My First Guitar....

[Knottscott]

It's finally done! This is a solid body electric guitar made from mahogany, curly maple, and birdseye maple. The finish is Minwax spray polyurethane over a few coats of Waterlox.

I bought the neck locally from Stutzman's Guitar Center (what a great place for you Rochester folks or visitors). It uses two single Strat pickups and a an OLP "John Petrucci" humbucker. I've got a couple of Ibanez Affinity humbuckers on order that we may play with later on. There are also a set of gold finish strap pegs coming to replace the silver ones.

I don't play, but my 16 year old son does. When we started out I was just hoping it would work. The idea of it sound good was a pipe dream...turns out we got lucky in a big way because it sounds and plays great according to him....even to me it sounds alot more alive than his Behringer Strat clone, and the switches reveal alot more diverse sounds....it hoots, howls, growls, twangs, and rips! His says it hammers alot better and sustains more (new terms to me...guess that's good! ) I was in over my head on several occasions, but was alot fun...a challenging but very rewarding project....a Visa commercial definitely comes to mind!

[Knottscott]

more pics:

[Crockett]

That's unbelievable! You have to be very proud of that piece of work, especially since it hammers and rips! My hat off to you!
Al

[SHADOWFOX]

That guitar is a thing of beauty!! Excellent workmanship!

[GeekMom]

That looks awesome! Gorgeous combination of wood.

[MilDoc]

Too beautiful for words! Love your choice of woods!

[ChrisD]

Nice work! I agree, the choice of woods is excellent. Love the grain!

[GPA61]

WOW!!!! Outstanding!!! Beautiful!!! Great job.

[Pappy]

I don't think i can put my thoughts into good enough words of praise for what I see.

[Tom Slick]

that looks great! the mohagany gives it more sustain. what bridge assembly are you using?
we have a special edition guitar with just a mohagany plug inside of the body, maybe 2"x4" and it changes the sustain.

[drumpriest]

Excellent work. laugh about the "Petrucci" reference. Gotta love DT. It's a thing of beauty. I think all of the luthiers on the site should have to record and upload some sounds!

[Tom Slick]

Is the pick guard maple also?

[Knottscott]

that looks great! the mohagany gives it more sustain. what bridge assembly are you using?
we have a special edition guitar with just a mohagany plug inside of the body, maybe 2"x4" and it changes the sustain.

Thanks for the kinds words gang...it's much appreciated!

Hi Tom - I grabbed the bridge from Ebay...I think it's a strat hard tail type but am not positive. It looked good and was priced right so I grabbed it. Turns out that we got lucky in that it was fully adjustable for height and length to tune the intonation. I was unaware of how critical those distances are until Dave Stutzman mentioned that it's sensitive to about 1/64"! I ran home in a panic and was relieved to see all those adjustment threads! (we got lucky several times throughout!)

Yes, the pick guard is birsdeye maple with lots of figure. It was salvaged from work and matches the neck fairly well but the neck maple isn't as figured....the pics don't show the detail of the neck wood too well. I sliced the material for the guard down on a friend's MM16 BS.

[lrogers]

That sure is nice looking. How does it sound? That is a project to be very proud of!!

[Knottscott]

That sure is nice looking. How does it sound? That is a project to be very proud of!!

Hi Larry - The sound is the icing on the cake so far. I've suspected for a couple of weeks that it was going to look ok, but had no clue about the sound. I don't play, but have evaluated dozens and dozens of high end speakers when I was in the business...to me it sounded outstanding compared to his low end Behringer Strat clone on A 30W Crate amp. I'd like to take it a couple of places to compare the sound of other guitars on better equipment and get input from some seasoned veterans soon.