Finished my 2nd with a matching amp

I like my first build but I wanted something fancy, with a good clean tone through a matching amp. So out came a pair of San Cristobal boxes and the work began. The neck is oak with a birdseye maple fingerboard. The nut and marker dots are bloodwood as it matched the box color pretty well. I wanted to make a humbucker but when that didn't yield the results I wanted, I got impatient and just made a single coil pup with a be maple cover. I went through several ideas for a bridge pickup but ended up using two piezo discs in a shaped block of be maple. Fearing the maple to be too soft I capped it with some fret wire to make the breakpoint. The two pups are wired through a blend pot then a volume pot.

The amp is from the schematic for a "Little Gem MkII" from Runoffgroove but I added the switch to be able to turn off the gain and a pot to make it adjustable. Between the pups and amp I can get anywhere from a nice mellow clean to seriously distorted sound.

Over all,

Close up of the neck/fingerboard.

The single coil pickup

The guts, I went over kill on the bracing for around the pup but hopefully I won't have any problems out of it.

The back of the amp

And the amp's guts

This gives the same details but has a sound test about halfway through.

I'm really happy not to mention proud of how these turned out and love the sounds I can get out it.

Thanks for looking.

Replies

TruckDrivingFool November 12, 2012 at 9:39am

Thanks Ron and Thomas,

I believe the credit for the sound comes from this little amp. I think the hours of noodling with the bare amp sitting on the bench while I traded speakers around paid off. It was a bit louder using two of the larger speakers but a bit muddy. Using the them paired gives its back some of the treble I think it needed.
Thomas "Duck" Petry November 12, 2012 at 12:17am

Really like the voice of that when you crank it up.
ron carlson November 11, 2012 at 10:51pm

I must have missed it the first time around also. 48-50 hour work weeks will do that to ya ;)
Very nice build and it sounds like a million bucks! Particularly when you put the coals to it.
TruckDrivingFool November 10, 2012 at 10:19pm

Phew I was starting to get a complex,

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Dan I did use a template and took pics during to make this thread about how I do them. :-) The most time consuming part is making the template but once you have that it's all down hill and goes quick.

And there's a link to the video above, I was going to just upload the sound demo here but I'm not very good at getting balanced audio on videos so it doesn't make much sense without the notations that Youtube lets you add.
- Clock The Wolf > TruckDrivingFool November 10, 2012 at 10:51pm
  
  Nice!
  
  So couldn't you just put the Youtube video up? Most do that. I've done it hundreds of times...
  - TruckDrivingFool > Clock The Wolf November 10, 2012 at 11:53pm
    
    Thanks Clock,
    
    It did work video added to orginal post.
the anonymous pick November 10, 2012 at 1:38pm

sweet set .. awesome job , sorry i missed it the first time round .
Vinylhed November 10, 2012 at 1:05pm

What a smashing pair. Nice one, Ross.
Thomas "Duck" Petry November 10, 2012 at 10:54am

Great looking pair.
Dan Sleep November 10, 2012 at 10:38am

Sorry Ross, we sometimes get large amounts of pictures uploaded and some fall through the cracks. That turned out pretty good. Did you make any videos of how it sounds?

Did you use a template for drilling the sound holes for the speakers? I tried that once and hosed it all up.

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