Fun with Parts Casters

[daan]

I used to have a big "project thread" on here, but I'm a dumba** and deleted all my pictures somehow so rather than figure out all the pix links, I just started a new thread. (Cuz I'm old and suck at the internet)
Anyway the last few weeks have been rough, somehow me and all 3 of my kids got Strep, so after all that's finally cleared up I hit my guitar projects hard to try and finish some more of them.

This one, I've had at least 3 sets of pups in. I've re-wired it so much that the switch and pots got bad (crackly and eventually no sound at all) so I pulled it apart and rewired it again with new pots/5-way. It has GFS "Brassbottom" pups in it, they sound OK for now but if I can make some $ I wanna get Cool Rails for it. A buddy has some in a Strat and they sound awesome.




This one (70's Hondo II Jazz copy) I've been really jonesing for bass playing so I wanted to get it done. I F-ed around with the wiring for way too long (It has Artec Firebird guitar pups and a Jazz bass blender pot circuit so it wasn't standard wiring) I had it put together with a couple different sets of pups, and it never worked right so I just bought all new stuff and now it sounds fine. Oh I made a guardplate which took 3 sheets of guard material to get right... and I realized I had the bridge in the wrong spot. The bridge pup route is shifted slightly to the top of the guitar, and I kept mis-aligning the bridge trying to get the pup evenly over the strings. Now I have it in the right spot, but it took a couple tries to get it there... Really gotta stop working on these after midnight when I get home, but that's the only time the wife and kids leave me alone so I can work on them...

 

[rgand]

Re: Fun with Parts Casters

One time a friend of mine told me, "Start new projects whenever you can. You can finish them up any time."

Of course, it's good to get them finished up, now and then.

 

[daan]

Re: Fun with Parts Casters


THis one, the bridge pup quit working. I didn't know if it was the pup itself or the idiot doing the wiring, but it had to come apart to fix it right. Also I found a set of Cali Guitar Neo-dymium singles that I wanted to try, so in they went (along with more wiring)

I realized I basically never use the tremolo on any of my guitars, and saw this cobalt blue hardtail body, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's lighter than the burst body I had before, too so that's all good.

I wanted to put the maple fretboard neck from one of my other 'casters on this guitar, I had to do a little work on the rosewood neck anyway.

And more proof I'm a dumba**, I lost 2 of the control knobs while I was working on it. I ordered more since I have 780987087 white ones, but no black ones. Go figure.

 

[daan]

Re: Fun with Parts Casters

So since this neck has been on who knows how many bodies by now (when I got it, the screw holes were packed with wood putty already) all the putty basically dried up and fell out the last time I removed the neck. I drilled out the screw holes, doweled them with maple dowels and got it all sanded down flat. Oh yeah, I oiled it again and am waiting for it to cure so I can drill and mount it on my SE body.

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: Fun with Parts Casters

Nice projects! I like that cobalt blue body with the black pickguard.

 

[rgand]

Re: Fun with Parts Casters

Nice projects. I also like the cobalt blue with black. Thumbs-up to that.

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Fun with Parts Casters

Very cool, I think you may be braking some child labor laws though??? LOL, I'll try to put aside some time later today & get some pictures of my Partcasters up! The Blue Strat is beautiful, good job!!!

 

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: Fun with Parts Casters

I used to have a big "project thread" on here, but I'm a dumba** and deleted all my pictures somehow so rather than figure out all the pix links, I just started a new thread. (Cuz I'm old and suck at the internet)
Anyway the last few weeks have been rough, somehow me and all 3 of my kids got Strep, so after all that's finally cleared up I hit my guitar projects hard to try and finish some more of them.

This one, I've had at least 3 sets of pups in. I've re-wired it so much that the switch and pots got bad (crackly and eventually no sound at all) so I pulled it apart and rewired it again with new pots/5-way. It has GFS "Brassbottom" pups in it, they sound OK for now but if I can make some $ I wanna get Cool Rails for it. A buddy has some in a Strat and they sound awesome.




This one (70's Hondo II Jazz copy) I've been really jonesing for bass playing so I wanted to get it done. I F-ed around with the wiring for way too long (It has Artec Firebird guitar pups and a Jazz bass blender pot circuit so it wasn't standard wiring) I had it put together with a couple different sets of pups, and it never worked right so I just bought all new stuff and now it sounds fine. Oh I made a guardplate which took 3 sheets of guard material to get right... and I realized I had the bridge in the wrong spot. The bridge pup route is shifted slightly to the top of the guitar, and I kept mis-aligning the bridge trying to get the pup evenly over the strings. Now I have it in the right spot, but it took a couple tries to get it there... Really gotta stop working on these after midnight when I get home, but that's the only time the wife and kids leave me alone so I can work on them...

I wake up around 3:00 am every morning so I get a few hours to myself before the wife & kids start the "I wants"! 99% of my guitar/amplifier work gets done then, for me I start out fresh though, I wouldent want to be burning pots after a 12 shift! When I get home from work I'm lucky if I want to play guitar, let alone turn a wench on one!!!