Here’s a short report from Gareth’s first build using EGS hardware – a Klein-ish guitar that sounds a looks very nice!

Gareth says:

“Report on the bridge:
The guitar is incredibly stable. NO tuning issues at all. I say this after heavily gigging it over the last 4 months (60+shows in all styles). I’ve strung it with 10′s, 11′s flatwound 12′s and now roundwound 12′s (plain third) with no issue. On my guitar i had to attach the bridge upside down, so the Strandberg logo is on the top E rather than the low E, reason being the mounting saddles wouldn’t fit the correct way round (do your research before you build!!!!!!!!) I was worried it would not work as well, but it has been magnificent.”

Here’s a clip of one of Gareth’s bands, Aria Astrobeat Arkestra:

The second build, an original ergonomic shape, is on its way. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing it!

I have just finished two custom base plates. These particular ones are made from brass, but obviously any material is possible. String spacing, radius as well as number of strings are also options, of course. If you are hesitant to mount the individual tuners separately, this may be an option for you.

Half-way through

And done with milling operations

Polished and tuners mounted.

Prices start at 500 SEK.

I am visiting Orlando, FL on 26-29 October. If you want to take an EGS guitar for a test drive, let me know ASAP and I will bring one.

I have created a new page on this site, listing the vital stats about all produced instruments, as well as their owners. Some of these instruments are my own demos and prototypes, which are now for sale! The purpose is to make room for new demo instruments and testing of new concepts. I have priced them according to their “production” vs. “prototype” status and general condition. Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Having made it back from the US, including a quick visit to Rick Toone and his lovely wife Tricia, and then on to San Antonio, Texas, I had all of 3 hours at the house before setting up the booth at Uppsala VII International Guitar Festival.

Rick and I compared notes and messed around with his new barytone and my #3.

At the guitar festival, Simon Svärd (left) and Jonas Isaksson (right) took the opportunity to jam for a bit on #1 and #3. While the festival is geared towards classical guitarists, I have exhibited for three consecutive years as the only electrical guitar builder among a dozen classical guitar builders.

Throughout Friday and Saturday, there was a steady stream of interested visitors, which was the perfect medicine to keep the jet lag away. It was a great show and there was a lot of sharing of thoughts and ideas between us builders during the few quiet periods. Special thanks to Håkan at Uppsala Musikverkstad for providing exhibition space as well as amplifiers!

Finally, here are a couple of clips of Jonas and Simon:
Solar – Miles Davis:

Stella By Starlight – Victor Young:

I am happy to report that #5 made the jump across the Atlantic in one piece – straight to the studio where Chris is recording Scale the Summit’s new album – just in time for Chris’ birthday. His first impressions are very positive! More will follow.

Murray Kuun, South African luthier and designer, has recently completed two custom builds for an American dealer. Murray comes from a furniture design background that has evolved via violin making into making guitars.

Congratulations on these beautiful instruments!

They feature EGS hardware, EMG pickups and plain, curly, and birds-eye maple. The wings are hollow to achieve a light-weight design. Scale length is 635 mm.

For more information, be sure to visit www.murraykuun.com and www.designsunlimited.co.za

Here follow some instructions on how to get started with your very own EGS build. Feel free to e-mail further questions, and I will try to add to this guide and keep it up-to-date.

Build your own EGS guitar

Planning

First of all, e-mail guitarworks@thestrandbergs.com and ask for permission. The materials on the site are licensed under Creative Commons. You may use them under two conditions: that you ask permission first and that you make your own enhancements public also under the same Creative Commons license.

The body shape

Start by downloading the body shape outline.

Print it out in scale 1:1 and transfer to a paper large enough to hold your complete guitar, including the neck and any headstock you are considering.

Mark a center line and, along this, mark the location of the saddles, the 12^th fret and the nut. The body shape outline that you downloaded needs to be adjusted in the neck pocket region and possibly in the bridge region, so it is critical that you do this on some cheap media (i.e. paper or your computer) before starting to shape wood.

In the bridge region, you need to leave sufficient material to mount the base plate while leaving room for your fingers to tune.

This means that if you are doing a fanned fret construction (mixed scale), the shape of the cut-away in the bridge region may need to be adjusted. In this case, you need to work out the exact placement and angle of the 12^th fret on your drawing and measure the distance to your outer strings and mark the location of these.

To figure out where the bridge will sit, you ideally have the bridge at hand, but you can work with a printout of a drawing (you can use the installation instructions in the download section). Then, adjust the intonation position in a somewhat forward position (but not all the way, keeping some room for error) and figure out where to position it so that the saddle ends up at the line you drew. If you use fanned frets, each bridge will be positioned at a different distance from the nut (so the line you drew between the E-string saddle positions will not be perpendicular to the centerline).

The red lines in the image above show some examples of how the rear cut-away edge can follow the angle of the mixed-scale placement.

Another consideration is that if your instrument has more strings than 6, you may need to widen the cut-away. To get the proportions of the instrument right, you may need to actually widen the entire shape somewhat in order to accommodate this.

Neck angle/height

Also, in particular if you are designing a set-neck or neck-through instrument, sketch the guitar out from the side. The EGS bridge can be mounted in a two different ways: flat or on a radius.

Here, it is mounted flat (and recessed, which is not a requirement) and the saddles are used to create the radius. The other option is to recess the bridges to match the radius of your fretboard.

The effective adjustment range of the EGS bridge saddles is about 2 mm, but they will look at their best if they are placed in the middle of that range, so it is important to get this right.

The picture above shows how the angle of the neck affects the height of the fretboard/body join. Even a small angle will make a big difference, so take care.

Also, place the intended pickups on the drawing and check their positions. If you intend to glue the neck in, the neck pickup cavity can have an impact on how you design the joint.

String locks/Headstock

Like the tuners/bridges, the string locks are mounted individually. If you mount them in a row, use a spacing of 7 mm.

If you are building a fanned fret instrument with an angled nut, make sure to lay the pieces out to check the layout.

This is an example for a slight angle that puts the holes in line with each other and the strings at a 7 mm spacing. I like to use a zero-fret, which ensures that fretted strings sound the same as open strings and also takes the guesswork out of cutting slots in the nut. If you mount the strings locks at an angle, a nut is recommended however, to ensure that the string spacing is exactly what you intended. Use this nut in conjunction with the zero-fret.

Another consideration is ensuring that sufficient material remains in the headstock for the mounting screws.

Shorten the outside screws if the neck has a radius at the mounting point.

Also, consider where the access to the truss rod is placed. If the truss rod access is below the centerline and a hole is drilled to access it (as opposed to routing a channel all the way to the front) sufficient material can be left to secure mounting.

Think about the height of the string locks in relation to a nut or zero fret.

On to the actual build

Many operations are simplified if you have the correct neck at the onset. Fastening the neck is one of the absolutely most critical operations for the function of the guitar, so it’s better to fail early and start over rather than doing a bunch of work on the body and fail to rout the neck pocket at a late stage. I recommend that you start by purchasing or building the neck.

Buy or make a routing template for the neck pocket, draw a centerline, rout the pocket, fasten the neck and then double check/adjust your centerline based on how accurately you were able to attach the routing template. To check the neck alignment, fasten two pieces of string at the E-string positions and pull them tight and ensure that their respective distances from the centerline are the same near where the bridge would sit. Then, using a ruler, measure from the nut to the 12th fret. Mark that exact same distance from the 12th fret towards the body end on both E-string positions. Draw a line between the two points that you just marked and leave this line there until you have drilled the bridge mounting holes. The line signifies the position of the saddles, without taking intonation into account. You also need to check that the depth (and possibly angle) of the neck pocket places the string at a height at the bridge that works within the height adjustment range of your bridge.

For a neck-through body like the EGS Pro, I do things in the following order:

1. glue laminates of neck
2. band-saw away and shape section on underside of neck portion
3. insert truss-rod (while sides are straight and can be used as guides for router)
4. shape contours of fretboard (so that it can be used as a router template later)
5. cut fret slots (while it’s still thin and easily fitted into the slot-cutting jig)
6. glue fretboard (while it is flat so that it can get optimal clamping pressure)
7. use router to shape contours of neck (using fretboard as template)
8. rough shape back of neck
9. radius fretboard
10. finish fretboard (add inlays) and fret neck
11. glue sides (and top)
12. finish shaping
13. rout cavities for controls and pickups
14. sand
15. fit all hardware and string up to check playability
16. finish/polish
17. done

For a neck, I would do things the same order, with the neck being completed at step 10. Then, I would complete the body with the following steps:

1. glue pieces of back if necessary
2. rout the neck pocket as described above
3. rout the tone cavities
4. rout pickup cavities (with some clearance)
5. finish shaping contours of body
6. glue top, if applicable (the body itself will act as a router guide to clean up the top)
7. cut neck pocket and pickup cavities through the top
8. rout cavities for controls
9. sand
10. fit all hardware and string up to check playability
11. finish/polish
12. done

Mounting the string locks

The same screw that mounts the string lock in the wood is used as the seat for the string. This means that it can be replaced if it ever gets worn. To access the screw, remove the locking screw. The string lock itself is secured against rotation by a 2 mm diameter locating pin. So, to mount the string locks, you need to drill two holes: a 3 mm deep 2 mm hole for the locating pin and a 14 mm deep 1.5 mm hole for the mounting screw.

Grounding the strings

The EGS hardware is anodized, which is a process that renders the pieces not conducting electricity. So to ground the strings, you need to remove some material from the bridges. Follow the instructions in the FAQ section on http://guitarworks.thestrandbergs.com. A zero-fret will help ground the other strings if only one bridge is grounded. Otherwise, it is possible to use a piece of wire or aluminium/copper foil to create contact between each of the string lock mounting screws. This will then connect each of the strings with each other electrically.

ENJOY! And don’t hesitate to ask questions.

No, the title does not refer to one of the best rock albums of all time (Rush), but to four new clips on YouTube, all of #6. For the HD versions of the clips, visit my channel on YouTube.

In the first two, Jonas Isaksson has a one of his first encounters with a 7-string guitar. The low action and jumbo frets, which did cause some buzzing with a sitar-like quality, inspired him to some very oriental sounding licks.

In the third, Peter Hansson demonstrates some of the features, including different seated playing positions and what the impact on the angle of the wrist is. He was not coached to sit in any special way – it was only when editing the clip that I realized that his wrist was almost straight throughout the clip in seating position 2.

The fourth clip has Peter playing some harder stuff. If you are into metal and some drop tunings and want to stand out from the crowd – this is for you. The Alumitones and scale lengths work together in a way that I find works really well, albeit not the traditional sound.