Pitbull guitar

[RJ4121]

I am currently looking at a custom Pitbull acoustic guitar model ES-3 or ES-5V. As a beginner not sure if I have the right parts. On the ES-3 I chose a maple bolt on neck, pre drilled inline 6, with mahogany body and rosewood fret board. Just not sure if this is a great combination? On the ES-5V I chose a 3 and 3 maple neck, bolt on and with mahogany body. Not sure if bolt on or glue in neck is the way to go? Also looking at aniline powdered water based stain? Any and all help would be appreciated

[Sam Spoons]

That style of guitar would usually have a set neck not a bolt on so if it was me I'd go set neck on either. Maple necks are tougher than mahogany so that is probably a good choice (even if it deviates from the 'Gibson' norm*) but those kind of guitars are usually designed to sound 'woody' or mellow so a rosewood fingerboard is usual.

Can't help with the build advice though but, hopefully, blinddrew, Wonks or Zenguitar will be along shortly.

* I had an ES175/L5 clone built by a luthier friend a few years ago, we chose a maple neck as the design of the Gibson style neck leaves a weak point behind the nut.

[S2]

Hi

I recently built a Pitbull Guitar (not an acoustic, but a P Bass) and there is a world of information on the Pitbull Forums at https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au/

I learnt a lot from there and if you start a Build Diary (I did) then there are always people to assist. Wonks is a mine of knowledge on there, as well as many others.

I found that whatever you want to do, by and large someone will have done it before so you can learn from it.

[Drew Stephenson]

I built an ES-5V a couple of years ago. Glue in neck is definitely the norm there and i think a bolt on would look very unusual.
I didn't use a stain on that one but i'm using a Rothko and Frost water-based stain on my current build and that's taking nicely (though I have had some hiccups along the way).

If it helps, here's the link for my build diary for the ES-5V:
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au/fo ... php?t=8546
And here's the link for the current (stained) build:
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au/fo ... hp?t=10229

[Wonks]

There is no standard bolt-on neck option for the ES-3. It comes with a set neck and that’s it. Just because you can also buy a Fender-style bolt-on neck from the web store doesn’t mean that it will fit every guitar kit they sell. They’ll only fit their ST and TL style kits, or other similar style guitar bodies with the correct neck pocket width.

The depth of the ES3 body means that it is totally unsuitable for a bolt-on neck, so even if you try and custom order one, I doubt if they’d say yes.

I’d stick with the standard basswood ply body. It’s a decent kit with a nice grained external veneer.

The factory did once make a few mahogany ply bodied ones, but they would now be a custom order.

My current and very long-term ES-3 build.

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au/f ... php?t=6489