VirgilGuitar

Wow, nice guitars this month - it was a toss up for me with the Green Zebra and I liked the graphics on the Explorer too - I figured I'd at least give it a shot to post my very first guitar build that I recently finished (Dueling Dragons)- I'm currently working on build number 2 - I am really into this - seems like I found my new addiction! Good luck to all!

Hellcat got my vote, with #6 being right next to it. Really nice guitars this month!

Dueling Dragons

Hi Everyone!

My name is Virgil Mandanici and I recently finished my very first guitar build. This guitar took approximately 1400 hours to complete. I started it in August 2010, when I knew nothing about inlay, guitar building let alone working with wood - it has been a phenomenal journey and I have been watching this forum for inspiration. Anyways, this guitar has some insane inlay in it including prehistoric shark's teeth, sterling silver, 14k gold and I even inlaid our puppy's teeth - you can see the entire documentary at my web site: Virgil Guitars

Here are the specs:

Name: Dueling Dragons

Style: Double-cutaway set neck

24 frets

25" scale

16" Radius fretboard

Tuners: 4/top 2/bottom Gold Gotoh's

Black Tusq Nut

Pickups: Gold PRS Dragon II Neck & Treble

Electronics: Vol, Tone & 5-way selector dial

Bridge: Schroeder Custom Gold Stoptail

Body: African Mahogany/ Flamed Maple soundboard/ Gabon Ebony Top

Neck: Hard Maple - neck blank cut by Penta Guitarworks

Fretboard: Indian Rosewood/Gabon Ebony side strips - addition neck work and fretboard work done by Tony Bonaventura of Southern WoodWorks

Headstock: Flamed maple veneer, 1/8" Gabon Ebony Inset

Pickup rings: Tamboti wood

Finishing: Moe Roberts of Moecolors

Design, building, inlay and everything else: Virgil Mandanici

Inlay Materials/Dragons:

Padauk

Leopardwood

Wengewood

Rosewood

Camatillo wood

Dyed Burl

Gold MOP

White MOP

Black MOP

Pink MOP

Green Abalone

Paua Abalone

Bubinga w/ Sapwood

Macassar Ebony w/ Sapwood

Kewazinga (bubinga)

Box Elder

Snakewood

Various dyed Burls

Prehistoric Shark's teeth

Our puppy's eye teeth(For the horns)

Prehistoric Sandshark teeth(for dragons claws)

Hawaiian Koa wood

Turquoise Recon Stone

Sterling Silver Tongue & whiskers (lower Dragon)

14k Gold tongue & whiskers (upper dragon)

Gold & Red Nail polish/epoxy & coffee can lid for eyes

Trussrod Cover:

African Blackwood

Koa

White figured MOP

Black MOP

Red MOP

14k Gold

Knobs:

Padauk sandwiched in between Gabon Ebony

Turquoise Recon Stone

This snippet of the guitar being played is Todd Grubbs - a good friend of mine here in Tampa Bay - this video clip is part of my documentary I just finished.

Click here for MORE pictures!

Thanks so much!

Click here for the documentary film "Release The Dragons"

This is very cool - what material are you using for the white part of the inlay that looks like marble?

I had heard about these being useful some months ago and my dentist, who barters guitar lessons with dental work (Now THAT's a sweet deal!) gave me about 10 or so - these things are phenomenal - awesome for the really small work and have not put any wear on them yet.. since Ebony, Rosewood and other woods I have inlaid into are quite a bit softer than enamel(which is harder than bone!), I would imagine they will last a little while. He says they cost around $5 a bur.

Frozen Queen - it's hard NOT to like a guitar with a white body and gold hardware... love the grain on the fretboard.

Whalehazard Sentinel - AWESOME job, especially for second build - like the liberty you took not only the cool body shape, but the ornamental aspect as well. KILLER binding work too.

Joe's Guitar - LOVE what the grain does on that top around the stars - the binding is a nice touch with providing contrast from top & sides.

Satch Lotus - Nice work from 1 block of wood - the colors are awesome too! Looks like it plays as smooth as it looks.

Rebellion - nice "Battle Axe"" ya have there - great curves, but I think I would be hitting that selector switch every time I did my Pete Townsend! Very cool inlay work too - wish you could have given a close-up of the back of the neck, but you were stuck with only posting 4 pics!

Jazzy Java: SCHWEET gee-tar! Sexy curves - looks like a wood tulip of sorts. LOVE the choices of wood - this IS a one-of-a-kind for sure!

Dragonfly - This guitar won my vote = not just because of the fact that it's more of an acoustic than an electric (But looks the other way around) but the complex construction, choice of woods/colors, really impressed me. Any guitar that has blue and wood (brown to beige) with an accent of the darker brown and black spots from snakewood is bound to catch the most discriminating eyes(like mine). Love the bridge as well - snakewood is very popular on violin bows and there's something cello-ee/violin-ee about that bridge. The black limba looks like spalted maple on steroids. The only thing I might suggest is you put a set of jazz strings on it (with the wound G) before you give it to me.

Hi All,

This is the 3rd time for me being a newbie on forums this year... First on Fractal Audio's AxeFX forum, then Carvin Guitars forum, then now here.....

After I bought my AxeFX, I decided to give Carvin guitars a try and had them build me a pretty awesome DC127 with a spalted maple top... during the wait, a student of mine's father(I am a guitar teacher) was egging me on to build a guitar with him - he's a master carpenter, I have been playing guitar for over 35 years and have worked with wood off an on through my life and always loved doing just that - working with wood, so I decided to come up with the design of my first guitar. Then I had a deep thought while I was waiting for my custom Carvin... why not learn how to do inlay, and make a really cool trussrod cover... I ended up figuring out how to do inlay of MOP and Abalone, silver & wood... started staying up real late at night, started buying woods on eBay, started selling things just to get tools, etc. etc. which brings me to this past week. I had someone ship me a blank neck and the body blank is coming in by Friday and I am really excited, but will need some practice into some pine first. I lucked out finding this forum and I have a lot of reading, studying and shopping to do, but there is no turning back... I spent the last couple days building a sea-worthy workbench, got a band saw, router and more goods are on the way... in the interim, I have made some pretty cool Christmas gifts getting into the inlay side of things - looking forward to reading all the posts here. The more I'm learning, the less frightened I am, and I do know a couple of Luthiers that have been guiding me along the way- wish me luck!!

Virgil