ShortScale.org

Hello,

My name is Danny and I am new to the forum, well, at least this is may fist post but I signed up a year ago. About a year or so ago I got the bug for a Duo Sonic as I had one back in 1959-60, but I later traded it in on my 62 Stratocaster which I still have. At any rate I scrounged around and finally came up with a body drawing so I made up complete set of plans and built myself a replica of my 59 Duo Sonic which I finally finished last week. During the course of construction I also scratch built an 5F1 Champ amp to accompany it. Sorry to come on the forum so forward but I'm pretty stoked about the guitar and wanted to share it with folks that enjoy these amazing instruments.

Great job! That looks to be a perfect set up you have there. Did you do all the work on the neck yourself? Oh, and welcome.

WOW. great work.

dubtrub wrote:my 62 Stratocaster which I still have.

just wow. pics of the strat?

Amazing work! Looks just like the real thing.

Very nice work. What did you use for pickups? I would love to hear of the the guitar/amp demo.

welcome

DanHeron wrote:Amazing work! Looks just like the real thing.

I'd say it looks better. I'm not often a fan of the earlier Duo-Sonics but this one looks fantastic.

You're not being too forward to jump straight into a post like that, what better way to get started?

dubtrub wrote:About a year or so ago I got the bug for a Duo Sonic as I had one back in 1959-60.

If I'm counting correctly, then you should really consider taking this up as a retirement hobby. The amp and guitar both look fantastic. Any chance you can record a playing demo?

Thanks everyone for the kind replies. Yes, I scratch built basically all the parts, body, neck, fret board, truss rod, pickguard plus mixed the color pigments to achieve the color. As for pickups, they are a set of MIJ 80's Fender Strat that had the staggered poles. I press the poles level, bought a set of white covers and sprayed them chocolate brown with Rustoleum plastic spray paint. I have to admit that I have built several guitars over the year, so I'm not new to it. But, I only build them for my own enjoyment, not to sell.

Welcome aboard Danny. Beautiful job. Sweet looking decal as well.

cooterfinger wrote:Welcome aboard Danny. Beautiful job. Sweet looking decal as well.

Hey pard, thanks for the welcome. I'd give credit where credit was due but I can't remember if you sent me the drawing for the body shape and rout locations or designed the logo. Getting old sucks!

Did you make your own cable, picks & strings while you were at it, McGavier?

dubtrub wrote:

cooterfinger wrote:Welcome aboard Danny. Beautiful job. Sweet looking decal as well.

Hey pard, thanks for the welcome. I'd give credit where credit was due but I can't remember if you sent me the drawing for the body shape and rout locations or designed the logo. Getting old sucks!

I can't take any credit here. I did send you a body tracing but you took it
a long, long way from a flat piece of paper. Beautiful work.

hotrodperlmutter wrote:
just wow. pics of the strat?

This, I'm not one for strats but a '62! Wow.

Excellent work - welcome aboard.

That is an amazing guitar. Looks amazing! Let's see some of the other stuff you've built!
Welcome to the boards.

Amazing work, great job!

Also I think it's a nice touch that you made your own decal....building a guitar that nice from scratch and then crediting it to someone else on the headstock just wouldn't make any sense, but is done all too often.

Fantastic results Danny! You must be pleased as punch with both guitar and amp!
Great craftsmenship

I you dont mind me asking, which materials did you use for them both?
...did you make the neck a 24" or age correct 22.5" scale?..
cheers...

JohnnyTheBoy wrote:I you dont mind me asking, which materials did you use for them both?
...did you make the neck a 24" or age correct 22.5" scale?..
cheers...

I'm not sure I understand the question on material used for both, so the following maybe a little over kill.

The body on the Duo Sonic is Ash, maple neck and rosewood fret board. It is painted with nitro cellulose lacquer. For the clay dots on the neck I used a two part wood filler from Home Depot. The bridge is an original 60s that I got off eBay. The pickguard material I got from Grizzly Supply. I didn't have access to a real Duo Sonic so I collect numerous photos from the internet. I first started with scaling up drawings off the fender website for the current made Duo Sonic, but was fortunate enough to hookup with cooterfinger and he supplied me with the correct drawings of the body and routing layout. For the pickguard I simply blew up photos to fit the drawing layout. The neck is the shorter 22.5" scale as I wanted to build it as original to the one I had way back when.

As for the Champ, I bought a chassis from Angela's. I had a bunch of parts from other amp projects, so it was a matter of scrounging a few extra parts which I bought from Antique Electronic Supply and from Weber. I also used Weber's schematic and layout plans. The cabinet I built from pine, though not finger jointed. The tweed and grill cloth was left over material from amps that I had restored. Hope I'm not off track discussing an amp build on this forum. Here's a few shots of the amp construction.





The Tweed Deluxe behind the Champ was my first project with electronics. The reverb unit in front of my 65 Bandmaster ( I bought it new while in Germany with I was in the Army) I scratch built a couple years ago when I started playing with a Surf band. The grill cloth on the reverb is remnants from a totaled 67 Bandmaster that I restored for a band mate.







Regarding other guitars I've built, they are of the Mosrite design and I'm not sure a double neck Mosrite would be acceptable to post on a short scale forum. I'm probably stretching the forum rules by posting these Champ photos.

Don't be daft; would love to see them. The Champ's great, too. Out of interest, what do you do for a living?