Boggs

No problem... You said what you felt. It was honest. Aesthetics are a matter of taste. Players in the area who have seen the guitar rather than photos have drooled over it and begged me to let them play it on stage. Of course, I oblige and get more kudos from patrons... Not everybody is going to like my designs and I know that. It is understandable. I like raw oysters. That makes my wife want to puke. Doesn't make either of us right or wrong (except her... ). That you are more aware of being a bit gentler to those who have toiled and sweated over designing and/or building their guitar is a good thing. Thanks, man.

again - it was just a suggestions - i see nothing really wrong with this shape - but it doesnt seem to appeal to people and i can see how it might be made more appealing by some more interest in the top, so i suggested it but just to clarify - i was not talking about a full carve... i said "subtle carves or bevels". which is a very different suggestion than a full carve. Also i am not suggesting you start carving into this guitar (which would indeed be daft at this stage), but have provided feedback on something to consider in a future build (which you can ignore as you chose). i love a deep carve - but have not always had the wood available which led to this kind of style which allows a lot of interest to be added on anything over 5mm thick (this one is about 7mm, but looks much thicker because of the way its carved): http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e31/WezV/complete%20guitars/Img_0682.jpg i am not for one second saying that style will suit your builds, thats for you to work out yourself - just demonstrating how a lot can be done with thinner (and pretty hard) woods. Obviously a little more thought would be needed with the 3/4" sides on your build - but you could always go more archtop ish style construction, many thinlines manage it All good constructive comments. I was just explaining why some I can and some I can't. There are details in this one that are easily missed, like the artistic choice of using an ebony fingerboard with a bit of cream streaking and cream fret markers to carry through to the cream pickup covers that go along with the sapwood that I chose to keep in the top to continue the theme. When I can't do the more obvious stuff, I do try and incorporate the more subtle. It's all good. I do not post my guitars here expecting to get a single vote, and usually I am not disappointed! I do like to share my ideas and the execution of my concepts anyway. My head is a strange place indeed.

This is the second time that you mention that you have no use for 7 and 8 ''stringers'' which is fine, not everybody needs more strings, however I dont seam to understand what this has to do with craftsmanship... Another strat body... hmmm yeah.... It's not a comment on craftsmanship. As I intentionally pointed out before I made any comments..... And PLEASE don't pretend that it's not a variation of the Strat shape, just like the JEM is. To go into it a bit more.... All of the wood is dark, the hardware is dark, pup covers are dark, and no fretboard inlays (another thing I don't like). From a design standpoint, the body shape is a modification of a 50+ year old design that I'm generally sick of, and the color palate offers nothing of artistic interest to draw the eye. My art teacher used to emphasice "variety creates interest", and there just isn't any substantial variety in the piece. Seriously - don't take it personal. I clearly have different aesthetic sensibilities than you. In fact, if you go back through my entries and read the comments left for them, you'll find that my aesthetics are disliked by around 50% of the commenting voters. It's nothing unusual. Because all we have to go on to place a vote is the build thread and a few pictures of the instrument, we can't give a true evaluation. This leaves little but design and aesthetics to judge on. Pictures can be taken to mask defects, and we usually only have the builders word to go by to say if it plays/sounds/balances/etc well. This really leaves us with design and composition. It really sucks, but that's the way it is. That's kind of why I posted and encouraged viewing the demo videos. One cannot really appreciate why I do what I do just from pictures. Have you ever seen pictures of a car that look like hell but in person, it takes on a completely different vibe? That's what I am up against. I know it was mentioned that somebody would like to see more detail like carving and such, but with that extremely dense and hard thin cocobolo top (pourposely made that thin to get it to resonate) and only 3/4" thick sides, carving would be impossible. I have carved other bodies that allowed thicker tops or solid bodies, but it is an impractical application for this construction. That also said, it contributes to folks not liking it visually as much in a "competition environment" and that is certainly understandable. The guy who demonstrated it notes that it seems to have no affect on comfort as the body is generally thinner than "standard" and the waistline locations promote a perfect playing position. It never is about "bling" for me. It is all about playability but hoping to not make you go blind with ugly in the process... Cheers!

I don't remember if I had entered this one before but it is one of my favorites. It's my cocobolo and chambered Cuban mahogany RockBeach CamelBack CB-II... I am posting one picture and 3 video links the first of which explains some of the design features (and is the longest one) and the other two are strictly different styles of music demoed on it all by a friend, Dave Duncan, showing that it is much more than a show piece! The pickups are Vintage Vibe custom wound blade singles that have interchangable magnets. Alnico5 magnets give great drive, tight bass, and excellent string articulation and are in them for the demos. It also comes with Alnico2 and ceramic magnet sets for warmer tone and more vintage tones respectively. Anyway, here is the photo and the video links...

So much brilliant work this month... I love Quarter's Junkyard Dog and was absolutely intrigued by NotYou's "Stagolee" which darned near got my vote, but Scatter Lee's "Scattervarius" stole it at the last minute. The workmanship and attention to detail is just staggering!

The cutouts (in all of my guitars both symmetrical and asymmetrical) serves many functions. The output jack is on the inside of the left leg. With a right angle cable, you may break your collarbone, but it will not unplug itself if you step on the cable and you do not have to loop it through the strap although with a straight plug, you still could. It also makes the plug easy to find on a dark stage. If you like playing in a classical seating position, the cutout fits perfectly inside your right leg and the guitar will stay in the perfect playing position even if you take your hands off of the guitar. Also, if you stand the guitar and lean it against a wall or couch, it won't fall over and the two strap buttons (one on each leg) protect the bottom of the guitar. Add to that, if you move the strap button to the side with the plug, you can lay the guitar down and play slide overhand. For that matter, with no horns in the way, you can play overhand style and have full easy access to the entire neck... I think about stuff like this when I design a guitar... You can see a Mantis being played in the more classical seating position here...

One other nice advantage of the Mantis design... Two guitars, one ATA case... The two guitars combined way only 2/3 what the case empty weighs. One is for LP/335ish tones and the other is for Strat/tele type tones.

Just a new one I am working on. The top is bookmatched waterfall bubinga (with the sapwood to the outside), spruce, wenge, and mahogany and the chambered midsection is tulip poplar. I have a maple neck with kingwood fingerboard for it. The top of the first picture and the left of the second picture are the neck end. The midline extensions with the holes are for jig mounting for secondary operations and will be machined off in the final step. The back will match the top. It is really based on the CamelBack CB-I but is being redesigned for a customer to give the hint of a catfish with the neck end being the tail and the bottom being the mouth. This one is the prototype. The customer's will have a catfish painted on it (with different woods, of course...).

Alll three are absolutely outstanding, but that Hand of Doom is beyond spectacular!!

A big part of me really wanted to vote for the Jazz Skeleton, but in the end, Diablo stole my heart. Lots of really GREAT builds this month!

Apparently, you and I are the only ones!

Remember... The extensions come off in the final product. They are only on there for mounting to the CNC jig...

Here's the top glued on but still rough edges (and not rounded...)

Here's the alder RockBeach main body for this guitar being CNC cut. Just thought you might find it mildly interesting...

Absolutely. The guitar is 11.25 inches wide at the lower bout and the top and back are just over 11.25 inches wide. I love incorporating sapwood...

Thanks for the feedback!

...a solid body alder Cicada with this top and back I made from waterfall bubinga, spruce, mahogany, and walnut. The neck will be birdseye maple with a figured kingwood fingerboard. I am considering a P90 for the neck pickup and maybe a PAF or a Vintage 59 in the bridge position. I am also considering Seymour Duncan P-Rails. Thoughts on the pickups?

Saratoga, NY... Sure wish I could play like a girl!

By the way, did any of you notice that the guy in the first two clips is playing it seated without even using a strap? The guitar placement is perfect due to the lower bout cutout and the placement and depth of the waistline...

Wow... This month was darned near impossible to choose... I ended up going with Drifter mainly because the back was just so spectacular... Yeah, the frint was obscene too, but good God that back spoke to me! I can come up with many reasons why every guitar this month deserved votes, so hold your heads high everyone!

Video links to WNY Guitar Show demos 4-18-10. It still amazes me how that small body Mantis (the first 5 videos) can sound almost like a baritone... Manlius Modern Vintage pickups in that one and the CB-1 on the last video has GFS Vintage 59s in it. Players at my booth respected other booths by keeping the volume down. Too bad some shredders at other booths couldn't do the same... Sorry about the "special effect" on the 3rd one... I forgot about the rotation not working for video like it does on stills... I also discovered that using the zoom while shooting video (it's a Kodak Z915 still camera in video mode) causes it to search for focus pretty nastily.

...in case anybody from that area might be interested in meeting me or playing my guitars just to see what they are like... It's at the Knights of Columbus Hall about a mile outside of Saratoga Springs at Pine Rd & Rte29 I believe. Any of y'all ever taken in that show? Any suggestions? Boggs

Welcome aboard, mate!

Some magnificent instruments already posted here... I promised I'd get mine in this month, so here it is. It's a RockBeach CB-II solid body... the prototype. I incorporated more traditional features such as belly cut and relief cuts to attempt to please a traditional eye. They are functional as well. This body is VERY light making it overall the most comfortable and well balanced horned guitar I have ever built. I used a 6-position / 2-pole rotary switch for pickup selection which is shallower for this shallow body and also gives you the usual Strat pickup combinations with the additional neck+bridge setting which I have found extremely useful! Pickups are GFS NeoVin Fat Vintage noiseless singles and they are just sparkly clean with the perfect overdrive punch... I am really impressed with these pickups. The main body is Kelela and the pickup and control mounting panels are Dalmatian wood. Beautiful marbling. Having separate control and pickup plates makes for easier servicing for either the pickups or the controls. Far fewer screws to remove to service either. I left the main body stressed looking with the clear lacquer finish. It just seemed to have a unique driftwood look but with mineral marbled throughout. The neck is a 25.5" scale with Kingwood fingerboard and stainless steel frets. The tone palate of this guitar is spectacular and coupled with its comfort, it is now my personal player. I have enough wood to make another just like it. I will for future shorten the upper horn by 3/4" and the lower horn 3/8 inch as well as move the neck/pickup/bridge complex to the left by 3/4" mainly so it will fit a standard case. Here are the pics. Here's a sound clip... Intonation had yet to be set as my tuner was at church. I just set it to a guestimate pre-set... As it turned out, only the G and B strings were a little off as it was a pretty good guess. I was still playing with pickup spacing. The bridge pickup was much higher in output by itself, so I normalized the track for near equal levels. It was plugged into my V-Amp2 set on "tube preamp custom clean" with gain at about 9:00, flat setting, a bit of reverb. Pickups you hear are in the following order: Bridge only; Bridge + Middle; Middle only; Middle + Neck; Neck only; Neck + Bridge. Strings are DR Strings Tite-fit 10-46. With the pickup height reset, output levels became nicely matched. This is before though as I said... http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/boggs.com/Cam..._Sound_Clip.mp3

Finally plugged it into an amp last night at rehearsal... ...last night... After resetting the pickup height, volume balance is excellent between pickups. All 6 combinations are extremely useful as I used 'em all in our set list very effectively... I only plugged into the Deluxe 85 which has sparkling cleans and the tone control on the guitar is a VERY useful tool as it can get as bright as you would ever want it but you can tone it down really nicely too... I can even cover acoustic stuff with it and it feels like it belongs! Tone palate is excellent. You guys are gonna like it. It is comfortable as all hell, too. Since I have enough wood to make another, this is going to be my main player. I think this is THE winner and has the most potential for commercial success. It was inspiring to play... I'm a happy guy tonight! Oh yeah. 4 of the 6 strings were absolutely perfectly intonated at my guestimation and only the G and B strings needed a little tweak to be perfect as well... Nice when a plan comes together! Forgot to mention, the BEST distortion tone I have ever had... Magic with that tube pedal... Doing single note stuff when clean yields almost an oboe-like quality in that when you play a double reed, the tone really changes character note-to-note up the scale... It's a really cool effect and it differs with different pickups selected... I think that is an artifact of the three different pickup angles. I think I noted something like that on one of my other triple-single guitars with angled mounts. It really gives these a unique character... These, by the way, are the GFS NeoVin Fat Vintage noiseless singles... Really remarkable pickups, I must say.