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Dave's Semi-hollow Here's my latest one finished. Semi hollow, carve top Vela style build for my friend Dave. He picked it up on Friday and is over the moon with it. Spec - 2-piece European walnut top with Dave's design of F hole - 2 piece chambered black limba body - 2-piece flame maple neck - African ebony fretboard and headstock veneer with walnut logo inlay - Ebony back cover - 24 SS girders, 25.5" scale - Hipshot hardtail bridge with hipshot open gear tuners - Bareknuckle polymath and p90 pickups - 2x volume, coil split mini toggle and 3-way switch

Doublecut Tele I am a self-taught hobbyist luthier based in Auckland NZ. Showcased here is my first attempt at a build from scratch (except for a pre-slotted fingerboard). This is the third guitar I have built and my previous experience was a Strat type kit and badly mismatched Tele body and neck. The second one was my introduction to woodworking so I decided to challenge myself to build a guitar from scratch. 9 months and many tool investments later I am excited to be able to share this with you. I built this guitar in my 3x2 metre garden shed using a jigsaw to roughcut everything. I based my design on a double cut tele by making templates off the second guitar I built and making the cut outs symmetrical. At the time i didn't know a DC Tele was a thing but I thought it would be cool. Although this would be my first time routing a body and carving a neck, I decided to step in up a notch and try my hand at making a set neck and binding. The design evolved over the course of the project - mainly to fix mistakes. Lets just say I know all about router tear out now and that thin CA glue stains like a b......... The laminated headstock was a result of a miscalculation when working out how much to take off the blank. I am glad I did because I think it looks way better with the walnut veneer. I inherited most of the wood from my Grandfather and we cant be 100% certain but I believe it was a mahogany shelf and walnut left over from a gun stock he made. The neck is from a maple blank from Stewmac and the fingerboard is rosewood. All of the gold hardware made by Gotoh and I used a Switchcraft switch, CTS pots and a Truetone jack all hooked up with vintage cloth backed wire. I have a Gotoh pickup in the neck and a Fender pickup of some description in the bridge. The nut is Nubone and it is also the first time I have made a nut from a blank. I finished the guitar with Tru Oil and gun stock wax to highlight the beauty of the wood and it feels amazing in hand. Anyway, I am stoked with the way she came out so I hope you like it.

SB290 The back has Mahogany wings, Wenge and Flame Maple accents and a Bubinga “backbone”. The top is Quilted Maple. The neck is Birdseye Maple with Cocobolo, Wenge and Flame Maple accents. Fingerboard is Birdseye Maple with Crotch Walnut markers. Frets are Dunlop Jumbo 6120’s. Tuners are Fender American Standard. Scale is 25.5 in. Bridge is a Schaller Non-Tremolo Roller. Knobs are Flame Maple and Crotch Walnut. Pickups are ceramic P-90’s from GuitarMadness with covers modified with Burl Walnut veneer. This is my 5th build with the first 4 dating back to the 70’s. For myself, the guitar building is simply a rewarding hobby. I’ve worked on projects on and off, usually with a couple decades in between. I’m retired now having spent 20 years in the bowling business and another 20 as a secondary math teacher. Thanks to the housing market and interest rates of the post-COVID world in 2020 I’ve been able to purchase a house with a decent sized basement to house the tools I’ve accumulated over the years. Back in the 70’s I earned a AA degree in electronics and got a job in a music store that catered to guitars. During my time there I modified a couple guitars adding pickups etc. which was the initial spark to my interest in guitar making. I also met a local man who had a violin shop. He was also a maker and he let me apprentice one summer. This got me started trying to learning about violin making, but in the 70’s crafts like this were still highly guarded secrets, no plethora of YouTube videos looking to be shared. I did however find a book on electric guitar making which at least gave me a start. I began this build mainly by playing with the Birdseye/Cocobolo neck block I had made about 20 years ago. Once I saw it was going to work out, I figured I might as well make a body to go with it. I mapped out the design using the wood I had on hand and the same outline as my last project. For this one I added an extension to the neck pocket to gain access to the higher register frets. I like the simple way the P-90 pickups are mounted so I went with them. I chose to use the cheaper GuitarMadness ceramic versions; I figure they are good enough for my needs and would be easy to upgrade if needed. At first I just wired both pickups together, but when that didn’t work so good I added a DPDT ON/ON/ON switch for Neck/Both/Bridge configuration. I did some carving (more like rounding) of the body and chose to lower the area where the knobs are placed. Finishing has always been my Kryptonite so I went with TruOil and forced myself to take my time. I posted a log of this build mixed in with ones from the previous guitar: https://www.projectguitar.com/forums/ topic/54390-starting-a-new-build-after-a-brief-pause/

Dave's Semi-hollow Here's my latest one finished. Semi hollow, carve top Vela style build for my friend Dave. He picked it up on Friday and is over the moon with it. Spec - 2-piece European walnut top with Dave's design of F hole - 2 piece chambered black limba body - 2-piece flame maple neck - African ebony fretboard and headstock veneer with walnut logo inlay - Ebony back cover - 24 SS girders, 25.5" scale - Hipshot hardtail bridge with hipshot open gear tuners - Bareknuckle polymath and p90 pickups - 2x volume, coil split mini toggle and 3-way switch

The Black Queen Woods: - Macassar ebony neck and body core, and tremolo cover - Swamp ash wings, quilt maple top, - Gaboon ebony fret board with silver wire starfield inlay, and pearl 'planets' Scale length: 25" Special bits: Authentic Trisonic pickups hand-made by a gentleman who builds Red Special replicas and uses the spare parts bought from the Greg Fryer restoration of the Red Special and replica builds for Brian May. Replica Red Special tremolo from RS Conversions. Hardware: Sperzel open back tuners, Electronics: Three mini switches that control phase-off-phase of each pickup. This gives a very usable approximation of May's different voicings without the field of switches. I've lost count of what I've built, I expect it's in the 15-20 range depending on what you count as a build. My first was at 16 in high school and I've never stopped. That one was a full V build of my own design and custom chrome parts that I made. People always ask "are you going to sell it?" and I say NOO!! I build these for myself to play, and they usually have some new technique I want to try or something my other guitars don't have. I build in my shop that is supposed to be a 2-car garage but has never held a car, much to my wife's dismay. This particular build was inspired by the Red Special and May's building of his own instrument. That was a large influence for me and I've always loved the sound of that guitar. I wasn't interested in building an exact replica though, and wanted to use my own design. The end result plays beautifully and sounds way closer than I thought it would. Build thread: