looks like the padauk absorbed almost none of the laquer. I've left the pores open, I like seeing the patterns on the top.



















You can see in the second image, it really brought out a lot of those weird little curl figurations in the wood.


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Starting to come together. Body lacquer is curing now (that's why it looks a bit waxy), and I'll level and polish in 7 days. Some more work to do on the neck, but that should be finished by tomorrow probably.


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

Very nice progress man. WHat kinda tempplate are you using for the neck?


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## Lab123 (May 27, 2007)

Man, that's a very nice guitar....I think you should spend the extra bucks and put an ebony fretboard on it....Just my thoughts of course, Good work...larry


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## Overt1 (Aug 31, 2009)

yeah it'll definitely look better with a darker fretboard. but it still looks awesome as is


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

al3d said:


> Very nice progress man. What kinda tempplate are you using for the neck?


The neck joint is default fender strat. I use the acrylite template to draw out the neck joint in relation to the center line, then I freehand route.

I use the same template to draw out the shape on the neck blank, then use that as a guideline for cutting and sanding.












> Man, that's a very nice guitar....I think you should spend the extra bucks and put an ebony fretboard on it....Just my thoughts of course, Good work...larry


Too late now 

I've got a pre-90's kahler trem still sitting around. I wanted to use it, but never did. I want to put together a plan for a nice project that will do it justice. Will probably buy an ebony fretboard for that  The intention of this project was to be a "modern rock and roll" sort of guitar, I figured that brighter maple high end would be a good thing for it. I had a rosewood fingerboard, but decided to use the maple.

And speaking of necks, got some work done on it today. Will finish up most of the fretwork and fine-shaping tomorrow (I need to buy more fretwire) and then I guess I can start lacquering that.


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## Hypno Toad (Aug 1, 2009)

Finish has been wet sanded and polished.


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