Spalted Maple Build

[ghostrider]

I found a great deal on an unfinished body on Reverb that I paired with a Warmoth neck I’ve had for a while waiting for the right project. I sanded down the edges of the body to round them out and shaved down the heel to make a contour similar to Warmoth‘s contoured heel.

As someone who is woodworking-challenged, I‘m pretty proud of the black korina pickup cover inserts. I have seen plain looking ones for HBs before but never single coils. I managed to find someone who made open single coil covers, then I bought a black korina pickguard and cut & shaped some inserts from it. I had my doubts about whether or not it would work all the way up until the end. Thankfully, it did.

Body
- spalted maple top on mahogany body finished with tung oil
- wenge pickguard
- spalted maple rear cover
- black korina pickup cover inserts

Neck
- Warmoth roasted flame maple sanded to 7000
- rosewood fretboard

Electronics
- Lambertones Triple Shot single coils
- Lambertones Grinder bridge HB
- Obsidian wiring harness

Hardware
- Fender locking tuners
- brass saddles
- brass knobs
- brass switch tip
- hand stamped brass nameplate
- nickel open pickup covers
- nickel bridge

 

[vetteman]

That would look good with "brass" color pickup covers, or maybe black pickups with gold color screws. Don't know if regular gold covers would match or if there is a way alter them to match the other parts better? Might be worth just waiting for them to age into it. Going to be a fantastic looking guitar any way you go about it.

 

[stratamania]

Congratulations on your build...

(You perhaps have a typo mentioning you bought a black korina pickguard)

 

[ghostrider]

Congratulations on your build...

(You have a typo mentioning you bought a black korina pickguard)

Thanks! Maybe the way I wrote it was a bit confusing. I bought a black korina pickguard and used it as the basis for the inserts… I chopped it up.

 

[ragamuffin]

Sweet build! I love the pickup inserts, they really set things off!

 

[ghostrider]

That would look good with "brass" color pickup covers, or maybe black pickups with gold color screws. Don't know if regular gold covers would match or if there is a way alter them to match the other parts better? Might be worth just waiting for them to age into it. Going to be a fantastic looking guitar any way you go about it.

Thanks for the ideas. I actually have an aged brass-caster build in process so I did try doing more of an all brass look on this one, but thought they might be too similar, even though this one isn’t aged, so I settled on this.

If I could’ve found brass open pickup rings, I probably would’ve gone with those, but aside from brass saddles, unplated brass hardware is surprisingly hard to find.

The thing I waffled on the most was whether or not to use brass pickguard screws. Ultimately, I decided against it even though they did look good too.

 

[teleme01]

very nice

 

[stratamania]

Thanks! Maybe the way I wrote it was a bit confusing. I bought a black korina pickguard and used it as the basis for the inserts… I chopped it up.

Thanks for clarifying.