12/5/11
Update on G&L project guitar with vintage pickups…Not good…
Both the neck and bridge pickups were purchased from EBay through a trusted seller, so it’s not his fault. But basically, using my trusty Kobalt Brand digital caliper, it was discovered that the outside pole to pole distance on both of these vintage pickups are the same…precise to the nearest hundredth of a millimeter. The caliper tool shows this to be 55.50mm for both bridge and neck pickups. This means that both pickups were intended to be used in the neck position. This must be the case, because the measured outside (Low ‘E’ to High ‘E’) distance (again using the trusty Kobalt Brand digital caliper) for both the vintage DFV (Dual-Fulcrum Vibrato) bridge (NOTE: http://www.glguitars.com/features/DF-vibrato.asp ) and the newer DFV bridge, as measured at the point where the strings leave the bridge saddles is the same for both: 54.55mm. Also, the string spacing for both are equal. Here’s a picture of the two pickups showing the 55.50mm outside pole to pole distance. Notice that the high ‘E’ string is not centered over the pole pieces in the bridge position, ignoring the fact that the picture was not taken directly above the guitar making other strings appear to be off center as well. What to do now…what to do? I’m thinking…I’m thinking…

Oh, yeah…probably need an actual bridge position pickup to solve this, but where to find a vintage G&L for the bridge will be difficult. An easy solution would be to rip it from one of the two F-100s currently in possession. Since it’s the “devil’s” work to destroy any of the great instrument inventions of the great Clarence Leonidas Fender–that’s a non-solution! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Fender

What to do…what to do????

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12/4/11
One of the other projects being worked on has been putting together a G&L “strat” type of guitar using a mix of both USA and Tribute parts. There are many other pictures of the various stages of the build, these two pictures show the progress as of 12-3-11.

The Body is ash and the neck is maple–both G&L tribute parts. What is different is that the two humbucking pickups are vintage: One from an early 80′s F-100 guitar (the bridge pickup) and the other from an early 80′s GHB guitar (the neck pickup). Both are fairly low impedance pickups of 3.68Kohm and 3.92Kohm, respectively. Both sound very bright and clear in this guitar. The wiring harness from a standard USA G&L guitar was used, but the bridge and neck position pickups were replaced with the vintage pickups.

This is a sound file of Lupi playing around with his G&L Project Guitar. It sounds great so far…check out some of the various improvised noodling fretwork…It has a decent tonal range…Leave a comment about what you think…

G&LProjectGuitar12-3-11

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Lupi has been very busy and has not updated this site for nearly a year. With a little time to spare, he’s decided to add a new page to the blog for the purpose of describing various projects that’s he’s completed in the past.

The first project was actually initiated late last year around October, 2010. And it was not completed until mid March of 2011.

The project began shortly after he saw and purchased a vintage G&L L-2000 bass that he found on EBay. Lupi’s favorite basses are the early 80′s G&L L-2000 basses for many reasons–mainly due to the tone and craftsmanship that Leo Fender put into these instruments. Some of you (especially G&L bass enthusiasts) may be disgusted to see the original condition of the bass when it first went up for bid on EBay. The once beautiful pride of the legendary Leo Fender–primarily the one-piece mahogany body–had been butchered into something that looked like a weapon designed by Vlad The Impaler! If you’re not sure who Vlad is, Wikipedia has a lovely history about him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_the_Impaler

Ok, these are the pictures from the original EBay posting.

How do you like the “custom” bass “mod” pics? It’s a large world, and I’m sure that the transformation this bass went through (what was salvaged from the EBay listing) will be worse!

Before you see the complete project pictures, consider what was used from the “Impaler” EBay bass:

The electronics, all of the hardware–that’s it! If you look at one of the pictures that shows the backside of the headstock, you’ll see the crack extending from the ‘G’ string tuner to the end of the headstock. But this was not the reason for using another neck–Lupi had obtained another neck from another EBay listing with yet another vintage G&L L-2000 Series E neck! The all maple “impaler” neck was not used because it did not match the body of the newly created body. The maple “impaler” neck was used on another project that will be posted…uh…soon. Anyhow, the following pictures show only a few of the steps necessary for creating the new bass body. Keep in mind, that this was the first bass guitar body built by Mr. Lupinacci. He first had to purchase and study several great books on the subject.

But first, here’s an up close shot of the body with the neck, bridge, and control plate removed:

…Oh, time is short…The basic step-by-step pictures and completed project will be added soon…next few days–he says! (9/18/11)…

…The first thing had to be considered was the type of wood to use for the body. After studying several books and doing some other on-line research, African Mahogany was the choice. It was purchased from a well known site for those interested in instrument building. Here’s the link for those interested:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_necks,_wood/Electric_guitar_body_blanks/African_Mahogany_Body_Blank.html
After receiving the body blank, several templates were created by using his inventory of G&L L-2000 basses. Simply laying down the basses on the surface of the material and the tracing around the body shape made several good templates. As far as the material used for the templates, most hobby stores have large sheets of poster board with styrofoam (thermocol) injected between the sheets making it rigid enough to keep its shape.

The next step was to trace the shape of the body template onto the wood blank. The rough shape was then cut out using a very old (and cheap $25.00) Craftsman band-saw that was purchased from a friend. The blades were not very sharp, so the cutting was slow, and the wood was burned black as a result. Here’s the result.

After this, and since there had to be some way to mark the locations of the cavities for the pickups and electronics. As well as the routes for the bridge and neck pocket, the original (hated to do it) body was clamped down to the new one. The existing cavities were then routed completely through the original body and into the new body as a reference. Then the original was removed so that the cavities could then be completely routed out.

Here’s a side by side comparison with only the neck pocket on the new body routed out.

A 1/2″ round-over bit was used to take the edge off, and then the body was shaped and rough sanded using a drum sander purchased from Home Depot. The oscillating drum sander brand was Rigid, and the purchase price was $199.00.

Not mentioned was a necessary step in order to decrease the thickness of the body. A great tool for this, called a Wagner Safe-T-Planer, was purchased at Stewart-MacDonald. It was attached to a drill-press and worked wonderfully to shave off extra material.

Here’s the link: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Planes/Wagner_Safe-T-Planer.html

And here are a few pictures showing the results up to this point.

Jumping ahead a few steps after rough sanding, finish sanding, then applying about ten layers of nitrocellulose lacquer–also purchased from Stewart MacDonald. A few pictures at this stage in the process.

For reasons alluded to earlier, all maple neck from the “impaler” bass was not used since it didn’t seem to match very well with the completed mahogany body. This one is also a rare vintage Series-E neck with the original headstock design. It was a very nice match! But first, a picture of the body complete with shielding and electronics ready to be installed.

And here’s the Back!

And one more!

It’s good to be proud of your work. This project took a terrible situation and turned it into something to be proud of. If you’re a bass player, and especially if you favor older vintage G&L basses such as this one, leave a comment or suggestion. Oh, a few of the small differences between this G&L L-2000 bass and the originals are the body thickness, edge roundness, body (belly) contour on the back, and arm contour on the front . This bass is about 1cm thinner than vintage G&L basses (not sure about the newer ones). And finally, G&L basses appear to have a 1/4″ rounded edge; however, a 1/2″ round over bit was used on this one.

As far as the shaping and contours, this one is very unique indeed…What about the sound? Lupi has recorded many tracks with it and will soon upload a few samples, along with some comments about the quality improvements!

Ja!