Guitar #3 burled maple top on a cherry body

I always thought it would be fun to make one of these …. you made a very excellent choice on your woods …… GREAT JOB :<)))

-- Tony---- Reinholds,Pa.------ REMEMBER TO ALWAYS HAVE FUN :<))

SWEET!!

-- You can lead a horse to water, but you can't tie his shoes. Blaze Foley

That burl really brings in the WOW factor. I know for nothing about music, does it play well? Looks magnificent.

-- Think safe, be safe

Nice work. That is an amazing burl.

-- Earl "I'm a pessamist - generally that increases the chance that things will turn out better than expected"

Sweeter than sweet! Great job, nice wood! What brand pickups, tuners, and tremelo did you use?

-- Dennis, WV

This is great aside from having amazing burl, I am drawn to the design of your headstock. It is thoughtful and well balanced. Hardware is understated and lets the design and materials shine.

This is great aside from having amazing burl, I am drawn to the design of your headstock. It is thoughtful and well balanced. Hardware is understated and lets the design and materials shine.

Thanks all!

therealSteveN It plays great! I’m planning on redoing the neck on my first guitar now that I’m better at fret work and stuff.

Dennis the pickups are tonerider, I think they’re hard to beat on bang for the buck. The tremolo is a wilkonsen licensed one I got off of ebay and I think it’s the same for the tuners. The guy I built it for isn’t a huge player so he didn’t want to go over the top on the hardware budget but I was completely satisfied with the quality of the trem and tuners.

DDWW thanks for noticing the headstock. It took me a lot of iterations to find something I liked that wasn’t just a knock off of something else.

-- Dave

I’ve played guitar most of my life and also done woodworking, but have been too afraid to build a guitar…..you have created a masterpiece! Well done!

Pardon my ignorance for asking these two questions…..first, why no pick guard? Just for ascetics? or a sound thing?
If I did try, would I be safe to buy a neck and head stock?

-- Mike

Beautiful Guitar. you did an excellent job, congratulations.

-- Soli Deo gloria!

moke Yeah no pickguard for ascetics. But by doing that it requires the pickups to be directly mounted into the wood with either wood wood screws or threaded inserts. I prefer threaded inserts because it makes pickup height easily adjustable. Mounting the pickups directly into the wood does affect tone, this is something that I believe was popularized by Van Halen’s frankenstrat. It’s a subtle difference though and could be one of those many many things that guitarist think they can hear a difference but it’s all in their head.

As for buying a neck and just building a body, that’s a good option but it doesn’t save you from doing the fret work to make it play really well. And honestly there’s nothing really that difficult about making a neck. Cutting the fret slots is a little tricky and you have to have the right sized hand saw or table saw blade to do it. A great option is buying a pre-slotted fretboard. And I think the most fun part of the project is carving the neck.

If you’re interested I can answer more questions over PM and send you some videos I like about building the neck.

-- Dave

Both those are wonderful and way out of my league.

The instruments here on LJs always draw my attention. True craftsmanship with plenty of artistic engineering. Nary a straight line except for the strings, it makes my table saw lonely 8^)

Very impressive!

Awesome job!

-- Dave - http://kelleycrafts.com/ - pen blanks - knife scales - turning tools

You are one fine luthier!
I replied to your comment on the Deadman post.

-- James E McIntyre