Building a body ala Danelectro materials [photos] - created 02-04-2009
Conder, Jonathan - 02/04/2009.11:58:29
Professional tinkerer to the anonymous
I've been batting around a few ideas in my head on making a guitar using the same basic body materials as Danelectros use. The older ones were poplar or pine frames, and newer ones are plywood, from what I've read. Got that. Also got plenty of Masonite onhand.
What I'm having a time figuring out is how thick to make the frame/sides, along with using a strat-type trem, but have a gap in between the neck block and bridge area (just enough to have the springs reach the claw) if I use pattern-grade plywood. The trem's not a have-to thing, I'm just looking to use up some stuff I've got sitting around.
This will not be a true Dano copy - no lipstick pups, no concentric knobs - but will have other similar accents to give a tributary nod to its inspiration. Just to give me something to do, really.
If you're going to use the strat style trem, I'd just make it a solid body pine guitar to the size you want the thickness of a strat minus the thickness of the masonite top and back.
Then I'd bandsaw the areas I didn't want out buy cutting in from the bottom end, then glue a splint in the slot where the blade entered to make the body whole again with the chambers cut out where you want them.
Then glue your top and back on over it.
The hardest thing about doing one of these is finding the edge binding you want and then gluing it on. I know there's the standard dano side tapes around if you google them. I used funky fabric binding tape on my last leopard theme Dano copy.
I think this style guitar might be better suited to a surface mount tremolo. I know Guitarfetish had a simple old style model for sale a few months ago.
Pine body, prepped
I did this one with a jigsaw, although the bandsaw method seems a little quicker.
I did a Dannoish econovoodoo machine a while back abd just used 2x4 WRC for the frame. I'll try to post a shot of the innards when I get home.
The fun thing about these for me is that they're made from wood I got off the curb, found when biking down to the coffee shop, including the masonite I used for the pickgard and the top and back.
As much as I love fine wood there's nothing like a Dano, Tiesco or other electric made from building materials to really get things shakin'.
Ellie, what did you use for the pattern on the top? Is it fabric?
there's nothing like a Dano, Tiesco or other electric made from building materials to really get things shakin'
Agreed, Mike.
Johnathan, I'll keep an eye out for those pics.
Ellie, thanks for the pics and info - that rocks! I've been trying to find a pattern on the 1448/1457 body for a while with no luck (I miss mine terribly) - do you happen to have notes for that? When I do get around to a true Dano replica, that's the one I'm shootin' for.
I have a pine body cutout that's been sitting around for 5 1/2 years, waiting to be made into something, and I think it just found its calling. I got so wrapped around the axle trying to come up with a test body type, I'd forgotten about it until just now. Must be the cold weather screwing with my head too much
I can't find the pics of the frame glue up but it was 5 pieces of 2x4 WRC with the middle piece running solid till from the butt till right after the bridge.
Most of the rest is hollow.
Nice job, Johnathan. I like that camo dog-bone theme you've got going there - way cool! I see you went without the lip-stickers on yours, too - how would you rate the sound difference between yours and a "traditional" Dano, just as a ballpark figure? I haven't decided if I'm going to use a humbucker or not, only reason I'm asking that.
I just did a body for a "Dan-o-Like Retro Groove Thing" guitar. But I left the core solid. The core is from a spruce bundle from Aircraft Spruce. the Spruce/Masonite sammich is really nice and bonky... I can't wait to get it finished.
Thanks, Jonathan. It's a completely differant animal. An uncovered ceramic humbucker is about as far from a low output single coil in a chrome tube as you can get. I was going more for the economic motivation and aesthetic of a Danno than the sound. One could really rock a street corner with it. You can deffinately hear the hollowness but, it in no way resembles a Danno or a jazz box sonicly. It's realy "hot", I don't think I've ever been able to get it to cleanup totally. Feeds back a lot less than I'd expected. I suspect that if I'd vented the top it would feedback more and have more acoustic volume.
The graphics are black cats and bones, thus the name "the Black Cat Bone", a little nod to Buddy Guy.
If I remember correctly I knocked the whole thing out in about 4 days. Most of that waiting for glue and paint to dry. The only thing I bought new just for this guitar was the 2x4, all the rest just came out of the junk box. Working cheap can be quite liberating.
Curious. Why Masonite? Why not birch ply, or solid wood for that matter?
Also, if you do a multi-piece glue up (of a hollow body), you can use shorter pieces of wood for the inner pieces and not waste so much wood.
>Curious. Why Masonite? Why not birch ply, or solid wood for that matter?
It's cheap... and what Dano used...
>Also, if you do a multi-piece glue up (of a hollow body), you can use shorter pieces of wood for the inner pieces and not waste so much wood.
We're talking super cheap-o framing lumber.... Waste isn't a big deal right?
Yah, Masonite is "Vintage Correct" and a 2x4 of WRC is less than $10.00. I've seen a cup of coffe go for more than that.
for $10 a cup we should all switch from luthiers to baristas.
My family were originally Masonites when they came to this country. They left to find sheet goods freedom from the Finnish and Russian Plys. Later they splintered off to join with the Particle Boards; but due to expansion that later fell apart.
My family were originally Masonites when they came to this country. They left to find sheet goods freedom from the Finnish and Russian Plys. Later they splintered off to join with the Particle Boards; but due to expansion that later fell apart.
HA!!!!!!!! Made my day!
Very punny. Four in 2 sentences. Very punny, indeed.
I capitalized Masonite because it's a brand name.
Finally found a shot of the inside before the top went on...
Correction to post 11, I had to go in through the control cavity and glue a small block in under the bridge.
The build was a whiole ago and all I have to remember this guitar from is the (sparce as they are) build pics and a '60s Alamo amp I swapped for it. The guitar was "stolen" (or I suspect lost) just a couple of months latter. I mean really, there were others they could have taken.
It must be catching, I started one this weekend too Jonathan.
Must be, Mike - I started mine this past weekend, kind of in between an ES-335 and LP Jr. shape, but will have some retro accents to it. It feels almost criminal to have this much fun building from scraps
Yes, lots of fun! I'm doing the whole guitar from stuff I found in the shop. The body is made from a 2X4 and 1/4" MDF sandwich. The neck is a piece of flatsawn maple and the neck plate and bridge are made from 1/8" aluminum stock. I even modified some Grover tuners to work 6 on-a-side.
So far all I've had to buy are a $15 pick-up, some screws and new bottle of Tite-Bond. I think the paint is going to cost more than the rest of it combined.
Just curious where you guys are getting the masonite? This got me planning a bass build.
Thanks
Go to your local hardware store/lumber yard and ask for 1/8" hardboard. Plywood paneling will suffice, but as states earlier, isn't vintage correct.
I'm thinking of using the Masonite pegboard and leaving the holes in for a funky look. I'm really surprised Ellie hasn't done that yet!
I'm morphing mine into a slightly scaled-down 1457 copy. I've been forced to use a jigsaw and coping saw for the rough-outs due to a Shopsmith malfunction, but it still works out. I'm wondering how much of the sound is the body more than the pups, so to find out, I'll use a couple of strat pups as close to Dano's output specs as I have - maybe remove some windings, but I'm not sure I want to go that far. In any case, I'm having a good time with this one, and that's the most important part.
Having a good time is (or should be) VERY important!
If you go to your local big box store, they sometimes have offcuts of hardboard in the bargain bin cart in the back. Top and back for one Dano style guit: about four bucks.
I got my materials from our loading dock, free and clear. I have to always ask up front in case any crating or pallet material is marked as reusable, and this was the first time I saw Masonite in the stack. The pine boards had enough defects to be structurally useless, but perfect for this project.
The body "blank" is put together now, but I left it closed up until I get the neck made and fit just right. I know that's not the way everybody builds guitars, but I want to make sure it all lines up and the scale is on point before I cut pickup holes or mount any hardware. I just roughed out a poplar neck for it, still going well so far.
I'd love to make one of these, too... If I could make one that's similar to the U2, that would be awesome.
My main concern would be where do I find a decent neck for this project, since I don't think I have the skill to make one from scratch, and want it on the cheap. (Danelectro replacement necks run about $130us, which is probably about $165cad)
You could probably get a decent neck off of ebay. It doesn't really have to be a dano neck but you could probably find one of those as well.
Try cruising the pawn shops for guitars thet were broken "on the floor" when a guitar they've already gone out the $$$ for a guitar and it " just quit working" they have little hope of it selling. Or local music shops for beyond repair jobs that just never got picked up.
Don't forget, spring is around the corner, and I'm sure yard/garage sales will be a bigger thing this year than many before - usually a guitar will turn up at one fairly often. There's you a good shot at a decent neck off an old department-store electric for real cheap.
I had the same worry as Gaston at first about a neck, but for this pet project I grabbed some old poplar, a jigsaw, a belt/disc sander, and an old fretboard from my long-gone Bently, and just went on impulse.
Despite the methodology, I have a really nice neck as a result, with a couple of oops spots on the FB, but that was easily fixed. This was as much a theraputic release as it was about making a neck, for me anyway. I love coming up with off-the-wall ways of doing things that just happen to work out
I've only had a few original Danos in my hands over the years, and the necks really aren't that great or complicated. If I was rolling my own (I've got a formica topper on the back burner) I'd spring for good fretboard and carve the rest. I'd go for carbon fiber instead of steel bar, laminating the CF out of tows to save $$$.
Being a garage sale addict, the last good instrument I got was over a decade ago; most of what I run across these days is junk, like the $25 New York Pro Copycaster I got last month which has a truss rod rattle and the frets are falling out. By the time I get that fixed, I'll probably have spent enough time and money to equal starting from a decent fretboard and stick of maple. It's good repair experience, for sure.
And of course I still look for instruments at garage sales! So far, two Martins, a Nashville, and a set of 1960's Fender Duo-Sonic pups.
My neck has no truss at all - I know the risks of going without, but I made it thicker around to compensate, plus I'm testing a theory I have with it. The poplar sat in a shed for 5 years, with no defects creeping in - matter of fact, I didn't have to re-plane the surface at all to get a flush glue joint with the FB. I expected some slight movement, but there wasn't any.
I've used other guitars (not A-line by any means, but played well enough) that either only had a steel bar or nothing reinforcing them. Thinking in terms of string tension and all, this project will have right at about a 25" scale, and I'll fit it with extra lights (.009) at first. Most of the others I mentioned were acoustic, a bit shorter scale, and I went up to .013 on them with no problem.
All told, I'm wanting to see how this works out sonically and structurally. Given this poplar hasn't moved enough to detect in so long, whether it will continue to do as well under tension and in use.
The trade-off aspect I'm curious about is how well does the sound carry over in terms of not introducing metal or CF between the FB and neck surfaces, and by having the single glue-mating surface, if that will act as a reinforcement of sorts, since there's solid mass instead of a recess at work here. The board was refretted before it was attached, so there's already a bit of compression going on.
It's apples-to-oranges to compare it to a violin-family neck in one way, but none of those are trussed as a general rule, and their design caters to it. It's a bolt-on design, so it can always be replaced if it doesn't work out, but I have a feeling this will be okay. It adds to the spirit of the project, and this one is strictly a "me" thing.
The short scale neck I have on my vintage Dano is poplar or soemthing that looks a lot like it, and has no truss rod. I have had no problems with it. It's new old stock, though, and hasn't been strung up for a few decades.
The last two short scale copies I made with thick fingerboards and maple necks have no truss rod either, and are holding up fine, but the necks are on the thick side and quartersawn.
I've got a very old Dan-O convertible (without a pickup). It's a poplar neck with a rosewood fingerboard. I think it has a steel bar in the neck, maybe two. I haven't looked in a while but I seem to remember you can see them at the heel.
The fingerboard wood was actually very nice, but still had saw marks in it. I refretted the neck and in the process sanded the fingerboard nice and smooth. It looks like Brazilian RW.
Since the early 80's the neck has resided on a lucite longhorn body I made.
Have not built a Dano, but have used poplar (salvaged from a piano) for a few necks. I carved the first one a bit thin with a truss rod. I found it's a bit "wiggly" but returned to tune after neck bending and allows some pretty cool playing technique. In all I like poplar for a neck. BTW- if your going to throw out a piano, put it on the hill and not in the ditch!
> I found it's a bit "wiggly" but returned to tune after neck bending and allows some pretty cool playing technique.
Oh yeah! I used to grab the neck on that guitar and bend a whole step lower! It sounds real cool with a ringing chord and some echo!
My Ric 4001 did the same thing.