The Guitar Designer's Workshop

Vintage Butterscotch Guitar Color

While Jim was keeping himself busy building up a neck blank fore a new commission that we're calling tentatively The Black Dahlia, I decided to get some color on the Tele we're making for Anthony. Here, Jim is slotting Dahlia's neck blank for the truss rod. The three piece, opposed grain system used to strengthen the neck is clearly visible. All three parts are sawn from the same board to maintain the integrity of the neck—the grain on the outside pieces are opposed to use the natural forces of the wood to self-stabilize. The center part is a neutral, quarter-sawn piece.

 

Now, back to that guitar for Anthony. Most times, for color coats I use nitro with tints, or some PPG colors that are suspended in DBC clear. However, this time I decided to experiment with a waterborne acrylic. I've had the stuff for a while and thought it would be interesting to try. I got it for a window sill refinish project, and it worked so well that I thought it could be used on a guitar.

 The first step was to mix some Golden Yellow Oxide and add a little brown until I got the shade I wanted. I did this into the clear waterborne directly, then cut the whole mix with good old H2O until the viscosity was correct for the gun. The color looked good on the test piece, so onward we go.

 

I'm using a SATA minijet with a 1.1 tip which is my weapon of choice for most small jobs like sunbursting. I decided to use it for this full-body color job because the Minijet has a thumb-wheel fan control on the left side which would let me control the spray with the unfamiliar water-based material.

 

I needn't have worried. With the air pressure at 30lbs. the material sprayed like a champ. Very easy to control and the build was good. I can see if I had used a bigger tip it might have been prone to sag—after all, it is water. The clean-up was a breeze, and the stuff is almost odorless. I'll let it set up for a day, then I'll continue with the clear coats.

The color is classic Butterscotch, and on the body it looks great. The only question is whether to use the nitro as I usually do, or continue with the waterborne...

A Quick One While They're Away

In any shop, there are tasks that need to be done just to keep the place running. Some are fun and others are less than glamorous. In the Dantzig shop, those jobs usually fall upon Anthony, our "Man Friday". Whether it's taking down a threatening tree, climbing a long ladder to change a light or disposing of a stray raccoon—Anthony is always ready to take one for the team.

Anthony is also a huge Pearl Jam fan, and Eddie Vedder is his man. He's always going on about Vedder's Telecaster, and that someday he's going to get one just like it. So, in appreciation of all that he brings to our little universe, I decided to build him a guitar.  

While nobody was around, I got a body roughed out of a couple scraps of alder and fashioned a neck from some four-quarter maple. As I was doing this, it reminded me of something I'd said to Tom Wheeler which he quoted in his book The Stratocaster Chronicles, about how Leo Fender's genius was in how production friendly his designs are. I love the functionality of a bolt-on guitar, and its ease of manufacture was my ally in getting this project done quickly.

   

I never use grain filler on alder, so  to start, I blew four good coats of nitro on the body and gave it overnight to dry before sanding it flat with 400p sandpaper. 

 

 I still like to use a solid rubber block for the top, back and sides although after years of doing this my hands are pretty shot. The orbital sander seems like cheating and you can't beat the block for flatness. Next step will be to mix up some butterscotch color and complete the neck. I've got a cool headstock shape that I want to try out, so that will be fun.

 

Rainy Day, Dream Away

As the Autumn continues to wind down in chilly and damp fashion, it's warm and busy in the shop. I've been working on several projects for clients, but have some "blue-sky" stuff going on as well. I've been messing around with some new pickup ideas, and thought that it would be useful to have a guitar made specifically for the purpose of testing pickups. Back in the '80s I'd built myself a guitar with rear loading for the bridge pickup so that it could changed quickly without slacking the strings—so I decided to revisit the concept.

After drawing out the design in full-scale, I prepped a blank of mahogany with location holes, found the centerline and did a rough cut on the bandsaw. Here, my apprentice Jim and I are going over the details. I'm going to leave the body to Jim while I prep the neck and work on some pressing design items for clients. Not enough hours in the day!

Chasing Your Grail

"Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor.”
— Leo Kottke

One of the things I like the most about guitar is its many facets.  I'm inclined to agree with Kottke—there's just something magical about every sound a guitar makes. Every guitar design has a purpose in mind, but musicians, being artists soon move beyond those boundaries. As much as its originally intended function is the point of the design exercise, a guitar's range is not limited purely to its original intent—but rather, the imagination of the player. Jeff Beck has raised the random sounds of an amplified guitar to high art, while Hendrix and Pete Townshend made some glorious noise experimenting with the percussive capabilities of the guitar as well. In the 1980s, Steve Stevens asked me to incorporate a toy ray-gun into the circuitry of one of his guitars in order to expand its vocabulary and Paul Gilbert used a cordless drill to pluck his strings with Racer X. Today, players like Jim Campilongo continue to coax both the classic and the histrionic from their guitars despite what we, as builders, intended in the first place.

 Then there is the visual aspect of the guitar, both as an homage to the past and its shock value in the present. Of course, almost every possible variation has been done by now; mirrors, lasers, flamethrowers, flashing lights and so on. I've been guilty of partaking in more than my share of sight-gag instruments over the years, but is guitar-building an arms race? I don't see it that way—just as I don't think guitar soloing should be an athletic competition where the most notes win the gold.

So where does this leave us as builders? Should we continue to mimic the designs of the past relying upon innovative players to reapply our creations to new frontiers? Or, should we attempt to break the mold and hope that musicians respond to the challenge?