Guitar in the Family

I never thought of my family as a musical one, my mom just liked to sing in the car a lot. My two older brothers and I loved Guitar Hero growing up and the older I got the I found myself gravitating toward guitars more and more. Junior year of high school I listened to Jimmy Hendrix for the first time and decided I couldn't go any longer without at least attempting to try and express myself in such a way even if it doesn't sound anything like him. It was extremely difficult at first, but as I loosened up I learned to feel the way the strings liked to be strummed.

One day I noticed a picture in my dad's office that inspired and encouraged me. It was this photo on the left. I saw my dad, barely the size of the guitar itself, attempting to play it as a child. I had never seen this photo before or realized it was my dad. I then realized that it was not just me, it was my dad too and my brothers and my mom. We were a musical family. We certainly weren't professionals or even necessarily the best musicians in the neighborhood but we all loved it. We loved the instruments themselves, the beautiful works of art they could make, and the joy they could bring to people. From then on I knew I wanted music to be a big part of my life.

When I graduated high school I went and bought my first electric guitar for 350$ at the pink music store down the street. It was a used maple Epiphone ES. It was a beautiful guitar, but had seen a few years of use and one of the pickups no longer worked. I still loved it, the way it looked, and felt in my hands, and the noises it made through an amp. However, the more I went down the guitar rabbit hole the more I learned how little I knew. I became interested in different kinds of pickups, and woods affecting resonance and shapes and hollow bodies vs semi-hollow vs solid bodies. I wondered about tuners and tails and switch knob configurations. I wondered about onboard effects, pedals, whammy bars, and headless guitars. I would find myself reading obscure guitar nerd articles and excitedly sending them to my brother or watching rig rundowns on YouTube falling asleep at 1 am.

MET Guitar Exhibit

Witnessing Legendary guitars up close.

Then in 2019, I had the opportunity to visit my brother in New York where we went and saw the legendary guitar exhibit that was currently going on at the MET. there we saw guitars from bands and artists such as Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Jerry Garcia, Jimmi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton just to name a few.

Jerry Garcia

Immediately after receiving the “Wolf” guitar from Doug Irwin in 1973, Jerry Garcia commissioned “Tiger,” telling Irwin to make the most extravagant instrument he was capable of. The instrument—composed of highly figured exotic woods that are sandwiched and laminated together and embellished with ornate brass bindings and the inlay of a tiger—took Irwin about two thousand hours of work to complete over six years. Garcia first played “Tiger” on August 4, 1979, at the Oakland Civic Auditorium, and he used it almost exclusively until 1989. It was the last guitar Garcia played publicly with the Grateful Dead, at a performance on July 9, 1995.

Lil Goldie

What started as a Passion for guitar and woodworking turned into a dream of professional luthier work.

Designs

Creating the Dream Guitar

Tradition Based Design

When I set out to build a custom instrument for myself I laid out the ideals I desired in this build. One of these was to remain within my interest and knowledge of traditional rock and roll electric guitars. I used a heavy rich African mahogany backer with a breathtaking quilted maple topper to achieve this classic aesthetic inspired by companies such as Gibson, Paul Reed Smith, and Fender.

Sound

Shape

I based the shape of Lil Goldie on the classic Stratocaster shape and design. I stylized the horns of the guitar to differentiate itself from classic Stratocasters as well as a nod at the subtle unique differences on the horns of guitars such as PRS and Languedoc.

I decided to stick with classic p90 soap bar pickups as I liked them so much in a few guitars I have played. The goal is to build more custom clear p90 pickups to be installed in lil Goldie that would be extremely similar to the custom bridge pick up in the Relic Messenger.

Finish

I loved the look and feel of the aged finish on the Relic Messenger so much that I decided to use a similar finish on Lil Goldie. I used a nitrocellulose clear coat lacquer to achieve a glossy mirror finish that will crack beautifully as it ages.

Build Process

Cut. Sand. Polish. Play.

Coming into this build with prior experience was extremely useful.

I already knew ahead of time the rough timeline and step-by-step process I would need to follow in order to produce the desired result whereas with my first build, I felt confused as to what to do next at a few stages.

Shape Development

Ideating, iterating, and finalizinng shape design and finding a way to transfer this from digital to physical.

Glue Up

I learned in this build how important a good glue job is from the initial book match glue job to top and backer glue job. It is particularly important to have an exceptional glue job if any transitions will be exposed between the two woods to reduce splintering.

Measure Twice,

Cut Once

Double checking alignments, measurements and grain patterns.

Cutting

Next I used a band saw and a barrel sander to cut out the body of the guitar and clean up its curves to be smooth. This allows the curves to flow into each other well creating natural transitions.

Neck Pocket

Next step was to route the neck pocket in the body of the guitar.

Safety

My arm covered in mahogany shaving after routing the guitar.

Chisel Practice

I used a chisel to get precise and clean lines in the pickup and neck pockets of this guitar. In the future I think I will try to stick with simple routing this to maintain filleted edges in the pickup pockets.

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Bridge holes

The next step was to confirm measurements and spaceing for the correct scale length and drill holes for the tuneomatic bridge as well as a connecting hold to the electronics pocket.