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After I made Alejandro Escovedo's custom LP, I wanted to do one similar but my way. I decided to use a slightly smaller body with more a Zamaitas shape and not too heavy. I also thinned the body about 1/4" fro 50's Gibson speck. The body has many small cavities inside, completely sealed and too small to make problematic standing waves. It is stained all black with ebony binding. Polished aluminum fitments were used for bridge and tailpiece. The Mahogany neck is carbon fiber enforced internally, mounts with an extended dovetail. Basically a guitar where I got to call all the shots to look and work the way I need it to. The Snake Guitar.
I have been repairing a lot of 19th century guitars and have become convinced to employ some the older techniques. First they use no metal in the necks. They are generally reinforced with ebony and it sounds better all the time. It is better, you can hear the difference easily. I use Carbon Fiber instead of ebony because it sounds very similar but adds more stability to the neck. The carbon fiber resists the inherent tendencies of woods to shrink and creep out of original shape as well as string tension. The process clicks into unity by hand making the bridge and nut to the shape of the neck held consistantly straight despite the weather. The second technique I take from the older luthiers is the use of carved, non adjustable bridges. A modern Tune-o-matic style bridge pales in tonal comparison to a single piece bridge resting firmly against the body, every time. By elimenating neck movement I am able to make the bridge once to set the action where it basically stays. Small adjustments can be made to the action by cutting the brige slots or shimming in between the bridge and the body.
The pickups are mounted on aluminum plate adjustable on all 4 corners and spring loaded. The pickups are wired to split to sigle coil with the small switch. It has volume for bridge, volume for neck, master tone and 3 way pickup selector as well. The volume controls have bypass caps to retain treble response as the volume decreases.
The tailpeice I carved from billit aluminum, it gives the strings some length before the bridge which sounds great. It anchors to a "hook" which recesses into the tailpeice, then covers it up.
The guitar is made from my private stash of Genuine Mahogany except for the Maple top. The fingerboard is ebony. The guitar is bound in Ebony and Maple strips, the rest is stained black. The finish is 100 percent old school nitro-cellulose, no urethane, no acrylic, no hardner. It is very thin and hand polished.
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The nut is polished bone, the snake inlay is mother of pearl, the tuners are Gotoh 510 21:1 ratio gears. There is no truss rod adjustment as there is no adjustable rod. The headstock angle is 14 degrees which sounds great and stays in tune best.
Both covers and the jack plate are polished aluminum and recessed into the mahogany body. I am now playing in the guitar and it is quite a joy.
