1987 - Final Photos

So 1987 has now been completed. I began building this Steinberger copy over two years ago. I worked on it between projects. Once plugged in, the sustain is incredible. For such a small body this guitar really has a strong punch. I can not pinpoint the exact reason for the resonance of this build. The neck is a fat D-shape. The neck fits tightly into the body. And the pickup are Seymour Duncan Alnico II's - according to the SD website they are slightly weaker, allowing the strings to vibrate longer.
Here are my studio shots of the guitar:

Here's the Stats:
25 inch scale
2 piece Ash back
Curly Maple top with a Pau Ferro stripe
Thin Mahogany veneer separating the Ash back from the Maple top
Pau Ferro fretboard
3 Piece Set Maple Neck
24 fret neck
Zero fret
Thick D Profile Neck
Seymour Duncan Alnico Humbuckers
3-way On/On/On DPDT selector used as a mini pickup selector

I'm finishing up on a copy of a Steinberger P Series copy. The body is Ash with a Curly Maple top and the neck is a three-piece Maple with a Pau Ferro Fretboard. I decided against using active EMGs. Instead I'm going to go with a passive set of humbuckers. 

I'm a big fan of Seymour Duncan pickups, just looking for something that'll go well with the brighter sound of Ash and Maple.

1987 - Finishing up

I'm down to the final steps on 1987.

I've filled the grain. Stained the Curly Maple top black. Sanded most of the stain off. Re-stained the top blue. The remaining black stain helps the wood's figuring jump under the blue stain. I sprayed the body with shellac as a sealant coat and followed it with a coat of lacquer. 

Back to 1987 - My Steinberger copy

So now that I've almost completed the Junior. I've decided to turn my attention back to my Steinberger P-series copy, the guitar I am now calling 1987. First I drilled the holes for the neck ferrules using a 5/8" drill bit.

Then I attached the neck and the bridge and took 1987 for a test drive without any electronics. The guitar plays great. There is a fret buzz at the 6th fret of the G and D strings. But thats to be expected as I have not yet leveled the fretboard.

There's only one problem - the strings are sitting unusually high off of the guitar body. So I need to do a little more routing.

First I routed the neck pocket about 4 mm deeper. This put the fretboard about 1.5 mm above the body now.

Then I routed out the recessed bridge pocket an additional 2 mm. This will allow me to lower the height of the bridge saddles as well.

After I dealt with the string height, I moved on to routing the control cavity, and drilling holes for my volume and tone pots. I will still need to put in a pickup selector, I am just trying to find one small enough to fit comfortable between the volume and tone.

The guitar is now ready for final sanding and finishing. Here's my 1987 siting next to a Steinberger P-series body I purchased off of eBay a few years back.

1987 - Headless Build

Around 1987, I fell in love with the Steinberger P series guitar. So naturally this would be a perfect candidate for building a copy. I started this build in early 2012. Hopefully, I'll finish this one up in few months. I've routed the body for two Humbuckers. I've also routed an inset for the bridge. Steinberger's bridge is inset about 10 mm. The JCustom Bridge that I'm using is not as thick. As a result I only had to route about 1.5 mm.

Next up, I'll just need to route the rear access panel and an output jack. Then it's on to final shaping and sanding.

The Headless Body

This represents two weekends worth of work on the headless body. The photo to the left is where the where I stopped Sunday evening. Below is documentation of the progress that got me there.

I started by routing holes in the ash back for the wiring. Then I glued two pieces of curly maple together with a center piece of pau ferro. I cut small grooves on the sides of the maple for clamping. After the maple and pau ferro dried, I glued mahogany veneer to the back.

After the top dried, I glued it to the body. There was about a half inch of overhang on the sides. This was intentional. Later, I cut these edges close to the body, then I routed the edges flat.

The top and the edges are still ruff at this weekend. I started this weekend by using my router to plane the top of the body. I then used the orbital sander to sand from 80 grit to 220 grit. 

After planing and sanding the top, I used the router to smooth and straighten the sides. Here you can see the thin mahogany veneer sandwiched between the ash back and the maple top.  

Here the new headless body sits next to the old Steinberger P-Series body I won on eBay last year. The dimension on mine are slightly longer than the Steinberger. This is to accommodate the neck dimensions. I did not have plans for the neck, so I really was working from scratch on this build. Visually, the only Steinberger aficionados will notice. 

Next weekend, I will cut the rear to match the Steinberger body and route the neck pocket and perhaps pickup and the electronics cavity on the back.