Modern Vespa

What other projects does everyone have going on?

I've been in bands most of my life, but with my dying bones playing guitar has been not so enjoyable. My current guitar is a custom made mahogany Fender Esquire. It's too heavy to carry it on my shoulders now so I have a new semi hollow mahogany Esquire body with an added humbucker sized cutout in the neck position made by Warmoth (it's like having an Allstate instead of a Vespa but for guitars). Now I just have to finish the body with paint (sea foam green just like the solid body one).

I'm excited to be able to stand up and play guitar soon.

Going to start out with just the single bridge pickup while I suss out the neck pickup and wiring that mess up. Current thought is to get a Seymor Duncan P-Rails pickup, it's switchable between a humbucker in series or parallel, a single coil or a P-90. Wiring that up with the current Rio Grande Dirty Harry tele pickup, which is a P-90 pickup housed in a tele bridge pickup, is gonna be a little challenge.

Very cool!
Kills me to read about your bones and your illness. I can sympathize. Enterapathic arthritis and some osteoarthritis in my spine have certainly taken a toll.

These days I just stare at the guitars on the wall more than play them. :-/ I should probably sell them, but sentimental value abounds from the days they were used in the clubs. Fun times.

I also built a tele back in 2015-ish when I still played.

TV jones pick up in the front and I think it was a Semour Duncun pick up in the back position (Eventually replaced with a Texas Tele Pick up). FAT baseball bat neck. Man it was a joy to make and play.

Other projects are too boring to detail...

ie - I'm installing cladding underneath the new carport that Hurricane Beryl took out. Meh

She's a beaut!
I've pared down my gear quite a bit over the years. Just down to one guitar, one bass a ukulele and one amp and cab. Still seems like a lot when I type that out!

I finished my partscaster no to long ago and it absolutely wails through my EVH 5150 6L6 Stealth with Kruse mods.

Is that surf green? Looks VIVID! Like from the 80's!

I don't play guitar, so I'm building an airplane.

Ha!

(Show off) 😆

Looks kinda like a Gentle Lady on steroids with added in ailerons

Random guitar creations going on in my garage as well.

That's amazing! More plane photos please!

I have a pretty decent amount here: https://biplane.botkin.org. This is wing #2 of 4; it's a biplane. All wood, two seats, open cockpit, low & slow. It's mostly built from Sitka spruce with some white pine. I didn't get a lot done until I retired earlier this year.

Holy cripes that's a PROJECT!

It's seafoam green. I think the rosewood neck makes the body look neon! 😆

Dale that's the most cross bracing I've ever seen. I think you'll be good for 8g at least! Here's a pic of a lower Pitts wing for comparison.

Almost forgot my airplane project. I would be flying it now if I didn't decide to finish my GS. It used to race at Reno. I've corrected a lot of funk from the previous owner. New panel and lower radio stack is done. I even have ADS-B! Just have to finish some glass work on the engine cowl and then she can fly again.

It's typical Fisher geodetic bracing. Each wing gets four compression members and the geodetic pieces - 3/4 x 1/8. Pretty light and really stiff. That wing (lower right, with the wing walk) weighed in at 27# before hardware. Some of the other Fisher designs used geodetic construction for the fuselage too… thankfully this one will be a more straightforward plywood skinned wood frame.

That's a fun looking Cassutt. A friend of mine had one. Lost power (probably carb ice) down low, and of course it's got the glide ratio of a piano. Even putting it as gently as he could into a plowed field he ended up in the hospital for a couple months. They're little hot rods for sure. I don't think I could fit in one, even if I had the balls to fly it.

Ohh….you're fabbing up a real airplane?! I thought it was something like a 1/4 scale remote control kit that you were building!

So far this thread is about guitars and airplanes. Ya'll Buddy Holly fans then?

I'll bite: My wife insisted that buying this thing would save us *lots* of $$ when visiting the kids on the other side of the state by not having to secure a hotel room. 2 universities in close proximity means on weekends with games or other events, rooms are much more expensive if vacancies can even be found.

We bought it under some pressure, there were reportedly others interested, and when it was home, we found major interior damage from chronic leaks. Ran a dehumidifier 24/day for 3+ weeks before it started to come into something like equilibrium and we could begin repairs. We've spent the past 10 months rehabilitating it, resolving the leaks, and trying to make it roadworthy and habitable again.

The first shakedown cruise last weekend was mixed: the mechanical bits worked as they should, but the window that previously leaked and that I had removed, cleaned, resealed, and reinstalled continued to leak. Also, there a leak somewhere in the water system that I will need to hunt down and resolve. Just a short time before reaching home, we were sideswiped by a young woman driving at a very high rate of speed without a license or insurance, traveling alone in the carpool lane. Damage is minimal and relatively easily repaired, but very irritating nonetheless.

Should be ready for another trip in a few weeks, we'll see how it unfolds.

I am loving this thread. Although we all obsess over scooters to some extent, we are complex individuals layered like onions, or cake; or onion cake. Its cool to see the other layers. Guitars, planes, RV's and more! All cool stuff everyone

A couple of my projects:

Looks like you built those from scratch, is that right? They look terrific. Love the 12th fret marker and the maple veneer stripes!

I built these from kits. I did them both at the same time so I could do the finishing at the same time. Rattle can nitro is expensive, I wouldn't do that again.

The acoustic is a StewMac kit. Cost around $300 with tuners. My fret work needs improvement, and I glued the bridge just a touch too close to the treble side, but it's got a low action, it's easy to play, and it's got a really nice warm tone. Totally playable for a first-time job. It's my workhorse acoustic that probably has a resale value of $39 (or less), but it sounds like a Martin. I'll cope.

The electric is a kit from Solo guitars. Frets came pre-installed and dressed. I carved the lower horn and headstock to look more gibby and I installed some old Grover tuners. I also put a Lollar P-90 in it, the stock pickup was ... weaker. It screams. It has become my go-to electric. Stock pots are a bit spongy, I will eventually replace them but they get the job done as is. The intonation on these bridges is what it is, but really, it's an amazing instrument from a $199 kit (+ $115 pickup) that requires little skill to assemble.


Maybe later in the week I'll come up with some spooky hall-o-ween NSR projects to share...

Loving the guitars. Been playing forever. Closest I've come to building one is swapping out the pickups on this Melody Maker I inherited from a former bandmate.

^^^
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Did'nt John Denver have a thing about guitars as well?