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Hi, guys!

First off, I expect maybe as many as three people have noticed how scarce I've been on the boards here in recent months. The reasons are manifold, from business to family issues.

Also, as I think I've made no secret, my focus of late is more electric than acoustic. I'd love to be haunting the TEG forums but, well...they aren't really viable. What guitar time I do have is spent exploring blues soloing and, though I know that can be done in the acoustic realm, I'm not there right now.

Part of my growth has been learning how guitars are built and wired, and making mods to my stable; first modest ones, and now massive rebuilds. The culmination of that learning path is that I'm now building my own custom high end guitar, based on the Stratocaster model. This is a rough Photoshop of the body and neck:



That is a photo of the actual body, handcrafted of Rosina wood from a shop in Washington state. The neck is maple and Indian rosewood from the same shop. The backsides are gloss black.

I have a custom-wound HSH pickup set from Jim Wagner in hand and the rest of the parts are trickling in. The control system is a custom layout I designed myself (my undergrad EE classes are starting to bear fruit) and will feature a wide range of tonal varieties.

My musical focus is Blues soloing and I have big plans for having a nice setlist in playable form for IGC 2018. Yes, I'll be bringing an electric, and a (battery-powered; those of you who were there at IGC 2017 will get that reference) tiny pedalboard.

I promise I will be posting some busking videos ere long. Really. I've been busting ass to learn new material in spite of all the issues I have keeping me from playing.

I guess I'm one of the three.

BTW your custom strat is going to be a beauty. Looking forward to seeing and hearing it when it's ready.

That makes me two out of three....
Missed you here!


Corina.

Thanks, guys. I miss my musical family more each day and I'm counting down the time until IGC 2018. :side:

Mark

I noticed it was very quite around here without your input, so that makes me number 3 me thinks.
That is a stunning looking electric guitar you are making, can't wait to see and hear it.

Tom N.

5 pickups?

willem wrote:

5 pickups?

Three. The neck and bridge are humbuckers. :side:

Mark

Dear Mark

You are such an engineer, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. I really envy people who love to build and create like that. I don't think anyone here really worries if you prefer to play an acoustic vs an electric guitar. In the big picture it is really all the same thing, it's music. So I don't think that you're going to be excommunicated from this forum just because you prefer loud noisy guitars. By the way that was a beautiful guitar that you posted.

Hi Mark

Good luck with the building project. I actually decided to build a self designed semi-acoustic guitar from scratch. I never really considered what hand building a guitar from scratch actually entailed but I can tell you it is a lot more work than I thought. For example it never occurred to me that since it is my own design that I would have to build every template I need as well. It is a great project and I hope I will finish it but I still have a long way to go as the pictures show. If I have it finished before IGC and it is playable I might bring it over to the US.

good luck
Eric

Thanks for the kind words, guys! :side:

Sandy, I had to laugh: in my professional life, a designer saying a user interface was "designed by an engineer" is a pointed insult and amuses me to no end. I live at the intersection between art and engineering and the interplay (and sometimes friction) is endlessly fascinating to me. I'm positive my internal wiring is part of why I'm currently enjoying learning to create musical instruments.

Still gotta make sure I don't let geeking completely overtake practicing. :dry:

That looks very cool, Eric! I really hope you get it done in time for IGC! We can compare creations. I'm not to the point where I'm ready to start carving the woodwork myself, but maybe down the road I'll convert part of the basement into a woodworking shop (my studio is far too small for that sort of thing) and try my hand. I learned some woodworking skills from my dad and one of his good friends, a Polish (as in came over from Poland) cabinetmaker. My skills are comparatively meager but I know the fundamentals and I'm a quick study. In the meantime I'll settle for drooling over your work of art.

I finished the wiring of my design yesterday. I won't bore you with the details of what the various controls are designed to do, I'll just say the options are legion.



In general, my preference for electric guitars doesn't run to "loud, noisy" or any of that. In fact, my designs are based around optimizing the tone with the volume settings way down, around 20% of maximum. Even when playing lead I hardly ever go above 50% and the amp is usually still quite low. I'm not into the racket, but very much into the tonal varieties and the versatility. As you who met me at IGC2017 have seen, the one song I played electric on at open mic was a John Denver ballad and I was using a 12 string sim pedal. B)

Presuming I bring this beastie as my instrument for IGC2018 you can expect my prepared repertoire to be similarly mellow. :silly:

Mark