There had actually been an entry from about two weeks ago. It was brief. "I've started finishing the guitar," was what it boiled down to, and that was about it.
Oh, and that I expected to be done wiring the following Saturday. This was, obviously, before the Friday afternoon call informing me the lab would be closed all weekend.
That was disappointing. Then, that Monday, I screwed up and forgot my friggin' pickups...
And, to continue the drama, this past Saturday it took me most of five hours to get any sort of done with the wiring. I'm pretty sure my big problem was somewhere in the switching, but I'll never be completely sure. I ripped out most of the wiring when I got to class tonight and started pretty much from scratch. Fortunately, that only took an hour and a half, give or take a few minutes.
So, it's down to the final product. And I'm pretty pleased.
Catalog-style specs:
25.5" Scale
22 Frets
Gotoh 16:1 tuners
Bone nut
Medium-jumbo frets
Rosewood fretboard w/ Mother-of-pearl inlays
Rock maple bolt-on neck
Alder body (stained and oiled)
Gotoh humbucking pickups (x2, wired in parallel rather than series)
Master tone and volume controls
Gotoh hard-tail bridge (strings mounted through body)
Maple pickguards
(Below, when I talk about guitars, I more specifically am referring to electric guitars. Acoustic and classical guitars are very different in design and construction.)
What most of that means is it's basically a variation on standard Fender construction. Stratocasters and Telecasters (and I'm pretty sure the older Broadcasters and No-casters) had bolted on maple necks built to the 25.5" scale that is practically synonymous with Fender guitars.1
The scale length (vibrating length of string between nut and bridge) and the neck construction are actually hugely important to the sound of a given guitar. 25.5" is the longest commonly-available scale length in guitars and imparts a clarity to the sound that isn't as pronounced in shorter scale lengths. "Shimmer" is a popular word to describe the sound. Think Stevie Ray Vaughan's instrumental "Lenny."2
As a comparison, Les Pauls are built to a 24.75" scale.3 Three-quarters of an inch isn't much, it would seem like, but it puts the harmonic overtones of the vibrating strings just a bit closer together. The sound is generally considered "warmer."
(Digression about terminology: the words "warm," "punchy," "rich," "smooth," and "clear" are used - a LOT - to describe the tonal characteristics of both pickups and wood. Product reviews are especially guilty of this. "Crisp" is also popular, as is "full." The thing is, it's bullshit marketing. My "warmth" is your "fuzziness," your "clarity" my "brittleness." They are entirely subjective and therefore meaningless. Not to say there isn't a difference between the sound of, say, a 60s-era Les Paul and a modern Paul Reed Smith, but there's no objective way to say which is "warmer" or "smoother.")
Back to Lily.4 The bolt-on neck is also a Fender trademark. Leo Fender chose this construction method because it vastly simplifies building and assembling guitars. One section of a factory can be working on bodies while another does necks. This is also why Fender typically mounts all their electronics on a plastic pickguard.
The other very common neck joint is called a "set" neck. This means it is glued in place, frequently at a slight angle to the body to accomodate a carved top surface. Again, this is typified by the immortal Gibson Les Paul. Angled and glued neck joints are generally perceived as more upscale than bolted necks. They are, however, more difficult to build and repair, which is why it wasn't even an option in this class.
A third type of neck construction is called "neck-through" construction - in this case, the neck continues all the way through the body and "wings" are added to form a body. This allows for a very thin guitar, but repairing the neck is very difficult, and it adds new layers of complexity to design and construction. Neck-through guitars are not common and generally considerably more expensive than either of the other types of neck joint.
(Neck joint digression: the effect of the neck joint on the sound of a guitar, particularly in the form of sustain, is widely known but generally misunderstood. "Neck-through" guitars are thought to sustain better than set necks, which are in turn thought to sustain better than bolt-on necks. Research shows this to be exactly backwards, but also that the differences are very minor. If something is expensive, it will be assumed to be better.)
The two-humbucker configuration, while it has appeared on Fender models, is more commonly associated with Gibson. A humbucking pickup consists of two magnetic coils that act as microphones for the strings. These coils are wired in such a way as to cancel the noise a single-coil pickup produces.5 Typically, a humbucker is wired so that one coil feeds into the next, and the combined sound is passed to the amplifier. In this case, I wired the pickups "in parallel," which is to say that each coil in each pickup is sending sound to the amp simultaneously but separately. This produces a lower-output sound that is much closer to the output of a single-coil pickup. This is another factor that contributes to Lily's "Strat-like" sound.6
On to the wood. Maple necks are extremely common. Maple is a very strong wood, relatively plentiful, and easy to work with. Fender has been using them from the start. The other very common neck wood is mahogany - guess what iconic guitar model is closely associated with a mahogany neck?
Alder is also plentiful and easy to work. It's a pretty unremarkable wood, to be fair. Mostly it's finished in solid (or at least opaque) colors. Rosewood fingerboards are also very common, but may become less so as the trees become scarcer. It has a pleasing tone and can be quite beautiful. I rather like the piece I used - it has a beautiful multicolored grain that was unfortunately somewhat obscured by the oil used to finish it.
And the finish. Factory guitars are almost all finished in some sort of lacquer. Depending on the manufacturer, this might be nitrocellulose, polyurethane, or a modern water-based lacquer. This is, basically, a layer of plastic. For the most part, manufacturers try to use sonically-neutral finishes, but even so, it's a layer of plastic wrapped around the wood.
Lily has an oil finish (marketed as gun stock oil) over a water-based stain. Both were applied by hand. The downside is that the finish isn't particularly durable. It is, however, very easy to repair.
The wood pickguards are a fairly unique touch. Most pickguards are plastic, because it's more durable, but the maple ties in nicely with the headstock and neck.
As far as quality goes, I don't have anything objective to say except that subjectively, I like her. The neck feels good to me (and looks more like a production guitar neck than some of my classmates' necks.) She balances pretty well, and the armrest is very comfortable. Sometime soon, I hope to get over to Grand Junction and get a second opinion.
Anyway, that's far more than you wanted to know. Thanks for reading!
1 - Jaguars, Jazzmasters, and Mustangs by Fender are built to a different scale. I believe they are all 24" scale, but I'm not completely sure, never having played one.
2 - "Lenny" is probably the most beautiful guitar composition ever written on a Fender guitar.
3 - Gibson, having been around for a very long time (they're one of the oldest guitar manufacturers in the United States) has used several different scale lengths that they refer to as 24.75". It varies, but usually by well under a quarter of an inch.
4 - Yes, Lily. The next model will probably be named Robin. We done?
5 - Single-coil pickups are, naturally, what you see on a lot of Fender guitars. In spite of the noise they by necessity generate, they do contribute a great deal to the "sparkly" sound of a Strat.
6 - Humbucker-equipped Strats are frequently called "Fat Strats." Maybe with parallel wiring, this one should be called "curvy" since she's somewhere between.
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