Evolution of a guitar - from the drawing board to the prototype

Over the last few years I have been trying out a number of prototypes which can be put made into a production model with a number of options which would appeal to a large number of players. At this point, what you see in the photos above is the third iteration of this design.

The first iteration got as far as templating about three years ago, but I decided not to continue with it due to a number of practical issues regards to the building process, the hardware that it would require and some reservations that I hadn’t got the rear sweep correct.

the second iteration was made in to a prototype. This, rather unusually, was a bolt on design - the first totally original design that I had produced that used that construction. I identified a number of problems with it in use, especially that the sweep design was purely aesthetic once the guitar was plugged in due to the jack socket placement.

There were many other issues that I thought I’d got wrong. The control placement with the tremolo didn’t work - the arm was always in the way for me in that I like to be able to use my little finger on the volume control. Also, because I don’t do a lot of right hand tapping, I hadn’t realised that the three way switch would be in the way for that kind of playing.

So in revisiting parts of that design that I liked, I went back to a tried and trusted guitar for inspiration, the guitar I built to gig behind the Notebook album in 2009. That guitar has undergone quite a few changes since its original build, in part due to having been broken in half in a house move (literally).

What I was always very satisfied with on this design was the balance, and the access to the higher frets. It used a tun-o-matic, but without the angle created by the space under a Gibson style bridge and the accompanying neck break angle. That made it easier to transport and less fragile, and gave a feel that was more relatable to telecaster players.

From the Model 2 (2013) and the Firebird/JR-1, I used the straight pull headstock style that I had already developed. This reverted to the 3x3 tuners, and away from the 6 in line that I used on the 2017 sweep prototype. That project was clearly too space age to be a production model.

So the first process was to incorporate the sweep into that design, alongside a much more commercially acceptable neck profile (if you’ve played my original guitars, they really are built for my left hand and taste, which isn’t widely shared)!

So at this point I was left with a design that was mostly like the Junior Mk1, but with the sweep and rear loaded rather than with a pickguard.

The sweep made the waist look very fat, so I brought that in on the drawings. At that point I had a body shape.

The next issue became the pickup positions. With a 24 fret design, the classic neck sound of the Les Paul just isn’t really quite there, so it had to be a 22 fret design with the neck pickup right up to end of the fingerboard. To test it templates are made.

So that’s the process by which an idea, the 2017 prototype with the tremolo and a pickguard evolved into the model that you can now order. the stages beyond this are just a matter of normal production tweaks - but the real work is already done by that point., cutting a volute, setting the neck joint angle, these are things that I usually do on the fly when making a prototype, because the proof for such issues is in the manufacturing process and the playing.

That’s the process for a new model. It looks short, but it’s been three years. Will it be a success? It all depends on what I consider a success. If I sell ten of these over the next financial year (to April 21) , I’ll be fairly pleased. That will get me even on costs and allow development into the next project. But as things are today, as I write, there is a great deal of uncertainty as to what the market is going to do over the next year.

This is a subject I will return to very soon…..

Throwing good after bad..

I get requests to undertake all kinds of upgrade work to all sorts of different instruments. But is it all sensible, and are expectations from our cheap beginners instruments just a bit too high?

What makes a good platform for upgrade?

An electric guitar is made of a number of constituent parts. The body, neck, hardware and electronics. There are always two main places to upgrade: hardware and electronics, and normally electronics is the biggest gain, pound for pound. But this has to rely on certain other issues - mainly the body and the neck. How do you tell if they are a good platform to upgrade before you start buying parts?

If you are looking to find a luthier to do the work, the best way is to go and see the Luthier with the guitar before you buy any parts. But that’s not how it always happens, so what if you’re impulsive or intend to do the work yourself. How do you tell whether the cost is worth it?

Does it play well?

Even if the guitar sounds a bit weak, does it play well? If it doesn’t, then the first issue is why it doesn’t. And remember we’re talking about economy models here in the main. the sort of stuff that you pick up new at under the £250 region - so to upgrade it you’re not going to want to spend more than you paid for it! A re fret isn’t likely to be in the budget.

Neck

Is it straight? Look down the neck from the headstock to the body, along the side. You should see that the neck has some relief in it (i.e it bends upwards very slightly). Now look down the other side - is the relief similar. If it is, the neck isn’t twisted. That’s a good start. (If it’s bent back, undo the truss rod by a quarter turn at a time, and keep going until it has relief) **

Is the bend in the neck fairly even over its length? If it kicks up hard at the lowest frets, then it’s a good bet that you’ll struggle to get it set up well. Quite often this is what happens, especially with guitars that have a body end rod adjuster - they simply haven’t got much support all the way to the head. Look for humps in the middle too - these are incredibly common.

Next, if the neck has some relief in it (i.e. it’s not already bolt straight or bent backwards), turn the truss rod a quarter turn clockwise. If the truss rod won’t turn, or is so tight that it’s really hard to turn, that’s scores a point in the “against” column. If the truss rod turns, but doesn’t seem to make any difference to the neck relief, that’s game over.

If you’re still good, lets move on…

(**A good guide is that if you’re stuck, hold the E string down at the first fret and where the neck joins the body. The gap between the 8th or 9th fret and the bottom of the string should be about the same as the width of the B string, or a touch less - if you get it in this ball park then the next stage is easier).

Frets

Are they level? Are they even in the neck properly? It can be hard to tell if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but there are some easy clues to spot whether the frets are going to be a problem.

The first obvious sign is fretwear. If there are big divots in the frets, it’s going to need professional work, or at least assessment - get help.

If you have particular areas on the neck where the strings are rattling or fretting out, while other areas are playing clean (and you’ve got the truss rod in the ball park above), that’s a strong indicator of a problem. Say 4th 10th and 14th are terrible, but the rest is kind of OK. that’s almost certainly high frets, or badly seated frets. That’s got to be sorted before you undertake any other work.

Now, if just the top frets, say 12 upwards, are fretting out, then it might just be that your action is set too low. But if the strings are quite high, that’s an indicator that it will need a fret dress at the very least.

Look down the neck - can you see that the frets all sit properly against the fretboard. If you can see the tangs then the frets are no longer in the neck properly. You shouldn’t be able to get a fingernail under the fret for example. Another mark in the “against” column, it will probably need professional help.

So far so good? You might have a good platform guitar. Now we get into the less difficult areas

Hardware

This is now a cost/benefit analysis. Hardware is nearly always easy to deal with because most starter guitars use standard hardware - it’s just a matter of cost.

Does the guitar tune well, do the tuners turn cleanly and hold their position? If so, that’s something you don’t have to replace. If you have a failed tuner on a cheap guitar, you aren’t changing one, you’re changing 6, because the economics of that makes much more sense. You’ll only be back to the task again if you don’t.

Does the bridge adjustment work - fender style bridges often suffer from corrosion in the saddle adjusters. Does it break strings at the bridge regularly - if so it will probably need new saddles (if it has them). All fairly quick and easy. and not hideously expensive. Not a deal breaker for most guitars.

So you’ve decided to upgrade…

After checking the neck and body, you’ve got a sound platform. So what can you do at a reasonable cost to change your guitar for the better? There are two main areas.

Pickups

You don’t need to change all of them, or all of them in one go. If you’re a rock player, the chances are that you use your bridge pickup most of the time. You can start there. What it’s not wise to do, is to change one cheap pickup for another one just to get it all done in one go.

If you’re not buying a ‘mid priced’ pickup - i.e. one that is better than the ebay specials that cost £20-30, probably best not to bother. You’ll likely be disappointed. Until you get to £40+ per twin coil, or about £70 a set of singles, you’re probably only changing one cheap pickup for another, and the benefit will be small.

Once you get to the Toneriders or Iron Gear Pickups, then you’re into mid priced decent pickups. I’ve fitted quite a few of both and they are good value. There are other similar brands out there, so time to do your research.

If your pots and switches are good, then there’s no burning need to replace them, but there’s no point in struggling on with them if they aren’t working well. Now is the time to do the whole job - change anything that is going to get in the way of your tone.

If your tone control isn’t creating the effect you want, changing the capacitor is cheap. But the key is to use a different value - there is no discernible difference between capacitor brands. Changing a ceramic for a Sprague orange will not change your tone. Higher values will tend to a darker tone and harder roll off - and they are generally cheap so play with a few, it’s pennies.

Another trick is to change the wiring layout - for example putting a master tone into a strat, or a switch to get that Neck/Bridge combo. Or in humbucker guitars a phase switch, coil tap or a treble bleed kit. Again, not big jobs, but can be a good result. One of my favourites with Les Paul wiring is to revert to the 50’s tone controls, because I prefer the tone when you roll off the volume, and the cost is zero. Lots of info out there on the web.

Hardware

Most hardware changes are of low benefit, unless your current hardware has an issue with it. The big gains are in electronics.

But changing bridges can make a difference - mainly because on some guitars the bridges get sharp and tend to break strings, or in the case of something like a strat style bridge have a lack of mass which reduces sustain. If you’re going to change a strat bridge, they aren’t all the same - make sure you get the right dimensions. If you’re buying a heavy block trem to increase sustain, make sure it’s going to fit the body. If you don’t use your strat trem, you can block it to connect the mass to that of the body, which is a common trick to aid sustain.

Another one is to change a nut - mainly for a graphite or bone one, which often increases tuning stability and reduces gripping. This applies a lot to strats, as cheaper guitars are fitted with plastic which binds a bit, but also with Les Pauls or similar type non trem guitars as they can pull sharp or flat if they bind. But its not always an easy task without the right tools, so maybe one job to send to you local tech.

In conclusion

The key word is value. Once you get to spending more than about £100-150 on upgrades, you have to start thinking about whether that’s money spent on a better instrument. But if you have a good base to work from , that £100- 150 can make a good guitar sound like a much better guitar, and keep a useful tool in your gigging armoury for years to come.

So you just bought a new guitar... a new guitar service for you

In the last few weeks I’ve been fairly busy so both the Facebook page and this website have been a bit neglected. One of the jobs I’ve had come in fairly regularly in the last few weeks is to set up newly bought guitars.

Why would anyone have to do that? What is the shop doing? What is the importer doing?

A recent story

Let’s look at one recent customer, we’ll call him Jim (not his real name). Jim bought a guitar from a chain retailer - a G&L Legacy. He’s been an acoustic player for years, but has never owned an electric. After a few days of playing the guitar, he’s not entirely happy, but he’s a little nervous about going back to the retailer because he’s not sure whether the what he has is what he should expect, or actually a problem.

So he brought the guitar in for a setup.

The guitar wasn’t correctly constructed. It should never have left the factory. The neck isn’t joined to the body in a straight line. The neck pocket doesn’t have any play in it, so I can’t just undo the neck and push it around (as we did with many Fenders, especially from the 70’s) - the neck pocket isn’t routed correctly. The high E is falling off the side of the fretboard, the pickup poles are clearly not centred on the strings. It’s visibly a long way out. I was surprised, because G&L QC is usually very good.

So rather than set the guitar up as best I could, I advised him to return it. The retailer, to their credit, played a perfectly straight bat, offering another of the same model or a straight refund/credit against anything else he wanted without hesitation. In the end, he was offered a great price on a Mexican Strat, well under the ticket price, which he accepted. It was just one that they missed when they put it on the wall.

And that’s where the story should end, the retailer has behaved incredibly well, and the customer is happy. But it didn’t.

Jim phoned me and told me what had happened, but then went on to say he wasn’t entirely convinced that he didn’t have another problem. The new guitar needs a setup. Well that’s not unusual, for reasons I’ll come to later. But it was crackling - the jack socket appeared to be a bit unreliable.

When he brought it in, we found that the guitar’s jack socket route wasn’t quite large enough. This meant that any jack plug, when inserted into the guitar, would touch the wood and force the jack socket slightly open, with predictable results. Every time you moved with the guitar plugged in it would emit a crackle or a thump as the connection was being intermittently broken. It was an easily fixable problem - and along with a much needed setup the guitar was good to go.

Changing the market

This is the bit where I am supposed to castigate the retailer for sending out two duff guitars. But I’m not going to. The market has changed over the years, and much of that has been driven by the customer, not the shop. In some respects, we as customers have made our retail market what it is.

The internet has exposed us to price competition in a way that we haven’t had before in the MI business. Pretty much every item that we need is available online. That means that everything from Picks to amps - and the sundries that kept shops in business, strings, sticks, picks, straps, beginners kits - its all online at knock down prices.

In the USA, minimum advertised prices from manufacturers keep prices advertised at a certain level which to a degree prevents the internet crushing the high street, but in the EU this is illegal.

That’s forced many of the independent stores out of business, taking that personal service with it. If you expect your retailer to voluntarily price match the internet box shifters, and keep a bricks and mortar presence (while buying all your sundries online), then how do they stay open and also employ extra staff with the expertise to undertake particularly skilled technical tasks? How long would it take them to check and set up every guitar on the wall, when there are often hundreds of them, especially considering that the margin in guitar sales is actually not that great. Don’t forget that we don’t make many guitars in the EU - so when you buy a guitar, 3.5% of the price is Import Duty, then 20% is VAT, and if you pay by credit card then there’s about another 1% from the card issuer. Margins are tight.

You don’t expect Currys to boil every kettle before they sell it, or turn on every TV. The principle at this point is largely the same. Competition is about price more than service. You only find out how good the service is when something goes wrong. This is there the bricks and mortar retailers take even more of a hit because their costs are already higher than the online stores, so if they deal with a problem in house that is an even bigger loss of margin.

It’s not just the cheap stuff

I’ve had £1000 plus USA Fenders in here in the last month, straight off the shelf, that have needed setting up. Pretty much nothing gets touched at the shop or importer level now. If you buy from the internet, there’s a good chance that the box hasn’t even been opened since it left the factory - the importer didn’t even check it. But that doesn’t mean that the guitar is duff or that you’ve been taken advantage of - it just means that it will have the factory setup, which generally isn’t very good, and will have almost certainly moved in shipping. The manufacturer expects the importer to set the guitar up, but the price doesn’t include a margin for the job. Simply put, you aren’t paying for this service any more - it’s a cost that has been driven out of the market by aggressive pricing.

If there is something not quite right with an instrument, it goes back to the supplier. Shops no longer have workshops in the main - they don’t do repairs, and they don’t service the warranty themselves.

A new service

I’ve seen so many guitars this year that aren’t set up well from the factory or shop, that I’m going to offer a new service level in the workshop.

Any brand new guitar, that you buy, you can have it fully checked, the neck, bridge and intonation set, for just £20.

Just bring it in, and I’ll do it while you wait, giving you piece of mind that you don’t have a problem that you haven’t found yet, or don’t have the experience to find. This isn’t the full setup and service that I already offer, because many parts of that should not be necessary on a new guitar - this is directly tailored to a the new guitar purchaser.

If you’re buying for someone else, with Christmas coming a particularly burning issue, this is a great service for you. It’s cheap, and less hassle than having to return something in the wake of the Christmas holidays when retailers will be already over burdened with the Sales and warranty returns issues already.

Even if you’ve bought a beginner’s guitar, this is a service that is cost effective - there’s nothing worse for a beginner than playing a guitar that isn’t set up correctly, and they may not even know that there is a problem.

So, call or email for an appointment, as soon as you buy your new guitar. Its a cost effective way to ensure piece of mind, wherever you purchase from.

Finally, the Model 3 prototype has arrived!

It’s been a long time coming, but finally it’s finished. It’s been through a few iterations, the most recent of which was a bolt necked version that ended up in the Netherlands with a regular customer. This is somewhat different to that guitar.

The similarity is the swept rear, but really, that’s where it ends. I went totally back to the drawing board for something more organic and ergonomic.

Most importantly, it had to be a design that could be replicated regularly at full specification for working musicians for under £1000, and prove absolutely reliable in use.

I wanted a design that stuck with some of what my original offered - simple interface, balance, access to the higher frets, stability, string life and a range of tones.

I took the original design from a decade ago, and then overlayed the ‘balanced sweep’ onto the rear. This gave me a shape that was acceptable, but not entirely balanced visually. It was a bit ‘heavy’ at the front. I took the waist and pulled it in a bit and thinned out the upper horn. This created visual balance and made a piviot for the guitar in the seated position.

So then to make the guitar. I chose most of the materials because I had them in the workshop. I knew I would be keeping the prototype so I wasn’t worried about weight, but I needed a range of sounds for the gigs I play. I had Sapele, and for me that added the bonus of density, which tends to highlight attack and sustain. As someone who likes both Single and Twin coil pickups, I like that clarity. In choosing a coil tapped Humbucker, AlNiCo II is therefore usually my preference. I didn’t have any MOP, so dots and inlays are maple, the Snakewood fretboard was simply a result of having a large block of it, unused for many years.

As I progressed, the guitar clearly didn’t look right with black plastics on the front - so I cut pickup rings from leftovers of the body wood, to give it a consistent look.

For hardware, as I knew I was keeping the guitar myself, I chose my default configuration. A roller bridge with the ES1275 6 string tailpiece. It’s quick to string on stage, and very reliable. After 10 years, the old No 1 guitar has still never broken a string with this setup.

I put in a medium jumbo fret and decided as with other recent projects that the fret ends should be hand shaped and spherical for the widest playing surface and comfort.

In the end, this is just a platform now for other ideas. maple, mahogany or ash body, maple neck, Locking or two point tremolos, different neck rake angles for a carved top, pickup choices, even scale length changes - all these things are possible as they proved to be with the Model 2 design from 2012. But this is how the first prototype was finalised:

Specs:

Body : Sapele 2 piece.

Neck : Sapele (Central block and glued wing headstock), Full width glue joint

Fretboard : Snakewood

Finsh : Satin Nitrocellulose

Scale Length; 24.75”

Frets : 22 Nickel Steel, Spherical ends.

Nut : Bone

Truss Rod : Biflex, adjust at head

Inlays : Maple

Tuners : Gotoh standard high ratio

Bridge : Rollermatic

Tailpiece : ES1275 style

Pickups : 2 x Alnico II humbuckers (Uncovered Zebra) 4 conductor. Common coil tap (pull on tone)

Electronics : CTS Vol, Tone (Pull coil), 3 way Switch

Strap Locks

For completeness, here’s the raw sound clips from the demo video. I recorded all of these in one hit using just one setting on the POD XT floor I use for teaching. It’s a JTM45 simulation, with a tube screamer and a little delay. All the tonal variation comes directly from the pickups and the volume control and coil tap. There’s a huge range of dynamics here just from the guitar itself.

Westone Thunder 1A restoration

The Thunder 1a - after the rebuild.

It’s not often I get to see one of the guitars I lusted after as a kid, but I have recently had two of them through the workshop in quick succession.

the Thunder 1 from Westone was one of the more affordable guitars that had some real quality. It was still way beyond my bank balance as teenager, but all the same it wasn’t in the Fender or Gibson league and yet it offered so much to the working player at a reasonable cost. In the early 80’s the 1a in light oak finish was £185 - whereas the Les Paul standard was about £750 and a Strat around £350. That’s a big difference for such a well made guitar.

The original had an active circuit board which came to me disconnected and not reported as working. the customer wasn’t keen to keep it, but didn’t want to lose the layout of the guitar as was orignaally configured, and also didn’t want it to be altered aesthetically.

The choice then was to use some passive pickups, in this case some slightly overwound Alnico II pickups, to create a blues rock machine for the modern era. the question was, what do I do with the configuration? I have three switches, and three pots. The obvious move is two volumes and a master tone. That would link up then with two coil tap switches for maximum flexibility. But there’s still another switch….

Two obvious choices come to mind - either a blower (the bridge full on with nothing else in the circuit are quite popular these days), or a kill switch. But with the four conductor pickups the option of a phase switch comes in to play. With the two conductor pickup, this simply unearths the chassis and makes a noisy circuit. But with the 4 conductor design then the coils can be reversed without disturbing the earth, or upsetting the ability to coil tap the pickup.

The results were interesting, and especially in the upper range of the guitar where it simply howls.

All in all, the biggest problem I found with the guitar was the neck. It had been stored for a while, and I think there had been some swelling of the fretboard. The Frets were a bit worn, but nothing that in normal circumstances couldn’t have been recovered. However with the unevenness of the fretboard that couldn’t really be done. So the neck was de fretted and levelled, and new frets were installed to match the size of the original ones as closely as possible.

The bridge saddles were also a bit beyond hope - which also suggests that there was a little damp involved.

The results have been very pleasing. strung with 11s, it’s a proper blues rock monster now and has a great feel.

If you have one of these that’s looking a bit the worse for wear, spend some time and money on it - you won’t be disappointed.