Es-339 Style Guitar

[Mr_Buttman]

Hello guys!

This is my first guitar building topic on PG, hope you'll enjoy it

My friend, the guitarist of russian band Times New Roman asked me to build him a ES-339 style guitar but with strange requirements -

he's playing heavy music so the guitar must behave well with distortion.

So, the specs:

Makore neck

3 piece sapele body (top, back and middle parts)

set neck

24.56 scale indian rosewood freatboard

hardware:

grover locking tuners

nashville tom bridge+gotoh tailpiece

Electronics:

Seymour duncan SH6 bridge humb+golden age hot neck humb

The guitar is already finished and i can say it looks awesome and sounds perfect, just like the customer wants it to sound.

I'll post the photos of the process from the very beginnig and at the end i'll post the finished guitar and (i hope so) the sound demo

Thanks for your attention

[avengers63]

I'm making a lot of my bodies with sapele too. Taylor is using it in their high-end solid-bodies. Isn't it great to work with?

[Mr. Preston Swift]

i'm using sapele for my current build too and it's soo nice to work with, looks amazing and is very solid. I think i prefer it over mahogany.

[avengers63]

It's a lot more plentiful than mahogany, too. The grain is a lot more pronounced, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The rich, dark chocolate brown limits it a bit as to what you can match it with, but again, the color isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are some nice ribboned pieces as well, but they're harder to find, and staining/dyeing them like figured maple isn't a viable option.

[Mr_Buttman]

I agree, it's very nice wood with great sound but i don't like that it's very difficult to polish it. And i like makore a bit more

Neck building:

neck billet

1

2

3 - making headstock

4 - shaping the neck

5 - interim result

6 - result with sanding

7

8 - routing truss rod channel

9 - ready

Edited August 28, 2008 by Mr_Buttman

[Mr_Buttman]

Body building:

1 - bottom piece

2 - middle piece

3 - top

4 - top with f-holes. Unfortunately the top was spoiled with a router (it haven't stop though i released the start button).

But we've repaired that after gluing the body

5 - body gluing

6 - as a result - body and neck with rough shapes

[Mr_Buttman]

Freatboard+assembling

1 - freatboard with binding

2 - inlay dots

3 - inlayed freatboard

4

5 - making humb holes

6 - sanding

7 - cutting inlay

8 - ready

9 - inlayed headstock

10 - almost ready to go in the painting room

[Mr_Buttman]

After the painting the guitar was assembled and this is a result

Other photos:

1

2

3

4

5

6

[bluesy]

Lovely! Coincidently very similar in some ways, to what I am attempting. http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...c=37360&hl=

I hope mine looks as neat when I finish

[jay5]

Why did you orient the grain of the body perpendicular to the neck? Do you realize that your neck joint is a side grain to end grain joint and thus VERY weak. I would be very worried about the guitar staying together to be perfectly honest.

[Mr_Buttman]

Thanks, bluesy, i like your build very much , especially the top that you use ^)

jay5, i realize that it will be weaker then with parallel orientention but i can't say it's VERY weak. The wood is 3 year air dried, the gluing suface is big. We tested the neck joint and it's very strong.

When i started to build this project i had a nice big piece of sapele. But not big enough to cut out 3 parts of the body with correct orientation, so i had to use the wood economically

But anyway, thanks for your remark, next time i'll find another solution.

Btw, have you ever had some problems with such neck joints?