If you look at the neck pocket area, you can how chewed up it is. It
looks like doggie doo. Though it is straight relative to the PUP cavities.BeatCaster
This guitar started out as something altogether different. It was supposed to be a real slick looking body with a Bigsby onit. But due to problems with the templates and the router bit, the body is a POS. Just look at the neck pocket. Also, there is too much slop in the PUP routes, and the control pocket is a bit off angle.
So I am making a beater out of it. So far, I have added a belly cut and a forearm cut to it. The PUPs are a mis-matched set: Tele neck from Rio Grande (Muy Grande model), Tele bridge from Fender (unknown model), and a Rio Grande (Half Breed model) strat in the middle.
I have decided to use 3 volumes and a master tone with no switch on this critter. The reason is that with 3 PUPs there are 7 possible PUP combinations. They are: 1) N 2) M 3) B 4) NM 5) NB 6) MB 7) NMB So the control pocket cover is actually the back cover off of a Gibson of some sort. Nice heavy plastic.
If you look at the neck pocket area, you can how chewed up it is. It
looks like doggie doo. Though it is straight relative to the PUP cavities.
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October 16, 2003
The first two pix are obviously the forearm and belly cut. 'nuff said.
This is the control pocket with the cover on. I did the outline routing with
a Dremel set up as a router, then I used a big router to get the depth. On the right
is a spot where I got a bit crazy with the big router.
This is what it looks like without the cover. The little black dots are where
the screws will go.
Since I have most of this thing done as far as what holes go where, the last step is start shooting nitro. Which I did. A very light coat to start.
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October 20, 2003
Today is a nice bright, sun shiney day in the bay area, so I shot the beat body. I also found a spot in the neck pocket that was not correct, and I fixed it with my Dremel tool. A week to dry and I can sand it out and put it together. Yee-hah.
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November 10, 2003
I put the control cavity on my drill press to put some holes in it, for the pots
& knobs. The damn thing shattered on me. And I come to find out that it is
not from an SG after all. I don't know what it is, but I can't find one. So, I
made one out of some wood, poplar, that I had laying around from another project. I
have enough to make another cover if need be.
So I put the neck on, and the neck is off angle a bit. I put the holes in the
right place in the body, but the neck was not straight. So I had to drill out the
screw holes and put in some dowels. This is what it all looks like while drying.
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November 11, 2003
After the dowels dried & set, I cut them off and the sanded them down with my
Dremel tool. What you can't see in the photo's is that I had to use a clamp on the
neck to get it to set flat enough for the string to clear the frets. Those screws
are in there TIGHT. I don't know what the problem is because I got everything flat,
went over it a few times. Never found it, so I applied pressure to it. It
works.
The beater with knobs and strap. Cheapest one I could find. Too long,
but that is fixable I think.
Close up of the body. Another thing that you can not tell is that three of
the knobs are from ChuckoCaster (many thanx) because I only had one. So in Chucks
honor, I put his on the volumes and mine on the tone, which I don't use often.
Close up of the back.
I did learn one thing in this process. If you are going to use a dye & transparent finish combo, there is a situation where having the dye in the lacquer makes sense, and that is with cuts in the wood. The odd angle grains sometimes lead to uneven or odd absorption patterns, which is a bad thing.
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December 10, 2003
I showed the Beater to my luthier who got quite a laugh out of the whole thing. The only thing that he said I needed to do was add a string tree, which I have done. But it is still a POS. Big time.
I stole some stickers from my daughter. She'll never know.
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July 15, 2004
The orignal version of the Beater was truly un-playable. The controls were wired bad and the control "plate" was broken, so I decided to trash the body and make another one, which I did. It ended up looking and playing much better.
I finished it with one coat of Tung oil. Nasty smelling stuff, or maybe I just got the wrong brand.
It turns out that my 5 yo nephew wants to play guitar in a rock band. So I sent him this guitar, as you see it. No knobs or backplate. I played it this way, so why shouldn't he? is my attitude. So far, he has no amp but he likes to walk around the house thrashing on it. Good kid!!!!!