clear acrylic SG

[cyclecamper]

I had to sell my Travis Beans about 3 years ago in order to keep my house.  The Travis Beans would have been a better investment though, if only I could live in one.  Since then I've been looking for anything acceptable.  Owned and traded a few Kramers.  My "first love" was a '50's candy cherry-colored mahogany Melody Maker without shaved sides and one cutaway; so I've had a soft spot in my heart for an SG.  I wanted to make a hard solid-maple-thruspine SG.

But on a whim I got a really good deal on a Maestro-labelled clear acrylic SG.  I think it's made in China??  I've been unable to verify it's even really sold by Maestro.  Looks similar to the Galveston clear SG.

Problem is that due to the acryic body it's got a bolt-on neck which takes up more space where the full neck width neck tongue fits into the body pocket, leaving very little body strength around the neck heel.  There's just not sufficient body rigidity in the back-and-forth direction where it matters to offset string tension and hold pitch.  The body has too little material on either side of the nick because the bolt-on neck takes up so much space.  There's just a wedge-shaped sliver on either side of the neck.  So the neck bolts to an acrylic tongue sandwiched between a small bolt-plate and the neck heel.  The bodu is further weakened in hte neck heel area by pickup cavities that are too deep and cutaways that are too extreme.  The damn thing doesn't stay in tune, the body is just not stable enough.  It really seems to be a problem with the body, not the neck!

So I intend to mill a long T-section plate.  I'm going to mill a slot into the back of the guitar, and make a big long plate with a T-section to replace the little stock bolt-on neck-mount bolt-plate, but also extend under both pickups.  If that ends up stable enough, then I might try a grapite neck and maybe an alumitone or two on it.  Or maybe a Kramer aluminum neck.

I just wish the neck was a bit wider.  I might just buy a 7-string gujitar o convert into a wide-neck 6-string (cheaper than getting a custom extra-wide neck.

[Ritchie200]

Wow, by the time you do all that work, you could have bought some acrylic and built it right!  Post a pic!

Here is a link to a bio about Dan Armstrong.  There is a ton of info about his guitar and also the knock-offs.  I could not get the site to load, so I hope it is not down for good...  There is some really great information on the site.
http://www.danarmstrong.org/intro.html

I am also building an acrylic guitar, but the heel runs a good ways back to the pickup, like the Dan Armstrongs.  Maybe if you see how they are done, you can modify what you have with a new neck?
http://empireguitarsri.com/shop/images/3792/guitar+%28154+of+523%29.jpg

Jim