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Oh man, I would love an Fender Electric XII or an old Vox 12, but it's always seemed spendy and a bit of a liability for the way I use my gear.
This thread has got me really wanting to build one now.

At the moment, I just keep a dedicated Tele that is permanently Nashville/high strung.

The most preliminary of pictures. Took this just after receiving the neck last week to see how the heel fit. Like a glove! Amazingly, it looks like the mounting holes line up between this old Hondo copy of a Fender Lead and the Warmoth neck. I fully expected to have to fill and re-drill. Bonus!

I got the first 2 thin coats of Tru oil on the neck and body face yesterday. It really brings out something special in the grain of the plywood.

The neck was good after 3 coats of Tru oil, rubbed with steel wool between coats and after. Feels great! 4 coats on the face of the body. The red paint was a refin and applied very thickly. I sanded the face just for the hell of it 2 years ago and I'm glad I did. That's gotta be the prettiest plywood I've ever seen at the forearm relief. Installed tuning machines last evening. All Gotoh; a silver mystery set and black set from a left handed Jackson.

Incremental progress. I should be able to get some work done this weekend.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Thu Mar 31, 2022 8:20 am The neck was good after 3 coats of Tru oil, rubbed with steel wool between coats and after. Feels great! 4 coats on the face of the body. The red paint was a refin and applied very thickly. I sanded the face just for the hell of it 2 years ago and I'm glad I did. That's gotta be the prettiest plywood I've ever seen at the forearm relief. Installed tuning machines last evening. All Gotoh; a silver mystery set and black set from a left handed Jackson.

Incremental progress. I should be able to get some work done this weekend.

Looking good so far!

Got tons of work done this weekend. I now have a functional 12 string guitar! Still lots of adjustments to make. I've got to put a little shim in the neck and set the action and intonation. Hopefully I'll be able to do that this evening. I added the electronics for the gold foil pickup didn't quite fit under the strings. I like how it looks now. I'm gonna leave it for the time being and possibly route for a neck pickup later.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Mon Apr 04, 2022 7:29 am Got tons of work done this weekend. I now have a functional 12 string guitar! Still lots of adjustments to make. I've got to put a little shim in the neck and set the action and intonation. Hopefully I'll be able to do that this evening. I added the electronics for the gold foil pickup didn't quite fit under the strings. I like how it looks now. I'm gonna leave it for the time being and possibly route for a neck pickup later.

Beauty!

brownreasontolive wrote: Beauty!

Thanks! Your post reminded me that I was overdue for an update. I put a small shim in the neck and got the action and intonation sorted. It always takes me a little while to get all that right on a brand new build with brand new strings. Tune, check, tune, adjust, tune, check...let it sit for a day then start all over again. It's good though. It's nice to have a little slowdown at the finish line.

I got a set of the Fender Electric XII strings (10-46) and a standard 12 sting set of Ernie Ball Slinkys (8-40). I didn't know what would feel good and wanted more than one choice. The Fender strings were the clear winner. Plain G, 10 gauge high E course. The Slinkys had a wound G and the 8 gauge strings just felt way too breakable. I'm used to 11-48 on a regular guitar and the 10-46 Fender set felt really good. But, wow, the extra tension makes bar chords a totally different thing. Much more pressure is needed on the index finger to get everything to ring out.

I fucking love this guitar! There is definitely a learning curve with fingering chords on the 12 string. I need to work a bit more dexterity out of my sausage fingers. But goddamn it rules. Surprisingly, I have no problem with the single pickup in the bridge position. It gives exactly what I was wanting; bright, chime-y, articulate, but not overly shrill. Still meaty enough. Good output, zero noise. I had no prior experience with firebird pickups and I'm very happy with it. Plus the way I wired the tone pots (incorrectly) worked in my favor; they work together, and I used different value caps in each, so now I've got a little tone circuit going on that allows for some fine tuning. I still have a useless volume pot for the nonexistent neck pickup, but oh well.

A friend built me a Janglebox clone and it has immediately become indispensable. I get why people say you really need a compressor with a 12 string. Also, the bright setting...wow. Yeah.

So I've been playing it unplugged a lot, just working on chord fingerings and fucking around. It sounds like absolute heaven through my Deluxe Reverb. I'm excited to work out some new songs and record with it.

bishopdante wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 8:41 pm I would suggest that you look at "break angle"

As note in the post, my problem was not break angle, it was lateral angle and string proximity.

Tony, thanks so much for the rec on those 3D printed string guides. I bought the 8 hole version and I was so glad I had it. When I first strung up my guitar I set the string retainer on the headstock and thought it was going to hold the strings too close to the headstock and be under too much tension, so I decided to omit it. After stringing up and playing, the wound D string kept jumping out of the nut slot when I would really bang on an open chord. I redid it with the string retainer installed and immediately appreciated it's purpose. It clamps the strings down tight over that long run from the nut to the tuning machines at the top end of the headstock and holds everything in place. It makes everything at the nut end feel super stable. Ended up being a much more important piece that I figured.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 9:16 am Tony, thanks so much for the rec on those 3D printed string guides. I bought the 8 hole version and I was so glad I had it. When I first strung up my guitar I set the string retainer on the headstock and thought it was going to hold the strings too close to the headstock and be under too much tension, so I decided to omit it. After stringing up and playing, the wound D string kept jumping out of the nut slot when I would really bang on an open chord. I redid it with the string retainer installed and immediately appreciated it's purpose. It clamps the strings down tight over that long run from the nut to the tuning machines at the top end of the headstock and holds everything in place. It makes everything at the nut end feel super stable. Ended up being a much more important piece that I figured.

glad to help!