09 February 2011

Guitar Class, Part One


I'm taking a class at the local community college, because they offer luthierie classes. If I'd known this when I moved here, I'd probably be done with a certificate by now. Because yeah, they offer a certificate for luthierie fundamentals. And that, my friends, is what the kids are calling "dope."

Electric Guitar Building. Or possibly Construction. Anyway.

The plan that comes with the kits we're using for class is for a guitar that looks an awful lot like the Fender Stratocaster (in profile, anyway.) Like the iconic Strat (Jimi Hendrix used Strats an awful lot, as did Stevie Ray Vaughan, and David Gilmour and Eric Clapton are both big fans of Leo Fender's most successful design,) the plans are for a fairly curvy double-cutaway guitar with a bolt-on neck, a flat top, and a very familiar headstock. Headstock and body silhouettes are entirely up to the students, within the limits imposed by scale length (the length of string between the nut - the little piece of bone next to the headstock - and the saddles, which in this case are going to be mounted on the bridge) and electronics (they have to go somewhere, and we are near the minimum for number and type of controls for practical use.)

The electronics are very different from a Stratocaster, as far as these things go. The "typical" Strat has three single-coil pickups that are selected with a five-way blade switch and modified by a master volume control and tone controls for two of the pickups (the third pickup is wired with no tone control, and whether this is a bug or a feature is entirely in the mind of the player. I feel it's buggy, because it does impose an unnecessary limit on the player's sound-shaping options at the guitar, but it is part of the "sound" of a Strat.) The kit includes two dual-coil "humbucker" pickups, a three-way switch to select either or both pickups, a master volume control, and a push-pull tone control that we'll be wiring to "cut" the pickups, making them sound more like single-coil pickups. I'm going to look into other options for the push-pull pot (I want to set it up to select parallel or serial operation of the pickups. Mostly just out of curiosity.)

The bridge is shit. I would never install one given a choice, and will almost definitely be getting something else. It's basically a Strat bridge, but not a tremolo system. The saddles (one per string) are mounted on the bridge just as they are on the trem version, with a spring-wrapped screw to adjust the vibrating length of the string and two short screws for adjusting the height of the string at the bridge. The height screws are what piss me off - they aren't connected to the bridge, except by pressure from the string, and it's very easy to adjust them unevenly, which isn't good for any number of reasons. That, and the damn things always feel flimsy to me. I just don't like them, and it's (almost) purely subjective.

Anyway, long story somewhat less long, the pic is what I have so far. The pickup cavities are uneven - I routed the neck cavity 1 inch deep all the way around; the bridge cavity (closer to the middle - no bridge mounted yet) is what the plans call for, with most of the cavity 3/4" deep, and the ends at a full inch. The extra wood left in the bridge cavity isn't necessary to mount the pickup, but it is a more standard pattern. Who knows, maybe the little extra space around the neck pickup will add a little resonance. I like the silhouette. It's a little smaller - I'd originally cut it a lot closer to the plan's Strat-like shape and then cut it down further to this shape. This weekend, the edges will be rounded down and I'll finish off the control cavity (around back, not pictured.) The controls are "wrong way around," with the selector switch closest to the neck - most designers put it further away from the picking hand so it isn't accidentally bumped while playing, but it's the control I use most during a piece, so I wanted it handy.

How it's going to look when it's finished is completely up in the air at this point. But at this point, I can go a couple of ways with the finish. If there's time towards the end of class (and I just don't see how there won't be. Maybe I'm overly optimistic) we'll be doing a more complex finishing job than the syllabus calls for, which is basically just gun stock oil. I'll be adding a pickguard (more decorative than functional,) which I haven't designed yet.