My Fallout 4 Wasteland Baritone Tele

[Cagey]

I can't recall seeing one. I do know from having worked the stuff before that it's pretty brittle, so maybe not. Probably be relatively easy to snap a headstock off.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

I can attest to Zebrawood being fairly brittle. I had a zebrawood pick in my pocket today, dumb I know, and it broke in half along the grain. So, that really sucked! As for Zebrawood and Goncalo, the more I've looked in to it, the less I think I understand lol. What seems to make sense to me is that they are not the same but are similar to "cousins", as Zebrawood is predominantly from Africa and Goncalo is mostly from Brazil. From hence forth I won't use the names interchangeably as I had been, just in case.

 

[ByteFrenzy]

There are a lot of names for wood species out there that are absolutely not clear and which different sources use in ways that are not at all the same. There are trees growing in different parts of the world that are genetically not closely related but yield wood with similar properties and looking more or less the same. There can be four or five different names for the wood from those groups, some applied to the wood from certain species and others to other species, with different overlaps in which species are called the same. And that differers from source to source, and can change over time as one source dries out and it becomes commercially attractive to replace it by a different source. Suddenly you see something which was never called mahogany in the past being called mahogany... Adding to the complexity you then have the natural variation from one piece of wood to another, even if coming from one and the same tree. Really the only way to know if the wood is the same is to look at the scientific name of the tree. The Wikipedia article on Zebrawood is actually pretty good at describing the semichaos of wood names.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

So, I dropped off my guitar yesterday and it turns out that my luthier also happens to be a big Fallout fan. I should have it in about 2 weeks, due to his current workload. I'm soooooooo freaking stoked! Hopefully, I can get some knobs made tomorrow. Anybody have any tips for cutting a custom backplate?

 

[Cagey]

A lotta folks here use DangerousR6's services for all things custom-cut/machined/engraved. He has his own CNC machine and many years of experience. I use him all the time, and highly recommended him.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

Seems problematic, given that the guitar was custom routed. I assume that making a template wouldn't be much harder than cutting the backplate itself. I have the blank material already. I've just never cut it before.

 

[Sid Nitzerglobin]

I've only done a couple of guards that I was using more for proof of concept before getting the real ones cut by CNC, but those worked out passably using a bandsaw for the rough cut and filing and sanding down to the refined shape.  I imagine a table router would probably be a better tool but I don't have one (yet).

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

Yeah, I don't have much in the way of tools yet. I do have some friends that are carpenters and general contractors so I can go to them if I absolutely need to. I'm just trying to do as much of this one without them, whenever possible. Of course, I get home work today and am supposed to be cutting Coke bottles to make knobs with and I've been too tired to get motivated lol

 

[bagman67]

How do you find the balance of that baritone neck on the telecaster body?  I've recently finished a bari neck, and I'm vacillating between sticking it on a telecaster, or opting for something else.  Neck dive seems a little more likely on a standard tele body than on a strat, where the strap button makes the center of gravity land a little further north.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

I'm sure yet. It is being assembled still and I won't have it for a week or two. I'm hoping it won't neck dive like crazy but there are ways to combat that.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

My luthier got done early! I still haven't finished my knobs lol. It sounds really awesome. The Lace pickups work as well as I'd hoped, and exceeded my expectations on clean tones. I'll try to get some glow in the dark pics with another camera as my phone's camera can't pick up the glow for some reason.

 

[bagman67]

My wife has been consumed with Fallout 4 for the last month or so.  She's a fan of your axe.  Thanks for sharing.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

I've got to remove the locking Grover on the low B as the .60 strong is the largest that it can take. It's way too loose to hold an A and not be mud city. I feared that was going to happen and I ordered locking tuners out of sheer habit. Easy enough fix though.

 

[ThePhilosopher]

Can you back the locking mechanism out and drill/file out the tuner to hold a larger string? I've got some stock Ibanez tuners opened up to accommodate a .102. I also have some Hipshot locking tuners opened up to 0.80.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

I ended up tuning up to drop B/standard C#, which are tunings that I've used extensively in the past. I am going to leave it in this configuration for a bit. I'll look in to drilling out the tuner.

 

[Sci-Fried Dobbs]

Finally, I have pictures of my Fallout guitar glowing! My phone's camera can't detect it for some reason, so I was never able to post a proper picture of it. I still haven't finished the knobs as I've been lazy :/ Soon enough, it will be 100% completed.