Mockingbird p8

Mockingbird p7

Mockingbird p6

With all of the contouring, routing, and drilling on the body done, it's time for a test fit of everything but the pickups. The balance isn't just right, but that could be a couple of different things: strap button placement and body weight. Personally, I lean more towards the super-light cypress body. The balance isn't horrible - it wants to hang parallel with the floor - but it could be better.

Now the body starts the paint process and the headstock gets shaped.

Mockingbird, p5

Here's some progress on the body. I put a 45-degree bevel around the whole thing, both front & back. This was more to aid in visualizing how/where to contour the body. I then drew in some basic ideas of where the top edge of the contouring would stop. Also penciled in lightly are some approximate placements of the bridge and pickups.

WIP: Mockingbird, p3

Here's the body blank cut, routed to the template, and planed to thickness, and the neck blank planed level.



One more shot, just because.

WIP: Mockingbird, p2

Here's the neck blank after it was glued up. I think these pics are hilarious. When I was making the neck blank, I surfaced the boards in the planer prior to glue-up. For those who don't know, PH is gray/brown when it's first worked, but turns purple when exposed to UV light. I glued up the pieces, then set it outside to drip in the grass. When I took it in and took the clamps off, you could tell which side was towards the sun and where the clamp heads were.

WIP: Mockingbird, p1

Here's my first attempt at making a Work In Progress series here. I don't quite have all the nuances oh how the post editor works yet, so this entire thing is just me going & hoping it'll all work out.

So anyway, I've always loved the oddball body shapes. BC Rich is one of the companies who's real bread & butter are oddball shapes, and they do it very well. The Mockingbird is my favorite from them, so it's time for me to give it a whirl.

A few months ago, I came across a local lumber yard who has a pretty good selection og American woods, and for a pretty good price! I saw some cypress there, thought about it for a few minutes, and decided to go for it. The wood was only about $2.50-$3.00/BF, so if it doesn't work out it's no big financial loss. Cypress has been used in classical guitars forever, so the tone can't be horrible. It's VERY light. I'm a little worried about neck dive. That's just one more bridge I'll cross when I get there.

Here's the rundown of what's planned/executed as of today:
Body
mockingbird shape
2-piece cypress
painted yellow
heavily contoured

Neck
normal bolt-on
purpleheart/flamed maple 7-piece lam
no extra fretboard - it will be the top of the laminates
Yes, this means the fretboard will be pinstriped!
black dot markers
tiltback 6-in-line headstock

Hardware
custom-wound RestorationAD PAF humbuckers with purpleheart bobbins
purpleheart pickup rings
chrome hardware
Kahler Flyer trem/bridge
Kahler locking nut
3-way, 1V p/p, 1T p/p (wither a tap & phase or 2 series/paralell)
possibly a mini toggle (phase)

Rickenbacker 600 series

There are a number of great things about making your own instrument. They all center around catering to your whims and tastes instead of forcing yours to wrap around that of a company.

Another is that you can finally have all those guitars you've always lusted after without shelling out the dough. Well, not as much dough anyway.

I always liked the classic shape of Rickenbacker guitars. They also have a very unique sound, using mostly maple and mini-humbuckers. What I never really cared for is their finishes. Soooooo.......

I took a bunch of pictures from the internet of the shape that I like. I then scaled them up to the size I wanted, then traced the image onto some sketch paper. From that tracing I made the template for the body. It was the same process for the headstock. From there, it was pretty straight-forward construction.

I actually scaled the body down a bit. I think the original is 13 1/2" wide, mine is 12 1/2". The main reason I did this is because my planer is 13" wide. It doesn't hurt that I kinda like small bodies.

The body is 2-piece hard maple. It's topped with a 1/4" flamed maple cap that has been dyed green. The whole thing is triple bound in black/white/black.

The neck is mahogany. Maple is a really bright sounding wood with a lot of bite while mahogany is very warm and mellow. The combination of the two makes for a very balanced sounding guitar. The fretboard is chechen - a rosewood from the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. I inlaid the Ibanez style vine for fret markers.

The headstock shape is from the Rickenbacker 4000 series bass. Their guitar headstocks are pretty boring - just a basic rectangle. This shape really says "Rickenbacker".

I went with all gold hardware on this one. In my eyes, gold hardware is more upscale than black or chrome. With the green flamed maple and the vine inlays, I just felt this one needed a little more bling.

The pickups are Artec mini-humbuckers. I made the volume & tone have push/pull pots with a coil tap and a phase switch.

Overall, it's a good sounding little guitar that has ended up being pretty versatile. I'm not 100% happy with the final shape of the neck, but overall it's worth showing off.