I need a demo instrument, and I need it quick. Those of you that have been following this blog since its inception know that the reason I started developing hardware is that I don’t have access to a wood workshop, but I do to a metal one. Since then, just keeping up with the hardware has taken all my available time.
But now with my second batch coming up, just in time for the Uppsala International Guitar Festival, I thought I would have something more to show than my nylon string mockups that I had last year.
I have put every single idea I originally had on the shelf in order to gain some time:
- Torzal twist has become fanned frets, after testing Rick Toone’s Dove
- Carbon fiber neck has become slaughtering an old Ibanez Allan Holdsworth neck and replacing the fingerboard. I do have a slab of laminated wenge cut out from under a through the body bass neck that is the right size for a headless neck, but I don’t think I will have the time to make it into a neck.
- Carbon fiber backed body with sculpting to fit body has become flat swamp ash
- Carved top has become flat
- 3 single-coil Alumitones has become 2 humbuckers
- For reasons unknown (or weight reduction perhaps), it has become a hollow-body
Here is how far I have come to date:
And here is how I got there:
I have had wood laying around since the last time I built a guitar, some 16-17 years ago.
First a nice piece of ebony.
And some flamed maple. I went over to a friend of a friend at Aros Snickeri and got some help cutting and planing them to size.
I got five fingerboard pieces out of the ebony and enough for two bookmatched maple tops. I also found some wenge that I cut into a bookmatched top in case the maple didn’t turn out. Underneath it all is some Louisiana swamp ash that I bought on eBay earlier this year.
The swamp as glued together.
I started by drawing out the cavities for the body in the template that I had left over from the carbon fiber mold plug.
The template done.
I routed the neck pocket and pickup cavities while I was at it. My plan is to be able to ease the pickups into the holes from behind and not have any mounting rings in the top. I tend to use my router for most work since I don’t have access to a band saw.
The body weighs a ridiculous 1077 grams, compared to 2080 grams for a Strat body. I probably will not make any more progress until next weekend, but hope to have received the remaining parts from Stewart MacDonald by then.