Baritone Fireman

[adamg67]

This place has given me GAS...

I mentioned this in the Your Signature Model topic but it's turned from a silly idea into a real project! I've been looking at Ibanez Iceman & Fireman guitars for a while now, wanting one but knowing it wouldn't get used much, and anyway I'm meant to be trying to keep the total number of guitars down, for space reasons as well as money. But, I do have an Ibanez RGIB6 which I like and use every now and then, it's different enough to keep hold of with the longer scale, the low B string and the EMG pickups (which are surprisingly good for a clean sound). It's just got an RG body, nice enough but nothing special, so the idea came to me to get an Iceman or Firman body made for it. It'll have to be custom made because although you can get the bodies everything is in the wrong place for the 28" scale. I've found (via Basschat's recommended Luthiers page) a good luthier who's up for doing it, and liked the sound of it as a "bit of fun" project: http://jimfleetingguitars.com/ so the guitar is going over there next week! It's a crazy project really, the guitar cost about £300 on ebay and I doubt it will be worth much more when all the money is spent, but I'll have something unique that I really like.

This is what I'm starting out with:

and this is what the finished article will look like:

It probably will have the scalloped edge (and back). That pic was done with the actual body shape that I've put together - I scaled the picture of the neck up to it's actual size (ins software) so I could do the body shape exactly right, and I'll do a trial paper fit to make sure. It's just slightly scaled up from the standard Fireman to suit the wider neck and longer scale. The finished guitar will be a bit longer than the original but that's fine. The look I'm going for is as if it was factory made like that, which might seem an odd thing to do with a custom body but it will suit that guitar.

It'll be a while before it's done but it's not something I use every day anyway. Not everyone's cup of tea I know, but I can't wait.

 

[Andyjr1515]

Look forward to seeing this one progress!

[adamg67]

Dropped this off with Jim this morning - top bloke, knows his stuff - after tweaking the shape around the neck pocket to fit the existing neck and pocket. It will have a slab body with the white binding, and the final big change is the addition of a Fireman shaped scratchplate, which will sort out the problem of lack of pickup height adjustment as well as looking cool as.

I might do a mockup with the scratchplate on just to help keep me going while it's done, but it will be like this one but with white on black: Google Image Link

[adamg67]

So, this is the final mock up, I've dropped the binding now that it has the scratchplate and that means it can have the "comfort carve" back as well. For me, it's a good bit nicer than the one with the binding and no scratchplate. It has a sort of vintage-but-modern look.

[EliasMooseblaster]

On 13/10/2018 at 12:23, adamg67 said:

...the low B string and the EMG pickups (which are surprisingly good for a clean sound).

Daft question alert: do manufacturers make/recommend specialised pickups for baris? Or are they regular guitar pickups?

[adamg67]

2 hours ago, EliasMooseblaster said:

Daft question alert: do manufacturers make/recommend specialised pickups for baris? Or are they regular guitar pickups?

Sounds like a pretty good question to me. 

The RGIB6 has EMG 60 and 81 active pups, which are a fairly classic guitar pairing I believe, so "regular" guitar pickups on this one.

[EliasMooseblaster]

On 22/10/2018 at 15:56, adamg67 said:

Sounds like a pretty good question to me. 

The RGIB6 has EMG 60 and 81 active pups, which are a fairly classic guitar pairing I believe, so "regular" guitar pickups on this one.

The question popped into to my head as I was once advise against buying a Bass VI to adapt to a Baritone, because the pickups are (unsurprisingly) tuned for bass frequencies, so I would have struggled to get the sound I was after. So I assumed that Baris probably used "regular" guitar pickups, but then started to wonder whether there was any market for a pickup that favoured that "in-between" range!

[MWH]

Well, I have a Musicman silhouette bass V1, which came with both baritone and bass strings, currently  on bass flatwounds  tuned E to E, same pups. 30 inch scale like the Squier which I also had for a while,  the difference between the two  instruments  is astounding 

[adamg67]

I've also use a Bass VI as a (slightly low) baritone, I had 2 Ibanez SRC-6s before I got the RGIB6, one strung E to E with LaBella Bass VI flatwounds (sounds absolutely ****ing awesome) and one strung A to A, can't remember what strings I used to do that though, I think the bottom 5 were the top 5 Bass VI strings and I figured out a single string for the highest one. The pickups on the SRC6 worked fine for that but they are EMG again (EMG 30Hz). From reading up before I got the SRC6 there are much better Bass VI style guitars around than the Fenders, so I can see why someone would advise against using a Fender Bass VI as a baritone.

[MWH]

I sold my Squier V1 after I bought the Silhouette Six, I don't think the silhouette  gets as deep as the squier, but it feels like half the weight,  certainly  smaller, and have often wondered what the pups were designed for.  As it's a guitar a complete  octave down now I guess  it doesn't need to replace the bass player as such.