Finally the Trashcaster guitar is finished. This started life as some parts on ebay – an old vox body and broken scratchplate, a Squire neck, hardtail bridge and knobs from a Jazz Bass. Add some paint and a pair of home-made pickups…. behold the Trashcaster!
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| Xaudia ‘Trashcaster’ guitar |
The Trashcaster has custom wound big single coil pickups, with coil tap and phase switches, a blend pot, and normal tone and volume knobs. Wiring the blend pot was fun. You have to get the turn direction right otherwise all of the sound disappears! With these controls the guitar has a wide range of tones, and the out of phase sound Nashville tone is definitely something unique!
I have strung this for Nashville tuning, which is the same as the high strings on a 12 string guitar. So when played along with a guitar in standard tuning, it fills in the holes and sounds a bit like a 12 string, but with micro timing difference there is more of a chorus sound to it. You have probably heard this effect on countless records without knowing it.
A couple of coats of clear lacquer helps the slide-on decal blend in. But perhaps I should have called it the ‘Nashmaster’. Too late now! The last job was to file the nut to take the narrower gauge Nashville strings, and to do this you really need a proper set of nut files. They are not cheap but I found these ones on ebay for around £40, and they did the job quickly and accurately.