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SurfGuitar101 Forums » Gear »

Permalink I'm building my own surf guitar design

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I'm building a surf guitar. This is actually something I designed back in 2005, and I let way way way too much time go by before prioritizing making it happen. It's influenced by the Fender Jaguar -- using Jaguar control plates, and the butt end of the body is fairly similar.

Build is in progress, but I've already got strings (flatwound 13s) on it -- so it's playable already.

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I've got a set of Fender Vintera "50s" Strat pickups for it. Going to do a reverse slant at the bridge. (I modded my old Strat for the reverse slant and can't go back.) Not sure if I should reverse slant all of them.

Planning painting it cream colored with a seafoam burst.

Here's the YouTube playlist if you want to follow along with my progress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOeX7S4wiV4&list=PL2CusUsZBnzIAdERrYmU3Xsn9PUV-FFul

Monsters From Mars
http://monstersfrommars.com

Looks like fun. I wouldn't do the reverse slant on the neck, as the deep tone of the low strings is what really makes neck pickups sound good. Of course, you may want to try it out just to see how it sounds - in that case, please report back with the results.

Hey Thor, I’m Tim the one who commented on your YouTube video recently. The one who builds guitars. I figured it might be a little easier in this forum than on YouTube chat to keep talking. I was working with hardwood floor installation and had been helping my uncle with cabinet building for a little while and just got lucky that a custom guitar builder was in my town. I just got the job because of good timing and having some wood working experience, I guess. I had never worked on guitars before getting the job. Been doing it for 16 years now. Are you aware of the mos-like vibrato? Your text to link here...It seems like a really good deal, and if it’s anything like the hallmark vibrato, should be incredibly smooth and responsive, even in comparison to the jag/jazz vibrato, which is one of the best. I will say the strong spacing may be tighter than your pickups, though, so be conscious of that. I really like the bright and thin strat tones for surf. You can make thinner pickups sound bigger with boosts and eqing but it can be hard to get rid of the big fat sound of hotter pickups. At least that’s how I tend to think of it.

Last edited: Feb 27, 2023 13:13:13

Oh sweet.

What kind of guitars are you guys mostly building? Is it a big operation? Is it custom stuff or your guys's own designs?

Yeah that Mos-like seems like the way to go -- not too expensive. I wonder how it handles heavy strings. I'm using flat 13s at the moment.
I'll probably finish building the guitar with the Chigsby, since I'm almost already to go, and then upgrade to that Mos-like at some point later.

I'm slanting all the pickups, so that the pole spacing won't be as much of an issue.

I actually made a mistake when I was testing the pickups -- I didn't realize I'd gotten Jaguar-style 1meg pots (and didn't realize it mattered so much). As soon as I put a 250k ohm load it started to sound more reasonable/usable.

Yeah I agree, you can EQ to bring down the high end, but you can bring it up if it's not there. I have a Casino with those chrome-covered p90s and it really sounds dull and there's no fixing it.

Just painted the guitar (using oil paint with a brush and paper towels):
image

Monsters From Mars
http://monstersfrommars.com

I work at Mario Guitars in TN. We do bolt on custom guitars mostly in the fender style. It’s not a huge operation. 8 employees total. I look forward to seeing more of your build. It’s always refreshing to see people making things using very basic tools at home and achieving really solid results.

Well if the company keeps a couple people fully-employed, that's pretty good.

Here's the latest status on my guitar build:

image

Only major thing I have left is to cut out a pickguard. Definitely with those hand-carved contours though it needs a Moseley/MosLike rather than the Chigsby.

Instead of a "rhythm" circuit, the upper switch simply routes the signal through G&L-style passive bass+treble (lowpass/highpass) controls. The highpass isn't working (or is barely noticeable), so I need to figure out why that is. Then for the normal volume+tone knobs, I followed the wiring diagram from Fralin for a Jaguar, and it seems wrong. The tone knob rolls down volume at the same time, so I've got to fix that. So yeah, I've got some minor troubleshooting to do. And need to hone in the setup a bit.

I keep hitting the bridge pickup when tremolo picking the low E string. It's kind of messing me up when playing. So I may move it further towards the neck so it's out of the picking sweet spot, or I might create some sort of ramp so that if I hit it the pick glides past it smoothly.

I mounted the strap button where the neck meets the body. It's not working for me. The guitar wiggles on the axis along the neck while tremolo picking and it's messing me up. I wanted to avoid putting the strap button on the tip of the horn, but it seems the best place for stability.

So that's where I'm at. The end is very clearly in view.

Monsters From Mars
http://monstersfrommars.com

How about back of the horn for a button?

Social Media
https://www.facebook.com/TheOutpost/
https://www.instagram.com/theoutpostmusic/
Music
https://theoutpostmusic.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/theoutpostmusic/
Merch
https://the-outpost-7.creator-spring.com/

Been playing my guitar a bit. Normally I'm not all too finicky about pickup sound. For years I played the stock ceramic pickups in my Squier Strat and was able to dial in great surf tone. But I'm coming to the conclusion that these Fender Vintera 50s pickups are not doing it for me. I've been hoping I'd warm up to them but it's not happening. I thought they would be a semi economical way to get a sound vaguely in the ballpark of early Dick Dale. But they are so incredibly bright. Like super unusably harsh and thin. And quacky -- I keep checking whether I'm not accidentally in an in-between (parallel) position because that's what they sound like. Even my worn-in flat 13s do nothing to tame the tone, and on my amp EQ there seems no sweet spot between shrill and dull.
Today I lined up 5 different guitars for comparison, and while I expected them all to be hotter and fuller sounding (p90s, super-ferrites, filtertrons, ceramic strat), the sonic difference between them and my new guitar was insane.
Don't get me wrong, these Vintera pickups are probably great for rhythm and other styles, but they don't have the full-bodied articulation needed for surf lead.
So I don't know if it's all the pickups or if somehow the brightness of the pine body or some other aspect of my unconventional build is having a negative affect. But at the moment I'm a bit frustrated with the state of my build.

Been searching the forum and it seems people have good things to say about Fender Custom Shop Fat 50, SD Antiquity II, and D.Allen Tru-62. So I'll look into maybe one of those if I can get the rest of the guitar dialed-in enough to justify adding that much expense. Still have yet to to do a thorough setup, level and crown on the neck.

Speaking of which, I wonder what is the ideal amount of relief and action height for tremolo-picked surf. I used to err on the side of too high, which sounded great for tremolo picked leads but playability suffered for chords and hammer-on stuff.

I guess it's too be expected that a custom guitar build requires some experimentation. I'm just going to take these last steps slowly, gradually hone it in. Still pretty confident I'll get a nice playing and sounding guitar out of this even though at the moment it's not so much.

Monsters From Mars
http://monstersfrommars.com

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