The Glade 4.0

Not my tiger, but grey tiger head like that, your wording on top… yar?

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Once, I was a ranger
Then, I was a warlock
And a mage
And a paladin
Now, I seek to be myself

Thanks Katas, that's awesome! That tiger design might actually work on a more tradtional (3 on a side) headstock, but not on the strat style for this guitar.

I ordered some decal paper for my printer, and have some design ideas roughed out, but I haven't settled on a final design yet. In fact, I can't make up my mind what I even want to put on it.

I'm hesitant to put my own name on it, since I'm not actually building the guitar from scratch. It's really just a parts guitar. I ordered the body and neck to my specifications (wood, shape, pickup and neck pocket routing) and finish (candy red) from Warmoth, who is a licensed seller of official Fender replacement parts. I ordered an EMG DG-20 active pickup set which is already mounted on an appropraite pick guard. The rest of the parts (input jack, bridge, tuners, string trees, nut, etc...) are pretty much standard fare. My role is just to assemble it all, fine tune the setup and fretwork, and string it up and play :p

Here is a picture of Mr. Gilmour himself playing the guitar I'm trying to emulate From Gilmourish.com



I would be perfectly legal to put an actual Fender logo on it. I don't want to do that though, as I don't want to misrepresent what it is for the benefit of some future owner (it will surely out live me).



Searching around for ideas, it seems that using terms like 'Partscaster' or 'Frankenstrat', or Frankencaster' for the logo are pretty popular. Others have just left the headstock blank (which is an option, but not much fun). One guy just signs his with a sharpie (which I think is actually kinda cool :p).

Anyway, if anyone is feeling creative, feel free to toss me some ideas. I'm willing to consider just about anything.

Just as a refresher, the 'canvas' i'm working with here is a fender stratocaster headstock complete with string tree's tuners, and six shiny electric guitar strings.



There isn't really a lot of room there. Pretty much just the flange area at the bottom and the knob area at the tip. Everything else is covered by the strings and string trees.

Here we go!



Definitely a one-of-a-kind. Nice conversation piece =)

Speaking for probably a few others and myself, wow, we're honored. Cool looking logo Midgen.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I've been wondering what you had come up with. It looks good!

Coincidentally, I got my Strat out this morning for a while before breakfast, which is probably what reminded me to come back and check on this. :]

I approve of the Glade-o-caster.

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X1000

P.S. post some full axe pics!

It will probably have to wait till next weekend. It's over at the shop, and I probably won't be back over there till next Saturday.

I've got a few more things to do before I started thinking about taking pictures. Namely I need to do some more finish work on the neck.

It's playable, and it plays and sounds really good though. Everything left is cosmetic.

I want my Midgen Reed Smith Hollowbody Electric ...

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Actually,

I think I'm going to take a slight change of direction on this project, and start another in the process...

The change is being driven by a need to use a different neck on my "Gilmour" because the profile is not very usable on the one that I was planning on using.

Sooooo... I'm going to go with a more 'stock' neck on the red gilmour strat, and probably go with a generic 'personalized' headstock design of some kind...

I have been thinking about building a hollow body, two f-hole design guitar for a while, and think I finally have some inspiration for it. It won't resemble a Fender guitar at all, so "Gladecaster" probably won't fit, but naming it can wait.. i'll think of some options and put them up for a Poll once I get to that point...

It's going to be built in the style of a PRS hollow body, and will have a couple of humbuckers in it. Which ones is still undecided, but I've always wanted to build a guitar with a set of Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickups, which I love the sound of, although they aren't very much to look at....

Anyway, something along the lines of this...



So, building this new hollow body will give me the opprtunity to do something I started to do with the neck on the red strat, and that is to build it from the start with a "Glade" theme... Starting with either a dark forest green 'burst', or perhaps some natural wood colors with a light burst effect of some kind... and a natural 'modern' neck with an asymmetrical profile....

And no, I won't be building/carving the body or neck myself. At least not this time (that's on my Bucket List). Not as long as Warmoth and USACG can build such nice bodies, built to spec, with whatever finish I want on them at a reasonable price. My job will be to design the guitar, and then choose the mechanicals, install the hardware and do the setup work on it.

And Khross, or anyone else, if you want to order a neck/body from Warmoth, and either tell me what you want in it for hardware, or supply your own, and what kind of setup you like (action, switch/knob config, etc...), I'd be happy to do the assembly and setup for you.... all it would cost you is the cost of the materials and parts, and whatever shipping is necessary to get it in your hands... One word of caution. I'm not a professional guitar tech. This is just a hobby. There is no warranty expressed or implied. That said, there is a pretty good chance you would end up with a pretty nice instrument, built to your specs...

Depending on specs, options, and the hardware you choose, the base cost would probably be about $1500 to $2000, not including shipping and handling... Turnaround time is going to depend on Warmoth's build time. It takes them six to eight weeks to turn around a fully custom body and neck. Maybe longer for the Hollow Body. Then I would need a couple of weeks with it, depending my schedule to do the fret work, set up the electronics, and do the final set up.... In otherwords, don't be in a hurry

As far as the guitars I've built and am building now (half a dozen or so in progress), I still own them all, and have no plans to sell any of them (although my Brother has made several as-yet-unfulfilled requests). I just do it for fun, although I am running out of space too store them, and am having a hard time playing all of them :p


The red "Gilmour" strat should be finished up in the next week or two. I'll try to get some good pictures of it and maybe a sound sample if I can find a decent recording setup amongst my toys...

Pictures of the Red Gilmour Strat in the spoiler tags below.

Warmoth Chambered & Contoured Strat Body - Alder - Bright Red
Warmoth Strat Neck - Maple w/Walnut skunk stripe
EMG SA active pickups w/EMG DG-20 electronics
Wilkenson Tremolo Bridge
Tremolo-No Lock
Sperzel locking tuners

The white knobs and switch tip will get swapped out for a 'vintage' looking set as soon as they get here (Backordered). This will bring the hardware to completion.

I'm also going to replace the neck with one that has a slightly different back profile and a vintage tinted finish once it's completed. This will make it a little more comfortable to play, and will make it look a little more like the Gilmour strat its trying to emulate.

Really nice instrument man, can't wait to see it finished, but already looks great.

Necro'ing this....

Been refining my headstock designs. I was really struggling with Gimp, so i went searching for a something different/better, and found it.

I re-did the 'Ranger's Glade' head stock decal using a program called "InkScape", and it came out MUCH better. And it took all of 5 minutes to make it.

250dpi (~Headstock Size)


999dpi


now to find myself some decal sheets and a color laser (or see if Kinko's has one I can borrow reasonably)

It can have a slight learning curve if you dive into it blind. But otherwise it's great. And there are a *LOT* of online tutorials and docs to help with whatever you need.


Edit: Damn it. Hate necro-replying. Great looking logo, Midgen. Not sure how I missed it the first time around.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I just couldn't get Gimp to turn a windows TT font into something that looked decent (sharp edges) when it was resized. The edges blurred and made making the outline look good almost impossible (for me).

I have no doubt that Gimp will do what I did with InkScape. I just couldn't figure it out, so I found something that does exactly what I want it to do with literally 2 minutes of work.

I have zero skills with graphics programs, so that I can turn out something as clean (and ideal) with almost no effort, makes me a happy dude.

The next step is to find the right printer/ink setup and decal paper to be able to print a decent result. Ideally, I'd like the lettering to have a gold (or silver as needed) foil look to it. This might be something I can emulate in InkScape using addons/plugins. Still working on that.

Actually, your application is one that plays into the strength of vector based formats that InkScape specializes in. Anything raster-based is going to have trouble with resizing unless you're starting from a huge resolution source.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades