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!

So anyway, short short version:  my buddy Deral wanted a bass, asked me about it, and I set to making it. Things were discussed, then specs got changed…you know the drill. First it was a 4-string, now it’s a 5-string, that kinda thing. This one is my Thump design…assuming that’s the name I stick with. Tried a few on, but I think I like this one. We’ll see. Specs:

• Thump body shape, 5-string
• Alder body, curly maple neck, rosewood fretboard.
• Solid white finish, black hardware
• Bartolini J pickups, Bartolini preamp running at 9v

This one’s almost ready for paint.  All routing is done, just have to caress the shape in a place or two and do finish sanding. VERY excited to get this one done. Here’s a few pics of the body. More will be on the way. Thanks for looking!

Really interesting project. Andrew’s a fan of all things vintage and/or old-time-y , so he decided to enlarge an F-style mandolin into guitar form. Seen the headstocks on those things??! Really big relative to the body.  The final design of the headstock ended up a bit over 9 inches long(!).

But! It’s turning out to be a cool project. Andrew chose a nice piece of Bolivian rosewood for the neck, and I scored a killer cocobolo fretboard for this neck. We’re also going to use a bit of the catalpa wood he cut the body out of for a headstock veneer to tie the piece together.

Got the fretboard radiused yesterday, and should have it polished today, along with two other necks I’m doing batch-style.  Here’s some pics in the meantime. Have a great week!

But! On to new and happier days, in which I started working on a new ‘my guitar’.  I love my new Junia singlecut design, so started with one of those. This one is gonna be a doozy.  The specs:

•  Swamp ash body with a “dragonburst” finish
• Zebrawood pickguard
• locally grown cherry neck, glued in; ziricote fretboard, 22 frets. No dots on the front…this ziricote is gorgeous.
• Super-Vee Bladerunner tremolo
• Electronics: this is where things get fun. I’m going to try something kooky. I want an entire LP-style 2 humbuckers/3-way AND an S-style 3 single coils/5-way switch in the same guitar. It’s involved some careful planning, but I’ve got it straightened out. Going to have Dimarzio Tone Zone and Air Norton for the single coil-sized humbuckers, and most likely Dimarzio Area pickups for the single coil circuit. 2 volumes, a Stellartone Tonestyler for the single coils, 5-way switch, mini 3-way switch, and a small DPDT switch to control which set is active. Lastly, a kill switch. I’m trying to get this as uncluttered as possible, given all the stuff I have to work with.

Here is a pictorial history of my work so far on it, ending  with pics from yesterday’s progress.  Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for looking!

Finished up Alec’s Revelator last week, and took a week to let the wood settle, etc. Field tested it at church last weekend with great results. So great, in fact, that in my traditional fashion, I was loathe to give it to its owner. I’d grown attached. But, right is right, and I couldn’t with a good conscience off him for a guitar. Therefore, he picked it up yesterday, and from what he tells me, is one happy camper. However! Before I got it to him, I decided to shoot some video of the guitar and its many sweet tones. While I was doing that, I asked Rick if he’d be so kind to let me borrow his Protos for a day or two and let me take pics and videos of it, as well. Being the pal that he is, he acquiesced. Being the joker that he is, he gave it to me directly after a gig, sweat and all. Woo to the hoo for cleaning off someone else’s sweat. But anyway, here are the videos. Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading/watching.    

How’s your day going? Mine was made much, much better a little while ago.

Started out kinda cruddy, as it started way too early….by my standards, anyway. I usually work pretty late, so I don’t beat down the door to the shop in the AM. Today, however, found myself in the shop a bit after 7 this morning. Among doing other things that I’ll blog about soonly, I was debating what to do with the bubinga/limba Protos. If you recall from previous posts, I’m going for the most un-”F” version of this guitar possible. Add to that the fact that the body was quite heavy, and I was debating ways to lighten the load,so to speak.

So, a brief look back to the day: In the shop 7-12:30, when I had to leave to go teach. Was supposed to teach til 5:30, but my last 3 students didn’t show up, and only one called to let me know. So I was waiting around with nothing to do for an hour and a half. I was getting frustrated, cuz for one reason, I HATE no-call/no-shows. Also, I have a crap ton of stuff to do this week, and waiting around unable to do anything drove me nuts. So….left work in a bad mood, going back to the shop. Okay…back to the shop talk now.

In a fit of inspiration, I decided to try my first carved top. That’ll take the weight off! So, drew lines around the body, like this:

Started routing the outermost circle out at a depth of 5/8″, and gradually routed “steps” in the wood, each one more shallow than the last. Here’s the next step routed:

And the third step routed:

Once all the steps were routed, leaving the bridge/pickup area flat, I took out the angle grinder and went to work smoothing out the steps. Funnily, this was the best stress relief I could’ve asked for! Don’t know what it was about it, but using a roaring, powerful tool to turn strange-looking steps into a (mostly) smooth surface just eased my mind and relaxed me almost instantly. I don’t have it sanded smooth yet, but it’s still satisfying. Here are the results:

Looking forward to getting more done on this one! Any thoughts on it so far? Thanks for reading!

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend and musical artist extraordinaire Caleb Lovely called me about a little project he had in mind. He’d just bought a new, fatter neck for his Strat and had his old, perfectly good neck hanging around doing nothing. He found a Tele body he wanted, and asked me if I’d help him put it together once he got all the hardware in. Long story short, I agreed, and last Saturday, I met him at CRC about an hour and a half before he needed to be on stage for rehearsal. I did my best to set the land speed record for fastest guitar wiring/assembly ever. Caleb just shot a short video of the results,and here it is for your viewing pleasure.

BTW…go listen to him NOW. Amazing stuff. YouTube, iTunes…he’s everywhere.

Man. This one has been through the ringer!

A million hours, one jacked up neck, another neck that I only thought was jacked up, and here we are. Whew. Just some nut finishing, electronics adjusting and setup to do and then we’re into the break-in period. W00t!

Strung it up about an hour ago, tuned, and have been playing it a good bit since. The nut is still roughed in, so that’ll need fixed, but it plays really well, even before setup. Good sustain. Snappy, loud acoustic tone. Lightweight, well-balanced.

I’ll be recording it at some point in the next few days, once I get it dialed in. A reminder of the specs:

• Swamp ash body, (very) spalted maple top, blackburst finish
• Walnut neck with spalted maple headstock overlay, cocobolo fretboard. 22 big frets. Bone nut.
• Seymour Duncan JB/Jazz pickup set. 2 volume controls, 2 coil splitter switches.
• Floating 2-post tremolo
• Black hardware
• Planet Waves locking tuners

On to some pics! *DISCLAIMERS* Couple things to take into account while viewing these. First off, this guitar is NOT intended to be picture-perfect. There are imperfections in the wood here and there…mostly the spalted maple. There is nothing that adversely affects the construction or sound. This piece, overall, is meant to have a ‘diamond in the rough’ motif, in tribute to its owner. Also, you’ll notice in the headstock pics that one tuner has a chrome washer/nut on it.  This will be rectified soon…one of each was missing when I opened the tuners.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this one. So….comment! Thanks for reading!