Mortgage Counter
CV-II
ÓCustom Variax – TwoÓ
One of the more difficult processes that I find in doing these builds
is, documenting it for the web. At times I have found that I have taken
30 or 40 pictures to get one that has the right angle and lighting to articulate
what I am describing in the caption. Some nights I am setting lighting and
taking pictures only. However I feel that this is a necessary evil on two fronts.
1st to help others that are new to the process of guitar building and can
learn from my experiences, and 2nd, to remind me of what I did so I can have
consistent points of reference for myself in the future. I hope my builds are
helpful and enjoyable to you. If you have questions I can be reached at
Scroll down for build details
Thur. Dec. 22nd
While I am waiting for Vax I to cure I thought I might as well start the second build. This
is a custom design of mine, it's a combination of PRS, Carvin AC375 and Gecko Bass body styles.
This is going to be another tremolo Variax but with the addition of strat pickups. Other features are
going to be a 5A quilted maple carved top, swamp ash back, bright-green with blue to black burst,
maple/maple 3 by 3 bolt neck and gold hardware.
Fri. Dec. 23rd
Today I wanted to see how difficult it is going to be to carve a top, so I went to home depot and
got a small piece of poplar to run a test , brought it home cut it and started the carving. Carving a top
is much easier than I expected. I was able to complete this test in about 3 hours. Not bad at all
for a first time carve.
Fri. Dec. 23rd
Well, I'll be off to Exotic Woods on Tuesday Dec. 27th to hand pick my next piece of wood.
Sat. Dec. 24th
I order these templates from Stew-Mac and Guitar Building Templates dot com.
Tue. Dec. 27th
Tonight I ordered the neck from Warmoth. The neck is 1-11/16" width,
22 fret maple on maple with a paddle head stock, medium jumbo frets, thin
heel contour, earvana nut and Warmoth's 9" to 16" compound radius. Warmoth
will not put a quilted maple veneer on the paddle headstock. I guess I'll have to
order that from Exotic Woods.
Wed. Dec. 28th
Today I went to see Gulab the owner at Exotic Woods and hand picked
the AAAAA quilted maple top for this guitar. It will be ready next
Thursday. I was pretty pumped by being able to pick the piece of
wood I wanted. I have exactly what I wanted. You'll like the quilt on
this one it is much
better than the quilt on StrataVariax - One.
Thur. Dec. 29th
Templates from Stew-Mac came today. I also got an email from UPS stating that
my order of 2.1lbs from Warmoth Guitars (neck for Vax I) has shipped and should arrive
Thurs. Jan. 5th. I ordered router bits, dremel bits and dye for this build this evening.
Fri. Dec. 30th
Another donor. My Strat has the seven way switching which means I can engage all
three pickups at once which you can't do on a normal start. I love that extra bellish bite
you get with all three pickups engaged. So I'm taking these pups for this build. I will put
some other pickups back in the strat sometime this summer. I still want to own a usable
strat.
Fri. Dec. 30th
Now that I've got the organs out, I'll have to figure how to wire them into the Vax electronics.
I can't just do a normal drop in because of the seven way switching. I'll figure it out, one way
or another when the time comes.
Fri. Dec. 30th
I took the plexi-glass templates from Stew-Mac and made wooden templates to use for the actual
routing using 3/4"red oak. The first reason is that I don't want to accidentally damage one of the plexi
templates while routing, and second with some of the plexi templates you have to use shims and
other processes. With the 3/4" wooden templates I can just double side tape them down, rout to the appropriate
depth and I am done.
Fri. Jan. 6th
Today the Guitar Building templates arrived. I'll make wooden templates out of them this weekend.
I'm a little dissappointed today, I was expecting my order from Exotic Woods to be ready, but they say
not until Monday. Hopefully it will be ready then. I'm anxious to get started on this build.
Sun. Jan. 8th
Finished all of the wood templates today. I also made a larger round base for the router. When
I am doing the electronic routs in the back, some of the router base would lose contact with the
wood in the routed hole and tip slightly if you weren't careful, so with the larger base the
router will always have contact with the wood all the way around.
Mon. Jan. 9th
The Top hand picked AAAAA Quilted Maple
I picked up the lam top today from Exotic Woods.
Mon. Jan. 9th
The Back Lightweight Swamp Ash
Mon. Jan. 9th
I positioned the template on the body blank, made sure the center line was dead on,
traced the template then put some naphtha on the blank to get a feel for what the quilt will look like.
Tue. Jan. 10th
I marked the template so I could do the correct climb routs so there would be no
tear out. And there wasn't.
Tue. Jan. 10th
Close up of the rout job.
Tue. Jan. 10th
Body cut and routed.
Tue. Jan. 10th
Neck pocket in the house.
Tue. Jan. 10th
Front view of tremolo cavity.
Tue. Jan. 10th
Rear view of tremolo cavity.
Tue. Jan. 10th
I added some extra router base by adding 1/4" hardboard to the bottom with
double sided tape. That will help me keep the router flat when I get to those tight
edges where the router use to tip slightly on me if I was not paying attention.
No tipp'n now !!!!!!!!
Tue. Jan. 10th
1st deep cavity rout for Variax electronics.
Tue. Jan. 10th
2nd cavity rout for PC board stand-offs.
Tue. Jan. 10th
3rd cavity rout for cover.
Tue. Jan. 10th
Battery box rout completed.
Tue. Jan. 10th
Routs for Strat pups.
Tue. Jan. 10th
I just want to get a feel for what the guitar will look like with a neck on it.
I likes it!!!!!!!!!!
Wed. Jan. 11th
After being the human CNC yesterday and doing almost all the cutting on
the guitar, I decided to throttle back today and just do a little. I used the a 1-1/4"
cove bit to rout the channel for the carved top.
Wed. Jan. 11th
I also did a little sanding with 100 to smooth off the edges after routing the shape.
Thur. Jan. 12th
Sanded out the carve with 60 grit sanding barrel on the dremel tool and then
used 80 grit sandpaper on a sanding sponge to smooth everything out. I also did the
recurve on the horns as you can see . I'll do the rest of the recurve tomorrow.
Fri. Jan. 13th
I wanted to see if I could do a real tight recurve on the top, If I could a
bigger recurve would be easy. This tight recurve turned out great, I think I'll leave it tight.
Sun. Jan. 15th
Today I routed a 1/8" deep channel under where the tremolo claw goes. That is where
the pickup wires will tuck nice and neatly. Obivously I drilled the holes from the pickup routs
to the channel also.
Mon. Jan. 23rd
Things have been slow here lately. I've finished SV-1 and I am waiting to get the electronics
for this build so I can complete the body routing and start the finishing process. So tonight I made
some racks to hold some of my guitars. I figured I better put them all out in plain sight so I won't
forget them. If I put them in their cases I will probably never pull them out and play them
(The variax has a way of doing that to other guitars) but if they are in plain sight, I'll pick
them up and strum them once in a while. I made three racks and mounted them on the walls
in the studio. Total cost of materials from Home Depot was $27.35, that's less than the
price of 2 of the guitar mounts from guitar stores or the web. I got 12 mounts, wood and
screws. I am so bored I am building other stuff, come on variax 500 electronics, save me
or I may start building furniture for my wife.
Sun. Feb. 5th
I think this is going to be the color for this build. It's a bright green to
a blue burst. I didn't put the small black burst after the blue that I am
going to do on the actual guitar though.
Sun. Feb. 5th
I drew a rough of the headstock for the CV-I
Tue. Feb. 7th
The gold L.R. Baggs X-Bridge arrived today from WD Music.
Wed. Feb. 8th
The inserts required a 15/64" drill bit, drilled 13/16" deep. I cut a recess with a
3/8" drill bit and pressed the inserts in with a big C-clamp that I have here.
Thur. Feb. 9th
Some more of the gold
hardware came today. Pickup
covers, 5-way
switch knob, mini A/B switch, dual-concentric volume/tone pot and dome knobs
Fri. Feb. 10th
I was going to make the covers out of pickguard material, but I changed
my mind and decided to make them out of swamp ash to match the back.
Here I am using a flush trim bit to cut the covers after I double side tape
them to the pattern.
Fri. Feb. 10th
Now that I am making the covers out of swamp ash, I'll need to recess the
tremolo cover also to make it look professional. I've decided to not put
screws in the covers to hold them in place. I am going to use a magnetic
cover holding system, that I will have to design. It will look much cleaner
with no screws in the covers.
Sat. Feb. 11th
Added the trem cover recess. I had to make another trem cover
that had cleaner corners for the recess. Today I found a Vax 500
for $475.00 (not on ebay). It should be here by the end of the week,
then this build tempo will pick up again.
Sun. Feb. 19th
I made another cavity cover. On the first one the grain did not line
up well with the grain on the body. This matches much better. Paying
attention to little details like this will make your build look more polished
and professional.
Sun. Feb. 19th
Cover comparison. New cover definitely matches grain better.
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Tue. Feb. 28th I just got back from Atlanta today and picked up my Warmoth neck, which came while I was gone, from my neighbor. Warmoth installed the wrong block inlays. I asked for the synthetic pearloid and they sent black. Is this ugly or what? I called them and they tried to say I ordered black, on the order form it just says "Custom block inlay" I had to ask them where did it say black or pearl and why did they make it black without calling me. After some coaxing, they agreed to take back this ugly junker and make me another neck. They ended up being pretty nice about it. Now I gotta wait another 8 weeks !!!!! |
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Tue. Feb. 28th I ordered this Stew-Mac buffing arbor Friday and it arrived today. This should (better) make finish polishing a little easier. |
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Tue. Feb. 28th This is another donor. I had been planning a trip to Atlanta for a couple of months and strangely enough found this variax on craigslist in Atlanta for $475.00. I'd like to thank Mike K. in Atlanta for this excellent guitar. Of course I am going to use the electronics for this build. If anyone wants the neck or body, email me. Since I am planning for my next build to be a nylon string variax I put some nylon strings on this to test what the electric variax circuit sounds like with them. It sounded phoneminal. I'll be looking for another 500 soon for the next build. |
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Fri. Mar. 3rd I removed the L.R. Baggs X-bridge and lifted the piezos so they can be removed. |
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Fri. Mar. 3rd This is the underside of the bridge with the flex PC board. I'll desolder the connections for the piezos to be removed. I'll be using this strip again on the Baggs gold trem bridge. |
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Fri. Mar. 3rd Piezos removed |
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Fri. Mar. 3rd The strip was double-sided taped to the underside of the bridge. I removed it carefully. |
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Fri. Mar. 3rd A vacation to Atlanta and $475.00 just for these electronics. It was worth it. :-) |
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Sat. Mar. 4th Here I made a template for the jackplate. Its clamped into position and then routed |
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Sat. Mar. 4th Completed jackplate rout. |
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Sat. Mar. 4th Drilled and recessed the pot and switch holes. Aslo cut the 5-way switch hole with a 1/16" down-cutting dremel bit from Stew-Mac |
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Sat. Mar. 4th Magnetic Covers. I ordered 2 different size magnets from Amazing Magnets, 3/16" dia x 1/16" thick and 3/16" dia x 3/16" thick. The thicker magnet gets recessed where the screw holes would go in the back. During the drilling of the holes I place the thinner magnet on top of the thicker one and insert it in the hole and place the cover on top, that way I can see when I had drilled the recesses to the right depth. When the cover is level all the way around I take all the magnets out, then apply one drop of super glue in the recesses and then push the thicker magnet in the recess to seat. Wait for it to completely dry. Next I took a nice THICK business card and tore off little pieces and placed them over the glued in magets, after that, place the thinner magnets on top of the business card pieces. They will pop into place from the magnets below. The purpose of the thick business card is to buffer the magnetic connection between the two magnets, so when you lift the cover the magnet below will not pull the cover magnet off the cover (these magnets are very strong). Next, place one drop of super glue on top of the thin magnets, then position your cover correctly on top of the magnets. I would then put another magnet on the top of the cover just to hold it in place and make sure the super glued magnets connect with the cover. Let dry. When dry remove the cover and the thin magnets should be in the correct position on the cover. Apply a liberal amount of super glue on the cover magnets to make sure they hold for future use. |
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Sat. Mar. 4th Magnetic Covers |
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Sat. Mar. 4th Magnetic Covers |
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Sun. Mar. 5th I am ready to start finish sanding before staining and clear coating, but before I do that I like to assemble the guitar and make sure everything aligns and works. So next here we are going to assemble all the electronics. |
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Sun. Mar. 5th There has been many questions on how to add passive pickups to the variax circuit. This is how. The output jack assembly has two connectors going to it. One set goes to the VDI. The other set goes to the 1/4" analog out. Snip the analog out on the 1/4" side. This is the wire that goes to the tip of the stereo 1/4" cable. On the plug that is connected to the 1/4" jack, the hot wire is on the end on the right side, Snip that wire and solder the output of an A/B to it on the jack side. Then re-solder the other side of that wire (vax main circuit board side) to one input of the A/B switch. Connect your passive pickup output to the other input of the A/B switch. It's similar to using an external A/B box. You're just doing it in the guitar instead. Text: Jeff Miller Picture: ION forum member Suizid |
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Sun. Mar. 5th The variax 5-way switch has 2 sets of connections. One on each side. The second side will be used to connect the strat pups. I have put a on/off switch between the bridge pickup selector and the common output (between the 3rd and 4th connections) this will allow me to engage the bridge pickup to give me the 7 way switching I spoke of earlier. You can also see how I have intergrated the A/B switch for Variax / Mag-pups. |
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Mon Mar. 6th Rewired the tremolo bridge to the variax 500 flex-board. Front |
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Mon Mar. 6th Rewired the tremolo bridge to the variax 500 flex-board. Back Oops got the black and white wire switched. I'll have to fix that. |
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Tue. Mar. 7th I put her together and set her up and played her for 2 hours tonight. I like to do this test to make sure everything works, aligns, and sets up correctly before I spend the next 3 to 4 weeks finishing the guitar. |
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Tue Mar. 7th Full picture with strat neck for testing. |
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Fri Mar. 10th Guitar is disassembled again and final sanding is complete. I generally sand as I am building so the final sanding won't be so labor intensive. Tonight I spent 5 hours hand sanding. I used 240 on the maple top and I used 320 on the swamp ash back. Make sure to recess all of your screw holes for the neck ferrules, 5-way switch screws, strap lock screws and screw holes for the jack plate. You may chip your finish if you try to drill the recesses after the nitro-cellulose dries and fills the screw holes. (I did on my first build) Lesson learned!!! |
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Fri Mar. 10th Back sanding complete. |
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Sat. Mar. 11th This time I wanted to use black as a base coat to really bring out the reflective quality of using the two-color dyed quilt process. |
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Sat. Mar. 11th Base color, black, sanded back |
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Sat. Mar. 11th Final bright-green color stained on. |
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Mon. Mar. 13th Added blue burst with air-brush. I have taken many pictures to try and convey the actual color of the instrument at this time, however my 4.2 maga-pixel Kodak camera is not able to capture the correct color. The blue is about the right color but the green is more saturated than you can see in the picture. |
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Sun. Mar. 19th After spending a few days with the color of the guitar, I decided I did not like the shades of green and blue that I had. So I sanded the front and back down and restained the guitar with a slightly different hue of green. I shot a few coats of clear nitro-cellulose to get a real feel for the actual color. I like this much better. With the aid of Photoshop I was able to go in and tweak the color of the photo to actually match the real life color. This color is dead on what the guitar really looks like. |
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Mon. Mar. 20th Added blue burst with air-brushÉÉ.again!!!! This looks better than earlier. |
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Mon. Mar. 20th Still have to add the blue-burst to the backÉ.but I have to wait until I have the covers dyed. They need to be in place when I shoot so they will match the burst. IÕll get them in before the end of the week. |
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Thur. Mar. 23rd Added black burst to edge and started final clear-coating process. I start the clear coating process with a couple of light sealer coats sprayed about 2 hours apart. The sealer coats are 50% nitro-cellulose & 50% thinner. I let that dry for 24 hours then I start the build coats which are about 70% nitro-cellulose and 30% thinner. IÕll shoot two heavy build coats every other day. After 6 coats I will level sand the guitar with 400 wet-dry sandpaper, then shoot 2 coats every other day again until IÕve shot 6 more coats. Next I level sand again and lastly shoot one light coat of nitro to finish the clear-coating process. |
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Wed. Mar. 29th Finished the first level sanding and shot 2 more coats on. She is really starting to smooth out as you can see in the pictures. |
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Sat. Apr. 8th Finished the last clear coat today. Now she has got to sit and cure for 3 weeks. Cya April 30th. |
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Tue. May 9th Neck came from Warmoth today, and this time they got it right. Pearl inlays look great. |
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Tue. May 9th Gold frets look great. Warmoth does very high quality work and should be commended for that. They just take a long time, 11 weeks for this neck that is not finish clear coated. |
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Thur. May 18th Back from a wedding in San Diego and working again. Tonight I transferred the headstock design to the paddle headstock. |
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Thur. May 18th The body should be cured now, so I wet sanded with 400 and then 800 wet dry sandpaper. You donÕt want to take a lot of material out with these sandings, you just want to remove the orange peel from the finish so it is smooth like glass. make sure there is no shinny spots like in the picture. The finish should be a uniform dull shine as below. |
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Sat. May 20th Cut the paddle head to the new shape on the band saw. |
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Sat. May 20th I am putting a 5A quilted maple veneer on the headstock. Here is the headstock traced onto the veneer to be cut down a little larger than the actual headstock. |
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Sat. May 20th Veneer cut and tuner pilot holes drilled. I kinda did this headstock veneer backwards. I should have glued the veneer before I drew and cut the paddle. The reason I did not do that was because it was taking Exotic Woods a long time to get the veneer to me and Thursday night I was bored and just went ahead and hand drew the shape. It took me so long to get that shape just right that I did not want to have to go through that again so I did this bass akwards. And it was a lot more work to. |
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Sat. May 20th Gluing the veneer to the headstock with Titebond glue. |
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Sun. May 21st Removed clamps. Next I will have to clean this up and sand it. |
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Sun. May 21st IÕll use a router with a laminate trim bit to even the edges here. |
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Sun. May 21st IÕll be buffing the guitar later this week so I thought I better make a stand for the buffer. |
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Sun. May 21st I just bolted a 2Óx 3Ó to the wall and hung the buffer and motor from a couple of hinges. |
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Sun. May 21st The bottom support can be easily removed and the buffer just hangs down out of the way. |
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Sun. May 21st I took my selector knob to Art Metalcraft in Camden NJ to get plated to match all the gold hardware. They screwed it up and plated the entire knob not just the top. So if you get lemons make lemonaid. I went to Staples and got some blank glossy labels and printed on my home printer a new label for the knob. I customized the knob and put the actual model names on it, which Line6 can not do. Later I will put a link here for a pdf, jpg and word file to print the standard label or customize label for your own use like I did. |
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Mon. May 22nd Cleaned up and sanded the 5A maple veneer. |
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Mon. May 22nd I brought the pilot holes through from the back side. |
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Mon. May 22nd Drilled the tuner holes. |
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Tue. May 23rd I made the truss rod cover tonight |
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Tue. May 23rd Made the cover magnetic, no screws here. |
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Wed. May 24th I only got the headstock stained tonight. I had a mixing session in my studio with Edgardo CintronÕs band Azucar |
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Thur.
May 25th I had been using nitro-cellulose to clear coat my guitars up to this point. I donÕt like the nitro it takes way to long to cure. My 1st build still scratches very easily and itÕs been finished for 6 months now. I am using polyurethane (lacquer) on the neck. I use 4 parts poly with 1 part hardener catalyst. The poly should buff up very nice as I have been told and cures very hard in about 72 hrs, that would be a blessing. I sprayed 3 coats tonight. IÕve noticed that the polyurethane must have a lot more solids then the nitro because it does not dry away to almost nothing like the nitro. |
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Sat.
May 27th Added the blue-black burst to the headstock. |
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Sat.
May 27th Here I am coating the inner cavities with Stew-Macs conductive shielding paint to stop humm and RF interference. |
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Sat.
May 27th I buffed the guitar with the Stew-Mac buffing arbor 1st with the Menzerna medium buffing compound and second with the Menzerna fine Buffing compound. This left only very fine swirl marks on the nitro, which were easily removed with a little hand buffing and Meguiars Scratch X swirl remover. Make sure to use the microfiber polishing clothes when using the Scratch X, regular towels or even those flannel guitar polishing cloths will scratch your finish. The entire process took about 2 hrs on the buffer and then about another 2.5 hrs by hand. So roughly about 4.5 hrs as compared to the 1st time I did this it was about 30 hrs. |
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Sat.
May 27th These pictures were taken outside to show how the finish reflects and is glass smooth. |
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Sat.
May 27th These pictures were taken inside and show more of the color of the guitar. |
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Sun.
May 28th Added guitar model and number to truss rod cover. |
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Sun.
May 28th Added logo to head stock |
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Mon.
May 29th Input all the electronics except for the bridge which I will do when I actually bolt on the neck. The neck is still curing from the clear coating over the weekend. |
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Fri.
Jun 2nd Sanded and buffed the magnetic ash covers. The reflection is of the chandlier in my dining room. |
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Fri.
Jun 2nd IÕm going back to work on NV-III the neck for this guitar still has to cure for a couple more weeks before I can install it. |
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Sun.
Jun 18th Things have been slow here lately only because I am waiting for the neck to cure. This guitar will be completed before the end of this month. |
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A. Variax Selector Knob B. On/Off Button for Bridge Pickup C. Variax / Pickup Selector Switch D. Variax Tone E. Mag Pickups Volume / Tone F. Variax Volume G. Variax / Mag Pickup 5-Way Selector Switch B. enables me to get the Strat 7-way switching. I can engage all 3 pickups at once and I can engage the neck and the bridge pickups only, which you canÕt get on most Strats. |
If you have questions I can be reached at
Completed