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JC's Electric Instrument Page
Just holding a solidbody instrument makes a person feel dangerous, like a suddenly-competent and important human being. I never get this feeling from an acoustic instrument. Many of the following guitars will be too Heavy Metal for a lot of contemporary players, perhaps because most of them were made in the '80s and early '90s. This time period allowed a lot of creativity that has been squeezed out of electric guitar design in recent years. As a builder, I loved the metal era. Today we are once again stuck with a few classic shapes finished in black, red, white, or natural wood (especially fancy maple). If I can't work in crazy colors I'd just as soon work with pretty wood, but the cost of materials has sky-rocketed and the work must be more meticulously done to turn out a fine job, both of which have driven the price of custom electrics into the realm of acoustic guitars.
It's long been a thorn in my side that even the craziest musicians who live the wildest lifestyles are often achingly conservative in their choice of musical weapons. They could have anything but they prefer to play the same old guitars. The army of rock'n'roll wannabes has largely followed suit. The electric luthier doesn't get to use much imagination, but I still like to build "electrical geetars" nonetheless. Basses, too.
What follows is basically a show & tell, with a lot of show and not much tell. Enjoy.
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There's not much remarkable about this guitar except that it's the first electric I built. The time for this shape seems to have come and gone but I still like it. Purpleheart fingerboard. The headstock is initialed ODC, for Outlaw Destruction Company. My acoustics were built under the String Wizard banner. My little factory had a split personality. |
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The Vee on the right is a full-size Gibson shape. By moving the bridge as far back as possible the whole guitar becomes much more compact. The little cutaway keeps the upper frets accessible. The baby Zee on the left makes a light, well-balanced axe. The zebrawood fretboard of this one has been finished in see-through red. The rest of the guitar is candy apple red metalflake. |
| Left, another Baby Zee, poplar body with zebrawood
fingerboard. Held by Little Dave, its happy owner. Gold Floyd Rose
bridge and EMG pickup.
Right, though I wanted to get into fancy graphics work this Tele was about as far as I got. Life is too short to get good at everything. |
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Both guitars, left and right, are copies of George Lynch instruments. Photos of his guitars were projected onto the bodies to make the masking as accurate as possible. Lynch's camo guitar included a photo of a Japanese fighter pilot that I was unable to include. Honduras rosewood fretboards on both guitars.
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This is my daughter Jade (circa 1988) holding an octave guitar. The scale length is 15" and strings heavier than 8's won't stand the tension. The 24-fret neck makes it the equivalent of a 36-fret guitar capoed at the 12th fret. Dogs run howling from the high notes.
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Above is a guitar made of Douglas fir capped front and back with maple. The neck is birch and the 'board Brazilian rosewood. The purfling is crushed turquoise in an epoxy matrix. The pickup rings are zebrawood and the knobs are rosewood with ivory centers. This guy is slightly less than 12" across. I made the case, too.
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Note the deep scalloping on the Tele-thing's maple neck. The carved-strat on the right is finished in black with a 'burst of metallic blue. EMG pickups and a Honduras rosewood 'board. This wood rings like a bell and is hard as a rock.
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Hanner was this customer's nickname. The neck EMG hadn't arrived when this pix was taken. Lace painting is fun!
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My friend Haj Baxter asked for a strung fretboard, the most compact practice tool possible, so he could practice on airplanes and such. Instead, I came up with the Ugly Stick, which is hardly larger than the practice toy Haj wanted but makes all the noise of a real guitar. It is a real guitar. The strings are initially tuned with the friction pegs, but once they are stretched the fine tuners on the bridge have enough travel to tune the guitar for a long time. Thanks for the pictures, Haj. |
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Another Ugly Stick. Neck-through maple with a curly birch 'board, walnut trim
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This is John. He played in a country band with his grandfather, a twin-guitar team. After his grandfather had throat surgery even the weight of his Steinberger hurt his shoulders, so John had this special Ugly Stick made. See-through blue over neck-through curly maple, EMGs and a gold Floyd Rose. The inlays on the Honduras rosewood board are horseshoes. I wish I had a shot of his grandfather playing this thing. |
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The Butterfly, aka The Bat. Right is a stone finish over a cherry body with an ebony 'board; Duncan pickups. When the tone knob hits 10 the humbucker switches to single coil mode. Left is curly eucalyptus over mahogany; padouk fingerboard with maple speed stripes; Bill Lawrence lead p.u. with a DiMarzio in the neck This body is about 18" wide and has to be kept thin to keep the weight down. Finding a factory case is just about impossible. |
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Above, a heavily beveled strat-thing. I like stone finishes but most guitarists don't get it. Lacewood neck with Honduras rosewood fingerboard.
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Same beveled strat-style body, but in peach lacquer. Cool neck binding!
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Left, double-cutaway Tele-style 12-string, extra thick body, maple & purpleheart fretboard. Right, really nice quilted maple top, 3 Duncans, and a sunken Floyd Rose.
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Above, this is a pretty straight-forward Tobias rip-off 5-string. Neck-through, EMG pickups. Body wings are solid curly maple.
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Above, a bass built on a standard strat body and headstock using guitar machineheads. It balanced just fine and sounded great. Lots lighter than a P-bass. Huge pearl dots look cool on stage. Zebrawood knobs.
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Tobias meets Status, in a 5-string lefty with a koa body. My customers often come to me with most of the ideas in place and I only suggest changes that will make the instrument more playable or easier to build.
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This is a guitar I truly enjoyed building. Bookmatched zebrawood top over fancy walnut from a custom timbercutter in Washington. I did a lot of inlays in this style for awhile. The fingerboard is bocate, a very oily Mexican wood. The dots are all assorted varieties of natural wood.
Below, I called this body style the Dagger, so this is the Army Dagger. I changed scale lengths in the middle of creation, which made the lead pickup a long way from the bridge. This took away some high-end bite but made it much warmer overall. The Lawrence XL500 has enough balls that it doesn't matter much where you put it, it's going to roar.
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This guitar has a ton of stuff going on. Reverse strat body; Duncan Quarter Pounder pickups w/ reverse polarity in the middle. Lace paint job. Lacewood neck, an Australian species. The tailpiece is a Bigsby palm pedal with pedals for the High E and B strings so they can be bent individually for pedal steel effects. The 3 little knobs control the Mike Christian transducer bridge for an acoustic sound. I ran them into a Fishman preamp system, but it sounded warmer and more natural when run straight to the output jack.
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Left, an LP 6/12 doubleneck. The body is hollow
on the 12-string side (except under the bridge) for increased ring and
resonance. The Double Zee at right is set up 6/6, with a flat
fingerboard on top meant for slide playing and open tunings. It has
bocate 'boards and quartersawn wenge necks. My daughter Sara Jade
again, same age as before.
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Black crackle over pink and gray, a color combination I like a lot. The fretboard is figured ebony. I don't know why everyone prefers the boring all-black stuff, unless it's used as background for an inlay series. The neck is ziricote, an extremely stiff Central American wood that remains strong even if the neck is carved lean and fast.
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The Shark.
Well, I hope you enjoyed it. There's tons more, but you're probably worn out by now. A lot of instruments escaped unphotographed, especially those finished during the winter. Check out the other pages if you haven't had enough.
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