. Her bass was named Amberhart Dreamstarter so I [sort of] made Amberhart as the guitar name itself. I am [sort of, as well, but this one's too sentimental] planning to sell the next ones we make, provided that school doesn't stop us.
The neck is made from some wood which I never really bothered to remember. Since I was careless with the handsaw, it turned into a Telecaster neck for the Strat-like body [is this blasphemous?] and I based the inlays of the neck from my sister's bass with a few adjustments and extras.
Chopped the body with a handsaw [I'm cheap. Hate me] from a cherry [don't hate, it's the nearest one in the yard]. Asked some cousin's friend's friend to rout it, and fortunately he made it an S S H [I was going to rerout and make it SHH by /stealing/ my Ibanez' humbuckers to replace the melted single-coil] but alas, I was too lazy to cut the holes for the humbuckers on the pickguard. I canvassed the local shops if they had the overdrive DiMarzio singlecoils with no luck [hell, I've been through almost every guitar shop in Manila and still can't find any].
Before I finished this [just today] we did some cleaning [few weeks ago] and found some old CPUs and their precious hard-drives, which I took apart and found them quite steampunk. THERE I SAID THE WORD. STEAMPUNK, THAT'S THE THEME. I carved away depressions and holes to expose the inner 'engine' of the guitar, and to add a reactor which I haven't figured out how to turn on without removing the soon-to-be-brass plate at the back. There's a seemingly-immortal clock near the upper strap-lock with extra brass piping, chemical tubes [they're fuses, actually] and some screws. Along with those is a hygro/thermometer which I realized is somewhat handy.
Here comes the pickguard and its story: It's a prewired pickguard from a local guitar store and I carved it to look somewhat like a wing-thing, then the claw-like holes with a drill and a really hot 2mm tube file. The horrible thing in the middle? It's a melted pickup. I was experimenting on the pickup covers by pouring melted rosin [for a violin bow, it's smelly when melted but it looks cool when you have a mold for it] but made a mistake by trying to melt it off the middle pickup cover. The middle pickup cover was different from the other two, which made me want an SHH [see top]. I reheated it once again and eventually hammering it into the pickup, making it mold onto it. Once it was almost there I did the stupid: put the pickup and cover over flame. I thought I screwed it up but after the rewiring... [suspense!]
What really makes this sentimental to me is the fact that I worked on it starting March 21, 2014, did some hiatus for the whole April, and I managed to finish it May 31, 40 days of work, almost 85% handmade and I am actually trying to make a custom, 2-guitar case for this custom guitar.
By the way, the melted pickup? It [miraculously] got distorted. I know many of you may call it b.s, but it honestly got distorted. Just the distortion I need for the upcoming music club auditions. Seriously though, I'm not sure if it's the weird solder I made to rewire it, or really the heating of the pickup, but guys, please, don't burn your pickups. [Yeah, yeah, I checked the amp and I'm pretty sure the gain is really low, boost off, and purely volume.]
Sorry for the long story, here's what I made: Amberhart Heartwaker.
-yeah, my sister's 14 as well, twins ftw.-
