So this guitar is my first build and something I’ve been wanting to do since I was a teenager. Hopefully one or both of my children will learn the guitar because when I pass it will be theirs. I’ve been dabbling in woodworking for the last 10 years or so with some segmented woodturning and bowl turning projects. A coworker gave me some beautiful walnut and ambrosia maple and it inspired me to finally build a guitar. It was done in my garage workshop during which time I mostly parked outside...lol. I’ll call this one Jackie, named after my wife. Let’s face it, all guitars should be named after women. I’ve been a guitarist for 34 years. This was loosely inspired by my main guitar which is a Tom Anderson drop top. I decided however, it would be more fun to do a PRS/Les Paul style carve instead. The headstock as you see is a standard strat shape, since I’ve always loved that shape. I figured Fender won’t sue me since I’m not selling it...lol.
Woods and materials:
The neck is a 5 piece laminate of ambrosia maple and walnut, with a walnut headstock veneer from the same board. It has a macassar ebony fingerboard with medium frets and an unbleached bone nut. All fret and headstock inlays are done with paua abalone. That was fun for me. It was the first time I ever tried inlay. The body is African mahogany with a 3/4” thick flamed maple top. I used a spokeshave, rasps, files, and scrapers for the carve. This was also new to me as I’ve never carved anything in my woodworking past. I also used another piece of walnut to make a cover for the electronics cavity. The neck is finished with tru oil and the body is a dyed blue burst and finished with nitrocellulose lacquer. Hard to see in the pics but the back and edges are actually a very dark blue, not black.
Hardware:
For hardware I used a Schaller Hannes bridge, Schaller M6 locking tuners, and Schaller speed knobs and strap locks, all in their ruthenium finish. The pickups are a Kinman Blues set. They really sound great. They’re wired with a CRL five way switch and a blender pot for blending the bridge with the neck and vice versa. All pots are 250k CTS pots. The output jack is a Switchcraft and mounted in an Electrosonic jack cup that I flush mounted.
Specs:
Scale length - 25”
Fretboard radius - 12
Strings - Ernie Ball 10s
Truss rod - double action, low profile, adjusted at the body end
I documented my build process on a woodworking forum I belong to called Old Woodworking Machines (owwm.org). The guys there helped with a lot of great advice during the build. Here’s a link.
http://owwm.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=184255