Guitar projects

[tubenit]

The church I go to is in a 100 yr old hosiery mill here in North Carolina. There are a couple of young friends I have there who are planting a church in an area known for violence and low income. A few years back this area was nicknamed the "murder capital of NC".  I thought it would be cool to build a Tele with strat pickups for the guy who will lead the music at this church plant.

So, I grabbed a piece of 100yr old pine from the Mill and capped it with some figured maple I've had laying around for almost 25 yrs.  It's hollow chambered but no "f-hole".  The strat pickups are inexpensive and they're alnico 2 magnets.

One of the pastors at the church found out about this project and bought the neck for it so I didn't have to build one. The pine had some huge nails in it that I filled with dowels. It only has a light coat of honey amber analine dye on it.

It turned out nice and sounds great!  Given the wood is from the Mill ............ it has been named Millie.     It was a free gift to this guy.




So about a week after finishing this one, I'm driving down my street and I see someone is throwing away some pine decking and so I stop and grabbed a board that was knot free!  I had a piece of very lightly figured 1/4" mahogany that was bookmatched. 


There is a young guy that plays in the worship band at my church who is a remarkable guitar player and has a fantastic ear for music and playing triads. I asked him if he'd like a free guitar body and neck ........... and he said yes. His dad is an incredible guitarist and they had some guitar parts lying around.


I converted a broken Fender Super Sonic into a Carolina Overdrive Special for this guy's dad some years back.


So, I had a Loar acoustic guitar neck that came off someone's broken Loar acoustic. I converted the acoustic heel into a heel similar to a Fender bolt on neck. The Loar neck was a 24.75" scale similar to a Les Paul.  I also had some guitar parts from other projects lying around.


The goal was to build a hollow body Tele (no f-hole) with a Loar neck as inexpensively as possible and give it to this young man. He (or his dad) supplied the pickups. This guitar got named Loarax after a Dr.Seuss book character.  I'm thinking maybe $50-60 in parts went into this guitar?


She ain't the prettiest girl at the dance but she's a sweetie ........... and the guitar has remarkable tone to it, IMO!  Very woody sounding and super expressive. Nice musical tone to it.  It's a very different feel using an acoustic neck on an electric guitar but it turned out well.  It's a very fun guitar to play.  Lightweight and rather resonant body.


I have never built a pine body capped with mahogany ............. so I had no idea what it would sound like. I think it came out tonally fairly similar to alder.  I sprayed this one with satin lacquer.  I've never used satin lacquer before but with the mahogany, I think it worked.


Fun projects and I hope these guys enjoy the guitars!


With respect, Jeff


 

[rake]

Nicely done Jeff!
If you ever want to make a maple top pop try a 5/8" to 3/4" center strip of black walnut or red cedar.
They really stand out under a finish!

If you're ever looking for some parts for one of them church projects just holler.
I seem to accumulate a lot of used parts in the shop that never find a new home! 

[acheld]

Beautiful work!

I've done a couple of guitars from scraps with hollowed out bodies -- they sound great. 

I'm not sure how much an F-hole adds to the tone, but my routing skills are probably not up to the challenge.

Anyway, those are some beauties.

[rake]

F-holes on a solid body are mostly a lint and dust collector.
And sometimes even a home to a few domestic insects!

[tubenit]

Thanks guys!   Here are some of my past builds.


The 335's were from a kit.  The Tele's I built and bought necks.

[Platefire]

Wow! That's Great----definitely guitars going to the best cause in the universe. I know they are thankful having handmade guitars of that quality. fine work!