a new template of electric guitar

[John Watt]

Forum regulars may recognize me as the very literate typist,
however, this is just a quick cut and paste and run. But please,
watch my walk-in, one-take effort and see what you think.
Be patient, it's over nine minutes long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P4vEgZj2jw

A wider string vibration envelope, enhanced resonance,
louder and more tonal, greater harmonics and fret feel,
twice as thick as a full scale Strat and wider but lighter.

Now I can put it back together to play.
This long distance bike-hike rest stop, Point Abino,
over the border from Buffalo, is where these ideas came to me.
The Sherkston Beach sandhill in the center of the pic is my next destination,
and where I go inland for the recreational path back to this residence.
as always, John Watt

[Daily User]

What a big neck joint it has.. Not a solid body guitar but has a double locking tremolo system on it. A huge tremolo chamber with the hollow body might make it lack of sustain I believe. Such an unusual design anyway. Which pups are going to be installed?

[heartscore]

Beautiful! The instrument reminds me on some Tom Anderson Strats and PRS Hollowbody, because of the overall concept. But it's looking very unique and and more in the classic Fender-way.So the video is interesting, but how this beauty sounds? Please install some Pickups and show us a video, where somebody is playing something.

[John Watt]

Daily User! The neck joint on Strat style guitars was the weakest looking part of that design, and only gets bigger on mine. What you're typing was a big concern to me, and I even thought about putting a strap-holder there. The center block the neck is screwed on top of is slightly thicker than a full-scale Strat. I've got four deck-screw looking stainless steel screws through the back plate and four smaller ones underneath it, a total of eight. The one guitar pic shows what the neck joint looks like for my hand. I have to make an effort to put my thumb on it, if I want to. I slanted the heel to get a violin-like feel.

Not a double-locking tremolo system, but an original, custom-ordered left-handed 1972 Leo Fender tremolo unit. I have a '72 DiMarzio P.A.F. Humbucker, but it's cream-coloured and worn out, with epoxy to cover exposed coils. Now, a 36th Anniversary DiMarzio Humbucker with two '72 Fat Strats with new covers.

You're right to be concerned about sustain with this combination, going for an interior like a violin or viola but with a center block for tremolo unit strength, all that steel string and spring pressure. But that's not all. The aluminum ground soak that lines the complete interior, a three-dimensional shape, accelerates the acoustics, the biggest reason I think the harmonics rub out audibly. This increases sustain on it's own, enhancing harmonics and fret feel. I feel kinda sax-like with it, getting a smooth tone that gets a little raunchy and growly being picked the hardest. It also enables a lower volume feedback, with the high end still there.

heartscore! With a name like yours I'd be hurt if you didn't like it. Thank you for your kind compliment. I've still got some parts from my '64 Strat for sentimental reasons. What's really nice for me is getting the fretboard replaced with a two-octave ebony fingerboard with slanted lefty frets. Three more frets than a Strat, and the pickups add a higher F#, A and third octave E. I keep thinking I'd like to make an arch of simulated frets like some classical guitars, building it with brass tubing like I used to solder frames together for funny car models, but I don't want what happened to Nicolo Paganini to happen to me.

I loved my '64 Strat for a long time, and getting inventive with the design could have gotten out of hand if I tried to get decorative with it too. It's still the best silhouette to hold, for me. I'm not disappointed with your comparison to other companies. I started this template in '95 and had this fifth body attempt together to experiment with through an amp over eight years ago. I started emailing about it to corporations and other guitarists around the world years ago when I first got online at my surrogate family's house, and had my international release of my first photos here on magle.dk. Other life involvements have kept me from pursuing it just as a musician. Now I can.

Yes, I'm going on when these pictures might tell more of story. This is the next guitar I was working on, winning a wonderful deal for this neck with a gentle bet playing guitar in a music store in Toronto. But it's just a '60-'64 Strat replica, and once I got into the shorter scale I abandoned it. I can stand with my eyes closed and reach over for an A chord, G chord or C chord without looking. That adjustment in my co-ordination took over six months. Yeah, yeah, you can practice some trivial things when you're a non-smoker, non-drinker on the road in bands. I sometimes wonder if I'm better on guitar or playing pool.

The nature pic is one of my favorite rest stops during long distance bike-hikes. This Point Abino view looks north and the biggest sandhills in the center of the pic are my next destination, and where I go inland to hit the recreational pathway back to this residence. Looking the other way, you'll see Buffalo. This is where most of my ideas came to me.

Thanks for wanting to hear it. That's coming soon.

as always, John Watt

[Daily User]

The neck joint seemed a bit uncomfortable to play.. Anyway, what are the other parts that you used for the body and thinking of installing as the hardware? Pau Ferro neck with ebony fingerboard is great for sustain as you might know, but I think your concern is to get a strat sound out of that.. Here is my question: Is your '72 DiMarzio P.A.F. Humbucker with 2 or 4 conductors? Can you split it I mean?

Also, a birdseye maple fingerboard would sound great and look great with that natural body. I talk too much, but going with a soap bar pickup would just be great in the neck position for a smooth sound I believe. Thinking the pickup's color and the different size of it from a humbucker, it would look sytlish (though it is already unique), but the guitar looks handsome, it really does and I am sure it will sound sweet.

[John Watt]

Daily User! I see you're still concerned about the neck joint. It's there, but it's just deeper. It almost plays the same way across the top. Don't be fooled by the proportions in the photo. The two octave neck makes it look like it sticks out further than a Strat, when it doesn't. I carved almost half an inch from the flat area where the neck would have been slotted into a Strat style body. Look at how the neck pickup almost touches the fingerboard. That's closer than Fender and Gibson. And instead of just a flat joint across the back, I made a curved leading edge, tapering it, and that's a nice leading edge to feel if my thumb needs more control, not a body block.

Here's a photo of the first guitar I put together in '72, making the body. These are the parts I'm still using. The body is made out of local hard maple and is thinner than a Strat, but the same weight. For a solid-body, that's one of the few real "acoustic" considerations. I built bodies then and my new semi-solid-body with Fender and Gibson as precedents, and still consider them the standard template for electric guitars. If I started experimenting with pickups again, I'd be swamped. Most guitars and amplifiers, if not adhering to those electrical standards, just extrapolate off them. This '72 body had switches and knobs so I could either be two pickups like a Les Paul or two pickups like a Strat. And the way it was wired you could have any combination. I liked that because a single coil and humbucker combination let me finger-pick in the mix with lead picking or rhythm strumming. This was strange back then, humbuckers on a Strat, as well as the reverse headstock. I like that because I don't have to show my armpit reaching up and over to tune. That's still the same comfort zone for me. I don't have to look to turn specific tuners. I look so casual playing guitar, and that's with bass strings on the bottom, sometimes people come up onstage to touch the strings to see if it's really me playing, or say my fingers look like a spider. It was supposed to be a shop guitar, for trying out amplifiers and effects, but it became my favorite and I sold my '64 Stratocaster, keeping a couple of parts.

You can see I carved the body to look good onstage, deep shadows, but the "moon" and "sun" were compensations for disappointing attempts at onboard 9volt pre-amps. Talk about disappointment, I'll add another pic I hope you can read.

The two humbuckers and two single coils, the two volume and two tone controls, the routing for the 9volt pre-amp, and the exterior carvings are what led to my thinking about acoustics. As you can see I'm left-handed, and most power tools aren't. It was a power tool mistake, cutting through into the carving, that gave this guitar a more open tonal quality. My next body attempt, many years later, didn't expand on this much more, but as I tried again and again, creating more interior space kept working better without any drawbacks.

Saying I'm using the same parts might sound needy, especially tuners from '72. My local music store, where I almost lived after high school, not worked, was owned by Bill Nitransky, who became a good friend. He sold me my first Fender neck, a used Tele, for $25 to get me started. When he was at the warehouse, he opened three boxes of Schaller tuners, getting the pots from Gibson style, the three lefties from each box, and the knobs from Fender inline style so they'd work six inline. He said Fender string tension is lighter than Gibson, using a longer scale, and they should last a lifetime. Very sadly, for him he was right. I'm still using them. When I tune up I still think of Bill, especially when I'm using the snips he gave me to trim the strings.

You hit a nerve. The black DiMarzio 36th Anniversay pickup I ordered was not an exact replica, having split coil potential with extra wires, the case soldered on with wax that melted when I removed it. Very disappointing, because I had to file the pickup portal to compensate, and it doesn't look as good. A different pickup with P.A.F. specs that I could size in better would motivate me. I'd still want to be able to squeeze in that high F# and notes on other strings across those poles.

Thanks for your continued interest. What's your guitar? If you're thinking about my template, a used screw-on neck and maybe $20 of medium hardwood would get you started. I'd buy a cheap small-scale Strat and all the parts would be there, somewhat.
as always, John Watt

[Daily User]

Look at how the neck pickup almost touches the fingerboard. That's closer than Fender and Gibson.

Well, it looks like you are going to get a thicker sound even from a Les Paul's neck with that..

I am not a professional musician as you are, so don't get me wrong.

Recently, I have bought my 22nd guitar (I didn't own all of them at the same time) and still couldn't decide what to love, what to play.. but I can easily say that I never liked the strat sound I love the dirty and clean sound I get from Electric Spanish (ES345 kinda Semi-Hollow body) guitars. But that guitar you have put together looks like a Suhr, and I think they are handsome..

[methodistgirl]

I have a new Fender Natural I bought last spring. I love it.
judy tooley

[John Watt]

Photo1: This was supposed to be a picture showing the three-piece vented back plate.
But some Fender screws showed up with some Gibson frame bolts,
wanting to get in on some pickup installations,
and some off-size screws showed up with some big springs that even brought their half-springs.
And I never saw this before, but some Gibson parts were trying to adjust the Fender volume.
I know these parts have been on my guitar for a long, long time.
But they'll have to win the lottery to come back as back plate screws.

Photo2: The enhanced harmonics have all the parts re-excited. The tones coming out have the swallows swirling, some deeps tones are emerging, and there's a little rumble scraping around there. Beautiful, a warm and toned guitar, a nice feel with some deep down sound, still like an acoustic Stratocaster, just louder.

The other photos are the first images of my guitar with strings.

Thanks again to Mr. Frederik Magle for letting me present myself here.
as always, John Watt

[Daily User]

Wow.. it's the best position to locate the volume and tone knobs, and the switches.. It has come to my attention now as I've seen it finished. I wonder why guitar producers cannot work that out. Pretty good looking guitar.

[John Watt]

From the largest city in Canada, the Capitol of Ontario,
The City of Toronto, I received an email from RING MUSIC,
where I ordered custom necks and played 50's and 60's Strats.

The owner said he and his staff watched my video and discussed it.
They agree with my use of the term, semi-solid-body.
Now it's official.

And that's good enough for more photos.
I'm as excited about this guitar as much as my first Strat.
I used to look at it and see so much Jimi inside.
Now I've got another guitar to grow into, again.
This one deserves a symphonic-electric designation.
Or am I dreaming about that too?

Daily User! You're right about the volume and switch placements, but I had a hard time giving up on a volume near the bridge, even though I've always had one on the floor. I still think Jimi Hendrix kept happy playing an upside-down Strat so he could see the numbers on the knobs clearly, an important part of his multi-effects use, and just the way he looked at them, sometimes holding the guitar up to his face to turn them.
Yeah, Jimi! Jimi. The Axis is turning.

This photo of Lake Erie, north of Buffalo, is one of my better ones, looking like it looked.
The two-story concrete decks are mostly gone, a remnant of Crystal Beach Amusement Park.
Sitting here taking a break during long distance bike-hikes is a dreaming place for me.

as always, John Watt

[Daily User]

I am afraid there are not many guitar players here..

That's a great news.

[methodistgirl]

Oh you'd be surprised how many that are here who play the guitar.
I play the guitar as one of us.
judy tooley

[Premonition]

guitar is all i play

why am i on this forum?

-does anyone really care?

[methodistgirl]

Premo, I play the guitar and I belong to this forum. It's interesting on
how many things played on the pipe organ that can be played on the
guitar in any style. From classical to rock. I prefer country and southern
gospel music myself. Not the modern country music like you hear now
but music like I grew up with. I live where Blue grass is our folk music.
judy tooley