Faux Acoustic guitar build

[SurferJoe46]

'Bud' will make you 'Wiser'.

[gitlvr]

Don't sweat it, I'm glad you're here.

[gitlvr]

Ready for some nut work. Won't be long, now.



If you look closely you can see a pencil line on the front of the blank. Using a half pencil, I marked the fret radius and fret height on the front of the blank and filed the top of the nut down close to that line . Then I marked the outside string locations. Although I didn't snap a pic, I layed out the location of the remaining strings as well.
Then I started filing nut slots.

[gitlvr]

Here it is after all the string slots are cut to their proper height off of the frets.



It's still rough. A few minutes with a file, sandpaper and polishing compound, and we get this:

[gitlvr]

A pic of the completed saddle.



And, the installed pickup, preamp and battery.



Pickup is the Schatten Soundboard Transducer. That's the little round black thing about the size of a nickel.
Preamp is an endpin type, the Fishman Powerjack.
I used CA to affix a metal battery clip to the underside of the cavity cover, and routed the wires with adhesive backed wire clips that came with the pre.
This build is pretty much complete now. Whew!
I have plugged it into my PA and played it for about twenty minutes. I think I achieved what I was looking to.
Final pics and sound clip will be posted soon. Hopefully tommorrow evening. Thanks to all who came along for the ride.

[blubolt]

WOW! Great work! cant wait to hear it! thanks for sharing so much cool info with us all!

[wraub]

Once again, very impressive work.

You should be proud.

wraub

[gitlvr]

Thanks, blubolt and wraub. This was a long build, and I had a lot of difficulties, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I know this prototype works. Now it's time to plan an "official" version.
Next year, lol.

[SurferJoe46]

This just hit my in-box - congrats on the whole job.

You've gotta post 200 pixs of it from all angles and all lighting conditions now.

[gitlvr]

Thanks, guys! Yeah, I'm really, really happy with this.
I'm sorry I don't have pics or a soundclip up yet. Was going to do that today, but a friend of mine called and wanted to jam. He and I play together in church quite a bit, and this is what this guitar was designed for, so I couldn't pass the offer up.
We met at the church and played for 3-4 hours. The guitar is fairly comfortable. I was just starting to have problems with my arms and hands toward the end of the session (after 3-4 hours of steady play time), so I think this will work out fine. It sounds great, plays well, and my friend was pretty impressed with it as well.
One thing that really pleased me was that I can feel the back of the guitar vibrate during play, just like a standard acoustic does.
I'll get those pics and soundclip up quick. Won't be 200 of them, though, lol. But I'll definitely get plenty of 'em up.
Thanks, all.

[reverendrally]

*like*

PICS!!!

[Thumpin_P]

Awesome!!!!

[gitlvr]

And now, some pics!

[gitlvr]

[gitlvr]

[gitlvr]

Thanks for looking. Sound clip to follow.

[bassman314]

That's awesome!

[SurferJoe46]

Multiple dittos! Excellently done. Next tine you're in Montana, drop by - I've got a case of Mexican beer in the fridge.


(too many strings though)

[gitlvr]

Thanks, guys!
As promised, here is the soundclip.

https://www.box.com/s/7jbddw1ttcprkm2zl971

[blubolt]

Sounds very "acoustic". I like it. good balanced sound. It was definitely worth the wait

Again, excellent work! She's as pretty as she sounds