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Thanks a lot for the update!
Interesting stuff and I'm looking forward to building mine too

Cheers mate!

Friggin' awesome, simply is as everyone said already, nothing left to add....!!!
Also really interested in those diodes....

I lately used my Dremel, to make some routing stuff, because the delivered neck was a little bit "bigger" than the promised Fender standard


Which tools do you use, to route the templates?

Hi Carsten,
I use a Dremel to cut and shape the plexiglass templates, but for the actual routing in guitar body I use a Ryobi router, a bit more grunty and the weight of the machine steadies it a bit more than the Dremel which is good for intricate smaller stuff like inlays.

Photo is of routing cavity for trussrod with router.

Stewmac is good and I'm happy that they're there, don't get me wrong.
I've ordered some stuff from them before like fretwire, slot saw etc. and it worked all well, the ideas they give are great.
I just think they overspin the salespitch that you need all those fancy gadgets that they come up with otherwise your build is not professional or doomed or doesn't have enough Dan Erlwine mojo or so...
And some of their stuff is incredibly overpriced (check out their price for 3PDT stompswitch....) whereas some other stuff is reasonable.

Back to the shed....


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@JeffdaMaori

Man, these are nice builds! Where do you get your wood / skills from?
Any special workshop equipment (especially the plexiglas templates)?

I like these "one-piece" constructions!
thumbs-up

carsten

Cheers Carsten, there's an amazing amount of skill and cleverness all over this forum.

I'm just doing stuff myself, not trained in any wood or electronics trade.

Apparently I have been mucking around with things all my life, my parents said that I was hammering nails into tree huts before I could walk and figured out nasty contraptions to make them "predator proof" (as in keeping the neighbouring gang out....).

The tools that I've used to build guitars are often stupefying simple and not specialized; the 'fanciest' machine being my trusty cheapy 'Ryobi' router.
The plexiglas template is just that: a piece of plexiglass that I cut out to guide the router to create cavities for the pickups.
If you have a router it will have a guide, template will need to be 3mm or so bigger than cut you wanna make and away you go. Takes a bit of trial cutting on off-cuts to determine the fit (photo is of trialing and fine tuning a strat template), but you definitly don't need to buy something like that.

Scratch your brain and you can figure out how it works, throw a bit of number eight wire (very NZ saying....) technology in and think about everything twice and trial it out before you do that stuff.

The wood for the half-acoustic (which by the way has a bolt-on neck because I wanted to try different necks on it to settle for this) I got from a violin maker, took a bit of arm-twisting to convince him to let go.

The mahagony sides I bent into shape after dampening them over a chunky piece of round scrap metal pipe that I got from the dump, heated it up with a camping stove... there goes your bending iron.... cost about $3 for the scrap metal.

If you buy all those specialized shiny looking tools from places like 'stewmac' (goggle them) you'll be spending US $ 5000 + before you even start... that's goofy....!!!

The only specialized tool I ever bought was a fret slot saw and a soft blow hammer to fit in frets.

Everything else I have in my shed as normal run off the mill handyman tools (jigsaw, router, cordless drill, files, sandparer etc...).
It takes a lot of elbow grease (sanding etc...) but it saves going to the gym.

The one piece guitar was an extremely unusual / fortunate find as the slab of wood really asked for it... I've been always thinking about trying to do that but it definitly needs the right big piece of wood and there's a lot of offcut.
Maintenance wise a bolt on neck is the more sensible way (that's why Leo did that in the first place...) but we don't always have to be sensible...





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Here's another one I love dearly... polygamy is fairly accepted and widespread when it's about guitars and gear in general.
Ain't that right guys....?!?

It actually seems to be 'the norm' judging by everyone's previous posts...

She's born in the backyard too (it's a fertile place, even though things are taking time to come together), bodyshape and size is close to a Les Paul, half-acoustic construction similar to a ES 335 with solid maple core, birdseye maple top, sides mahagony, back brazilian rosewood, neck is padouk with barzilian rosewood fretboard.
Pickups are a mini humbucker taken from a Les Paul on neck (I got the cover goldplated... costly...) and a DiMarzio PAF pro on bridge.

No other around like her... and she's called 'Jazzica'.



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Great job, very interesting post and mission you undertook there!
It takes a lot of concentration / time / patience to try through all those op amps without loosing the plot.
Cheers!

My favourite has a bit of a Tele in the genes (bodyshape) and a bit of Strat (neck+middle PU and headstockshape) and a bit of Les Paul (bridge and humbucker, angled headstock, electrics from rear)... Somewhat of a unique bastard and I love her...
Made out of a single slab of Matai (NZ hardwood) with Ebony fretboard.

That's a beautiful guitar. Did you make that?

I'd love to have something like that, but shaped and equipped like my Gibson SG... and with 8 strings on a wide, thin neck.

Cheers, yep made, conceived, laboured through and born 2007 at home in my shed (aka "backyard research facilities" or "male panic shelter" depending on situation).
Here's another pic of the making.

Gosh, there's a magic colloection of beautiful guitars out there, guys!


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And the back of it.
I've got a soft spot for smooth sexy curves.

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She's a home birth.... this is how it started and the 'pregnancy' until it was all done was a few month as well from the memory...
By the number of year rings in timber the tree has been around in NZ before "James Cook and the Endeveaours" were here for their famous NZ tour.

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My favourite has a bit of a Tele in the genes (bodyshape) and a bit of Strat (neck+middle PU and headstockshape) and a bit of Les Paul (bridge and humbucker, angled headstock, electrics from rear)... Somewhat of a unique bastard and I love her...
Made out of a single slab of Matai (NZ hardwood) with Ebony fretboard.


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mmm...a 5e3 or JTM45/Bassman would be nice 

and how cool is it to play through an awesome sounding box, shrug, and go "yeah, I made that"?

That's so right... and also applies to the smaller stompboxes we build here, totally...

Also: let me add that I don't think  building your own tubeamp is really cheaper than other options; by the time you've spent all getting it, shipping cost, possibly import taxes (yep, I had to pay some of that too....) etc. you're often not cheaper off than finding a decent second hand amp or so (same applies to stompbox building I think but what you get for doing it yourself is the reason why we're here... I guess.)
However, making them myself beats it still easily and soundwise I find it so much better than much of the average range stuff from the local music shop.
I'm hooked.

Andy

Good on ya, I'm sure the Tubeampdoctor kit will be top notch componentry! I haven't dealt service / emailing for advice with them but I do hope that that will be equally top in that way too.
They are certainly pricey though...

Anyway, my advice is to take your time and cross, double, triple check everything and do that all over another day.
Check out the 'Safe Start' from Weber, easy to wire up yourself:
https://taweber.powweb.com/store/safestart_layout.jpg
and:
http://www.paulrubyamps.com/info.html#FirstPowerUp

I think a mini tube amp would be cool too, I've built a "Murder One" project (photo of guts attached) from Mr. genius 'Frequency Central' and that's good fun.
0.6 watt power consumption, so after heat loss of tubes etc. I would reckon it puts out a 'smocking' 0.2 watt of 'full blast', maybe 'even' some bonecrushing 0.3 watt with some tail wind...
It's good, but there's not a lot of clean to be had... it's all on 10 a grinding in a 'noise control officer's best friend' sorta way.  

Another modell, probably slightly higher powered than this, by Bean would be fab.
I'm in.

I don't think building a mini amp gives you the same sweat on the face when you power it up like a tubeamp that has 450 volts on plates. It feels more like a tubepowered stompbox to do I think.

So if you wanna build a full blown tube amp you've gotta jump into the deep end somehow.

Andy

Gobstopper, I am drooling SO hard right now. Great looking amps and cabinets.

Cheers mate. It's addictive good clean fun.



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... and here's the Ceriatone HRM OD special 50 watt I talked about, cab is loaded with those Weber speakers; they are fab.

Cheers

Andy



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I've built some amps so far, first was a Weber kit, I went straight for a Blackface AB 763 circuit Vibroverb (Picture), a bit daring, I know, .......but I survived and the amp turned out great. 
As soon as I had it going I sold my Fender Hot Rod which really sucked in comparison....

My experience with Weber kits is that I found some parts a bit low in quality (like the jacks), so I replaced them with better ones. I think they might have addressed some of those issues, now apparently including Neutrik jacks rather than no name China made. Their transformers are sort of ok, also chinese made I believe. Their communication and service was good; some resistors were missing in kit first and they sent them straight away no hassle no charge, also advice by Ted Weber was good (I asked him about speaker recommendations). Ted has since sadly passed away and I don't know if the company "culture" has changed.

I did another kit from Ceriatone (Dumble HRM overdrive special 50 watt) which I found all around a bit better in standard of parts and presentation of kit. Service and communication (email) was good with them as well.

So in a nutshell: Weber kit seemed ok for me, but Ceriatone was a bit better in overall value for what you get.
However: I think Weber speakers really rock!!! I've built a  2x12 cab with a Silver Bell and Blue Dog speaker combo as well as a 2x12 with two 12F150 and they are both fantastic I think. Love 'em!

The other amps (5F2 circuit modded as harp amp and JTM 45/Bassman crossover) I sourced parts individually and made the lot up myself. Worked even better but takes a lot of time and some hardware skills.

Important in my opinion is to go trough all the safety stuff thoroughly (bleeding caps!!! etc), check everything quadruple and then come back another day and check it again. Take time, never rush stuff with this.
There some goods 'safe' first power up tips and Weber have a "Safe Start" power up device which you can easily build yourself, helps to prevent the worst accidents like blowing PT or so.

Amp building forums like AX 84 and what google turns up for you (depending what amp you're aiming for) are certainly a great source of help and advice.

And another warning: it's about as addictive good fun as building stompboxes.... .
You usually only need one amp / a bunch of stompboxes at a time, but you can never have too many of either and a few guitars to boot....

That's my two cents to this...

Cheers
Andy





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