Drastic rebuild from semi-electric piezo Ministar guitar to full-electric alnico-based Ministrat guitar

I had to use mini pots due to size restrictions

and need some work at the oscillating grinder

trying fitment of the ministar neck with the neck’s cutoff

the neck and the rough cutoff on the bandsaw., Later I routed the neck to fit the body’s neckpocket at 19.2mm thickness (height)

the 2 jigs I made to level the neck at fret 12 and fret7 while cutting the fitment of the neck in the body’s neck pocket to 19.2mm…

first fitting the ministar’s neck on the reworked stat body

had to finally build me a proper router table for the neck and for the body edges

both sides of the body has been rounded. I first made the body side curves smooth with my oscillating tube sander, forgot to make any pictures, though

the neck has been mounted semi-fixed with screws and a couple of drops superglue. Left the detachable extender is shown that will be mounted to the body with some screws if it is in use. The extender/attachment is made from the body’s offcut. First, I put 3 layers of wood impregnant sealer on the wood.

the mini body only weighs 480 grams. Later I removed some more flesh between the pickups, so I can slide the loaded pickup guard under the fretboard a bit easier.

the finished guitar body and mounted neck with loaded pickguard, and the bridge. Nothing is fixed yet but all has been made to fit and to be mounted at the appropriate positions. I am making the body and extension piece bronze with shellac. This takes some time and I do take my time here.

After the 3 layers of sealant were dry, I sanded with 180 grit and started the 3 bronze tinted shellac layers. Final 2 layers I put on a bit thicker transparant shellac.

Drilled the holes, made recess pockets and mounted 2 M6 threaded inserts for the through-bolts of the add-on sidepiece. Still not decided wether I will use bolts with a fly head or leave it as is, with the allen key bolt heads

I put copper shielding foil in as well in the wood cavities as under the pickquard, before mounting the electronics

glued the nut back to the adjustable steel holder plate

2 springs are enough for the tremelo, I also grounded the spring’s end holder

Flat on the table, still without any strings. The jack output is placed in the round curved wood at the right, near the right sound potmeter

Shown with the attachment mounted at at the left. When placing the strings, I also adjusted the nut- and bridge height to 1.7m mm string height vs top of fret 12. And- also adjusted the bridge strings length for correct intonation. Apparantly I measured everything correctly and the neck is mounted at the correct position.

And just as the ministrat, no attachment needed? Still looking for a case or bag that can hold the guitar and the separate attachment. The required inside size is 25 cm wide, 7 cm high and 85 cm long…

TODO?

I still want to change out the creme colored pickup covers with the gold colored I had ordered. And I might clean the neck a bit better from the leftover residues of glue and tape. I had problems with the thinnest string when mounting this. It just snapped when winding it. And I do know you need to do this in stages, first a bit of tension, wait some minutes and then, in 2 or 3 steps go to the final required tension. So I forgot to do that and I had to scavange (again) a fres set of medium strength strings for just the replacement. Meanwhile, I ordered me a 10-pack of cheap 0.009 inch strings to carry on the activities…

Next, I will build me a very light guitar case for the ministrat. I have some lightweight 5mm wood lying around that I will use and I have enough upholstering stuff available, that are actually leftovers from the Citroën DS’s upholtery work I did some time ago. I will make this case to snugly fit both the guitar and the extension piece, as example I thought of something like this:

NECK’s ORIGIN

For reference, the ministar portable guitar I had once bought (in 2022 ?) had a piëzo element placed under the plastic bridge and needed an internal amplifier to get some sort of usable volume output. And that required a battery in the guitar’s lower hollow foot. I never really used this guitar, due to the fact that it came with steel attachment rods that are very heavy and didn’t give me a kind of guitar feeling.. And it was bulky/heavy underway. The ministar model I have used as neck donor to make my new ministrat was similar to this model: