Well, the banjo I'm holding isn't weird in any sense (unless you hate banjos). But I've built a bunch of other instruments that don't easily fit into given categories. Many luthiers only build one type of instrument, but since I wanted to play them all I had to build them all. It's made my life more interesting and kept boredom at bay.
Max Crandall and Marcel Chouteau used to play together in a band called Combo Holiday. The band made strange, unexpected, and delightful music. Combo Holiday is still around, though Max has moved on. Max and Marcel commissioned a few instruments that will only hint at their musical interests, so I'm starting this page with their stuff. I'm not even sure I've captured them all here.
 |
 |
Marcel commissioned the koa baritone uke shown on the right in the photos above. The other baritone is the prototype for Marcel's. It's made of butternut, a relative of walnut. Marcel's wife Lisa is a producer of TV programs, and she and her videographer documented the construction of these pieces for a series called Art Beat. It was a huge amount of fun and an immense amount of work on Lisa's part. She had to cook down about 26 hours of tape into a half-hour show. This was in 1995. I've since moved to a different state, have a different shop, and work for another guitar company, and have come to think of the the video as having captured my good old days, even though life is better now.
|
|
This is the JagUke, another of Marcel's baritones, this time built
on a shrunken Fender Jaguar body. The pickup cavity in the
Tele-type bridge was used for the sound hole. The electronic signal
comes from a custom Fishman transducer in the bridge. Marcel later
brought this guy in to be painted black.
|
 |
|
|
 |
 |
Max came up with the design for this 7-string lap steel. Tracking down a 7-string pickup wasn't easy in those days. The tailpiece is a pair of Bigsby palm pedals hooked to the second and third strings, permitting them to be bent individually. The bright finish is some textured aluminum sheet metal that Max came up with, and the black is textured paint. Note that the 7th string has its own anchor and doesn't attach to the tailpiece, which only has room for six strings. The roller bridge had to be custom made, too. It's simply bass string ball ends mounted on a brass rod. Right is a closeup of the bridge/tailpiece/pickup. |  |
 |
Max Crandall plays the standard size uke, as opposed to the Baritone that Marcel prefers. I made these two solidbody ukes hoping to lure Max into a purchase, and much to my surprise he took the blue one. They both have custom Fishman pickups and bridges that I devised to apply enough down tension to drive the pickups. Maple necks/boards, poplar bodies. |
 |
 |
Rick Parker led (and may still lead) a band called the Semi-Amazing Shotguns. Rick played bass and had this shotgun bass made up to fit his theme. Later I made a rifle guitar for the band, but I never made pix of it. Rick also used an old pump gun for his mike stand. The pickups are EMG J-Bass. The tuners are banjo gears adjustable from the back. If memory serves they didn't hold up, and normal bass gears had to be fitted, which sort of ruined the outline of the shotgun but what are you going to do? |
 |
 |
Seeing the ZZ Top fur guitars on MTV made me crazy and I had to build some for myself. This one had several hardware incarnations. Here it has DiMarzio pickups. The rings are zebrawood and the knobs rosewood/ivory. A wonderful guitar to play sitting up in bed! The furry Explorer-style (below) uses a Kahler locking bridge system. Note the custom pickup ring and the painted pickup. The back of the neck is painted in vertical black/white stripes, too, but I didn't get a pix.
|
|
 |
At left is an electric octave mandolin. The neck is walnut and the body solid mahogany. The pickup is a stacked humbucker using a push/pull knob to shut off one coil. Though the guitar pickup has weird pole spacing for the strings it sounds just fine all the way across the board. Compensated ebony bridge and custom case. The pink paint was later stripped off and the body finished in natural wood. It wasn't as cool that way but I was able to sell it. |
American Lutherie printed an article and plans for the Malagasy kabosy (ka-boo-zy) and I built one immediately. The shape is traditional. I used spalted sycamore for the body (with walnut trim) and the last of my quartered white pine for the top. The neck is maple. The tuning is out there, really wierd, and though the frets are laid out in a Western scale pattern many of them don't go all the way across the fretboard. I never learned to play it worth a damn but it was fun for confusing my friends.
 |
 |
 |
 |
Above is the prettier of the two casket guitars I made. The sides are imbuya, the back imbuya/maple, the top cedar, the neck maple, the fingerboard curly birch. The top is braced in a standard X pattern and this guitar sounded very good. Early on in America many casket guitars were made, and a few are still made throughout the South. If bending sides seems a bit daunting the obvious step is to just not bother! The rosette says, "DAMN YOU, MESOPOTAMIA!", which is a social/philosophical statement. Mesopotamia is often called the Cradle of Civilization. If Mesopotamia had gotten it right civilization might not be the screwed up mess it is today.
 |
At left is a pair of my travel guitars. They are fun, small, and sound surprisingly good. With a pickup installed they sound like fullsize guitars. |
See Ya.
