Why do a Variax Transplant?
The owner of this Variax is a recording musician who values the Variax for the wide range of guitar sounds that it can produce. He was however frustrated by the feel of the guitar itself. His favourite guitar to play is a Nash Telecaster from US custom builder Bill Nash, so we decided to replicate the feel of the Nash but with the sounds of the Variax.
I can fit Variax electronics into almost any guitar, including Les Paul style.
Please note that I cannot source Variax electronics. The only way to get them is free with every Variax guitar.
What neck and body were used?
The body is from a Wolf Telecaster copy. This was chosen for a number of reasons:
- It is made from basswood the same as a Variax so it should preserve the tonal properties
- The control, bridge and pickup configuration were similar to a Variax so made transfer easier
- It had a full-depth 45mm body so there was enough room
- It was ready-finished so no lengthy and expensive finishing was required
- The curly maple veneer on the front is reasonably attractive!
The neck is an AllParts fat back profile, finished in amber nitrocellulose. It has the same profile as the Nash that we're trying to mimic. I fitted Sperzel tuners for rock solid tuning accuracy.
How much routing is required?
As you can imagine there was quite a large amount of wood to rout out of the
back of the body. Routing the body is quite a complex operation and it's best
to use a set of templates. Routing the body can take the best part of a day,
much of which is planning! The area at the top of the picture is for the battery box and below that an area
for the Variax circuit board and the controls. The top of the body is also routed
for the piezo pickup and its ribbon cable. You can still see a lot of sawdust on the surface.
It is important to apply a carbon-based shielding paint to the electronics
cavity as the active circuitry in a Variax is quite sensitive
to interference. The cavity in this particular guitar is not standard Variax-shaped as the back of
this guitar was already routed for its controls at the back. I therefore made a specially-shaped cover plate to
fit.
The Variax battery box has now been fitted.You can see the custom cover plate that I made.
I have also shielded the back of it with self-adhesive copper foil to complete the shielding process.
This picture shows all the Variax electronics fitted into the Telecaster body. As you can see there are a
lot of wires to route around the cavity.
Here is the completed guitar, fully reassembled and strung. I was pleasantly surprised when on this particular guitar, the intonation needed no adjustment!
And how does this Variax transplant sound?
"Hi Steve, the new vari-tele is great! Despite what everybody says about the Variax sounding the same no matter what body and neck you use, my Variax now sounds more beefy. The Les Pauls and Specials sound particularly good, even the Resonators sound better, the only adverse effect is the Strat and Tele they have lost a little of their high end, but they still sound very good. The jazz boxes sound incredibly authentic!"
John 5 Telecaster
Here is another conversion. This one is a Variax 300 into a Fender John 5 Telecaster. It's a hybrid
system and the output is switchable between the Variax and the magnetic pickups using the mini switch on the
control plate.
It was a very tricky job and not one that I care to repeat. It's interesting to note that the Variax simulation of a Telecaster was virtually identical to the real thing!