Back in Canada years ago I started
a business to build Guitars. The products were few because of a very
limited market. It always seemed to me like success in the guitar
market was like success in the music industry - it takes connections and
alot of luck. I was not prepared to rely on it for a living, so I
let it remain as a hobby. Here are a few of the guitars that I have
built over the years.
This guitar was the second guitar
I ever built. It is a LesPaul style guitar (meaning it has a 24.75"
scale length) with a double cutaway, ebony fingerboard, and mahogany one-piece
body. The first incarnation of this guitar had a wraparound tailpiece
as shown in this photo. The body is one-piece and the neck is a 3-piece
laminate of maple/black walnut/maple which runs right through the body.
This guitar was originally built in 1986.
A couple years later, I found a
good deal on a new bridge with fine tuners, so I installed it. While
I had it apart, I added a couple more coats of Minwax Antique Oil Finish.
By this time, a slight brown streak in the ebony fingerboard had completely
faded into black. I suppose the dark pigments from the ebony mixed
with the sweat of my hands and stained the brown spot. If you have
a better explanation, I'd love to hear it.
This photo was taken at a guitar show
at Ernie King's Music Store in Wingham, Ontario. Ernie is one of
southern Ontario's best instrument repairmen, specializing in old Martins,
Gibsons, and especially folk instruments such as Dobros, mandolins,
etc. I learned alot from Ernie as I grew up. Ernie is retired
now, and spends his days building whatever instrument his heart desires.
The latest I have seen was a really nice thick-wood walnut Dobro.
This is the headstock after another
major rebuild in approximately '95. When I first built the guitar,
I had white/black/white binding around the body, and intended to add it
to the headstock, but never got around to it until this rebuild.
This photo shows the final headstock with the binding installed.
I also added a graphite nut at this point and a few more coats of Minwax
Antique Oil Finish.
This photo shows the guitar as it sits
currently. I added an ebony bridge and the flying trapeze tailpiece
when I went through the latest rebuild a couple years ago. I also
removed one volume control and added a PRS 5-way pickup selector switch.
The original 3-way Gibson-style pickup switch is now a "dummy," doing absolutely
nothing except filling a hole in the body. I also removed one of
the tone controls, and changed it to a Fender TBX control, which is also
a passive tone control, but the TBX gradually removes the potentiometer
from the circuit as the tone control approaches "10." I had previously
wired the guitar with no tone controls at all as I like that dynamic tone
that is produced. The TBX gave me that option as well as the option
of using a tone control to tame the top end a little.
Here's a closeup of the body, and now
you can see where I got the image for the background of this webpage.
You can also see that the pickups are Seymour Duncans. The bridge
pickup is a '59er and the neck pickup is a Jazz model. I used a Chicken
Head knob on the PRS 5-way switch so that it would be quickly obvious which
position the switch is in. You can see also if you look carefully
that the top is carved with a slight arch.
Click
here to see a photo-enhanced image of the general direction that I
would like to take on my next "Brownie"-style instrument. It will
have the same basic body shape but it will have a 22 fret neck and the
neck pickup will be pushed further away from the bridge for a bassier tone.
The body may end up being hollow and I would really like to add a flamed
maple top.
To hear the guitar in action, go
to my MP3
page to hear my recordings with my trio,
Fanjazztik
