VIP + Rubato neck build

Markdude

Newbie
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I ordered a new custom VIP body + hardware yesterday and I'm pretty excited. I have a Rubato neck and have been needing an excuse to find a great body to go with it.

The Rubato neck is very interesting and I'm really excited to try it.

Carbon fiber shaft, richlite fretboard, stainless frets, stainless zero fret + nut/string guide, Grover locking tuners.

25.5" scale, 1.65" nut width, straight 0.8" neck profile, 9-15" compound radius.



No builder screenshot for the body because of the lam top disappearing glitch, but the VIP will have a black dye finish with a burst over to black back, cream binding, and will be satin finished to match the neck.

If it ends up being in the ballpark of this look (also a black dye Warmoth according to Darth Phineas), I'll be really happy:


I'm hoping that the overall presentation of the body will end up looking pretty similar to this PRS SE (although my VIP will have a tremolo):


Here's a fairly similar looking VIP with black dye I found:


Here's the full body specs for my build:

Hollow construction VIP
2 F-holes and PRS style controls
Alder body
Flame maple lam top
2 humbuckers
Black dye top, burst over black back, satin finish
Cream binding
7/8" side jack
Gotoh 510 tremolo rout
Strat neck pocket

Hardware and electronics:

Cream pickup rings
3-way toggle switch with cream tip
Wilkinson WVS130-2P tremolo in chrome
500k push-push pots with black speed knobs
Black neck plate
Black side jack plate
Oversized strap buttons (chrome) with black felt pads
Stereo output jack to disconnect the battery when not in use

Haven't decided on pickups yet, but I have a lot of good options for what I want to do. I like starting with something really bright such as Fralin's single coil sounding humbuckers, Dimarzio EJ Custom, etc. Then adding some carefully chosen parallel capacitance and resistance to emulate the ballpark resonant peak and Q factor of a single coil pickup. Then for the tone pot, I also add parallel capacitance and resistance yet again, but this time with values chosen to emulate a standard PAF style humbucker (when the tone pot is at zero). With one of the push/push pots I might end up engaging yet another combination of parallel capacitance and resistance as sort of an alternate tone control, maybe emulating something darker like a JB. Totally unnecessary but it's the kind of geeky stuff I like to do. I've spent a lot of time in LTspice and have also used my oscilloscope to experiment with this.

Then to preserve all those relationships without the rest of the signal chain changing the loading, I'm going to be using a Redeemer internal buffer and the power is going to be supplied with a Fishman rechargeable battery pack backplate cover for easy charging.

PRO-BPK-FS1-Battery-Pack-for-strat-black.jpg


I have a couple of other Warmoth projects awaiting assembly but I'm probably going to try to tackle this one first.
 
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@Markdude look forward to seeing this one come together.

If you have not done so, add a set of these to the order and ask Warmoth to fit them for you. The studs and bushings that come with the Wilkinson WVS130-2P are dimensionally different.


Some more details on the bridge and studs...

 
The body arrived today! I'm really pleased with the way it looks. I'll be lightly painting the neck pocket black since there's enough overlap that it's visible with the neck in place. Probably with a black Colortone marker, and maybe a quick utilitarian coat of wipe-on satin poly to make the paint a little more durable under there.
 

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Great! Also looking forward to hear about your tinkering when it comes to the pickups and related components!
 
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