The Camo Caster

Custom Double Neck Strat Kit Build

On the bench today, (and for quite a few days) we have what I'm calling "The Camo Caster."  Local musician, Michael Morales, plays with Group Therapy, and has always wanted a double neck, but has been more comfortable playing Fender style guitars than the usual Gibson.  Given the rarity of 6/12 Fenders and the potential cost of a custom "from scratch" build, Michael found a 6/12 kit on eBay.  Before I cold get my hands on it, he had a custom camo graphic Hydro-Dipped over the body, the back of the necks, and pickguard.  Here's what it looked like when I got it:

Regardless of how you may feel about camo and guitars, the pattern is both unique and striking.  From a tonal standpoint, I have some concerns about dipping the wooden body of a guitar in a chemical emulsion and then sealing those chemicals into it with vinyl printed material. I worry about the long term stability of the body and neck integrity in this state as well.  When Michael brought it to me for initial inspection, we talked about all of these concerns.  This is simply a guitar he always wanted to see built and play, and since I'm excited to help someone pursue a guitar dream, I hopped aboard.

Early in the design process, Michael decided that he wanted the stock chrome hardware switched out for black, the stock single coils switched to blackout or blade style humbuckers, and a general upgrade where possible to any integral components.  It took a few hours of searching and shopping, but after several emails of confirmation, we had the parts ordered and on the way.

While I waited for the parts to arrive, I focused on the biggest concern with the kit quality, the neck.

At first look and feel, I could tell that there was something wrong with the finish on the fingerboards.  It's difficult to feel from the photo, but they felt like sandpaper.  Michael is uncertain if this is a result of the Hydro-Dip or they way the necks came out of the box.  Personally, I suspect the latter.  In short, the necks were unplayable.  There are other examples of quality issues aside from the the roughness of the finish. The black smudge seen next to the dot position marker is the epoxy they used to either fill the hole or attach the plastic dot inlay.  There were several of these on both necks, all below the finish. 

Since budget was a concern, we decided to forgo a complete tear down of both necks for a respray.  With the knowledge that new necks might be in this guitar's future, Michael requested that I do my best to refinish the fingerboard with the frets on.  Not the best situation, but I had an idea.

The radii of both necks is a whopping 20" so I cut an arc across a scrap piece of 1/4" cherry and made myself sanding forms.  From there, I needed to sand with the grain in between the frets until I could get down to a level where the grit was gone.  I started with 220, worked my way up to 600, and then sprayed everything down with several coats of semigloss clear lacquer.  After some debate and at least one attempt to mask off all of the frets on both necks, I decided to spray over them all, and polish the lacquer off after.  

You'll notice at the end of the headstock, some of the Hydro-Dip chipping off.  At edges and drilled holes, the graphics wrap is very sensitive. These happened while I was screwing in the tuner backs.

The fingerboard issues aside, the rest of the hardware went in without a hitch.  I had some concerns about finding correctly sized replacement parts, but with the exception of one screw in the 12 string bridge, all of the chrome hardware was easily replaced with black.  For the 6 string neck, we went with black OEM six in line tuners, but since the 12 string neck lacked a string tree or 17 degree headstock tilt, I chose Wilkinson EZ lock tuners, hoping that the upper and lower hole design would help keep the strings better set in the nut.  Man! That was a lot of tuners!

 

Here's a pic with everything bolted on:

Once everything was in place, I could turn my attention to the electronics.  Aside from being white covered single coils, the OEM pickups were extremely low output, measuring 3.7K at the hottest.  Since our goal on the 12 string neck was something similar to a vintage Rick, we found 7K Kent Armstrong Dual Blades with closed covers, and to give Michael a "hot rod strat vibe" on the 6 string, we went with 8.9K Kent Armstrong Dual Blades.  After resizing the pickup routes and screwing everything in, it looked pretty cool.  I dig the stealth vibe.

The manufacturer's wiring diagram was a sketchy at best, but from what I could determine, all 3 pickups on the 12 string side were to be summed together at a volume control on the 12 string side of the pickguard before being sent to a tone control on the 6 string side.  This led me to the discovery of 2 issues.  The first and most concerning, was that there would be no way to choose an individual pickup.  To be honest, I haven't had a lot of experience with 3 pickup configured 12 strings, (has anyone?) so I wasn't sure if having all 3 pickups on at once would be normal.  I decided that they should be switchable, and after some discussion with Michael, reconfigured the control layout.  The 12 string pickups are switched via a 3 way mini toggle at the original 12 string volume knob location, then sent to a volume knob on the 6 string side of the pickguard where it shares a master tone control with the 6 string neck.  The 6 string pickups are selected at a traditional 5 way switch, go through a volume, and on to the master tone.

The connection between the two control cavities was a scant 1/8" hole.  Not only was it grossly undersized for even the OEM supplied wire, but wiring through this hole would mean that you would have to unsolder the connection between the two sides every time you needed to service or change the electronics!

After talking things through with Michael, I decided that routing a channel between the sides would be the best solution.  In truth, when it was time to mount the pickguard to the body, I wished I had routed the whole thing.

All of the upgraded components were more robust that their OEM counterparts, leading to more space issues within the control cavity.  I was able to squeeze in 2 Alpha volume controls, but the tail end of the route lacked the room for anything but the OEM tone control.  Regrettable, but unfortunately, necessary.  The new Switchcraft 5 way switch also posed a problem.  This time, depth was the issue.  You know you're having a bad day in the shop when you have to get the router back out after everything has already been wired!

After the wiring process was complete, it was time to move on to the final set up.  I started running into problems right away with the neck angle of the 6 string.  The neck pocket was routed deeper as it ran away from the body causing the strings to fret out above the 9th fret.  Almost 3/16 of an inch of shimming was necessary to correct the problem.  To add to the difficulty of establishing a playable instrument, several of the frets were improperly set and needed to be hammered down.

The neck pocket for the 12 string was much better, but a lack of foresight in the headstock design failed to apply enough downward pressure at the nut for the two center courses of strings. I hate to think of how much worse this problem could have been with out the 2 hole Wilkinsons.  To correct the problem, I filed the nut slots down as far as I dared and hoped for the best.  I'm going to suggest that Michael have me install a Floyd Rose Retainer Bar behind the nut to help keep the strings in place.

Once I worked out all of the kinks, the Camo Caster turned out like this:

 

Look closely at the picture above.  The cracking and caving in of the body behind the 6 string bridge was almost unnoticeable when I began working on this guitar.  I cant say for sure if this is just a weak spot in the wood, or if it's a reaction to the chemical process the body went through.  Either way, I have some concerns about the longevity of this body.

 

Despite the problems, Michael is happy with the way the Camo Caster turned out, and it certainly wasn't just another guitar project for me.  Thanks for reading!  Now go play something!