Custom guitar shop Shamray Guitars took the ergonomic design of the original Ovation Breadwinner (an inspiration for the subsequent Klein Electric Guitar1 and the Forshage hollowbody guitar) and updated it into this 12 string electric guitar made from striking AAAAA figured sapele wood. For those unfamiliar with sapele, Wood Identification and Use describes it as [...]
Building the Ergonomic Guitar
Guitar Designs. Ergonomics. Guitar Making.
Woodworking with the Router: A Review
Woodworking with the Router by Bill Hylton is the one router book the aspiring guitar maker should have on the reference shelf. You’re going to spend a great deal of time around wood routers – incredible tools for shaping the guitar body, routing out pickup and control cavities, cutting out truss rod channels etc. And [...]
Frisell & Baron Perform Wildwood Flower
Bill Frisell on guitar and Joey Baron on drums perform Wildwood Flower – from a Nov. 12, 1997 appearance at Teatro Masciari in Catanzaro, Italy. Bill is seen playing a Klein electric guitar for the piece. Enjoy.
Make Your Own Electric Guitar – A Review
If guitar building is in your future, Make Your Own Electric Guitar by Melvyn Hiscock is one of the very best books on the subject. Hiscock tackles all the important aspects of guitar construction – design, building the guitar neck and body, wiring pickups and controls, basic finishing, wood choices and tools – through black [...]
August 2007 Most Popular Posts
Most Comments: 1. How to Design a Guitar in Four Easy Steps – Gibson Guitar Corporation shows us just how unimaginative it is with their Reverse Flying Vee. 2. The Hohner EGS Electric Guitar – Despite Gibson’s example (see #1), Hohner shows us that a major company can be innovative with the introduction of its [...]
How To Design a Guitar in Four Easy Steps
From those great innovators over at Gibson Guitar Corporation… 1. Start with a 1958 design originally intended to show you weren’t just a stodgy old guitar company being shown up by the likes of upstart Leo Fender. 2. Turn the guitar body 180 degrees. 3. Stick a neck in the vee’s crotch. 4. Proclaim it [...]
Toone Guitars’ Orchid Bass
Luthier Rick Toone recently made public his Orchid bass guitar – an exciting new project I’ll be watching closely. The customer is a woman bassist who, not surprisingly, finds the typical bass uncomfortable and unwieldy. As Rick states “Halie’s…what…5’4″ 120lbs, or so? A full-sized bass to her is like wrestling with a surfboard.” However, this [...]
And now… Bill Frisell
Here’s jazz guitar player and composer Bill Frisell performing on his Klein guitar in this YouTube video of a July 3, 1993 Warsaw, Poland live performance. Joining Bill are Kermit Driscoll on bass and Joey Baron on drums. The composition is Amarillo Barbados: Bill Frisell’s playing on the Nashville album inspired reader PJ Doland to [...]
Big Rock Guitar Picks
Guitar picks, despite varying in size, thickness and material, typically share one common trait – they’re flat and thus lack an adequate grip surface. Sweaty fingers and/or heated play can lead to trouble holding the guitar pick as it shifts position or ends up being dropped. In response, the guitar player may end up squeezing [...]
Improving the Reader Experience
To improve the user experience on this guitar blog, I made several changes to reduce clutter, speed up web page loading and increase the focus on site content. Banished from the Front Page Google Ads Related Articles listings Social Bookmarking links These were contributing to an overly long and busy home page thus detracting from [...]