Headless guitars lend themselves to ergonomic design through their potential to improve instrument balance and centralize weight closer to the guitarist’s body where it is more easily carried. Unfortunately, headless guitar parts are limited in choice, tend to be expensive and even hard to source. (Read more about some options at Headless Guitar Resources.) For [...]
Building the Ergonomic Guitar
Guitar Designs. Ergonomics. Guitar Making.
Klein Style Electric Guitar Project #1
With the electric guitar body finished, it was time to begin my guitar project’s final assembly. While I was at it, I loaded in the guitar’s switch, volume and output jack to see how the guitar will look in its final state. As you can see, I kept the guitar’s electronics simple. Gold Lace Sensor [...]
Danish Oil Guitar Finish Applied
With the final bit of routing complete on my guitar project, I turned to finishing the guitar. After researching the subject, I decided to go with a simple DIY solution – Watco Danish Oil. Before starting the finish, I had a few small dents in the guitar body that I wanted to address. I used [...]
Guitar Control Cavity and Pickup Routes Done
Continuing with my electric guitar project, I completed the pickup cavities and control cavity after deciding against the combination of rear routing and front routing that the original Klein guitar uses. I decided rear routing was preferable. I did a quick test fit of the controls and everything looked good. For the pickup cavities, I [...]
More Adrian Legg Playing His Custom Ergonomic Guitar
Here is another YouTube video of fingerstyle guitarist Adrian Legg playing his custom ergonomic guitar – this one from his instructional video How To Become a More Creative Guitarist-An Insider’s Tips for Fingerstyle Players. For more of Adrian Legg check out these DVD’s: Adrian Legg: Fingerpicking And Open Tunings A Fingerstyle Summit with Adrian Legg, [...]
Guitar Belly Contour and Forearm Cut Complete
The electric guitar build is proceeding well – the forearm cut and belly contour are complete. In addition, the angled lower strap button area is done. For the belly contour I used a combination of an 80 grit sanding disc on an electric drill to take away the bulk of the material followed by hand [...]
Guitar Neck and Steinberger Bridge in Place for First Test!
Last night, I completed the bridge route, mounted the Steinberger bridge, reattached the neck and strung up the guitar for the first time. There are some minor cosmetic issues around the bridge route area but no functional issues whatsoever. String alignment looks good as well. I strummed it a bit last night but allowed the [...]
Guitar Neck Pocket Complete
The guitar neck pocket is done and tight enough that I was able to hold the guitar up by its neck depending solely on its fit. By comparison, the route on the Steinberger Spirit GU-Deluxe was quite loose. Here it is with the neck attached: Here is the setup I used to make the neck [...]
An Ergonomic Guitar Pick?
That’s what I wondered when I came across the Big Rock guitar pick. In fact, this is exactly what this unique design promises. The F-1 and X-1 guitar picks from Big Rock Engineering improve the guitarist’s grip on the pick through the use of a concave surface that helps the guitarist hold the pick in [...]
Guitar Bridge and Neck Have Arrived
I now have the guitar neck, bridge and headpiece courtesy of the Steinberger Spirit Guitar I purchased from Musicyo.com – seen here in its final moments. I had briefly contemplated building the neck but decided against it. The most important aspect of this guitar build is producing a playable ergonomic guitar. I decided that building [...]