Building my first guitar...

[mick666]

Hello people, I'm thinking about building a Glenn Tipton replica, but with a few personal touches. I have a couple of (dumb) questions to ask.
1. Which is the thinnest neck I can get? I have an Ibanez Xiphos and a Jackson RX10D (Randy Rhoads style) these are the types of necks I'm after.
2. Is it possible to install a (humbucker) pickup with no tone or volume controlls? At the most, all I want would be an on/off switch.
thanks.

 

[Nando Vallart]

1) Wizard

2) I think it's possible but you would need to install a 500k resistence, if I'm not wrong... But I know very very very little of wiring, so I'll let people that know more tells you what is needed to do

Welcome to the forum! ccasion14:

 

[mick666]

thanks mate. 

 

[Alfang]

you can wire directly to a switch and to output jack, youl still need to ground your strings    via bridge or trem claw

 

[mullyman]

I think the Wizard back shape is what you are looking for.
MULLY

 

[Cagey]

As has been mentioned, the thinnest neck is the "Wizard", which is 0.735" thick at the 1st fret and 0.810" at the 12th, similar to an Ibanez® Wizard II neck. You can see all the contours and their dimensions here if you're interested.

You can run a pickup directly into an amp without any problem, no pots or resistors necessary. The input impedance on amplifiers is much higher then the output impedance on guitars, so the voltage drop is almost completely at the amp.

 

[line6man]

Running straight to the jack will give you a hotter/brighter tone which may or may not be desirable, depending on your tonal preferences.
If you want the loading effect of the pots, you can do something like this to simulate a volume and tone pot turned all the way up:

 

[drewfx]

I thought the whole idea was a hotter/brighter tone?

But you also could do a switch (or puch/pull) that would bypass volume/tone and go direct from PU to jack, and get the best of both options. Unless you want the look of no knobs/switches...

 

[line6man]

I thought the whole idea was a hotter/brighter tone?

It usually is, but considering the OP was asking whether it was even possible or not to do such a wiring scheme, I'm guessing his goal is simplicity.

 

[mick666]

My goal is both for simplicity and looks, thanks heaps for the info. You guys rock.

 

[exaN]

Standard thin think Jackson, Wizard think Ibanez.

You could always get a standard thin and sand it down to have a feel between a Jackson and a Ibanez neck.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Standard Thin is closest to the Fender American Standard.