80s superstrat project (Hohner body / Warmoth neck)
- Thread starter Heavy Rock
- Start date
Heavy Rock
Junior Member
- Messages
- 80
Thank you guys so much! You're all appreciated! 
Attention - lengthy post!
I noticed something while doing this build. The sunlight makes imperfections jump right in your face, while room lighting doesn't. It's really weird, but if you ever want to make a super perfect guitar, always go out and use sunlight to check everything. This way you can see the slightest detail that's off and correct it. When I look at my guitar up-close in sunlight I see scratches, when I use room indoor light I don't lol.
Anyway, here's the neck. The neck went pretty smooth as well, except the headstock. The clear coats were not enough and I sanded through (noooooo!). So I had to apply more. I didn't want to wait for another order of 2K poly so I used what I had already. I put a ton of acrylic clear, enough to cover the letters of the decal (that turned out well at least). Only time will show if my choice of using acrylic was ok. So, I finally finished with the woodworking stuff. Now a little bit of waiting just to make sure the clear coat is cured. In the past I was rushing to assemble the guitar right away and later when I needed, for whatever reason, to take some hardware out, I saw the footprints of the hardware pressed on the clear coat. So better wait a little bit before that.
I also include a shot of all the parts for the assembly (hope I didn't forget anything). I'll post here anything that turns out to be interesting during the assembly as well.
Also I was planning to give a shoutout to a couple of people on my final post when I show the complete guitar, but might as well do it now. I want to give credit where it's due, so here are some great people that inspired me and gave me cool ideas during this whole thing:
Now with the pics:
Attention - lengthy post!
I noticed something while doing this build. The sunlight makes imperfections jump right in your face, while room lighting doesn't. It's really weird, but if you ever want to make a super perfect guitar, always go out and use sunlight to check everything. This way you can see the slightest detail that's off and correct it. When I look at my guitar up-close in sunlight I see scratches, when I use room indoor light I don't lol.
Anyway, here's the neck. The neck went pretty smooth as well, except the headstock. The clear coats were not enough and I sanded through (noooooo!). So I had to apply more. I didn't want to wait for another order of 2K poly so I used what I had already. I put a ton of acrylic clear, enough to cover the letters of the decal (that turned out well at least). Only time will show if my choice of using acrylic was ok. So, I finally finished with the woodworking stuff. Now a little bit of waiting just to make sure the clear coat is cured. In the past I was rushing to assemble the guitar right away and later when I needed, for whatever reason, to take some hardware out, I saw the footprints of the hardware pressed on the clear coat. So better wait a little bit before that.
I also include a shot of all the parts for the assembly (hope I didn't forget anything). I'll post here anything that turns out to be interesting during the assembly as well.
Also I was planning to give a shoutout to a couple of people on my final post when I show the complete guitar, but might as well do it now. I want to give credit where it's due, so here are some great people that inspired me and gave me cool ideas during this whole thing:
- Badlands Guitars: I was initially inspired for this build when I saw one of their models (the GX-1 Old School red model). I really wanted something like this and since the price was a little too much for me at least for now, and since I'm more a DIY guitar person, I decided to make one myself. They also use that Hamer style headstock which I like a lot, with their own twist. By the way, I used this headstock for two reasons. a) I like it and b) it's really easy to shape by hand because it's mostly straight lines. In the past I tried to shape a headstock that has those gentle elongated curves and it was almost impossible for me to get right. I was correcting one side and the other one was getting screwed lol. A lot of back and forth work and in the end the result was meh. Anyway, if anyone is interested in 80s guitars etc, you need to check these guys out:
Home | Badlands Guitar Company
Badlands Guitar Company Your connection to the '80s guitar experience
www.badlandsguitarcompany.com
- Guitar Quackery:He's a great source of specialist information, very knowledgable guitar builder and technician, I mainly watch two of his youtube channels:
-
Guitar Quackery
Guitar Quackery is the place where we use scientifically proven methods to fix, build and study guitars. Also check out the Guitar Quackery Live channel https://www.youtube.com/@GuitarQuackeryLive If you wish to support this scientific research you can click one of the links below. Buy me a...
www.youtube.com
-
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- Doug MacCormack Guitar Repair: Very pleasant and relaxing videos, he's an experienced luthier and I just like to watch his videos, funny and relaxing:
- Phil McKnight: I think everybody knows him:
- IP Guitars: The next generation of luthiers, cool videos with great info:
IP Guitars
Handmade Guitars from Helsinki, Finland Sustainability. Responsibility. Realibility.
www.youtube.com
- Studio Asyl: Guitar tech and luthier from Japan, very well made videos:
studio asyl
埼玉県羽生市の片田舎にあるリハーサルスタジオです。 ホームページ : http://studioasyl.syksound.com/ Twitter : https://twitter.com/SYK_sound Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/syksound/
www.youtube.com
- Tanya Spachuk: Guitar tech and luthier from Ukraine. The next generation of luthiers once again, she does a great job:
- Ross Liuteria: Again another member of the next generation of guitar builders, from Italy. Her work is great as well:
Ross Liuteria
String instruments handmade in Italy. . I've been building guitars and basses since 2013. I love wood and woodworking, and music has always been a part of my life. At the age of 19 I decided to build my first guitar and to start an adventure. Now I have two labs based in Milano, and hundreds of...
www.youtube.com
Now with the pics:
rockandroller
Senior Member
- Messages
- 235
Beautiful work, love those access carves 
Heavy Rock
Junior Member
- Messages
- 80
Thanks a lot!! Yes, at some point I realized I play my LTD MH-400 more comfortably than the other guitars and I was wondering why that is. It came to me just before I fall asleep, lol. I download this kind of ideas during that time mostly, it's weird. Before I start cutting wood, I sat down and tried that guitar back and forth with other guitars and realized I got to do it.
----------
It's very annoying to wait for the clear coat to fully harden, so in the meantime I can share my wiring diagram.
I'm incorporating two push-push pots.The volume pot switch will have a 680K resistor across the pot. I use this mod a couple years now and I found that I enjoy the response of a 250K-300K volume pot more, even when the pickup is not so bright. But especially with bright pickups, it works great. It focuses the sound and makes it a little tighter. But I like to have the 500K sound with the more extended frequency response as well.
So the first switch will disengage the resistor and take the tone pot out of the circuit for a slight treble boost.
The second switch (tone knob) will split the humbucker and turn it always on. I mostly play with high gain but when I play clean for the occasional intros/interludes, I like to have different sounds to experiment with. With high gain I use the bridge humbucker for the 80s stuff and leads, the middle single-sized humbucker for more 70s stuff and the neck for leads.
So here's the diagram:
----------
It's very annoying to wait for the clear coat to fully harden, so in the meantime I can share my wiring diagram.
I'm incorporating two push-push pots.The volume pot switch will have a 680K resistor across the pot. I use this mod a couple years now and I found that I enjoy the response of a 250K-300K volume pot more, even when the pickup is not so bright. But especially with bright pickups, it works great. It focuses the sound and makes it a little tighter. But I like to have the 500K sound with the more extended frequency response as well.
So the first switch will disengage the resistor and take the tone pot out of the circuit for a slight treble boost.
The second switch (tone knob) will split the humbucker and turn it always on. I mostly play with high gain but when I play clean for the occasional intros/interludes, I like to have different sounds to experiment with. With high gain I use the bridge humbucker for the 80s stuff and leads, the middle single-sized humbucker for more 70s stuff and the neck for leads.
So here's the diagram:
Last edited:
Heavy Rock
Junior Member
- Messages
- 80
Also another shoutout to a couple more people who inspired me and I want to mention.
Jay Guitar: I like his crazy videos and he also makes his own guitars and amps. Very cool custom artwork:
Jay Nelson: Fender Custom Shop painter. Need I say more?
Fuga Guitars. Luthier and painter from Japan. Cool repair and custom finish videos:
The Aaron. How could I ever forget? Recommending the Warmoth guy in a Warmoth site is a little overkill but I've been inspired a lot by his videos:
Jay Guitar: I like his crazy videos and he also makes his own guitars and amps. Very cool custom artwork:
Jay Nelson: Fender Custom Shop painter. Need I say more?
Fuga Guitars. Luthier and painter from Japan. Cool repair and custom finish videos:
The Aaron. How could I ever forget? Recommending the Warmoth guy in a Warmoth site is a little overkill but I've been inspired a lot by his videos:
Last edited:
Heavy Rock
Junior Member
- Messages
- 80
Ok I got sick of waiting for the clear coat so I completed the guitar. It's not a super flawless build anyway so a few pressure marks won't make a difference.
So this is the complete guitar. I rushed and didn't do any fret polishing but I'll make sure to do that shortly. I might also do fretboard edge rolling and fret ends dressing at some point in the future. It's not necessary but... we'll see.
So the first pictures show the neck alignment. At that point I realized that I could have ordered the neck without the screw holes at the heel, but the new holes where not conflicting with the existing ones so it's not a big deal. The neck pocket and the scale length match exactly but not the holes. I decided to keep all 8 holes just in case anyway.
During the process I went through a couple of adventures again. While I was drilling the new holes on the neck (in fact when I had just finished) I realized that I chose the drill bit according to the screw threads instead of the inner shaft! (Seriously dude?! FFS man!). I was holding my head at that moment. I went on searching for bigger screws and found these big wood screws used for bookcases etc (their shaft is exactly the hole diameter I drilled) . I cut them to size and painted them black and they're fine. Ffs!
When I assembled the guitar and started playing though, the guitar sounded great overall but there was a strange mid hump that sounded like a wah pedal stuck midway. And it was very annoying. I started trying different pickups, then 4 different floyd trems from my other guitars etc, but for the life of me I couldn't get rid of that stupid wah sound. Then I thought, I'll try another nut, and (bang!) the mid hump is gone. I don't know what's the deal but it happened to me in the past with Korean-made locking nuts. It seems that it also happens with German-made ones too. Sometimes they produce a strange tinny wah sound for whatever reason. Maybe there's deviation in the alloy used from time to time depending on the raw materials availability? I don't know.
Another thing I noticed is that, the first nut had higher string slots too. I had to lower the bridge quite a bit to get the right action. With the second nut the bridge is at the right height. Even though they're both stamped R3, they're different. Maybe the first one was a QC fail that somehow got through? Or could be something under the nut and it wasn't sitting properly? Idk.
Anyway that gave me the chance to try some of my favorite pickups and choose the one that sounded best in the guitar (tried Dirty Fingers, EVH Wolfgang, JB, Bare Knuckle Holydiver and finally went with the JB). The guitar now is ready and set up. It sounds absolutely amazing, it has a dry snarl that sounds mean and angry, and it's super tight and clear. I love it. The neck feels awesome because, before I order it, I sat down and tried all my guitars and based my specs on all the things I liked from all the other guitars. The result is perfect! I highly recommend doing that.
Specs:
Body: Rockwood RP450G by Hohner (made in Korea by CorTek)
Body wood: Mystery wood (color, grain and sound suggest maple but it's not as hard as the neck maple)
Bridge pickup: Seymour Duncan JB
Middle pickup: Seymour Duncan JB Jr. neck
Neck pickup: Fender Yosemite neck
Neck: Warmoth
Neck/fretboard wood: maple/maple (quartersawn)
Frets: 6105 stainless steel
Radius: 14"
Profile: Clapton V
Tuning keys: Graph Tech Ratio
1 tone, 1 volume, killswitch, 5-way blade selector
Final thoughts: I tried the stone block but went back to brass. The stone block removes low end. Didn't like that.
Also I tried the graph tech saddles and went back to original. They add string definition which is great but makes the sound a bit hollow for lack of a better word. I think it's the low mids that are responsible for that. If they're not there you get a very hollow/light sound. I don't know how to describe it. Those would be good for a bass-heavy guitar.
Here are the pics (two posts to fit them all). I don't know if I'll be able to do an audio sample since I don't have a proper recording setup. Maybe in the future. If I do I'll make sure to post it here.
I tried to find a song that comes close to the sound and found this one:
So this is the complete guitar. I rushed and didn't do any fret polishing but I'll make sure to do that shortly. I might also do fretboard edge rolling and fret ends dressing at some point in the future. It's not necessary but... we'll see.
So the first pictures show the neck alignment. At that point I realized that I could have ordered the neck without the screw holes at the heel, but the new holes where not conflicting with the existing ones so it's not a big deal. The neck pocket and the scale length match exactly but not the holes. I decided to keep all 8 holes just in case anyway.
During the process I went through a couple of adventures again. While I was drilling the new holes on the neck (in fact when I had just finished) I realized that I chose the drill bit according to the screw threads instead of the inner shaft! (Seriously dude?! FFS man!). I was holding my head at that moment. I went on searching for bigger screws and found these big wood screws used for bookcases etc (their shaft is exactly the hole diameter I drilled) . I cut them to size and painted them black and they're fine. Ffs!
When I assembled the guitar and started playing though, the guitar sounded great overall but there was a strange mid hump that sounded like a wah pedal stuck midway. And it was very annoying. I started trying different pickups, then 4 different floyd trems from my other guitars etc, but for the life of me I couldn't get rid of that stupid wah sound. Then I thought, I'll try another nut, and (bang!) the mid hump is gone. I don't know what's the deal but it happened to me in the past with Korean-made locking nuts. It seems that it also happens with German-made ones too. Sometimes they produce a strange tinny wah sound for whatever reason. Maybe there's deviation in the alloy used from time to time depending on the raw materials availability? I don't know.
Another thing I noticed is that, the first nut had higher string slots too. I had to lower the bridge quite a bit to get the right action. With the second nut the bridge is at the right height. Even though they're both stamped R3, they're different. Maybe the first one was a QC fail that somehow got through? Or could be something under the nut and it wasn't sitting properly? Idk.
Anyway that gave me the chance to try some of my favorite pickups and choose the one that sounded best in the guitar (tried Dirty Fingers, EVH Wolfgang, JB, Bare Knuckle Holydiver and finally went with the JB). The guitar now is ready and set up. It sounds absolutely amazing, it has a dry snarl that sounds mean and angry, and it's super tight and clear. I love it. The neck feels awesome because, before I order it, I sat down and tried all my guitars and based my specs on all the things I liked from all the other guitars. The result is perfect! I highly recommend doing that.
Specs:
Body: Rockwood RP450G by Hohner (made in Korea by CorTek)
Body wood: Mystery wood (color, grain and sound suggest maple but it's not as hard as the neck maple)
Bridge pickup: Seymour Duncan JB
Middle pickup: Seymour Duncan JB Jr. neck
Neck pickup: Fender Yosemite neck
Neck: Warmoth
Neck/fretboard wood: maple/maple (quartersawn)
Frets: 6105 stainless steel
Radius: 14"
Profile: Clapton V
Tuning keys: Graph Tech Ratio
1 tone, 1 volume, killswitch, 5-way blade selector
Final thoughts: I tried the stone block but went back to brass. The stone block removes low end. Didn't like that.
Also I tried the graph tech saddles and went back to original. They add string definition which is great but makes the sound a bit hollow for lack of a better word. I think it's the low mids that are responsible for that. If they're not there you get a very hollow/light sound. I don't know how to describe it. Those would be good for a bass-heavy guitar.
Here are the pics (two posts to fit them all). I don't know if I'll be able to do an audio sample since I don't have a proper recording setup. Maybe in the future. If I do I'll make sure to post it here.
I tried to find a song that comes close to the sound and found this one:
Last edited:
Heavy Rock
Junior Member
- Messages
- 80
Complete guitar:
supertruper1988
Senior Member
- Messages
- 439
Thats 1000% RAD love how that turned out!
Heavy Rock
Junior Member
- Messages
- 80
Thanks a lot!! 
