#016 - The Kylecaster

Well, ended up not running into any problems with setting it up.  The bridge came shipped almost in the right position, just needed a few minor adjustments.  Got it strung up, tested it out, and everything was good, so here it is:

• 4 piece Alder body, green automotive paint
• 1 piece curly maple neck
• Rosewood 25.5" scale fretboard (not sure what specific species this is, it came with the neck blank already tapered and fretted)
• 1/4" mother of pearl position markers
• Fender style bridge/tremolo and tuners
• 3 single coil alnico pickups

Holy Shitar!

Just finished up the Lou Shields Shitar Deluxe.  Strung 'er up, but I'm not sure how Lou wants to tune it, so I'll leave that part to him. 

Here's some specs on this little beast:

• Bookmatched tobacco burst maple top
• Plywood back and sides salvaged from Lou's vert ramp
• Masonite fretboard and skunk stripe salvaged from the ramp
• Maple neck with 1/4 x 3/4" steel reinforcement bar
• Ebony bridge in the shape of the Vans off the wall logo
• Skateboard axle saddle, held in place by bearings
• Poplar bindings
• Classical style slotted headstock
• 26.5" baritone scale length
• Ted Crocker custom cigar box guitar pickup
• Gnarly lookin skull soundhole
• Kingpin nut

Here's a few more pics:

Lou Shields Shitar Deluxe: almost done

So Lou had ordered a custom pickup from Ted Crocker guitars.  Ted makes custom cigar boxes and pickups, and after seeing a couple clips with the pickup, I could see why Lou wanted it.  I got the body routed and started finishing it over the weekend.  After I felt it had enough coats to where it's sealed, but not too glossy, I started installing everything.  The hardest part was the pots, those were a pain in the ass to get installed.  I had forgotten that I had a similar hard time when I rewired my old es-335.  Anyway, here it is with the pickup and pots/knobs in.  I still have to get the bridge done, and it should be complete by the end of the week I hope.

Catching up

So I finally got the camera back from Lou yesterday when he dropped off the pickup for his Shitar Deluxe.  I routed out the area for it to drop in, and drilled out the holes for the pots and output jack.  This morning I drilled the tuner holes and put on the first coat of polyurethane.  Here's where I'm at now:

The slight tint in the lacquer really made the center pop out with a gorgeous golden tone.  These pics don't do it justice.  The sides took the stain in a way that kinda makes it look like a dark rosewood:

And here is the slotted headstock, which needs a tiny bit of cleaning up.

Hope to be finished by Monday or Tuesday, so stay tuned for finished pics.

Lou Shields Shitar Deluxe

UPDATE:  I stained the back, sides, and neck.  Went with the Minwax "dark walnut" for the back and sides, and their "golden oak" for the neck so the figure in the maple is still visible.

It's still a little damp, should look better in a couple hours.  Also, I'll be trimming down the headstock about 1.5" so it won't be so much like a boat paddle.

Lou Shields Shitar Deluxe

So I've been bad about updating this.  My phone broke, so I wasn't able to take pics for a couple days.  New phone takes ok pics, so here's a couple.

I did the sunburst on the top last night.  Mixed my own dyes instead of using minwax, came out pretty good.  This pic has some bad contrast, I don't have photochop so I can't do much as far as editing goes.  I also touched it up so the dark areas were more even after taking this.

In person, it has a much nicer yellow/amber tone that fades into the black.  For the sides and back I'm just using dark walnut Minwax.  I really liked how that brought out the grain on the plywood on the original shitar. 

Just got the mail, and the tuners have arrived.  I found some classical/slottedstyle tuners that were separated rather than 3x3, so these are perfect for a 4 string.  I'll make something stupid with the other 2 and the scraps from this most likely.

Once I finish the staining, I'll cut the soundhole and route the headstock for the tuners and get some pics up.

Lou Shields Shitar deluxe

So today I had planned on cutting out the neck and hopefully have everything sanded before dinner.  Unfortunately, My bandsaw was being a turd and the blade kept falling off.  Ended up having to replace the tire, and after that it was fine.  So there's really not much to write here that I haven't talked about in previous builds, so I'll just post a pic of where I'm currently at.

Sorry for the 2nd day in a row of bad pics.  I hope to get my camera back from Lou in the next day or two.

Lou Shields Shitar deluxe

Sorry I haven't been able to take many pics this week, I left my camera in Lou's car Saturday night.  So today I glued up the neck blank using my maple, a 1/4x3/4 steel bar so he can use 20 gauge strings if he wants, and then a chunk of masonite from the possum ramp for a skunk stripe.  Made it super thick, its gonna have a 1-1.375 taper for a big ass boat/V neck.  I'll get pics of that if i can, but my phone is on the fritz and I only managed to snap a pic of the top. 

The top wood came in the mail today, so I jointed and glued it up.  It'll still need to sit overnight, but I drew an outline on it to give people an idea of how it'll look.

I have a feeling the burst is gonna look amazing on this.

Lou Shields signature Shitar Deluxe

So those of you who've been paying attention to my work for awhile probably have seen my Shitar.  I made it about 5-6 years ago before I went to school and learned how to build stuff the right way out of scraps from a construction dumpster.  It was essentially a really shitty cigar box guitar, so I called it the "Shitar".  Here's the original:

I had left it over at Lou's house for bonfire parties that we never ended up having last summer.  Early this summer, he went on a road trip of the Northwest US, his travels can be read on the blog at his site, loushieldsart.com.  He came across a guy in Montana who builds custom cigar boxes out of salvaged wood, and when he returned from his trip he figured out how to play mine.  We talked about doing a custom one for him with scraps of wood left over from his ramps, but putting a nice bookmatched top on it.  After finishing the ukulele, I started on it and within a couple days I had most of the body completed since now it isn't guesswork.

This time, instead of random scraps, I used my poplar dowels that I'm so fond of.  The back is a scrap that I had leftover from the original shitar, the sides are all pieces of the Possum ramp, and the rest are shop scraps.  I added a few shims where the sides were uneven, after it's stained, nobody will notice them. 

For the neck, I'm using some lower grade flamed maple I had in stock, and will be using a steel bar to reinforce it, along with a masonite skunk stripe and fretboard.

I'll get started on the neck either sunday or monday and post up a pic when its looking nicer.