Bad Religion and sorcery....

[BCR Greg]

Brian Baker is the guitarist in Bad Religion, and formerly in Minor Threat, Junkyard and others. Mr. Baker decided that taking his recent white Custom and making it cooler is something that I needed to do. Vintage P-90/Alnico Staple pickup set and wraparound.....damn cool, indeed. Not an easy job....but just the thing that I love doing. 

So here we go....

Before

Parts off.

The black grease pencil areas are where material will be removed, then the routes will be narrowed using the same material as the body.

Maple over mahogany for the fill bits.

Stay tuned, it gets hairy.....

[BCR Greg]

Using Uncle Greg's Stud Remover Thingy to take the anchors out of the body. The holes will be filled.

Removing material by hand....no big machines wanted or needed.

Handmade maple dowels to fill the holes....

Ready to drill for the new bridge.
 

[veatch]

I love these threads, and have missed them so much...

Clearing out with a Dremel by hand.  Mad skillz, sir.  And ballz. 

[Dave Scepter]

Oooooh~ I'm going to enjoy this thread immensely!..

[hamerhead]

1 hour ago, veatch said:

I love these threads, and have missed them so much...

Yeah, me too. It's been far too long.

[BubbaVO]

He's baaack

[Ted]

Thanks Greg for this Thread!!

[BCR Greg]

Marked with grease pencil to prepare to drill BIG, GNARLY HOLES into the guitar, FREEHAND. (Actually, 1/4 in holes are drilled FIRST, then the big bit follows that....keeping drift at bay.

Sharp eyed folks will notice that the bridge holes are NOT uniformly spaced from the center. That is the mistake that 98% of those out there do when drilling for a wraparound. The bridge is canted, so the strings do not come straight forward, like on an intonatable bridge.

I use a peghead ferrule as a bearing when drilling the string ground hole.

Checking alignment....

Gluing in the supports for the staple pickup....

[BCR Greg]

Trimming the fill plates to thickness....

THAT should do it...

Shaped and trimmed to match the routes and wire channels.....

Clamppitty doo dah....

 

[The Shark]

So cool.  Kind of like a "Custom Special".

[geoff_hartwell]

The Man Makes Magic

[Never2Late]

Huh - had I known you were working on his guitar, I would have made a special trip down to check this out in-person!  Did he come to the shop?