Earlier this year I built my first “partscaster,” a Strat with P-90s using parts from Warmoth. Of course, I still had the itch to do more, so I decided to try my hand at creating my own guitar body from scratch.
The underlying premise for this build is I wanted to try making a “Jazzcaster” style guitar with P-90s, but with a modified, smaller body. I always thought the Jazzmaster body, especially in the “Jazzcaster” configuration, looked a bit bottom heavy, so I wanted to balance it out a bit.
Here is the outline of the body I made, overlaid on a Jazzmaster. The top half is identical, I just reduced the bottom half quite a bit.
And here it is laid over a Telecaster, for size comparison:
Making the body was a lot of fun, it was my first time doing a woodworking project like this, as well as doing a high gloss, polished finish.
Some more photos:
Here are all the details for this build:
Neck: Warmoth. Modern Construction. Maple shaft wood, Rosewood fretboard. 43mm nut width with GraphTech Tusq nut. 10”-16” compound radius. Narrow & Tall stainless steel frets. Clear satin nitro finish.
Tuners: Fender locking tuners.
String Tree: Guyker roller retainers.
Body: Swamp ash, made from a body blank from StewMac. I had my friend plane it down to 1.5” thick, because I like thinner bodies on guitars.
Body Paint: Duplicolor Teal Metallic (BCC0386) with SprayMax 2k Clear Coat.
Bridge: Hardtail Top Load Bridge with Musiclily saddles. I went with a top load bridge because I don’t have a drill press and thus wouldn’t be able to reliably drill the through-body holes in a straight line.
Pickguard: Warmoth. Parchment.
Pickups: Lollar P-90 soapbar, neck and f-spaced bridge. Cream covers, sanded down to give them a matte finish.
Potentiometers: 500k split shaft, short, from Lollar.
3-Way Switch: Oak Grigsby.
Capacitor: Orange Drop .022.
Wiring: Art of Tone cloth pushback.
Control Plate: Modified volume position plate from Philadelphia Luthier.
Neck Plate: Contoured heel.
Electrosocket jack plate, jack, dome-top knobs, strap buttons, and screws: Warmoth.
Copper tape for lining cavity: Kirecoo.