This guitar started out with a very simple thought. To make an updated version of a guitar I built back in high school. It was my senior year and it was the second guitar that I had built. It had an alder body, a pre-made maple neck with an ebony fingerboard from Stew-Mac and a slew of humbuckers. Actually, it was the first prototype that was to become my “S” model; though at the time I did not realize that was to be the case.
Fast forward 13 years later; I’m in my shop with a bunch of hardware, wood and a decision to make; what am I to build? The idea to make an updated version of that high school guitar was the easy part. I already had the alder body cut out, a nice bit of maple laying around and a Stew-Mac ebony fingerboard that had been following me around for way too long. The idea was also to keep things simple and not to do anything new. But that lasted for about 30 seconds before my brain went and said, “What if you do this? And what about that?” And so my journey from simple and, well lets face it, easy, took a turn into the relative unknown.
The high school version of the guitar had a bolt on neck, so that was the intent for this guitar. What my brain wanted to know is, “What if I continued my neck further into the guitar like I would with one of my glued in neck joints?”
So began the journey of drawing side profile views of the neck and the neck pocket to see whether or not the neck could be extended underneath the neck pickup without getting in the way of the pickup itself. Nor, obviously, could the bolts themselves get in the way of the pickup. Another fun aspect to the equation was the fact that the guitar’s body had already been sanded down to an inch and a half which I deemed necessary at some point in the past, leaving me with not a lot of breathing room.
A few sharpenings of the pencil later, I had my drawing. Everything looked good. I would be able to put three bolt inserts into the extension of the neck that goes under the neck humbucker and three bolt inserts underneath the fretboard, into the main mass of the neck. As long as I ground down the three bolts that go into the neck extension, they wouldn’t get in the way of the neck pickup. I was a little worried that the short length of the bolts might pose an issue, but I had to try for the sake of, well, for the sake of finding out if it’ll work! I am glad to say it worked just fine.
The other thing I wanted to try with this guitar was to see if I could install a Strat style input jack plate on the butt end of the guitar. Because the butt end is curved I came to the conclusion that the jack plate must be inlayed into the guitar; otherwise it would just look damn funny. A couple thoughts and jigs later I got it to fit quite nicely. I think it looks really neat but at the same time it was a lot of work for something that a standard L.P. jack plate could have taken care of. Although that wasn’t really the point.
What that did lead me to realize is that I am thoroughly tired of Strat, L.P. and “football” style jack plates and that they bore me to no end and I need to find out how to start making my own. Whether they be made of metal, wood or tofu, it really needs to happen. But that will have to wait till another post.
The other features of the guitar are as follows…
Seymour Duncan P Rails pickups
Schaller roller bridge
Schaller fine tuning tailpiece (I ended up liking this tailpiece a lot more than I thought I would. Those little fine tuners do a really good job. In case you were wondering…)
Schaller locking tuners (I made sure to get pearloid tuner buttons to mach the pearloid pickgaurd. A nice touch if I do say so myself.)
CTS master volume and tone pots
Switchcraft three way toggle switch
Two three way mini switches for humbucker / single coil / p-90
Schaller strap locks
and a tung oil finish to wrap things up.
I also had made a custom case for it by the good folks at Ibeamcases.com They do great work. The guitar fits like a glove.
After building the guitar, I had it hanging up at The Guitar Workshop in Sacramento CA where a Mr. Adam J Jennings ended up buying it. This was a very cool thing for me, mostly because it was this first guitar I ever sold to a complete stranger. A very good feeling to say the least.
Adam is a fantastic guitarist and a really great drummer to boot! He can be seen playing music all over the Golden state and beyond. As of the writing of this post, and to the best of my knowledge, Adam is playing drums for the Sacramento band Chrch, and was drumming for the Sac band Little Tents until their untimely demise…
