Happy 2019, And More Guitar Building!
I am WAY behind on site updates, but doing better this year is one of my resolutions. In my last post, I described the move to my new West Chester location, and six months on, I’m really happy to be here! My students, repair customers, jam campers, and builders appreciate the easy parking and the extra room we’re enjoying in both the studio and the shop. All is well!
The guitar you see here is made of Tasmanian blackwood, from Australia. It’s the companion to the silky oak Tele we built last May. My client, an Oz native and frequent visitor there, wanted to build two guitars from local timbers. The bodies were cut to final shape by Larry Robinson at Clearfork, and then the endless sanding began. My client…let’s call him “G”…has built a few guitars with me, and so my main contributions were wiring and setup. We did critical hole drilling on my drill press, but sanding and finishing were beautifully done by him. The finish is Tru-Oil, and there’s no stain on the body, which has amazing grain and color. Apparently blackwood is not black. Who knew?
The neck is from Allparts, and is fitted with the bone nut we made in the shop, and a set of Gotoh thumbwheel-style locking tuners. The bridge is a Wilkinson VSVG, which not only works great but has slightly narrower string spacing (2 1/8″). Pickups are the Seymour Duncan Classic Stack Plus set. We didn’t do anything tricky with the wiring. Once again: gather good parts, well chosen, and assemble them carefully, and you will get a great guitar. G is a happy guy, and so am I!
If this sounds like fun to you, please get in touch to discuss your project. I’m at jayscottguitar@gmail.com. Thanks! There are lots of earlier posts and articles to read here on the site if you want more information right now.