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Okay, so I'm looking at making a Gibson Marauder on the cheap but still having it be AWESOME. I shan't be making a neck, but will be taking care of the body and scratchplate, sourcing similar pickups to the original, cheaper but again, STILL AWESOME.

Armed only with a small Marauder scratchplate picture from thee WB Music site, the dimensions of a standard LP body and a LP template, I managed to scale and print everything accordingly to make myself some paper templates to make some thin wood templates shortly.



PUPS:
But at any rate, I won't buy any parts until the body is looking like it's gonna be worthwhile.

It already looks honking ugly - fix that scratchplate upper horn!

She shall not be moved.

Needs paper neck.

But I approve of this plan; sweet moves.

do an B7 bigsby

Looking good Man! I'm totally looking forward to this.

Cheers gais!


I knocked up some thin MDF templates that need some some jaggedy edges sanded but it's a start.

I've got a question for anyone in the KNOW with routing- I'm planning to make the body in two halves (like a cross section), the top half totally routed through for the pickups and neck pocket, the bottom half no routing:


Sticking 'em together resulting in a routed body without needing to actually use/own/rent a router. Apart from making sure the top half is suitably deep enough to serve as a neck pocket, would there be any problems with this?

The problem you will hit Doog is if you use two 18mm pieces of MDF (36mm body) your mock route wont be deep enough to house the pups, switch and pots. Bare in mind a standard mono jack is about 25mm deep.
If you use an angled 3-way switch (like Jazzmaster) you will get away with a shallow route but they are expensive compared to the standard Epiphone 3-way. Mini alpha pots may gain you some some space as will cutting off height adjustment screws on the pickups to minimum (although some companies drill an extended hole for these).
With the neck pocket route you should just get away with it, even if it means raising the bridge a little. My Franrite neck pocket is only about 18mm deep.

You can get 25mm MDF (50mm body) but its going to make it a heavy guitar and a 'swimming pool' route will be essential to lose some weight.
I think MDF is the best choice with manmade board, Plywood is difficult to finish on the edge. BC Rich used ply when the company went to shit in the late 80's and even through thick paint you can see the lines in the plywood.

Hope that helps. Look forward to seeing the progress and any probs give us a shout mate

Just thinking.. if you need deeper areas for the hardware, you could drill the second half of board with a Forstner bit. They leave a clean hole (used on kitchen unit hinge housings) and would require minimal use of a wood chisel to tidy up.

Cool, thanks for your help matey. I was talking on MSN with James and he suggested that the top, routed half of the body account for like 65+ percent of the overall body depth for that reason. Of course, that'd mean using two different thickness, but it's not out of the question I guess.

Incidentally, I'm planning to use pine or some other cheapish hardwood because I'm going to stain the wood rather than totally cover it in thickass paint- AH NEEDS ME THAT GRAIN, SON!

edit: hahaah, and James suggested I routed/drill out for extra depth where I need it too! Youse guys are like the Chuckle Brothers, only awesome.

Pine is quite soft but supposed have good tonal properties. Its generally light though so you could get away with a thicker body. Someone at OSG made a few pine Jazzmasters with good results. Pine is also fairly cheap to buy, i struggled to find an ash, alder or mahogany slab for less than £40, the MDF cost me £3.86 pence

This Zachery dude uses pine, might be some interesting info here and there was a big pine discussion at TDPRI HERE.

The CV 50's tele's are are made of pine, as were the originals, and Creston Guitars fella swears by Sugar Pine. It'll be lovely.

I've used pine for builds a few times. I applied wood hardener once I finished cutting the body. You just wiped it on with a clothe. I'm not sure if it's available in your parts but you should be able to find something along the same lines.

benecol wrote:But I approve of this plan; sweet moves.

+1

Always loved Gibson Marauders and S-1's. You used to own a Marauder copy right?

Ace seems to love it more!

it looks a lot less cheapo with the blocks and binding and ply guard.

Noirie. wrote: Always loved Gibson Marauders and S-1's. You used to own a Marauder copy right?

Yeah man, a copy by Avon, identical to THIS Maya copy. If memory serves, one of the perspex-covered pickups' broke at the height adjustment screw, and also split the pickguard. I made a thin MDF scratchplate for it, but other stuff started break and I just got fed up with it. I sold the neck on Ebay like 4 years ago, I guess I threw the body away.

Oh, the follies of youth..

stewart wrote:it looks a lot less cheapo with the blocks and binding and ply guard.

Agreeeeeeeed, I'm going with WBW for my pickguard, looks boss.

I was thinking about picking up a Flying V copy for the neck/tuners/headstock/pots and TOM, Imma see what Dave's stuff looks like first though.

see if bacchuspaul will part with that old V of mike's.

I had a Cimar/Ibanez copy a while back. It was pretty nice as I recall. Really heavy though.