Introducing TEN32 Guitars...and features you've never seen before!

FelineGuitars

Wow - I'm blown away by the amount of thought gone into this project and the logical thought processes.

TEN32Guitars

FelineGuitars said:

Wow - I'm blown away by the amount of thought gone into this project and the logical thought processes.

Much appreciated! Would love some feedback if you make it through the videos/blog/website!

FelineGuitars

I was going to say that it almost feels like a snipers rifle in the way you'd put it together 
but then my American girlfriend pointed out that Police code 10-32 means Person with a gun

I admire your dedication staying with the project as you were showing something similar at NAMM 2011

thumpingrug

Seriously wish you well with this man.

TEN32Guitars

FelineGuitars said:

I was going to say that it almost feels like a snipers rifle in the way you'd put it together 
but then my American girlfriend pointed out that Police code 10-32 means Person with a gun

I admire your dedication staying with the project as you were showing something similar at NAMM 2011

Ha! I've heard that police code before as well, and my patent lawyer suggested I call the brand "Hitman Guitars" for exactly the reasons you're thinking.

Yeah...a lot of nights and weekends the last ten years. A true labor of love.

AsterixTG

@TEN32Guitars ;;;; - out of curiosity, what's the day job/background?

and.. why?

Why did you decide to invest your hard earned, all this time and effort?

Did you wake up in a cold drenched sweat one night screaming, 'I need to travel with my guitar and not let the bastards in hi-viz drop it on the concrete and damage it while loading it into the hold...!?'

(I vividly recall seeing my amp head flight case, followed by my guitar flight case dropping off the end of the loading conveyer as we waited to board a flight to Poland late 90's - then realising that was the least of our worries as the singer and drummer left all my cables and pedals in the case in their hotel room when we got to soundcheck, and we were one of the top bands, co headline with Run DMC at this thing at the venue where Page & Plant had played just before, so held everyone else up - then the guy from the production company filming it all set fire to his hotel room after we had a massive punch up with the local mafia in the hotel's basement casino after I tried to spend all my winnings on shit russian champagne for everyone in the place, and we had to leg it for the airport - but that's another story...)

Trude

Great concept, but did I understand correctly - you need to restring it every time you take it out of the case? I have a couple of travel acoustics with folding/detaching necks, and keeping the strings in-situ is a crucial aspect of why they make sense. If they didn’t do that I’d probably just store them in standard cases and forget about the travel aspect.

Thinking of the touring scenario, how would you transport it from soundcheck to the hotel, back to the gig, back to the hotel, to a studio session the next day etc? 

guitarjack66

I am an acoustic player atm so not very au fait in the world of electric guitars,but seeing as a lot of us are now realising how we(as a species) are raping and pillaging our planet and it's resources I will ask a 'tree hugging' question. Do you use sustainable materials?

Bigsby

Another wow! I watched the first video and was struck by the thought that all your R&D on this has produced more original, creative and effective ideas than the collective work of Fender and Gibson over the last decade or more (obviously completely unquantifiable!).... But so far I'd only seen the case!!! Amazing work. 

By the end of the third video I really wanted one of these, just to share in the wonder of it - Back in the 80s I owned the highly innovate Bond Electraglide, I love this sort of thing in guitars. Curious for more, I looked at your site, and really loved the 'custom' graphic with the symmetric double cut (something else I like in guitar design), but I'm guessing that won't appear until you've got some serious production numbers behind you. Has it been prototyped?

But I was left with two slightly negative thoughts - As above, it looks like a restring is needed for every use of the case. It's hard to tell from photos, but do they fit comfortably in conventional cases when the 'travel' features aren't needed? (Though still a shame to lose all the other advantages of the case design - I love all the spares and tools!)  Or will they need a custom sized conventional case?

Secondly, for anyone who doesn't gig with a tech on hand, I imagine disassembling the guitar after every gig/rehearsal/recording session may soon become a drag (again needing an alternative case) I'm not sure quite how long it takes, but any extra post-gig packing up time is likely to be unwelcome. (None of this matters to me, I'm never likely to be in a band again... Just random thoughts).

But regardless, I'd love to own one one day! Vey impressed. Good luck with the whole project!

Musicman20

The engineering is incredible. The guitars look great. The big guitar companies should be hiring people like you.

Offset

I've found time to view the videos.  Now I'm truly blown away.  Brilliant innovation, engineering, dedication.  Every aspect is really fantastic - this SO deserves to succeed.  It makes so much of what is currently in the mainstream seem very dated indeed.  Very impressive Chaz.

DefaultM

It looks like a really nice guitar. The modular aspect is unnecessary for my own situation but I'd play the guitar.

PolarityMan

Main main worry with something like this would be that you need to resetup the intonation every single time you rebuild it due to tiny differences in the joint angles when you reassemble. Have you done any tests on tuning stability across a large number of tear down / rebuild cycles? 

LastMantra

It looks very cool.

Is the main difference just the removable head though?
Looks like you could probably do something of a very familiar shape/size with a normal bolt on neck guitar?

Lewy

LastMantra said:

It looks very cool.

Is the main difference just the removable head though?
Looks like you could probably do something of a very familiar shape/size with a normal bolt on neck guitar?

As per the videos, not if you want to guarantee it's fits carry-on requirements.

Looks like a great product. Personally I'd probably opt for a Calton case and just check my guitar in rather than get one that could be broken down like this, but that's because I'm not in the market for a new modern guitar. If I was, and I travelled with guitar a lot, this would be a great option (and the starting price at $2000 is only $500 more than a Calton case!)

Strangefan

TEN32Guitars said:

Strangefan said:

Well. Just watched your videos....... Very very  impressed, the level of thought that has gone into this amazing, and they genuinly look like quality instruments. 
I'm scared to ask how much one is...... 

Flat top models with basic hardware start at $2k, (£1730, currently) but I'm open to other forms of value exchange, if perhaps, for example, you were a product marketing specialist? I'm good at building things, not so good at marketing

That's not as much as I thought, that's a great price for what you get, I'd love to see some close up detail videos and it being played... 

TEN32Guitars

AsterixTG said:

@TEN32Guitars ;;;; - out of curiosity, what's the day job/background?

and.. why?

Why did you decide to invest your hard earned, all this time and effort?

First of all, holy sh*t! What a story! I'd watch that movie.

So, I worked in tech starting at age 17, until I was laid off (again) in 2020. The dude who ran the company I was working for is a grade-A prick, so I had no patience left for taking orders at the time.

2007 - was introduced to CNC and 3D design. My Dad's a great a woodworker, but it never really clicked for me until I became aware of CNC. Luthiery was the perfect intersection of tech, building things and music for me, all the stuff I enjoy most.

Got my own CNC in 2010. I had a lot of problems with angled headstocks in the early days. In 2012 I decided for some reason, to see if I could make the neck and the headstock separately, then attach them later....somehow. This was just a fun problem on evenings and weekends (my day job paid well and didn't demand much time...I did a lot of experimenting).

Eventually I figured it out. I realized it enabled portability, then modularity, which I expanded to as many other parts of the instrument as possible.

Your one story is better than my entire "career' in music, but some things stuck with me. I had a bad habit of leaving my trem bar in the case before going on stage, so now I store it in the instrument magnetically. I never seemed to have a 3mm wrench for the locking nut when I needed one, so I decided it too should be stored in the body. I took apart a strat pickguard when I was 14 and lost several parts, had a hell of a time getting it all back together, so I wanted to simplify pickup mounting. I burned through wiring insulation and created a short trying to unsolder a faulty barrel jack, so I came up with a way to remove the jack from the rats nest.

...and on and on. Eventually I had a pretty impressive pile of features, and a pretty strong desire to avoid working for anyone else again. Job disappeared, had some cash from selling a house, and had no idea what the future would hold. That was 2.5 years ago.

TEN32Guitars

Trude said:

Great concept, but did I understand correctly - you need to restring it every time you take it out of the case? I have a couple of travel acoustics with folding/detaching necks, and keeping the strings in-situ is a crucial aspect of why they make sense. If they didn’t do that I’d probably just store them in standard cases and forget about the travel aspect.

Thinking of the touring scenario, how would you transport it from soundcheck to the hotel, back to the gig, back to the hotel, to a studio session the next day etc? 

Yeah, this is one of the trickier problems...once its assembled, you wont want to break it down again until you head back to the airport. Of course, you could do this but to your point - it's hard on strings. This is one of a handful of reasons I also offer conventional necks.

Initially I designed the case to hold the guitar both when broken down and when fully assembled, but that left A. a gaping hole in the case that's not easily sealed when disassembled, and B. the neck exposed, sticking up out of the top of the case when assembled. Here's what that looked like, this is the 2nd prototype case - https://photos.app.goo.gl/hPsCnJ38p1VLYZPg9

Initially I wanted to build a "clamshell tube" that would close around the neck when assembled and attach to the top of the case, but financial constraints prevented me from developing that part. So, that leaves you with the obvious options - an OHSC or a gig bag to use after you've arrived at your destination, or in your local area. Obviously if you're flying you're not going to bring an empty OHSC with you, so a gig bag makes the most sense.

I will likely include a gigbag with every guitar. You'd roll up the gig bag in your normal luggage for the flight, then use it at your destination for local transport. I think the clamshell tube mentioned above will be a part of case V2.0.

TEN32Guitars

guitarjack66 said:

I am an acoustic player atm so not very au fait in the world of electric guitars,but seeing as a lot of us are now realising how we(as a species) are raping and pillaging our planet and it's resources I will ask a 'tree hugging' question. Do you use sustainable materials?

I address this to an extent here. I certainly prefer sustainable materials, but not every guitarist cares about this stuff. They often want the woods they want whether they're sustainable or not. I suppose the most important factor is - I only intend to produce a maximum of about 60 guitars per year, so I'm not burning through a ton of lumber, and I use every bit of wood as efficiently as possible to keep my own costs down.

If it were entirely up to me, I'd use alder bodies, paduak necks, and roasted purpleheart fingerboards - all of which are sustainable.

TEN32Guitars

Bigsby said:

Another wow! I watched the first video and was struck by the thought that all your R&D on this has produced more original, creative and effective ideas than the collective work of Fender and Gibson over the last decade or more (obviously completely unquantifiable!).... But so far I'd only seen the case!!! Amazing work. 

By the end of the third video I really wanted one of these, just to share in the wonder of it - Back in the 80s I owned the highly innovate Bond Electraglide, I love this sort of thing in guitars. Curious for more, I looked at your site, and really loved the 'custom' graphic with the symmetric double cut (something else I like in guitar design), but I'm guessing that won't appear until you've got some serious production numbers behind you. Has it been prototyped?

But I was left with two slightly negative thoughts - As above, it looks like a restring is needed for every use of the case. It's hard to tell from photos, but do they fit comfortably in conventional cases when the 'travel' features aren't needed? (Though still a shame to lose all the other advantages of the case design - I love all the spares and tools!)  Or will they need a custom sized conventional case?

Secondly, for anyone who doesn't gig with a tech on hand, I imagine disassembling the guitar after every gig/rehearsal/recording session may soon become a drag (again needing an alternative case) I'm not sure quite how long it takes, but any extra post-gig packing up time is likely to be unwelcome. (None of this matters to me, I'm never likely to be in a band again... Just random thoughts).

But regardless, I'd love to own one one day! Vey impressed. Good luck with the whole project!

Wow back at you...I'm blown away by the compliments. The idea of disrupting the industry enough to force change has always seemed like a silly fantasy. Comments like that make me wonder if I might have a shot!

That custom model is for a friend of mine, but I'm starting it next week and once I have a new model in code I can produce as many as I want! I also have a great looking offset version of the same model. If you're interested, shoot me an email - ten32guitars@gmail.com

Great question on cases - The height and width of the HT series (single cut) is nearly identical to an LP, so you should have plenty of workable options there, and the HT actually fits perfectly in my model specific Ibanez S1620 case, so it does work with some doublecut cases as well. The EN and CG series horns are offset more than a typical double cut so unfortunately they may not work with 100% of cases designed for strat derivatives. I plan to look into which available cases do work and add that info to my blog or FAQ.

The longer term solution is the "clamshell tube" I mentioned in my response to Trude - essentially making the case functional both when the guitar is broken down and fully assembled.