Customizing The Headstocks

I have read and seen others pencil their designs for the headstock before sawing it. Once I measured the mandolin headstock, I used painters tape to assist with straight lines and a CD to for the curve at the top. I realize that this is a very basic design and I have second thoughts about changing it. For the guitar, I wanted to design the headstock as a a hybrid between a Fender Strat and Tele. I used several items around my office to assist with the curves such as the base of a Ukelele, CD, and a round paperweight.

Custom Tailpiece

So I realize it has been so time since I posted. However, it seems the long delay will be a common occurrence with this project.

I ordered a custom metal tailpiece to replace the wooden block that came with the kit. It took some significant research to find one made for an eight string mandolin. I had to shell out $50 for it, but I think it was worth the cost and should upgrade the look of the guitar significantly.



There was one major issue with the wooden tailpiece that came with the kit; there was only four holes in it. As a result, I would have been forced to cram each set of strings through once hole. This would have caused several issues with tuning in my opinion. Here's another pic showing the how the custom tailpiece will feed the strings through:

4/02/2010

So I just received my DIY (do it yourself) Electric DoubleNeck Guitar/Mandolin kit. I bid on this item a week ago on eBay and won... first time I've actually won anything on there. I am really excited to start the project and make a few customizations along away. I plan to document each step on this blog so that others may possibly use it as a resource.

Here's how the kit looked coming out of the box: