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Hi everyone

I'm building a glass body guitar for school, and its my first guitar build as well so I've got lots of questions

because the body is going to be made from glass I'm thinking of going with a through body neck so that all the string tension is on the neck. Is a wraparound bridge the best way to accomplish this? Also can I just bolt the pickups onto the neck, or do I have to attach them through the pickguard? I'm planning to buy a premade neck because I have to finish this during the semester, and I have a full courseload to keep up with. The only through body neck I have been able to find is the one from stewmac(see second image) does anyone know of other places I can look for comparison?

I'm thinking treating the through body neck like a bolt on neck to attach it to the glass, should I be fine using 1 connection in the normal place or do you think it would be necessary to bolt it to the glass near the bottom of the neck as well (4 circles at bottom on image below)? from what I've seen on other through body guitars you need to bolt into the wings for the bridge, or are there some where it is wide enough to bolt right into the neck? I'm thinking the pickguard will hold the pots and selector switch and then be screwed onto the neck



As far as pickup selection I was looking at maybe putting a humbucker near the bridge and a single coil near the neck - are there any limitations on where you can put different pickups or how you combine them? Also I would like to include some pickup covers - do I have to worry about interference from them or anything?

I'm also confused about the relationship between the pots and the pickups, do you need a tone control for each pickup? Do humbuckers need more pots? Are the pots optional? could you get rid of them completely and still have a working guitar? If I have a humbucker does the pickup selector move between the two single coils inside?

Here is my "shopping list" thus far, I have very little experience with all these electrical components and how they work together, does anything look completely wrong? Or am I missing anything important? Does anyone have any suggestions on better components? Also price wise do these look like fair prices? I'd like to save as much money as I can for this phase because the glass body will likely not be cheap to make.



I haven't settled on a body design yet but here are a few sketches of what I've got so far. One of the requirements of my class is that I rationalize how the form of the body relates the material (glass) as well as its inspiration image - the icebreaker. I really love the traditional look of guitars but I want to come up with something abit different as well so I kinda torn between that. And yes I am left handed.





Sorry the long post, thanks in advance for any advice

lots of questions in there, i'll just take on a few. in regards to your shopping list if you are simply wanting to go the route of cheapness then ditch stewmac and go with gfs. you can get your tuners pickups electronics and bridge all from there. you'll still need to get the neck through peice from stewmac.

i would advise against a wrap around bridge, it will sit up to high it needs to be used with an angled neck. go for a fender style hardtail bridge or your action will be was to high when your done.

for many of your questions regarding electronics it would be useful for you to read up a little bit to get an understanding of how it works becuase for some things there is not a straight yes or no answer. this website has some information on it that has helped me in the past. http://www.1728.com/guitar.htm

you dont need a tone for each pickup, or a tone at all for that matter, nor do you need volume or a selector switch, but with each thing you take away you limit the voice of your guitar going to the amp. the pickup selector can move between the two coils that is called coil splitting but most guitars are not wired that way. there is not right or wrong way to wire up a guitar just ways that work and ways that dont. as long as sound is coming out the other end you can do whatever you want in the middle to get it there as many or as few pots and controls and switches as you like.

_________________
~shad peters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petersinstruments/
http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
http://petersinstruments.com/

Hello James,
Welcome to the forum.

Pre-made through necks are hard to find so stick with the Stew-Mac piece. Shad has sent you in the right direction for the electronics and hardware to keep you on budget.
To attach the bridge and other hardware to the neck, you will have to add to the width. You will need to have about 4" at the bridge for a Fender style hardtail bridge and at least 5" for a Gibson style. Which one you use will depend on how you're planning on mounting the glass to the neck. No, not bolts or screws, it's hight and angle from the plane of the top of the frets. Make a side profile drawing including the strings to find the proper relation of all the components.

I like drawing #7. Keep in mind the sharp corners and the thickness of the glass if you intend on playing this guitar. Keep the total weight below 10 pounds.

Steve

Listen to Shad, he knows his stuff. Just beware with GFS (guitar fetish) as their pickups are super but I bought 4 pots and all were dead/totally non functional. I have heard others comment on poor pots from GFS. If you could buy local on pots, not a bad way to go. Better yet try to find CTS or Alpha pots online.

Me again.
Did you say glass? Real glass or plexiglass? I'd never heard of glass solid bodies. Do you mold this or grind it?

i dont have any experience with their pots, but there bridges and pups have both been exelent.

_________________
~shad peters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petersinstruments/
http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
http://petersinstruments.com/

Hi guys thanks for the quick and very helpful replys when I posted this originally. sorry I've been so long replying to this.

Thanks for pointing me towards GFS Shad, I ended up getting my pickups, and bridge as well as some other stuff from there. I still got the through body neck from stewmac as well as the pots. I'm going to consult with the shop owner we are working with in the next couple days to figure out exactly how the glass pieces will be made - right now I'm thinking It will be made of three molded pieces that are then fused in the kiln to make 1 solid glass piece. although I'm still not sure if I will just get them waterjet cut out or not as it would make my life much easier given the time constraints I have atm.

Surprise! more questions


I got all the pieces for the guitar last week so I've modeled them in Rhino to fit everything together. From stewmac it says that the thru neck is 25" scale length (635mm), it checks out on the real neck. I'm slightly confused about how to measure where to place the bridge though. From what I can tell you want the saddle line at the full scale length from the fretboard side of the nut? What exactly is the saddle line - the stewmac fret spacing calculator lists a whole bunch of different measurements for different bridge types so I'm not sure which to use. I'm thinking the saddle line should be close to the image below?



Also since this is a 24 fret neck there is more space taken up by the frets that takes away from the space available for the pickups. I ended up buying 2 humbucker pickups in a set (bridge and neck), as well as a single coil (neck). There is limited space for all the pickups if I wanted to put in all three. Would you think that putting a single coil neck pickup in the middle would be ill advised? I actually like how it looks better with just the humbuckers so I will probably just save the single coil for another guitar anyway.

I also am having trouble finding information on through body guitar construction. I figure I'm going to have to route some spaces into it for the pickups, and just place the bridge on top. From what I have right now is the part that is 27mm sufficient thickness so that the strings won't snap it in half?



Last question - I ended up getting a hardtail bridge from gfs it is designed so that the strings go through the body - is it safe to drill holes for the strings all the way through the neck? I'm especially worried about this because the mounting screws for the bridge are behind the string holes so they would lose the strength from the string holes. It would be nice If I could do this otherwise it means I would need to take the guitar apart every time I want to restring it.



Here is a explodedish view of all the pieces - dark brown is the glass that will be fused. Everything is supposed to be able to be wired up without the glass pieces and then they are bolted onto the neck in two spots on the bottom



Thanks again for everyones advice