Explorer

This was my first guitar build, as described elsewhere. In most respects it is a fairly faithful copy, but the body has been scaled down to fit the available one piece body blank. Body and (glued in) neck are Brazilian mahogany, with an English oak top (from a Surrey church). Fingerboard is rosewood. Pickups were the first of many purchases from Kent Armstrong (sold to me by the man himself at a trade show).

After initial problems with the break angle at the nut the guitar plays well (though has a touch of the ‘tremolo neck’ tendencies of Pete Townshend’s SGs), and sounds simply fabulous. Who said that English oak is a poor tonewood? The action is extremely low and coil taps on the humbuckers make this a flexible guitar. I have a pair of Kent Armstrong chome-topped humbuckers spare, though, which may one day find themselves on this guitar.

The twelve string was meant to satisfy my itchy fingers, but I couldn't help thinking what it would sound like as a hollow six string with hot single coils. On a trip to Luthiers' Supplies to buy students' timber I found a lovely piece of book-matched quilted maple at what I thought was a very good price, so the guitar was built around this. 

I decided that with the exception of the pickups, this would be very much a guitar built to a budget. Consequently the body was made from a centre-jointed, two-piece mahogany blank, part of a large donation to the school of offcuts which otherwise would have been firewood! The neck was supposedly an A grade piece of maple from Luthiers' Supplies, but after lots of searching I found one which appeared to have a little grain figure. Cutting into the blank I was happily proved right!

Julian at Sevenoaks Guitar Centre searched for hardware which was a compromise between price and quality. The vibrato is a very cheap but impressive cast monster, machine heads came cheap from the Schaller rep. Pickups, the only full price items, were Kent Armstrong chrome topped hot Strat units, picked to compliment the lipstick tubes on the XII.

So, how does it sound? Think SRV; fat and with a resonant woody bark, but undoubtedly a Fender(ish) guitar.

This guitar has now become my main instrument, and is the only electric that has traveled to Australia with me. As such I have been progressively upgrading and improving it. The tone control has been replaced by a Torres mid cut/boost, though this in turn may go and be replaced by an active boost circuit, as on the Fender Clapton Strat. To aid tuning stability the machine heads were swapped for locking Schallers, which are easy to use and work well. The bridge saddles were swapped for Graph Tech graphite saddles which have helped tuning and also give the sound a noticeable "snap" and extra clarity - highly recommended! I've also just bought some lovely abalone inlayed Q-Parts knobs.......did I say this was my budget guitar?!

Dave’s Fresher

This was originally my first guitar. Despite being a cheap starter guitar it was made with good quality timber (through neck construction with mahogany body ‘wings’, maple and walnut neck), but had unexciting electronics. When I upgraded to a Tokai Strat I sold it to a friend as his first guitar, but he held on to it after he upgraded to a Charvel. Unfortunately it had a suitcase dropped on its body at some point, which cracked it down the edge of the through neck.

I stripped off the thick layer of clear polyester with a heat gun, re-glued the body and oil finished it. It was then re-fretted by Julian Clark, and fitted with a WD pre-wired pickguard (Hot Rails in the bridge, high output single coils middle and neck). This is now a slick playing, evil sounding tone machine!

3/4 size classical

This little beauty was built on a course at the School Of Wood, Dwellingup, Western Australia. The course was run by Rene Raulin, a master luthier, and his aim was to introduce us to the techniques involved in building classical guitars. The back and neck of the guitar are of sheoak, a West Australian eucalypt with a very distinctive and spectacular grain figure, and the front is western red cedar.

The instrument was built over two weekends (so was originally a little rough in the finish department), and I learned more about woodworking in these four days than I have over as many years!

The guitar plays like an electric, is surprisingly loud, and will be the perfect first instrument for my two boys!

2006 update:

Having initially been unhappy with the rather basic finish on this guitar, I stripped it off with a scraper, sanded out the tooling marks left due to the initial rushed construction, and gave the whole guitar four coats of nitro-cellulose lacquer. This was my first attempt at lacquer spraying, which is an art in itself.

As well as the refinish the frets were stoned, re-profiled and polished, and a new nut was cut. With a set of Martin classical strings this is now the perfect guitar for noodling on whilst watching TV!

Sheoak guitar

This guitar was my first commission, and was made for my brother-in-law. The main design consideration was a 44mm nut width, as Mark finds the standard 42mm a little cramped. The extra width makes a surprisingly big difference.

The body shape was adapted from one that Mark found on the web and was sized to fit a piece of sheoak that had been sourced for the body. Pickups were again Kent Armstrong, with a hot humbucker at the bridge, and a hot-rails at the neck, both mounted in rather fetching chrome rings.

The neck profile was taken from Mark's Jackson RR and is very thin and very playable, and well suits Mark's frantic riffing style. The body shape really grew on me and is excellent to play, though the guitar is a little neck heavy. The sheoak, although not a particularly figured piece looks spectacular, almost like snakeskin.