Roland

Thirteenth Guitar

This must be my thirteenth guitar build. My addiction to guitar building started with a Harley Benton kit, and advanced through a series of “improved” Telecaster designs. It’s the playability which interests me. A guitar is only successful if it’s good enough to play with my band. For this it needs a nice sound, must be easy to play, and be reliable. Finish is only there to protect the wood from moisture, and from knocks and scratches. Which is why I’ve never entered a guitar here, where so much relies on the photographic image.

Here’s the real challenge. This guitar is built from trees which grew in my village, within 300m of my house:

Body – Cedar of Lebanon, harvested in 2015 from my neighbour’s garden. Each branch rang like a bell when it hit the ground. I knew that I had to have the trunk for guitar building. Now that it’s well seasoned it’s a really light weight wood.

Body cap – Yew. 300 metres away, from what used to be the garden of the old Manor House.

Fretboard – English Sycamore, from the house across the road.

Neck – a sandwich of Sycamore, and Field Maple from my own garden.

Normally I use an oil finish because it’s easy to apply, and doesn’t colour the wood much. I have a particular penchant for Osmo PolyX 3032, but it does get plectrum scratches. I don’t like pick guards because they cover up the wood grain. So this time, to preserve these special woods, I’ve experimented with polyurethane varnish.

But it’s headless! That’s one of the improvements. On a small pub “stage” I have a history of clouting the singer with my headstock. The rest of the guitar is still a 25.5” scale Telecaster. Same pickups. Same controls, although they had to be squashed into the corner. Importantly it hangs on the strap like a Tele, with the bridge, 12^th fret, and volume knob, where I expect them to be. The body is wedge shaped. Thin at the top, and deep enough for a 5-way superswitch at the bottom. It also has forearm and belly chamfers. Together these profile improvements make it comfortable to wear and play. They also reduce the weight to 2.55Kg (5lb 10oz). It’s bound on the top edge against knocks, but rounded over on the back edge for comfort.

The pickups are:

Neck – Oil City Californian. A Stratocaster style neck pickup.

Bridge – Oil City Wapping Wharf. A tapped single coil giving both a bright 60s sound, and a fatter 50s broadcaster tone.

Five way switching gives: Full bridge, Tapped bridge, Neck and tap in parallel, Neck, and Neck and Tap in series for those warm solos. With these combinations I can play a whole gig of covers without changing guitar.

Other innovations: The pickups are held with Allen bolts seated in thread inserts, with neoprene tube around the bolts to keep things steady. I find this more stable than traditional wood screws, easier to adjust, remove, and replace. The neck uses machine screws, ferrules and inserts too. Frets are Evo Gold, so they’ll never need to be replaced in my lifetime. Side dots are Lumilay. I don’t need their luminosity, but I wanted something large enough to see in poor stage light. There are no fret board markers. If the bass player doesn’t know what key we’re in then we’ve got bigger problems. Bridge and headpiece are Hipshot. I’ve tried the cheaper options, and thought I’d try these. Happy so far, except that they account for two thirds of the cost of the guitar with carriage and import duty.

Lastly, a shout for AndyJR, who gave me the idea of using neodymium magnets to hold the control cavity cover in place. Screw heads inevitably get damaged over time, and scratch me or my clothes.

Build thread https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/219903/1q22-challenge-roland-s-guitar-build

More pictures https://imgur.com/a/75tJUsu