Daniel Schmolze

Holy smokes, it's been a while! Between moving to a new city and starting residency I've been kinda busy, but she's been done now for a few months. I finished it with Tru-Oil on the body, and oil and wax on the neck. It plays and sounds great! My best guitar yet for sure.

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sustain and tone is soooooooo much more superior!!!!

holy hell, that guy kills me: "a lot of luthiers and guitar builders said it couldn't be done", lol!

also, it sounds to me like it could just be feedback he's getting

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Eventually you will notice that a one piece guitar does not affect the tone of your instrument and wont contribute in anyways towards adding more sustain...

Its just a big waist of mother nature but I did experiment several times this subject to make sure I could reply to this question one day

That's about what I figured. Personally I'm firmly in the camp of "wood species and construction details don't matter too much as long as your building technique is solid".

What the heck though, it's something fun and different. Also, I can always hype it up when I try to sell it: "ONE PIECE construction for ENDLESS SUSTAIN!!!!"

good luck with your build

I've myself built a bunch of "one piece guitars" in the past, here is one of them, the only pictures I can find...

Looks sweet. I love your finishes, and will be aiming for a similar look with this build.

I'd be curious to hear your take on tone with a one-piece body...

I've been wanting to do an eight string for a while now, and have finally got around to it. Up-front warning: this probably won't see tons of action until the end of March when school finishes up for me.

I decided to make this a one-piece design, which is another thing I've been wanting to try. I got a real nice slab of mahogany for a great price from my local supplier.

Here's the design:

27.5" scale length. The fretboard will be ebony. Ebony headstock plate, black horn nut. The plan is to dye the body/neck dark grey, and do some black glazing to accentuate the curves (it will get some extensive carving).

Hardware-wise, it will be getting EMG 808s and the Hipshot eight string bridge. Unsure about tuners at this stage, but I'd like to find some lighter weight ones. Any suggestions?

Here's the MDF body/neck template:

And the blank cut out with the top levelled:

I really like this piece of mahogany -- great figure and color, with a really nice tap tone (not that I think that really matters).

That's it for now. Next up will be thicknessing the headstock, doing the scarf and routing out the headstock design. Then truss rod and CF rod installation, neck thicknessing, fretboard installation, etc. etc.

Fun project! That finish looked great initially, but now it looks really super.

It sounds like the fretwork is OK? My experience with Chinese imports has been otherwise. If this turns out well I just might have to get one myself! What eBay seller did you buy from?

Also, what are you thinking for pickups, or are you planning on keeping the stock ones?

Anyway, looking forward to seeing your progress with this thing.

Greetings from Minneapolis! Some long hours on the road over the last few days, but now I can take it easy as I move West and South.

MMmmmm.... spruce!!!!! I didn't know how i felt about that headstock when I saw it in the CAD file. But in real life it really works well. Congrats, I think designing a unique and personal headstock is one of the more difficult steps in guitar design.

Just out of curiosity, this is guitar number....? Looks sharp.

Chris

Thanks Chris. I spent a long time coming up with that headstock design, and I'm pretty happy with it now that I see it in real life. This is my 3rd build, but I had a couple experiments that failed and that I ended up scrapping.

Looks great man. Awesome scoot too. I had one of those for years as a commuter bike. It's rare to see one in such good shape these days.

Yeah I love that bike. Runs great, hasn't given me any problems. Gonna have to sell it when I get to Albuquerque, and I'll be sad to see it go.

looking good, Daniel.

Where in MA are you??

I'm in school in Worcester, but I grew up in Great Barrington in the Berkshires, and that's where my folks are and where I'm departing from momentarily.

More pics!

That's my hog I'm about to ride about 3000 miles on (1985 450cc Honda Nighthawk ). Tough to capture the carve in the sun with the bright spruce.

Alright, see ya'll in a couple months (find me on facebook if you'd like to follow along).

Carving progress pics. I did most of the work with that little finger plane. Works great with the soft spruce, but it can't get in the tighter curves:

I made more progress on the carve today, and I'll post another photo tomorrow before I leave. Then it's off to Albuquerque (from MA)!

Geo: yeah, I thought about that, but decided I could improve the playability that little extra bit with only a few more steps

guitarnut: right, no neck angle, so duplicating the PRS carve exactly wouldn't work. The way I'm doing the carve it'll be fine (I think...)

The back before any carving:

Starting the carving on the back (heel transition and tummy cut):

Neck profile roughly carved:

Should be pretty comfy when all the carving is complete:

Rabbet for the top carve:

Wings rough-cut on the bandsaw:

The 3/4" spruce top. It's nice looking, but super soft, as expected. Gonna have to be real careful to avoid dents.

Roughly cut to shape on the bandsaw:

Final shape:

Gluing on the top:

Out of the clamps:

Wings cut to final shape:

More later, I gotta go watch the Netherlands/Uruguay game =]

Alright, right off the bat I must warn everyone that I'm about to head out on a cross-country motorcycle trip and won't be back until early September. So, this thing will be sitting in it's current state for a couple months. I still wanted to start a thread though, if only to help with my motivation =]

Here's the design: basically a PRS-style carved top, but of my own design. Walnut neck-through, mahogany wings, 3/4" spruce top.

I sorta dropped the ball with the photos in the earlier stages, so here's the fretted neck, all ready for the wings:

Wings being glued on. I used the top template to route out the cutaways before the glue-up.

Out of the clamps:

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I'll muck around with that tension calculator a bit and see what I come up with. My thinking is to start with a .010 on the high E string, then for the remaining strings progressively use gauges that would be considered lighter until the low E, at which point I'll use a .058 and a .068 for the extra bass strings.

Here's a preview of the design I'm tinkering with:

I'm designing an 8-string multi-scale build and I'm trying to figure out a rational way of choosing string gauges so as to most evenly distribute tension. My scale length is 25.5"-28", and ideally I'd like to have tensions similar to a regular 25.5" scale across all strings. If I use something like a .010-.46 set, the tension will get too high at the lower strings before going more slack for the two extra bass strings.

Is there an online calculator out there that'll help with this? Otherwise, maybe someone who's been through this can help me out?

Thanks!

Thanks Wez. Looks like Graphtech may be the way to go. I just find it odd that nobody stocks cheap replacements.

I'm planning an 8-string build, and I'd like to use individual Wilkinson saddles for the bridge (it's gonna be a multiscale design). You'd think this would be an easy thing to find, but my Google skills are severely failing me on this one. Anyone know a source?

Followup question: can I mount the saddles right onto the body, assuming I'm using a dense wood like Bubinga or Wenge?

Thanks!

P.S. - Build #2 is almost done, stay tuned for pics...

Very nice job Daniel!!!

P.S. What pickups did you use?

Thanks. I went with Dimarzios: an Air Norton at the neck, and a Tone Zone at the bridge. I'm pretty happy with how they sound.

The original is by Opeth, and uses a similar warm, lightly overdriven lead tone. I just need to get some drums in there =]

Recorded a little ditty with the guitar: http://www.schmolze.com/music/ending_credits.mp3. Not the most brilliant playing, but it gives you an idea of the sound of the thing (the rhythm and lead parts were both recorded with this guitar, while the bass was recorded with...a bass).

Thanks Petrucci. It was definitely one of the more fun and rewarding things I've done -- nothin' like making music on something you've created with your bare hands (alright, not quite). Go for it!

I hereby declare this project done. It was a blast, and I learned a ton. To anyone contemplating this, I'd say do your research, invest in some decent tools, and plan every step and you'll be successful (even with zero woodworking experience).

I took some decent finished photos, check 'em out:

Proud Daddy =]

Thanks Matt. It's a simple danish oil and wax finish. I'm pretty happy with it. The neck especially feels nice and smooth, and it has a nice sheen in person. I'll give it another coat of wax when it's done for real.

DC Ross: yeah, I noticed that as soon as I saw the picture. Oops Luckily I hadn't screwed them in yet.

I'm gonna take some better photos with my ringlight setup on Sunday.

I've been slacking in my updating duties (been too busy playing!), but this thing is just about done. Check it out:

I still need to install a black Electrosocket output jack, make truss rod and control cavity covers, and do some finish work on the nut, but otherwise this thing is done! And get this, it plays pretty damn well! Sustain is excellent, and I think I made a good choice with the pickups. On to #2.....

Some progress made last weekend. Not as much as I wanted, but I get MLK day off, so with any luck I can finish things up this coming weekend.

All the frets installed:

Neck/body joint blended, and wenge veneer added to back of headstock (ferrules came out OK, but in the future I will build the holes into my templates for better alignment):

Grain filler drying (I'm using Crystalac clear grain filler, which seems pretty great):

That sounds good, carousel. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I did the headstock carving with the tuners in hand (Planet Waves), and they fit without hanging over the carve, so I think I'm OK there. However, last night as I was falling asleep I suddenly realized that I forgot to drill the holes for the pickup wires. The plan was to do this through the neck pocket, which is obviously now not accessible. Anyone have any ideas for how I can get this done?