Alejandro Escovedo's Les Paul

Alejandro asked me to build him a guitar like a Les Paul Custom only lighter and better to play on stage. This guitar would be traveling a lot and needed to be rugged. I built him a guitar basically off my jigs for making a late 50's Les Paul Standard. It is slightly thinner and the Maple top is only 1/2" thick over the mahogany back. The neck is stiffened with carbon fiber to give it added stability and a more articulate tone.  He played it a lot and decided the humbuckers didn't really work with his rig. He brought me some records with the tone he was after on them. We listened and eventually we found some Dearmond Pickups from the 60's that have all the aggressive tone we were looking for. I fabricated some plates to mount them in the humbucker rings and wired them up. It looks like this:

The headstock inlay art is a representation of Al's tattoo, he uses this art a lot as his mark.



More Photos of Joe Walsh's Esquire

 The Callaham bridge chosen has 3 brass saddles, machined for proper intonation.

 The height of the Dearmond suits the string height of the standard Fender geometry, It mounts flat against the body. I used low profile metal knobs.

 I like using large dots. Dim lights and aging eyes make it a necessity.

 I had some new decals made, Lincoln Durham did the art. The tuners are Schaller locking as per Joe's request.

A simple, no-nonsense guitar. Simplicity has its place in design and functionality. This guitar used only a few parts which makes it look rudimentary. Closer inspection shows that each one was chosen carefully and the end product is suitably refined.

Joe Walsh's Esquire

I met Joe Walsh working as guitar tech for him. He flew in to do Ray Wylie Hubbard's Grit and Groove fest and I helped get the guitar related gear in order. At the end of that week Joe Asked me to buid him an Esquire with a P-90 instead of the standard Fender style pickup. We talked and ended up using a vintage Dearmond pickup instead. He liked it enough to use it for photos promoting his current tour. Here are some photos of the results

This is the Callaham bridge I hacked to make room for the Dearmond Pickup. It was designed to be a soundhole acoustic guitar pickup. It is very shallow and requires no routing of the body.

I chose a highly flamed piece of maple for the neck. It is reinforced with carbon fiber truss rods.

It ended up looking like this. I front mounted the controls and made a thin pickguard from phenolic resin, it looks like bakelite.

The back has a control cover, recessed string ferrules and a thick stainless steel neck-plate.

Alejandro's New Ebony Bridge

I built Al the Les Paul Style and he has been playing it a lot. I had carved an aluminum bridge that sounded great but was breaking strings. The Metal was too soft and aluminum can be sticky. I decided to make a bridge using saddles made of bar fret I had left over from refretting old Martins. I made a split saddle for improved intonation and pinned the bridge to the top under the feet. The new bridge sounds better than before, less ringing a little more precise in articulation.

Rose Pickguard

This was taken with my phone, apologies for the quality. This is going on a Jumbo acoustic I am building for Chellie Rose. The pickguard is made from phenolic resin which doesn't dampen like plastic. The shell used is Paua Abalone, white and yellow mother of pearl.

Harmonics

stunning bass-string shot from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

I found this video of a bass string vibrating. See how harmonics work? The waves visible when the string is plucked are harmonic waves, a fraction in length to the fundamental tone caused by the total length of the vibrating string. I would also like to point out how wide the sting swings. This illustrates clearly why instruments buzz against the fingerbaord or frets, the mortal enemies of luthiers is exposed quite clearly. I don't mean for this as an excuse for a buzzing guitar, but...Yes I do.

Sold the Snake

I built the Snake guitar to be somewhat of an experiment, an example of what I can do given the opportunity. I wanted to keep it for a while so I could learn from what I had built. I did one gig with it and it worked very well, both regarding the intonation and the tone. It stayed in tune and was very articulate in the noisy environment. I played it a lot at home and showed it to some friends to play while I could listen. It was a great experience and fruitful experiment as well. I wouldn't change anything, it is an example of my best work. The sustain and articulation is by far the best I've done. The next piece I undertake will definitely utilize the improvements I've made here.



I let my friend Pat O'Bryan play it and we talked about the tone and the way the string bending tension was softer feeling and easier to hit a pitch with. Pat told Joe Vitale about it, he saw the photos here and scheduled an appointment. I hated to let my baby go but Joe is persuasive. I sold him the guitar. Thanks for supporting the arts Joe! Thanks Pat for the photos.



This is me signing away my newborn, a difficult proposition. Joe will take care of the guitar, she will have a good life. Now I have to begin again, a new start. See you soon.