Official Luthiers Forum!

The idea here is a guitar that I can swap different pickups in and out without loosening or removing the strings. Rear-loading is an idea that many people have thought of for that purpose, and this is my version. No focus on cosmetics, just a simple poplar body, with one coat of clear shellac and 2 coats of amber shellac.

I did do my typical "gut cut" profile ("Why settle for the belly bevel when you can have the gut cut") With the controls mounted to the front of the body, if I decide to change control layouts, I can just plug holes and redrill. If you look closely you can see I have already done this once.

First up for audition is a pair of Duncan P-Rails, with a Gibson T-top for reference on the humbucker sounds. Each of the P-rails has a 2P4T rotary switch for p90, parallel humbucking, series humbucking, and rail combinations.

The neck I am using needs a new nut, so it will probably be Saturday before I get to plug this in.

One interesting note on the shellac, on the pickup cavity cover, I skipped the first coat of clear shellac, and the color is dramatically different, as you can see in the last photo.

Very cool, Mark!
This would make a good test bed for pickups and wiring options.
In that respect, a modular control block would be neat-o.
Nice idea!
Dan

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Very cool idea!
One could actually swap the pups quick enough to remember how the last ones sounded!

I've been wanting to make something I can use to mount pickups over existing guitars for testing, but this idea is good too.

_________________
http://www.tinyhouseandland.com