My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

DivebombInc

New member
About to have this one finished up. Using a SD Custom Shop Pearly Gates Tele Lead. I'll be installing a burnt Lucky at the neck.
CB-Supermodel_1.JPG

Can't wait to string this one up!
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

thats cool man. i put a firebird pup in the neck but a half smoked cigarette is cool too :D

really though, thats pretty sweet. i would totally rock that thing. gonna have the one steel and two brass saddles?
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

Yeah, just haven't saddled it yet. I got the 2 brass saddles here somewhere. The only thing I'm having trouble with is the Bolin Speed Knobs. Can't find them and they won't return my emails about buying some from them; I might just have to make them.
 
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Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

Wow...looks awesome! Never seen a chambered NECK before!

Also, that mockup looks awesome with the reverse headstock.
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

i swear billy does that cause he is so frail, dude is nothing but 5 foot of skin and bones
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

I think I read somewhere that particular ax is short scale, no your tipical 25,5''. BTW what kind of woof are you using for the body?
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

But, it will have lot's of bite!

It's Swamp Ash and the neck is Flamed Maple. It is also 24 5/8" scale.
 
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Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

That is pretty cool. Love the Rev, like to see it all done.
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

Looks cool.

I've never built (or even seen) a chambered neck before...no concerns about stability? What kind of trussrod are you using?
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

Why the weight relief? Are you elderly or little? Less mass = less tone.
I love the neck without position markers. Why not a full sized Pearly Gates? Putting the half smoked Lucky in there is cool as long as it has red lipstick on the end.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

I looked into building one of these up too... the cost on the Strait Plate bridge was brutal!
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

As far as the weight, I'm just replicating the original and the neck and body are both chambered. Hopefully that doesn't turn into a negative. The body is Swamp Ash.

Yeah, that bridge was dang expensive! So was the Custom Shop Pup!
 
Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

Looks nice... but chambering a neck can go real wrong real fast, especially if you do the chambering before the backshape carving (which makes more sense from a technical perspective, but unfortunately greatly raises the risk of carving through when profiling). Not to mention the lowered structural stability from teh loss of such a large amount of load bearing material.

Hope it all turns out good :beerchug:

.....Less mass = less tone....

I personally prefer my axes more on teh heavy side, explorers, LPs and whatnot, but this is more or less :bsflag:

If that were plainly true, NOBODY would be making light guitars, but they´d all be searching out tue 70´s boat anchor les pauls. Or all the exotic wood parts axes from the 80s with 14 pound weights and the tonal properties of an icepick on a chalkboard....

Assuming of course that they would still be made out of wood at all and not just poured out of lead ;)

In the 70s and early 80s there was the fad of more mass = more sustain.... that at least held some weight, but sustain is not = tone, a note can sound like **** forever (no tone, lots of sustain) or angelic for the blink of an eye (lots of tone, no sustain).

But directly correlating mass to tone in any way not only defies the laws of physics but it essentially reduces the entire art of luthierie to a bathroom scale and a bottle of school glue.

Unfortunately, trying to make it clear to a guitarist that "different that what you´re used to" (in this case "Chambered") is not automatically "total piece of crap" is like trying to teach your senile great grandmother how to configure a CAT scan by charades, using a manual that was first translated from english into aramaic and then from aramaic into mandarin before then being printed in german. Eventually it might happen, but Ben and Jerry´s will probably open a successful retail outlet in Hell first :laugh2:
 
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Re: My Billy Gibbons Super Model Replica

I was very careful to step the neck chambers as you can see in the pic. It's deeper, but narrower towards the trussrod slot. I used a 1-way trussrod, NEVER liked the 2-way adjustable kind. Noted my depths for the chambers and made sure I didn't get too close when shaping the back. I've made hundreds of necks, but never chambered one so I was still nervous. I was constantly thumping it and running my fingers along it (insert jokes here) because you can hear the sound change easily. Next time I'll use calipers.
 
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