6 String, Bass, Electric

The Bevington VI

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Brad and I have been friends since Ms. Arons art class in 7th grade.  That was almost 25 years ago!  The two us and a handful of other friends have played lots of music together throughout the years.  Not just play music, but we’ve all gone through so much in life together.  You don’t hang out with someone for 25 years and not have some wild adventures!  Brad is primarily a bass player, but he also has a penchant for guitar, uke, drums and synthesizers. 

A while back he got on a Fender Bass VI kick.  He asked if I could make him one, but he doesn’t really want a “Fender” Bass VI.  He wants whatever my crazy mind comes up with.  With this particular project he gave me complete creative control,  The only question I asked was, “is there was anything he was into lately?”  He answered with “triangles” which was a perfect answer.  I asked my question so I could get a starting point for whatever inlay was going to end up on his guitar.  Triangles it is!

The only spec I kept from Fender’s design  is the scale length, 30”.  The nut width and last fret width on the Fender I knew were going to be too narrow.  Brad mostly plays bass and a 5 string at that; with plenty of room from string to string.  So I knew from the start that I want the to measurements wider.  

The next thing I wanted to figure out was the bridge design.  Brad did mention he likes having individual string bridges like the ones ABM makes.  At first I was trying to design a base plate that they could rest on, and the bridge plate could be adjusted for height with two adjustable thumbscrews, kind of like a tune-a-matic bridge.  I thought I had something figured out; in fact I thought I had something figure out a few times!  Unfortunately my machining skills aren’t that good; really, they are are almost nonexistent.  I liked the general design though so I settled on something in the middle.  I still used the baseplate design, a piece of Macassar Ebony glued to a base of aircraft grade aluminum.  I was able to make the thumbscrews that secure the baseplate to the body.  I just wouldn’t be able to raise or lower the height of the baseplate.  

Hopefully as time goes on my skills with machining parts will improve.  It is definitely a skill I would like to improve on.  Working with metal has been something I’ve wanted to do more of.  I’ve just never been in that particular environment to learn that skillset.

The next hurdle was the pickups.  Because the string spacing was unique I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy a stock pickup set. I looked long and hard…  Then I remembered a friend of mine, a fellow Roberto-Venn graduate and Luthier extraordinaire, Scott French, had just bought a vintage coil winder and was experimenting with his own pickup designs.  I hopped over to his shop with some drawings I made, to see if it was something he would be into; and I wanted to check out the coil winder.  Thankfully he was into it!  I also gave hime some pieces of maple to make pickup covers with.  I don’t think he had as much fun making the covers as he did the pickups… thanks Scott!

The next crazy bit is the finish.  I knew I wanted to do something different but it wasn’t clear in my mind.  I kept going back and forth about doing an opaque finish; something I had never done before.  I was feeling blues and creams, that’s all I knew.  It was also around this time I had just bought a fancy tape dispenser with a bunch of different width tapes from Stew-Mac.  And one way way or another I ended up with this finish!  If you asked me to do it again I would laugh.  It happens regularly with me; I don’t know where I’m going, I know I’m on a new road, and I just let it roll.  I might be able to do something similar, but by no means the same.  I wouldn’t want to.

This was also the third instrument where I had a lacquer finish on the body and a tung oil finish for the neck, where the neck is also a glued in set neck.  With this one I wanted the neck to be a tighter fit than the first two.  It was a bit too tight this time.  There was some finish stress cracks from glueing in the neck.  Now I know, tight is ok, really tight is not.

It was a fun project for sure.  I look forward to making more of these short scale, six string bass/guitars.  I think for most folks, having a more narrow nut and last fret width will be more comfortable.  But for all you normal low end users, I think this one is the ticket!

You can check out a bunch of Brad’s music at https://soundcloud.com/brad-cacciatore/albums

Specs

30” scale

1.750” nut

2.5” at the 22nd fret

Bone nut

Macassar Ebony fretboard

Two Piece Maple set neck

Alder Body

Birdseye Maple pickgaurd

Custom wound pickups by Scott French 7.5k and 9.5k ohms, respectively

Master Volume

Master Tone

Three way selector switch

ABM individual bridges on a custom platform

Schaller DiVinci tuners

Gold evo fret wire

Oversized strap buttons

Mono Vertigo Case

6 String, Electric

Ayah & Asia

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Ah-i-ya

Ah-see-ya

Almost two years ago my wife and I were asked if we could be the dorm “mom and dad” at a high school dormitory.  My wife already taught Spanish classes at the school and I helped with some volunteer work here and there so we were both very familiar with the school, the staff and many of the students.  The two of us and the school are in a very rural part of the Sierra Nevada foothills, meaning that the school isn’t that big and the number of kids we would be watching wouldn’t be that great, six in all.  The fun part is that the kids in the dorms were from all over the world; Hong Kong, Taiwan, Italy,  the Czech Republic, and two sisters from Palo Alto, Ayah and Asia, who’s mom and dad are from Spain and Iraq.  Throw in the fact that my wife is from Argentina and you have got a miniature U.N.!

During our time there I started tinkering around with some new design ideas and some different ways of doing things.  When I asked my wife what should I name them; well, I’ll let you fill in the blank here.

What do you do when you have ideas?  Well in my case, I sit at my workbench staring at a blank sheet of paper.  After a while lines start to form.  It kind of goes back and forth like this for a while.  Lots of staring and thinking followed by drawing. 

I had been wanting to design a couple new body shapes for a while and these are a couple of them.  Since building these two guitars, I’ve built two others which I’ll write about soon.  

I find it interesting how ideas work.  You look at the blank page and what’s there, potential.  Anything can happen.  I spent a good amount of time working on the lines, the curves, the sweeps and turns.  Not too long after completing the first two prototypes (about 2 years ago now) I started to see certain aspects of “my” designs in other luthiers work.  I find it funny how that happens.  I don’t think I am stealing from them or vise versa.  Thoughts are universally rooted, not individually.  This happens to us all.  You have a great idea and then six months later you see your idea!  I know it’s happened to me on several occasions.  Suppose it means I’m doing something right.  Right?…

They are both set neck guitars.  I’ve some builder’s work where they have their set neck extend much further into the body than what you would see normally on a production guitar.  I have always enjoyed this idea.  It makes sense really.  More neck to sit into the body, more strength and more tone transfer from neck to body.  It’s been my opinion for a while now that the “tone” of a guitar, whether it’s dark or bright, the two main tonal distinctions people make in electric guitars, is in the neck wood.  The body wood will contribute, just not nearly as much as the neck will.  So having the neck extend further into the body to me, just makes sense.

Besides the extended neck, the other experiment was wanting a glossy finish on the body with an oiled finish on the neck.  I love oil finishes.  On bodies and especially on necks.  I think they feel nicer, more natural.  That’s an easier combo to make happen with a bolt on neck, but I wanted set necks.  I like them more.  But how does the process go?  Glue in the neck, tape off the neck and finish the body, then oil the neck?   That seemed like a hassle to me. But reading it just now, it doesn’t seem so bad!

What I decided to do was apply the finish to the body and the neck separately and once they were done, glue the neck into the body.  This has its own challenges, mostly being that one must be very careful when glueing the neck into the body.  You’re dealing with lacquer, glue, clamps and clamping cauls.  If you apply too much pressure whilst clamping you could crack the finish or stress it it in some way.  Or if you’re not being careful you might chip or scratch the finish in some way.

Basically, you need to be really careful!

On the third guitar I tried this method out on, the neck to body fit was too tight.  So when I was clamping the neck in place I needed to apply more pressure than I did on these two guitars.  That resulted in a couple stress cracks in the finish.  Lesson learned!

The two necks are both built almost exactly the same.  They are both multi laminate necks; maple, wenge, bubinga and flamed maple.  Ahya has the maple fretboard and Asia has the rosewood fretboard.  On both necks I experimented with making the new widths a little bit wider than standard necks.  The nut width is 1 23/32 ( 1/32 more than a Les Paul nut) and at the last fret 2 5/16 ( 1/16 more than a L.P.). It doesn’t seem like much but boy oh boy does it feel different!  I didn’t think it was going to be that noticeable but it really is.  From various people playing them I learned that either A: you like it or B: you don’t.  

It was funny to me to see who liked the necks the most because it was two very different people.  One was my friend and great jazz guitarist Doug Pauly.  He plays a lot finger picking with his right hand so having a little extra space for him was very comfortable.  He is also  on the taller side with bigger hands so it made sense, to me anyways.  The other person was Raina, a very petite 16 year old!  I was thoroughly surprised to learn that she liked Asia so much she decided to buy it!  

I am constantly fascinated with who buys the guitars I build on spec.  When you build a guitar for someone they are constantly on your mind,  everything you do to the instrument you do with them in mind.  When you build a guitar on spec, you have nobody in particular in mind.  You might have some ideas that you want to try or what have you, but it’s always a mystery as to who will buy the guitar.  And I am always tickled with who ends up buying one.

Besides the different fretboards, one other difference between the necks is the headstocks; one is 3×3 and the other 6 in line.  The last difference is on Ahya’s neck and it is behind the scenes.  When I was making the necks, I had one normal lengthen truss rod and another, much shorter, truss rod.  It was 5 inches shorter which is quite a bit.  I didn’t feel like ordering another truss rod and then waiting the 2-3 days for it to arrive.  I was in a good flow and wanted to keep things movin and groovin.  I was looking around the shop for inspiration when LO! They they were.  Two carbon fiber rods that I bought at some point, many, many moons ago; the purpose for the purchase completely escapes me.  Whatever the reason for buying them, they were about to be used!  I decided to put one rod on either side of the truss rod starting around the fourth fret, extending past the truss rod to the end of the neck.  The truss trod would still be able to perform its duties adjusting the neck’s relief, and the carbon fiber rods would their job and help keep the neck straight and stiff. And to this day, the neck is straight as I want it to be.  The multi laminate neck helps as well.  A more risky experiment would have been to use the shorter truss rod with out the carbon fiber rods.  My guess is that because the neck was made with such strong and stiff woods, it would’ve been fine.  Maybe I’ll try it some day….

Another experiment with these guitars was how I applied the color to the bodies.  I had never finished a guitar red, or blue, or any solid color for that matter.  And I almost did here… while yes, Asia is mostly red and Ahya is mostly blue, there are other shades of reds, blacks, purples and colors in-between.  Some subtle and some not so.  I applied the color directly to the wood with paper towels.  I would mix some pigments with some lacquer thinner and start wiping it on.  It was really fun.  I tried a little on a piece of scope wood to get into the mindset and after 10 or so minutes felt good to try on the bodies.  After I got the color where I wanted, it was lacquer, lacquer, lacquer!

I used Seymour Duncan’s Phat Cats on Asia and Seymour Duncan’s Pearly Gates on Ahya.  I absolutely love the way the Phat Cats sound.  They are clear, crisp but not harsh in any sort of way.  They will cut through the mix but still retain a warmth that I just love.  The pearly Gates are a great set of humbuckers.  They have a lot of cross over appeal; so whether your playing blues, jazz or rock, they will for sure get the job done

And that’s it.  Another day, another couple of guitars. 

Till Next Time!

SPECS

Asia (Ah-see-ya)

-Basswood body, 

-maple/wenge/bubinga/flammed maple/bubinga/wenge/maple neck

-rosewood fretboard

-25” scale

-Seymour Duncan Phat Cat pickups (humbucker sized P-90s)

-Schaller tune-a-matic bridge and stop tailpiece

-Schaller locking tuning keys

-Master volume, master tone and a three way selector switch

-Bone nut, 1 23/32” wide

-2 5/16” wide last fret

-Schaller strap locks

-Tung oiled neck

-Nitro finished body

-Deep set-neck

Ayah (Ah-ya)

-Basswod body

-maple/wenge/bubinga/flammed maple/bubinga/wenge/maple neck

-Figured maple fretboard

-24.750” scale

-Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates set

-Gotoh tune-a-matic bridge with individual string height adjustment and a Gotoh stop tailpiece

-Schaller Di Vinci tuning keys

-Master Volume, master tone, three way selector switch, 2 three way mini switches for series/split/parallel of each pickup.

-Bone nut 1 23/32” wide

-2 516” wide last fret

-Schaller strap locks

-Tung oiled neck

-Nitro finished body

-Deep set-neck. 

6 String, Electric

Myrtle Top S Series

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Oh yes, the continuation of the “S” Series guitars.  What started off as, “Hey, lets build five of the same guitar.  That’ll be easy!” Has continued into a loooong drawn out journey of, “Mmmm, what to do with this guitar?” Every two to three years or so.  I’m not complaining or anything, it’s just what it is.

To be exact, this is number four out of the five; only one more left!

I was always a bit stuck on choosing hardware for this guitar.  The Myrtle top had this “greyness”  to it that, to me, called for darker hardware choices, but I really don’t like black hardware.  Chrome and gold were too bright, nickle maybe.  And when it came to the pickgaurd, I wanted the material, again, to be dark, but not black.

Sometimes if you wait long enough, assuming of course you have the time to wait, the manufacturers of the world solve your problems for you.  In this case it was with Gotoh’s development of the finish choice, “Cosmo Black”.  This was the solution to my problem, not all of my problems, but, that’s another story….

When it came to choosing a material for the pickgaurd, the choice became pretty clear.  The neck is a five piece Mahogany/Prupleheart neck, so why not use Purpleheart for the pickgaurd?  Add that element to the front of the guitar.  It worked out quite nicely.

When I joined the Myrtle, oh so many years ago, there was a small but noticeable gap towards the butt end of the guitar.  It didn’t go through all the way or anything, but I noticed it, and I’m pretty sure anyone else out there would have noticed it as well.  So what do you do when there is a defect in your wood?  Put an inlay over it!  And continuing with the “dark” theme of the guitar, what better choice of material to use but black mother of pearl.  Being a big fan of both the band Tool and the artist Alex Grey, I thought using their often used “spiritual eye” design would be fun.  A couple drawings later, some shell and wood dust, and bit of epoxy, we have ourselves a nice and simple custom inlay.

Here is the breakdown of all of it’s bits and pieces.

-Chambered Alder body

-Myrtle top

-Five piece Mahogany/Purpleheart set neck

-Ebony fretboard with a 16″ radius and 22 medium/jumbo frets

-Gotoh wrap around bridge

-Gotoh locking tuners

-Seymour Duncan Alternative 8 bridge pickup and a S.D. Jazz neck pickup

-Bone nut

-Schaller strap locks

-Tung oil finish

-And a Mono Vertigo case.

The electronic controls are as follows

-Master volume

-Master tone

-Three way toggle pickup selector switch

-Two mini three way switches for humbucker/single coil/parallel

Peace in and out to you all.

4 String, 6 String, Acoustic, Awesome Musicians, Bass, Electric, Repair

Brian Chris Rogers

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You would be hard pressed to find anybody involved in the Sacramento music scene who hasn’t heard of Brian Chris Rogers.  OK, you may not have known his name, but you have most likely seen his face on stage, on TV or heard his voice on the radio.  Brian is one of the finest multi-instrumentalists out there playing with the likes of Joe Kye, The J Band, Izabella, founding member of the “Best Jazz Group” SAMMIE winner four years running Four Guys From Reno, Massive Delicious, Bob’s Child, Justin Ferren, The Nibblers, Random Abiladeeze, The Toyes, and The Coalition.  He’s been on stages opening up in front of thousands in rallies for Bernie Sanders.  He’s toured the country in cars, vans and buses all in the pursuit of musical exploration, camaraderie, and sharing with others what he loves, making music.

In addition to his musical collaborations, Brian is also quite the accomplished solo artist.  Being the passionate soul he is, his gear gets a full workout with each show he puts on.  Whether it be his looping bass wizardry or his (very) percussive acoustic guitar chops; Brian puts his instruments thru their paces.

As far as I know he only as two stringed instruments; his Pedula bass and his Breedlove acoustic.  If he has others, I’ve never seen em; not in my shop, or on stage, or whilst hangin with friends.  I could be wrong, whatever….

Both of these guitars have been through the ringer.  I’m not sure how many times I’ve replaced the output jack of the Pedula, but I have lost count.  If memory serves, he got the Pedula right at the end of our senior year in high school or soon there afterwards.  Most fretted instruments need a fret dressing here, a few fret levels there.  And after 20-30 years you replace the frets.  Not the case for the Pedula.  I think it was about two years ago (ten years into it’s life) I gave it a re-fret, and it needed it….  And as is the case with most re-frets, a new nut was needed as well, bone for this one.  The only other bit that needed replacing was the E string de-tuner, one of those fancy tuners with the lever that drops the low E to a D with a flip of a switch.  Those are neato.

The Breedlove was a fun one to fix up.  Brian’s playing style, as I stated before, is very percussive.  Lots of using the guitar as a drum, creating loops and rhythms to play on top of.  But years of beating upon his guitar soon started to show.  First it was a big crack on the top.  Then braces were falling off the top.  Not cracked braces, or loose braces.  Just straight up braces falling out of his guitar!  At first I just fixed the crack in the top like I always do with some small cleats glued  along the top.  This was before braces started to fall out.  When Brian told me about the brace, it wasn’t just the brace, it my cleats too!  Dude works his guitars….

What I decided to do was basically “inlay” a piece of thin spruce in between the x braces, and the side of the guitar.   There was another section I added spruce to in between an ex brace, lower face brace, and the side towards the butt end of the guitar.  These are the points that he slams into the most. So I figured after one failed attempt at a repair, that these areas really need some reinforcement.  It’s a fine line though from reinforcement to tone sucking piece of wood.  It had to be thin enough, but strong.  I sanded the spruce to .027″ thick and I oriented the grain to be perpendicular to the top.

I was (and am) really happy with the result.  The spruce fit really nicely and it didn’t effect the tone at all.

I don’t know if this goes without saying, but the Breedlove’s frets, yeah I’ve messed with those a lot too.  And now that I think about it, I made a new bone nut and saddle for the Breedlove too.  I almost forgot….

Please do yourself a favor and check out Brian’s musical world.  You will be very happy you did!

https://www.facebook.com/brianrogersmusic/

http://www.brianrogersmusic.com/

https://twitter.com/bchrisrogers

https://www.instagram.com/brianchrisrogers/

http://www.brianrogersmusic.com/epk/

5 String, Bass, Electric

The Bradford Bass

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This is bass build numero uno, and it will definitely not be the last.  The bass was made for a very dear friend of mine Brad.  I have known Brad for a very long time, about 20 years now.  We went to school together, played in bands together, went to festivals together; many good times were had to say the least!

There were a number of reasons to build the bass.  A big one was the fact that I, through an auction, bought much of the remaining supplies from the Modulus guitar shop, R.I.P.  With all this newly acquired hardware, electronics, and wood how could I not build a bass.  Brad, being a fantastic bassist and always supportive of his friends, jumped at the opportunity to have me build the bass.

The first design we drew up was waaaay more complicated than the finished bass.  We had inlayed crystals with light shining through them and floating bridges with custom tailpieces and an electronic system that I would still be figuring out today.  After some more brainstorming we decided to tone it back a few notches and go with something more simple; after all, this was my first bass, the key word there being “first”.  There will be plenty of time to get complicated later on.

The fun thing with the Bradford Bass is that the only thing that didn’t come from Modulus, R.I.P., was the cocobolo top which I had bought from LMI on a whim the previous year.  The alder body, two piece maple neck, fingerboard, pickups, tuners, bridge and the truss rod all came from Modulus, R.I.P.  So technically speaking, this is the first Modulus, R.I.P., bass post Modulus, R.I.P.

As for the bass itself, it is a fairly simple beast.  I say beast because it weighs a lot.  I kept the body rather thick and heavy to make sure it wasn’t going to be neck heavy.  It for sure isn’t neck heavy I can tell you that!  Luckily Brad doesn’t mind a little weight on his shoulder.  As per request, it as a black mother of pearl infinity symbol inlayed on the 12th fret, and that’s it for inlays.  The head stock overlay was fun to do.  It’s cocobolo on the front and the back, but just partially done.  I’ve done similar designs before but just on the back, this is the first time I did it on both the back and the front.  The body has a nitro finish with a sunburst on the back.  The neck is finished with tung oil that makes the neck fell oh so silky smooth.

The pickups are two jazz bass style pickups.  I have no idea where or by whom they were made.  The came from Modulus, R.I.P., and that’s all I know.  Were they made in house?  Were they made by someone else?  It is a mystery.  All I do know is that they sound really friggin good.  The controls are simple; two volumes and two tones.

Bada bing, bada boom.

SPECS

-Alder body

-Cocobolo top

-Maple neck

-I think the fingerboard is nara, but I am not 100% positive

-35 inch scale

-5 Sting with a low B

-Two jazz bass style pickups

-Two volume, two tone controls

-Nitro finish on the body

-Tung oil finish on the neck

-And more neck bolts than I dare count….

6 String, Electric

An S Series Bolt On

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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…

7 String, Electric

Eyla

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“Eyla”, a Russian word meaning, “Eyla”.  It was a late night computer extravaganza for me.  It was probably 1 in the morning or so when Pavel messaged me all the way from Mother Russia.  “Can you build me a guitar?” was the essential question from my buddy way on the other side of the globe.  But what it all turned out to be, was a project that tested me.  A lot.

Ya see, Pavel is an electrical engineer and a really good one too.  You can check out some of his work on facebook at “Desperate Engineering”‬.  So being the meticulous engineer he is, he auto-cad-ed his guitar!  At least the front and the back of the guitar.  I get a few emails with the plans, I go to my local printer shop, and like magic, I have full scale drawings of his guitar.

I always do a full scale drawing of the guitars I build, or at least any new idea or aspect of the guitar that I haven’t done yet.  So having a to scale drawing wasn’t new to me.  But someone else’ drawing was new.  Definitely a little pressure was added throughout the whole project if for  nothing else, this guitar was being sent to Russia!  If something goes wrong, there aint anything I can do about it.  And that just isn’t a good feeling.

But enough of that.  On to the build!

The main bulk of the guitar is simple enough.  An ash body with a beautiful koa top.  The neck is a five piece neck, wenge on the outside, bubinga is the next layer and flamed maple in the middle.  The fingerboard and headcap are macassar ebony.  The tuners are Hipshot as is the bridge.  The pickups are a DiMarzio Crunch Lab and a DiMarzio Liquid Fire.  Two volume controls and NO tone controls.  There’s a push/pull pot to coil split the pickups and a three position blade switch.  To “wrap” things up, the body, neck and headstock are done up with ivoroid binding.

This was my first time putting binding around the headstock.  It took me a while to figure how on earth I was going to it.  If you notice the headstock design, it is quite skinny!  There is not a lot of room to  even think about putting a router on the headstock to route the channel for the binding let alone attempt doing it!  It took me going all the way to Hawaii and laying down on the beach for a few days before I was relaxed enough to have the answer reveal itself to me. (not a bad way to come up with an answer to a question if you ask me!)  I built a table top that clamped onto the then square neck.  The table top had the cutout of the headstock with just enough room for the router bit to move about.  It was a very simple contraption but it did the trick!

Oh yeah, did I mention that was also the first Seven string I had built?  Because it was.  And it was fun.

It was also my first time installing stainless steel fret wire.  I used Jescar jumbo wire.  It was fun to install except for the fact that it destroyed my fret cutters.  Jeesh….

It got the tung oil finish throughout.  The more I use that stuff, the more I like it.

And that’s basically it.  I wrapped the guitar about a hundred times with some bubble wrap and beach towels, plopped it into a box, and sent it off to Russia.  It was a fun and challenging experience, which in my book is always a good thing.

6 String, Electric

Resolectric

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The Resonator guitar; well it’s not quite a “resonator” per se.  An electric guitar; well it’s obviously not just an electric.  Resolectric?  That’s is more like it, the best of both worlds.  A solid mahogany body with a sycamore top, ivoroid binding, mahogany neck, ebony fingerboard and a Seymour Duncan stacked P-90 pickup in the neck.  So far we have what would be any good electric guitar.

But wait, there’s more!  Say now what’s that big round metal plate on the guitar?  Well that’s a good ol biscuit bridge styled resonator.  Now sure unplugged in the guitar sounds like a resonator; surprisingly much so even though it’s a solid body.  But what happens when you plug it in?  Here you have a Stacked P-90 with a rich, warm and creamy tone, but what about this big ol resonator cone?  That’s where the K and K Pure Resonator Pickup come into play. The Pure Resonator BB is designed especially for biscuit bridge resonator guitars. It’s a screw-mounted pickup for best possible sound transmission with maximum feedback resistance.

And boy does it sound good.  But wait, that’s right, there’s more!  The resolectric also comes with the K and K PowerMix Pure Onboard Preamp, an internal preamp with amazing mixing capability.  With this nifty little devise your able to combine the tonal characteristics of the P-90 and the resonator cone for some very fun combinations of tone. The preamp features 3-band EQ plus a gain control for each individual channel.  From the preamp the signal goes to separate volume controls for the P-90 and the resonator pickup, and a tone that effects the P-90 pickup; leaving the reso pickup hot to cut through the mix with what is that classic resonator tone.  Bring in the P-90 to smooth out and thicken the overall tone; roll down the P-90 tone and get groovy with some dark bass esque tones.  Let us not forget the push/pull pot that lets us tap the stacked P-90 for a tone that’s more subtle, but very clear and focused.  This guitar is a versatile instrument.  It effortlessly moves from blues to country picken, bluegrass and then some.

Gallery

Specs

The Specs…

24 5/8 inch scale

1 11/16 inch wide nut

22 medium jumbo frets

Ebony Fretboard

12 inch Radius Fretboard

Mahogany “True Bolt On”* neck

Mahogany body

Sycamore top with matching head plate

Ivoroid binding on the body

Seymour Duncan Stacked P-90

K and K pure Resonator BB Pickup

K and K Power mix Pure Onboard Preamp

Grover Rotomatics

Beard Resonator Cone*

Beard Resonator Cover Plate

A Compensated Maple Biscuit Bridge

Lacquer finish

  • “True Bolt On” refers to the fact that the neck is actually bolted onto the body of the guitar.  Brass inserts are placed into the neck and actual bolts, not screws, keep it all in place.  This makes for a very stable and sturdy neck joint with excellent tone transfer as well.

All Photos by Wes Davis of Wes Davis Photography

6 String, Electric

Koa Top S Series

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Koa Top S Series

This guitar was the first guitar I built after graduating Roberto-Venn.  It is the first of 5 variations of the “S” series guitars.  It was the first guitar that I tried gluing multi laminate veneers on the back of the headstock; one purple heart, the other flame maple.  It was also the first guitar that I used the the “finger” inlays on the fretboard and a combination brass/koa pickgaurd.  Now that I think about it, there were a lot of firsts with this guitar.  I used magnets to attach the electronics cavity cover plate which is koa with a tin backing.  This guitar was also the first one where I glued together a multi laminate neck of Birds eye maple and purple heart.  The truss rod cover is made of koa and has a concept idea for a logo.  I like the way it came out,though it does need some refinements.

All in all, this was a really fun guitar to build and fun one to play.  The neck is, to put it lightly, beefy.  A definite throwback to 50’s baseball bat necks.  If I were to make another neck like this one, I would make it not quite as much of a hand full.

I think the biggest lesson I learned is how much the neck wood has an effect of the overall tone of an instrument.  In the planning process I figured the guitar would be warm and mellow being that the body is chambered mahogany and the pickups are a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover set.  But boy oh boy does this guitar pop out at you!  The tone is thick, but very bright; much more than I expected.

The fingerboard is cocobolo.  The more I use that wood the more I love it.  I really like the way the gold mother of pearl inlays pair up with the rich colors of the cocobolo.  I’m not a huge fan of gold hardware but on this guitar, with the koa top and the cocobolo fingerboard, gold did the trick quite nicely.

Top everything off with a nice nitro finish and ya got yourself a pretty nice guitar.

Gallery

Specs

The Nitty Grittty

Scale length: 25”
Nut width: 1 11/16”
No. of frets: 22
Fret size: Medium jumbo
Fingerboard Radius: Compound, 12” to 16”                                                                                                                              Neck joint type: Set                                                                                                                                                                            Finish: Lacquer                                                                                                                                                                                Nut: Water buffalo horn

Wood

Neck wood: Birds eye maple/purple heart 5 piece
Body wood: Chambered mahogany                                                                                                                                               Top wood: koa                                                                                                                                                                     Fingerboard wood: cocobolo                                                                                                                                                 Pickgaurd: Koa on top of brass

 Hardware

Bridge: Schaller Tune-a-matic
String attachment: String Thru Ferules
Strap attachment: Schaller strap locks
Tuners: Schaller

Electronics

Pickups: Seymour Duncan Seth Lovers
Controls: 3 way blade switch, master volume, neck tone, bridge tone

6 String, Electric

Queensland Top S Series Trem Recording and Video!

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Hello all out there in the World Wide Web; I hope all is finding you well.  This is a real quick post.  I have a recordingto share of my latest guitar (which you can see here http://www.christianallenluthiery.com/2013/11/queensland-maple-top-s-series-trem-prototype/) and a video to go along with the music.  The video is, shall we say, mellow.  None the less I dig it.  It was done by the artist Ishvara.  It’s a bit of a soundscape type of thing, but it showcases the guitars different tones rather well if I do say so.  It’s not short, 16 minutes, so sit back, relax, throw on some headphones, grab your favorite drink of choice and enjoy.

And before I forget, all the sounds you hear are the guitar.  It’s pretty wild; what’s all used in the recording is an Exotic Effect RC Booster, a Digitech Whammy, a Boss DD-4, and a Boss DD-20 into a Mesa Boogie Studio .22.

Maybe I’ll do a more straight forward video of the guitar.  Is that something ya’ll would want?  Let me know.  Till next time, Peace in and out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghyrQO8O1jU 

https://soundcloud.com/ishvara1008/queensland