…the finished Caractacus guitar!! I hope you like what I’ve created. It was a long road, but the project was well worth the wait and effort.

To celebrate the completion of the Caractacus guitar project, I am going to offer, for a limited time, the plans I used to build this fine instrument FREE OF CHARGE!  From now until the end of June, 2009, you’ll be able to download the full sized plan by clicking on the links below. What you’ll get is a 6mb .zip file containing .pdfs of the full sized plan as well as copies tiled for printing on either an A4 or letter sized paper. Normally, I charge $6US for each set of plans, SO ACT NOW BEFORE THIS SPECIAL OFFER ENDS!

Click here for the right handed plan

Click here for the left handed plan

Below are photos of the finished Caractacus guitar. Please let me know what you think of my efforts and if you decide to build a copy for yourself, send me some photos of the finished guitar so I can post them on my site.

In my next update, I’ll share with you some of the things I learned during the construction of the Caractacus. Stay tuned!

After yesterday’s post, I realized I forgot to detail how I make the control cavity cover. Therefore, before I explain how to adjust the intonation and string action, I’ll show how I made a simple cover.

First, I laid some tracing paper over the cavity.

Next, I traced the outer lip of the cavity.

Then, I transfered the traced outline to a small sheet of 1/8″ thick hobby plywood.

This is the shape of the cover, ready to cut out. To do this, I used a jigsaw and cut outside the line. Then I used 150 grit sandpaper to bring in the shape until it fit into the cavity nice an snug.

The cover sits on the recessed shelf, which is wide enough to accommodate 6 small, flathead wood screws. To finish the cover, I simply rubbed on some boiled linseed oil.

And now for the moment of truth; setting the action and intonation. In this vital step, I’ll adjust the string’s height and individual scale length. Even though the scale length is 24.75″, each string will be slightly different by virtue of their thickness and the notes they’re tuned to play.

First, I checked the clearance between the bottom of each string and the first fret. I like .020″ on the wound strings and .010″ on the others.

Usually, the strings are a bit to high. To bring them down, I use my handy feeler gauge saws to deepen the slots. If the slots were too deep to begin with, I could either make a new nut or add a shim beneath the existing one. Fortunately, all I had to do was a tiny bit of deepening to get the height I wanted.

The bridge I’m using only came with starter slots, so I had to make them deeper and wider with a small file to properly hold each string. To get the 3/16″ of clearance I like between the bottom of the strings and the last fret, I simply raised the bridge by adjusting the posts.

To intonate the strings, I start by tuning each string using a digital tuner. Normally, I’d do this with the guitar held in my lap as if I were going to play it.

Next, I check each strings harmonic by gently plucking the string while lightly touching it directly above the 12th fret. To do this right, the string must not bend down to the fret. If it’s out of tune, I adjust the tuning peg to correct. Normally, if the string is in tune from the bridge to the nut, it should be as well at the 12th fret.

Then, after tuning the 12th fret harmonic, I press each string down between the 11th and 12th fret while taking care not to bend the strings too much. If the plucked note is sharp, the scale for that particular string is too short. If it’s flat, the scale is too long.

To correct the scale length of each string, I either move the saddle forward or backward depending on whether a string is sharp or flat. Each time a saddle is moved, the string must be retuned and the intonation rechecked.

After intonation was achieved for each string, this is how the saddles ended up. Now you can see why a tune-o-matic bridge has to be installed at an angle. If it were attached to the guitar perpendicular to the centerline, some of the saddles, especially on the bass side couldn’t be moved back far enough to intonate the strings.

The funny thing about guitar building is that you can make the same design over and over and never have the same saddle position after intonating. I think it has to do with the precise dimensions required for such an instrument. Fortunately, most bridges are designed to compensate by having adjustable saddles.

In my next post, I’ll add photos of the finished guitar as well as the details of a special offer I plan to make in celebration of this momentous occasion. Stay tuned!

For today’s post, I’m going to give a brief description of how I wired the Caractacus guitar. But first, I should explain that there are many different ways to wire an electric guitar. During the planning phase I try to settle on the method of controlling the tone by doing some research on the different methods available.

Even though the electric guitar has been around for many decades, there seems to be no end to the possibilities for controlling the tone via pots, switches and pickup combinations. That’s why I always work up a detailed wiring diagram before I start to build. A diagram gives me the ability to iron out any problems that could come up. It also serves as a way to bounce my ideas off other builders who may have attempted a similar wiring scenario.

With that in mind, here is how I wired the Caractacus:

First, I installed both pickups by routing their wires through the tunnels between the neck, the bridge and the control cavities.

The pickups are attached using black wood screws. To make sure the pole pieces would lay directly beneath each string, I stretched a length of thread from each nut slot to its respective bridge saddle and checked to make sure the string passed over the center of its specific poles. Then, I drilled pilot holes for the wood screws.

This photo shows the tools I use. From left to right are a multimeter, a soldering iron, spools of 24 gauge copper strand wire, a hobby knife, needlenose pliers, flux, solder, a cardboard box to hold the pots and switches and my diagram.

First, I strip the ends of the wire and tin the exposed copper strands with solder. Next, I solder the wires and capacitors into place. In order to get a good connection between the ground wires and the backs of the pots, I use flux before soldering. Then, I use my multimeter to test the solder joints. I use the flap of a small cardboard box to hold the controls while I work.

The jack is installed into the body first with a hot wire and a ground wire already soldered to it. Next, I install the prewired controls and solder the jack wires where they need to go. Then, the pickup wires are soldered into place. Finally, the ground wire from the bridge is soldered into the chain of ground wires linking the controls.

For this guitar, I used a master volume, push/pull pot, which allows me to shut off one coil from each pickup. This produces a subtle yet noticeable change in tone when I pull the knob out. It’s a funky type of modification in that you won’t know the results for sure until you do it.

Then, I used a pair of tone pots (one for each pup) and after some experimentation, I settled on .022 capacitors to bleed off treble when I turn the knobs. Finally, I used a 3-way switch, which allows me to select each pup individually or together. Here’s a sample of how the guitar sounds. Please note that I recorded the sample with the volume knob pushed in.

In the next post, I’ll show you how I set up the action and intonated the strings. Stay tuned!

It looks like I have more than two updates left on the Caractacus guitar. After checking all the photos I’ve taken, I think I’ll have at least three more to do. Anyway, Here is the next batch:

After wet sanding the body with Micro Mesh, I proceeded with an initial polish. This would allow me to spot any surface problems that might need some touchup.

Here is an example of one such problem.

These are the tools I use for the touchup work. They consist of some concentrated dye, wipe-on-poly, Q-tips and some 400 grit wet dry paper.

After lightly sanding the spot, I touched it up with a Q-tip loaded with red dye.

After the dye finished drying, I dabbed on some poly with a fresh Q-tip. Each coat dries in about an hour and I added about 4-5 thick coats. Next, I let it dry completely for a couple of days before wet sanding the spot level. Then, I polished it with the Micro Mesh grits, starting with 1,500 and moving up to 8,000. Finally, I used some automotive polish to make it really shine.

The neck was finally glued into place and clamped with a pair of C clamps. I used the strips of cloth to protect both the fretboard and the body.

Holy smokes, Batman! It’s starting to look like a real guitar!

I used a dead blow hammer to press the tailpiece stud mounts into place. Then, I inserted the screws, slipped the tailpiece into place and used a screwdriver wrapped with masking tape (protects the chrome) to tightened it down.

Before installing the bridge studs, I inserted a ground wire that will ground the bridge to the controls. As you can see, the end of the wire has been stripped. This will allow me to trap the wire between the stud and the hole’s wall.

The other end of the wire comes out in the control cavity. Later on, it will be soldered to the ground wires coming off the controls.

Each tuner was pressed into place and visually checked for straightness.

From the back of the peghead, each tuner is held into place with a single wood screw. To prevent drilling the pilot hole through the front of the peghead, I marked the depth on the bit with a piece of masking tape.

After carefully double-checking the tuner alignment, I drilled the pilot holes and tightened down the screws. On the other side, each tuner gets a washer and a barrel nut.

Then, nut was dummied into position. If you want to see how I made the nut, check out my video. Next, I installed the strings and checked to see if I would have to deepen the slots to get the .010″ to .020″ clearance I like from the bottom of each string and the first fret. The wound strings get .o2o” and the others get .010.” As luck would have it, the clearance was perfect. That rarely happens, however. Usually, I have to deepen the slots to get it right. When I was satisfied all was well with the nut, I loosened the strings and added a drop of wood glue to the bottom of the nut and slipped it back into place. Finally, I tuned up the guitar to add clamping force while the glue dried.

In the next post, I’ll show how I wired this baby up. Stay tuned!

It’s been a few days since I posted and in that time I’ve been very busy with my graphic design business. I did manage to talk about guitar pickup design with some new friends at the Music Electronics Pickup Makers forum. I am so pleased with how my first attempt at making my own humbuckers that I’ve decided to try and make a P90 dogeared for my next effort.

As it turns out, P90s are very similar to humbuckers as far as the basic method of construction, with the main differences being the number of coils and magnets. A P90 has one coil instead of two and two magnets instead of one. I should also mention that P90s are not hum canceling due to the single coil design. It is possible to get around this by adding a dummy coil or by pairing pups that have opposite polarity. However, I plan to use only one P90 in a Les Paul Jr. type configuration I’m going to build for my son.

In the meantime, I need to post an update on the Caractacus guitar, which I will do in the next couple of days. If I’m not mistaken, I think I have two more updates to post. One will feature wiring and final assembly, and the last will include photos of the finished guitar as well the special offer I plan to make in celebration of its completion. Stay tuned!

The term first light is used by astronomers to define the moment when a brand new telescope is used to observe the stars for the very first time. For guitar building, there should be something similar, like “first tone.” Maybe there is and I haven’t heard it yet, so if there is a term for this momentous occasion, let me know. At any rate, here are some samples I recorded of the Caractacus guitar’s brand new, handmade pickups. And don’t laugh at my fretboard skills. After all, I’m more about the art of guitar building than playing. Although I love to play!

caractacus

I wired up the Caractacus guitar today and tested it out on my tiny practice amp. The resulting sound blew my mind! For controls, I’m using a 500k audio taper push/pull volume pot and a pair of 500k audio taper tone pots. I thought I was using .047 caps on each tone pot, but discovered they were actually .0047 after I’d finished soldering them in. To my surprise and delight, the tonal range was amazing. Turning the tone knobs gradually changes the tone from a dark brown sound to a bright, Strat-like tone. The push/pull allows me to shunt one coil from each pup to ground, which results in a single coil configuration. With this scenario, I can play anything I want.

The next step for this guitar is some finishing touches and final set-up. Stay tuned!

P.S. When this guitar is finally finished, I plan to celebrate by making a special offer on my site. Again, stay tuned!

As promised, here are a ton of photos showing how I made my humbucker pickups:

This is my homemade bobbin winder. On the left you can see a spool of 42 gauge, poly-nylon insulated wire.

Another view, which shows the bobbin attached to the winder with double-stick tape. You can also see my simple pedometer/reed switch counter.

This bobbin got around 4ooo turns of coil wire.

After removing the bobbin from the winder, I wrapped the coil with some bobbin tape and soldered the lead wires to the start and finish of the coil. I use different colored leads so I’d know which was the start and finish.

Here I’m using a multimeter to check the DC resistance of the bobbin. If the readout were blank, I’d have a dead bobbin. However, all 4 of my bobbins checked out nicely.

Next, I wound up the coil wire and leads to the bobbin. Then I wrapped another layer of bobbin tape to protect the coil wire from the solder joints.

Then, I inserted the screws and slugs.

The screw bobbin got a spacer attached to the bottom.

I use 4 core wire, which has a bare gound wire that needs to be soldered to the baseplate. Notice how I routed the wire through the baseplate.

In order for a humbucker to work well in pairs, I needed to determine the direction of the polarity. I used a compass and marked the north and south sides.

The magnet was centered on the baseplate so the south side would contact the screw bobbin.

Both bobbins are attached to the baseplate with small screws.

After attaching the slug bobbin, I soldered the leads to the appropriate pickup wire. I use Seymour Duncan color codes to keep the wiring straight.

After the wires were soldered, I used heat-shrink tubing to protect the joints. Then, I tucked the wires into the space between the bobbins.

Then, I wrapped the bobbins with some cloth tape.

Both pickups got a 20 minute bath in a mixture of parafin and beeswax. This step helps to reduce microphonic feedback.

Both pups are ready to install.

Next, I’ll install the pups, wire everything up and see how the Caractacus sounds. Stay tuned!

Both my hand-wound humbuckers are finished!. Tonight I wound up the neck pup and potted both in wax. This time around, it was a synch. In fact, I’ll never buy a pickup again. When I get chance in the next few days, I’ll post some photos of the whole process.

I have to thank the folks at Guitar Parts USA and Guitar Jones for parts I purchased from them. Total cost came out to around $60 for both pups. That’s not bad when you consider the equivalent ready-made pickups cost over $70 each! Of course I’m not factoring in the cost of time, but my labor is cheap.

In the end, I came out with a bridge pup that measures just over 9k and a neck right at 7k of DC resistance. This should mean nice tone with just enough power to satisfy my tastes. Once the Caractacus guitar is finished, I’ll try and record some samples of how it sounds. That means I’ll have to work on my chops a bit! Stay tuned!