This is one of my first experiments, which began when I was about 16 and my friend, Richard Sleep, burn his old "Ranger" Strat, in an ode to his hero Jimi Hendrix, and even proceeded to cut it up with an axe! I used the lower bout, with the control cavity routing, and some other parts, to start piecing together my own custom. Over the course of many years, it got a nice new neck (and final assembly) from Stewart Male, in Lilydale.
He helped come up with the "three-piece" name, and suggested it's like a divided-up pizza with many different flavours all on the one base!
Really, it's like a Strat, with the final three-way pickup selection being:
Neck: Duncan P90, Middle: misc RW/RP, Bridge: Duncan "Broadcaster" Lead.
"Jazzboard/Cheeseboard"
I started this guitar right around the same time as the Three-Piece Custom, above, but I started with a solid piece of maple, which my dad helped me with, from the local wood mill. It was initially twice as think, with chunkier horns and body shape, but I trimmed it back over time to allow better access to the upper frets, and decrease the weight.
Pickups I ended up with here are a vintage "Wide-Range" Seth Lover Tele humbucker from the 70's, which gives a nice brash and mid range tone, and a "Velvet Hammer" split true single coil humbucker at neck, which gives awesome rich, clean tones in parallel or series settings.
I love the Cheeseboard. Classy. Nice with that pickguard. And that bridge just looks so sexy. Like something The Terminator would have on his guitar.
ReplyDeleteNot so sure about the Three Piece Custom... but of course it has my respect for it's historical significance alone.
- Muz
Admittedly, the Three Piece Custom does perhaps stand as the guitar that most defines your musical style. Unpredictable, experimental, sometimes hard to comprehend, and yet fascinating and beyond definition.
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