electric guitar: reclaimed neck series #1

This is the first of a new batch of solid-body electric guitars I'm planning to build. I have 4 or 5 abandoned bolt-on necks that I've collected over the years, some left behind at the guitar shop.

 I also have a large stack of locally salvaged ash wood cut down from the emerald ash-borer plague of a few years back here in the Twin Cities.

I start my designing based on the headstock of the neck I'm using and how I can alter the shape of it.

Once I've established a headstock design I like, I start drawing a body to go with it. 

In this case I added a large death-metal style point to the bottom of the head, so the body had to fit that theme.

The body is made of 3 pieces of ash, stained reddish and finished with water-based lacquer.

Here's a side view with the strat-style beveling.

The controls are Gibson-style (volume and tone for each pickup and a 3-way switch), but laid out in-line.

2 mystery humbuckers and a string-thru body surface-mount bridge.

The output jack is tucked in to this weird inside curve.

The nut is made of corian. It's a dense, non-porous countertop material which is a great substitute for bone nuts. I actually prefer using it to bone since bone is porous and can have hidden imperfections making it more susceptible to chipping.

I also have a nice collection of corian with different color patterns.

Well, since it's Easter, I felt I should hide an "easter egg" in this post. See if you can find it; I'll show it next week.

electric dulcimer

Here is one of my oldest instruments, a solid-body electric dulcimer, built back in 1999. I made it while still in Red Wing.

It has a thru-body neck made of mahogany. The headstock is also mahogany and the fingerboard is spalted maple. The body is made from flamed maple. 

All of the wood I used came from the scrap bin in the school's shop at Red Wing. I'm pretty sure all the white vinyl came from scrap material too.

I got the pickups from an old Fender Bullet Bass that I actually had before attending Red Wing. It was a complete junker and I had experimented on it by pulling the frets and making a fretless bass. I kept the pickups, specifically intending to use them on a three-string instrument, which ended up being this. 

All of the hardware is gold, including the frets. The gold fretwire was a later addition along with the "tailpiece" inlay. Originally the inlay was a version of the ugly logo I had been using. 

It has a 27-inch string scale and is tuned to C-g-g.

The headstock has a really extreme angle for some reason. Like I said, it's one of my first instruments. The tuners are reversed, probably because they were salvaged from somewhere. I can't honestly remember, but I know I didn't pay for them.

The volume and tone knobs complete the f-hole inlay design.

 It has an endpin jack for using a strap. I intended it to be played "Spanish style" instead of traditional Appalachian lap style. 

I found this case for a Japanese koto on a curb and refitted it to hold the dulcimer.

The bright red is the original lining. I added the weird paisley corduroy material on the cushions and compartments I added in. 

 Well, I just realized I have around 20 more instruments to post on my site here. Many of them I still need to take photos of. So STAY HOME and keep checking in; I'll try to keep posting every Sunday, at least until piano work gets more consistent.