I've been building and renovating guitars for my wife (who's an artist) to use as a canvas. The overall objective is to provide us with a modest retirement income that will allow her to 'art' full-time. Since we haven't actually sold an instrument yet I'm hoping this project will qualify - especially as I've only been building instruments for 14 months.
Ideas are very basic as yet though I have in mind to call it 'Sam's Sunset'. Sam is our 10-year-old grandson who I'm teaching to play (after more than 60 years of noodling!) and who will probably end up as the recipient if it doesn't find a market.
Comments
So, the fundamental idea is to carve off about a third of the body in an arc on the bass side and about the same percentage off the treble side of the headstock. The larger part of the body and the neck and remaining part of the headstock will be stained to a rich, dark red/brown using several coats of water-based stain. The headstock and the remaining body section will be sprayed with a matte spray. The 'opposite' parts of the instrument will be kept pretty much natural but sealed with Boiled Linseed oil. I've obtained a red tortoiseshell telecaster scratchplate and replaced the vintage TC bridge (with pairs of intonation adjusters with a more modern style with individual adjusters for each string).
On the electrics, I've bought a pair of Warman pickups to replace the generic Chinese items, a humbucker with split coils I'll put through a push-pull switch for the neck and a hot single coil for the bridge.
Finally, I plan to re-attach the section of the body and the part of the headstock that have been detached (deconstructed) using three short sections of appropriate diameter stainless steel rod. I have some adhesive designed to fasten metal and wood though, of course, the effectiveness of those 12 joints are germane to the whole success of the plan.
I have no intention of cheating by requesting help inappropriately, but if any reader has already experience of wood/metal adhesive and it's allowed I'd be grateful to know. FYI the three rods joining the body parts are 10mm diameter SS, those three joining the headstock parts are 6mm diameter SS.
I hope these details are interesting.
Ben Crowe at Crimson Guitars did something similar a while back, Ill see if I can find a link on You Tube
https://youtu.be/70SYL31BmJc
https://youtu.be/FA6se3iWXFU
Second I'm also 'splitting' the headstock and joining the two pieces in a similar way. Both those considerations mean that the rods must be parallel.
Finally, the two sections will have clear air between them ie the overall guitar when finished will have a wider 'body' and 'headstock' than before they were cut.
Oh and one other point, the lines of separation will not be rough and basically straight but smoothly finished and follow carefully drawn arcs..
Since I don't have a band saw or another means to make the initial cuts, I had the local lumberyard cut the body and headstock for me. From that point to now it's been sanding and staining.
Kit bought from Guitar and Fabrik.
The 'coloured' side of the guitar is intended to be deep red/brown in matte/satin finish; the lighter parts are just slightly coloured with some old Peachwood stain and finished with diluted Barrentine poly gloss for the contrast. The body's a single slab of mahogany, the neck maple so the stain doesn't match very well. I used a combination of water stains, orange mixed by me from powder, the end of a Crimson black and a can of Fiesta Red from NW Guitars. The combination was based on what I'd already bought, not a scientific or artistic choice. The finish on the neck is thin boiled linseed oil because I don't like playing on anything heavier. The fretboard is untouched. Frets will be dressed by my grandson and me.
What I'll call the 'inside faces' - the parts separated by the designed cuts, are sealed with boiled linseed oil because I want to minimise the chance of bleed into the stained front and back faces then painted with black acrylic and finished with a thin coat of poly varnish into which I mixed some copper-coloured glitter.
And that's where it stands. I've measured and cut by hand the solid stainless steel rods - 10mm diameter to join the body parts, 6mm diameter for the headstock parts. Today my grandson and I plan to pillar drill the sockets on the smaller parts and to glue in the rods. A test drill I did showed that this stage is likely to be the critical phase since the 3D alignment will determine whether the end result looks right. I'm planning to glue with Gorilla Glue clear which they claim will bond dissimilar materials inc wood and metal - the second critical decision, especially as regards the two parts of the body. There's no critical tension on either part although I plan to instal the top strap lug on the deconstructed horn. That means that any failure of the fixing is likely to be spectacular or spectacularly disastrous.
The only other non-kit changes I've decided upon are to replace the supplied pickups with some modestly-priced pups from NW Guitars (required some Dremelling to expand the cavity), to leave off the scratchplate and fix the neck pup in the humbucker-shaped and sized cavity with a converter ring from Alegree and replace the supplied bridge - based on an old-fashioned Fender unit with the strings in pairs - by a similar design but with individual saddles for the strings allowing proper intonation. Finally, I will replace the tone pot with a push-pull switch and install (as I do on most guitars I build) with a two-range tone option. I select the cap values using a selector I built that allows me to try by ear ten variations of values.
As others have said I've definitely learned a lot about my limitations and the demands of 3D engineering and woodwork. While I'd not take on exactly this project again without more alignment gear (I'll explain fully in my final submission) I'd certainly take on another deconstructed guitar.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying getting to grips with what I hope will be a beautiful ES335 kit with gold hardware.
Thanks for the comments, gents. I learnt a lot in the making but perhaps I should wait until the challenge closes before writing more - I'm not sure what the format and courtesies are.
Fascinating project. Love it! And carry on writing away - I think you will find that the format and courtesies are very flexible