Well, I got pinged via PM by some folks wondering what the heck was going on with my project - this will be a short post (well, for me! ;)) but I should be coming back with a longer one in the next few weeks or so.
As I have alluded to in other guitar-related threads, my trusty guitar finisher, Bill the cabinet maker and luthier has been, well, delayed by:
The Weather - his workshop is not insulated, so the particularly cold East coast winter delayed spraying, since lacquer needs good temps to dry correctly
His House - he had to replace a load-bearing beam in his house (and I puff my chest out when I take out the garbage!). So that took priority - and a couple of months
Lacquer issues - to get the correct Gibson SG raw-steak dark-cherry look, he had to find the right lacquer. The type he wanted was unavailable (we couldn’t tell if the guy shut down or was just on hiatus or something), so he had to compromise. He got the correct color (yay!) but it was with a much, much thinner lacquer. So instead of 7 - 8 coats, it is requiring many more. This is fine and good, since thin coats dry better, leave the guitar more resonant and breathable, etc. - but it takes time. He has to take a toothpick and hand-drop lacquer in big wood-grain pores - can you say “oy”? But he is a perfectionist and I specifically had him do the work *because *of that, so I am fine waiting.
So I am supposed to get the finished body and neck in a few weeks - as **Carson O’Genic **or **BigShooter **mentioned in a different thread, lacquer needs to cure for a while after all the spraying is done.
All of this is a way of saying - stay tuned and hopefully by the middle of the summer I will have a report. I will also try to see if I can record some samples of the guitar with the help of my drummer-the-producer - just random bits of rhythm work so you can hear how it sounds (lordy, I hope it sounds good after all this!). I have little-to-no experience posting clips, so we’ll see…
It’s been great fun reading your posts about this, WordMan. I have a guitar I cobbled together from old parts that I love, and I have a body that I’ve sanded down but have never got around to necking or installing hardware.
I’m hoping that when I hear yours I’ll get all inspired and shit and actually put some time in on it.
Well, I love the thought of you getting all inspired and shit, so we gotta make that happen! It would a fair exchange for all of your recommendations for metal bands in various threads…
Yeah, I was kind of disappointed that the latest metal thread died so quickly. I can talk/listen/read about music all day. I have thousands and thousands of albums; my house looks like a poorly organized used CD/DVD shop. I’ve spent countless hours getting to know different metal, jazz, rock, pop, dance genres and have examples of most in my collection.
I was prepared to really get down and delve into the nitty gritty nuances of what made death metal different from thrash, what made power metal different from traditional metal, whether symphonic metal was an offshoot of black metal or just a different branching altogether…
But hey, at least I introduced people to Blood Island Raiders and Lair of the Minotaur, and maybe to Architects, too. Not a complete waste of time.
I don’t remember reading in the other threads: what strings do you use, and is this guitar being built with those strings in mind? Does it change the way the nut is grooved or set, or the bridge?
I hear you - metal can be funny that way. Folks who want to dissect it *really *want to - others want to hear about cool bands but don’t have the appetite for the geekery side of it. Just like me and these guitar threads!!
As for strings and playability, yeah, it is being built with that in mind. I play with .11’s - not quite Stevie Ray Vaughn super-heavy territory, but on the heavy side gauge-wise. I also play with a heavy hand - I vary my attack from light plucking with my fingertips (while holding a flatpick - so doing “hybrid picking”) to big crashing Townshend-type chords and lots of aggressive down-stroking. All of that is a way of saying that the guitar has to be simple and designed to hold up well. The nut doesn’t require special grooves - they just need to suit the string and be really burr-free. I rub a pencil in the grooves to get some graphite in there. And the bridge is a straight up Tele 3-barrel bridge. I guess the key point is to keep things simple - no locking whammy’s or anything delicate that requires fine-tuning. My guitars are more meat cleavers vs. surgical scapels, if you will
My own playing style is generally, um, violent, I guess. I attack the strings like they were unruly weasels. I have only one guitar with a tremelo, and I rarely play it.
I use 11s as well, with the bottom at 52s (50s for my Steinberger). I like the chunky sound, and I like the way the top strings have that loud, clear tone (plus they hold up better under my heavy hand).
My goal as a guitarist has always been to sound as if I have Satan trapped under a lawnmower.
Good lord - I am so using that! (I promise to give you a byline ;))
Do you play in dropped D and other lower tunings? I find 52’s a bit too heavy for my lower end - I just go with the 48’s or 49’s that come in a standard set of .11’s…
Yeah, I have a Gibson SG that I keep in my own drop D ( DAEGBE ). This lets me do barred power chord 5ths on the bottom 3 strings if I want, and leaves the tops in standard tuning for solos.
I’d say about 1/8 to 1/4 of what I write is drop D, the rest is all standard tuning.
It would a fair exchange for all of your recommendations for metal bands in various threads…