Hoffman Amplifiers Tube Amplifier Forum
Other Stuff => Guitars => Topic started by: tubenit on February 10, 2025, 05:26:42 am
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The church I go to is in a 100 yr old hosiery mill here in North Carolina. There are a couple of young friends I have there who are planting a church in an area known for violence and low income. A few years back this area was nicknamed the "murder capital of NC". I thought it would be cool to build a Tele with strat pickups for the guy who will lead the music at this church plant.
So, I grabbed a piece of 100yr old pine from the Mill and capped it with some figured maple I've had laying around for almost 25 yrs. It's hollow chambered but no "f-hole". The strat pickups are inexpensive and they're alnico 2 magnets.
One of the pastors at the church found out about this project and bought the neck for it so I didn't have to build one. The pine had some huge nails in it that I filled with dowels. It only has a light coat of honey amber analine dye on it.
It turned out nice and sounds great! Given the wood is from the Mill ............ it has been named Millie. :icon_biggrin: It was a free gift to this guy.
So about a week after finishing this one, I'm driving down my street and I see someone is throwing away some pine decking and so I stop and grabbed a board that was knot free! I had a piece of very lightly figured 1/4" mahogany that was bookmatched.
There is a young guy that plays in the worship band at my church who is a remarkable guitar player and has a fantastic ear for music and playing triads. I asked him if he'd like a free guitar body and neck ........... and he said yes. His dad is an incredible guitarist and they had some guitar parts lying around.
I converted a broken Fender Super Sonic into a Carolina Overdrive Special for this guy's dad some years back.
So, I had a Loar acoustic guitar neck that came off someone's broken Loar acoustic. I converted the acoustic heel into a heel similar to a Fender bolt on neck. The Loar neck was a 24.75" scale similar to a Les Paul. I also had some guitar parts from other projects lying around.
The goal was to build a hollow body Tele (no f-hole) with a Loar neck as inexpensively as possible and give it to this young man. He (or his dad) supplied the pickups. This guitar got named Loarax after a Dr.Seuss book character. I'm thinking maybe $50-60 in parts went into this guitar?
She ain't the prettiest girl at the dance but she's a sweetie ........... and the guitar has remarkable tone to it, IMO! Very woody sounding and super expressive. Nice musical tone to it. It's a very different feel using an acoustic neck on an electric guitar but it turned out well. It's a very fun guitar to play. Lightweight and rather resonant body.
I have never built a pine body capped with mahogany ............. so I had no idea what it would sound like. I think it came out tonally fairly similar to alder. I sprayed this one with satin lacquer. I've never used satin lacquer before but with the mahogany, I think it worked.
Fun projects and I hope these guys enjoy the guitars!
With respect, Jeff
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Nicely done Jeff!
If you ever want to make a maple top pop try a 5/8" to 3/4" center strip of black walnut or red cedar.
They really stand out under a finish!
If you're ever looking for some parts for one of them church projects just holler.
I seem to accumulate a lot of used parts in the shop that never find a new home! :dontknow: :l2: :w2:
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Beautiful work!
I've done a couple of guitars from scraps with hollowed out bodies -- they sound great.
I'm not sure how much an F-hole adds to the tone, but my routing skills are probably not up to the challenge.
Anyway, those are some beauties.
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F-holes on a solid body are mostly a lint and dust collector.
And sometimes even a home to a few domestic insects!
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Thanks guys! Here are some of my past builds.
The 335's were from a kit. The Tele's I built and bought necks.
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Wow! That's Great----definitely guitars going to the best cause in the universe. I know they are thankful having handmade guitars of that quality. fine work!