'Building' a Danelectro 58 DC

[Olav]

So that makes two. Now spread a nice bit of glue on one of the pieces, let that sit for a couple minutes.

[Olav]

And clamp the two together. Use every clamp you can get your hands on. Which in this case was 8 pieces.


Let that sit for at least 24 hrs.

[Olav]

While the glued skeleton was curing I cut the top and back from 4mm MDF. I forgot to mention that the reference guitar has a 44mm body, this is why I used 18mm plywood and 4mm MDF.

This was as far as I got before realising I am missing the specific router bit I need to copy the template onto the skeleton... No hardware store in the vicinity sells those so I'll have to go online and order one. Luckily my bud Oigun will lend me a bit for the time being. KUDOS!

[Olav]

Couple things to add;
1) I'm not trying to jack up my postcount, but for some reason the forum's software won't allow me to post more than one or two pics at a time. Dunno what that's about suddenly coz I have posted 4 at once here. Don't matter anyway.
2) I might sound like I know what I'm talking about (or not even! ) but the comments with the pics are really me thinking out loud, remembering what Oigun Sensei told. Two hands on the wheel, 10 to 2! Wax on, wax off, grasshopper.
3) I copied this thread from another forum, AgileGuitarForum (hi Gplayer) where I posted this first for the viewing pleasure of the many, many lefties that hang out there.
4) I can never say this enough, thanks Oi!

[Sarah93003]

Nice!

[Mr. Bill]

Olav:
I've seen the insides of many vintage Danelectros and what you are building is far too nice!
I think that they just used whatever scrap wood they had for all of the interior bracing/filler pieces.

What color are you going to make it?

[Olav]

Olav:
I've seen the insides of many vintage Danelectros and what you are building is far too nice!
I think that they just used whatever scrap wood they had for all of the interior bracing/filler pieces.

What color are you going to make it?

Yeah, I just didn't happen to have any scrap wood lying around...
I do have a lot of crap wood though. That's for the stove though.

This guitar will be black with a light sparkle and a cream/off white pick guard.
Like this, only lefty;

It'll be a one-pupper too, making it more like the predecessor of the 59.
I like the notion of the 3way tone switch, do you have thoughts on this?

[Mr. Bill]

I think that the wood that you burn in the stove is nicer than the wood that Danelectro used in the interior of those old guitars!

I can't remember for certain, but as i recall the 3 position switch was 1-straight pickup, 2-Pickup with tone control and 3-Pickup with preset tone circuit. Or I may be thinking of the Supro circuit.

If you want, I will look through my files to see if I have a schematic for the circuit.

[Olav]

Thanks, no need to rummage the files, I have that schematic;


This is from freewebs.com/silvertoneguitar

Danelectro's trademark was the masonite construction of the guitar bodies. The bodies were hollow, built around a wooden frame. The bridge was screwed into an internal wooden block that connected the top and back of the body. In earlier models, a piece of wood runs from the neck pocket to the bridge, while later models contain less internal structure.
Danelectro's well-known "lipstick" single-coil pickups are a big part of why these guitars sound so good. These are constructed around a single alnico bar magnet, wound to a relatively low (4.75k) resistance, and housed in an actual surplus lipstick tube.
Single-pickup long-scale Danelectro guitars originally came equipped with an ingenious three-way tone switch. Like many 50's single-pickup designs, this was intended for quick transitions between rhythm and lead tones, such as the Fender Esquire concept. In the lower switch position, the tone control (which was located where you would expect the volume control to be, closer to the bridge) functions normally. In the middle position, the tone control is bypassed entirely. In the top position, the tone control rolls off lows instead of highs, creating a sound similar to that of a bridge pickup.
On guitars with more than one pickup, Danelectro used "concentric" stacked knobs. In order to save money, the same generic three-way toggle switch found in the single-pickup guitars was used as a pickup selector switch. This is the real reason Danelectro guitars had their pickups wired in series, producing a big punchy sound with more output and midrange than individual pickup settings and eliminating hum. Parallel wiring (as used by virtually all other manufacturers) would have required a slightly more expensive switch!

[Mr. Bill]

Cool info.

If this is right the pickup is always sent through the 0.01uF cap, which will limit the bass response.
In one position of the switch, there will be 1-a traditional tone control, 2-no tone control function and 3- the tone control will function as a variable load control, which will roll off some treble.

I need to try this circuit and see what it sounds like. It's been too long since I had one of these guitars in front of me.