This build REALLY Started in sometime around 2002-2003 actually. It really started because I was really getting into the Explorer (guitar) at the time because of James Hetfield and Rick Nielsen. I'm not a big Gibson guy, but the Explorer was one of the few guitars of theirs that fit me since day one. One prospective instrument early on in my formative years was a 1984 Gibson Explorer 58' reissue in red with a black pickguard for around $480. My only gripes are, they are all set neck, hardtail, and dual humbucker guitars. Around 2002, I started thinking "let's put a P-90 in the neck position". It's only a bonus that's what my first car...hehe...IS. The Checkerboard Hamer Nielsen had was a Nielsen thing, but white is generic enough a color, and as I'd just started driving, Oxford White is a nice color, so I'll use that.

Previously, there have been two other Explorers, Kandilynn which was a hippie sandwhich Hondo body with a Kramer Neck, and MTD which was a plywood Arbor body with a Kramer Focus neck on it. Both of those had whammies. This one is no exception.

The "original" final design was in 2004 - which was a Ford themed guitar with a bound top, white paintjob, black/red/black pickguard, and a Seymour Duncan Invader in the bridge, and a Gibson P-90 in the neck. Then I omitted the pickguard, then added it back, changed wirning ideas and vibrato choices.

The biggest difficulty I'm having right now, is locating a neck for it. I'm torn between making my own neck, and buying a prefurb chinese neck and modding it. The reason is, because I'm not sure what scale length I want to use, because the bottomless neck slot opens the door to me using ANY kind of neck with it in the 24"-25.5" Scale range. I know I want the traditional flying V headstock, but the only 24" Scale necks have Fender headstocks on them, 24.75" comes with a banana headstock, but a huge chunk of those are for glue-in necks now for some reason, and 25.5" has plenty of necks like I want, but I had intonation issues the last time I used 25.5" on this body....so not sure which I want.

The rest is pretty well hashed out. I'm thinking EMG 81 in the bridge, Sustainer system in the neck, and a Floyd Rose Licensed vibrato of some kind with a EVH D-Tuna on it. Machine heads will most likely be Kluson Revolutions since I like those a lot.

The reason I'm making such a tremendous deal about this is my Jagmaster build. See, I've been doing Scale Length conversions since high school when I converted a Harmony H804 into a 24.75" Scale Gibson-type guitar from a 25.5" scale cheapie student model, using a Harmony Les Paul Copy neck with the heel sawed shorter. When I did the Jagmaster recently, I messed up on some of the measurements and found that part of the reason I had problems with a Floyd Rose and a 24" scale, is that the Floyd Rose has a slightly longer lead-in to the bridge, and a slightly less as wide intonation adjustment compared to a regular Fender Stratocaster bridge.

I ordered the neck on 3/2/2023, it was sent from Shenzhen China via China's own version of the Postal Service. You'll be provided with a shipping# usually starting with LR. The order will usually take about 5 business days to process for international shipping, as it goes through various ports of call in China, and then customs, where then it will be put on a plane that will make multiple stops all over the world before landing in the United States. That can take up to two, three weeks in some cases. Once the item is in the United States, in my case, Los Angeles California - it will go through customs, which I'm sure they have to go over it for the Lacey act or whatever. Once it passes through, whcih can take up to two weeks, then it goes to USPS for delivery, and then e-bay won't show the tracking, you'll have to punch in the LR####### tracking number into a search engine or USPS and find out where it is. From there, it depends on what your USPS and the others along the way are like for it to arrive. So yeah, can take up to a month or a little more to get it, but it's worth it. I'd rather pay what I paid than over $100 for a neck.

Now, let's talk about the plans on this guitar for installing the neck. The neckplate this guitar will be using is this one (left). The reason is, on the right, I'm using the default Arbor neck screw holes for it, and apparnetly, now they make replacement plates for these odd sized neckplates some guitar companies used in the 80's (including Kramer). So I'm ordering this once it gets close to delivered, so that when the neck comes in, I have the plate, and now I can hang this guitar up in the shop, and I have a solid chassis to work with.

The biggest connundurm right now, is what electronics. I'm playing with some different ideas on the electronics on this one...

P-90/Crusader - this would be a neck position P-90 in the neck, and a Crusader humbucker at the bridge position. The bridge pickup would get tri-mode switching, and the neck position would get a phase switch (maybe push/pull tone).

Cheap Dual Active Pickups - - Ie, $35 set of EMG clones (81/85) - ie ZAKK WYLDE type set, and then install those and a Battery box into it. It's tempting, and would give it a smooth look I really like.

Sustainer/Hotrail/High Output Humbucker - This is tempting, one volume control, then 4 switches, two for the humbuckers, and two for the sustainer (iSUSTAINER TB-60 or a VEYSZ model to test out). This seems the most inline with my crazy wiring options.

Just like the Warlock, I had to do fret dress on this neck. This one needed it a little more than the Warlock neck did, but it turned out amazing, actually, it feels a lot like my JAg-Stang. It uses an R3 Locking nut, but not nearly as deep as the one I have on hand - needs the more traditional shallow Floyd Rose R3.

To get the Scale Length correct, it turns out the neck heel fits PERFECTLY to where the block of the heel starts matches up with where the block of the neck attachment on the body starts. It's 24.75" Scale, consistant all the way across as it should be, and should fit perfectly with a Floyd Rose installed. I ordered the Neckplate within a few days, which should fit the stock Arbor mounting holes, so no swiss-cheesing the neck pocket to screw the neck on. I did have the problem with plywood layer split this time, but I have a fix for this easily done with the neck installed.

The trickery of this conversion that lead to a really creative installation method - is the neck pickup. See. This body was originally an H+H body (2 humbuckers) ala a regular Gibson, but the neck goes into the neck pickup cavity - not an issue per neck fitment, because the neck sits in there really well, and allows me to do neck shimming without removing the strings (!!). It also makes the neck joint VERY sturdy on this body. So a cool I dea I got was to cut a trim ring, and do sort of a Cobain/Eddie type mod where a trim ring for a humbucker goes around the neck, on the top, a single coil fits PERFECTLY on the bottom, and it sort of gives this neat looking transition from the upper frets, to the pickups.

I'm still trying to decide whether to do the headstock black or white though. I might do white, I might do black, we'll see. I have white mold-resistant paint that's not gloss, that I could gloss up with some coats of clearcoat over it once the decal is installed.

Just as I was finishing up, the electronics presented an opportunity, so they have been decided now. A sustainer I put on my e-bay wishlist came up discounted to $100 ($130.00 total), so I bought it. I'm going to be trying out one of the more expensive VEYSZ indonesian sustainers with 3 modes that doubles as a neck position single coil pickup in the neck, and then putting a cheaper Invader copy called a "Crusader" in the bridge position. I'm also thinking after I figure out the nut depth I need, I'll order an actual Floyd Rose Special locking tremolo for this guitar since I like the one on the Blue Kramer, except the verdict is out on it being black or chrome yet. This pickup will get tri-mode switching. I'm thinking I might use a single volume knob and a single tone knob connected only to the neck pickup again. with the three center switches being for the sustainer and the coil split trickery for the bridge pickup. Or I may just forego the tone and put a phase switch in. So there's still some final tone-stack decisions going on.

Typically on a 2 pickup guitar like this, I like to have the tone control only on the neck pickup, and leave the bridge one wide-open with a Tri-Mode switch for the "stratty" tones. So I came up with a wiring diagram. Since I'm testing with a budgeted $100 VEYZ Sustainer pickup (which is also going into a shootout on budget Sustainer Options) - that allows me to put that together as well, so that I can compare how the two Indonesian Sustainer (iSUSTAINER vs VEYZ) manufacturers and how they add up.

This guitar's wiring features a VEYZ Sustainer single coil in the neck, and a GM Hexbucker in the bridge pickup. It features the "Tri-Mode" wiring on the bridge pickup, and the neck pickup has it's own dedicated tone control. More or less, this is to show how the VEYZ sustainer pickups are installed in the guitar. This is different from my Kramer (Where I paired an iSUSTAINER with a budget single coil in the neck), where the Sustainer driver is also a passive single coil pickup as well. The wiring will be similiar to the old "Kandilynn" design from 2001, except it has 3 switches instead of one for phase (Sustainer on/off, Mode selector, and Tri-Mode Humbucker coil-split selector), and that row will come before the tone control.

The Guitar Maniacs Humbucker in the bridge took a little bit to get fitted. The cover is flared on the bottom and it took some sanding and light chiseling to the routes wide enough to accept the pickup with it's cover in the bridge of the guitar. Looks amazing though. The reason I chose this pickup is it's only $20.00 and it fit the specs of a high-output, heavy metal humbucker pickup, which is what I wanted on this one, mostly to make sure it would drive the sustainer well as well.

Next came the VEYZ sustainer pickup, which it looks like the listing is a little mis-guided on telling us it has the "original sound of guitar with neck pickup when off" or something like that. Anyway, had to do some fabrication to get the bracket to hold it in the right spot, which included sanding the tip of the fretboard down, then chopping it about a 16th of an inch, then sanding again. It also included undoing the wire for the driver and sanding the Stratocaster-style tip forward a little bit to grant room for the driver to fit in the humbucker cavity without scraping the wires. The pickup is mounted with 2 heat-shrink tubes for springs, and then the nuts on the provided screws lock it in place where it is. I had to desolder the driver from the mode switch to send the wiring right through the cavity, which ended up being the perfect amount.

The rest was put in the cavity and the driver wired back where it was when I got it. I tried my hardest to keep the wiring clean, and simple, and it turned out. I put a 470 cap on the 500K volume, and the 500K tone attaches to the neck pickup part of the pickup selector...there may come a time where I might switch the driver out with a pickup one, but something odd is, the pickup selector seems to change the sound of the pickup and sustainer....so we'll see. I decided to jack the Gibson Speed Knobs from the grey guitar for now so that it had the right knobs on it. I may switch to some black/red speed knobs - I saw Paul Dean using those in the "Release" video - might be a cool color change, but we'll see.

Once everything was wired in and running, I decided to do the looniest thing I've done in awhile...I took a brand new low E string and held it over the pickups and neck, and then flipped on the sustainer and tried it out, and lo and behold, I did everything right, it worked. The string got pulled on the pickup....and yeah, I'm going to have to keep a loose string for this kind of recording noises stuff now, because the effects of using a totally loose guitar string on a sustainer sounds awesome....almost like someone getting fried against an electric fence from the perspective of the Jolly Green Giant, LOL. Also cool is the blue LED lights up in the back of the guitar.

I still need to work out, due to the layout, how I'm going to put cavity covers on the back. I got an idea to retain the sustainer board using the cavity cover to latch it in place.

On Friday the Musiclily Floyds came in, and I installed it on this guitar. I think I might be able to cram things really low on this one without much change. I DID need to do some modification and shimming of the neck in the end though, because while the R3 locking nut was the right width, the shelf was a little too shallow. So I modified the shelf by removing all of the rosewood part of it - which seemed to have the depth of an R2 locking nut. It might be TOO deep...but we shall see, I'm going to be doing the last bits of fretwork once it has strings on it to get everything perfect action/intonation/string height wise. That said, intonation is roughed out already. I do find I may have to put a bigger block in it (45mm?) since this is a Floyd II mounted like a OFR. I'm going to give the Musiclily parts a chance, but if I don't like it, I might flat-mount this Floyd Rose to one of the Mustang builds, and then put a Floyd Rose Special on this guitar like the blue Kramer has.

Painted the headstock. I used some new Behr spraypaint, I'm not sure I like it as much as I like the other stuff I've been using. Did not result in as good a final result off the bat. It's good enough for this guitar, but it's still a bit...uh....lackluster compared to my other attempts with say, Rustoleum or Krylon. It started soaking into the wood of the neck. On this one, I managed to sand it off, but on the Warlock, if this looks too eyesore-ish I might end up staining the back of the neck black.

Rear coverplates are installed, for now they're remain clear. The trickiest one was for the control cavity, because I needed to make a slot and a lifted section for the Sustainer Board - so that's what eth slot is. I'll be adding an end-cap to it eventually to make sure it closes off like it should, and to protect the board. The others were a piece of cake, score, break, trace the shape over on the lexan, then grind down using the drum sander to the shape I wanted.

Now we just wait for the tuners to come in, and once those are in, we can string it up for the first time, and start the "debugging" phase of the build process - ie, making sure the electronics work the way we want. I finally did test on the VEYZ and found out it's a 10 Ohm driver, no pickup, so this is a bridge-pickup only guitar....however, after watching some YouTube videos on how Lace Alumitones work...has me wondering if I can use this whole mini Transformer thing to make a really stealth picku eventually. That said, it seems the pickup selector changes some things about the tone of the pickup still...so we shall see.

I had to re-mill the neck for the locking nut a little bit to get it low enough, since Floyd Rose R3 locking nuts are pretty darned tall. Turns out it fits darn near perfect right off the bat, but I did need to shim it a little bit. Surprisingly, the action was rather low even with the nut a hair too low, so that's a good sign.

Some mild shimming was done because the Floyd Rose II style tremolo sits a hair too high. when decked. I'm thinking this won't be the final tremolo, I might be upgrading it to a Floyd Rose Special like the Blue Kramer has, and that setup might float a little bit. That said, it stays in tune, and dive bombs great. The whammy bar sits kind of high too but I think I have a spare sitting in the garage that's a little lower.

One funny thing is the Yinfente neck...apparently China is REALLY stepping up their neck game, massively. I know $1500 Fenders that don't even have a bi-directional Truss Rod! Yes, so the first week I had it playing, I was trying to figure out why the action was still so high...turns out, I had too much up-bow.....and turned the nut the other way (lefty-loosey, righty tighty), flattened out the fretboard, now the action is around 2mm at the 12th fret - only My Hondo Paul Dean II is that low! It also improved the tone massively, and it has a nice bite to it.

The only issue I'm having right now, with the neck, is the 3rd fret needs a small spot level as it's not letting the 2nd fret ring out, but I MIGHT do a full level though, once I get some tools for it (going to need those for the Fret work on the PDX-90 guitar).

As for controls...here's how those work. I have been thinking about adding another pickup to this, but now I'm having second thoughts. The master volume control has a code 471 capacitor for Treble Bypass, which works AMAZING, and I have a nice cut as it cleans up the 15K Ohm humbucker, to the point the cleans are almost Tele/Jazzmaster-like.

The tone control is inactive except on the middle and neck settings, as it was originally intended for a neck pickup, but this had an amazing, but strange unexpected effect - the capacitance allows me to wrangle even MORE sounds out of that one Guitar Madness humbucker, lol. Also, it has some effects on the Sustainer too.

Now I'm going to kinda' reiterate a bit about the VEYZ Sustainer unit here - same as my Sustainer Page says.

The VEYZ unit is a THREE mode unit like a Sustainiac, except it does not come with a built-in pickup like the Sustainiac Stealh units, or the Fernandez unit. Instead, the clever people at VEYZ decided to make that 3-way selector switch useful for something - Mixed Mode is where the neck pickup connects. On their pickup/driver combos, the neck pickup and driver modes are switched in/out by the power/sustainer on/off switch. On the driver only version, the neck pickup feed (purple wire) is still needed to enable the "Mixed Mode". So on the bridge pickup alone, you get the fundimental and harmonic modes, and then mixed mode is the neck pickup selection.

On this guitar, this setup works especially well, because the muffled/capacitance added by the sustainer and the tone control really causes some cool stuff to happen. Synthy square wave tones even....on the BRIDGE pickup. It even kinda' emulates a neck pickup, which is surprising. Even without the switch on in that setup...it still manages to get a variety of sounds out of that one pickup with my heavy treble bypass and my tone control.

Getting the preamp board biased correctly was tricky, as the gain pot has a breakover-point a little under halfway where it starts feeding back heavily, and this is complexified further by the fact that the amp VEYZ gives you is VERY strong, and will start activating strings heavily BEFORE you get to that point, causing you to think it's feeding back badly when it's really your G-string going ballistic. When the G-string is going ballistic...that's about the sweet spot, and then every mode comes massively alive.

Another cool thing is the amp adds a bit of a "notch" filter of sorts to the sound, giving it almost that hollow-esque "Paul Dean Tone" I really like - yeah, I set out to build a Floyded out Sustainer Explorer, and now some Dean Machine DNA is seeping in. Well, I'm not complaining that much is for sure. So turning the sustainer on can also be used as a tone alteration as well.