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.

Q&A / comment catch-up

In my online absence I've collected quite a few comments and questions, going back all the way to the end of 2014.
First off let me just apologize for letting it go for so long.  Next, I need to thank everyone who has taken time to check out my site here and especially those of you who have left comments. The feedback has all been wonderfully positive and inspires me to keep up with the site. Thank you so much!
As for questions about instruments, I'll go through some more general ones first, then get into the more specific ones.

To begin with, I have to announce that I am NOT taking any commission work. The one instrument I was hired to build through this blog almost ruined luthiery for me completely. I was really unhappy with the final product and felt like I had failed my client and myself. This was a huge part of my neglecting the blog (along with the shift to piano work).
A full post on that instrument is coming soon.

Here's a sneak preview of the headstock, which is actually one part of the instrument I am happy with.

Another commonly asked question is if I have plans or blueprints for any of my instruments.
Allow me to get a little art-defensive right now... No. Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered beyond belief that anyone would want to build something based on something I've built. I definitely want to encourage anyone who is interested in building string instruments; and it's true that going off of existing plans is extremely helpful especially when just starting out. But, I feel as though designing is part of the building and learning process, and it comes down to pulling out a pencil and paper and going at it.
I have used existing plans or instrument designs as a starting point for instruments I've built, but I tend to re-draw a lot and make the instrument look like mine rather than something that's already out there.
For instance, the Baroque guitar I made was traced from Stradavari's guitar plans. All the aesthetic designs got changed from the original, though.

Another example is a guitar I built for a friend. He really wanted to me to make him a guitar but he also really wanted a Telecaster Thinline. I got as close as I felt I needed to in order to capture the sound and feel he was looking for without just doing a copy.

The thing is, there are already enough Fenders, Gibsons, and Martins in the world; do we really need any more?
Again, please don't take this as me being proprietary or secretive. I just have strong personal opinions about creating original instruments. Also, I'm pretty lazy and don't make proper blueprints. My planning usually ends up on numerous scraps of paper and re-drawing everything out to print copies does not interest me.
That all said, I am more than willing to answer questions and share experience, ideas , or measurements about any of my instruments.

OK, onward!

A number of people have asked about buying some of the instruments on my blog, especially the charango. Well...again I'm going to claim my internet ineptitude as a big part of ignoring that issue. I don't like conducting business online. I know, I should go back to the 90's with that attitude, but I'm still not ready to take that step. I do intend to sell some of my instruments (I sure ain't playing them); I just need the right outlet to do it.

The charango is a bit of a different story. It is another of my instruments which I'm not satisfied with how it turned out. It's just too quiet! I think I need to thin the top somehow. Unfortunately some spots on the inlay are already dangerously thin, and I fear sanding through if I just work from the outside.

At some point I plan to try improving the sound (maybe it just needs better strings). Until then it's not really for sale.
In the future I may figure out how to sell my instruments online, considering that going to local music stores might not be an option for quite a while.

Since we're on the topic of the charango, let's start there with some of your questions.

Looks nice. Did you by chance record an audio/video of how it sounds? 

on el charango

Yet another thing I'm not rightly equipped for. I intend to make some sort of recordings of as many of my instruments as I can. The recording quality may not be the best until I have better gear. I should probably do a before/after recording of el charango if I do end up working on the soundboard.

Looks great! Why is the sound hole oval? 

on small scale steel string guitar

The small guitar, el charango, and quite a few other of my instruments have oval soundholes. I guess I was inspired by really old Gibson guitars and mandolins. I always thought they just looked classy. Except my ovals go with the strings rather than across the strings like Gibsons. The thought behind that was to focus the soundwaves coming out of the hole right onto the strings and, I don't know, energize them? That's probably bathtub science but it makes for a good justification to use oval soundholes.

The inlay material you used were all natural stuff or man made material as well? If man made, when sanding it down at the end to make is flush - after the epoxy, dont the man made face gets scratched and destroyed? 

on my greek bouzouki

The bouzouki inlays are made from abalone, pink and gold mother-of-pearl, black pearloid, and green swirl acrylic. Yes, when the epoxy filler is sanded down, all of the inlay material gets scratched. I will typically use a sharp scraper to get rid of the excess epoxy. This creates way less surface scratching. After that only very fine grit sanding is needed (600 then 1000). Sometimes I'll buff out the inlay on the buffing wheel as a last step.

Dear Joel, I am simply amazed at and appreciate so much, the explicit way and Detail you have indulged in to articulate all the different steps of your reconstruction. Question 1: What is a "tuner"? Is that the metal liners of the frets? Question 2: Why in the world can a luthier not glue wall paper into the bowl and just leave it natural Wood the way it is? ( I will never get this part of the Greek touch, but go ahead and try to explain it to me.) What is now missing is for you to Play a hasapiko or zeibekiko on your Bouzouki and put the Video on your site! Thank you for the wonderful Bouzouki blogspot. 

Nik. on my greek bouzouki

I suppose by "tuner" I meant tuning machine. As far as the reasoning behind the wallpaper glued inside lots of Greek bouzoukis: the inside seams of bowl-shaped instruments can look pretty rough, especially if veneers are used between each of the staves. If you consider how much time is put into the outside appearance of fancy bouzoukis, then why wouldn't you want to make the part you see through the soundhole look flashy, too? I just did it to follow tradition, I guess. Plus I happened to have that paper which matched my inlay design so well, I couldn't not use it.

Would the diaphragm out of an air horn work as a resonator? I have some old truck air horns I was toying with building one of these out of…thanks,

Ted W. on resonator violin

I hadn't thought of that but it seems like it might work really well. If you did go with the air horn diaphragm I'd be interested to know how it turned out.

I've been thinking quite a bit around this concept and electro-magnetic amplification. I've Read somewhere that some early solid Fender had placed a coil under a floating bridge, reading the bridge movement rather than the strings. The signal was weak but any way there was a signal that allowed for amplification. There are some issues with magnetic pu:s and bowed strings. Placing the coils correctly to be sensitive to horisontal string vibration, although it's perfectly possible. However, a coil should also be able picking the needle vibrating against a resonator. Probably this would produce an amplified tone somewhat more alike the typical acoustic resonator sound. 
on resonator violin

I guess I'd agree that a magnetic coil pickup could read the vibrations of the needle, or in my case bolt, attached to the resonator. It would probably involve a specifically designed pickup and some more elaborate mounting. A piezo pickup could likewise be attached more directly to the resonator to produce a signal closer to the sound coming from the horn. I mounted piezos to the bridge just because that's what I was familiar with.

The left arm should be stretched out all the way to the back of the neck. 

violin tuner on resonator violin

Correct? Unless you play lefty? No idea.

So thank you to anyone bothering to read this far. I will try to keep things interesting in upcoming posts. Sorry for being rambly after taking forever to post anything at all. Feel free to ask me more; I may not be very helpful, but I'll try to respond as best as I can.