The new neck is Indian Rosewood. It is a fat D shape with a macassar ebony fretboard, abalone side dots, and zebrawood logo/headstock “wings”. A few progress pics:

Here’s a video of it in action. Check out the tasty stylings of my student, Josh Martinez, and his sweet new Agape neck. Thanks!

I built this one for my friend Ben a few years ago, and I’m lending a hand in helping him sell it. The original rosewood neck developed a severe twist after a year or so, so I built a brand new neck for it a couple of months ago. Ben has this to say about this 4-string Protos bass:

“The bass can produce a really versatile array of tones due to the Bartolini 5.1 9V preamp and Bartolini humbucker/J pickup configuration. A three band EQ with a parametric push/pull mid ensure that you can dial in any tone from an aggressive, Musicman style growl to a wide, fat P bass impression. The finish on the neck is smooth as silk and the spalted maple top is a real eye catcher. The Hipshot Ultralight high-ratio open gear tuners help prevent neck dive and the D-tuner on the low E string makes moving to alternate tunings a snap. I used this bass in contemporary worship, country and studio projects all with great results. The only reason I’m parting with this beauty is that my current touring gig requires a different vibe and I could use some other equipment that better suits a recording rig that I’m building.”

The specs:

Swamp ash body w/ spalted maple top;

flamed maple neck with coal dust and oil finish, cocobolo fretboard and backstrap, abalone fret markers; bone nut;

Bartolini humbucker and J-Style pickups; Bartolini 5.1 preamp;

black hardware;

Hipshot Transtone bridge, Ultralite tuners and X-tender

Some pictures, then the original demo video:

And the original demo video:

Let me know if you’re interested. Thanks for looking!

Really happy with the playability. Super-low action, nice thin neck (although I personally prefer big, chubby necks). The sheer amount of tones available is insane, also. 3 Guitar Logistics Diablo humbuckers with separate volume, tone, and on-off-parallel switch= sounds amazing AND super flexible. Here’s the demo:

Check it, yo. Thanks!

This one was finished back in November, and we just got around to shooting a demo. It turned out great…Andrew did a fantastic job with the body! I built the neck, and helped with wiring/setup/hardware selection. Check the video out here:

Specs:

Catalpa body/headstock veneer
Indian rosewood neck, cocobolo fretboard, abalone side dots
Hipshot Baby Grand bridge
Lollar Vintage T bridge, Lollar Low Wind Imperial neck pickup
Custom knobs/switch tip by THG Knobs

Let me and Andrew know what you think!

.

  Nope. Haven’t posted for over a year. 

  Yep. I suck. 

I am NOT good at keeping this blog updated, obviously. 

So, the cliff notes of what’s been happening since last we met: 

We moved.

My shop is now bigger, but not as big as I’d like, still.

I have finished some of the stuff I was working on in earlier pages, and some I am in the process of finishing up. 

My lack of faster progress is due to, in no particular order: me learning on the job several things I’d never done before; me being a slow learner; me having three other jobs that occupy my time, therefore having limited time to work on guitars; me being a husband and father to my lovely wife and my two sons, one of which is special needs; me needing downtime once in a while.

All that being said, I’ve learned a lot, and am now nearing the finish line on dang near everything left in my shop. I also have some interesting ideas I’ll start working on as soon as this batch of seven instruments is delivered to their respective owners.

The big thing I have learned? Don’t take too much on at one time. People (rightfully) get impatient, deadlines can get missed, my stress level goes through the roof. So….

Going forward, I’m going to work on roughly two instruments at a time. This will save me (and you, dear clients) stress. 

In the meantime, until I get pics and posts up here, you can find more up-to-date stuff on my Facebook page, or you can find me on Instagram, username agapeguitars. Thanks so much!

          Rich

This particular blog post brings news about a particular guitar. Got some work done on Jason’s guitar, placeholder name Apollyon. Placeholder because I like the name, but not sure it belongs on this guitar. ‘Kay? Moving on.

After a tragic misunderstanding about the neck which cost me quite a bit of time, progress moves forward! *Okay, long story short less long- I was making a scarf jointed neck, as usual, not realizing that the notes I took from our meeting on specs meant not just a Strat-like neck carve, but the Strat-like flat neck as well. Feh. For what it’s worth, that particular piece of rosewood was giving me fits anyway, so it ended up working out nicely.*

The neck is packing a truss rod, fingerboard is glued on, and the neck is rough cut to shape. Final headstock shape will be done by hand, cuz the pointy bits would become the router’s lunch if I let it near them. Will be installing dots within the next few days, as well as routing the neck pocket. This will be a set neck, and will have quite the long tenon to go with it. Yay for neck stability!

Jason was nice enough to come over to the shop last night, and we took a good while doing mockups, discussing placements, carves, and crazy ideas (all his, I’d like to point out). Also a 25th fret, for no apparent reason other than you don’t see those, like, ever. Think this build is gonna turn out fuh-REAKY cool.

Here’s some pics to add evidence to the above claims. Have a fantastic day! Leave fantastic comments in which you say fantastic things! Etc. !  Thanks.

Here’s a quick update on the Junia I’m building for me. I took a couple days in the shop recently to get some work done on it, and it’s coming together nicely. Since the last post on it, much has been done to the pickguard and the neck. The pickguard has had all 5(!) pickup routes done and controls laid out. Wire holes are drilled on the body. Got a good bunch of the neck carve done, and the frets are in and beveled. Just glued up a veneer for the headstock…it’ll be getting the same burst as the body. Can. Not. WAIT to play this one! *evil giggle* Thanks for checking it out!

So, since we last saw Andrew’s neck for his crazy mandolin-shaped guitar, it was getting its fingerboard radiused. It’s now polished, fretted, carved and capped (Hmmm…almost sounds like a Waffle House order)! I put a catalpa headstock veneer on last week, and started the carve today. Andrew came over to check the carve, and how the neck fit to the body. We ended up with him routing his neck pocket, with some help from my templates. It’s looking pretty good! Just have to finalize the headstock carves, as well as the neck carve, then we’ll be leveling/crowning the frets and away it goes! Thanks for checking it out!