The Luthier Community

Setting the location of the bridge. I do this by sound rather than measurement. This is the same rig I use for acoustic bridge placement.



Made a cardboard cutout of the control space so I can set up the electronics outside the body.



Gives you a general idea of the controls. I have not put the inputs in yet, nor the grounds or output. Will save these for when the controls are inside the guitar. I have the switching so it goes neck, both, bridge, piezo alone and piezo with neck. 3 volume controls and a master volume for the preamp. This is a tube preamp by Oatley in Australia. Read about it in Nuts and Volts magazine.



View of the peghead and rounded fret ends. Also since the fingerboard binding was a bit narrow, I used some wire for fret markers.





Have started to use Tru-oil for this build.



Mike Z

Putting on coats of TruOil and sanding back so not much to show of that right now.

But my friend Marie Davis, who supports herself with beautiful Sculpey jewelry and art has come through with the rooster head!
For her work she builds canes 2-5 inches high of constructed images or abstract design. In this case she constructed the canes above a traced picture of the rooster that started this topic.



Finally building up a portrait of the rooster



After adding a background all around she is able to cut and roll the cane, reducing it to any desired size. Also she can distort the cane. All detail is preserved. Here are pieces she produced for the 12th fret. Could get very exact with a plug cutter and Forstner bit but I don't think this will be necessary. I have decided to use the oval disk and will show the inlaying this coming weekend.



Marie is obviously an artist of the highest caliber and I feel fortunate to be able to commission her. She loves it because when I ask her to do something it is always a bit new to her--she usually works with abstract designs-- Also the canes can be used for many pieces. As she was making these in her shop people have already ordered rooster earings and pendents and hair clips!! So this design has already made additional sales for her.

Mike Z

Ok guys sorry but I just went ahead and finished this guitar.











Not a lot of difficulty here. Just a lot of measuring, nut cutting, rewiring,and intonating. Learned a bunch about what is possible with multiple pickups and single input preamps (not much because any interacton of the pots sends everything to ground ) Ill leave the multiblends to the big boys unless you guys have any suggestions. So this has separate bridge, neck and piezo pickups. Hope to give this to Owen this weekend. Thanks for the encouragement and thanks for looking.

Mike Z